Monday, November 7 2011
Catie Curtis: Stretch Limousine on Fire
Here's another genial, generic album of singer-songwriter stuff that wouldn't sound out of place on your local public radio station.
Sunday, August 28 2011
Twinsistermoon: Then Fell the Ashes ...
Then Fell the Ashes ... is challenging, but there are enough spins on a well worn drone rock formula to make the time spent zoning out to it worth the time invested.
Wednesday, July 27 2011
Bachelorette: Bachelorette
While Bachelorette is not perfect, it does make a case for an artist who is not afraid to go against the norms of popular recorded music and craft intricately woven sound-songs that can captivate and delight an audience accustomed to going beyond conventions.
Friday, July 22 2011
Burlap to Cashmere: Burlap to Cashmere
If there's room in your pop heaven for Simon & Garfunkel, the Indigo Girls, and Fleet Foxes, you should also make room for this terrific Burlap to Cashmere album.
Tuesday, June 7 2011
The Wooden Birds: Two Matchsticks
Two Matchsticks is a confidently assured collection of 12 songs that work extremely well together in a consistent, even, and oak varnished form.
Friday, May 6 2011
“Maybe It’s Hate, Probably It’s Love”: Honesty, Art, and Loudon Wainwright III
From Richard Pryor to Bill Hicks to David Foster Wallace to Spalding Gray, the motivating current for honest humour has been truthfulness about despair. And no one, not even those guys, has ever been as honest as Loudon.
Wednesday, February 16 2011
Hayes Carll: KMAG YOYO & other American Stories
Carll has a Texas sense of humor, by which I mean he often writes BIG songs to emphasize the outrageousness of human situations. When he sings of love, he means lust, between a man and a woman so mismatched that only sex and booze can make the relationship work.
Friday, September 17 2010
The Clientele: Minotaur
Whether it is a last gasp from an unusually consistent band, or merely a palate-clearing exercise pointing the way towards a perhaps more experimental direction to be found on a follow-up LP, Minotaur is buoyed by an excellent front half and a less stellar back end.
Tuesday, September 7 2010
The Acorn: No Ghost
This is clearly the sound of Americana, except for the fact that the Acorn is a Canadian band.
