DESTROYER DAN’S BOOGIE MERGE RECORDS After some 27 years and 20 or so albums, with at least half of those can easily now be classified as classics, and none as a flop, any new Destroyer album is bound to create suspicions of a possible [...]
LUCKY CLOUD FOREGROUND RUINATION RECORDS Behind Lucky Cloud is Chicago singer-songwriter Chet Zenor, and Foreground is his debut album. And as is usually the case, behind this quite simple description there is a not such a brief story behind it, [...]
DAWN BROTHERS CRY ALONE EXCELSIOR RECORDINGS How do you feel about a run through all that comprises roots rock – from classic rock to soul, R&B and Americana and what not, but comes from over the Atlantic, or to be more precise the [...]
JEFFREY LEWIS THE EVEN MORE FREEWHEELIN’ JEFFREY LEWIS BLANG RECORDS/DON GIOVANNI For somebody who was at one point lauded as a progenitor of anti-folk, Jeffrey Lewis seems to have no problem at following one of the key folk music [...]
NICO PAULO INTERVAL_O FORWARD MUSIC GROUP Canadian/Portuguese singer songwriter Nico Paulo has one of those mesmerizing voices that strikes within the first notes she starts singing. Yet, the St. John’s, NL-based songwriter works within a middle [...]
LUCY LIYOU EVERY VIDEO WITHOUT YOUR FACE, EVERY SOUND WITHOUT YOUR NAME ORANGE MILK Although the Bandcamp page for Los Angeles’ Korean/American artist Lucy Liyou lists a number of her releases, her album Every Video Without Your Face, [...]
JONI VOID EVERY LIFE IS A LIGHT CONSTELLATION RECORDS Constellation Records never go for something ordinary, so it is no surprise that they picked up on somebody who has no fear of experimenting, like Montreal’s Joni Void and their latest [...]
WEAVING WEBS GLAMOUR GOWNS When you consciously or subconsciously pick up inspiration from other artists the fact that you did that doesn’t matter – what does is whether you picked up the right things, used them in the right way and [...]
HANNAH FREY LUCKY GIRL INDEPENDENT Currently, you could add as many artists as possible daily to the Americana-tinged genre, most of them leaning towards roots/folk/singer-songwriter sound. But what about those that give their music that [...]
CAROLINE STRICKLAND MARTHA’S CALLING INDEPENDENT The thing is in the nuances and in the songwriting process. With some songwriters it is instinctive, often easy flowing and feels as if it comes out of nowhere. With others, like the [...]
THIN LEAR A SHADOW WALTZED ITSELF METROPOLITAN GROOVE MERCHANTS New Jersey’s Matt Longo lies behind the moniker Thin Lear and his debut album Wooden Cave from 2020 grew some strong praise, yet it took him about four years to come up with [...]
SEASONAL FALLS IMPROVISED SINKING INDEPENDENT Those following Spill Magazine might already be familiar with the Swiss duo of songwriter Roman Gabriel and vocalist Andrew Pelletier that operates as Seasonal Falls, as their album Happy Days (2024) [...]
WILL STRATTON POINTS OF ORIGIN RUINATION RECORDS/BELLA UNION Will Stratton has quite a bit of an album output – eight albums so far, but he can be counted among those artists that don’t just rush to release their music but takes his [...]
TOBACCO CITY HORSES SCISSOR TAIL RECORDS The term cosmic country has been flying around since the time it was coined by late Gram Parsons. And while quite a few artists have been given that label, not that many truly deserved to hold it when [...]
DOMESTIC DRAFTS ONLY THE SINGER GLAMOUR GOWNS Andy Cush’s name is probably familiar for those listeners following Garcia Peoples, as he is the band’s bassist, co-composer, and vocalist. He also runs a Substack page with a hefty [...]
THE CHILLS SPRING BOARD: THE EARLY UNRECORDED SONGS FIRE RECORDS Has the late Martin Phillipps been given enough credit for his role in bringing something new and fresh to modern rock music with his band The Chills? The debate on that one has [...]
PUMA BLUE ANTICHAMBER BLUE FLOWERS Hard times can make one either angry or melancholic, and sentimental, and that surely reflects on the music created in such times. Jacob Allen, aka Puma Blue, Londoner who has moved to Atlanta, GA, has a few [...]
NICOLE HALE SOME KIND OF LONGING INDEPENDENT Nicole Hale has been releasing music since 2009 (four albums so far), but for some reason, seems to be one of those artists that is still (undeservedly) been flying under the radar. Maybe it has [...]
FROG 1000 VARIATIONS ON THE SAME SONG AUDIO ANTIHERO New York’s Frog is one of those musical propositions that through their not so short and winding career never stood still or bothered where the critics or audience will place and label [...]
SARA BUG INTO THE BLUE INDEPENDENT Back in 2021, when Sara Bug came up with her self-titled album, as somebody who is working within a Nashville music scene, she didn’t bother to care much about what Nashville music norms and formulas she [...]
CHRISTIAN WINTHER SCULPTURES FROM UNDER THE CITY ICE EARTHLY HABIT There just might be some strange brews they drink over in Norway, as more often than not that you would hear some intriguing sounds coming from those fjords over there, at the [...]
THE BIRD CALLS MELODY TRAIL RUINATION RECORDS As we mentioned in our review of The Bird Call’s previous offering, Old Faithful, Sam Sodomsky, who operates under this moniker, is a man of solitude, somebody who wants to be calm, cool, and [...]
SAM MOSS SWIMMING INDEPENDENT With what you could call ‘standard’ singer/songwriters there is very little middle ground. They could either convey their music and lyrics to listeners or they can’t. It is often a minimalistic [...]
THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART PERFECT RIGHT NOW: A SLUMBERLAND COLLECTION 2008-2010 SLUMBERLAND RECORDS Some 15 to 16 years ago (2009 to be precise), we got to hear a band with a very long name making some very substantial music. They went [...]