Album Reviews

[rating=9.00] From the opening strum of “Life Is Confusing,” it’s clear that Langhorne Slim is on to something special here with Lost at Last Vol. 1. That “something” becomes more evident as his new album progresses, seamlessly segueing from one song to another, a song cycle of sorts that explores Slim’s contention, as stated in […]

[rating=8.00] Big Head Todd and The Monsters’ 2014 album Black Beehive radiated a sense of the self- discovery no doubt sourced in 100 Years of  Robert Johnson, their homage to a blues icon from three years prior. The quartet reconfigured themselves again as the ‘Big Head Blues Club’ last year to pay tribute to Willie […]

[rating=8.00] For whatever Blitzen Trapper has accomplished — or failed to accomplish — in their prolific career, they’ve yet to connect with the wider audience they deserve. Perhaps it has something to do with the ambiguity of their handle, or their general refusal to be confined to any one genre. No matter. Wild and Reckless, […]

In the newest installment of Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle reviews Losing, the new album from heavy rock and roll outfit Bully, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

[rating-7.00] Burlington, Vermont’s own Henry Jamison recounts a story in song, almost a rite of passage, during his first full-length LP The Wilds. The intimate, largely acoustic setting of this record aids in turning universal, not to mention accessible, his first-person experience(s) and healthily-detached observations. The literary detail Jamison applies to lyrics like those of […]

[rating=9.00] Nearly forty years after their initial incarnation, Squeeze remains the band that just can’t quit. Well, almost. After a series of break-ups and subsequent reunions that waylaid them for nearly a dozen years, founders, composers and chief mainstays Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook still find an ideal combination needed to resurrect their sunny sound […]

[rating=9.00] Grab a thirty rack of Pabst, a liter of cheap whisky, and call up the boys because “New York City’s favorite hard-workin’ rock n’ roll band” Dirty Fences is back and ready to party down. Goodbye Love, the group’s third studio album and follow-up to 2015’s Full Tramp finds the Brooklyn-based rabble rousers kicking […]

[rating=8.00] Steve Kimock has amassed an impressive resume during the course of a varied career to which he adds significantly with Satellite City, quite like one of the year’s best albums. Having toured with the post-Garcia Dead offshoot the Other Ones and the Rhythm Devils (which also featured Phish’s Mike Gordon), he most recently became […]

In the newest installment of Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle reviews Don’t Go Baby It’s Gonna Get Weird Without You, the new album from gritty alt-country outfit Porter and The Bluebonnet Rattlesnakes, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. The album was released approximately a year after the band’s front man Chris Porter was killed tragically in a car accident while on tour. Click […]

[rating=6.00] It doesn’t require a great voice like Joan Osborne’s to do justice to Bob Dylan’s songs. But it does call for a clear vision in choosing the material as well as an equally lucid concept of how to arrange and play it. Songs of Bob Dylan is a mixed bag precisely because the combination […]