Album Reviews

[rating=8.00] Jeffrey Foucault gives this one more breathing room, emerging from the beautiful, stark darkness of his previous release, the wonderful Salt As Wolves.  This time out, with Blood Brothers Foucault and his cohorts aren’t in a bluesy mode but instead fuse elements of folk, country, R&B, and slights hints of gospel and rock n’ […]

[rating=6.00] so sad so sexy, the fourth album by Swedish singer Lykke Li is another reinvention for an artist who has covered different sonic terrain on each album. Previous album I Never Learn is the slowest and softest album in Li’s catalog, thriving on its excellent melodies but suffering from a lack of variety. Follow-up […]

[rating=9.00] Gene Clark, the ill-fated troubadour, singer and songwriter, once at the helm of the Byrds and provider of further inspiration to legions of Americana warriors and wannabes that would follow him in the decades after, has become the stuff of legend. Forever wandering, from the aforementioned California combo to solitary retreat and then back […]

[rating=7.00] In the decades following the dissolution of The Smiths it seemed that Johnny Marr was content to sit on the sidelines, offering his immeasurable talent to other songwriters. The past three decades have found Marr playing as a member of Modest Mouse, The Pretenders and many others.  However, until 2013 Marr had only put […]

[rating=8.00] Too often in this cruel music business the best musicians are under-recognized and/or underappreciated. Steve Dawson – master guitarist, songwriter, producer, and label head for Canada’s Black Hen Music is a prime example. In addition to his many sideman and producer efforts, Lucky Hand is Dawson’s eighth solo album and his first fully instrumental […]

[rating=7.00] Here We Go Love, the first album in 36 years by Dave Wakeling and company (appropriately enough on their own Here We Go Records) isn’t all that dissimilar from the best of their early work, itself an oasis in the arguable musical drought that was the decade of the Eighties. As with the opener […]

[rating=8.00] Buddy Guy’s partnership with producer and songwriter Tom Hambridge has made him quite successful, as we now find Guy in his eighth decade. And, according to Guy, one of the last original Chicago blues legends, with this release, The Blues Is Alive and Well. Listening to Guy sing the blues makes one wonder who […]

[rating=8.00] R+R = NOW is a collective, brought together by Robert Glasper as a genre-smashing outfit that speaks out not as much in a protest mode, but more about expressing resiliency and hope.  Each member is a player, composer, and producer on their own, so they are individually visionary. Combining them makes for album with […]

[rating=8.00] Until his relatively surprising Grammy win in 2016, many of us were not familiar with Fantastic Negrito (a.k.a. Bay Area-based artist Xavier Dphrepaulezz (pronounced Deh-frep-aw-lez). Now he encores that winning album, The Last Days of Oakland, with the highly anticipated Please Don’t Be Dead, another assault on the sweeping tides of gentrification and the […]

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