new release Archive
13 Aug 2021
Album Review: Mumps — Rock & Roll This, Rock & Roll That
American pop culture consumers of a certain age (aka television viewers) will recall An American Family, a groundbreaking PBS documentary series that first aired in 1973. Setting aside the fact […]
09 Aug 2021
Album Review: Various Artists — Higher Than a Mountain
It can’t have been easy being Andy Gibb. It would be challenging enough to have a famous older sibling scoring hit after hit and then trying to have a music […]
08 Aug 2021
Album Review: Sweet — Isolation Boulevard
Artists often have very good reasons for re-recording their hit songs. The vagaries of the music industry are such that artists – even ones who wrote their own material – […]
07 Aug 2021
Album Review: Tia Carroll — You Gotta Have It
Soulful and funky are handy adjectives often used to describe above-average blues. And those words deserved to be employed yet again in a review of Tia Carroll’s You Gotta Have […]
06 Aug 2021
Album Review: Mark & the Clouds — Waves
Many artists have chosen the retro path. They write new, original tunes but aim for a sound and style that evokes the past. And like any other creative set of […]
30 Jul 2021
The Jenny Thing: Still Indie After All These Years
The Jenny Thing returns, and things are different Thanks in no small part to upstart record labels like San Francisco’s own 415 Records — home to The Red Rockers, Romeo […]
29 Jul 2021
Album Review: Richard X Heyman — Copious Notes
Richard X Heyman started making great solo records right out of the gate. Anyone who enjoys highly melodic rock with sterling pop values, hooks galore and just the right amount […]
25 Jul 2021
Album Review: Circus Mind — Joy Machine
An excursion into the funk-rock universe, Circus Mind’s Joy Machine feels like a party. Signature licks – lengthy ones, sometimes – -form the basis of this inviting and energetic release. […]
24 Jul 2021
Album Review: Various Artists — Big Stir Singles: The Tenth Wave
And the hits just keep comin’, as they say. It’s too easy to label Big Stir as a power pop label. And in fact doing so is (a) too limiting […]
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, […]