Category: Music Reviews

Posted on: October 8, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

The Harmony Dreamers Project (feat. Bryon Scott) Release New Album

The Harmony Dreamers project, led by multi-instrumentalist and composer Byron Lee Scott, gathers musicians and vocalists from around the globe for a sprawling album release entitled I Come from Earth. The driving concept behind this release is gathering a collection of world musicians from North and South America, Europe, and far beyond to perform a song cycle laudable for its positivity and welcoming tone. This musical moment is meant to encourage…

Posted on: October 8, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

Beasties Release “A Sci-Fi Rock Opera”

Gary Sohmers claim a long list of successful credits and collaborations during their long music career but their work together conceptualizing, writing, recording, and releasing Beasties: A Sci-Fi Rock Opera must rank among the most unique entertainment and musical experiences in recent memory. It harkens back to an early era in music history when the concept album reigned as the pop world’s flavor of the moment. Pop songwriters long ago began exploring…

Posted on: October 5, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

“Eat the Bugs” by The refusers

The Refusers are a Seattle based five piece who’ve been around for a while writing and releasing angsty, entertaining, and guitar-driven diatribes. It is the sort of browbeating you get from many humorless clods masquerading as bands or songwriters – witness the title of their latest single “Eat the Bugs”. It is the sort of songwriting that no one else would do but these guys, tailored to the audience they’ve…

Posted on: October 5, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys’ “Goth Beach”

Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys’ new single “Goth Beach” the latest off-kilter confection from Sickert’s wonderfully skewed songwriting imagination. Sickert and his extended band of cohorts of Boston staples boast a long catalog of prior releases endearing them to indie music aficionados and tastemakers in the United States and beyond. The single “Goth Beach” gives listeners surf and beach music with unexpected Sickert twists. He blows away…

Posted on: September 29, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

Little Hurt (Colin Dieden, Ex-The Mowglis) Releases New Single “Cooler If U Did”

2022 has been a busy year so far for Alt.Pop artist Little Hurt (Colin Dieden, Ex-The Mowglis) with touring ramping up again. He continues to explore the edges of Alt. Pop & Alternative Rock with new single “Cooler If U Did”, due to be released on Friday, 9/16. The song features a tight groove and a soaring atmospheric chorus that is instantly memorable. Dieden says “Cooler If U Did’ was a song that was written after I went…

Posted on: September 26, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

Singer/Songwriter Paul Nourigat Releases New Music

Paul Nourigat isn’t going to let the world and life he loves sink down the drain, if that’s where it’s headed, without saying something about it. His EP collection of demos Complex Truths presents listeners with three tracks that tackle modern life with unsparing contempt for anything that strikes Nourigat as limiting individual potential. Potential is a wide thing. It’s potential for happiness, material success, and decision-making mundane and large, and Nourigat…

Posted on: September 25, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

Les Fradkin Drops New Single

Les Fradkin’s return under the moniker California feat. Les Fradkin isn’t any attempt to cash in on a moribund but potentially lucrative musical brand name. The band’s original incarnation notched a few hits in the 1970s before bowing out at the dawn of the 1980s. Rejuvenating the band sounds and feels like unfinished business for Fradkin, however. The new single “Perfect World” is unquestionably pop. The harmony vocals, piano, guitar,…

Posted on: September 25, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

Singer/Songwriter Ralph Curtis Releases “Man You Want Me To Be”

The newest single by Country Singer/Songwriter, Ralph Curtis, is an emotional trigger, in the quietest way possible. While that description may sound like something of an oxymoron, there’s just such a contemplative and gentile quality to “Man You Want Me To Be.” The song begins with a hollow and unobtrusive piano riff, yet it manages to immediately subdue your sensibilities. At 5 minutes in length, “Man You Want Me To…

Posted on: September 18, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 1

Pistols at Dawn Release New Music

You could say that there are a lot of big concept pieces in mainstream rock right now and you’d be 100% right, if not understating the situation just a bit in 2022. Everyone hates the term progressive when it comes to contemporary rock aesthetics, but when it comes to embracing the qualities of storytelling and camp that made prog what it always was, most are going full-steam ahead; save for…

Posted on: September 14, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

Joe Macre’s “The Dream is Free” LP

No one will look at you askance when you say, “Who’s Crack the Sky?” I didn’t know the story behind this 70’s prog rock band bestowed with a breathtaking brush with ever-lasting fame only to end up defeated by circumstance and largely forgotten. It’s well-worth looking up and reading. The band’s members didn’t necessarily fold up their respective tents and abandon any hope of making music; many went on, in…

Posted on: September 13, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

Sisteria’s “Dark Matter”

