The fiercely cutthroat New England indie rock scene has been going through a lot of volatile changes lately, particularly near the top of its creative hierarchy. The old guard is on their way out, and in their place a new group of skilled minds are looking to fill the void with their own version of the New England sound – a version, I should mention, that is far more lustfully…
Fresh off their relocation to New York City, space rockers Water and Man return with their new full-length LP Phantasie, the much anticipated follow up to 2014’s Into the Infinite. I’ve been closely following Water and Man’s journey since their inception almost five years ago in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and I can assure fans of the group that Phantasie lives up to all the high expectations everyone had for their sophomore effort. What…
There’s a strong hint of Leonard Cohen in Darren Jessee’s songwriting on The Jane Room 217. You can hear it from the first tune “Anything You Need” and it never relents. He has a strong connection with the love song tradition, in some ways, but brings an uniquely well-written power to this type of song. The song has light keyboard work in the background and Jessee’s guitar up front, but…
Hip-hop has officially reached an apex that can be distinguished both literally and figuratively from its first climactic creative peak in the early 1990’s. In this scenario, the most explosively popular subgenre to dominate the commercial side of pop music for the last quarter century is being divided into two subgroups; the stewards of the old school, and the innovators of tomorrow’s hip-hop who are bound by no rules, regulatory parameters or…
Although not always on the same page, every now and again country music flirts with rock n’ roll, and I’ve found that in these flirtations, it never sounds the same way twice. Sure, there have been hard pumping southern rock bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd or Molly Hatchet that have harnessed the sheer power and rumble of rock’s blistering guitars and thunderous basses, but there have also been more acoustically minded…
Picking the right time to release a record can be a challenging process even for the most experienced of artists. Winter albums are designed to warm us up during the coldest of months, summer albums are usually meant to get us excited about being out having fun in the sun. All of them are set up to fulfil the sonic needs of us, the consumers, but moreover they can artistically…
Synthetic stripes of melody drift before our ears, and ticking of a clock reminds us that time is at hand. The pressure is on as the percussion starts to kick in on the club mix of AV Sunshine’s “Time Bomb,” and AV himself doesn’t even have to inform us that we’re going to have to act fast if we’re going to make it to our destination – dance ecstasy –…
A lot of artists who are just starting out often wonder what it takes to create a solid Launchpad for their career, and it really boils down to several pretty basic qualities that can’t necessarily be taught. The first is having a good image for promoters to market, whether that be an image shrouded in mystery, vulnerability, happiness or depression. You’ve got to have some kind of identity. The second…
“Home” opens Brendan McMahon’s fourth release, About Joe, in slightly audacious fashion. The mass of backing vocals beginning the song with a choral arrangement is a bit of musical sleight of hand before the song shifts into a straight forward singer/acoustic guitar mold. This is brief, however; “Home” soon expands into a widescreen number with great melodic virtues and lyrical content that locks tightly into the musical mood. There’s some melodically…
For as much creativity and immersive artistry that has emerged in the last decade, one aspect of the entertainment business has continued to suffer, almost, ironically, in silence. I’m talking about pop music, specifically it’s more electrified rock n’ roll realm. Pop’s heavier side has been going through some particularly rough times since the fusion of electronic and urban subgenres to create super-scenes that know no boundaries both sonically and…
Rumors of the Great White Skunk, the third album from Oklahoma based duo Cliff and Jeana Downing, builds on the success of Captain Ledge Band’s first two albums with a collection that shows their exponential growth as songwriters since the band first formed. The duo’s journey to a third album has been well chronicled and you hear a lot of the gratitude they share for making music together coming through,…
When people are living in harmony and love is plentiful, communities at peace and joy is more common than fear or hatred, there is always music. In times of distress and chaos, where no one seems to want to get along and there isn’t any singular uniting shelter that we can come together under from the storm, there is always music. Music is in fact the one element of our…
Unforgettable Ride with mid-tempo melodic rocker “Slow Release”. Hart has an once or twice in a generation yowl ideally suited for this style and his straightforward singing reveals lung strength and vocal control among the best that we’ve heard from a hard rock band in some time. This is fun music, without a doubt, and raids the treasure trove of tropes and familiar turns that’s defined this popular form, but…
Featuring the talents of The Howling Tongues in tow, Beau + Luci’s new release Live from Aggie Theatre is a powerful audio document testifying to the strong literary qualities, spirit, and bluesy atmospherics at the tandem’s disposal. Their highly individual brand of Americana/roots music has enchanted national audiences, but their performance from Aggie Theatre brings the duo and their musical style “back home”, so to speak, and plays well for an appreciative…
Steve Wheeler’s EP release Terminal Velocity marks a divergent point for this talented composer when he affords himself the opportunity to step away from his “day job” as a media composer for major network sporting events and video games in favor of a more personal project. The instrumental EP is brief, only three songs and running less than ten minutes, but Wheeler’s writing makes the sort of impact music tailored to accentuate…
Canadian Tia McGraff, originally from the region surrounding Toronto, first met her musical partner and eventual husband Tommy Parham in Nashville and the couple have been recording and playing live together for many years. Parham is her chief collaborator, as well, on McGraff’s well received studio recordings and recent years have seen the tandem land their music on important radio shows like BBC 2’s Bob Harris Country and earn them…
Hailing from one of America’s oldest communities, Williamsburg, Virginia, Mark Rogers’ sophomore release Qualifiers is a six song recording featuring Rogers’ best material yet. He works in a singer/songwriter vein but, unlike many practitioners of the form, I don’t hear Rogers relying on formula or a series of familiar tropes to prop up his songwriting. Instead, there’s a feeling of genuine intimacy, never forced, I get from Rogers’ music and…
There are few feelings that are as tumultuous and difficult to process as heartbreak. We are never sadder and at our most defenselessly defeated as we are when we’ve lost love, and knowing that we’re not alone out there can make all the difference in the world when it comes to getting through the storm of emotions we have to endure. Reaching out through the darkness with a bursting light…
Some of the best music, regardless of genre, is the music that we can dance to and get crazy with just as easily as we can enjoy it on its own without any external interference. The best artists though, are the ones who have the ability to bring all of the magic from the studio with them out on the road and atop any stage, no matter how big or…
Costa Rican-born pianist and composer Esteban Alvarez is back and better than ever in his new album Piano Meets Mariachi and its accompanying single “La Bikina,” both arriving just in time for the summer record season (and making quite a splash in doing so). Unsatisfied with turning out a predictable album that would merely placate the needs of his longtime fans and the critics alike, Alvarez pulls out all of…