Album Reviews

Florence Welch, the voice and mastermind behind the modern pop sensation Florence + The Machine, has become an enigma in contemporary music. Her discography showcases both her ability to craft undeniable smash hits, as in “Dog Days Are Over,” and cinematic, daring alt-pop, as on her Dance Fever LP. All the while, Welch has proven […]

Because Bob Dylan’s The Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through The Open Window, 1956-1963 covers much the same ground as the 2025 biopic A Complete Unknown, it is the ideal collection to release in the wake of that film. As has been the case with previous editions of this archival enterprise, the curators, headed by co-producers […]

Jeremy Pinnell’s latest LP edges away from the strictly traditional country sound that anchored his early records, where Roots, Western Swing, and Honky Tonk set the tone. His new Shooter Jennings-produced release, Decades, builds on that foundation but folds in streaks of blues and 1970s rock—not that surprising given the eclectic mix he was raised […]

The 1980s were heady times for synthesizers and drum machines. Ushering out the distorted three-chord guitars and traditional drum/bass/guitar lineups of the punk and stadium era rock of the decade that preceded it. New Wave bands like OMD, Human League, and The Pet Shop Boys created a dance-friendly genre that was light on sneers and […]

Twenty-five years ago this Halloween, three Kalamazoo, Michigan-area college students got together for an impromptu house party-gig that would forever change the course of progressive bluegrass.  Inspired by a handful of informal performances at some bluegrass open mic nights hosted by a Kalamazoo-area rustic Greek bar & restaurant, The Blue Dolphin, Michael Arlen Bont (banjo), […]

Tom Petty’s Wildflowers has long stood as one of those rare records that seem to grow more intimate with age. Released in 1994, it captured Petty at a crossroads, stepping outside the confines of the Heartbreakers while working with producer Rick Rubin to chase a looser, more organic sound. The 30th-anniversary reissue of Wildflowers by […]

Monte Booker is an artist most music fans have heard, whether they realize it or not. The producer extraordinaire recontextualized the marriage of electronic music and Hip-hop for post-blog-era stars like Smino and Kenny Mason, as well as modern R&B icons like Mereba. With a production catalog that can compete with some of the most […]

Enthusiastic followers of modern R&B/Soul remember only a few months back when Cautious Clay unleashed The Hours: Morning. The quick yet potent, 8-song LP found the singer/songwriter/producer exploring a bright, pop terrain with his emphatic songwriting and natural knack for infectious melodies. The Hours: Morning was a daring genre leap compared to Clay’s more R&B-oriented […]

There are times on Brandi Carlile’s new album, Returning to Myself, where she is comfortably easing into the material, and other times where one can almost sense the challenges of new sounds and the influence of three different producers. The latter is that ‘the air is out of the balloon’ feeling that runs through the […]

For a band that’s constantly on the road, it’s hard to believe The Lemonheads haven’t released an album of original material in nearly twenty years. Love Chant marks their first collection of new music since 2006’s self-titled record. The 11 tracks here mark a curious blending of the band’s earlier punk-fused records with their more […]

The Jazz Detective, Zev Feldman, does not confine his unearthed treasures to Black Friday and April’s Record Store Day. He’s been busy this fall with several projects and now presents arguably Blue Note’s most important artist for three decades, pianist and composer Horace Silver in his prime, with a never-before-issued 1965 live recording – Silver […]

When seeing the band Tortoise live, one needs to keep one’s eyes wide open and glued to the stage as the five members will change instruments in a nanosecond. It’s a spectacle.  Their setup includes three different drum sets and as many as five keyboards/synths. On the other hand, listening to Tortoise on record, this […]

Tel Aviv–born, London-based keyboardist and producer Yoni Mayraz has built a steady reputation for blending jazz, hip-hop, and electronic sounds into something that feels both live and carefully arranged. Following his 2022 debut Dybbuk, his new album Dogs Bark Babies Cry continues that approach, drawing on the interplay between musicians rather than studio tricks. Recorded […]

Artistic evolution comes for every memorable musician, whether you like it or not. To selfishly ask an artist to stick to the elements of their sound that made you a fan would be a detriment. How else do you expect greatness if repetition is involved? Where can an artist go when fans and critics have […]

If the latest offering from Bird Streets (the alter ego of John Brodeur) sounds a little paranoid and isolating, you can chalk that up to the global pandemic. Four years in the making, much of The Escape Artist, the third effort from Bird Streets, was written and recorded during the lost COVID years, where uncertainty […]

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 […]

Luther Dickinson’s concept for Dead Blues is not all that implausible. After all, in the earliest days of the Grateful Dead, blues constituted a healthy proportion of their repertoire, most of which stage presentations were led by the late Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan.  And even as the psychedelic warriors morphed over time, songs sourced in the […]

Katie Schecter’s third studio album, Empress, offers another modern take on the retro sounds that have inspired her. The Nashville (via New York) singer-songwriter recorded the album live while pregnant with her daughter. The themes of motherhood, femininity, and the desire to impart wisdom and creativity to her child run throughout the album. Empress feels […]

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 […]

When Step II arrived in 1978, Sylvester had already carved out a reputation as San Francisco’s most electrifying performer, a singer who fused church-born soul with the glitter and liberation of the disco era. Born Sylvester James Jr. in Los Angeles, he learned to sing in a Pentecostal choir before finding his way to the […]