focus Archive
25 Mar 2019
Hundred-word Reviews, March 2019 Part One

I can’t point to specific reasons as to why this is the case, but in recent months there has been more than the typical amount of really good music finding its way onto my desk here at Musoscribe World Headquarters. What that means, of course, is that it’s time once again for a clutch of
31 Mar 2018
Hundred-word Reviews: Reissues, Archival Releases, Compilations

My shelf full of albums to be reviewed has run out of space. So once again it’s time for a raft of hundred-word reviews. All sixteen titles in this roundup are reissues, compilations and/or archival releases. 6-String Drag – High Hat (Schoolkids Records) Before Americana was coined as a genre, there was alt-country. Combining rock
29 Nov 2016
Hundred-word Reviews for Nov./Dec. 2016, Part 7 of 10

Farewell Milwaukee – FM Style: heartland jangle-rock Jangling guitars, good-timin’ harmonica, well-worn chord changes … those are the key ingredients in the musical recipe for this album. Familar echoes of John Mellencamp, R.E.M., Gin Blossoms are found throughout the thirteen tracks. But there’s more at work, too: “Figure You out” has a nice southern soul
13 Aug 2014
Hundred Word Reviews for August 2014, Part 3
Five new releases are the focus of this clutch of hundred-word reviews. Analog Son – Analog Son The name might conjure mental visions of a synthesizer outfit, but the sounds that this duo-plus-friends (guitarist Jordan Linit and Josh Fairman on bass) produces is some fresh and uptempo funk. Seven of the ten tracks are instrumentals
01 Feb 2013
A Conversation with Thijs Van Leer of Focus
American audiences know Focus – if they know the Dutch progressive group at all – for their left-field 1971 hit single “Hocus Pocus.” Yeah, the one with the yodeling, whistling, accordion and hard-rocking guitar. But the group’s career started before that (in the late 60s, actually) and continues to this day, albeit with some lineup