By keeping their songs concise and riffs big, moe. manage to maintain their status as solid studio band on their 10th album, What Happened to the La Las
The wild fluctuations of Storm Large come at the reader fast and heavy while she describes her life and growing up in not the most normal of circumstances. She is a sentence or sometimes a mere word or syllable away from proclaiming something The! Best! Thing! Ever! before wanting to destroy whatever it was. Grand statements don’t always end up as amazing events, but Storm has an obvious flair for the dramatic that is on display instantly
Texas icons ZZ Top released a Live From Texas record in 2008, but as is the case with most artists releasing live albums later in their careers, the set is rife with warhorses that occasional has them on autopilot. Back in 1980 though, the band still had a hell of a lot to prove with “Legs” and “Sharp Dressed Man” still gleams in the eyes of the bearded Billy Gibbons and crew.
The Brooklyn band Lowry’s newest release is a long running mid-tempo opus which is the end of a trilogy the band started back with 2005’s Awful Joy. Playing at over an hour the disc can lull and blend into the background with its soothing guitar lines and piano melodies floating over vocals that never want to disturb the tranquil mood, no matter what the subject matter addresses.
On Rodrigo y Gabriela's new release, Area 52, the duo is joined by a 13-piece Cuban musical collective known as C.U.B.A.. Although Area 52 is the twosome’s first studio collaboration with other musicians, the record contains no new material as all nine tracks are rearrangement’s of Rodrigo y Gabriela’s previous works. For those playing at home, Area 52’s final track “Tamacun” previously appeared on Rodrigo y Gabriela’s 2006 self titled album, 2008’s Live at Japan, and 2011’s Live in France.
When I first saw Anna Rose open for local legend, Edward Rogers sometime last year, she had more of a pop singer/songwriter sound. But in that year Anna Rose has gone through a remarkable transformation sonically and visually – still diminutive (which would never change), she’s noticeably mature, wiser and womanly. In other words, she’s confident, knowing, brash, even playful but still awkward.
After more than a decade, dozens of releases, a personal battle with cancer and touring relentlessly, Andrew McMahon should be ready to settle down as a retiree on a Florida golf course at the ripe old age of 29. But he’s not. His band, Jack’s Mannequin, brought its unrivaled energy to Kansas City’s Beaumont Club support of its latest album People and Things.
If you thought Craig Finn could get wordy with his Hold Steady band mates behind him wait until you get him alone on Clear Heart Full Eyes and his cinematic tendencies aren’t under any restraints.
Checking in with Martin Sexton some 20 years after he sold his first self released cassette tape on the streets of Harvard Square, and 8 albums later, he can be found in a good place, his voice still spanning multiple octaves, his guitar a one man band, at once lead, rhythm, and percussion.
Anyone who goes to a They Might Be Giants show will be given a good lesson in not just how to be a good act, but how to be a class act.