If you’re into heavy music or, more specifically, inclined towards stoner rock in any capacity, the sludgy guitar play in Sisteria’s Dark Matter may well be the most intriguing element of the record to behold, but if you listen a little closer, you’re definitely going to see that there’s more to this LP than is initially expected. With lead vocals that bring to mind the fragility of a bohemian folk-rock…

Posted on: September 13, 2022 Posted by: Aaron_George Comments: 0

Kramies’ New Self-titled Album

Kramies’ new self-titled album marks, in my opinion, a re-emergence. His willingness to self-title the collection is evidence of such thinking from Kramies’ himself as it suggests a sort of clearing of the decks. Changes in his personal life are in significant part responsible for a point of view shift that has Kramies looking back on the period of his life covered by these songs with a sort of elegiac…

Posted on: August 12, 2022 Posted by: Sargeant Comments: 0

Dark Below Unleash New Track “Tense”

Dark Below is a hard-hitting heavy rock band that brings intense energy in their music and live performances while providing rhythmic songs that people can sing along to. Formed in Columbia, MO, the band signed with Nashville based JPS Productions in 2014. The current lineup has been together since 2016 and includes Josh Campbell (Guitar/Vocals), Josh Grove (Bass/Backing Vocals), and Quin Koldan (Drums). New single “Tense” was produced by Jason Schrick and award-winning producer Malcolm Springer (Matchbox…

Posted on: August 12, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

Black Sweater Drops Album

It’s rare that an album like That Girl I Knew by Black Sweater would require a parental advisory sticker, but that is sure to be the case. Essentially a 16-track review of a break-up with blow-by-blow commentary, That Girl I Knew is a rather gentile-sounding record. However, there are moments that see outbursts of internalized rage and confusion. Black Sweater somehow combines several aspects of multiple genres into a solitary…

Posted on: August 8, 2022 Posted by: Sargeant Comments: 0

Chris Lewington – Starfish Memories EP Review

Starfish Memories is the new release by the UK’s Chris Lewington (The Bicycle Thieves and The Silence), which can be streamed on Lewington’s Bandcamp. This extended play begins with The Bridge At Midnight, a 5:54 track which reaches through countless styles and approaches. There’s a good amount of 1960s rock, whether it the more experimentasl fare of The Beatles or something a bit more psych-tinged. The vocals that rise up…

Posted on: August 7, 2022 Posted by: Sargeant Comments: 0

Ghoste – Ghoste EP

Jenny Bruce is the mastermind behind Ghoste, who has just released a new extended play (and self-titled) album. The Ghoste EP begins with Slow Motion, an effort which showcases a dreamy pop approach. The dynamic that is established here stands boldly out among the masses of performers currently occupying spots on radio and playlists. The track does well to provide listeners with some sort of information about Ghoste as she…

Posted on: August 2, 2022 Posted by: Kim Muncie Comments: 0

Smomid (Nick Demopoulos) Releases “Cyber Solstice”

Nick Demopoulos could have played it safe. Cyber Solstice could have been a nine track collection of straight ahead techno tracks with a bright keyboard and synthesizer-fueled bounce. Predictable, but intelligent and possessing widespread audience appeal. He chose another direction with his project Smomid, however, and now several releases into a growing discography, the latest collection Cyber Solstice plays like the fullest realization yet of the project’s promise. FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Smomid…

Posted on: August 2, 2022 Posted by: Aaron_George Comments: 0

Kimberly Morgan York’s new album Keep On Goin’

The cover of Kimberly Morgan York’s new album Keep On Goin’ says it all – this is a record that’s all about a player and her guitar, and she wastes no time proving as much in tracks like the title cut, “Kick Us,” and “Ruby.” York experiments with the depth of her compositional wit, but always within boundaries as they’re created by her six-string counterpart, and from what I can…

Posted on: July 28, 2022 Posted by: Sargeant Comments: 0

Josh Field – Hope Fiend EP Review

Josh Fiend immediately brings together a number of distinct approaches with the first song on his new EP. The Last Time unites traditional country music, a bit of blues, and a whole heck of a lot of the singer-songwriter style. The inimitable vocal tack that Field takes here has a bit of the grittiness of a Waylon Jennings or John Mellencamp. The production of The Last Time ensures that the…

Posted on: July 26, 2022 Posted by: Sargeant Comments: 1

Jojo Engelbert “Sweet n Sour”

Jojo Engelbert’s “Sweet n Sour” is a high-energy track that will bury its hooky chorus deep into the minds and hearts of listeners. Both the supersonic vox of Engelbert and the synth/drum backdrop combine to make for something that could easily make it onto pop rotation and radio playlists. There’s a timeless sound to Sweet n Sour that ensures that a wide swath of fans will be able to find…