Holiday weekends are slow for album sales. People are out of town, busy wtih friends and relatives, and labels don't schedule a whole lot to come out when a street date falls on the Fourth of July. You know it's a slow release week when Peter Gammons (yes, as in sports commentator Peter Gammons) has one of the top-selling July 4th albums at Amazon.com and the top album of the week is by a dead guy. But Johnny Cash is practically as hot as ever and people are eagerly awaiting the last installment of his Rick Rubin sessions, American V: A Hundred Highways. (The vocals were recorded before Cash's death while the arrangements were recorded years later.)

There are a few albums that will have a pulse. Rise Against's album on Geffen should have a life this week, and the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest soundtrack may do something. The movie's score was done by the one and only Hans Zimmer.

Artist to watch: Good things have been said about the new album by Alice Peacock, being released by Universal/Republic.

Next week will be a big week. There's Now 22, Thom Yorke's The Eraser, Muse's Black Holes and Revelations, Sufjan Steven's The Avalance: Outtakes & Extras from Illinois Album and the soundtrack to The Devil Wears Prada.

• Banco de Gaia: Farewell Ferenqistan (Six Degrees)
• Johnny Cash: American V: A Hundred Highways (Lost Highway)
• Peter Gammons: Never Slow Down, Never Grow Old (Rounder)
• Hi-Lo's: Musical Threats (Jasmine)
• Delbert McClinton: The Definitive Collection (Hip-O)
• Alice Peacock: Who I Am (Universal/Republic)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Disney)
• Rise Against: The Sufferer and the Witness (Geffen)
• Ryuichi Sakamoto: Bricolages (Kab America)
• Various: Summer Beach Party (Varese Sarabande)
• Various: Best of Miami Vice (Hip-O)
• Wiggle: Fabric 28 (Fabric)