Gusty grooves adorn the string balladry of “Never Apart.” Discordant minor-key harmonies make merry with a happy-go-lucky swing beat in “Never Miss.” Ruark seduce us with a glowing melody in “Naturally,” the staggering “Sick of It,” “Time Wouldn’t Waste Away” and the title track of their new album When You Coming Home with as much ease as they do when provoking thoughts unique to every listener in a contemplative “Sweet Senseless World,”…
When it comes to getting personal in a song, there aren’t a whole lot of country groups as adept and skillful as Flat River Band are in most every song they record, and in their fifth studio album, the retrospective Every Dog Has Its Day, they impart one provocative country tale after another as though we were sitting with the power trio around a blazing flame in the wilderness. The fireside…
A gentle percussion and a gorgeous piano dance back and forth with one another as we listen in on the first few bars of Rob Alexander’s “Friend of Mine (Elton’s Epic),” and with the sway of every beat, we find a little bit more color within the growing melody before us. Alexander starts to sing, and even though his initial attack is as soft and decadent as the rhythm of…
The late 2010s produced a lot of interesting singer/songwriters, and among the more intriguing that I heard in 2019 was Andy Michaels, whose record Incendiary Heart raised a lot of eyebrows in his native Australia as well as overseas in the United States. A product of hybrid creativities and eclectic collaborations with singers like Tiarna Madison and Kerry Ironside, Incendiary Heart takes everything that was suggested as being possible in Michaels’ debut LP Revisited and reshapes…
If guitar sizzle is your style, I would definitely recommend taking a peek at the latest record from Canadian rockers This Time, Two, the next time you’re browsing new indie titles, because from the plodding fuzz of deep cuts like “Caught You in Love” and “Something About,” to the blustery palm-muted storm of “Be Somebody” and chief single “Runaway,” they absolutely embody the core of this band’s sound more than anything…
The last couple of years have been a great time for fans of acoustic pop music. From the United Kingdom to the United States and beyond, artists have been coming out of the woodwork with roots music of the most erudite variety, and although the new single “Moses” from Jonathan Emile might not qualify as being the most prolific acoustic song I’ve heard in the last year, it’s undeniably one…
Any study of how personal wellbeing, a larger issue than just physical health, influences the overall direction of any organization would be lacking if it did not likewise explore how effective leadership shapes that aforementioned wellbeing. Natasha Wallace’s The Conscious Effect: 50 Lessons for Better Organizational Wellbeing leaves nothing out in its discussion of the issue. Wallace’s long experience as a HR professional, a respected voice regarding leadership and personal development, and…
Slowly creeping out from behind the shadows of silence, we find the traces of an otherworldly melody in “Extemporization,” one of the eight songs comprising the new record from Ian C. Bouras and Dion Abraham, Refractions of Sound. Boldly venturing beyond limits that most artists would fearfully stick with, Bouras and Abraham explore the depths of the sonic universe without stripping away the personality from their colorful harmonics in songs like…
Like a flickering light in the midst of an endless sea of darkness, we find the first glimpse at a stunning piano melody in “Adagio in A Minor” as we find the others that join it in Joseph Seif’s Piano Sonata No. 1; spilling over with an untouched emotionality that cannot be replicated, even within the tracklist of this simple classical record. Much like “Piano Sonata No. 1: I. Allegro in…
Hello! We are excited to chat with you today. Fill us in on what you have been up to in 2019! Hi! Thanks so much for talking the time to talk with me! Honestly, 2019 has been the year of getting my shit together. I’ve been making music and half heartedly getting myself out there for a few years now but it wasn’t until this year that I’ve really started…
Hello Joey! So happy we could chat today. Can you walk us through your musical journey? Give us the story of where you started and what is going on now for you. Thanks for inviting me to chat! I had a brain tumor when I was around 2 years old. I survived though most of the doctors didn’t think I would or if I did, I would never walk or…
Hunting Memories is a full-length release of the same title, by visual Artist, Tahiti Pehrson, the sole creator of what is an excellent collection of songs that take you through some of the stories of life and things that happen with people along the way. The outcome is a very fresh and well-balanced perspective from an Indie Singer/Songwriter who does things his own way and hangs his hat on his…
Chords with big, burnt-ends come slashing through the silence in “Forever & a Day” like Jupiter in Velvet’s life depends on it, but as captivating as the guitar parts are in this track, they’re just as potent a force to be reckoned with in the Brit rock-inspired “A Cooler Shade of Mad” without question. Jupiter in Velvet puts the dynamic string grooves at the forefront of the mix in “If…
Kerry Pastine and the Crime Scene’s third album release City of Love promises to be their defining moment to date. The Denver, Colorado native and her band mates built the two previous releases around a rockabilly blues hybrid sound earning raves in the process and established a reputation as a lively concert act more than capable of building on the energy they capture in the studio in front of enthusiastic fans. Her…
Guttural in one track, smothered in a synth’s playful harmony in another, the guitar parts that adorn the material we hear on the new Parker Longbough LP Green and Gold/Drink the Hemlock are at times reminiscent of early White Stripes records, 80s Seattle sludge and even the noise-laden riffs of Sonic Youth all at once, and yet they rarely translate as being overly experimental in songs like “Avalanche Beacon,” “Bad Attitude” and…
You would think that the subject of handling employee transitions between direct business competitors has a wealth of literature on the topic. You would be wrong. Attorney Steven Manchel writes about the issue with a objective and learned eye in his book “I Hereby Resign” Job Transitioning: How Individuals Properly Prepare, Resign and Move to the Competition, and How Companies Best Manage that Process. It has an agreeable length for the vast majority…
In their latest record, titled Time Has Made a Change, popular bluegrass group Jeff Parker & Company get back to basics in a time that has seen their peers doing anything and everything but, and as a result produce an album that could be the most focused of Parker’s extensive career. From the slow-churning swell of strings in “Southern Wind” to the crisp harmonies of a peaceful “Time Has Made a…
Angelic guitars and piano keys intertwine and dance without any inhibition in “Goodbye.” Those same guitars entertain a dangerous riff rock in “Nme” and “Arriianne” that couldn’t be any dirtier in tonality, but the melodies in these songs are as springy as what we’d find in “Underneath the Ground” and “Beleev.” Jeremy Rice can croon in full-color heartland harmony in “Johnny Rogers” just as well as he can spit punkish…
Mimosa Hygiene is the first collection from Nashville based duo The Criticals. The talents of Cole Shugart and Parker Forbes are formidable even after a single listen; this is a band who have their songwriting wrapped up far tighter than your average emerging act and I can’t point to a single track among the six included as an obvious example of filler. The Criticals, instead, come out of their corner swinging…
Somewhat somber and yet capable of encapsulating the honest optimism of the lyrics in the foreground, the piano plays with a tortured resilience at the start of “Don’t Stand a Chance,” the new single by Mattia Pironti, and its opulence will only grow more noticeable as we press on. Its keys frame a poetic window into the soul of Mattia Pironti that had only been teased in his first two…