Posts by Shawn Donohue

The seventh album from the Torrance, California-based outfit Joyce Manor continues their run of super short, catchy, chant-along anthems, with some added twists and turns in the brief proceedings. I Used To Go To This Bar clocks in under twenty minutes with nine tunes that sound primed and ready to explode at each junction.  Released on Epitaph, […]

The Nottingham, UK-based Sleaford Mods’ newest offering, Demise of Planet X on Rough Trade, is a screed against modern society delivered with a thick East Midlands accent, slang, and a fed-up point of view, set to electro post-punk bump-and-grind.   The duo of Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn have been at this for a long time, and the group’s thirteenth […]

King’s Day on January 6th marks the start of Carnival season, a special time in New Orleans featuring parades, revelry, and more. On January 8th, the Take Me To The River All-Stars traveled north to spread some Mardi Gras infused love in New York City at the gorgeous City Winery.   The sold-out show featured a […]

The south London-based post-punk outfit Dry Cleaning starts 2026 with a confident offering as their third studio full-length, Secret Love, successfully expands and polishes their sound.  The quartet of Florence Shaw, Lewis Maynard, Tom Dowse, and Nick Buxton stopped and started the project a few times, recording demos and jams everywhere from Chicago with Wilco […]

The newest archival release from the estate of Dr. John is a double disc of live New Orleans R&B. Directly titled Live at the Village Gate, it is a previously unissued performance of the good doctor fronting an eight-piece band that played the historic NYC venue on March 5, 1988.   The 80s were not a […]

Their first release in over 14 years, Forever, I’ve Been Being Born, finds Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter dealing with life, death, change, and renewal as the Seattle-based outfit’s fragile cosmic folk music drifts into the ether.  The band’s core, vocalist Sykes and guitarist Phil Wandscher, needed time to regroup and find inspiration after losing […]

Throughout his idiosyncratic career, it has been impossible to figure out where Mike Patton will turn next, but even his most diehard fans would have been hard-pressed to believe the announcement of a new group with folk chart-toppers The Avett Brothers was true, yet that is exactly what happened. The newly christened AVTT/PTTN worked together on a self-titled album […]

To celebrate his 2024 sold-out Luck and Strange tour, David Gilmour is releasing his third solo live album, titled The Luck and Strange Concerts. Gilmour was feeling reinvigorated this tour as he played the new album in its entirety, along with a host of his Pink Floyd classics.  The live album offers up 23 songs captured from various […]

The newest album from Todd Snider finds a broken man breathily singing sparse numbers as High, Lonesome and Then Some feels less like an album title and more like Snider’s perpetual state of mind over these nine tracks.   Known for his humor and insightful songwriting, Snider scales it all back, delivering generalities via gravelly dirt […]

Whenever an established group releases a self-titled album in the middle of their career, it acts as a symbol of rebirth, a new direction, course correction, or perhaps a last gasp. St. Paul & The Broken Bones’ self-titled release finds them centering their sound and style, as frontman Paul Janeway states, “I think the band […]

When the country music Hall of Famer Waylon Jennings passed away in 2002, the artist left behind a host of recordings that had never been released. His son, famed musician/producer Shooter Jennings, recently discovered these and was amazed by the high quality and sheer number of top-notch offerings. Songbird is the first of a scheduled […]

Last year, Marcus King deviated from his norm with the Rick Rubin-produced Mood Swings. He scaled back his vaunted guitar and valiantly focused on his vocals, experimenting with soul. Now he follows that up by returning to his roots, reuniting with his longtime live band for their first album since 2018’s Carolina Confessions. The new release, Darling Blue, […]

The NYC-based singer/songwriter Kendra Morris stripped down her sound for her newest record, Next. The ten-song collection delivers a cool slice of minimalist indie-soul on Colemine Records.  Morris worked with her band, guitarist Supremo “Premo” Massiv, bassist Monti Miramonti, and drummer Chauncey Yearwood, and co-produced the album with Leroi Conroy, recording in Loveland, Ohio, and […]

There is a reason Emma Swift calls The Resurrection Game, her first full-length collection of all original material, a “bummer of an album,” as it took coming back from a mental health crisis for the singer-songwriter to develop these ten tracks.  The Sydney, Australia-born, Nashville-based Swift had a major nervous breakdown, leading her to be […]

The trio Tchotchke delivers a strong dose of art-pop that is of the current moment but touches on influences from the genre’s heyday, as Playin’ Dumb is far from ignorant. The NYC-based trio, comprising Anastasia Sanchez on vocals and drums, Eva Chambers on bass, piano, keyboards, and vocals, and Emily Tooraen on guitar and vocals, […]

David Byrne has always acted like an outsider, singing/writing about the mundane with an alien-landed-on-Earth, like fascination. On his newest album, Who Is the Sky? Byrne has a song titled “I’m an Outsider”. The smooth grooving jam could be about finding mystical connections deep in the mind or wondering what is inside an exclusive club […]

On her last few releases, Margo Price traveled west (Los Angeles, the desert) to find herself, primarily playing in the realm of 70s-tinged pop rock. Now, on her fifth studio album, she successfully returns to her roots, recording her first album in her hometown of Nashville, as Price’s outlaw-accented country sound rings heartfelt and true […]

The fourth album from the twice Grammy-nominated, New Orleans-based Afro-Indigenous funk collective Cha Wa finds the band in a transitional state, moving in new directions with Rise Up.  The core of Cha Wa, musical director and drummer Joe Gelini, and “Spyboy” Irving “Honey” Banister Jr. of the Golden Sioux Tribe, worked with producer Dave Trumfio […]

On the press tour for World Music Radio, Jon Batiste mentioned lofty goals of uniting listeners globally through his music. It is easy to see how Batiste had stars in his eyes coming off his excellent, GRAMMY-winning breakthrough WE ARE, unfortunately, World Music Radio, disappointed with middle-of-the-road blandness. His newest offering, Big Money, succeeds as Batiste is far less image-conscious […]

The Kingston Lions’ self-titled debut is a chance for some legendary reggae session musicians to step into the spotlight, covering classics from the genre.  Produced by Ralph Sall and recorded at Anchor Studios in Kingston, guitarist, bandleader, and arranger Mikey Chung brought together a group of musicians who have played with everyone from Peter Tosh […]