British singer-songwriter David Ford’s last album, I Sincerely Apologise For All The Trouble I’ve Caused, was so inspiring that Neil Young’s longtime manager, Eliot Roberts, asked for two copies—one for him, and one for Neil.
De Novo Dahl find themselves in the difficult position of following up their amazing Shout EP with a full-length release. Even if they were able to reproduce the exuberance of "Shout" (the best musical expression of joy since U2's "Beautiful Day") over the course of the entire album, I think it may well have killed me (albeit with happiness).
Each of Jackie Greene’s albums, from 2002’s Gone Wanderin' to 2006’s American Myth, has marked a definite progression for the young Californian and Giving Up The Ghost is no exception.
April carries on the momentum of Ghosts of the Great Highway, leading off with the ambitious nine-minute gem, “Lost Verses,” which ranks with one of the best songs that Mark Kozelek has written.
Trashing garage rock, Nashville’s Be Your Own Pet packs a punch that seems to thumb its nose at every other garage rock band in music today with Get Awkward.
When Broken Boy Soldiers was released, the hype surrounding Jack White’s first venture into a side project was massive, yet there has been almost no advance hype surrounding Consolers of the Lonely, the Raconteurs’ second release (sent to Press and Public at the same time and day) and I am sure they couldn’t be happier with the silence.
Produced by Malcom Burn (Patti Smith, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan), Boy for You works well because it never really lets go of its bouncy pace. Not an introspective songwriter, Williamson sings about what is around her — an observant voice that declares: “you look like someone I should love” on the beautiful “Someone.” Williamson, with her buoyant energy, sure sounds like someone a lot of people will love for years to come.
The second album in a triptych that includes My Aim is True and Armed Forces, This Year’s Model is now available in a deluxe two-Dd edition, compiling the various b-sides and singles Costello released around this time, as well as a full concert from 1978 with his band The Attractions,
In late 2006, Lost Highway Records dropped Tift Merritt. Her final album with the label, Tambourine, garnered a Grammy nomination and general high praise, but it left Merritt as an independent musician. Clueless by the decision and tapped of her energy, Merritt, who had been living in Paris at the time, still felt one thing to be true: her songs that would eventually become her third album, Another Country, would win out.
Ceilings is an album that relies more on piano and layers of ambient noise than it does on the brash guitar, bass and drums of a typical rock band. The first reaction is that they've tapped into OK Computer-era Radiohead, but the deeper influence is perhaps The Church who created a similar ebb and flow of soothing yet moving noise surrounding an almost folky organic center.
