On Vintage Girls, Kdot is able to establish a silken groove that builds upon the style of performers like The Weeknd, Justin Bieber and Chris Brown. An engaging backing beat blends in echoing synths, on point percussion, and booming bass beats. The vocals pull double duty here, as Kdot is both able to further his ode to women as well as provide further depth to the harmonies encountered here. The…
On Dig In Deep, Sun & Flesh are able to blend together the hard-rock of acts like Godsmack and Disturbed with a bit of the electronic-infused fury of acts like Static-X and Linkin Park. Adding further layers to Dig In Deep, the act is able to make a single that resonates loudly with a wide swath of heavy music fans. The presence of keyboards at opportune moments during Dig In…
Soar is a touching and intimate composition that has Michael Pinder refresh the singer-songwriter style from the late 1990s into something vibrant and contemporary. There’s considerable musical harmonies that are established by Michael’s vocals here, adding a further level of complexity to the composition. When the strings and percussive elements are inserted into the track, Soar is able to climb to an entirely new plateau. There are so many distinct…
On Monroe, Nadia Vaeh is able to craft a pop track that builds upon a corpus of performers as wide-ranging as Pink, Taylor Swift, and Katy Perry. A booming beat provides a solid backdrop upon which Nadia’s vocals can shine. There’s a crossover ability to Monroe that ensures that the single could rocket up the charts on pop or college charts. A crystal-clear production to the cut makes it hang…
Massachusetts-based songwriter Mark Erelli has been a go-to sideman for decades, playing with everyone from Paula Cole and Josh Ritter to Marc Cohen. He’s also a much in demand producer, but as Blindsided, his latest solo effort shows, he really belongs in front of the mic. Across 11 tracks, Erelli blends pop, folk and American in a deeply accessible way. You can hear traces of everyone from Tom Petty to…
It’s rather apt that The Claudettes pulled in Ted Hutt to produce their latest, High Times In The Dark. The current go-to producer for hard to define bands was co-founder of Flogging Molly, another group that heled to create a style of music by cobbling together various genres, much like The Claudettes have done since their first record, nearly a decade ago. A beautifully bastardized child of cabaret, pop, punk…
Somebody Cares is a solid opening to Taylor McCluskey’s new album, STAR GOD. The track is able to blend together pop, rock, and trap music in a fashion that will easily be slotted on pop rotation radio. Taylor’s charisma during this opening track will keep fans focused on the comp as he moves into Breathless. Breathless is a power ballad, bringing forth some seriously emotional statements from McCluskey. An insistent…
In their new extended play Dear Engineer, Chords of Eve blend together the surrealism of contemporary electronica and the self-awareness of vintage alternative rock in equal doses, and despite the acrylic nature of the textures their experimentations produce, the resulting tracklist we find in this record is unquestionably one of the more spellbinding that I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing this spring. Structured atop colorful grooves that play out with strong…
Against the backdrop of a haunting electric guitar’s gentle melody, Mike Rickard begins to unfurl a string of lyrics in “Six Queer Kids” that sounds less like the opening verses of a pop song and more like a narrative that is all too real and relatable in our modern world. Homelessness, isolation, depression and mortality are all on the table for the gay youth who serve as this stunning single’s…
Mystery Girl has Seattle’s MariBased1 pulling back to the 1990s for inspiration, even as the chorus that issues forth during his latest single will rank right up there with Migos and Trey Songz. There’s considerable range that Maribased1 covers during this cut; the glue that unites these disparate sections is an attention to detail and an ability to make everything work effortlessly together. With a chorus that will bounce around…
Stay begins with some tremendous vocals and sweeping synths that will immediately bury themselves deep into the minds and hearts of listeners. The arrangements are refreshing, light, and provide a certain amount of brightness to this bleak spring. Romero is able to imbue Stay with a timeless sound that will appease fans of today’s EDM just as it speaks nicely to 1990s and oughts aficionados. Stay is one of those…
At once spellbinding in its decadent layering of string play and elegant keys yet wholly menacing in its underlying tone, it doesn’t take very long for “City Friends,” one of the eleven songs comprising the new album from Luis Mojica, How a Stranger Is Made, to enrapture most anyone who comes within earshot of its mightily evocative harmonies. As you’ll discover on your own when browsing through the tracklist of How a…
“Somewhere There’s a Song Still Singing” reminds us in 2020 that traditional folk music still holds the power to leave listeners spellbound. It helps that Diane Patterson never treats the form too reverentially, like a butterfly trapped under glass, but instead injects her compositional skills with a level of melodic excellence certain to connect with both casual music fans and folk devotees. She has built a wide ranging discography over…
Bang Bang Bang has a funky vibe and a tremendous narrative that firmly puts it in the theme of folk and early narrative rap styles. The instrumental side of things leans well into the soul and R&B styles of the early 1970s; Ames’s vocals are able to hammer home a cogent narrative in the space of just a few minutes with this opening composition. The Liveness EP continues with a…
The backbone of almost any danceable song is the bassline, and that couldn’t be any truer than it is in the debut single from Dynamyte, “Show Me You.” From the beginning of this composition forward, there’s never a moment where the bass isn’t defining the groove with as much precision as the drums are – while leaving space for our singer’s exquisite lead vocal to colorize the rhythm with pristine…
On Death For Sale, The Elected Officials are able to create some breakneck skate-punk that ties together The Circle Jerks and The Exploited into one furious mess. Taut guitars, intense drums, and a chugging bass line tattoo the song’s melodies deep into the minds of listeners. There’s enough variety here with the kicking-in of the bass line (1:30) and shifting guitar riffs (1:45) to add a further boost to the…
On Fasho, Riley is able to create a hooky style that blends late-oughts styles (e.g. Soulja Boi, T-Pain) with a bit of the mumble rap style. A brooding, emotive backing beat establishes a clear soundscape upon which Riley’s bars can shine. There’s a crossover appeal present to Fasho; bits of autotuned lyrics will get butts out on the dance floor. The presence of V$ Asad’s own unique style on Fasho…
Gone are the fiddles, the mandolins and the banjo, that have come to define Trampled By Turtles trademark sound, but Dave Simonett’s strong stark vocals are still front and center on this, his first proper solo album under his own name. The music is a mix of mostly somber Americana and folk and is in the same vein as the material Simonett put out under the Dead Man Winter name.…
The fourth track, “Homme Run,” off The Ballroom Thieves latest Unlovely is a beautifully succinct, deftly written call out to how far we have yet to go in terms of equality. Even the Democratic party in 2020, the political group that has been preaching gender equality ad nauseum, is offering a choice between two 70-something white males as the group’s leader. Two steps forward one step back. Wrapped into Calin…
Opening in a haze of new wave-reminiscent bass and drum surrealism, “The Great Game” doesn’t waste a second in wrapping its haunting hook around us beyond the point of escape, and not dissimilar to the other three songs it shares a tracklist with in the new record Bridey Murphy from Tonne, its flirtatiousness with alternative rock song structuring isn’t limited to cosmetic frills alone. In Bridey Murphy, noisy melodies and punkish lyrical themes…