There's just under a week to go before the release of Ry Cooder's new album, Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, this Tuesday, August 30, from Nonesuch / Perro Verde Records. Until then, you can listen to the album in its entirety in an exclusive fist listen on Slate. "Drawing on his wide range of musical influences (blues, rock, jug bands, norteño)," says Slate's Nina Shen Rastogi, "the man behind Keith Richards’ guitar tuning and the Buena Vista Social Club sings fiercely about war and immigration policy; Wall Street and white flight. True to his album’s mission, he narrates from a number of perspectives, many of them rarely heard." Read more and listen to each of the 14 tracks off Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down at slate.com.

Once you've heard the album, head to the Nonesuch Store to reserve your copy on CD and vinyl (due out September 13) and receive an instant download of the opening track, "No Banker Left Behind." Nonesuch Store orders also include high-quality, 320 kbps of the complete album available to download on Tuesday.

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While the focus of Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down is on systemic corruption and concerns in the United States, the sentiments of the new album are resonating in the UK as well, where Uncut gives the album a perfect five stars and both MOJO and Q give the album four stars, all in the latest issues of the magazines.

Uncut reviewer Nigel Williamson, in a five-star album review, calls it "one of his best albums ever." Cooder is also the subject of a feature article in the magazine, in which he talks with writer Neil Spencer about his career and the new album, which Spencer calls "an impassioned portrait of 21st century America and its injustices."

Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, writes Spencer, "is Cooder remade as a modern-day Woody Guthrie, fearless and funny, for like Guthrie he nails his targets with droll humour while empathising with society's underdogs." The article looks at what has made Cooder a nonesuch, as it were, "in effect, a one-man genre," most recently heard in his California Trilogy of albums, released between 2005 and 2008 on Nonesuch. In a sidebar to the story, Uncut rates a number of Cooder's seminal albums, including those three, which receive four (My Name Is Buddy) and five stars (Chávez Ravine and I, Flathead).

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MOJO's Phil Sutcliffe exclaims: "Damn the torpedoes, this is Ry Cooder's report on the state of his nation," describing the album as "trenchant commentary" in which both "the spirit of Woody Guthrie presides" and Cooder's own diverse musical influences can be heard. Sutcliffe sums up Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down as "music reclaiming a place at the heart of everything that matters."

Q's Peter Kane compares Pull Up Some Dust to Into the Purple Valley, Cooder's 1971 album of Dust Bowl–era songs by Leadbelly, Guthrie, and the like, saying Cooder has crafted a "collection of newly minted protest songs for today's messed-up world" that nevertheless remain "sly and humorous." Q also features the album track "John Lee Hooker for President" at No. 13 on its October list of "Q50 Essential Tracks."

Read all the articles in the magazines' latest issues, available now.

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Following Tuesday's album release, Cooder will give two super-rare live performances, Wednesday, August 31, and Thursday, September 1, at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall, backed by a 17-piece band. For more information on these concert dates and some upcoming speaking engagements from Cooder, go to nonesuch.com/on-tour.