When you have the fluke hit of the decade, the threat of running into the curse of the “sophomore slum” is an understatement, particularly if you’re the psychedelic soul duo of Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green. However, if you’re one that appreciate albums as song-cycles verse explosive pop nuggets, than Gnarls Barkley’s The Odd Couple has something going on.
Daniel Hunter is just 18 and he cuts class on occasion (“My Attendance is Bad”) and likes Jello (“Jello”). The brains, voice, producer, and one-man band behind PlayRadioPlay! appears to also love Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, Postal Service), as he’s a dead ringer for the Seattle artist’s emo voice and gentle beat filled electronic pop.
It’s easy to complain that the Keys should play a little bit longer….after 70 minutes they were hitting that peak. But although the show was short with little stage banter, their bygone swamped up rock still knocks em dead loud & live.
The Whigs’ 2005 debut Give ‘Em All A Big Fat Lip was an album any young band would ache to call their own. The self released/self financed debut allowed the Athens, Georgia trio to be dubbed “the best un-signed band in America” by Rolling Stone Magazine.
Call Warpaint a comeback, but The Black Crowes have proven that their best original music wasn’t just a thing of the past.
Air Traffic have revealed that their music “sounds like nobody else,” which might be the case if Snow Patrol, Coldplay and Keane were still playing the pub circuit. Air Traffic’s debut album, Fractured Life, which was released last summer in England before its February American release, gives the listeners more of what we’ve heard before in reference to the above mentioned bands.
Joe Jackson is one of those few artists that despite getting on in years, he can still make biting music. Rain, recorded with three-fourths of the original Joe Jackson Band [ Jackson (vocals/keyboards), Graham Maby (bass/vocals) and Dave Houghton (drums/vocals)] in his new adopted city of Berlin is stripped to the bare essentials but sounds as youthful as any album in his 30 year career.
The sun doesn’t shine a whole lot in Seattle, but Grand Archives reflect an inner vivaciousness typically not heard in the rainy corner.
Speaking with Glide a week before the release of Widespread Panic’s tenth studio album – Free Somehow – John Bell had a chance to "tickle the truth" about a number of relevant items before getting on the road to let the new songs “grow.”
Doughty knows what he’s best at and that propensity makes Golden Delicious comfort food for those that like their lyrics and melody on the quirky side.
