Author Archives
La Strada
La Strada hail from New York, but adapt what they call old-world instrumentation to their laid-back folk songs. The result lies somewhere between a sea chanty and a Beirut song, but it is some of the best folk-pop music this side of The Decemberists. read more »
How To Fall Down In Public
Howie Beck is more than a producer, singer or songwriter. He is a rock historian who writes chronology in his albums. On How To Fall Down In Public, Beck’s first album in four years, he revisits the progression of pop music from the 1960s to its redundant present. read more »
Hymn and Her
It’s hard to come up with an adequate description for Earlimart’s sixth album, Hymn and Her. Do I consider it a near-perfect album? Absolutely. Could I listen to it over and over again? Absolutely not. The group’s music is well-crafted, to be sure, and Hymn and Her harnesses Earlimart’s early noise/psychedelic heritage and straps it next to the soft read more »
What Doesn't Kill Us
In 1971, John Lennon famously asked us to “Imagine there’s no heaven…Imagine all the people living for today.” Lennon was urging an apathetic and lethargic world to make the most of the time it had. On their second LP, What Doesn’t Kill Us, Austin’s What Made Milwaukee Famous echoes Lennon’s sentiments, stressing that salvation read more »
Casting Shadows
Jersey City’s The Black Hollies aren’t so much blues revivalists as they are blues preservationists. Unlike the revivalists of the 1960s, who came to supplement their traditional blues riffs with new trends (like psychedelia) and technology (like synthesizers) read more »
Red, Yellow And Blue
When Born Ruffians released their debut EP in 2006, they garnered praise in indie circles for their melody-driven, catchy-as-hell power-pop. But the group’s first full-length, Red, Yellow and Blue, begins with a solemn, haunting acoustic guitar melody, supported by soldierly snare drums and understated piano. The song itself holds an unwield read more »
Magnificent Fiend
In 2006, Comets on Fire guitarist Ethan Miller took a break from his partnership with the Bay Area songwriting collective to explore his own songs, enlisting the help of drummer John Moloney of Sunburned Hand of the Man and bassist/banjo player Ian Gradek to flesh out a new band they called Howlin Rain. The result was an appealing, undressed rock read more »
Volcano
The Montreal scene in the early eighties was a different world from the artsy hotbed hailed a short time ago in glossy Spin articles and New York Times features as the new Williamsburg. Only a few venues existed where locals could perform original music, and the order of the day was not orchestral-rock or synth-pop. It was rock and roll, pure and simple, and read more »
One By One
On the sepia-toned cover of his debut album, One By One, Robert Francis strikes a hackneyed rock pose, sporting aviator sunglasses and gulping coffee out of a mug marked “California”. read more »
