Alpha Rev has evolved their sound considerably since 2010’s New Morning, a fact that is immediately evident with the one-two punch of Lexington and Crystal Colorado. With an ample momentum created by these initial tracks, Sing Long resounds with a tenderness and intense allure. There is an epic sound that resounds through the entirety of this track, with instrumental and vocal elements uniting to create something decidedly greater than the…
Guided By Voices and Built to Spill may by the go-to bands when someone’s trying to sing the praises of lo-fi music, but the New York-by-way-of-Chicago band Kleenex Girl Wonder – just as prolific as Robert Pollard and his boys, by the way – deserve just as much credit for all that’s great about the genre. Centered around singer/bassist Graham Smith – the one constant in the group…
Coming off sounding like an alt-country band playing grunge music after gobbling a handful of mushrooms, it’s hard to find another band today that sounds like Augusta, GA’s Dead Confederate. And why bother, when this five-piece does it so well. Yes singer Hardy Morris sounds eerily like Kurt Cobain reincarnated, but the band can write one hell of a jam. In the Marrow, their sixth album, is easily their…
British singer/songwriter David Ford is one of those musicians you can’t help but scratch your head at and wonder why this guy is not huge? His songs as catchy as hell while still coming across as giftedly witty (give album opener “Pour a Little Poison” 30 seconds and if you aren’t humming along, check your pulse). He can even wear the fedora better than Bruno Mars and all those other…
Dime Te Deseo is a slinky single that ties together glitch and dubstep with the strong female feel of a Ke$ha or Blackout / Circus – era Britney Spears. Where much of pop music feels as if it has been polished to perfection, listeners can hear that Minor’s vocal track relies solely on her talents. What results is a mélange of organic and electronic, as easily at home in a…
On the Scene is the introductory track on this album, and it provides listeners with a very taut and alluring set of arrangements. The music ties together smooth jazz with a hint of funk to establish a timeless quality to Hagen’s music. Midnight Drive contains a tremendous amount of rhythm, crafting an interesting dynamic between the organic and electronic instrumentation. The narrative that is created during this self-titled release far…
Pontus Gunve (who performs as PHWG) has just released his latest album, The Observer. Gunve has had countless compositions utilized for art installations, performances, and commercials. The Observer is a title that will showcase the sheer multitude of styles, approaches, and overall feelings present in Gunve’s career. Aside from acting as a retrospective, what The Observer feels like is an evolutionary step forward. With each track on The Observer,…
For those individuals that have been living under a rock for the last five years, Ruben Studdard was one of the American Idol finalists. This is actually eir second album; eir first album, “Soulful” had the catchy song “Sorry 2004”. However, this album starts out very weakly. The first track on “The Return” is the title track, which has the unfortunate tag line of “Of The Velvet Teddy Bear”. I…
Usually, I would stay away from live recordings from smaller labels like TKO just for the fact that many of these bands really don’t have the equipment necessarily to make their live performance not sound like shit. Take for example the Leftover Crack live show from Reading, PA in which it is virtually impossible for an individual listening to the disc to actually figure out which lyrics are being sung,…
Give Me Everything is a smooth track that could easily be played on rock radio rotation, where it succeeds tying in late nineties rock (311, Saliva) with a more contemporary feel. Where Do We Go has an absolutely furious instrumental arrangement that highlights the soaring vocals on the track. Hints of Foo Fighters and Maroon 5 can be heard in the vocals, with the track’s production tying together the…
