Album Reviews

As the holiday season approaches, Barenaked Ladies fans have an extra reason to celebrate with the worldwide vinyl debut of Barenaked for the Holidays, brought to listeners for the first time by Craft Recordings. Originally released in 2004, this festive album quickly became a favorite among fans of the Canadian alt-pop group, known for their […]

Sonora Ponceña’s Sabor Sureño is a sparkling gem from the salsa golden era, and the 50th-anniversary reissue highlights why this album remains a cornerstone of Puerto Rican music. Released in 1974, Sabor Sureño captures the band’s inventive fusion of traditional Afro-Caribbean rhythms, jazz, and intricate storytelling. Bandleader Papo Lucca’s signature touch on the piano and […]

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1982 album Long After Dark deserves the expanded reissue treatment of its two-CD and one Blu-Ray package. A somewhat underappreciated entry into this great American rock and roll band’s lengthy discography, the ten tracks of the original edition—here remastered by Chris Bellman to resounding effect—receive further validation from the inclusion of a […]

With the surprise announcement of a new album, Fate & Alcohol, the Japandroids reinvigorated their fanbase. Then, they immediately deflated it by saying the group was over, and this would be the last musical statement from Brian King and David Prowse. Who knows if that holds true—forever is a long time—but if it does, the […]

It seems like we were just getting to know the young spiritual jazz force Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few, who are calling it quits after an eight-year run and three albums. Their awareness level has never been higher, as evidenced by a full-length piece in The New York Times earlier this month. Yet saxophonist […]

Little Big III is pianist/composer Aaron Parks’s sixth album as a leader and his second for Blue Note. Between his groundbreaking 2008 Blue Note debut, Invisible Cinema, Parks has issued a solo piano, two trios, and two albums with his Little Big quartet.  Parks cut his chops with Terence Blanchard in the early 2000s and made a […]

Folk and blues legend Eric Bibb has racked up numerous BMA Awards and Grammy nominations over five decades and now 33 albums. His input is consistently strong, yet In The Real World stands with his best because it’s one of the few with all original material, and it has perhaps the most pristine production of any […]

Roy Hargrove was the most influential post-Miles Davis trumpeter and one of the most important mentors to many of today’s contemporary jazz artists. Hargrove left us way too soon at the age of 49, yet he was massively prolific, which is why archivists are doing everything possible to unearth his unheard recordings. The album is […]

In the early ‘80s, The dB’s mixed pop-rock with punk and dashes of psychedelia and  experimentation to spawn a new sub-genre called ‘jangle pop.’ Their influential sound was later adopted in some ways by R.E.M., The Bangles, The Smithereens, and The Replacements, among many others. In general and less specific terms, let’s say that The […]

After the surprisingly warm and soft Brighten in 2021, Jerry Cantrell returns to what he does best with I Want Blood. The alt-rock pioneer has always experimented with his sound, such as mainly going acoustic on Alice in Chains’ Jar of Flies, adding a bit of twang on Degradation Trip, and playing with various vocal […]