Album Reviews

The new SmallsLIVE Living Masters Series has issued Kirk Lightsey Live at Smalls Jazz Club, their second offering, following this past August’s release of vocalist Sheila Jordan’s Live at Mezzrow. As the series name implies, these recordings honor the best of iconic jazz musicians that are still with us.

Aside from being a great improvisational drummer, Paul Motian is perhaps best known for his composing. Motian was the ideal artist for the dream-like ethereal sounds often captured by the ECM label on which this tribute Once Around the Room appears. His melodies seem to drift like shrouds of mist above a foundation, sometimes shifting but more often sturdy. It’s the kind of music that places a premium on listening and group interplay rather than a series of solos.

Bird Streets’ new album Lagoon is an emotional tour de force that covers self-pity, regret, anger, depression and ultimately peace.

On Changes, King Gizzard’s fifth and final record of 2022, the band proves that they also know when to let one of those ideas marinate.

There have been five studio albums with some iteration of Headhunters since 1975, the latest being 2011’s Platinum, which was essentially a gathering of superstars including Azar Lawrence, Patrice Rushen, Georg Clinton, original member Maupin and a host of rappers including Snoop Dogg.  This new offering, Speakers in the House, coming eleven years later, pairs down into a slimmer jazz-funk ensemble.

Tommy Alexander’s new album Feelings on Fluff & Gravy Records is quite possibly his most satisfying record yet.

Rose’s Pawn Shop has harnessed the crucial elements of their sound – deft picking, smooth harmonies, and terrific songwriting to arrive at this uplifting effort, one of the more joyous recordings in recent memory. 

The third album from the New York City-based Ghost Funk Orchestra is a continuation of the band’s funk/soul/jazz roots. A New Kind Of Love on Colemine Records is the type of throwback album that retro soul fans will devour with its easy-flowing warmth, charm, and spirit. 

The Los Angeles-based Wand has made a name for itself with an expansive live show which deploys an amalgamation of dissonance, heavy and blissful rock. Now, for the first time, they offer that experience via a double live album titled Spiders in the Rain which was captured on their California tour in January 2020.   

Get ready to adjust your new release playlist as Marlowe is back with their third album. The duo of producer L’Orange and rapper Solemn Brigham debuted in 2018 with their self-titled LP which was greeted with wide critical acclaim upon its release due to the group’s undeniable chemistry and unfiltered creativity. They followed up on […]

Twenty years have gone by since The Problem and Fields shine has never been brighter, his latest release Sentimental Fool, is his first release with Daptone Records and was produced by Bosco Mann. The 12-song LP is a masterclass of soul that bounces from blistering big bands to intimate minimalism all strung together by Fields’ natural knack for melody and songwriting. 

Hearing the most incandescent moments during the Allman Brothers Band’s Syria Mosque: Pittsburgh, PA January 17, 1971, the thought occurs this might well have been the very occasion that prompted the ABB to act upon the thought they’d been harboring to record live for their next album. 

Aplenglow – the 10th LP from Minnesota-based Bluegrass sextet Trampled By Turtles – was produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy.

The word ‘debut’ can often be a little misleading. Some come with fanfare and overhyped buzz. Others far more deserving ones arrive more quietly. The latter is true for singer-songwriter Joseph Shipp, who is an upstart as a recording artist, but an accomplished artist in his four decades as an award-winning graphic designer, a photographer, and an accidental archivist who grew up around his parents’ photography business.

This Great Divide reunion is not what most would have predicted but we are all the beneficiaries of this thematic album Providence, which deals with time, forgiveness, and moving forward. 

2022 has been a remarkably busy year for Scott Metzger. In addition to maintaining an assiduous touring schedule with vaunted Grateful Dead revivalists Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, the Brooklyn-based guitarist released his first solo album, Too Close to Reason, and has now followed that up with the third studio effort from his enigmatic “Telecaster rock trio”, Wolf!.

The second release from the adventurous supergroup Dead Cross was recorded through pain and torment as guitarist Michael Crain was progressing through chemotherapy while laying down his guitar lines, the pandemic was in full swing, and lead singer Mike Patton struggled with alcohol and agoraphobia. II finds the group digging deeper into despair, hatred at organized religion and other offenses over the nine pummeling efforts, rarely finding easy solutions or anything to be positive about. 

On their latest release, Hiding In Plain Sight, Drugdealer continues to improve on what defines them and experiment with new tones and sounds, exchanging the intimacy of their first two releases for satin-laced grooves that lean towards classic soul records for Drugdealer’s best work to date. 

In the latest Wannabe, artist Chris Prunckle offers his illustrated commentary on Caleb Caudle’s new album Forsythia, in his signature six-panel comic strip form. Click on the image for full resolution (best viewed on desktop):

More than 15 years after her debut, Megan Slankard is continuing that indie ethos with her latest, California & Other Stories.