One of the most shocking revelations about the misunderstood thriller The Hunt is just how many right wing influencers, including the president, likely contributed to the movie’s sabotaged release, painting it as an example of “Liberal Hollywood” showing their contempt for Trump supporters by having them hunted for sport and calling it “[r]acist at the highest level”. The movie was also pulled in deference to mass shootings in Dayton and…
ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons is best known for three things: playing a mean guitar, his obsession with exotic hot rods (check out any band video from the ‘80s) and one of the most impressive beards in rock. His book, Billy F Gibbons: Rock + Roll Gearhead, tackles two out of three. Initially out in 2011, this latest book is an expanded version with over 200 pages devoted to Gibbons…
There have been countless attempts by Universal to reboot and retell the classic H.G. Wells story of The Invisible Man, but thanks to an inspired modern twist on the classic story, the studio has finally turned in possibly the best and easily the scariest telling yet of this classic monster movie. Written and directed by Leigh Whannell (best known for his screenplays for Saw and the Insidious franchise), the movie…
As if the album title weren’t hint enough, the opening line to the opening track off of Teddy Thompson’s latest begins, “Here’s the thing/You don’t love me anymore.” What follows is an album’s worth of heartbreak (as advertised). Sometimes maudlin, sometimes oddly optimistic in the acceptance of the end, Thompson deftly creates an impressively infectious modern day break up record. In recent press materials, Thompson admits to growing up in…
Massachusetts-based songwriter Mark Erelli has been a go-to sideman for decades, playing with everyone from Paula Cole and Josh Ritter to Marc Cohen. He’s also a much in demand producer, but as Blindsided, his latest solo effort shows, he really belongs in front of the mic. Across 11 tracks, Erelli blends pop, folk and American in a deeply accessible way. You can hear traces of everyone from Tom Petty to…
It’s rather apt that The Claudettes pulled in Ted Hutt to produce their latest, High Times In The Dark. The current go-to producer for hard to define bands was co-founder of Flogging Molly, another group that heled to create a style of music by cobbling together various genres, much like The Claudettes have done since their first record, nearly a decade ago. A beautifully bastardized child of cabaret, pop, punk…
Gone are the fiddles, the mandolins and the banjo, that have come to define Trampled By Turtles trademark sound, but Dave Simonett’s strong stark vocals are still front and center on this, his first proper solo album under his own name. The music is a mix of mostly somber Americana and folk and is in the same vein as the material Simonett put out under the Dead Man Winter name.…
The fourth track, “Homme Run,” off The Ballroom Thieves latest Unlovely is a beautifully succinct, deftly written call out to how far we have yet to go in terms of equality. Even the Democratic party in 2020, the political group that has been preaching gender equality ad nauseum, is offering a choice between two 70-something white males as the group’s leader. Two steps forward one step back. Wrapped into Calin…
The bulk of Sam Doores self-titled solo debut may have been recorded in Berlin and Nashville, but he certainly didn’t leave behind his native New Orleans influences while he crossed the globe. The 13-track record may be Southern roots at its core, but it’s covered in swampy organ, laid back R&B and tinges of gospel and psychedelic music. Best known for his time in Hurray for the Riff Raff…
While the world is inches away from plunging into Armageddon, Rum Bar Records and a brilliant Italian four-piece punk band are offering a glorious soundtrack to our end days. Boston-based Rum Bar continues their re-release series of albums by the Peawees with Walking The Walk, initially released 13 years ago (Wild Honey is putting it out on vinyl). The band’s fourth album, it also happens to be one of their…
It’s pretty surprising to have the band bio included in your press materials written by The Old 97’s Rhett Miller. It’s even more surprising once you realize John Dufilho, frontman and songwriter behind the decidedly punk rock band Clifffs, has also worked for years with Miller, who’s Americana band sounds absolutely nothing like Clifffs. And that’s part of the beauty of this Texas band’s LP, Panic Attack, it really sounds…
Spanking Charlene’s last album was recorded nearly a decade ago, but the band clearly hasn’t bothered to let rust settle in. On Find Me Out, their third effort, the music is stronger and singer Charlene McPherson’s vocals are seemingly more powerful (quite a feat when you realize how impressive she sounded on the first two records). The New York band builds on the gritty garage pop that came to define…
On his aptly titled fifth album, LP5, Oklahoma’s John Moreland still hues closely to his trademark, introspective songs laced over a satisfying blend of modern Americana and folk that flirts with punk rock candor. But he also manages to deviate a bit from the tried and true with a little musical experimentation for one of his strongest records to date. This also happens to be the first album Moreland has…
Propelled by little more than strong word of mouth and a decade-and-a-half worth of stunningly impressive albums, The Wood Brothers were able to pack Philly’s 2,500 capacity Filmore on a recent Saturday night for an enthusiastic show that was as close as many will come to a religious experience. The Filmore is more than twice the size of the Union Transfer where the band played less than two years ago.…
Four stars Springsteen’s got nothing on David Lowery… well, at the very least, Lowery would have no problems keeping up with Bruce’s legendary reputation for on stage stamina. Lowery played two complete sets to a full capacity crowd at Philadelphia World Café Live recently, first playing a career-spanning set from Camper Van Beethoven and then taking the stage with an almost entirely different line up about 20 minutes later for…
California-based Dustbowl Revival have always been a little hard to pin down musically. There is definitely an Americana vibe to their music, but there are also hefty elements of jazz, swing and pop. Their latest, Is It You, Is It Me does little to dispel that confusion. Across a baker’s dozen of new songs, the band relies just as heavily on their horn section as they do their acoustic guitars…
Simple Minds may best be remembered in this country for the outro song that gets played during the final shot of The Breakfast Club – a track that has almost become shorthand for Generation X rebellion, played at school reunions to this day. But as many in Europe and elsewhere outside of the U.S. realized decades ago, the Scottish band has an exhaustively large cannon of music that pre-and post-dates that…
While The Raspberries and Big Star are almost always the first bands namechecked in any discussion about Power Pop, there were a slew of remarkably brilliant U.S. bands throughout the early-, mid-1980s who picked up that flag and carried it on for a while before getting drowned out by synth pop and hair metal on the radio. Groups like The Plimsouls, The Romantics and Dramarama created some remarkably addictive songs…
For the past 15 years, The Wood Brothers have managed to forge a wildly uncompromising career, trends be damned, churning out their own brand of folk, blues and Americana through a series of eclectically satisfying studio records and live albums, bringing along a growing crowd of followers with each successive release. Kingdom In My Mind, thankfully fits right in line with the rest of their cannon. This, their seventh album,…
While G. Love’s latest, The Juice, is technically a solo album, he still filled the studio with plenty of friends for the outing. Most prominently was former labelmate Keb Mo, who co-produced, co-wrote and performs on several songs across the record. Other guests who stopped by the studio include Marcus King, Robert Randolph, Roosevelt Collier and Ron Artis. And while this slew of new voices and players don’t entirely change…
