Album Reviews

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on Emotional Contacts, the new album from Deer Tick, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

Malcolm Holcombe didn’t know whether “Bits and Pieces” would be released while he was alive or whether it might happen posthumously after he received a cancer diagnosis in 2022. Upon learning such, he soon called upon his longtime musical partner, multi-instrumentalist Jared Tyler, to lay down these tracks, not knowing his eventual fate. The good […]

With her many appearances on record and in performance with Jason Isbell and His 400 Unit, along with the high profile of the super group, The Highwomen, likely have many fans of each thinking that Amanda Shires is a Nashville type or at least a true Southerner. Yet, Shires, who began playing fiddle with the legendary […]

Robert Plant has made three appearances in Tucson over the last 12 years, yet he finally made his first appearance with bluegrass icon Alison Krauss, a frequent collaborator. The two vocal all-stars were welcomed by a sold-out crowd at the University of Arizona’s Centennial Hall on June 15th.  Krauss, twenty years Plant’s junior, has been […]

Sara Petite is a singer-songwriter from San Diego that has the roots of country music running through her. She can sound as feisty as Loretta Lynn and Wanda Jackson, and she is just as good at portraying heartache as Patsy Cline. It’s practically impossible to listen to her albums without feeling something. If you have […]

Add Pat Metheny’s Dream Box to its predecessors, 2003’s One Quiet Night and What It’s All About from eight years later, as distinguished entries in the increasingly lengthy discography of the guitarist/composer. By the very dint of their nature as solo efforts, these three albums would be among the most memorable of many in the history of the Missouri-born musician/bandleader’s career. That […]

This is just a suggestion but maybe you want to try this with your well-informed jazz friends. Put this disc on without revealing who the artist is. They may well be able to identify tenor titan George Coleman, pianist Kenny Barron, and bassist Buster Williams. Tell them the album was recorded in 1981 and ask […]

The Providence, Rhode Island-based Deer Tick is back with its unique mix of modern-day, hard-driving Americana as the group releases its first album since 2017 as well as its first on ATO Records.  The core of John McCauley (vocals, guitar) Ian O’Neil (guitar, vocals), Dennis Ryan (drums), and Christopher Ryan (bass) worked with producer Dave […]

The Queens of the Stone Age return with their eighth studio album, In Times New Roman…, as the band (Josh Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Dean Fertita, Michael Shuman, and Jon Theodore) rev up their choppers, plug in their fuzz pedals and scruff it up out in the deserts of California.   Their first new album since […]

Two-time Grammy-nominated pianist and composer Orrin Evans is known, aside from his many musical talents, for his outgoing, welcoming personality. It’s not surprising to see his “open door” policy that has seven guests joining his core quintet. Together, these musicians cover plenty of ground.  The title, in this writer’s view, equates to the late Wayne […]

With Blood Brothers, Dallas Burrow deftly pays off on the promise made on his first two albums – both solid efforts that seemed to be building up to this, his strongest album yet. Musically and lyrically, it builds on from that solid foundation with a baker’s dozen of remarkably tight Americana songs that bring to […]

Son Volt presents The Songs Of Doug Sahm primarily as a homage to the late Texan, a somewhat unsung but nonetheless rabidly revered figure of contemporary rock. In doing so, Jay Farrar and company’s arrangements and musicianship on the twelve songs accurately reflect the eclectic range of style for the object of their affection employed on his own […]

With the release of Gov’t Mule’s Peace…Like A River, the band’s 2021 album Heavy Load Blues makes much more sense. The latter is a statement of bedrock musical values that, sluggish as it sounded at times, was in fact the sound of a group bringing itself up to speed after not playing much together because of the pandemic lockdowns.  […]

Long considered a tenor titan, three-time Grammy-nominated Donny McCaslin, through his many albums as a leader and sideman, his stint with Steps Ahead, and his regular appearances with Maria Schneider’s Big Band and The Mingus Dynasty Band, and his most famed sting as the musical director for David Bowie’s Blackstar, is now moving into a […]

The multi-talented, outspoken Meshell Ndegeocello marks a turning point in her storied career not only by signing with Blue Note but a self-confessed admission that this may be her most authentic recording. That’s in reference to playing music live in the studio with real musicians as opposed to computer-generated music that she’s done since her […]

Vocalist and iconoclast Bettye LaVette enters her sixth decade of recorded music with no inklings of settling down. Her signature fire and unique interpretative ability are as strong as ever. On LaVette! she chooses to cover songs of the criminally underrecognized singer-songwriter Randall Bramblett. So, it may well be both a blessing and a curse […]

When “Love Feel”, the fuzzed up, country tinged, groovy jam session track that name checks Johnny Cash and John Prine (and more) wraps up, Jenny Lewis giggles, “That’s fun!”. It certainly is and Lewis seems to be having a whole lot of fun throughout the ten tunes contained on the jaunty Joy’All, her new record […]

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on Lucky For You, the new album from Bully, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

From the beginning, King Krule has occupied a space all to his own. Archy Marshall began releasing music under the moniker over a decade ago and the journey his moody take on punk has taken over the course of his discography has been mesmerizing, to say the least. His approach to music makes the mundane […]

Exorcist is blues singer-songwriter and guitarist Selwyn Birchwood’s sixth album and fourth for Alligator and is produced, like its predecessor, by Grammy winner Tom Hambridge. Birchwood did write all thirteen songs, borrowing just a bit from tradition as almost all blues artists do, but delivering lyrical content in today’s language. His band sound is like […]