John Jody Crooked Star Ramp Local How many monikers can you take on as an artist/musician? Well, probably as many as you need to express your concept(s). That is exactly what one John Jody is doing, as this is his new moniker, previously working [...]
Taking Back Sunday Tell All Your Friends (20th Anniversary Edition) Craft Recordings When looking back at the early wave of 2000’s bands that helped shape the emo, pop-punk, and post-hardcore scene, no band is more fondly or memorably [...]
A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS @ LARIMER LOUNGE, DENVER (CO) MAY 26, 2022 At their sold-out performance at Denver’s outstanding Larimer Lounge, A Place to Bury Strangers (APTBS) sounded even more primal than their studio recordings. The X factor in [...]
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Dirt Does Dylan NGDB One American folk-(ish) institution pays tribute to another, even more elevated American folk(-ish) institution. The Dirt Band is multi-generational these days, with lead vocalists/ guitarists Jeff [...]
Jo Schornikow Altar Keeled Scales Whenever Nashville is mentioned along with the name of a musician/artist, listeners immediately get notions of country, or a bit more ‘daring’ epithet of an Americana singer. In the case of Jo [...]
xPropaganda The Heart Is Strange Universal Music xPropaganda is composed of Claudia Brücken and Susanne Freytag, who were one half of the brilliant and groundbreaking band Propaganda. In 1985 they joined forces with Ralf Dörper and Michael [...]
Tess Parks And Those Who Were Seen Dancing Fuzz Club/Hand Drawn Dracula Tess Parks’ debut Blood Hot really created some critical waves when it was released back in 2013, and rightly so. Yet, we haven’t heard much from Parks since [...]
Thomas Dollbaum Wellswood Big Legal Mess “I grew up in a small town between nowhere and nothing. By reputation, people move to Florida to run away from their problems, but instead of leaving them behind they bring the same problems with them. [...]
Em Spel The Carillon Towers Independent Em Spel, or Chicago artist Emma Hospelhorn doesn’t seem to be a big fan of social media. Whether this will have an impact on the word spreading out about her debut solo album The Carillon Towers, [...]
Avi Kaplan Floating On A Dream Fantasy Records One thing singer-songwriters can impress their potential audience with is their vocals. It can be any specific characteristic, from striking to weird, as long as it draws attention to their music [...]
Various Artists Pay It All Back Vol. 8 On-U Sound Master producer/songwriter/artist Adrian Sherwood has been behind all things On-U Sound since 1979, and since then he and the artists he has worked with have been on the cutting edge of [...]
Say Sue Me The Last Thing Left Damnably Sumi Choi (vocalist, guitarist) and her band Say Sue Me are from Busan, Korea. If that tells you that you would be in for some K-pop on their latest album The Last Thing Left, you’d be right in one [...]
John Inghram John Inghram CD Baby John Inghram built a name for himself as a musician’s musician, particularly among artist that try to get the gist of the music that has anything to do with roots, folk, country, Americana, however you [...]
The Rolling Stones Live At The El Mocambo Universal Music The El Mocambo stands alongside The Horseshoe Tavern and Massey Hall as one of Toronto’s most revered and historic venues. From Blondie to Tom Waits and Ronnie Hawkins to The Ramones, The [...]
Florence + the Machine Dance Fever Polydor Records Florence + The Machine has always found the midway point between her classically-trained vocals and accessible dance pop. Her medieval, haunting croon feels familiar as ever on her fifth [...]
Master Boot Record Personal Computer Metal Blade Records Once in a generation a musical genre takes a leap and for metal…that leap is Master Boot Record. The brainchild of technologist/songwriter Victor Love, Master Boot Record is gearing up to [...]
Fader Quartz Blanc Check Records Fader is a duo, consisting of Neil Arthur (Blancmange/Near Future) and Benge (Wrangler, Creep Show and John Foxx And The Maths). Quartz is their third album, following 2019’s brilliant In Shadow. Benge also [...]
Diatom Deli Time~Lapse Nature RVNG International Artist PR’s can really go to extremes, from bare facts to wordy gibberish that praises the artists to heaven with no substantial music behind those words. Having read the press release [...]
MELØ Things We Lost Independent Things We Lost is the debut EP from Windsor-based artist MELØ. He describes his music as riding an “edge where retro-futurism meets indie-pop and blooms into overdrive”. That is not a bad description. This is an [...]
Shawn Benfield Way Of The World Shotgunn Records Shawn Benfield is from West Virginia, which has found its way into his music, for the better. Way Of The World is his debut album, and it is one hell of a debut. This is country rock at its [...]
Fozzy Boombox Mascot Records The Georgia-based band Fozzy have returned after five years with their eighth studio album, Boombox. The follow-up to 2017’s Judas, it’s full of the usual energy and effort that the band puts into their music. With a [...]
Silverstein Misery Made Me UNFD/NSEW Recordings Over the years, many will have formed a variety of different opinions when it comes to post-hardcore heavy-hitters, Silverstein. But when it comes to redeveloping soundscapes for every album [...]
Love & Pain It Comes In Waves Independent Many artists have both many differing (or not so differing) musical interests and try to cover as much ground as they possibly could. Very often, it has quite a bit to do with their inventiveness and [...]
Simple Plan Harder Than It Looks Independent Simple Plan has always reigned supreme when we look to the kings that rule the pop-punk realm. They not only shaped the genre, but emerging bands have also used them as the pillar of influence on [...]
