Album Reviews

Punisher, the sophomore album by Los Angeles singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, is an assured collection of brooding meditations that serenade, challenge, and give a glimpse into the psyche of a young artist on the rise. Some of the songs deal with the complex emotions that accompany her rise to fame following her 2017 full-length debut Stranger […]

Bob Dylan has almost always worked in strange and mysterious ways over the course of his almost 60-year career, so it should come as no surprise that, wholly without fanfare, explanation or any notice whatsoever, he would release three brand new recordings on-line in this surreal and absurd spring of 2020. The triad of songs, […]

Washington D.C. in the 80’s was fertile ground for a slew of innovative punk bands that would go on to inspire hundreds more. Bad Brains, Minor Threat, even Haagen-Dazs’ most successful employee, Henry Rollins, all got started in the nation’s capital. Then came emo; and not the weepy early aughts junior high poetry journal hijacked […]

Guitarist/vocalist Leni Stern gives us more reason to celebrate immigration and the power of multi-cultural music. For the past decade-plus Stern, hailed as one of the world’s top guitarists (her guitarist husband, Mike Stern, isn’t shabby either), has fused a contemporary jazz approach with West African folkloric elements. She has traveled and studied in Mali […]

Neil Young’s Homegrown is an album originally set for release in 1975, but which the Canadian rock icon pulled back because, as his subsequent comments indicate, he considered it too personal a recording to make public. Such second thoughts certainly pervade the work as we hear it today, but that only places it more directly […]

On Make Things Better, Town Meeting’s third LP and 4th release overall (an EP titled Geography, Part 1 was the debut), this Boston-based ensemble sounds like it was indeed destined to make music as a unit, rather than succumb to the dissension  that almost split them up. The quintet draws upon some readily identifiable influences […]

Monte Warden is someone who has been around the Austin music scene for 40 years, ranging from his time with The Wagoneers to the time that George Strait recorded a song by Warden. He has consistently worked in the Americana realm, but not necessarily in the way you’d expect, and his style isn’t alt-country or […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on Folk n’ Roll Vol. 1: Tales Of Isolation, the timely new album from folk-Americana troubadour Ondara, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

The well-traveled and prolific Chicago bluesman singer/guitarist/songwriter Johnny Burgin is back with Delmark Records following his 2019 Live, a recording he made while in California. Burgin, of course, has graced many of the label’s albums prior to a brief hiatus in California, most notably with Tail Dragger. Burgin tries to bring something different each time […]

Arriving about two years after the release of the critically-lauded County Seat, Will Stewart’s latest effort Way Gone may be brief but finds him just as relevant. Across just six tracks, and clocking in at just over 20 minutes, the Alabama-based Americana/folkie with strong nods to everyone from Jason Isbell to Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ offers a […]

The widely hailed Malian vocalist Oumou Sangaré re-imagines her much-praised 2017 Mogoya, totally unplugged, in live sessions captured over just two days with Acoustic, her eighth album in a 30 year career. Acoustic culminates a trio of related projects. 2018’s Mogoya Remixed saw Sangaré’s compositions retooled by high-profile fans including Sampha, Spoek Mathambo and St […]

This is not your typical mid-career retrospective because Alabama singer-songwriter Grayson Capps is blessed to be married to Grammy-winning producer/engineer, Trina Shoemaker, who not only compiled these 16 songs as her personal playlist, but revisited each of the original recordings, remixing many of them from scratch, thereby making them sound anew here. So, even Capps’ […]

Just one quick listen to the opening title track “The Ridge” and it’s clear that Canadian singer-songwriter has that special touch which is rather remarkable as this is major label veteran Taylor’s first foray into Americana. The dark-skinned Taylor is of West Indian and Mohawk descent, suffering from prejudice toward the misnomer “Black Indians” while […]

You may know the collaborative album, SMILE, from Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks but may have missed their reprised duet, Orange Crate Art, which Omnivore Records is celebrating with a 25th Anniversary. The packages are a double CD  and LP set that includes bonus tracks and liner notes from both Wilson and Parks. It’s […]

Forty Days was recorded by Paul Kelly in exactly that very period of time while quarantined due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In keeping with the Australian’s ever-so-diverse discography, the album contains fifteen total tracks comprised of original songs, spoken word/poetry interludes and some select covers including John Prine’s “Paradise” Bill Withers’ “Grandma’s Hands.” Described as […]

The title track “I Just Want To Be Horizontal” reminds of that line in Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Help Me’ – “I just feel like laying down.” That, combined with the presence of Bessie Smith’s “Kitchen Man” and Rosetta Howard’s “Candy Man” led this writer to believe we were getting a set of salacious tunes not […]

Portland-based musician Tommy Alexander has always sounded remarkably like Johnny Cash. From the gruff vocals, stripped of all pretension, to the straight-forward honesty in his lyrics, it’s hard not to picture the late great Cash delivering these songs. Nowhere is that more apparent than on Waves, Alexander’s latest studio effort.  The guitar sound on the […]

Chicago soul singer Gerald McClendon, the “Soul Keeper,” got a lift from last year’s Delta Roots release, Battle of the Blues: Chicago vs. Oakland, an album that revealed city favorites that didn’t have much national exposure. While McClendon has appeared on other projects and compilations in recent years, his last album under his own name […]

If this is your introduction to Minnesota singer/songwriter Molly Maher you are in for a treat. If you are a follower, this may be a rather unexpected shift. Musicians often stay in the “gig to gig” grind but some decide that there may be a different path. That’s not to say performing was her only […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on RTJ4, the potent new album from hip-hop duo Run The Jewels, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):