Reviews

On an overcast, breezy Thursday evening at South Street Seaport, Amyl and the Sniffers brought their Cartoon Darkness world tour onto the glorious rooftop at Pier 17 in New York City on May 15th. With the best backdrop of any NYC outdoor venue, the stage was set for a rollicking night of punk-infused rock and […]

Charlie Musselwhite has issued thirty-some albums during his lengthy career, and none may be more potent than his last two. 2022’s Mississippi Son was a flashpoint of creativity, within which the mix of originals and covers illuminated the Mississippi native’s well-developed skills as a songwriter, singer, bandleader, and harp player. A more low-key outing on Forty Below Records, Look […]

The debut full-length album Blest from Brooklyn-based artist Yuno finds him expanding the scope of his sound, embracing pop grandiosity and exploring vocal styles. Yuno’s musical journey finds him unrestricted by genre or style as he evolves.  His 2018 EP Moodie (also on Sub Pop) found him dealing with a traumatic breakup. On Blest, he is back exploring the world, moving […]

On May 12th, Boston welcomed Larkin Poe, comprised of The Lovell Sisters, for another round of Georgia-blues influenced rock and roll at the historic Wilbur Theatre. Touring in support of their latest sonic tapestry ‘Bloom’, Rebecca and Megan stepped onto the stage, bathed in a warm, inviting glow, ready to unfurl their unique brand of […]

Robin Trower’s self-designed cover art for Come And Find Me is pretty similar to the graphics of his predecessors in recent years. Still, there’s an edge to the music on this Provogue release that’s quite distinct from the more insinuating likes of 2023’s Joyful Sky or the previous year’s No More Worlds To Conquer.  The latent aggression in tracks such […]

Two-plus decades ago, not long after the release of 2002’s stellar Walking In A Straight Line, North Carolina’s The Mayflies USA, puzzlingly called it a day, despite growing buzz and their best reviews to date. Twenty years later, they realized they still had a little something left in the tank. And as if they’re trying […]

Singer, songwriter, and producer Cautious Clay has become mysterious in the modern music pantheon. His list of songwriting/producing credits is brimming with A-listers, and each addition’s solo discography is becoming more impressive and expansive. What started as an earnest career for an R&B hopeful quickly became a colorful exploration of the human experience set to […]

Two female, redheaded raspy blues vocalists from Texas come to mind. One is practically immortal, Janis Joplin. Yet another Texan has been ripping bluesy guitar licks and belting out the blues vocally for over three decades. She is Carolyn Wonderland, who was often compared to Joplin early in her career for her raw, powerful vocals. As […]

Dywayne Thomas Jr., aka MonoNeon, marches to his beat and can take any direction. I’ve seen him burn up the stage at Newport Jazz with a decibel-breaking, raucous performance. That same MonoNeon, though, as he did on his 2024 Quilted Stereo, delivers a batch of highly accessible songs on You Had Your Chance…Bad Attitude. In his own […]

When seeing BEATrio in concert, drummer Antonio Sanchez, who positioned himself as the project’s leader,  rather offhandedly quipped, “Banjo, harp, drums…what the hell is that?” It may be one of the most unlikely trio configurations ever witnessed. Still, the audience responded to their live performance with one of the warmest, enthusiastic responses I’ve ever heard.  […]

It had been nearly six years since thrash-metal titans Power Trip last graced the stage of Metro Chicago. The band, of course, had good reason for their extended hiatus from The Windy City and touring at large, given the fact that their original lead singer, Riley Gale, tragically died in 2020 at the all too […]

Ray Barretto was already a giant in Latin music when he released Barretto in 1975. Born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, he had spent the previous two decades carving out a singular place for himself as both a fiery percussionist and an inventive bandleader. He first made his mark in the jazz world […]

When Geordie Greep suddenly announced the end of Black Midi last year, the math rock outfit he had founded in his teens and co-fronted, it was met with shock. After all, the band was on the up and up as they released albums that increasingly appealed to broader audiences. Greep’s next move made it clear […]

On May 6th, indie band Momma hit Crescent Ballroom with an electric performance. Momma is fronted by singers Allegra Weingarten and Etta Friedman, who both hold a euphoric, yet familiar, charm that only the lead singer of an indie-sleaze revival band can have. They started with “I Want You (Fever)”, a hit that is also their […]

Considering the worldwide influence that the late Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat music has had on everyone from the Talking Heads to Arcade Fire and modern-day funk and hip-hop, it’s perplexing that the small handful of acts waving the torch for the real thing sometimes fall below the radar. This music is energetic and full of life, […]

On her third record, and first for the Normaltown Records label, Kristina Murray is steeped in classic country and honky tonk. Leaning into heartache and loneliness, the Nashville-based songstress often falls in the same vein as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, and George Jones.   Across nine tracks on Little Blue, the Georgia native uses small-town characters as […]

“How much difference does it make,” Eddie Vedder sang during the show-opening “Indifference,” a song usually reserved for a closing slot in a Pearl Jam set, but not tonight. A few moments later Vedder admitted he “made a mistake in the set list” before launching into “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town.” […]

The San Antonio, TX based hardcore freak-punks, Butthole Surfers, were notorious for their live shows and the band’s newest archival release, Live at the Leather Fly, does a good job capturing their mid-career, chaotic noise sound.  The album is not dated or given a specific location where it was recorded, but it sounds like one […]

Last fall, we were gifted with a somewhat unexpected release from a new “supergroup” of sorts called The Hard Quartet. Featuring Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus along with venerable go-to talents Matt Sweeney, Jim White, and Emmett Kelly, the group’s album dabbled in a sort of worship of old Britpop and psych, freak-folk, and garage rock, albeit […]

It’s absolutely uncanny to listen to this latest Little Feat album and notice how the stylistic similarities of Strike Up The Band evoke the vintage releases of their namesake lineups from the mid-to-late Seventies.  Implausible as such comparisons may sound, they are wholly apt because neither the musicianship nor the songwriting sounds forced nor fake. On the contrary, this record […]