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…
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…
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…
A contemporary interpretation of the dastardly deeds of King Henry VIII, Six rocks. Its pop vibe is a sure-fire winner. The six wives of the Tudor sovereign are presented as modern-day heroines, complete with costumes and “moves” that would be at home in a superhero movie. They have all been wronged (two were beheaded, two divorced, one…
There’s a lot going on in our world right now, and rocker Sharon Van Ettan, like many of us, takes the whole mess quite personally. In her song “Anything,” she admits to being “Up the whole night, undefined/Can’t stop thinking about peace and war.” But the things keeping her awake at night, she admits, “could’ve…
This Is A Photograph is singer/songwriter Kevin Morby’s 7th album which once again is a record that captures his look at life with intelligent lyrics, complex arrangements and his calm as can be vocals. Since his gospel-folk delivery on the fantastic Singing Saw (2016), Morby has tweaked his style with each record that has followed…
For the last 20 years, the duo that make up The Black Keys have been refining their own take on the blues and R&B influences that are the underpinning of early rock icons like Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton’s Cream. Guitarist and vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney were so enamored with potent musical…
Melbourne’s Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever is a band that has the appearance of following an older music model. I believe with their third long player, Endless Rooms, that model continues to pay large dividends. Artist development is pretty much a thing of the past these days but even with the success of their 2018 debut,…
(watch my moves), the ninth studio album from Kurt Vile if you include his collaboration with Courtney Barnett on 2017’s Lotta Sea Lice, finds the folk/rock singer-songwriter guitarist in now familiar territory. A traditionally laid-back creator of jangly guitar rock, Vile used some of the pandemic shutdown to build a home studio, OKV Central, which…
Even if you haven’t loved every step on the journey with Weezer, you have to be impressed by composer/bandleader Rivers Cuomo’s work ethic and high-quality output. Frankly, I was less than enamoured with the mega-buzz that accompanied the band’s cover of “Africa” by Toto than say, the original the first time around. But not only…
