Always facing the specter of a comparison to 69 Love Songs, Merritt and company have produced an album that maintains their classic factors of fun, wit and innovation while coupling it all with a palpable sense of maturity that will make longtime listeners nostalgic for their older work while enjoying the progression that this album represents.
If the reception at this show was any indication, she’ll find familiar faces at the next gig, Chicago and beyond.
As a band, The Asteroids Galaxy Tour possess raw talent and a keen eye for strong production technique– the only ingredient missing is musical maturity.
The casual listener might be surprised to learn Live at the Golden Bear 1983 is the third live Plimsouls album to be release in recent years. One listen to Beach Town Confidential from start to finish, however, will explain why the demand is there: this is blood and guts rock transcending fashion (both the punk and new wave of its era), the likes of which will always stand the test of time.
In another life, Vince Herman, along with his first band of brothers, Leftover Salmon, was often associated with music festivals. These days there are new words from Vince Herman and it's with his newer band, Great American Taxi (Thirty Tiger Label). Shedding a “jam band” and creating a band with a unique sound, all while combining many musical roots isn't easy. In Great American Taxi's third studio effort, that's exactly what they have accomplished. Paradise Lost has a genuine sound and serves as their most polished album to date.
For their third album, the five members of Delta Spirit have lit the fuse, opening up the overall sound and punching through with a sonic boom. Gone is the rootsy Americana of 2010’s History From Below and their 2008 debut, Ode To Sunshine. In its place is a big modern rock cacophony that may initially catch listeners off guard but is more in tune with what the band has had in mind all along.
Sporting large, circular glasses and a casual blue button-up shirt, Bundick looks more like an Apple employee instead of the prolific contributor to several musical projects. Recording under the name Toro Y Moi since he was a teenager, he's got an 80's pop voice that makes it look like he could be wearing a red leather jacket, tight jeans and a giant pair of high-tops. And although he has been grouped into the chillwave subgenre, which includes acts like Washed Out and Neon Indian, both of which he has remixed, the live show is more lively than a guy standing at a station of synths turning knobs.
Craig Finn’s first solo tour made its stop in the singer/songwriter’s home town of Brooklyn on Thursday night, but with the troubadour having played multiple shows in the area, tonight’s attendance seemed sparse throughout the Music Hall.
She may not be reinventing the wheel, but the wheel she’s working with is pretty damn impressive.
Mitchell brings an attentive and critical focus, measured with a slight whimsy and caprice that rounds the oftentimes harsh edge of folk music, and delivers a brilliant, entirely cohesive and utterly striking work of art in Young Man In America.
