Lydia Luce Dark River Independent Nashville is changing. No, it isn’t the quality of musicianship. Whether you like it or not, the Nashville sound is one of the best around. It is the change that spells diversification, though it could be rock, or pop, or anything else. Most of those trends are connected to [...]
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Strawbs Settlement Cherry Red Records The Strawbs released their self-titled debut in 1969, their first official album. This is their 27th release, and their second with this particular lineup. Once again the band has not only reinvented itself, but produced one of their finest albums. Settlement was produced by [...]
Sloping Completed Songs sound as language Lead songwriter of the band Scooterbabe, JJ Posway, has released a debut solo album under the name Sloping. It is called Completed Songs, and it is nine tracks of fairly beautiful, but melancholy, ruminating music, grounded in imagistic, non-sequitur laden lyrics that are [...]
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cEvin Key And The Subconscious Electronic Orchestra Resonance Artoffact cEvin Key’s fifth solo album, Resonance (formerly X̱wáýx̱way), is released on Toronto’s Artoffact Records. The album consists of 12 electronic tracks, some instrumental and some with vocals or music accompaniment provided by individual members [...]
Creedence Clearwater Revival Pendulum/Mardi Gras (50th Anniversary Half-Speed Masters) Craft Recordings Creedence Clearwater Revival or CCR, if you will, ruled the airwaves and record players when psych rock was on the rise and prog rock was scoffing at their ‘simple’ sound. You could call the CCR [...]
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The Band Stage Fright (50th Anniversary Edition) Capitol Records The latest reissue from The Band Stage Fright, is a prime example of many things. Firstly, it is example of an album that was unjustly quite down-rated by critics when it was first released. When it came out, the brilliance of their first two albums [...]
The Holdouts For Reasons Unknown Tarantula Tapes The latest offering from Tarantula Tapes’ roster is St. Catharine, Ont.-based The Holdout’s sophomore EP, For Reasons Unknown. It is an explosive and hard-hitting follow-up to their 2020 debut, Cause And Effect. Opening with “Headcase”, The Holdouts set the bar and [...]
Various Artists Saturday Night: South African Disco Pop Hits 1981-1987 Cultures Of Soul While the likes of Prince, Madonna, and Michael Jackson were capturing the world by storm, disco seemed to all but disappeared back to the clubs and underground from which it first emerged (largely thanks to a movement driven [...]
Aaron Lee Tasjan Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! New West Records Aaron Lee Tasjan is certainly a name that is somewhere in the back of the memory files of music fans. After all, as his official biography describes, he went from “his glam rock roots, when Jimmy Iovine told him ‘guys in make-up don’t sell records’ [...]
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Tele Novella Merlynn Belle Kill Rock Stars Smart pop music with engaging lyrics is not just the sole property of British bands like Belle & Sebastian and Camera Obscura. Latest proof–Texan duo Tele Novella and their brilliant album Merlynn Belle. Yes, Natalie Ribbons and Jason Chronis, who now reside in [...]
Foo Fighters Medicine At Midnight Roswell Records For the past 10 years or so, the Foo Fighters have without question been the biggest band in the world. This was solidified with their mega-hit record, Wasting Light in 2011. While their 2014 follow-up Sonic Highways floundered with its middle of the road rock, [...]
Ten Years After A Sting In The Tale (Deluxe Edition) Deko Entertainment It would be easy to dismiss a deluxe reissue of an album by any band as being a mere marketing ploy to grab some cash. Covid times have not been kind, and many touring acts have taken this tack, if only to generate some much-needed income in [...]
St Germain Tourist (20th Anniversary Travel Versions) Warner Music Group Ludovic Navarre, better known as the French house and nu jazz DJ St Germain, has recently released a 20th anniversary remix album of his hit album Tourist, that originally launched in 2000. The 11-track remix album is filled with the works of [...]
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The Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes Are The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings Flemish Eye/FatCat/Full Time Hobby On their sixth album, The Besnard Lakes Are The Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings, Montreal’s The Besnard Lakes demonstrates its studio chops and musicianship in equal sums. TBLATLOTGTW is [...]
The Luka State Fall In Fall Out AntiFragile Music While many bands may list The Clash as one of their inspirations, few often deliver on a sound reminiscent of the quintessential and incredibly unique punk outfit. The Luka State, hailing from the UK, fall into the latter category. Their debut full length album, [...]
MG (Martin Gore) The Third Chimpanzee Mute Records Martin L. Gore is the principal songwriter, a founding member, and occasional lead vocalist of English electronic band Depeche Mode. His solo discography is split between sophisticated electronic art-pop covers or experimental, synthesizer-based instrumentals he [...]
Steve Wilson The Future Bites Arts & Crafts The Future Bites is the first album of new material by Steven Wilson since 2017’s To The Bone. That is not to say he hasn’t been busy. And now, as with everything Steven Wilson does, he does the unexpected. On the surface, this seems to be pretty much a standard art [...]
Ed Cosens Fortunes Favour Distiller Records Ed Cosens makes his solo debut after 15 years of strumming for The Reverend and the Makers. Stepping out of his position as guitarist, Cosens shows he has chops to stand on his own–vulnerable songwriting, smooth, evocative vocals and careful, unpretentious [...]
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Clap Your Hands Say Yeah New Fragility CYHSY, Inc./Secretly Distribution For a while now, we haven’t heard much about Clap Your Hand Say Yeah. There could be a few reasons for that. First of all, they’ve had no proper album release in three years now (they did come up with The Tourist album bonus [...]
Black Pistol Fire Look Alive Black Hill Records Black Pistol Fire, the Canadian-America hard-blues power duo from Austin, Texas, has returned with their long-awaited sixth album, Look Alive. The eleven-song studio record follows their successful 2017 release, Deadbeat Graffiti, and continues to build on the band’s [...]
Regnvm Animale Ignis Sacer Deutsche Bulvan Bolag ‘Unchecked growth sees capitalist greed choking democracy, while global temperatures rise at an alarming rate.’ With such a pronouncement, one can tell that Ignis Sacer, the latest EP release from Stockholm’s Regnvm Animale, is not aiming to be the feel-good hit of [...]
Rhye Home Last Gang Records Toronto-born Michael Milosh has been able to cultivate something both unique and engaging with Rhye–a sultry, soothing mix of R&B and indie pop which toes the line between energetic and beautifully quiet. In his third full-length effort, Milosh expands the limits of Rhye’s [...]
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Steve Hackett Under A Mediterranean Sky Inside Out Music Under A Mediterranean Sky is Steve Hackett’s first studio album since 2019’s At The Edge Of Light, and his first classic one since 2008’s Tribute. However, while it is classical, Under A Mediterranean Sky is primarily an acoustic release. It is a direct [...]
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Still Corners The Last Exit Wrecking Light Records Like a long drive through barren desert red rock canyons in a vintage ragtop, even at night the dwindling heat invades the nostrils and you can almost taste the dust laced humidity. It parches the tongue but the Jim Beam bottle at your side quenches you. Alone on [...]
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