PULP LIVE! ROUGH TRADE RECORDS When Pulp and Jarvis Cocker (the band’s soul and brain) appeared back in the 90s, quite a few critics, even with all the praise, didn’t expect either to last long on the music scene, tying Pulp and [...]
THE JAYHAWKS SANCTUARY PARK THIRTY TIGERS When The Jayhawks initially appeared exactly four decades ago, nobody really expected that this band, then led by Gary Louris and Marc Olson, would make such an impact on country rock with their [...]
TONY HANNAH LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT INDEPENDENT Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn (sadly, both gone now) left such a big legacy in what country music is today that for years (or even decades) it will be quite hard not to compare up and coming female [...]
ALEX DUPREE TALKING TO THE DOG SCISSOR TAIL RECORDS For those who follow all things folk/country/Americana in all shapes or forms the title of the new Alex Dupree album is no mystery – it is a quote from country music legend Hank Williams who [...]
THE AFGHAN WHIGS SOFT CONTROL THE ROYAL CREAM/BMG Whatever the alternative rock term was supposed to mean when it was coined, or what it means in today’s musical terms, makes no difference as far as Greg Dulli, The Afghan Whigs, and the [...]
ROWENA WISE BAD THINGS FEEL GOOD 22TWENTY RECORDS It takes certain kind of bravery (actually, quite a bit of it) to go the singer songwriter way. Not only do you have to have an abundance of both singing and songwriting quality (add arranging [...]
GOD OF WAR MOLLY PICTURE JULIA’S WAR RECORDINGS When you run a record label, no matter how big or small it is, and you are an artist yourself, you have the possibility to spread your wings as wide as you can, no matter how good (or not) it [...]
EFFE SOLDER ARTIST HOUSE RECORDS Dream pop in all its shapes and forms (old and new) lives on, and Melbourne, Australia’s singer/songwriter effe and her latest EP Solder confirm the fact. As far as that old and new thing is concerned, effe [...]
THE FAMILY DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR BIG BLACK COW RECORDS There are so many reasons a band would name itself The Family, with one key reason being that they actually are. In this case, Delusions of Grandeur is a debut by a family, or you could say [...]
LITVAR BEING HERE MOTHER WEST RECORDS Litvar’s frontman Rex Thurstan describes the band’s new offering, Being Here, as “a bare, stripped-back folk record.” Yet, that might be stretching it a bit. Of course, Thurstan might [...]
MOPAR STARS OFFICIAL RESEARCHERS OF THE NJ DEVIL K RECORDS/PERENNIAL RECORDS You would probably need more than ten fingers to count how many times critics have proclaimed the death of power pop – you know that rock genre, where melody, harmony [...]
PLANETTE AUTOMATIC BLUE FASCINATION BAD CATT RECORDS Ok, two ways side projects can go – sideways or good ways. The former usually turns up when it is a vanity project of those involved, while the latter comes up when those involved feel the [...]
KELZ A SWEET PASSERBY BAYONET RECORDS Having something that is like a whisper of a voice can be either a blessing or a curse. It all depends on what kind of musical setting you give it, and of course, whether it is good or not so good. [...]
SODA GUMBALL SUPER HONEY TEASPOON! DEN TAPES Presenting a local music scene to a wider audience can be an arduous task if it is a scene that has already made a name for itself. Den Tapes (yes, just cassette tapes and Bandcamp) is one of those [...]
MAX SUBAR ANYTHING COULD BE MERGE RECORDS If by looking at the cover for Max Subar’s album, Anything Could Be, you get the impression that you are looking at (and possibly will listen to) a typical singer-songwriter album, you would be [...]
CR & THE WHITE LIGHTS MY OLD SELF MAGIC DOOR RECORDS If My Old Self would. be your first encounter with CR & The White Lights you could easily think that these guys are hiding somewhere in a Nashville suburb where alt Americana thrives [...]
DENT MAY THE BIG ONE CARPARK RECORDS Dent May has been around for a while and has garnered quite a following among the fans of all things melodic in rock with his mostly bedroom pop take on power pop – less power and more melody and harmony, to [...]
HOLY WAVE I’M DADA SUICIDE SQUEEZE RECORDS As time passes by, the critics have come up with so many genres and sub-genres in modern music seemingly to make it simpler for audiences to pick up their preferences. Yet, more and more, current [...]
BRUNO BERLE SEM FRONTEIRAS FAR OUT RECORDINGS The title of Bruno Berle’s latest (third) album says it all: Sem Fronteiras, meaning ‘without Borders.’ While many listeners not so familiar with modern Brazilian music might think that it is [...]
RYAN HAMILTON HAUNTED BY AMERICAN DREAMS WICKED COOL RECORDS Whenever some music that has not been in the immediate focus of critics and audiences, pops up, they tend to call it ‘resurrected.’ Power pop is one of those, but it is [...]
CATE KENNAN SHADOWS KRANKY Working in that not so defined musical ground between ethereal and dream pop can be a tricky affair, as it is currently populated by quite a few artists, and any relative newcomer is bound to be compared to somebody [...]
KNITTING SOUVENIR MINT RECORDS Montreal’s knitting does love the sound of their guitars (quite evident on their debut Some Kind of Heaven from 2024), but simply labelling them as a slacker band, particularly listening to Souvenir, their [...]
PROUN MAYBE LUCK GOOD ENGLISH RECORDS We can keep guessing (or not) at what Austin, TX trio proun had in mind when they named its debut album Maybe Luck, but it is hard to hear that the luck is involved in its music, as it can go from a whisper [...]
ORBITAL ENSEMBLE CONTINUA WE ARE BUSY BODIES Toronto was always a sort of musical melting pot, so it is no wonder that the core trio of Toronto-based, Brazilian native multi-instrumentalist Felipe Sena with co-writers Artu Bastos and Dan McLay [...]
