Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

I still am not quite sure what I want to say about this album.  I hadn’t heard of Adam Marsland before, and considering this was a 'Greatest Hits’ album, I was excited to listen to it and to see what it was I’d been missing.  I don’t think I was ...

I’m pretty new to Alesana’s fan base and I think I came in at a good time. They have a lot more growing to do but this is the most developed sound I’ve heard from them yet. As they play with their sound on this disk we do get a ...

Rochester’s Blue Avengers is a jazz/soul quintet led by Bob and Alana Miller. The Millers are possessed of an international background in music separately acquired before they met in 1999 and subsequently formed the band which they front. CHASING RAINBOWS IN THE DARK is their second release; ...

North Carolina has produced its share of folksy backwoods farmers and hunters who love to pick on guitars around the campfire. Bowerbirds is the latest installment, and they deliver a very good performance on their debut album, Hymns for a Dark Horse.  Phil Moore and company deliver a vast array ...

Those who know me will not be surprised at the news that I am sick of the green movement. About ten years ago I started taking actual guerrilla action, celebrating Earth Day by making unnecessary auto trips to the local mall, dumping glass bottles at the landfill, ...

I have to be honest when I first popped this album in my stereo I knew very little about Camper Van Beethoven. I know they formed in the eighties but their name always made me think of Sebastian Bach, obviously because of the classical music allusions in each name.My assumption, ...

Charles Laster II has said elsewhere that his style is a combination of influences, including Andre Crouch, Billy Preston, and Stevie Wonder. Just so; one can hear all of those gentlemen, and more, swirling In JOURNEY OF LIFE, Laster’s project with musical, spiritual and emotional partner Silvia ...

Chicago's latest release is a re-release of, what was once bootleg, Stone of Sisyphus. (The release date was intended to be 1993, and the album sounds it). This album's release, on Rhino records, is one of 23 compilations and re-releases Rhino has done for Chicago in the past 6 years. ...

THE OUTSIDE is gonna take some getting used to. I am not sure what Eliot Lipp is doing here, if he is moving the electronica genre closer to mainstream, or even retro, pop, or vice versa. I initially put THE OUTSIDE on the system anticipating…well, what one ...

Over the past five years, Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson has become a hip-hop and pop music idol. Her debut CD, The Dutchess, spawned stunning platinum success and revealed her to be a draw outside of the Black Eyed Peas. Almost as a victory lap for The Dutchess's success, ...

Seattle will never have a lack of musical entertainers. The music capital of the northwest cranks out bands and musicians so fast, it’s hard to keep track, let alone, listen to them all. Head Like a Kite has risen from the pile. On his second album, David Einmo has gone ...

The reviews I’d seen about Invisigoth’s debut album, Alcoholocaust, all seemed to mention post-grunge, Soundgarden and the like, so I was more than a little surprised to be thrust more into a world of garden variety heavy symphonic progressive pop when I threw in the duo’s new album, Narcotica. Then ...

I'm going to see Bruce Springsteen in a few weeks, and listening to Jason Anderson’s The Hopeful and the Unafraid is getting me excited for it.  Anderson’s album –lyrically and instrumentally- reminds me of Bruce Springsteen.  I don’t know why, but the beginning of the album starts off a bit ...

The British Invasion brought a huge influx of music across the pond in the early sixties and infused the United States with an influence that still lasts until this day. The modern pop and rock genres closely follow their roots back to The Beatles, The Who, even Herman’s Hermits; but ...

There will never be a dirth of jazzy, sexy, and sultry women crooning songs about forlorn lost love and love they cannot attain. But, there are not many that can claim such a musical family. Martha’s dad is Loudon Wainwright III, the folk singer and actor mostly known for his ...

It is ironic that Plies never intended to be a rapper. Plies (government name: Ronell Lawrence Levatte) worked for his brother’s music label, Big Gates Records, as a talent developer and initially refused to rap. Following a guest shot on the track “Tell Dem Crackers Dat,” Plies ...

Alaska doesn’t produce a lot of rock musicians and especially ones with a progressive flair. Portugal. The Man produces an excellent record for their third effort, Censored Colors. Some people may have listened in the past and not liked the quirkiness of the band or maybe they didn’t like the ...

PIECE BY PIECE is Reed Waddle’s fourth release, and is perhaps a more reflective project than his previous work with his (now departed ) backing band, 13th Street Special. Waddle took his time with this project --- the songs included on PIECE BY PIECE have been percolating ...

Sitting on the sunny beaches of California has inspired many musicians to write music of the sunmer. The sun bathing, surfing, lazing in the sand genre spawned Slightly Stoopid in the mid 1990’s and since then they have blended acoustic rock sensibilities with a reggae overtone. Slightly Not Stoned Enough ...

When it comes to The Stone Poneys, Ronstadt’s first major foray into the music world, there is no denying that all of the elements were in place for a great folk band. Ronstadt sounds great next to the skill of Robert Kimmel and Ken Edwards.  And, luckily and thankfully, The ...

I can’t get it out of my CD player. What else can I tell you? Hardcore energy plus five guys who can actually play their instruments, and play cohesively plus an uplifting, positive message, so I don’t have to turn the system off every time my ten ...

The Beach Boys are the iconoclastic American rock group, one of the few American bands that not only survived but also actually thrived during the so-called British Invasion. They spawned a host of imitators, even as their own sound was a brilliantly-conceived rock  updating of a sound ...

The Delta Fiasco is a trio from Liverpool, England which has been together for a while --- since 2004, actually --- and garnered a cult following more through their live performances than their recordings. Their recording history is somewhat vague, and I‘ll admit straight up that I ...

The 1960s and the San Francisco music scene are forever linked, with bands such as Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead (not to mention a whole bunch of others such as Quicksilver, Country Joe & The Fish, and Big Brother & The Holding Company) serving as counter-culture ...

The M’s give a valiant effort on Real Close Ones, and although on a first run-through the album sounds promising, it starts to sound like a gaggle of songs that eventually just kind of run together.  After a few more listens though you’ll start to appreciate it more.  Just like ...