Album Reviews

Hearing saxophonist Vincent Herring’s recent battles with COVID-19 makes it impossible not to root for him and embrace his inner drive that resulted in Preaching to the Choir. Herring’s story is essentially a nightmare with a good ending, at least for now. Last August, he traveled to Las Vegas to take part in a centennial […]

There Is No End, the posthumous Blue Note release from legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen does not at all resemble the drummer’s 2020 World Circuit Rejoice with Hugh Maskela as it’s a various artists album with a different guest featured on 12 of the 14 tracks, with Allen’s Afrobeats the common denominator. The album release […]

Bill Toms was lead guitarist for Pittsburgh, PA’s legendary Joe Grushecky and The Houserockers and has since moved on to deliver now his tenth studio album, Keep Movin’ On, with his band Hard Rain. They are mainly a boisterous rock n’ roll unit complete with a three-piece horn section, the Soulville Horns, who together took […]

The name WRD sounds like a radio station and the music of this organ trio will at times remind of those days in the ‘60s and ‘70s when the sounds of Booker T. and the MGs, Grant Green, Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and others would grace the airwaves on our favorite FM […]

Knowing that Amy Speace hails from New Jersey, the album title, There Used to Be Horses Here, especially resonates. The state is more associated with sprawling shopping malls and office complexes, the traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike, and the industrial specter of massive power plants, tank farms, and shipping terminals as one approaches New […]

It has been a long time since the New Orleans-based Dumpstaphunk released a studio album (2013’s Dirty Word) but the current societal events and recent political strife have made the spring of 2021 the perfect setting for the band’s timely return with Where Do We Go From Here. While the album could have veered dark, […]

Those that have heard the 21-string African instrument, the kora, would undoubtedly agree that it is one of the world’s most beautiful sounding instruments, especially in the hands of its most renowned player, Toumani Diabaté. This collaboration, Kôrôlén, with the 30-piece London Symphony Orchestra does not in any way overwhelm or blur the beauty of […]

Nashville by way of Pittsburgh Americana artist Zach Schmidt has the backing of some of the city’s biggest talents on his sophomore effort. Produced by Sadler Vader (a brilliant solo artist and member of Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit), Schmidt brought in Vaden co-workers, including Jimbo Hart, Chad Gamble, Derry Deboria – all members of the […]

In recent years, the status of the Who has risen dramatically in the hierarchy of contemporary rock and rightly so. The ascent began with a greater appreciation of Quadrophenia, the masterwork that, since its 1973 release, had remained undeservedly in the shadow of Tommy. Meanwhile, mainstream appreciation of the arguable creative pinnacle of the band’s […]

Having just read Eddie Floyd’s autobiography My Life in Soul, it seems like no two pages went by, certainly in the Stax-oriented chapters, without seeing Steve Cropper’s name. Someone has probably kept track, but this writer’s guess is that one could count the living songwriters on one hand who approach Cropper’s songwriting output over seven […]

Around the metallic chugging down strums of “I Met The Stones” J Mascis delivers the keynote to Dinosaur Jr.’s excellent new release Sweep It Into Space. The laconic lyric is “I got excited, I got depressed/The situation and then the rest” sums up the trio’s pandemic record, which is a lot like all of their […]

When one lives in town with the name of Poetry, TX he/she needs to live up to that name, not that it is reserved for poets, writers, and songwriters but it would be fitting. Singer-songwriter Scott Sean White does just that on his debut, Call It Even. It’s not that White is new to songwriting […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on [Laughs], the new album from Kali Masi, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

Readers of these pages caught a few words about the hip-hop-influenced progressive UK jazz artist Alfa Mist when we covered his contribution to last Fall’s double-disc Blue Note Re-imagined. Now we get a full menu with his fresh nine tracks on the full-length, Bring Backs, his debut for the U.S. label, Anti. First teaching himself […]

After lineup expansions and hiatuses, the original trio of Garage A Trois has returned with an excellent new studio album, Calm Down Cologne. Recorded in just one session at Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard’s Studio Litho in Seattle, WA, the players are in top-notch form throughout.  Guitarist/bassist Charlie Hunter, saxophonist Skerik and drummer Stanton Moore […]

It’s taken a handful of records and a seemingly lifetime of heartache and personal misfortunes crammed into a few short years for DL Rossi to evolve into a remarkable singer/songwriter inspired by, but finally untethered to his influences. On Lonesome Kind, Rossi’s latest, he still carries the scars of his divorce, brushes with cancer (his […]

Darla Records is recognizing the twentieth anniversary of My Morning Jacket’s At Dawn in much the same fashion the label afforded the milestone of the band’s debut The Tennessee Fire. On double-CD, digital and three LPs of vinyl, the sophomore album appears alongside the bonus of a live recording containing a complete Jim James solo […]

Firefly is multi-reedist Alexa Tarantino’s third album for the Posi-tone label, following her excellent 2020 Clarity and 2018’s Winds of Change.  This writer put Clarity on the year’s best list for another outlet. As per the case with most releases from Posi-Tone, Tarantino (who plays alto & soprano saxophones, flute, alto flute & clarinet) works […]

When Sharon Van Etten’s second album, epic dropped in 2010, only a year after her debut, the response was surprisingly muted. Although critics noted the strength of its lyricism, composition and delivery most held back from praising the album as the masterpiece it was. Even now, with five records under her belt epic remains a […]

Amigo the Devil is an artist from Austin who is something of a Renaissance Man. On top of being a musician with something of a cult following, he is also a Master Brewer and attended culinary school. He is known for singing about dark themes, and that hasn’t changed on the new album Born Against. […]