rawk Archive
23 Jul 2021
Album Review: Various Artists — Still Wish You Were Here
My standard disclaimer where tribute albums are concerned is that the concept if dodgy on its face, and that it rarely succeeds. But for every rule here is an exception, and I’m holding in my hands the most recent example thereof. Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here is a monumental album, one best not messed
22 Jul 2021
Album Review: The Bablers — Psychadilly Circus
My copies of Imagine and Mind Games are on vinyl, so I knew I hadn’t mistakenly loaded one of them into my CD player. But the cognitive dissonance remained as I absorbed “Love is Everything,” the opening track on The Bablers’ Psychadilly Circus. Imagine a non-satirical rethink of National Lampoon’s “Magical Misery Tour” and you’ll
20 Jul 2021
EP Review: The Checkered Hearts — Joystick
The two musicians involved in this modest project were clearly having a good time. Singers and multi-instrumentalists Hillary Burton and Lisa Mychols are, I think we can assume, persons of a certain age, and this EP is a cheery look back at some of the music than informed tier own sensibilities. “The Cars’ “My Best
17 Jul 2021
Album Review: Deadlights — s/t
The press sheet accompanying this release had me expecting something a bit more noisy and perhaps less melodic. But Jeff Shelton (he of the Well Wishers) has a seemingly inerrant sense of melodicism, and that shines through regardless of the musical idiom within which he chooses to traffic. Deadlights is nominally dream pop, Britpop and
12 Jul 2021
Album Review: The Eyebrows – Fight/Flight
Listeners wandering into Fight/Flight expecting some sort of slavishly imitative power pop outing a la [any of hundreds of current artists; pick one] will find themselves in for a shock. The Eyebrows’ latest album starts out with a blast, the yelpy “Have Mercy, Lose Control.” And things never let go. The opening tune plays with
10 Jul 2021
Album Review: Sleepersound – Idle Voices
After a lengthy hiatus, once again it’s Vinyl Week on Musoscribe. For the next several days, I’ll feature reviews of new albums released on my favorite format. When I reviewed this Milwaukee band’s previous album, 2018’s In Medias Res, I noted “a bit of a shoegazy vibe.” The group has since doubled down on that
07 Jul 2021
Album Review: The Forty Nineteens – New Roaring Twenties
If you’re in the mood for unassuming, rocking, silly and un-self-conscious rock ‘n’ roll, The Forty Nineteens might have just the thing for you. This California quintet swims in the Smithereens end of the pool, with hard-charging songs that keep the melodic quotient high. The band’s rockabilly character is kept hidden on the winning opener
06 Jul 2021
Steve Cropper: The Go-Getter Gets Going (Part Two)
Continued from Part One … With Cropper’s buy-in to the idea, Tiven enlisted the skills of drummers, including ace session man Anton Fig. Cropper has long been friends with the South African-born precussionist. “You’d know him from Saturday Night Live and David Letterman’s show,” he says. But Fig also played drums in a later version
05 Jul 2021
Steve Cropper: The Go-Getter Gets Going (Part One)
Ask serious music fans to name a tasteful guitarist, and inevitably Steve Cropper’s name is going to come up. As a studio musician, Cropper’s work is part of the center of gravity of innumerable recordings that came out of Memphis’ Stax Records in the 1960s. With Booker T & the M.G.’s, Cropper was responsible for
30 Jun 2021
Album Review: Various Artists — Big Stir Singles: The Ninth Wave
Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, but when I encounter an album that includes liner notes, I tend to read before I listen. Or, at least I’ll start to read as I pop the disc into the player (or if I’m lucky, I’ll drop the needle into the groove.) And that’s the approach I took