A rollicking groove and a swanky guitar riff are waiting to whisk us away to a dreamy harmony in the new single “Firefly” from Ethan Gold, and while I half-expected to be enamored with the compositional backbone of this track, just based on my experience with this artist’s content, I didn’t think the beat would be nearly as gripping as it is here. Gold’s other single out right now, “Storm…
Rap has been collectively moving to the left of pop standards for a minute now, as more and more crossovers come into the primetime spotlight, but for Arkadian, the time is right to bring forth an old-school straightforwardness that few have been experimenting with. His new single “Life of Arkadian” has a certain retro quality to its presentation, but relative to the other content that’s been coming out on both…
Vancouver Island’s LNDN values artistic brevity rather than the all too typical ostentatious pop architecture so many other artists erect. The introspective message behind his new single “Life Like That” is universal enough that it will strike a chord with a wide audience and the accessible arrangement is a perfect vehicle for LNDN. He’s released an accompanying video for the track. Graham Dorsay directed the video and it’s a notable…
Magic is in the air in the new music video for Fresh Da Zoe’s “Voodoo Flow,” and although the wicked imagery on screen is quite the reference to the occult on its own, the hypnotic nature of the beat in this single is a far more powerful element. Fresh Da Zoe is pulling out all the creative stops here – visuals, a punchy rhythm, even a linguistic fluidity that makes…
High-quality collaborations take us somewhere we wouldn’t expect any of the involved parties to venture on their own, and in their new single “Lit Life,” Selfish Ways and Maahez definitely jettison into concepts that I was not expecting to encounter from either act. Selfish Ways just dropped Gotham City Vibes in 2022, and among the tracks that are sporting features, “Lit Life” probably has the most experimental feel to its bones. Maahez…
Deconstructed rock is all the rage at the moment, and no matter what you call this emerging style, it feels so much more stripped-down than anything to have come out of alternative music since the late 1980s. Foundry Town Survivors play a pretty interesting blend of Americana, psychedelia, and indie rock in their new single “Hopes and Dreams,” the first song I’ve heard from the group since their inception, and…
“Sunny Days” is the wonderful new track from singer/songwriter Stacy Gabel. Just as warm as the title suggests, Gabel successfully catches sun rays and puts them to song. She spreads love and optimism and one would be hard pressed to not fall under her spell and the catchy chorus. The multiple-Lehigh Valley Style & Music Award Winner, continues to represent her home state of Pennsylvania with songs that make you…
Alabama has always had one of the most underrated music scenes in all of the American south, but if a rapper like Nina Chanel is able to have it her way, that isn’t going to remain the case for very much longer. Chanel reps the Bama underground like nobody’s business in her new single and music video “Big,” a track which underscores many of the aesthetical foundations that gave birth…
“Come Thru” is the poignant new single from Indie-pop singer/songwriter Dynamyte. Although the lyrics allude to an ill fated romantic relationship, the origin of “Come Thru” came from a night where her friends bailed on her last minute. Dynamyte had nothing to do but think about other peoples commitments and values, vs. her own. She finished writing “Come Thru” a year later, alongside co-writers Myah Marie and Zak Waters. As…
In modern country music, the lines of the genre are becoming more and more blurred with every passing year. Some will argue that the genre has never had distinct boundary lines, but with the invention of starlet Taylor Swift, it’s safe to say that the nondescript lines of country and pop became eviscerated beyond recognition, regardless of what the 80s and 90s country stars had to say. URL: https://coreystapleton.com/ Even…
Introducing a concept of faith through more than lyrics is a task every Christian contemporary songwriter has to deal with, but rarely does a player do it quite as well as Lady Redneck does. Her new single, the simple “After the Rain, You’ll Find the Son,” has a lot in common with the surreal country movement we’re hearing more and more out of in 2022, but with one caveat; it’s…
Devinn Le’Raay is hot and bothered in the new single “FaceTime,” and with a little help from Lakes the Voice, he’s going to make sure we know just what he needs to get straight again. Le’Raay’s smooth demeanor punctuates a scandalous string of verses as stinging as they are simplistic, and although the lyrics are on the leaner side in “FaceTime,” the way they’re presented to us in this track…
Judging from the pristine keys that greet us as we step into Bruce Lii’s world ala the new music video for “Toxic,” you would think we were in for a much more elegant number than this rocky, uncompromising performance is, but if you’re a fan of this player’s music, you know exactly what you’re getting in a piece like this one. “Toxic” pulverizes with its brute strength, most of it…
Introspection is a key theme in the music video for Bosco’s ballad “Wicked Woods,” and while the imagery contained within it seems to couple regret with a fleeting sense of reflection, it never extends itself outside of the self-awareness realm. Bosco doesn’t want to give us a sob story in this performance, but instead something tangible and relatable from an external perspective. His words are as heavy as bricks, but…
Coyote Red is a brilliant debut album from wildly talented singer/songwriter Bailey Bigger. Born and raised just outside Memphis, Tennessee Bigger started playing guitar and writing songs at the tender age of nine. Her original song “Wildflower” won “Memphis’ Best Song of 2017” when she was just 17, she’s been playing at venues and festivals ever since. Coyote Red is a beautiful album that highlights Bigger’s honest songwriting and artistry.…
The irreverent Project213, just one of Jared Hallock’s several artistic endeavors, is an idea that finds difficulty sticking to one lane — those of us that have been internet savvy throughout the aughts and beyond might remember the group’s nearly decade-old proto-meme “Everybody Masturbate,” but a quick check of Hallock’s own YouTube page shows that the band has been all the more active since, with their most-watched release gaining an…
Protests and funerals have been walking hand in hand for the better part of the last few years as the ongoing fight for justice in the Black community has raged forward to an unprecedented level, and the new music video for Miss Storm’s single “Quicksand” is a painful reminder of just how real the crisis we’re facing as a nation right now really is. Forget the politics and the talking…
Rebellion in the rock genre is back and better than ever right now, and I’m not talking about the hybrid hip-hop/punk acts that have been taking over the mainstream exclusively. Buried beneath the pop music culture that you’ll find anywhere on the FM dial right now is a feverishly talented underground scene cultivating what sounds, feels, and seems to be some of the realest punk rock we’ve heard since the…
Pop/rock influences combine with a steadily melodic hip-hop persuasion in the new single from Stringz EMB, “Hijacked,” but while this might sound like just another hybrid rap track dropping this spring on paper, this is no run of the mill hip-hop single. There’s considerable depth to the instrumental framework of “Hijacked” that is hard for even the more discriminating of critics among us to ignore, and although Stringz EMB has…
Danger is all around in the new music video for XIIDC’s new single “3 Ninjas,” and I’m not talking about the visual setup alone. There’s an ominousness shadowing the verses that Artshow, Spell the Three and Typhanie & Co. are giving up in this performance, like a night stalker creeping behind us in the shadows, and yet there isn’t a drop of intimidation affecting the performance of these three rappers.…