Reina Mora’s first single from her debut album Bird’s Eye View is the invigorating “Trouble”. She wisely doesn’t aim for remaking the musical wheel with her first single release, but Mora does prove herself quite skillful at pouring old wine into new bottles with her mix of light atmospherics, an evocative performance both vocally and from the supporting musicians, and a definite rock attitude coming through the song.
It has taken Ashley J a few forays down dead end streets for her to find her way, but her wholehearted embrace of the pop form has proven to be the ideal vehicle for her considerable skills. The latest result of her pop oriented direction, “Satisfied”, is a highly polished single that nevertheless pulses with real warmth and life rather than sounding like the sterile sort of product often pushed…
Kathleen Brooks is a bright example of an artist who follows her Muse wherever it leads her. She’s shown considerable talents as a recording artist, actress, director, playwright, and even an educator, but she’s also shown the unique confidence to make an equal go of these pursuits thanks to her willingness to take chances and the needed confidence to make them pay off. Her qualities in this area are in…
Massachusetts native Albert Cummings returns to his hometown Williamstown as a conquering king with the blistering live set Live at the ’62 Center. His twelve song concert album blasts through an assortment of takes on blues rockers, slow blues, funkafied blues, all supported with colorful organ and occasional electric piano fills. Cummings’ guitar work is very forceful, but there are many melodic touches making their presence felt during this concert…
Theo Czuk’s The Black Bottom is an impressively diverse twelve song collection that does a more than adequate job of surveying the stylistic range of jazz music. Czuk and his musical partners are obviously master musicians capable of assuming a variety of sonic and melodic voices without showing even a hint of hesitation and their playing is further served by Czuk’s near impeccable instincts for writing material in this idiom.…
Time working alongside some of the most popular acts in music today, among them Rascal Flatts, has honed Kevin Fisher’s songwriting skills into a finely tuned instrument for delivering mainstream delights. His debut collection Beer Me seizes upon a quintessentially American topic, the virtues of beer, and serves up a 12 pack of variations on the same joke. He has a skill for twisting everyday phrases into endorsements for the…
Kelly McGrath has enjoyed considerable and gathering commercial success in the last two years propelled by her acumen for writing and delivering songs possessing across the board appeal and genuine musical, as well as emotional weight. Her latest single “O Holy Night” expands on those qualities with a particularly affecting performance, both vocally and musically, that pushes far beyond the broad-stroked cheer and clichés typical to Yuletide themed releases. Instead,…
Liz Kennedy scores big with her latest studio release Hike Up Your Socks and enlists some major league firepower to pull it off. Taj Mahal guests on significant album cuts and adds another weapon in Kennedy’s sonic arsenal. It helps, however, that Kennedy has written her best collection of songs yet for this recording and, based on exuded confidence alone, comes off as a musical artist who entered the studio…
MkX has scored big with his newest single “Ghost” – this budding pop sensation spares no effort with a fantastic song that accomplishes the dual feat of making a personal statement with great artfulness and entertaining audiences with a highly musical and physical approach to performance. It’s a winning combination throughout. It’s been released with an accompanying video that emphasizes the intense connection MkX feels exists between his music and…
The release of the Midnight Sessions EP constitutes vocalist Brian Hutson’s first full on attempt to capitalize on the success he’s experienced with a spate of singles. His initial single releases revealed him as a young vocalist with unusual versatility and depth readily achieving effects that it takes other promising youthful talents a decade or more to reach. Much of this has to do with innate talent, naturally, but producer…
