Album Reviews

Over the Rhine has negotiated their space among contemporary music as inhabiting both old and new, bringing in elements of the past and updating them with intimate production, razor-sharp arrangements and excellent songwriting. One of their main weaknesses, however, has been in the parallel and often uniform sound that they have across their oeuvre, and that's fairly apparent on The Long Surrender.

Five O’ Clock Heroes, a band of UK expats living in New York City, have released their first proper American album.  A healthy, smart mix of pop jangle, the band wears its various influences on its sleeve, blending together a medley of crisp guitars, bass, and soulful organ fills into something distinctly familiar yet satisfying and enjoyable. 

Low Country Blues, Allman’s first solo album since 1997 and produced by  – who else these days  T Bone Burnett- pays homage to his roots with a reworking of songs from Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Otis Rush, Skip James and more. Burnett has assembled a band that includes guitarist Doyle Bramhall II and Dr. John to capture the spirit of swamps blues and themes of regret, tears and redemption.   Allman’s voice stars front and center, a breather from competing with the guitar acrobats of the fertile gunslingers in his “other” band.

On Flags, Brooke Fraser demonstrates that she is not just another in a long line of pop singer-songwriters who get by on their looks and marginal talent. Her observations alone about the human condition cause this collection of songs to rise above the efforts of many of her contemporaries, and her rich vocals combine with the plethora of piano pop rock sounds and sometimes otherworldly accompaniments to make the whole experience even more impressive.

A laid back precision may be Bright Examples hallmark.  That place where music surges gracefully like a passing river in a crystal moonlit night.  This music is simultaneously hushed and vibrant, pulsing and meticulous, lucid and a little scruffy. 

Tom Petty & the Heartbreaker’s Damn the Torpedoes was the band’s breakthrough album, launching an ascent to rock icon status via a painstaking (and often painful) creative process. The combination of the band’s third album in an expanded package with a simultaneously released DVD would’ve made for a truly deluxe edition.

On Kaputt, Bejar’s full-length follow-up to 2009’s Bay of Pigs EP, the formula that has worked so well on past releases returns, however, this time with a twist: an ‘80’s jazz-fused, electronic sound more in line with Roxy Music and Spandau Ballet than previous albums have revealed.

The Greenhornes fourth album is cleverly and aptly titled as they return to the retro-garage-psychedelic-pop proceedings that they perfected at the beginning of the millennium.  The jangle and aggression have been turned down to focus hardcore on keyboards, simple song structures and trippy blends of sound; all of which are evident on the eastern tempo change mayhem of “Cave Drawings” and the classic soul ringing “Better Off Without It”.

The Promise consists of material Bruce Springsteen wrote and recorded in 1977 and 1978 in the process of preparing Darkness on the Edge of Town. In his essay in the accompanying booklet, Springsteen tries to explain why he’s gone to such lengths in revisiting this album but he ultimately misses the point in describing the significance of the most musically and emotionally pure work he’s ever recorded (this side of Tunnel of Love).

After a seven year sabbatical taken to concentrate on family, New Jersey singer/songwriter Kate Jacobs returns with her fifth album.  Recorded with her long-time band, Paul Moschella,  James MacMillan,  and Dave Schramm, who also produced the album, Home Game is a delightful collection devoted to the art of the three minute acoustic pop song, though two of them do clock in at a comparatively long four minutes.