Big, loud, aggressive, and slightly industrious; Tarot Cat’s “Am I Dreaming” isn’t pulling any punches with the audience, and if you’re not careful, its oversized beats are almost certain to pummel you this autumn. Instead of hammering out a retro-punk anthem like a lot of their contemporaries have been, Tarot Cat is going a little more avant-garde with their style in this performance and making it more than clear where…
Dave Boone’s Alberta and the Dead Eyes has likely settled on its peak lineup. The original three piece of Boone, drummer Erik Washington, and bass player Bhuti Bhuti drafted Ashlan Ounanian into the band and the results are transformative. Ounanian’s lap steel and additional percussion extends the Dead Eyes’ musical reach without ever spinning the unit off into unfamiliar terrain. The resulting new album You Said Something features the band in fully-realized…
Husband and wife duo, Makar, have another cooler-than-you-think gem with their new Halloween-inspired hit, “Zombies Have Rights Too”. Or is it inspired by the undead? Perhaps a nefarious monster is behind the song, or maybe it’s presented as a nod to the folks that just don’t get the same attention or love as they deserve. The tight sound, the airy melodies and the quirky beat is what makes Makar oh-so-good. Makar,…
It’s been a little bit since we have had the opportunity to cover a dry herb vaporizer for the magazine. After a few months of experience with the Utillian we’re pretty familiar with the tool. The positives: The chamber is deceptively large. The device heats up in record time, with little more than 20-30 seconds required to get up to the proper temperature. The modular design of the Utillian 421…
What Pretty Embers may lack in lyrical dimension they make it up for in musical diversity. The songs written for their debut collection Under stand out thanks to a consistent voice sustaining them over the course of ten tracks. There are some key variations along the way, but the bulk of the band’s songs finds its narrators mired in several degrees of self-loathing. Lead singer Kameron Mitchell does, to his credit, perform…
Instruments are a direct reflection of their players. The miles they travel, the stories they tell, the emotions they come to embody through the songs a musician would compose; in an instrument as incredibly identifiable and culturally significant as the electric guitar, it can be said that there’s little separation between the identity of the strings and that of the artist who strung them. For photographer Lisa Johnson, capturing the…
It is a painful truism of art, in all its forms, that pain often provokes us to create. We won’t discuss the many reasons why. The relevant reason when discussing Abbreviations’ new album ABBV is Ashley Leer’s need to process the news that her dad, save some sort of miracle, would die soon. The predictable response may be to write about an album about her relationship with her father, but Leer isn’t…
Vineet’s recent successful run of singles continues with his new track “Hurry”. It’s his first attempt within the adult contemporary genre and Vineet proves he more than has the necessary chops for this music. It requires vocal control, emotive skill, and perfect balance between the singing and musical arrangement, among less obvious demands. He meets the style’s requirements without much apparent effort. “Hurry” has limited instrumental components. Synthesizers and pre-programmed…
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Understated but never under experienced, Jon Patrick Walker makes it easy to revel in his songwriting majesty in the new album, The Rented Tuxedo and Other Songs. His rousing mix of Americana-roots is crisp, with seductive harmonies and guitar (steel, sitar and more) crinkled into the arrangements. Discovering that each song is a chapter unto its own, Walker pulls the story together with a mesmerizing voice. He’s the string that pulls it…
Guitar god and bandleader Carlos Santana’s daughter Cecy Santana isn’t making waves because of her famous father. The assortment of remixes for her recent single “You Make Me Say” demonstrates that this prodigiously talented young singer is performing material elastic and durable enough for eight other musical artists to remix without ever losing the original track’s core virtues. This is no small achievement. Such tracks are often a glorified marketing…
People don’t universally agree on much, nowadays. One thing that most people can agree on, however, is that there is a gross underrepresentation of certain musical genres in the modern climate. While most will point to Rock music as being on the verge of extinction, some of its spawns may be growing even more obscure. While what Mark Rogers does isn’t necessarily a spin off of Rock music, as he…
On Antisocial Media, Shiragirl is able to offer up crunchy guitar lines and punchy drum beats to bury the single’s melodies deep into the minds and hearts of listeners. Charisma drips off of each vocal utterance, all while a sarcastic and self-aware style issues from the speakers. The track will have fans toes tapping while all of the absurdities of social media are given considerable headlining. The song reaches a…
Colorado, the latest single from Milky Chance has a hooky chorus and a slinky pop-meets-1990s alternative sound that effortlessly blends rock, pop, and indie styles. The back and forth between the vocals and instruments during the single’s chorus pushes each into a higher plateau. An immaculate production allows each element on Colorado to shine separately as well as together. There’s a layer of polish on Colorado that ensures the single…
“I went back to the garden / The place we used to go / But everything was different / No flowers, only snow,” Meghan Krauss tells us in “This is Gonna Hurt,” and despite the pain in her retrospection, the drive she’s got at the mic is something to be marveled at here. Krauss brings a lot of her Seattle roots into this all-new single and its lyric video, both…
Epic vocals are the cornerstone of Riku’s sound, and in his new single “Overwhelming,” you could say they’re as epic as any of the potent rock n’ roll instrumentation behind him and be completely right. There’s righteousness to this track that I haven’t heard as much of in his other content, and it starts first and foremost with the dynamic way in which he layers his vocals beside the crushing…
The decline that heavy music has experienced on the mainstream level just in the past twenty years has left a lot of diehard fans feeling more than a little depressed, while others have been more than content to see cerebral, distorted songcraft returning to the sheltered world of the American underground that spawned it. There’s strength behind both sides of the argument, but no matter where you stand on the…
Some artists put everything they’ve got out there on the first couple of verses and let the beat tell the rest of the story. Others would just as soon spend a lot of time building up to the prose, often diluting whatever the message was with a lot of chest-pounding and unwanted machismo where it doesn’t belong. Rappers of all stripes have been relegated into a couple of predictable groups…
“Call Me” is one of Blondie’s biggest hits and most people can recognize it in an instant. MR.Slade, a relatively new musician to the scene, attempted a cover and executed something awesome. His single version of “Call Me” has all the grit and power of the original, but with an updated sound. It’s a little electronic, a little hard rock, and a whole lot of interesting. You can hear all…
Doug Ferony revives an old classic with his new cover of “I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face.” First performed in the 1956 musical My Fair Lady, the song details the inner thoughts of a man falling in love with a woman he didn’t originally like very much. Ferony’s beautiful voice glides through the tune, backed by impeccable performances from his bandmates. The song transports you to a different time and…