Album Reviews

Earth

If I had a list with my 100 all time favorite recordings, They Only Come Out At Night would be on it, but mainly for two songs,

Aliza Grant AKA LSA (Life

Aloneaphobe is Steven Mark

Posthumous albums often tend to be a forced effort from record companies to squeeze every last penny out of an unfortunate circumstance. Rarely do you find an artist with an extensive catalog worthy of such legacy. But it

Bob Pollard is Guided by Voices. He is the main and only constant in the lineup from Dayton, Ohio that churned out 17 full length albums in their nearly 20 year tenure on the indie scene. If you don

It

Kids today, man. They

Even though they’re better known for their touring vehicle- a converted bus powered by recycled vegetable oil and biodiesel – and recently dropped the “String Band” from their moniker, there’s no hiding who Hot Buttered Rum really are. With their aptly titled second full length studio album, Well-Oiled Machine, the roots-grass band goes where fellow pickers like Yonder Mountain String Band have ventured before, successfully churning acoustic bluegrass with folk.

Old 97

The debut, produced by Aaron Katz (Percy Hill), surfaces with the radio pop of Jason Mraz mingled with the more introspective songwriting of Mason Jennings.

Laid out in theatre format and playing like the soundtrack to a mid century German film on existentialism produced by a floundering grad student, Book of Sand’s music bores from start to finish. The three main movements titled “The Century Trilogy: Conquest, Empire and The Fall” are grandiose in title only. The album is fundamentally instrumental with random chanting; some of it from guest Devendra Banhart, however the ghostly wails do nothing to further the music in any direction.

Rhino has remastered and repackaged two of the most classic Crosby, Stills, and Nash recordings. The groundbreaking self-titled debut and Daylight Again, with its interesting cover design, now sound magnificent reformatted in HDCD.

Heavy Ornamentals, the eighth album from The Gourds, contains thirteen new songs that are full of the classic Gourd elements – enigmatic lyrics, soaring melodies and an unfettered sense of musical freedom.

Take the outlandish theatrics away from the Flaming Lips and you get the bare-boned lo-fi twisted pop hymns of East River Pipe. The man behind the New Jersey namesake is none other than F.M. Cornog, whose spacey voice clearly provokes the question holding the title of his latest release

The former Pogues cover band plays a brand of Celtic rock that will get your fist a shakin

The reason why XTC has been fortunate enough to continue to release records is because of their exceedingly dedicated following who snaps up anything that the songwriting team of guitarist Andy Partridge and bassist Colin Moulding have released. Whether their
Ravenous faction will purchase the 54 track box set Apple Box is not clear, since the tracks come from the previously released Apple Venus, Wasp Star, Homespun, and Homegrown, four albums aficionados undoubtedly have.

This fourth installment of their live series, Mountain Tracks, is a double serving that includes one audio disc and a bonus DVD entitled ‘The Europe Bootlegs.’

Rolla is the union of Deep Banana Blackout guitarist Fuzz and singer/songwriter Carrie Ernst. On their debut album La La Land, the accord created between the two leads can be exquisite, as Fuzz leaves the funk for a more straight-forward organic pop sound. Fuzz

Finally a compilation of the best of their incredible two albums released on MuSick Records including live cuts and some unreleased studio gems.