Album Reviews

Trapper Schoepp, who’s been recording for more than a decade now, may have come to national attention in 2019 for helping Bob Dylan finally finish the long-lost song “On Wisconsin,” but the Milwaukee native sought influence from another musical giant for his latest, Siren Song. Recorded at Johnny Cash’s legendary Cash Cabin in Hendersonville, TN, […]

It’s certainly commonplace now to praise the resourcefulness of musicians during the pandemic. We’ve seen more than our fair share of ambitious projects, but Ben Wendel’s aptly titled All One may arguably be the most ambitious or at least the most unique of any. Wendel is noted for his genre-less or post jazz offerings, but […]

Mary Lee Kortes of Mary Lee’s Corvette has carved out a solid reputation as a singer-songwriter but none of her previous works necessarily prepared us for this unique 2-LP project, Will Anybody Know That I Was Here: The Songs of Beulah Rowley. The immersive project was born from a feeling that Kortes just could not […]

St. Paul & the Broken Bones reprise the light psychedelia and experimental R&B of 2022’s The Alien Coast with their latest, Angels in Science Fiction. The album is based on a series of letters to his unborn child that the group’s leader, Paul Janeway, was inspired to write upon learning that his wife was pregnant with […]

On her latest LP, Safe To Run, Esther Rose manages to offer an album’s worth of strong emotional songs without getting too weighed down in earnestness. The death metal font on the album cover is the first hint that Rose is not overly consumed by solemnity. Recorded partially in her adopted hometown of New Orleans […]

Music has always been a part of Alice Howe’s life ever since she grew up with the music of her parents that included artists like Muddy Waters and Jackson Browne, among others. While living in Seattle, she played locally, but it was more of a hobby. She left a longtime relationship and returned home where […]

Violent Femmes’ self-titled debut album, released in 1983, is a true masterpiece of alternative rock. One of the things that makes Violent Femmes so special is the way the band combines elements of punk, folk and Americana to create a sound that is uniquely their own. The songs are stripped-down and raw, with just Gordon Gano’s […]

Metallica continues its resurgent comeback with 72 Seasons, a collection of hard-hitting metal gems that harkens back to the iconic band’s roots.

The newest effort from the English rock band Temples is a sixteen-song affair, produced by Sean Ono Lennon, that mixes psych-rock with glam-influenced dance grooves, allowing Exotico to float free, partying amongst the cosmoses.  The opening duo of the elongated, big blaring bass, synths, and loping grooved “Liquid Air”, paired with the new wave, neon […]

The Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based folk artist and ethnomusicologist Mike Tod brings traditional songs (along with a new original written in the same vein) to life on his self-titled debut record.  Tod (Acoustic guitar/Harmonium/Vocals) reworks historical songs, keeping the folk feelings attached as he uses a core band (Vocals – Opal Retzer, Percussion – Travis Miller, […]

From the vantage point of fifty years, it seems altogether quaint to be reminded that Island Records’ Chris Blackwell judiciously edited the Wailers’ fifth album Catch A Fire. In his role as co-producer (with the titular leader and chief songwriter of the band Bob Marley), the co-founder of the label hired Muscle Shoals guitarist Wayne Perkins […]

Mobb Deep has a discography that grew along with the two violently skilled poets that masterminded the whole operation. Prodigy and Havoc have made careers of crafting verses that paint brutally honest and vivid imagery of their realities, holding nothing back with stories of street life laced with head-spinning rhyme schemes. Their legacy is sprawled […]

Heart Is The Hero is an album devoted to enduring ideal(s) of integrity, musical and otherwise, this is, in a very real sense, the Wood Brothers’ definitive statement of values.

The logic behind Neil Young’s record releases, archival and otherwise, isn’t always readily discernible, but the progression of the ‘Official Bootleg Series” is fairly clear. Sequential numbering of the titles aside, the first three issues were from Young’s classic period of the early Seventies, after which was an early venture into the man’s self-proclaimed ‘ditch,” Citizen […]

Brain Dunne said recently he’s “obsessed with failure,” so the title of his latest LP, Loser On The Ropes, is fitting. And who can blame him, the winner’s story is always so predictable and boring. It’s much more fun – and relatable – to focus on those who almost made it or even better, those […]

Eric D. Johnson, writing and recording under the moniker Fruit Bats, often includes geography in his lyrics. Nowhere is that more apparent than in A River Running to Your Heart, his tenth and latest record. “Sometimes the places are real, sometimes they’re emotional. I’ve always liked the idea of songs and albums that exist in […]

Jazz fans will likely recognize the above names as Philadelphia musicians. Sure, it would have been easier to represent the six as the Temple Jazz Sextet, as they are often duly called as each is a member of the jazz faculty of Temple University’s Boyer College of Music & Dance. Each is also a composer, […]

Recent recordings from William Bell and Lee Fields perhaps suggest a soul revival. For many the timeless music never disappeared but this new generation of digital listeners didn’t grow up listening to greats such as Sam Cooke, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd and so many others, including some who were overlooked. Howard […]

William Bell, the man who wrote so many of the great hits, including “Born Under a Bad Sign” for Albert King,  is in the midst of a career resurgence, having won at 76, his first Grammy for Best Americana Album for his 2016 This Is Where I Live (Stax/Concord Records).  One Day Closer to Home (Wilbe […]

There are some artists that can approach any style of song and leave it sounding expensive. Their 24-karat vocal cords deliver diamond-encrusted melodies that sit atop lavish instrumentals with a confidence that can charm the most stone-faced critic. New York’s Meyhem Lauren is the epitome of these artists, every release added to his already storied […]