As summer approaches music blogs explode with promises of “hot summer” releases, hype machines overheat and explode. Suddenly it’s very easy for a whole slew of excellent albums to get lost in the shuffle of big bass-y noise and Lady Gaga’s new video. Justin Rutledge’s The Early Widows is one of those excellent albums. Rutledge, Canada’s sexiest troubadour, has penned the best album of the first half of the year and if his spot on the Polaris Prize long-list is any predictor The Early Widows will win out as one of the best albums of 2010.