Album Reviews

Duff McKagan, best known as the bass player for Guns N’ Roses, was considered the punk voice within the band, giving their songs a harder edge, in addition to his sublimely melodic bass playing. However, on Tenderness, working closely with country singer/songwriter Shooter Jennings, McKagan has crafted a contemporary, politically aware American version of the […]

When Australia’s Charlie Collins was still just a precocious pre-teen, she jumped onstage at a local pub for a guerrilla performance of the classic country songs she had spent her childhood absorbing (Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Emmylou Harris). As Australia’s country music capital, Collins’ hometown of Tamworth was an ideal environment for steeping […]

One of the great things about Left Lane Cruiser is that this band from Fort Wayne, Indiana doesn’t really sound like any other band. With nasty slide guitar licks from Freddy J IV and the pounding beats of Pete Dio, this band produces a sound that you’re not likely to hear from too many other […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on Morbid Stuff, the new album from Canadian punk rockers PUP, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

The name for the duo, ESOEBO, is an acronym for Eclectic Selections of Everything but Opera.  While it might be a convenient way to describe their music, it leaves plenty to be desired from a marketing standpoint. That aside, the music that singer-songwriter Chuck McDowell and vocalist-cellist Gail Burnett lay down with the support of […]

Ah, the devastation of the breakup album. You’ve probably heard several but it’s not likely that you’ve heard one as piercing as Seen Enough Leavers, the third release from East Nashville singer-songwriter Meghan Hayes. So, it begs the question of why one would want to listen to songs full of despair, spite, and pain.  There […]

Over the past decade, Vancouver-based Black Mountain have never been afraid to experiment with their sound. While each of their past albums holds a nostalgic sound of the 70’s, each also has its own distinct personalities. Where their self-titled debut album referenced the music of early Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane, Black Mountain’s newest album […]

In a seemingly parallel universe from fellow Atlanta native Lil Nas X’s country-rap juggernaut “Old Town Road” topping the charts for the seventh straight week, 21-year-old Faye Webster drops her 3rd full-length album Atlanta Millionaires Club on Secretly Canadian. Webster, a consummate ATLien whose passions include the Braves, yo-yo-ing and photography, lives and breathes southern R&B […]

Shades of Shirley Horn represents a lifelong dream of sorts for D.C.-based vocalist Coniece Washington, who grew up with Horn and other female jazz vocalists like Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, Billy Holiday and Carmen McRae as her main influences.  Of course, Horn was one of the major jazz talents that hailed from Washington […]

Pianist Dred Scott has a mind-blowing versatile resume that could stand with anyone’s, yet he remains under the radar for many.  We usually categorize in an artist in some genre and that would be jazz for Scott although he and his bands have also backed the biggest names in roots and pop with Levon Helm, […]

NYC-based jazz guitarist Larry Corban delivers his fifth recording as a leader. Emergence is styled mostly on straight-ahead mid-sixties Blue Note jazz, half played with the Aperturistic Trio (pianist James Weidman, bassist Harvie S, drummer Steve Williams) and half where the four are joined by blazing tenor saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi. The Aperturistic Trio has been […]

Back in 2008 the San Francisco based Thee Oh Sees (now they are Oh Sees) were going through a transitional period and released a quirky live album/DVD titled Thee Hounds of Foggy Notion. Now that album is being re-released through Castle Face records. The live offering is a psych-folk mix of fuzzed out tunes; the […]

For all the expanse of the previous Waterboys’ album—three CD’s containing thirty-four tracks in its most grand form-there was no cut boasting its title Out Of All this Blue. There is such a tune on Where The Action Is, however, and it functions like a subtext to a piece of work as lucid as it […]

Frankie Lee burst onto the scene in 2016, as an unknown, quickly signed to Sturgill Simpson’s label, and proceeded to deliver the highly acclaimed American Dreamer, which some prestigious outlets dubbed as the year’s best debut. In that album, recorded during time spent working alone on a pig farm and living in St. Paul, MN; […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, the new album from Billie Eilish, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

Justin Townes Earle plies several styles on The Saint of Lost Causes, but it reads primarily as a blues album. The topical matter at hand is not pretty. Perhaps it’s because Earle feels fortunate, having conquered his own battles with addiction through stints in rehab, and general bad boy behavior, transforming to a married father […]

Age has not diminished one bit of Mavis Staples’ passion. On the Ben Harper written and produced We Get By, Staples has delivered her best recording in perhaps fifteen years. It’s the cohesive writing of Harper, his decision to record Mavis with her road band, and terrific engineering that showcases Staples’ classic voice. Oh, and […]

Steel Pulse is a band that has been around for 40 years producing reggae songs about social justice. Mass Manipulation is the band’s first album in 15 years, but the quest for social justice is as strong now as it’s ever been. One of the amazing things about this album is not the heavy topics […]

This past November vocalist, composer and producer Vivian Sessoms released Life, her first full album in ten years, to much acclaim and now the much-anticipated companion, Life II, follows. It’s a jazz-influenced piece that carries elements of R&B, spoken word, and hints of classical. Sessoms is one who likes to push the boundaries and this […]

Following 2017’s stellar Sleep Well Beast and surrounding world tours, no one would have begrudged the gents of The National a well-earned break. Beyond that, there was something distinctly final about that record that felt like a resolution of some kind. Understated and refined, there was a sense that the haunted and middle-aged weariness always […]