Album Reviews

[rating=8.00] With Jillette Johnson’s sophomore album produced by Dave Cobb, who’s worked with current contemporary country heavyweights Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson and Chris Stapleton; the expectations have to be high. Nevertheless, Johnson’s powers of self-expression on All I Ever See In You Is Me via Rounder, makes the album a companion piece to another one of […]

[rating=8.00] Being that Melbourne is the live music capital of Australia, it’s no surprise that their output is finally getting noticed around the world. From the psych-rock bands like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and The Baudelaires to the garage rock of The Drones and Courtney Barnett. Though having been a respected songwriter in […]

[rating=7.00] This latest entry from the humbly titled Hard Working Americans finds them doing what they do best, procuring crowd appreciation in a live setting. We’re All In This Together marks the band’s second live offering to date — following The First Waltz in 2014 — and fourth overall, but once again it finds them […]

[rating=9.00] “Let’s remember how it could be,” Matt Pond, the ubiquitous namesake of the band that bears his name, sings on “Union Square,” a song that emits an upward glance and all the optimism Pond seems able to muster. A tepid look towards the future surrounded by songs that reflect dreamily on the past, it […]

[rating=8.00] Paul Kelly’s Life Is Fine may not rise and fall on the chime of electric guitars as loudly as his 2015 live double CD with Neil Finn Goin’ Your Way. But that collaboration must’ve inspired Kelly’s latest solo album nonetheless because, in comparison to other recent and decidedly more arcane projects of his (original […]

[rating=8.00] What’s your favorite debut album by an artist, ever? How about a sophomore album? Well, Robert Pollard has released one hundred albums, culminating in August by Cake (2017). Yet, he miraculously still has more to say with his one hundred and first. How Do You Spell Heaven is revelatory less for its sound than […]

[rating=9.00] There’s no shortage of troubled troubadours documenting the legacy of America’s rural environs and the places where dreams and desire are frequently spawned. For his part, Will Hoge recognizes that even the most indelible epics are essentially born from individual ordeals. Nevertheless, for all the ache and desperation these narratives entail, Hoge’s resolute attitude, […]

In the newest installment of Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle reviews Purgatory, the new album from Kentucky storyteller Tyler Childers, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

[rating=6.00] Eight albums into his decorated blues rock career, guitar virtuoso Kenny Wayne Shepherd is ready for a change. He is no longer the fresh-faced six-string gunslinger dropping jaws with his fretboard mastery. With Lay It On Down, Shepherd and the band deliver roots rock that is mostly devoid of the flare that once characterized […]

[rating=8.00 Dark Matter, Randy Newman’s first new album of the 2010s, is his wildest and wooliest yet. That is, if you don’t count his 1979 album Born Again – where Newman threatened public indecency, tormented the Electric Light Orchestra, and sang as a homophobe who suddenly realizes he’s gay as he’s about to commit assault […]