A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Growin’ Up LP by Luke Combs. I confess that it took a few days of listening to Luke Combs’ third album, Growin’ Up, constantly in hopes of finding a lede into the music before I finally found one which explained why I liked it as much as I do. I mean, the lyrics about hometown kicks aren’t terribly new or unique, and the performances are about as orthodox as it’s possible...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Flatliners’ New Ruin LP. In the twenty-year duration of The Flatliners’ career to date, it’s actually pretty remarkable to observe the turns that the band’s music has taken. After beginning with some respectable (if not terribly memorable) ska-core in 2005 and then taking a couple of years to develop (see how it works with 2007’s The Great Awake), The Flatliners really hit the big time hard with 2010’s classic Cavalcade and...
POST-GENRE MUSIC My favorite album of the past year or so is Emily Wells’ Regards to the End. It is beautiful, emotionally powerful and transcendent, even; and it is unclassifiable. It is not really rock, or pop, or electronica, or hip-hop, although it contains elements of all. It’s not classical, or jazz, or soul. The best qualifier is simply to call this album Music, with a capital M. Pure music. Then take Nels Cline, one of the most innovative guitarists...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Digital Age of Rome LP by T. Hardy Morris. It’s weird to think how tumultuous a year 2020 was, and how that tumult was reflected in the music which was released at the time. Even if a band didn’t actually have a political streak in their hair or bone in their body, conflict in the times seemed to appear in the music. Now, 2021 has had its share of rough running...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Exit Wounds LP by The Wallflowers. Who wouldn’t love to be Jakob Dylan? Since first appearing with The Wallflowers in 1992, Dylan has kept a “when I feel like it” mentality about his schedule of new releases (seven albums in twenty years – with nearly decade-long breaks along the way – is the definition of “when I feel like it”) and gotten away with it because he happens to be a...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the JT LP by Steve Earle and The Dukes. The fact is that no parent ever assumes they’ll outlive their children. There’s a security in that knowledge; at a certain point, parents realize that it’s unlikely they’ll accomplish all the things that they hoped to do in their lifetimes (either for themselves or for their progeny – some things will simply be left undone), and so there’s a certain comfort which comes...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Back of Our Heads LP by Kalen & Aslyn. I confess that Country balladry is not my favorite type of music. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate a slow song; I am absolutely capable of appreciating a love song or a slow song – but those moments when a singer just lilts his or her way along through a melody and does so through puddles of caramelized saccharine compel me...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Agricultural Tragic LP by Corb Lund. It’s genuinely hard to believe that Agricultural Tragic is Corb Lund’s tenth full-length album (fifth for New West). Since first appearing in 1995, the Alberta-based band has maintained a release schedule which has managed to illustrate consistent growth and improvement on a timeline which it’s almost possible to set one’s watch to. Not only that, when fans hear that Corb Lund has a new album...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Jaime Wyatt’s Neon Cross LP. After having watched all the sonic and stylistic directions in which the artists on New West’s roster have gone, it feels more than a little reassuring to see that at least some artists are signed to a country music label because they want to make country music – and not necessarily just make music which happens to have a couple of C&W inflections in hand as that...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Floor It! 2LP by the Texas Gentlemen. It’s funny to think about how much the Texas Gentlemen have changed since first appearing with the release of Texas Jelly in 2018. Just two years ago, the Texas Gents arrived sporting the tightest sound but it was coupled with a design which let the album’s shape develop as it played. The end results turned out to be a mercurial work of art which...