Earlier in the year, some fans were worried about the direction Grace Potter and the Nocturnals were heading. Bassist Catherine Popper had recently left the band. Then the band announced a tour opening for country artists Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw. The release of The Lion The Beast The Beat should alleviate those worries, though.
In the five years since his debut EP, CB Radio, Chris Burns has transformed from a loop pedal-wielding solo musician to front-man The inherent risk in such a change is to go from a raw, intimate sound to overproduced pop alchemy. In the case of Burns’ full-length debut, Out of the Well, those pitfalls are largely avoided.
Following the success of their 2008 debut, Jackson Square, which had Arkells touring with the likes of Pearl Jam and Them Crooked Vultures, the Ontario indie rockers garnered acclaim for their energetic live shows. Michigan Left, the band’s second full-length album, is an attempt to capture that stage show on record.
Felony Flats is a slight downgrade from 2009’s Britt Daniel-influenced Slow & Steady Seduction: Phase II, but that is a testament to the greatness of the latter, rather than a criticism of the former. By adding electronic dance vibes, swelling feedback and crunching guitars to her sonic palette, Marina crafts a visceral work of art pleads, teases, draws you close, and then moves on with the shrug of a shoulder.
Throughout his enviable career, Chris Cornell has always enjoyed taking his music in different directions. Whether blazing the trail for the grunge movement with Soundgarden, fronting rock supergroup Audioslave or releasing solo albums, Cornell was always experimenting with his artistic expression. Though at times his experiments failed, such as his ill-conceived collaboration with Timbaland, even at his worst Cornell’s music had one nugget of redemption: that voice.
As a blues-based rock duo, Moreland & Arbuckle will always be compared to the White Stripes and the Black Keys, but that is not a fair comparison. The White Stripes used excessive fuzz to mask average musicianship while the Black Keys, until recently, used massive riffs to mask average songwriting. Moreland & Arbuckle, with a deeper and rootsier sound, doesn’t have either of those shortcomings.
Rise Ye Sunken Ships, the debut album by We Are Augustines, is a raw meditation on the loss, pain and hardships that have encompassed the band members. Guitarist Bill McCarthy and bassist Eric Sanderson began penning the songs for what would have been the sophomore album of their previous band, Pela. While writing and recording the tracks, the band feuded with management, the record label and with themselves while McCarthy tried to cope with news that his little brother, James, had committed suicide at a psychiatric hospital.
Three years after meeting up, Grouplove has released their full-length debut, Never Trust a Happy Song. This indie pop effort has all of the passion and intensity that inspired the individual musicians to join up originally. The album’s title may bring to mind introspective, shoegaze songs about loss and rejection to the tune of bitterness. However, Grouplove delivers songs that are anything but downers.
Tripper has more of a narrative focus than previous Fruit Bats efforts. On his fifth album, Eric D. Johnson consciously shifts to story-based songs. While he leans more toward the storyteller brand of songwriter, though, he steps away from the sunny folk pop that is most identified with Fruit Bats releases.
Alex Schaaf recorded his debut album, The Mistress, alone in his Wisconsin bedroom. Under the moniker Yellow Ostrich, Schaaf’s music has the intimate feeling of poetry reverberating off the four walls of his confined space. The minimalist song structures use instruments to fill in gaps in the open-ended tracks. An occasional thud of a kick drum or piano chord have a jarring effect, seeming out of place with the flowing vocal melodies, but it is those vocals that provide the meat of the album.
