High Flying Man is the third LP by Matt Berry’s pseudo-eponymous project The Berries. The album shows a progression in songwriting and song structure which results in The Berries’ best LP to date. The album is a very straightforward rock record which I really like. Its songs have an average length of 4 minutes which…
Singer/songwriter John Darnielle and The Mountain Goats have been on a solid run for a while now, and here on their 21st studio outing they’re out for revenge. Well, to be more accurate, just as the band has released concept albums focused around themes like professional wrestling (Beat the Champs, ‘15), 80’s new wave/alt rock…
If the Polyvinyl bio is to be trusted, Kevin Barnes shaped of Montreal’s January 2020 release UR FUN with the concert stage and live performance in mind. We all know how that went, 2020 the year of the pandemic shutdown, isolation, and closures. When the going gets tough, the artistic among us create “free flowing…
On 2018’s To The Sunset, singer/songwriter and self-described fiddle player Amanda Shires made it clear that she wasn’t interested in limiting her musical expressions to country music alone. Beyond playing a supportive role in her husband Jason Isbell’s band, The 400 Unit, Shires brought together The Highwomen in ‘19, a collaboration with Brandi Carlisle, Natalie…
When Jack White released the hard-hitting rock album Fear of the Dawn, back in April, he promised a second “folk” album was just months away. And for those of us who were curious what White meant exactly by the term folk – was this going to be Woody Guthrie meets Pete Seeger minimalism, or something…
On November 24th, 1971, during a Northwest Orient Airlines flight from Portland to Seattle, a man going by the name Dan Cooper handed one of the flight attendants a note. When she started to walk away without reading it, Cooper leaned toward her and said, “Miss, you’d better look at that note. I have a…
Liam Gallagher’s third individual release, C’mon You Know, is easily his best solo record to date. The album is straight out of the Brit rock playbook and brings plenty of big anthems, sing along choruses, guitar rock and contains songs that are easily ready for the big stage. The other major difference that you will…
In the six years since that last Shearwater album, Jonathan Meiburg published a novel, formed a new band with members of the band that had opened for them on their last tour called Loma then recorded and released two albums, played and recorded adaptations of David Bowie’s Lodger album, eventually performing the trio of Berlin-recorded…
No doubt every serious music listener has got a few pet bands that have been relegated to the world of “shoulda, coulda, woulda,” an act you encountered in their early days that impressed you that they had the songs, the sound, the talent, the smarts to go the distance and break into the big time…
On the 2020 release, Color Theory, Soccer Mommy explored emotions across the spectrum, but clearly her lyrics felt most at home in the darker hues and textures of the palette. Of course, Soccer Mommy is singer/songwriter Sophie Allison; buoyed by a strong critical response and tours opening for Liz Phair and Kacy Musgraves, has raised…
