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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
BANDITS ON THE RUN ROUGH MAGIC INDEPENDENT It is almost 10 years that the trio of Adrian Blake Enscoe, Sydney Shepherd, and Regina Strayhorn, known to those that have already caught up with them as Bandits on the Run, have been operating, with [...]
ST. DIVINE THE DEVIL YOU KNOW REEL TO REEL RECORDS Whether some genres or sub-genres are supposed to go together or not is often a moot point, and in more cases or not, depends on whether a band or an artist have the ability and inventiveness to [...]
SHANNON JAE RIDOUT TWO BUSTED BOOTS AND A BROKEN HEART ANTI-CORP MUSIC Back in the mid-s60s, when Vanguard Records were all the rage on the folk scene, it was practically an honour to get a chance to record a solo folk/singer-songwriter album [...]
BIG BRAVE IN GRIEF OR IN HOPE THRILL JOCKEY The emotional element was never missing from BIG|BRAVE’s music, but for its latest album, in grief or in hope, the Montreal/Berlin trio turn that emotional level a few notches further up (or more [...]
SISTER GEMINI SCREAMING CRYING LAUGHING SIGHING DANGER COLLECTIVE RECORDS Sister Gemini is one Remy Jean, supported on her debut album Screaming Crying Laughing Sighing by a quite select collaborative crew, with musicians and producers that have [...]
AMELIA DAY EGO TRIP INDEPENDENT It is true that the number of artists covering that currently popular ground between Americana and pop/rock. Yet the key there is how distinctive their music is – whether they separate themselves from the rest and [...]
MICHELE DUCCI SNAIL IN THE CLOUDS MONOTREME RECORDS Snail in the Clouds might be just the second solo album for Italian songwriter and vocalist Michele Ducci, but he comes to it with ample experience with M+A band and collaborations with his [...]
JOSY AND THE MIND READERS SIGH SOME MORE GOLD ROBOT RECORDS When you have in mind that what you have in front of you is a 5-song EP (formally a debut one at that) and that its full title is “sigh some more” (because it releases endorphins [...]
GINA LESLIE I LOVE YOU ALWAYS NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS INDEPENDENT Where would you choose to be as a singer songwriter if your music would fit within so many categories but having a strong connection to roots and Americana sounds? Well Nashville [...]
WIDEMOUTH NO GASOLINE URBAN SCANDAL RECORDS Chicago quartet Widemouth probably had other ideas (or maybe not?) when they named their debut album No Gasoline, but they somehow foresaw what is currently going on with it. At the same time, the [...]
