Harry Manx and Kevin Breit: In Good We Trust (Stony Plain/Southbound)

These two guitarists are among the best in the wide country/alt.country/roots music arena. The evidence, should you doubt it, is all over this intimate and intelligent collection which opens with a Indo-blues reworking of Springsteen's I'm On Fire, touches moods in the JJ Cale/Mark Knopfler territory (Manx sounds like a croaky Knopfler in the vocals), and moves through memorable bluesy originals as well as the standout, a take on the traditional Death Have Mercy.

Roots blues with slide, national tenor and acoustic guitars -- and banjo, mandolin, mohan veena -- doesn't come much better, or foot-tapping, than this.

Understatement wins again.