Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

A Fine Frenzy is the musical offering of 21-year-old Alison Sudol, a wan softly melancholy redhead with a wide smile and a look tailor-made for an autumn catalogue. Her debut album, One Cell in the Sea, is 14 songs of alternative pop and indie soul which lifts and rocks the ...

There are nineteen tracks which comprise LEGACY, the second full length release from Akir. The focus on LEGACY is primarily --- almost exclusively --- a political one, a call to arms and a look back in regret at what Akir considers to be the failure of the self-styled “Black Power ...

Anthony Robustelli is a multi-faceted musician --- though primarily a keyboardist, he handles most of the instruments on ANOTHER FATAL BLOW, his fifth CD --- and has toured in support of a number of musicians, both known and unknown, over the course of his career. ANOTHER FATAL BLOW spotlights his ...

Arrica Rose and the . . .’s newest offering, Last Night on Earth, is a darkly fun, lightly melancholy bit of retro-modern alternative pop just five tracks long. With a breathy cry vaguely reminiscent of Cowboy Junkies’ Margot Timmins (maybe due to Arrica’s regular gargles with apple cider vinegar), Arrica ...

Groovy guitar, soulful bass and sincere singing make Roll Away a good debut album for Back Door Slam, composed of Davy Knowles (vocals, guitar), Adam Jones (bass) and Ross Doyle (drums). The band clearly is going for a high energy blues rocking sound and it suits them well. With splashes ...

Bottom Of The Hudson are not who they claim to be. Okay, maybe they are, but they fooled me. Upon receiving their newest release, Fantastic Hawk, I had expected an energetic, sketchy, noise rock album, and after listening to the records opening song, you can imagine my surprise. With all ...

Right from the opening seconds of the new Canvas Solaris, CD Cortical Tectonics, it’s pretty obvious that they’re not making music for the faint of heart. The band jumps right into the math-metal on Berserker Hypothesis, with wildly intricate rhythms attacking from every direction. The first  comparison that came to ...

When the dust settles and the smoke clears, the powers that be have no clue what to do with Inspirational/Christian music. Part of this is willful ignorance: they don’t want to know about it, and they don’t want you to know about it, either. Here is the logic: they don’t ...

You could compare Chris Webster with any number of folk singer-songwriters, from Dar Williams to the Indigo Girls, but truth be told, her sound is so straightforward and authentic that at the end of the day comparisons are a pale whitewash, and you just want to hear Webster sing. The ...

Endtime ballads.  This is the self described essence of Crippled Black Phoenix's A Love of Shared Disasters.  At its heart, this band is a collaboration started by Justin Greaves of the immensely heavy Electric Wizard.  Joining him are members of many other bands including Mogwai, Pantheist, and Portishead.  Needless to ...

Putting out a collection of rare songs and b-sides is a practice that has been going on for years, and is often viewed as questionable behavior from a band that has given up or is trying to cash in.  These very preconceptions are the reason why Danzig has blown me ...

One tends to forget that The Beatles, besides being heavily influenced by American soul, were also heavily enamored with country music. Ringo Starr, especially, was a huge fan of the genre, singing lead on the band’s take of “Act Naturally,” Buck Owens tune. Later incarnations of The Byrds and The ...

Reviewing the debut album from this South Carolina band was difficult.  It wasn't difficult because the album was complex and hard to listen to or understand.  The album was hard to review because the members of  Deepfield have recorded an album which is perfectly crafted and tailored towards great mainstream ...

You gotta love metal, done with authority. It doesn’t have to necessarily be done well; it just needs to be contain the necessary ingredients --- volume, power chords, and sweat --- and you’re ninety percent of the way there. And Diablo Royale will take you all the way. One of ...

For a sophomore album, Donnie’s The Daily News, is not half bad, although not overwhelmingly good either, nor is it as catchy as his first album The Colored Section. However, with the socially conscious fervor of Marvin Gaye and a voice like Stevie Wonder, Donnie scores big points with me. ...

Ok, let’s start by saying I just turned forty-two.  I’m old enough to be a parent to almost every one of the fans at this show, older even than most of the parents who occasionally slip in and out of frame as the cameras pan the first couple rows of ...

Rolling Stone quote’s “On the standout ‘Bodies’…William’s screams ‘Let The Bodies Hit The Floor!’…Another rallying cry for alienated nu-metal fans this summer.” Metal Edge quote’s “In a market flooded with cheap imitations, it’s nice to know that there’s still room for the real deal. Consider yourself warned: Once the bodies ...

"Tonic" frontman Emerson Hart takes a stab at the solo career track with his first release, Cigarettes and Gasoline. Listening to first single released from the album, If You’re Gonna Leave, it seems pretty clear who the primary songwriter was in "Tonic," as the track could have been ripped from ...

Christian Rock. Still with me? Good. A lot of people drop out as soon as they see the word “Christian.” I’m not a Christian, per se --- I’m spiritual, but not religious --- but listening to Christian rock isn’t going to hurt me, or you, anymore than listening to heavy metal. ...

Frank Black in the godfather of alternative rock. Kurt Cobain acknowledged as much when he stated that Nirvana was his attempt to rip off Black’s Pixies project. Chris Carter, in his brilliant, under appreciated series Millennium, paid tribute to him by naming the brooding, haunted lead character after him. If ...

Ghoulies Are Gone!  It’s time to say goodbye to the Groovie Ghoulies (1989-2007) who provide their own eulogy with their last bare-bones horror punk album 99 Lives.  Though it’s a funeral, there’s nothing sad about this album.  The Sacramento band, whose current lineup includes Kepi (lead vocals, bass), Roach (guitar), ...

Young indie rockers Hopewell hit the bull’s-eye on their latest album Beautiful Targets. Their unique brand of soulful and haunting rock with a splash of pop and alternative make each of the eleven songs a sweet surprise to the ear.The spacey psychedelic vibes of Radiohead and Pink Floyd that were ...

Hugh Masekela, in the grander days of Top 40 radio (the 1960s) had an improbable hit with a release titled “Grazing In The Grass.” The average listener didn’t think of it as afro-jazz, or jazz, or anything really, other than good music. And good music it was. It was played ...

Folk music tends to be a form that is lost on my generation. It distances itself from bling and cars, and focuses on the dwellings of the songwriter's heart and soul. The only form of music that comes remotely close is emo, but even those bands are juvenile when dealing with ...

I'm not used to hearing the kind of music I heard on Jennifer Gentle's new album The Midnight Room but that's for a good reason. Initially I was excited to hear something that had been described as the kind of music you'd hear in a haunted amusement park. But what ...