Twelve albums with all the original members is a rare achievement in the music world these days but that is exactly what we get here from Canada’s Sloan. The band has returned with the appropriately titled album, 12, and it is another reminder of what makes a great power pop record. With catchy anthems, memorable…
When The Decemberists’ first single for I’ll Be Your Girl, “Severed” showed up on the appropriate alternative-friendly satellite radio stations a few weeks ago, I bet I wasn’t the only fan to begin worrying that the more modern Brit pop leanings of 2015’s What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World had led the Portland-based…
If you’ve been anywhere near a radio recently you’ve no doubt heard Missy Higgins’ catchy new single “Futon Couch”. This is the first taster of Higgins’upcoming fifth studio album Solastalgia, due in on the 4th May, and a definite evolution of her sound. “Futon Couch” also has a new video directed by Josh Harris “I think this was the most…
Moby was making electronic dance music hits before we knew to call it EDM, when it was still called techno/dance pop, but his bold sonic experiments, often mixing musical genres with cinematic flair, have taken his music far beyond the dance floor. While he had an early breakout disco hit with “Go,” and was a…
The second album from Ruby Boots, Don’t Talk About It, roars out of the gate with “It’s So Cruel,” a cow-punk rocker that recalls the energy of Jason & The Scorchers. But before you get your hopes up, producer Beau Bedford (of The Texas Gentlemen), perhaps eager to display the singer/songwriter’s versatility, offers her up…
Roots Magic is a quartet of Italian musicians: Alberto Popolla on clarinet and bass clarinet, Errico De Fabritiis on alto and baritone saxophone, Gianfranco Tedeschi on bass, and Fabrizio Spera on drums. Their second release on Clean Feed records continues the band’s deep engagement with African-American delta blues and experimental jazz. The late, great Lester…
No one is ever going to call singer/songwriter Bill Mallonee an under-achiever. His latest release, a 10 song full-length effort, Forest Full of Wolves is his 78th album by his own count. Mallonee spent the 1990s fronting Vigilantes of Love, shuffling from one label to the next. They drove a van coast-to-coast playing every alternative…
The Thread That Keeps Us – the ninth album from Calexico – is yet another artful collection of stories. They’re told with the band’s eclectic musicality and a mature songwriting sensibility that shows up primarily in strong, impressive melodies. Rooted in the long collaboration of singer/multi-instrumentalist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino, and favoring a…
Sydney based alt-country singer-songwriter Imogen Clark has been busy lately, revealing plans to release her new album Collide on 27 April 2018, dropping her catchy new single and video “Your Anything At All” and listing so many tour dates it’s impossible not to get out and see her. Collide is Clark’s second album and was produced by Australian music legend Mark Lizotte…
One of my favorite musical scenes in film is that long opening sequence at the beginning of the movie Once, where you can hear Glen Hansard playing guitar and singing while the camera tracks along the dark streets of Dublin before settling on the singer/songwriter busking in front of a storefront. Knowing that Hansard’s career…
