A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Loner LP by Caroline Rose. I have to confess that, as soon as I began listening to Loner – the new full-length album by Caroline Rose – I realized that everything I thought I knew and expected from the singer was incorrect. My first contact with Rose was with the song “Yip Yip Yow” from an NPR live performance, and that was enough to get me looking around for other music...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Trinity Lane LP by Lilly Hiatt. I must confess that I slept on Lilly Hiatt and her Trinity Lane LP when the album first arrived in my office. Regrettably, there was no good reason for it; given the timing of when it arrived, the album just kept getting shuffled under one thing after another. I did not give it the attention that it deserved, and it was only very recently –...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the TX Jelly LP by The Texas Gentlemen. It might not be so easy for readers to remember now, but TX Jelly – the debut LP by Texas Gentlemen – actually springs from a tradition which once favored allowing an album to build and develop organically as musicians made it in the studio. Back before punk rock and all its myriad sub- and side-genres instilled a sense of brevity, “get in, get...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Medicine Mountain LP by Chomper. Every once in a while, a band somehow manages to come along and throw a multitude of easily recognizable sounds into the generic melting pot and then pour out something which is recognizable for those traits as well as coming off as perfectly unique and all the band’s own. That’s precisely what happens on Medicine Mountain, Chomper’s debut album; in just eight tracks, the band (which...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Undivided Heart & Soul LP by JD McPherson. The beauty of JD McPherson’s new album is that calling it a “classic” or “fantastic new album” is definitely apt and accurate, but neither phrase affords the album the distinction it deserves. From note one, Undivided Heart & Soul employs a directory of time-honored songwriting and performance staples which have historically spun yards of platinum for those who have used them previously. At...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Modern Plagues LP by The Whistles And The Bells. If we can all agree that many of the best, most interesting albums are those which convey a particular image of its maker, then there’s little doubt of Modern Plagues‘ quality. From the very outset of The Whistles And The Bells’ sophomore album, listeners are presented with the image of auteur Bryan Simpson toiling gladly and madly in some fantastic underground fortress...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Tackle Box LP by Hamell On Trial. It might sound a little ridiculous, but the truth is that some musicians need to have something which genuinely pisses them off – something they find truly abhorrent – before them in order to produce their best work. Take Ed Hamell, for example; Hamell has been a politically-minded songwriter since he first appeared in 1996 but his best music has always appeared when either...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP Beggars Arkive Edition reissue of The Closer You Get by Six. By Seven. By the time the ‘century’ portion of the calandar rolled over seventeen years ago, rock was already beginning to mutate in some pretty interesting ways. By then, the “rap-rock” fan had already come and helped to administer a hefty injection of fresh, crotch-grabbing energy to the form, goth was bigger and more mainstream than it had ever...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Sleeping Through The War LP by All Them Witches. They might not actually be from the desert (in fact they’re from Nashville, TN), but that doesn’t mean All Them Witches haven’t channelled the heat, aridity and all the weirdness normally associated such a landscape and front-loaded it onto their fourth full-length album, Sleeping Through The War. This time though, no introductions get made (none are really necessary – the band had...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Modern Pressure LP by Daniel Romano. If we can all agree that the key to having an enduring career in music lies in an artist’s ability to always have listeners guessing excitedly at what they might have in store next from album to album, there’s no chance that interest in Daniel Romano’s music will wane anytime soon. Since the singer first appeared fronting a hardcore band in 2005, Romano has leapt...