Rather than miss the mark with a couple of filler songs, she’s released an album teeming with unexceptional pieces that betray her strong hand at songwriting.
This album may be a bit too accessible and/or soft for fans of the harder edged rock-leaning work from his mid-career, but Ashes & Fire reaffirms Ryan Adams as a leader among singer-songwriters, and after the turmoil of the past few years it’s delightful to see him back on top of his game.
Welch and Rawlings’ show at the Fillmore yet again showed why they’re leaders of the Americana and bluegrass world. Their songs have an enchanting solemnity, gravity of earthly knowledge and simple chords and instruments that manage to convey a vast spread of emotions and rhythms.
The Indigo Girls brought their four-piece band to the beautiful Strathmore Music Center in N. Bethesda, MD last week, where they merged together fan favorites, old gems and brand new songs into a cohesive and utterly enjoyable two hour-long set.
On All Things Will Unwind, Shara Worden delivers a tour de force that stands far above the majority of contemporary music. It’s a masterpiece that will prove quite difficult to surpass, but the fact that this is only her third album as My Brightest Diamond makes the future look even more the brighter.
With a careful editing eye and a reinvestment in the tools that made him so innovative as a male singer-songwriter, Howie Day can really go far again, despite the many blunders of recent memory.
While they could continue to deliver solid sets of songs constructed in their conventional paradigm, their willingness to experiment and travel in new directions with their latest record– and do so successfully– both reinvigorates their catalogue and shows that they still have plenty to say, and it’s worth listening in.
Lucy Kaplansky has a well-honed grasp on melody, which is something almost impossible to teach and reveals her deeply rooted and intuitive musicianship. Still, Kaplansky’s seriousness and austerity, matched with a few uninspired new songs, made it a long evening, and one whose highlights were frustratingly weighed down by filler.
Map The Music is an impressive look at what lies beneath the surface of fandom, to discover those whose enthusiasm becomes devotion and forges communities in which music is both the common focus and the language used.
This is her most consistent effort yet, and the process of building the songs up from programmed sounds reveals Herzig’s deft architectural hand, and the fact that she’s chosen bouncy, spirited and cathartic as her palette further bolsters the album. The next step will be learning how to incorporate lyrically the more intimate and raw moments of introspection, but this is an admirable first step in the right direction.
