Trees, Trains and Other Things Worth Spotting

In different but equally involving ways, the Screaming Trees’ “Dust” and the “Trainspotting” soundtrack both speak about life, death, heroin and second chances. They highlight this edition of Calendar’s guide to keeping up with what’s exciting in pop on an album budget of $50 a month.

JULY

The Cox Family, “Just When We’re Thinking It’s Over” (Asylum). As producer and arranger of this major label debut, Alison Krauss helps Louisiana’s Cox Family add seductive contemporary touches to the bluegrass-leaning country style of their earlier albums on Rounder. The coed quartet brings such caressing harmonies to Dave Loggins’ “You’ve Got Me to Hold On to Baby” that it ranks with Krauss’ own “When You Say Nothing at All” as one of the sweetest tales of romantic devotion in all of ‘90s pop.

Patty Griffin, “Living With Ghosts” (A&M;). In the best moments of this acoustic debut, Griffin sings with a bit of the off-center phrasing of Rickie Lee Jones and writes about private thoughts--mostly romance gone bad--with the boldness and craft of the best of today’s new legion of female artists. The New Englander brings a candidness and detail to “Every Little Bit” that hits with the force of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know.” In it she taunts: “It’s funny how a morning turns love to shame.”

Screaming Trees, “Dust” (Epic). Despite the pressure to hurry with a follow-up to capitalize on the commercial momentum of its “Sweet Oblivion” album four years ago, this Seattle rock band recorded and then threw out one album, not satisfied with it. In this one’s best moments, it is a moving eulogy to Kurt Cobain and other Seattle musicians who have been devastated by drugs.

AUGUST

Toni Braxton, “Secrets” (LaFace). Whoever makes the seating arrangements for the Grammys better reserve a whole row for Braxton, writer-producer Babyface and everyone who had a hand in this album, which contains some of the most elegant pop-soul in memory.

Various Artists, “Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation--The Songs of Vic Chesnutt.” (Epic) You aren’t alone if you had your doubts about singers with as strong a vocal identity as Garbage’s Shirley Manson and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe being able to bend their styles enough to do justice to the idiosyncratic songs of Chesnutt, but almost everything works wonderfully in this tribute package.

Various Artists, “Trainspotting” (Capitol). Whether you are being introduced to new songs ( the peppy, Kinks-meets-Bowie observation of Pulp’s “Mile End”) or listening again to some underexposed jewels (Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”), this soundtrack matches the passion, pace and even humor of Danny Boyle’s sensational film about three losers and a winner in the Glasgow drug scene.