Archive: 2017

[rating=7.00] The one man jam band (and constant record releaser) Keller Williams has teamed up with some friends for yet another project titled Sync under the group name KWahtro (Confused? Sound it out.) The three other band members this go around come from different backgrounds with Danton Boller adding jazz flourishes on bass, frequent Williams […]

Austin band my education are skilled in the art of crafting sonic soundscapes. Band members have come and gone in the years that followed since they formed in 1999, but the band itself has always succeeded in taking the music into richer, more psychedelic dimensions with each respective release. This is, after all, a group […]

Over the course of his quarter-century-plus career, Will Johnson has dealt with every challenge a musician can face. The silver lining, however, is that the Austin-based songwriter excels at taking bumps in the road and turning them into gold. A week before Johnson was to begin tracking his fifth solo album, Hatteras Night, A Good Luck […]

Plus, is Hellboy 3 ever gonna happen?

As long has been promised, Gorillaz has returned with their first new music in over six years, and like most of their music, it features a special guest. On the Damon Albarn/Jamie Hewlett led project, Mercury Prize winner Benjamin Clementine guests on the new track “Hallelulah Money.” Unlike other first snippets of music from the comic band, […]

Ten years after its release, Guillermo del Toro’s masterpiece is more important than ever.

[rating=8.00] Hang opens like Mick Jagger covered in glitter telling you to just be yourself. Foxygen’s fourth official record picks up where they left off. The last song on their previous album …And Star Power, is this gentle 70’s tune that would fit somewhere right between the Stones’ “Wild Horses” and “Angie.” It’s titled also […]

Influenced by the greats of the 60’s, Justin Levinson creates self-described “power pop” that draws elements from his favorite artists of that era – the Beatles, The Zombies, and The Beach Boys. He has even drawn comparisons to Ben Folds. Playing five instruments, Justin sets out to make music that is authentic to him. His […]

Iron Maiden’s hugely successful The Book Of Souls World Tour will return to North America for an extensive series of arena and amphitheater shows in summer 2017. The mammoth tour opened in Florida last February playing fourteen sold-out shows in the U.S.A and Canada along with a further 58 concerts in 34 other countries around the globe. The […]

Following his 2015 psychedelic masterpiece Hey Joe Opus/Red Meat, the new album from visionary roots music songwriter and bandleader Otis Taylor, Fantasizing About Being Black, is a stark and poetic lesson on the historical trauma of the African American experience, from the voyages of slave ships to the Mississippi Delta. Taylor simultaneously travels back in […]

Hailed by No Depression as “one of the most talented acts making music today,” North Carolina-based duo Mandolin Orange—Emily Frantz (fiddle/vocals) and Andrew Marlin (mandolin/vocals)—announce spring tour dates in support of their critically acclaimed album, Blindfaller. The tour includes notable appearances at Merlefest, Red Rocks, Bonnaroo, Forecastle, and Pickathon. A full list of dates is […]

Plus, Netflix’s latest looks like another winner.

Conor Oberst will release a new album, Salutations, on Nonesuch Records, on March 17, 2017. The album is a companion piece to 2016’s lauded Ruminations. When Oberst wrote and recorded the songs on Ruminations, entirely solo – with just voice, piano, guitar and harmonica – he intended to ultimately record them with a full band. In the midst of putting together […]

“I have very eclectic musical taste, so I draw from all areas of music as well as everything else I come across in my daily life,” says John Bigham; “JB” – as he’s known to friends on his latest album as The Soul of John Black. His new eclectic mix of blues, soul, jazz and funk […]

Sprawling Minnesota ensemble Romantica have spent the last seven years on hiatus following a dispute with their former label. Fronted by Irish-born singer-songwriter Ben Kyle, the group has nurtured a cult following with their heartfelt and melodic alt-country. On February 10th Romantica make a triumphant return with the release of Shadowlands on Last Chance Records, the […]

Plenty of people go to see bands when they come through their town, but most people don’t think about everything that it takes to get those bands to their favorite club. Being on tour for a musician is both enlightening and daunting, as physically and mentally draining as it is stimulating. And no matter what, […]

David Lowery may be several decades removed from the agony of teen angst, but when he takes the stage with Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, the emotion that fueled early fan favorites like “Get Off This” and “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)” is as real and raw as it was a quarter century […]

[rating=8.00] As one might expect of a collective of sorts, Band of Heathens worked their way into the spotlight fairly quickly. It wasn’t that they had any grand designs, or even any thoughts about becoming a band in the first place. What initially began as a series of Wednesday night jam sessions at a club […]