I am taken with the vibrant new mix of horns, keyboards, guitar, and singing that longtime touring musician and vocalist Doug Kistner achieves with his latest single “Don’t Look Down”. It further elevates his profile as a solo artist following the satisfying success he achieved with its preceding singles “Only Road I Know” and “Since We Left Our Dreams”. This trio of tracks shares a similar pedigree, without question, but…
You can be forgiven if you believed that South American prog rockers Aisles were possibly finished in 2018. Longtime lead singer Sebastián Vergara departed the band in 2018. It is difficult to overestimate the effect such a departure has on a band; a band’s lead singer, for many listeners, is often the avenue people initially travel towards loving a band. Many associate a band’s work with the sound of that…
There’s something remarkable about the entire world coming to a complete standstill for just about a full year due to a global crisis. The amount of togetherness experienced in the face of a daunting, truly antagonizing force was something to cherish and the way that folks who might have lost sight of their artistic ambitions or creative spark were able to slowly whittle themselves back into creative form with the…
“Blender X” sends Hard Nips’ latest album release Master Cat into the stratosphere from the outset. The sinewy attack present in the opener continues across the remaining seven tracks and plays like a team effort rather than a vehicle for any individual performer. The Ramones are among the four-piece’s self-professed influences and you can hear that in songs such as this. Their punk sound is tempered, however, by a much sharper commercial…
Who is Sarantos? Is he an artist? Is he an author? A spy? An alien from Mars, sent to Earth to infect people with the disease of music? According to Sarantos, himself, he is all of these things, and a few more. His newest single, is an introspective piece, called “I Never Catch The Train.” If you only knew Sarantos for his music, you’ll have a specific, but possibly incomplete…
The Brian Shapiro Band’s debut collection All That We See is one of the most individual music releases I’ve heard in a long time. The eight tracks including a bonus cut included are unique even in 2021 as the three-piece mashes up a soup of musical styles. “Three Things”, the first track, is impossible to describe. It is a jump blues, a punk-inspired romp, and even has singer/songwriter aspects that Shapiro steers…
Few songwriters embrace a sense of place like Sam Green. Green and the Time Machine are responsible for reeling off a series of outstanding full-length collections between 2013 and 2018 and several songs over that timeframe reflect the strong connection he maintains with his homeland Australia. He invokes that love without irony or, tellingly, rose-colored glasses, but there’s ample affection as well. TWITTER: https://twitter.com/samgreenmusic?lang=en Few songwriters, likewise, demonstrates such an…
It’s always fun keeping tabs on an artist between releases. You really get to feel like you’re alongside a journey with them as they hone their musical craft and the journey from 2014’s Daydream to Open Sesame, Vol. 1 Her Dress singer/songwriter Barista has truly become an unstoppable force of nature. While maintaining a rock and pop edge to him, there are hints of the kind of poetry word working…
Talking Heads frontman David Byrne once wrote a very controversial essay regarding the abolishment of the term “world music”, finding it reductive and disrespectful to basic artistry of hard-working musicians around the globe that should be boxed in due to the nationalization ideals of American music. I’ve always been inclined to agree with him because, well he’s David Byrne and there have been plenty of excellent musicians who’ve wanted to…
Atlanta based 5 Piece band, Pistols At Dawn, are a blend of Alt Rock, Metal, and Modern Rock stylings. They consist of, Adam Jaffe on Drums, Tommy Richardson on Guitar, Devin White on Guitar, Billy Sullivan on Bass, and former Rockstar Supernova finalist, Chris Pierson on Lead Vocals. The band’s original Guitarist, Mike Buffa, tragically passed away in 2018. Buffa was a founding member of PAD, in 2015. Their new…
There’s an ephemeral humming before a piano strike before the titular title is said by singer Raquel Kiaraa in her new song “Dear Jesus”. It sets the stage for the almost holy ambiance it makes you feel like you’re in a place of faith whether a chapel, or nature, it’s a place higher than yourself. Kiaraa’s voice, in the beginning, feels slight and humble, yet beautiful as she states that…
Few artists can lay claim to a path, as mercurial as Dova Lewis. From her upbringing in the suburbs of Montreal, to a life changing excursion in the Isles Of Hawaii, and then the dream factory in Los Angeles, Dova is rich with experience. Her journey has brought her full circle, back to her city of origin, in Montreal. Her latest offering is a 4 Song, self-titled EP. The first…
A life in the country is a life that is good, sings Chris St. John in his opening song, “I Need a Horse”. It might sound strange coming from an attorney (and former judge for that matter) but one has to imagine he might be thinking that a life spent behind a desk or a nose stuck in a law book is not really living – that slowing down and…
In an era of amalgamated genres, it’s rare to find something so sheer, and indisputable, as to be unitarily defined. But such as the case with Conceptz’ “Drippin And Drownin,” which is nothing short of the purest evolution of Hip Hop, and unabashed in that designation. Brothers, HighRowGlyphFix and Short Fuze comprise the duo known as Conceptz. Over the last 9 years, they have steadily ascended in the industry, somehow…
“Underneath the ground we’ll be safe and warm / Underneath the ground far below the storm / We’ll hide in the dark and we’ll rise when the world is reborn.” These are some of the words Jeremy Rice sings in the new single “Underneath the Ground,” and they unmistakably channel the feel of a pandemic-era world waiting to come to life once more. The insularity of the harmony through which…
Ian Bouras’ A Blind Painter’s Guide to Coloring Breath is one of the young year’s most interesting releases yet for a number of reasons. The eight songs on this release are demos; circumstances dictated the nature of this release. Bouras, under optimal circumstances, would have polished and further developed these tracks, but Bouras spent the bulk of 2020 as a patient in various psychiatric hospitals. Bouras experienced considerable difficulties reacquainting himself with…
Vianchi has returned with his follow up single, to the ever so slightly morbid, “Die [Alone].” “Overdose” is a stylish and sensual dedication to being so lovesick that we indulge to the point of excess. Too much of a good thing can be reductive, and Vianchi is walking a fine line on “Overdose.” It’s said that love can be a drug, and the character in Vianchi’s, “Overdose” is chasing the…
Anyone can be loud and proud about it. If you’ve got the right stack of amplifiers and a sense of adventure, you can produce sounds as big as mountains whilst utilizing the natural ambience to get people’s attention from a great distance, but to manipulate raw tonal energy into something that feels emotional and tangible to the average person – as Phantom Wave do in their new album Wilds – takes a…
Sophomore albums can be ever tougher than virgin efforts are, but you’d never guess as much from taking a peek at the seamlessness of Bobby Dove’s Hopeless Romantic. Although created with much of the same stylish color their first record was, Dove’s follow-up to Thunderchild is a lot more personal, and you needn’t look much further than the LP’s title cut and lead music video to understand what I mean. They’re a singer/songwriter…
You can always tell when an artist is truly invested in the music they’re making, and after giving “Love to the Moon” a listen just this week, I think it’s obvious that Raquel Kiaraa is the real deal. Kiaraa’s honeysweet vocal and old timey harmonies are two of the biggest reasons why “Love to the Moon” feels familiar and fun at the same time, but looking even closer allows for…