Wowing us with their soft touch in the title track. Brushing up with themes sourced from Britpop, American folk-rock and even outsider music in “Elsie’s Last Stand.” Allowing for crushing brawn to amalgamate with a tender melodicism in “Desolate Angel.” Confounding us with contradictions in “Seven Seconds of Summer” while adhering to the strictest of sonic rules in “A Toy for Juliette” and “Pretty Blue Gun.” They are Fitzsimon and…
What are some of the images that first come to mind to mark the holidays? For some it’s Christmas time once you see Santa waving on that very last float at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For others, it’s the 25 Days of Christmas on Hallmark Channel or one of the other cable networks. In my house, it’s not Christmas until the radio is playing “Step Into Christmas” from Elton John…
“The saints come marching home, the holy ghost is on his knees, crushed by sticks and stones,” a serious-sounding John Vento sings in this gripping chorus. The song, “America (The Saints Come Marching Home)” is just the defiant rock and roll sound the rock pioneers had in mind when they created a new genre. Vento takes it even further and adds in that spirited Pennsylvanian workmanship to his interpretation of…
Proving he still has the pulse of the working class close to his heart, and the rock rhythms even closer, Ed Roman delivers yet another strong outing in his “Tomorrow Is Today”. A follow-up to his previous 2020 single, “Stronger”, “Tomorrow Is Today” is from Roman’s anticipated album, A Recipe For Perpetual Spring (produced by Roman and Michael Jack). A one-time Billboard Emerging Artist and Josie Show Award Winner, Roman…
In his new single and music video “Explode,” Canadian pop singer/songwriter Chris Ning gets as brutally honest as he’s ever been with his lyricism, unleashing what could be one of the more personal tracks of its kind this season. A crushingly intimate ballad that touches on suicide and self-awareness in a raw, unfiltered manner, “Explode” doesn’t attempt to hide the vulnerabilities of its lead singer in any way, shape or…
A visual journey that feels increasingly dreamy with every frame it presents us with, the music video for Sébastien Lacombe’s new track “My Thousand Dollar Car” is every bit the encapsulation of identity a lead single should be. There’s a sense of exposure that bleeds from the lyricism into the imagery here and doesn’t leave us alone for the duration of the video’s running time, and similarly, most everything on…
If the oaky-toned melodies of an Appalachian bluegrass sound are what you’ve been craving this autumn, you’re going to enjoy what James Reams has to offer in the new documentary Like a Flowing River: A Bluegrass Passage, which is currently available on Amazon Prime Video and attracting some warm reactions from critics and fans alike. While strictly a documentary and not a concert film, Like a Flowing River features interviews and live footage…
Gamers who were a fan of the fourteenth installment of the Final Fantasy series no doubt remember its soundtrack, and most of all, its vocalist in one Susan Calloway, whose new single “Favorite Scar” is earning a lot of hype around the American underground this season – and rightly so. In this latest release to feature Calloway at the microphone, her vocals are joined by a powerful instrumental framework that is as…
In their Ned Luberecki-produced debut album, appropriately titled Starry Southern Nights after one of its most moving tracks, Rock Hearts seek to establish themselves as melodic players who can balance the finer points of bluegrass sophistication with a homespun roots sound most anyone can get into these days, and for this critic, they hit a homerun right out of the park. In songs like the namesake and its tracklist neighbor, the agile…
It’s been awhile, but one of my favorite politically-charged commentary songs is Green Day’s “American Idiot”. It seems like a lifetime ago musicians and leaders alike were grumbling about George W. Bush and the Iraq War. Fast forward to 2020, and the world is topsy turvy over COVID-19 and the era of Donald J. Trump. It’s inevitable that singers and songwriters reflect int their music the times, and one such…
Let’s hope this isn’t the last one, the last song from singer extraordinaire Manny Cabo. “The Last One”, a moving Americana-pop track from the now Nashville-based singer is the latest string of releases from a former contestant on The Voice. Proving he’s much more than a voice, his emotional delivery and a commanding presence are just two pivotal turning points in Cabo’s stirring “The Last One”. Matching his heartfelt delivery…
If an artist manages to release at least four records in their career, history tells us that everything we need to learn about the depth of the player’s craft can be found in the tracklist of the first and last of this set. Enter Jake Allen’s Affirmation Day – in his fourth release, this singer/songwriter is committed to making sure that the very notion of holding back from the audience…
Bass, keys, a moderate string component and a glistening lead vocal – outside of these key elements, there isn’t much more comprising the new single “Barcelona Butterflies” from Leni Black, and while it’s only the first release we’ve heard out of the talented singer/songwriter’s camp thus far, it’s absolutely one heck of a statement if I’ve ever heard one before. INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/leni.black/ Espousing a narrative that has become rather popular…
No matter the tempo they’re arranged in or the velvety vocal they’re paired with in songs like “Ballad of Mary Ann,” “I’m Gonna Wait on Jesus” and “March Around Jericho,” the strings are almost always the brightest of a thousand shimmering elements for us to behold in the new album Take Me Back from bluegrass players Carolina Blue. Whether you’ve heard either of their first two albums prior to picking up Take Me…
Gentle and capable of inspiring great warmth within the listener in “You Made the Break.” Churning up a storm the size of Tennessee in “Turkey in the Straw.” Blanketing us with a groove no true ‘grass fan could ever resist in the title track of Banjo Player’s Blues much like as they would in the equally nimble “Helen.” Both steeped in balladry for “Dear God” and lit up with a vitality that…
Garage punk revivalists essentially reshaped the narrative for American and Canadian indie rock in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, and for those of us who are old enough to remember what the before and after sounded like for that era in popular music, it’s easy to understand why The Confusionaires are clicking with millennials as well as they are with the release of their new album From the Headache to…
The NC based Nathan Oliver are back with a more organic style album on the fourth release by the pop songwriter with the more recently acquired Joe Caparo and Brad Porter being a big part of the different style applied to Thank You For Your Generosity. The usual standard in which Oliver can be proud of is still there but it is gutsier and rougher around the edges, over the…
Smile While You’re Wasted is the new album from Austrian singer/songwriter Marc Miner. The personality-filled Miner and his backing band unleash a fiery, fun mix of country twang, rockabilly and folksy fun in 11 smattering tracks. Sure to get you boot scootin’ across the dance floor and raise your beer glass in the air, Miner taps into the merriment of music to ease the troubled soul of a listener on…
Made up of flutes that resemble a whispering wind, strings that bring forth massive, groove-focused riffs, heavily surreal synth melodies that allude to a post-rock sensibility and soul-crushing poetry sourced from a Dylan-esqe folk influence, to describe Twin Flames’ new album Omen as anything other than a colorful cocktail of definitively Canadian sounds simply wouldn’t be doing it justice. In its lead single, “Battlefields,” and many of its other eleven songs, Omen introduces us…
It’s hard to imagine, but the album Summer of Love is the first solo effort for Project Grand Slam’s Robert Miller. If you’ve been paying attention to the funk and jazz genre, then you know that Project Grand Slam is innovative and relentless entertaining. Miller, now at the helm of his own collection, never misses a beat and slides the listener into a comfortable sonic journey. Personal and in part,…