Florida based – Once Great Estate, can be compared to the likes of nobody in their category of Folk and acoustic-heavy music on Even The Undertaker’s – 8 lucid and well-crafted numbers. These are tunes to live by, and not being new to them it just made me want to hear more where they come from. The voice of Tracy Horenbein is remarkably astonishing, as well as the musicianship of…
Emotion has a special role to play in the new single “Tell Me” from Missing-Nin, and it has more to do with shaping the core of the narrative than it does facilitate a smart rhyme. Rather than exploiting a generic pop model in this performance, the much-hyped Missing-Nin seems deliberately removed from the lead vocal, as if to translate unspeakable grief into the most brooding delivery I’ve heard from an…
With electronic melodicism riding the top of the charts harder and heavier than ever before, it’s not surprising that quality rock has become all the more a coveted commodity in 2021. The once-abundant guitar solos and searing lead vocals of yesteryear are now the underground cries of expression they started out as, and in the case of the new single “Sunlight Surfing” from Mercury Messiah, they’re the skin and bones…
Guiding a soft rhythm with surgically precise string play, The Transonics form a lush backdrop for elegant lyrics to adorn in the song “Tequila,” one of the star tracks from their new EP Tides. Although labored in the delivery of the chorus, the rest of the track plays out rather seamlessly, alluding to a dreamy, almost surf-like psychedelic edge that becomes a bit of a calling card in the record. Unlike…
“Bullet in the Head” is a song that may cause many listeners to flinch. Few, if any, will be able to recall any album opener confronting such a difficult topic like killing yourself. It isn’t a broadside set to music, however, and the humanity of both the words and musical arrangement satisfies despite the downbeat theme. There’s no doubt that Tom Tikka and the Missing Hubcaps contemplating death such as…
Whether he’s working out a sly groove in “Tequila Kiss” or offering a balladic melody via “Who’s Camille,” singer/songwriter Jay Elle has a pure love affair with the guitar in his new album Ride the Wave. Their relationship is at times volatile – “Rainy Day,” “Better Luck Next Time” – while in others it’s one of the more harmonious in contemporary rock – “Insane,” “Want Me Bad” – but it’s always…
I am always bowled over by one-man creative dynamos. John Blangero’s Sun King Rising project isn’t a “real” band, it’s true, but he brings such all-encompassing passion and musical vision to bear on the album’s ten cuts that it is a complete listening experience. There’s no holes in this release. It isn’t a concept album, per se, but Blangero wrote and designed the album with several central themes in mind…
It isn’t always easy, being Dici, but it would appear that things are looking up, based on his new single, “Something’s Right.” Dici is an Italian born Rapper/Producer/Entrepreneur. He currently resides in Miami, and has also spent time in Japan. At only 18 years old, Dici has already established himself, quite well. His newest release is a bit of a departure from the vibe of his earlier work. INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/dicimusic/?hl=en Since his previous single, “Five…
I remember when the doctor told my ex-wife and myself that our oldest daughter had a heart murmur. Panic overcame me in a flash. I told myself to slow down just as quickly, however, ask questions, find out what’s going on here. I remember the doctor saying that, among the treatment options, surgery is a consideration. My pulse fluttered imagining my baby girl asleep on an operating table and her…
Australia-born and Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and producer Saint Rienannounces the release of new visuals for his latest hit single, the explorative “Medusa.” The music video is written, directed, and produced by Saint Rien, and features Ariah Janay, as Saint Rien’swife. The couple is captured at home, with Saint Rien sitting at the table using clippings to create hisdream girl by cutting and gluing the clippings of a face together. Representing…
Like a strong summer breeze, the strings that embrace us in the opening bars of “Temporary,” the first track in Timberline’s 2020 LP Florescence, glide through the air around us and impart a youthful lack of inhibition to anyone within reach of their melody. The vocal harmony isn’t quite as retrospective in tone as “Better Days” is, but I don’t know that “Temporary” could’ve set the pace for what comes next…
The drums are dashing forward as the bassline pulls everything in the master mix back, but as the different channels within “Summer Bliss, Feature Mist” are pulled in every direction, Gorazde’s melodic war starts to sound rather harmonious and justifiably filled with rage. In the new record The Fury of Lullabies, Gorazde take a look at the “notion of shadow archetypes and their assimilation into conscious reality,” as they put it…
Whether driving home a huge melody in “Way Far Back” or tying together the harmonies in the video for “Why Does It Happen,” the guitars that guide the lyrics in Wave 21’s Brace Yourself are indispensable. Although there’s a lot more to this record than the luster of its string section, there is certainly no downplaying the importance of the fretwork in Brace Yourself, and I think this makes it a bit superior to its…
Hailing from Miami, by way of Lima is the seminal alternative act, known as Mold!. Their new single, “I Can See The Ghost,” was my first exposure to the band. As a result, I can now say that Mold! Is the type of group you instantly want to hear more of and know more about. The Peru connection is attributed to the band’s founder, Carlo Barbacci. Barbacci cites his immigration…
“Hold up the colors you wear / You welcome me home, I won’t leave you alone / You are not alone” pleads a gentle voice on the other side of a vibrant string melody in “What Would I Know,” one of my favorite songs from the captivating String Ladders by The Color Forty Nine. At once imprisoned within the lyrics and impossible to escape in the adjacent flood of strings that accent…
In the last few years, rapper Tray Tray has done a good job of setting himself apart from the competition through a slick composing style more loyal to the traditions of hip-hop than it is to the passing fads of contemporary pop. His writing has gotten stronger with each LP he’s dropped, and now almost two years after his sophomore effort Born Legend II hit record store shelves, he offers up a…
With notes of hip-hop and a touch of ambient pop blended into the instrumental framework of the music, you know that Chesca is going to give us something really sexy in her song “Orange County Juice,” but if you think that’s where the seduction ends on her new album Feel the Breeze, you’re in for quite the surprise this summer. Feel the Breeze isn’t all flash ala “Orange County Juice” and the anthemic…
It’s generally thought that R&B is better off on the simpler side than it ever is an elaborate sonic construct, but RockLee is an artist who challenges this narrative with every song he releases. His new single, “It’s a Feeling,” neither tethers itself to the aesthetical foundations of melodic hip-hop nor shamelessly steals cues from the old school in R&B; it’s a delicate, instrumentally focused showcase of rhythm and harmony.…
There’s something to be said for a song’s ability to craft full words out of a certain level of ambiguity in its settings. Maybe I’ve been playing a little too much Cyberpunk 2077, but Aisles feels right at home in the dystopian genre. The opening guitar solo has the energy of a door being busted open, either by a swat team or by the collective that Aisles seemingly feels like…
Stunning us with its clandestine intricacies but saving a lot of its melodic warmth for a climactic chorus, the instrumental foundations of Wingman’s new single “Crash Land” are straight electronica more than they are hip-hop. Listen closely enough and you’ll start to feel the influence of atmospheric minimalism on this young man’s sound where it would seem such a lofty aesthetic would have no business in the first place, but…