Logan Halstead Dark Black Coal Thirty Tigers It is very hard to believe that Logan Halstead is 19 years old and that Dark Black Coal is his debut album. This artist and album shows such a great deal of depth, history, and connection to days gone [...]
Gord Downie & Bob Rock Lustre Parfait Arts & Crafts Lustre Parfait, a collaboration between the late Gord Downie and famed producer Bob Rock, is a labour of love that was a decade in the making. Work began on the project soon after Rock [...]
Jessica Rhaye And The Ramshackle Parade Sunshine Baby Scout Music Jessica Rhaye made her debut in 2000, with her self-titled album. Since then she has released a total of four solo albums and with Sunshine Baby, she has released two albums with [...]
Alien Eyelid Bronze Star Tall Texan Records For a band hailing from Texas, it might seem simple to travel in the sometimes clear, sometimes murky waters of roots rock/Americana. Whether those waters go clear or stay murky certainly depends on [...]
Rocky Roberts & Friends Pieces Of Time Wolfe Island Records Being a touring guitar technician for the likes of Wilco, Patti Smith, CSN&Y, Paul Simon, Lucinda Williams and My Morning Jacket can actually make you quite a select group of [...]
Dave Lombardo Rites Of Percussion Ipecac Recordings An album that belies conventional expectations, or even structure, is usually reserved for artists favored within post-modern circles. In the case of Rites Of Percussion, we have an album [...]
The Reverend Horton Heat Spend A Night In The Box Real Gone Music It is really hard to believe that Spend A Night In The Box by The Reverend Horton Heat is making its debut on vinyl in 2023. Here is a well-crafted album taking its lead from the [...]
The Donnas Early Singles 1995-1999 Real Gone Music The Donnas burst onto the punk scene like a force of nature in the late 1990s. Far from being an overnight success, this quartet (vocalist Brett Anderson, guitarist Allison Robertson, bassist [...]
Laura Reznek Leap Year Birthday Cake Records These days, the interpretation of what consists of an EP has become quite an elastic thing. It can run from a single (albeit long) song to something that lasts as a full-fledged album for some other [...]
Maximillian Maximillian RidingEasy Records In 1969, Maximillian, a short-lived New York City-based band made up of African American and Latino musicians, released its self-titled album. Consisting of singer Buzzy Bowzer (aka Maximillian), lead [...]
Mary Hopkin & Jessica Lee Morgan Two Hearts Mary Hopkin Music Jessica Lee Morgan comes from a very talented family. Her father is famed producer and musician Tony Visconti and her mother is Welsh singer Mary Hopkin. She has performed with [...]
Dex Wolfe Vestiges Independent Back in 2020, we had this to say about Dex Wolfe’s music: “Brief musical notes conjuring all the better sides of David Byrne, Sparklehorse, and Sufjan Stevens work some real polymath magic.” Ok, [...]
Teenage Bottlerocket So Dumb/So Stoked Pirates Press Records Teenage Bottlerocket’s new EP, So Dumb, isn’t exactly my personal favorite. The tracks lack a bit of structural complexity, and the overall delivery could be described as [...]
Great Lake Swimmers Uncertain Country Fontana North/Cadence Music Years ago, a friend described the experience of her toddler’s first show. It was Great Lake Swimmers, a band I hadn’t heard of until then. Yet the image of the [...]
VNV Nation Electric Sun Metropolis Records VNV Nation is back with its 11th studio album Electric Sun. Lead by Ronan Harris, the project is a pinnacle in the world of EBM, futurepop, and industrial dance since 1990 and its presence is still [...]
Cradle Of Filth Trouble And Their Double Lives Napalm Records For their first live album in 20 years, Cradle Of Filth knew that fans would crave something more sinister than the usual affair that makes up a project such as this. Eschewing the [...]
Jerry Leger The Time Flew By Latent Recordings “There’s no rest for the wicked,” or so the saying goes. If that is true, singer-songwriter Jerry Leger is a ‘wicked’ man, indeed! Currently touring Europe and the UK, the Toronto-based roots rocker [...]
Butch Bastard Las Vegas Salvation Big Cartel Butch Bastard is the pseudonym of Seattle-raised, LA-based singer-songwriter Ian Murray, formerly of Poor Moon, and Las Vegas Salvation is his second album. Although he has had some help here, it is [...]
Annie Blackman Bug Father/Daughter Records Being vulnerable and introspective is often one of the qualities many listeners look out for in singer songwriters. The problem can be that sometimes such artists go a bit too far in ‘barring the [...]
Djabe &Steve Hackett Live In Gyor Cherry Red Records This is a very interesting and perhaps perceived as an odd release. Djabe has made its name as a top notch jazz band from Hungary and Steve Hackett, of course, is famous as the guitarist [...]
Glen Matlock Consequences Coming Cooking Vinyl Glen Matlock has had quite a career. He was the original bassist for The Sex Pistols, a member of Rich Kids, s icurrent touring member of Blondie, and his own solo records. Consequences Coming is [...]
The Damned Darkadelic earMUSIC It is hard to believe that The Damned’s debut album, the classic Damned Damned Damned was released 46 years ago and here I am reviewing their new album! Remember, they also have rights to the claim they released [...]
Scott Matthews Restless Lullabies Shedio Records With any process, there has to be a reverse process. Still, a key question remains there, particularly with music, which is the better one for the artist? In the case of singers songwriters, they [...]
Taj Mahal Savoy Stony Plain Records If there ever was a musical archivist (or a few of them) that actually was able to transfer his knowledge into music, then Taj Mahal is certainly one of those. Like Ry Cooder, his buddy from their early (and [...]
