Comprised primarily of some electrified string play, delicate piano keys, a profoundly crisp beat and honeysweet vocals that have our attention from the start, Gary Burk III’s “Two Lane Airplane” isn’t the most fanciful country song I’ve heard in 2020. It isn’t featuring any grandiose fat on its bassline, nor does it have a sizzling lead guitar part that puts it into metallic, stadium-shaking territory. For the better part of…
Blistering electric guitars meet warm lead vocals, honest harmonies and more than a couple of slick beats in songs like “Summer Means New Love,” “Good Ol’ Stupid Me” and “Sweet Sugar,” but even in the slow song “Dismal Day” and its easy-going counterpart in “Driving Me Insane,” there’s scarcely a moment in which Tom Tikka & The Missing Hubcaps don’t sound on-point in their new EP Insane. Mixing together elements of…
Live records present us with a different dimension of an artist, and in some cases, a level of appreciation for their craft that wouldn’t have been possible in a more typical setting. In Live from Lockdown, the Streaking in Tongues’ 2020 installment in their growing discography or pure indie gems, the father-son pairing give us access to some of their most revered compositions through a dynamic real-time performance that binds all…
An essential agent of evocation in most any pop/rock effort, there’s no understating what a quality guitar part can contribute to an album as homespun as Daniel Tortoledo’s Through out These Years, and in songs like “Give Me Soul” or “Eloise,” it’s as important as any lyric ever could be. There aren’t a lot of cosmetic frills in Through out These Years, nor are there any attempts on the part of singer/songwriter…
Though guitars are frequently a centerpiece in any given rock album, they take on a special role in the songs found on Glorybots’ new LP Invisible that shapes not only the tone of the music, but the very lens through which we interpret it. In songs like the record-opening “Blepharospasm” and swinging “Radiate,” the riffs serve as a direct extension of the lead vocal in expressing the complete depth of emotion behind…
“I’ve been tangled in this love affair somewhere in my mind / And when I see you, I’m at a loss – words I cannot find” we’re told by a soft, bittersweet vocal in the first couple of lines in 308 Ghost Train’s “Bleed Over Me.” As poetically endearing as these verses are, they’re just a limited preview of what’s about to come roaring out of the stereo in the…
Coming at us with a hot and heavy rhythm that could make just about anyone feel like dancing, there’s no debate as to whether or not the swing in Russ Still and the Moonshiners’ “Cancun” is the fieriest feature this hybrid single has to offer. Right out of the gate, there’s nothing in the mix to stop Still and his backing band from dishing out one magnetizing groove after another,…
A vocal, good or bad, is inevitably what defines a rap track more than anything else does, and this is especially true of a fierce number like Rich Lindo’s new single “Jungle.” Lindo doesn’t hide behind any sonic smokescreens in “Jungle;” he comes out swinging hard with a melodic intro that bleeds into the instrumentation rather seamlessly. His epic rapping doesn’t hit us until we get deeper into the track,…
In their scathing follow-up to 2016’s stunningly eclectic Uncaused, Cinemartyr deliver a violent yin to their rookie album’s yang that immediately left me spellbound and intrigued by their growth in the last four years. Titled Death of the First Person, Cinemartyr’s sophomore affair is hardly the typical sequel; from where I sit, it’s about as different from its predecessor as it gets without abandoning the core values of experimentalism that gave the…
Jim Lord’s latest single is a lullaby for the ages. Playing on the words from “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and arrangement, Lord’s song “Little Star” has the artist gazing afar of the love of his life and what that person means to him. Humming his way to your heart, Lord’s simplistic approach of his voice and an acoustic guitar orbits above Earth. FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/JimLordSingerSongwriter/ Born in New Jersey, but based…
Brendan Staunton began his musical journey in the early 1990’s singing with the Celtic influenced rock band Dubh Chapter. The band produced an album produced by Steve Hillage entitled Silence, Cunning & Exile but broke up soon after. Staunton briefly sang with the ambient dance band Ultramarine appearing on their track “Weird Gear” before deciding to leave the music industry behind. A quarter century passed before Staunton re-established contact with his past…
In his latest single, the playful “Nothing to Lose,” pop singer/songwriter Johnnie Mikel is exploring a strain of vocal showmanship more indebted to the conservative stylings of a bygone era than it is anything in the grandiose-filled modern genre, but I wouldn’t call it a total throwback. Right out of the gate, this song has a bounciness that it expounds through much more than a fluid drumbeat; in all honesty,…
Armed with a chugging guitar riff and a slick rhythm straight out of the American pop/rock playbook, “Know What She Said” comes sliding out of the speakers as smoothly as a track can, emitting a sense of catharsis with every beat it unfurls. Les Nuby is pulling out the stops to make a big impression in this song, along with the nine others that join it in the new record Clouded, out everywhere…
Rolling out of the speakers with an angelic ease that is indebted as much to Hollywood glam as it is the bucolic balladry of an old school Nashville, the vocal harmony in Wild Fire’s “Rolling With the Stones” is reason enough to pick up this new track from the acclaimed crossover duo this summer. Blending country with strong pop aesthetics and a talent for conjuring up powerful hooks out of…
Beats, bagpipes, vocal harmonies and even the occasional sitar accent; this is Unexpected Guests, the new album from Toronto Tabla Ensemble, and to say that it’s offering listeners a smorgasbord of layered sonic magic might be too great an understatement to make this summer. Right from the start in “Dream Symposium,” it’s clear that Toronto Tabla Ensemble have a keen interest in drawing together various textures and influences to make something…
Subtle in size but shapely enough to create an ominous rhythm beneath the surface of its stealthy verses, “No Be Mouth,” the new single from JTK (and featuring Tunji), doesn’t hold back from laying heavy grooves on us inside of a rather minimalistic packaging this summer. Swaggering but uninfluenced by the arrogant attitudes that have poisoned some of hip-hop’s most promising young voices, JTK is an efficiency king in this…
Modern rock tracks never sounded this good – Las Vegas’ Sprockets grip on fast guitars and great lyrics in their new EP Self Made. Taking the energy from the streets and dazzle of the Vegas Strip and transfusing reverb into a fun rock vibe, Sprockets’ gamble pays off in all four tracks. Making up the band Sprockets are Brodie Knight (vocals, guitar), Dave Schwaller (bass guitar, vocals), Jesse Magana (lead…
A tidal wave of beautifully overdriven riffage comes crashing into a vocal harmony as delicate as a strand of silk in one track, while another features glowing kaleidoscopic melodies that ride atop a smooth beat as though they were always meant to be joined in sonic matrimony. As indebted to the storm rock of Pelican as it is the vulnerability of Unknown Pleasures, The Brothers Union’s Pain and the Opposite is scarcely dull and consistently…
In his new 2-song EP, Too Bright to Fade Away, troubadour Reed Waddle experiments with elements of easygoing folk/rock and indie pop to forge a fantastic pair of ballads more than worth your time this summer. Both the title track in Too Bright to Fade Away and its counterpart in “Bells of Brooklyn” borrow a lot from the Bakersfield sound of the 1970’s, as well as a dose of tempered, Neil Young-style poeticisms,…
Blushing with a wintry melodicism that feels surprisingly appropriate this June, Paul Mark & the Van Dorens’ “December at the P.O.” has an aching compositional integrity that essentially comes standard on the album Gravity, currently out everywhere quality indie music is sold and streamed. Armed with Mark’s trademark poetry and a glowing piano as sterling as that of “I Spin When You Grin,” “December at the P.O.” is rightly the closing…