{"id":30353,"date":"2025-12-18T05:30:45","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T10:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=30353"},"modified":"2025-11-11T13:08:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T18:08:27","slug":"hundred-word-reviews-for-december-2025-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/18\/hundred-word-reviews-for-december-2025-rock\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundred-word Reviews for December 2025: Rock"},"content":{"rendered":"

I get lots of music sent my way. And even after I weed out the ones that don\u2019t move me enough to write about \u2018em, I\u2019m left with a surfeit, a plethora, a panoply, a veritable cornucopia<\/i> of great new music. But there\u2019s only so many hours in a day, so now and then I put together these quick-take reviews of the ones I haven\u2019t been able to make time or space to cover in greater detail. Don\u2019t let the brevity fool you: all are worth your time, says I.<\/p>\n

\"\"Star Collector \u2013 Everything Must Go!<\/i><\/b>
\nBig guitars, bigger beats, whip-smart drumming, fiery and melodic bass and gleefully rocking vocal work characterize Everything Must Go!<\/i>, the latest from Star Collector. This is wonderfully exuberant power pop with arrangements that swing for the fences without being needlessly arty. The energy level is cranked to eleven, and the band sounds like they\u2019re having the time of their lives.As fine as their previous releases have been, to these ears Everything Must Go!<\/i> captures the Vancouver foursome at the height of their powers. If you\u2019re ambivalent about the appeal of powerpop, start here and you\u2019ll be won over. Get it!<\/p>\n

\"\"Bobby Conn \u2013 Bobby\u2019s Place<\/i><\/b>
\nThe NYC and Chicago no-wave scenes introduced some weird and wonderful artists; Bobby Conn is one of those. His latest takes that avant garde approach and applies it to more conventionally accessible musical ideas. The result has one foot in the bizarre and outr\u00e9, the other firmly planted in catchy, tuneful and beat-heavy rock. This album brilliantly melds disparate styles. Bobby\u2019s Place<\/i> deals in psychedelia and noise, at times suggesting Suicide (the band, not the action). The dark textures of \u201cWretched\u201d show that Conn delivers krautrocky subtlety as skillfully as he can churn out the dancetronica of \u201cAll for You.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Chris Stamey \u2013 Anything is Possible<\/i><\/b>
\nOne of popular music\u2019s renaissance men, Chris Stamey is equally at home creating compelling and original Americana, modern-day candidates for the Great American Songbook, power pop, alt-rock and who-knows-what-else. One might even say that in his capable musical hands, anything is possible. That phrase gives his latest its title. With like-minded guests like the Lemon Twigs and Marshall Crenshaw, he turns in another winning set of classics. \u201cI\u2019d Be Lost Without You\u201d suggests his take on Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys. Stamey\u2019s knowing way with a melody informs every one of the album\u2019s 11 songs (including an actual Pet Sounds<\/i> cover).<\/p>\n

\"\"Highfield \u2013 Highfield<\/i><\/b>
\nSpiky, roaring and forceful rock out of Philadelphia, Highfield shine on this self-released album (which might or might not actually be titled A New Relationship to Sound<\/i>). The opening title track showcases the band\u2019s assets: a watertight rhythm section, precise buzzsaw guitar, and spirited, shouted\/sun vocals. A noisy blast of lead guitar announces that these guys know how to mix muscle with melody. Some tracks are bracingly short, but they make their points. One of the \u201clonger\u201d (sic) tracks, \u201cDon\u2019t You Worry Your Pretty Little Head\u201d is more Sell Out<\/i> Who-like than The Jam could ever have hoped to be.<\/p>\n

\"\"Henri Hebert \u2013 Get It While It\u2019s Hot<\/i><\/b>
\nFor listeners whose taste in piano rock leans toward Jerry Lee Lewis and early-to-mid period Elton John, Get it While It\u2019s Hot<\/i> is worth checking out. Hebert may hail from Europe (he\u2019s U.S.-based these days) but his sound draws form the American rock \u2018n\u2019 roll (not rock) tradition. While the album has none of the in-the-red overdriven sonic aesthetics of Nick Curran\u2019s classic Reform School Girls<\/i>, Hebert\u2019s album measures up to its sass, swagger and rocking-out vibe. When he tickles (rather than pounds) those ivories, Henri Hebert proves that he\u2019s a commanding instrumentalist\u2026 just one who insists on rocking hard<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I get lots of music sent my way. And even after I weed out the ones that don\u2019t move me enough to write about \u2018em, I\u2019m left with a surfeit, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[5803,529,5804,5805,4623],"class_list":["post-30353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-bobby-conn","tag-chris-stamey","tag-henri-hebert","tag-highfield","tag-star-collector","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30353"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30361,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30353\/revisions\/30361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}