Album Reviews

Railroad Earth's fifth and self titled studio release will paint a totally new picture of this New Jersey souped up string band. On Railroad Earth you will notice it is much different from their previous affectionate themed album, Amen Corner

Penny Sparkle's release date is perfectly timed, because in many ways this album is a perfectly reflective album for the transition to fall and winter; it is an album by which to contemplate things of heady nature over a glass of something dark and swirling, a fire in the background, the wind howling outside. It is an album that pushes the listener to find a mechanism for uplift in sonically-downbeat mining of the human experience.

Chamber Music Society, co-produced by Ms. Spalding and Gil Goldstein, embodies a sense of wholeness as the tracks have a flowing connective nature to them.  Deviating from a standard rhythm, Ms. Spalding twines multiple time signatures together on “Really Very Small” which features her free floating vocals and a reoccurring bass line complemented with a tangential piano riff.  

Mike Farris has been to hell and back, and listening to The Night the Cumberland Came Alive is further proof of what salvation—both in the physical and spiritual sense—has done for him.

Four years after “Live, Vol 2” was recorded in 2005, the Avett Brothers this month release Live Volume 3, , and it’s interesting to compare the two releases to see what the Brothers have been up to over the past four  years.

The duo of drummer Dean Spunt and guitarist Randy Randall have gained a lot of buzz as No Age and their newest release Everything In Between proves that the hype is well earned.  The art-punk-pop LA fellas have crafted the rare beast: a catchy, freaked-out pasture of pumping drums and squealing guitars contained in garage DIY style that is not only listenable, but engaging. 

The Budos Band has been playing their brand of “Afro Soul” since 2005, where they’ve recorded at their label's own studio, Daptone's House of Soul, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Their brand of Afro Soul can best be described as “Ethiopian music with a soul undercurrent to it, sprinkled with a little bit of sweet 60's stuff on top.

Put together musicians who have played with Zeppelin, Deep Purple and others and you should expect a concoction of ‘70s era hard rock with a blues belting vocal delivery. The new “super group” Black Country Communion is just that. Featuring Glenn Hughes on vocals, master blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa, and Jason Bonham on drums, the band plow through a heavy, riff-saturated opener entitled “Black Country” with Hughes planting himself firmly inside the rocker.

So is No Chocolate Cake any good?  Honestly, it sounds a heck of a lot like New Miserable Experience, except not as memorable.  The band’s sound is almost identical to what it was in its heyday but that’s not really a terrible thing.  I didn’t expect anything super adventurous.  The hooks are still plaintively sung just not as often as indelible. 

If a theme can be gleaned from the album it is that of a man stepping out from the shadows and becoming independent in a crazy and complex world.  Fitting perhaps, since Ben Crum is now finally free to follow his musical whims as the solo self-proclaimed “Great Lake”