new release Archive
04 Feb 2016
Album Mini-review: David Bowie — Blackstar
In some quarters, Blackstar has been characterized as a “jazz” album. That’s not accurate: though instrumentation closely associated with jazz (most notably saxophone) is employed throughout the album’s seven tracks, […]
04 Feb 2016
Album Mini-review: The Roaring 420s – You Can’t Get Out Alive
File next to: Elephant Stone, Allah-Las, Fuzztones For The Roaring 420s, everything old is new again. Across the twelve songs on *You Can’t Get Out Alive – their second full-length […]
02 Feb 2016
Neil Finn: Goin’ His Own Way
Two Australia/New Zealand-based giants of heartfelt and intelligent pop music – Paul Kelly (a solo artist and longtime leader of The Messengers) and Neil Finn (member of Split Enz, founder […]
28 Jan 2016
Hundred-word Reviews January 2016: Prog
Today I’m serving up five more hundred-word reviews; today’s five all fit more or less into the progressive rock category, and they’re sourced from across this globe of ours. Mekaal […]
27 Jan 2016
Hundred-word Reviews January 2016: Blues and Jazz
My week-long march through my backlog continues today with quick looks at five new albums in the jazz and/or blues idioms. No! Wait! Come back! Seriously, these are way cool. […]
25 Jan 2016
Hundred-word Reviews January 2016: Archival Live Albums
It’s time once again to take a stab at clearing out the massive backlog of worthy CDs clogging my inbox. Today, it’s quick reviews of five archival live albums, all […]
22 Jan 2016
The Handcuffs: A Tale of the Tape (Part 2)
Continued from Part One… “For me,” The Handcuffs guitarist/vocalist Chloe F. Orwell adds, “when we’re in the studio for four twelve-hour days, I think to myself, ‘There is nowhere in […]
21 Jan 2016
The Handcuffs: A Tale of the Tape (Part 1)
Midwestern rockers The Handcuffs are fronted by songwriters Chloe F. Orwell (guitar/vocals) and Brad Elvis (drums); they first came to my attention via their 2011 album. In my capsule review […]
14 Jan 2016
Album Review: Peter Case — HWY 62
Peter Case first came to notoriety as one third of The Nerves, a critically acclaimed power pop trio that didn’t hang around long enough to capitalize on the genre’s brief […]
12 Jan 2016
Album Review: Ty Segall — Ty Rex
Modern-day garage rock hero Ty Segall has never been bashful about showing his roots. Listening to both his original material and his musical contributions to others’ work (most notably Mikal […]