Album Reviews

[rating=8.00] Nickel Creek co-founder Sean Watkins boasts a solid solo catalog of three prior albums, and the mournful All I Do Is Lie may be his best independent effort to date. Primarily a collection of gentle and accessible love songs, the album quietly addresses disharmony within dying relationships, examining the corrosion of ill-fated romances. Shifting […]

[rating=7.oo] Despite a lack of what would be perceived as “commercial success” (ten years has passed since the release of the band’s timeless single “Wagon Wheel”) Old Crow Medicine Show continues to create original, unique music.  Their eclectic sound has been described as everything from blues to folk to country to roots rock to hillbilly […]

[rating=7.00] On his tenth album, Noise vs. Beauty, Lorin Ashton’s message to the public is hinted at through the title. In a recent fan Q&A, he discussed “the spectrum between highly opposing extremes like the noise of pop/mainstream EDM (which I feel alienated by) and the beauty of deep, meaningful music which stirs your soul.” Fittingly, this […]

[rating=9.00] Fans of Tim Easton who aren’t yet familiar with his side project Easton Stagger Phillips will want to catch up quickly. The trio’s second album Resolution Road is a fantastic collection of songs that will undoubtedly appeal to country, folk, pop and rock ears alike. Easton Stagger Phillips is made up of Easton, Leeroy […]

[rating=8.00] “If you’re feeling overflowing, Throw your hands up to the sky; If your minds exploding, Grab yourself a seat – it’s time to ride.” – Pigeons Playing Ping Pong The jam band genre is thriving with the help of a new generation of talented and ambitious acts like Pigeons Playing Ping Pong.  Their newest […]

[rating=6.00] On  Mutineers, David Gray’s first release in four years, the problem is not that he has left the building, but rather that he is lost down a better forgotten corridor. With 2005’s Life in Slow Motion, English singer/songwriter David Gray released the album that his fellow countrymen in Coldplay should have recorded following their […]

[rating=8.00] As a means to simultaneously address their longevity as an ensemble (they just hit their thirtieth anniversary December of 2013) and the challenge facing a fundamentally improvisational unit recording in the confines of the studio, Phish began working on Fuego as a collective endeavor in composition. That original concept changed as Bob Ezrin (Alice […]

[rating=7.00] Upon first listen of Bad Suns’ full length debut Language & Perspective, one would think they were listening to something straight out of the Depeche Mode registry, but the Los Angeles natives (who seem to have a flare for everything good about 80’s new wave) are carving out a name for themselves, even if […]

[rating=8.00] Knoxville’s The Dirty Guv’nahs are quickly becoming one of the premiere live acts in the Southeast.  They have all the ingredients needed to be a successful rock band: charismatic lead singer, bombastic live show, impressive musicianship, a growing and dedicated fanbase, and workmanlike studio albums.  With the release of their fourth album, Hearts on […]

[rating=5.00] With his latest ‘new’ release, a novel collaboration with jack White, Neil Young continues to redefine the career path of the veteran rock musician, often eschewing formal releases of new original material within familiar concepts and styles (leaving those to archive titles) and instead aiming for the idiosyncratic likes of this rumination on his […]

[rating=9.00] The newest release from the constantly retro looking showman Jack White is titled Lazaretto which is a quarantine station for sailors. White has stated in recent interviews he would like to be locked up so he would be forced to stop creating/working as he finds himself doing something 24/7. The album reflects that: feeling […]

[rating=8.00] Bob Mould has spent a substantial amount of time looking back recently. In 2011, he released a revealing and candid autobiography. The next year brought expanded reissues of his work with Sugar. In 2013, Mould kickstarted a concert video that featured rock luminaries paying tribute to him and his body of work. Earlier this […]

[rating=8.00] For their eighth studio release, Umphrey’s McGee set out to make a rock and roll album. Similar Skin sounds huge and clean and finds the band locked into some of their heavier material. It’s the most intense album they’ve released yet, the result of a more focused approach.  Umphrey’s has never fallen into the […]

[rating=9.00] The Sharon Van Etten you’ve gotten to know on her last two records Epic and Tramp, respectively, has made some major changes. Her newest release Are We There is more lucid and much bigger, making waves with more pop-heavy melodies and a quicker pulse than we’re used to from her. And it’s really something […]

Live in Holland 1976 is an ideal companion piece to the previously released Little Feat DVD Skin It Back recorded in Germany in 1977. On the latter, Lowell George was no longer titular leader of the group, but rather well into his withdrawal from that role as he acquiesced to the creative input of keyboardist […]

[rating=6.00] It’s been nearly a decade since Conor Oberst followed up a few preceding years of solid work with his masterpiece, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. That album, released under his Bright Eyes moniker, has stood up nicely over the ensuing years, and continues to be cited time and again by critics and fans alike, […]

[rating=6.00] In his first full length recording, Built on Glass, Australian artist Chet Faker (humanly named Nick Murphy), sets you down within an electronic haze of emotion. His fascination for jazz is well documented on the record with the looseness of sounds and open space outside of the verses, along with the use of a […]

It’s a shame that some people only know of the late Harry Nilsson via his association with his onetime drinking buddy John Lennon. Sure the two raised more than a few ruckuses in their day, but more importantly,  Harry Nilsson, who passed away in 1994, was a gifted singer/songwriter with a multi-octave voice. He was […]

[rating=7.00] Thirty years ago, while Aimee Mann was on the cusp of the biggest hit of her mighty career as a member of Til Tuesday with “Voices Carry”, Ted Leo was a Seton Hall prep school kid woodshedding his love for punk and hardcore on the New York City underground scene. Yet while the two […]

[rating=8.00] I saved Latin! What did you ever do?” utters Rushmore’s quirky protagonist Max Fischer during a climactic moment of the excellent 1998 film. And, while the question was exclaimed rhetorically at the time, the folks at American Laundromat Records, can actually come back with a retort. In a move that surprisingly hasn’t previously been […]