When Broken Boy Soldiers was released, the hype surrounding Jack White’s first venture into a side project was massive, yet there has been almost no advance hype surrounding Consolers of the Lonely, the Raconteurs’ second release (sent to Press and Public at the same time and day) and I am sure they couldn’t be happier with the silence.
Tad is the forgotten band of Seattle's grunge explosion, but there is a case to be made for them being among the scene's most important artists. In Busted Circuits and Ringing Ears, it is said that in 1989 "Yeah, I'm friends with Kurt," meant Tad bassist Kurt Danielson, not Cobain. They were perhaps the loudest and rawest of the bunch, giving even Mudhoney a run for their money.
Produced by Malcom Burn (Patti Smith, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan), Boy for You works well because it never really lets go of its bouncy pace. Not an introspective songwriter, Williamson sings about what is around her — an observant voice that declares: “you look like someone I should love” on the beautiful “Someone.” Williamson, with her buoyant energy, sure sounds like someone a lot of people will love for years to come.
The second album in a triptych that includes My Aim is True and Armed Forces, This Year’s Model is now available in a deluxe two-Dd edition, compiling the various b-sides and singles Costello released around this time, as well as a full concert from 1978 with his band The Attractions,
In late 2006, Lost Highway Records dropped Tift Merritt. Her final album with the label, Tambourine, garnered a Grammy nomination and general high praise, but it left Merritt as an independent musician. Clueless by the decision and tapped of her energy, Merritt, who had been living in Paris at the time, still felt one thing to be true: her songs that would eventually become her third album, Another Country, would win out.
Ceilings is an album that relies more on piano and layers of ambient noise than it does on the brash guitar, bass and drums of a typical rock band. The first reaction is that they've tapped into OK Computer-era Radiohead, but the deeper influence is perhaps The Church who created a similar ebb and flow of soothing yet moving noise surrounding an almost folky organic center.
For their second Sullivan performance, Lettuce wasted no time getting the crowd grooving with tunes from their new release, RAGE!. Paying homage to all stripes of funksters including Parliament / Funkadelic, James Brown, Sly Stone, Herbie Hancock, and Earth Wind & Fire, Lettuce proved- to the delight of the crowd- that funk is alive and well.
Call Warpaint a comeback, but The Black Crowes have proven that their best original music wasn’t just a thing of the past.
“I want to make an impact, I want to make a difference,” Jessica Sonner sings on the title track of her first album, All We Need. At this point in her young career as a singer-songwriter, Sonner is a little bit of everything. And on All We Need, all the goods are on display, and with good reason.
n today’s world of indie rock Harley Davidsons, Cryptacize is a tricycle, albeit one pimped out with cherry red paint and chrome that shines on the cloudiest of days.
