In Brief

* * * John Hiatt, “Walk On,” Capitol. After cranking up the axes on 1993’s “Perfectly Good Guitar,” Hiatt finds a happy medium with this album’s taut, tuneful folk-rock. But it’s the songs that put this among his best. The more adept Hiatt gets at negotiating life’s tricky turns, the better he gets at describing the ride.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four (excellent).