Posts by Shawn Donohue

Price has always been shifting, yet Strays feels like a clear breaking point where she is shaking off labels and trying to find a new/true voice.  

The music town of New Orleans is awash in great artists and one of the longtime supporting acts is stepping out from the shadows as Ernie Vincent’s newest solo album Original Dap King, finds the guitarist/singer (with the help of some friends) getting loose over originals and covers alike. 

Iggy Pop is never one to sit still for very long. The tanned, shirtless, leather-faced frontman has been playing with his sound for so long that each new album feels like a comeback attempt, but with the solid Every Loser, Pop, and company delivers a smattering of the styles he has used over the years with success and professional sheen. 

A year after Covid forced the cancelation of their NYC concerts in 2021, the East LA institution Los Lobos returned to town, kicking off their three-night engagement at the gorgeous City Winery on the Hudson River on Monday night December 19th.

After three years away, the WFUV benefit concert Holiday Cheer returned to the Beacon Theatre on a warm and rain-soaked Tuesday night on December 6th to help support the publicly funded station.

For the sold-out Friday night entry of 2022’s Hold Steady Massive Nights Brooklyn Bowl run on December 2nd, smiling faces, flowing libations, and confetti was everywhere.

The newest release from Tipitina’s Record Club is Fats Domino’s last public performance, recorded in May 2007 at the historic uptown venue. On Live at Tipitina’s the New Orleans legend performs with his full band and takes on classic cuts that helped define rock and roll. 

With 2019’s breakthrough Titanic Rising, Weyes Blood shifted her career onto a higher plane. The follow-up, And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow, cements her status as a must her grandiose artist as the soaring song structures,

On Jaguar Sound, Adrian Quesada funnels those influences into a slinky, bumping, full-length instrumental release that bubbles like a bong. 

The newest effort from multi-talented artist Franz Nicolay is an engaging mix of poetic songwriting and overly dramatic staging that rambles like its title, New River. 

The first solo release from Dean Fertita as Tropical Gothclub is a mix of all the dark and somewhat exotic bands he has played in and supported over the years: Queens of the Stone Age, The Dead Weather, and The Raconteurs.

The third album from the New York City-based Ghost Funk Orchestra is a continuation of the band’s funk/soul/jazz roots. A New Kind Of Love on Colemine Records is the type of throwback album that retro soul fans will devour with its easy-flowing warmth, charm, and spirit. 

The Los Angeles-based Wand has made a name for itself with an expansive live show which deploys an amalgamation of dissonance, heavy and blissful rock. Now, for the first time, they offer that experience via a double live album titled Spiders in the Rain which was captured on their California tour in January 2020.   

The second release from the adventurous supergroup Dead Cross was recorded through pain and torment as guitarist Michael Crain was progressing through chemotherapy while laying down his guitar lines, the pandemic was in full swing, and lead singer Mike Patton struggled with alcohol and agoraphobia. II finds the group digging deeper into despair, hatred at organized religion and other offenses over the nine pummeling efforts, rarely finding easy solutions or anything to be positive about. 

The fourth album from the UK-based Young Gun Silver Fox is a continuation of the group’s Yacht Rock-inspired sound. Straight out of the late 70’s/early 80’s Ticket To Shangri La grooves with polished shiny efforts. 

SHUFFLEMANIA! is a kaleidoscope, throwback pop rock record, ten songs from various inspiration, attitude, and emotion.

Anthony D’Amato’s first proper solo album in six years is a rumination on life, love, death, race, and more as the artist fuses probing lyrics with lots of instrumentation in indie-folk-rock style. 

With Australia, a hotbed for many forms of rock music these days Ocean Alley’s newest album plays with their laid-back beach life formula a bit but stays very accessible to the masses as Low Altitude Living delivers radio-friendly pop rock throughout the twelve strong tracks.  Things start positively from the first notes of the opener […]

The sophomore release from Ghost Light finds the Philadelphia collective mixing synths, rock guitars, and male/female vocals that lyrically focus on the aftermath of pain. The Healing can be unsettling, beautiful, clunky, overblown, and fantastic at different points, just like real-life reconciliation. The quartet of Tom Hamilton on lead guitar and vocals, Raina Mullen on […]

Bonny Light Horseman’s strong self-titled debut pulled from ancient folk songs, resulting in an indie-folk winner. Now on the group’s follow-up Rolling Golden Holy, the band has tightened up and crafted ten original outings that meld past with the present in a sweet-sounding fashion.  The trio of Anais Mitchell, Eric D Johnson, and Josh Kaufman […]