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 Otherness LP by Alexisonfire. The cool thing that Alexisonfire has always done (and this is not a claim that many bands can make) is that they have always challenged their audience without making it look intentional. When the band’s first album appeared in 2002, for example, the idea that three bands (Condemning Salem, Helicon Blue and Plan 9) could converge and intermingle punk, metal and emo DNA into one unit and...
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...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Stranger Things 4 – Soundtrack From The Netflix Series 2LP compilation. I usually steer clear of soundtracks because I’m not the greatest fan of compilations in general; when I throw on a record, I usually want to hear an artist’s idea seen through from start to finish as well as all of the developments included along the way. I want to seen an album grow and develop and see the things...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the It’s A Matter Of Time – The Complete PALP Session LP by Reverend Beat-Man & The Underground. In this era of digital production, rare is the album which feels and sounds dirty. Now, I don’t mean “dirty” in the sense that it was recorded poorly or the sound quality is poor, I mean the music feels dirty in that, after listening, a record leaves listeners feeling so unclean that listeners don’t...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Humble Quest LP by Maren Morris. It’s funny how, as good as each of the eleven songs on Maren Morris’ Humble Quest are, trying to pin down their appeal will probably take listeners a minute. For example, when “Circles Around This Town” opens the A-side of the album, listeners will be able to appreciate the “hard work will pay off” root which informs the song as well as the pop-country heart...
L7 Bricks Are Heavy (30th Anniversary reissue) LP (Licorice Pizza Records) Looking back on it now, it’s pretty pitiful how unprepared the music industry was for L7. When the band first appeared in 1988 with their debut album, it’s easy enough to understand how nobody noticed; L7’s self-titled debut came out on Epitaph Records (which, at that time, was a really small record label with limited resources – and Bad Religion was the only band of note on their roster)...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Seance! With Zabrecky glow-in-the-dark 12” single by Zabrecky. On the surface, noting that the Seance! With Zabrecky 12” single is a novelty record just goes without saying. Sure – people still indulge in trying to make contact with the deceased, on occasion, and some people even claim to have been successful; but really, it always boils down to how far one is willing to play along with the shtick; as the...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Slackers’ “New York Berlin” b/w “Tell Them No” 12” one-sided single. I confess that, while the two songs which comprise the new Slackers single are good, solid cuts, I do not understand why this single has been pressed the way it has. First, both “New York Berlin” and “Tell Them No” are perfectly average songs in length – one is almost three and a half minutes long and the other is...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Physical Thrills 2LP by Silversun Pickups. In listening to Physical Thrills, the first thing which becomes self-evident is just how great a success 2019’s Widow’s Weeds (Silversun Pickups’ fifth studio album) was, and how great a financial and creative reward it yielded for the band. Clearly emboldened by that success, Physical Thrills represents an enormous departure for Silversun Pickups; where they once made the most of smaller sounds and used a...