Album Reviews

Since their formation in 1986, Big Head Todd & the Monsters have been living steadfastly on their diet of rock and roll, served with

Tantric is a Louisville, KY, based quartet specializing in the staple, hard-rock/heavy metal genre that has been a mainstay of many FM stations for the past few decades. It

Simple can be beautiful.

Forget about the controversy surrounding the hijacking of a classic Beatles album. Forget about the misuse of the

If love-torn, boy-pop is what you want, you are much better off with John Mayer than this distant runner up.

Feels Like Home builds on the jazzy-pop sounds that made Jones’ debut album, Come Away With Me, such a huge success, but broadens the playing field a little wider by also venturing into the styles of bluegrass and country. Norah’s gentle voice and subtle piano playing is somehow both relaxing and energizing at the same time, and the album opener and first single, “Sunrise,” pulls you in from the get go with her soulful vocals.

Bluegrass legend Del McCoury pipes a

Just Because I

Steve Morse is the guitar virtuoso behind Deep Purple, the Dixie Dregs, and the Steve Morse band. He

One strum of a guitar and then Edie Brickell

The only promise these tunes can deliver is one for the cult lavish, who enjoy their music on the dirty and dark side. It’s been said the Liars frenzied live performances are quite the catch on the New York scene, so hopefully that energy is a bit more cohesive than the one preserved on record.

Betty

Before changing their name to the Ryan Cavanaugh Trio earlier this year – due to the departure of percussionist Chris Dougherty – Space Station Integration released Live from Nowhere. Fusing the traditional banjo with high-energy, jazz-fusion, Cavanaugh and company heighten the bluegrass bar by further adding elements of rock, bluegrass, funk, Celtic and Indian to the mix. All done of course with a definitive focus on improvisation.

Backed by remarkably accomplished musicians, including acoustic guitar role model Bryan Sutton and steel guitar master Dan Dugmore, Ms. Smith seems satisfied with pretty acoustic arrangements that only rarely give way to more aggressive expressions. It’s not a bad formula, as shown in “Angel Doves,” but it dominates the disc until the listener’s stupor is interrupted by the processed vocals of “Hard to Know,” a near-rocker that would be far more convincing if Ms. Smith’s tenuous voice could carry the voltage she wrote into the tune.

Working on solo projects outside a touring band has become commonplace, but recording and touring with two bands above and beyond a solo career is a rarity. The unassuming focal point of a small, simmering music scene in Boston, keyboardist/composer Neil Larson is usually found bringing the synth-madness to Amun Ra and moonlighting with Nikulydin, but has somehow managed to keep his day job as solo artist, Dr Nigel.

Phantom Planet is still trying to find their identity. After two moderately successful albums of melancholy, California pop rock, Phantom Planet has taken a cue from some of their East Coast counterparts and released a self-titled LP of straightforward, guitar driven rock. Offering their best Strokes imitation, Phantom Planet has concocted a solid post-punk/post-grunge album that becomes more engaging upon each listen.

Teitur, a self-professed troubadour from Denmark’s Faroe Islands is a songwriter first and foremost, as he manages to blend voice and poetry into a polished acoustic realm – think Badly Drawn Boy or Coldplay with a splash less rock and roll. But it’s his acoustic confessional lyrics, with a knack for gentle pop harmonies that make Poetry and Aeroplanes, a collection of twelve stark confessional pangs, a cozy listen.

With a mix of instrumentals and compositions featuring guest vocalists, the album has two distinct feels – one of vital rock and one of 80’s throwback. But it’s the strong guest vocal numbers, such as David Bowie’s spectral croon on “Isn’t It Evening,” adding a mysterious aura over Slicks’s subtle guitar fades that provides us with a handful of ripe moments.

Joss Stone may only be 16 years old, but with radiating pipes that can jump start a dead battery in the dead of winter, age is a mere afterthought on her debut – The Soul Sessions. Displaying the explosive anguish of Aretha Franklin, this young blonde from the Southwest of England surely hits the sweet spot, while taking the listener back to the early 70s’ era of Motown and adding her own 21st century spin.

Not to be confused with its soundtrack follow up The September Sessions, Thicker Than Water serves as Jack Johnson’s coming out party – as filmmaker and musician. Although the film is defined as a collection of images and memories hauled in for an eighteen month journey through the North Atlantic, South Pacific and the Bay of Bengal; Johnson’s music plays a small part in this compilation featuring ten different artists.