This week, k.d. lang brought her Watershed tour to the West Coast, starting with two sold-out performances in Seattle. The Post-Intelligencer points to "the secret chord" referenced in Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," to explain: "That's just what fellow Canadian k.d. lang seems to have found ... Watershed, her aptly named new CD, finds lang achieving an effortless-sounding blend of the personal and the artistic, while adding Brazilian accents to her resolute torch and twang."

The Black Keys are in London to play a special show tonight at Wilton's Music Hall, an intimate, 300-seat theater, featuring music from their forthcoming Nonesuch record, Attack & Release, and helping to relaunch the monthly MOJO Club series, presented by MOJO magazine. "We love playing England," the Keys' Dan Auerbach told the magazine. "We have a few interesting ideas in terms of what we can do as a two-piece this time around, and we can't wait to get out there and see if they work."

Fresh from Austin's South by Southwest festival, The Black Keys are gearing up for a full-fledged US tour for their forthcoming record, Attack & Release, due out April 1. The new album, produced by Brian Burton (Danger Mouse), earns a perfect five-star review in the Guardian, which exclaims: "Attack & Release isn't just the best Black Keys album thus far. It's the best authentic trad-rock album in years."

The tour continues for k.d. lang with two stops on the East Coast this weekend before heading west for two nights in Seattle. The Seattle Times says her new album, Watershed, "feels both reverent and fresh." A culmination of the many styles of music k.d. has incorporated into her repertoire over the years, Watershed also features k.d.'s famous voice, here "delicately restrained, smoky and intimate," says the Times. "The result is faintly nostalgic, incredibly lovely and seemingly effortless." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer calls Watershed "a dreamy, laid-back exploration of romance and passion."

The Magnetic Fields are gearing up for the last two stops of their Distortion tour, with shows at Seattle's Town Hall set for Thursday and Friday and a six-show residency over three nights at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music the following weekend. In the review of Sunday's show in LA, the Los Angeles Times sees Distortion as a "delightful anomaly in the Magnetic Fields' catalog" for all its distorted fuzziness. At the same time, he says, the "tidy chamber-folk" arrangements the band performs in concert allow the audience "to admire Merritt's watertight song craft."

k.d. lang knows a thing or two about travel. She's been making her way around the world touring in support of her new album, Watershed, which brings her to Clearwater, Florida, tonight, and will have taken her from Glasgow, Scotland, through Sydney, Australia, to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in her native Canada, before winding down this summer. The spring issue of Out Traveler magazine features an interview with k.d., in which she shares a few travel secrets and favorite spots from around the world, as well as the impact her travels have had on her music-making.

Last night, k.d. lang played the final performance of her three-night residency at New York City's Allen Room as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series. The New York Times posits that the Canadian singer's inclusion in an American-themed series may stem from the reputation she earned through her collaboration with Tony Bennett as "one of the two or three great under-50 interpreters of American popular standards." lang is "possessed of one of the world's most beautiful and steady pop voices."

Pat Metheny makes his long-awaited return to Yoshi's celebrated jazz club in San Francisco for a four-night stint with his trio, Christian McBride on bass and Antonio Sanchez on drums, as featured on his new album, Day Trip. Inside Bay Area's Jim Harrington says: "Jazz fans have been waiting for this one for months ... it's the one that we all circled on our calendars back in November when the club announced its first batch of shows."

The Magnetic Fields kick off their US tour with two sold-out shows at the Iron Horse in Northampton, Massachusetts, where they'll unveil "unplugged" versions of songs off their feedback-heavy new album, Distortion. The Hartford Courant spoke with Stephin Merritt about creating the signature sound for the album, which he calls "a collection of 13 pop songs with catchy, quirky melodies swathed in velvety noise," and adapting it for the road. In a feature story and an accompanying podcast, the Courant explores the making of these "witty, droll and often hilarious" songs.

The Santa Barbara Independent takes advantage of the start of the New Year to combine the paper's list of the best of last year with a look at the best of what's to come. There Will Be Blood is among the best films of 2007, and among the city's best live shows last year, the Independent's Josef Woodard lists both Wilco's concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl in support of Sky Blue Sky and the Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau Quartet gig at Campbell Hall. For this week's Show of the Week, Woodard names Bill Frisell's return to the city's Lobero Theatre, where "the always intriguing and poetic guitarist" will perform on Saturday with drummer Joey Baron. Woodard recalls Bill's 2004 performance at the Lobero as "one of the more enchanted musical encounters in the long history" of the Theatre, and says that Frisell "continues to surprise and delight," citing the guitarist's "dynamic" 2006 Nonesuch release with the "inspired" Ron Carter and Paul Motian.

Wilco will be on hand when Australia's award-winning Byron Bay Blues Festival makes its way across the Tasman Sea to launch a New Zealand offshoot in 2008 called BluesfestNZ (aka the Coromandel Peninsula Blues and Roots Music Festival 2008). The band will be joining the line-up for the inaugural event as part of its March 2008 tour of Australia and New Zealand.