Album Reviews

The most important thing to know about Dylan LeBlanc’s Renegade is that it’s absolutely beautiful. Lush, velvety and gorgeous enough to rival anything I’ve heard this year, this ten-track collection of charmed Americana recollects songwriters like Tom Petty, Townes Van Zandt, Fleet Foxes and Fleetwood Mac. While Renegade has its stand-outs, it also possesses the […]

Philip Bailey, the legendary falsetto voice of Earth, Wind & Fire certainly calls on some famous friends for his twelfth solo outing, Love Will Find A Way, but most of them are contemporary jazz cats. In the continuum of mashing R&B with jazz as rendered by jazz artists like Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington, Christian Scott […]

In the wake of tourist murders and the recent shooting of beloved Dominican David Ortiz (“Big Papi”), the reputation of the Dominican Republic is going through a tough period to say the least. It sounds cliché to say that music can be a healing force but one listen to pianist Josean Jacobo  & Tumbao will […]

There’s just something about 2019 that makes this the year of Americana duos, especially male-female tandems and partners-for-life couples. Already we’ve had releases from Mandolin Orange, Shovels & Rope, Silver Lake 66, ESOEBO, and next week we’ll be hearing from Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis and, at long last, Buddy and Julie Miller. (probably missed […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on Love, The Dynamo, the new album from singer-songwriter Shane Sweeney, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

In March of 2008, The Raconteurs surprisingly dropped their sophomore album Consolers of The Lonely, and it was the best rock album of the decade. Over eleven years later comes the follow up titled Help Us Stranger, and while it doesn’t reach its predecessor’s lofty heights, it is an engaging mix of classic rock power and […]

Jim Lauderdale’s 32nd studio album From Another World marks the singer/songwriter’s encore to last year’s acclaimed Times Flies. Lauderdale, of course, has penned country hits for the likes of George Strait, Patty Loveless, George Jones, Vince Gill and others but has relentlessly pursued his own performance career at the same time. He’s genre agnostic, having […]

If you were going to list your favorite genres of music, where would soul land? Does soul land anywhere in your top five? Look, no reviewer can tell you what genre you should like. However, when you hear albums like A Higher Place by Diplomats of Solid Sound, it’s hard to justify the absence of […]

Wow! it’s been ten years since we last heard Buddy and Julie Miller on Written in Chalk. The combination of Julie’s serious health issues and Buddy’s in-demand status as producer left most of us wondering whether the Millers would ever record together again. In one sense, although we’ve dearly missed them, their spirit has continued […]

Psychedelic rock has enjoyed its fair share of resurgences in the last few decades, but few as significant as the steadily growing wave of washed out guitar music that’s dominated the post-2010 indie scene. Perhaps the sense of detachment from reality synonymous with the genre rings particularly true in the current day and age, or […]

London-born, current Brooklyn resident Aaron Whitby handles too many roles to fit in a convenient headline, so we’ll lead with his credits as producer, composer, songwriter, pianist, engineer and educator. Cousin From Another Planet (Ropeadope) is Whitby’s debut as bandleader, and appropriately enough, it is on the progressive Ropeadope label. It’s a mash-up of funk, fusion, […]

If you’re at all familiar with Voodoo Rhythm Records, you know that it is a label that specializes in music that is raw, wild, and fuzzy. Enter The Jackets (from Switzerland). The band’s new album Queen of the Pill is chock full of reverb, haunting vocals, and energy that makes the band a perfect fit […]

Halfway through his set, Craig Finn mentioned that on his newest album he “wanted to make some elegant music” and he also asked, “what better place to play elegant music in New York City than Joe’s Pub?” Finn was all smiles for this triumphant show of nuanced and restrained offerings during the first of his […]

It’s notable that Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real are credited as co-producers of Turn Off The News, Build A Garden, the group’s fifth studio effort. In teaming with John Alagia, the supervisor of their eponymous prior album,  the group has restored some of the rambunctious personality that earmarked their earlier albums, a move […]

Having fully acclimated itself to their Brotherhood Arts Laboratory recording studio over the course of the previous album, Barefoot in the Head, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood makes a concerted effort to conjure up material and document recordings expressly designed for live performances on Servants of the Sun. The end result is the most streamlined and purposeful […]

Our collective thirst for jazz from iconic players may be insatiable but recent efforts continue to go a long way toward satisfying those cravings, whether it be discoveries of unreleased Coltrane, Monk, Mingus, and now, the latest, saxophonist Stan Getz from 1961, before his breakout bossa nova period. These 15 tracks, spread over two discs […]

Having a career spanning just over thirty years, Athens, Georgia-based R.E.M. have released a multitude of songs now considered iconic. Since “The One I Love” became a breakthrough single for the band off their 1987 album Document, Michael Stipe and Co. have gone on to not only sell millions of albums, but to be pivotal […]

Keb’ Mo’ built his now legendary reputation as a bluesman but has proven to be equally adept in R&B and Americana-styled roots music.  The latter and rootsy blues are at the heart of Oklahoma, and like most of Keb’ Mo’s albums, this one reflects his personal passions and interests. We learned from Keb’ Mo’s recent […]

The Austin-based duo of long-time friends Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance are the driving force behind Jamestown Revival who deliver their third album, San Isabel, named for the location of the remote cabin studio where the album was recorded overlooking the San Isabel National Forest in Buena Vista, CO. As you listen to the breathtaking […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on American Love Song, the new album from country rocker Ryan Bingham, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):