So, what do you expect from a band called Scream Hello? I mean if it was Say Hello or Scream I Hate You, it'd be easy to form some preconception, but Scream Hello? Who knows. As it turns out, the name fits the band perfectly.
Hold onto to your headphones as Skeletal is more all-night dance mix than cohesive album – what some might call brilliant and others call unfocused and cracked out. Listen at your own risk.
Long considered (and often stereotyped) as the conscience of California singer/songwriters, Jackson Browne has swung back and forth between the personal and political during the course of his career. He achieved a fine, if precarious, balance between the two schools of thought on his last studio recording, The Naked Ride Home, and on this, his first album of original material for his own record label, is almost equally artful.
DOA is DOA and will likely always be, God bless them, DOA. If you're expecting something other than aggressive politico-punk from these guys, guess again. They still wrap up left-wing politics into simple, heartfelt songs whose anger and outrage never overarch their equal doses of life and fun
Bob Dylan has long taken a decidedly unconventional stance toward his recordings so it should come as no surprise he’s demonstrated the same non-traditional tendency for his archive project. Notwithstanding the significance of landmark recordings such as The Royal Albert Hall Concert and Live 1964 Concert at Philharmonic Hall, the highlights of “The Bootleg Series” consist of Volumes 1-3 released in 1991 and now Volume 8, both of which are subtitled “Rare and Unreleased.”
Cardinology isn’t the strongest Ryan Adams release to date, not even close, but it flows as a cohesive song cycle, perhaps a step forward for an artist who has recently struggled with those inner demons.
Arguably one of the architects of alternative rock, Matthew Sweet is nevertheless a pop traditionalist of the highest order. His watershed 1991 album Girlfriend, like more diverse productions such as In Reverse and Living Things, is centered on the work of a compact rock and roll combo and so too is Sunshine Lies.
The Baseball Project, made up of Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate/Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3), Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows/Minus 5), Linda Pitmon (Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3) and Peter Buck (REM), is not simply a group of accomplished musicians who happen to like baseball, but rather a group as well-versed in baseball's deep human history as they are in America's musical tradition. This thoroughly American collection of songs about baseball, like the sport itself, is about so much more, because the band sees beyond the superficial.
The Avett Brothers' breakthrough album, last year's Emotionalism, was a work whose broad influences were felt throughout and whose quiet ambition made it both huge and intimate at the same time. The Second Gleam, while keeping to the Avett's signature sound, doesn't share its predecessor's breadth.
Lee “Scratch” Perry is known for his role as the legendary Jamaican producer who helped usher in the genre of dub music over 40 years ago. Featuring experimental and spacey bass-laden effects on lyric-less versions of reggae classics, a new genre grew and was popularized by the storied producer. Having created and worked on countless albums with every dub artist imaginable, the storied Grammy winning icon is back with his 54th studio album, Repentance.
