Album Reviews

Grant Green meets Wes Montgomery meets George Benson. Not quite, but that gives some idea of what you’ll hear from composer/guitarist Dan Wilson for bassist/composer Christian McBride’s new imprint Brother Mister Productions — the label’s second release.  The title, Vessels of Wood and Earth, is an abstract way of expressing that we should look beneath the shiny surface and […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers, the new album from Valerie June, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

Initially included as part of the Super Deluxe Edition of last autumn’s Wildflowers & All the Rest, the single CD Finding Wildflowers (Alternate Versions) is now available as a standalone item and deservedly so. This ‘mirror image’ of Tom Petty’s second solo album is arguably superior to the version originally released in 1994. And that’s […]

We hailed Jerry Joseph’s Beautiful Madness in last year’s Glide 20. In his opening track to the album, “Days of Heaven,” Joseph has this verse – “A clutch of Bloodkin chords/ The rain of El Sauzal /We balance on the wire/ High above the roar/ Not afraid to fall/Can we get it higher.” To boot, […]

After more than half a decade on from their last album, Best Blues, Brooklyn-based Small Black is back with their fourth studio album, Cheap Dreams. The album finds the band continuing in the musical style that they do best. It’s a modernized blend of 80’s New Romantic (Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, etc.) and 90’s shoegaze […]

Like a lot of musicians, Ryanhood is a band that started playing on streets. Fortunately for them, a booking agent saw them perform at Quincy Market in Boston. Shortly after that, the duo found itself in demand on campuses across the country. For the last decade, the band has shared the stage with artists such […]

By now Imelda May’s fans have practically heard her entire new album 11 Past the Hour, as she has released at least four tracks already. Continuing her departure from rockabilly, this album is less confessional in tone as she chooses instead to deliver a mix of pop, power, and achingly beautiful balladeering, all in a […]

Anxious.Happy.Chill is Nashville-based singer-songwriter Elise Davis’ third album in six years. It’s a major leap forward musically and thematically than her two previous efforts.  In fact, there’s some inherent satisfaction in this writer’s closing words to the review of 2018’s Cactus – “She’s an honest, evolving songwriter that just keeps improving.” This effort shows more […]

Despite its reputation for having churned out some of the best indie rock and alt dance music from the late ‘80s through most of the ‘90s, Athens, GA hardly seems like the obvious hometown of one of the next great Cosmic Country bands. But preconceived notions aside, Athens-based sextet The Pink Stones have managed to […]

Norah Jones’ has immense global appeal as you’ll hear on this live album …Til We Meet Again, her first live album nearly two decades into her highly decorated career. Beyond the nine Grammy awards, Jones is 2020’s most live-streamed artist. Yet what might be even more surprising to many is the enthusiastic reaction she receives […]

Jobbaloon is a group from Detroit that defines itself as an audio-visual experience. So how does that work when you’re just listening to the music without seeing them perform it? Well, it gives you enough of an experience to get some understanding of what the group does. Also, since the visual aspect is missing from […]

Nick Waterhouse has built his career on being a man out of time, shepherding his audience through the sweaty backrooms of New Orleans bars and the vibrancy of Chicago speakeasies. For four albums he has used his quasi neo-soul/Dr. John worship to develop his own pedigree, contributing LPs that could be inconsistent but always remained […]

The Blips is a band from Birmingham, Alabama, that comprises five frontmen. The band came together when Will Stewart of Timber asked some friends to collaborate on writing some songs. He was Joined by Taylor Hollingsworth, Wes McDonald, Eric Wallace, and Chris McCauley. The band formed in late 2019. By the time of the COVID […]

We couldn’t fit all the roles that the multi-talented Steven Feifke handles into the headline. In addition, he is an orchestrator, educator, and sideman who has appeared on 30 albums before turning 30 years old. When Feifke is not being sought out as a sideman, he is often requested as an arranger as we’ve seen […]

As depicted on their studio debut Rose in the Oblivion,  the vision of keyboard wizard John Medeski and spiritual folk healer Jeff Firewalker Schmitt is multi-faceted indeed. No more abstract than The Purge, the former’s previous partnership with drummer Adam Deitch and horn-man Skerik called DRKWAV, its approach to rhythm is just as pronounced as […]

At a time when it seems like every other indie artist in America has cloaked themselves in a faded denim, pearl button shirt and headed down to Nashville to make it as an Americana singer, there is an authenticity to the music of Dallas Moore. Across more than half a dozen albums spanning decades, Moore […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on the new self-titled debut album from indie rockers Hey, King!, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

Legendary drummer Dave Weckl convened his band for the first time in 15 years for a slate at the 2019 Chesterfield Wine & Jazz Festival in St. Louis, his hometown. This was special in that the band had not played together in more than a decade and this particular unit in two decades.  Founding members […]

Leave it to Craft Recordings, the label that impeccably has a knack for sensing the right timing for reissues, to deliver a vinyl reissue of Build Me Up From Bones, the chart-topping third album from 2021 GRAMMY® nominee Sarah Jarosz.  Originally released in 2013, Build Me Up From Bones found the then 22-year-old Jarosz displaying a new sense of confidence […]

On his fifteenth release master blues guitarist and vocalist Chris Cain has made it to the top, delivering Raisin’ Cain for the premiere blues label, Alligator Records.  Early in his career, in the ‘90s Cain made three albums for the reputable, now-defunct Blind Pig Records but arguably he’s been on a lower tier of labels […]