Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

A title like A Looney Tunes Sing-Along Christmas is about as far from deceptive packaging as you can get. It’s out front: you should not be expecting a hidden track featuring a selection from the so-far unreleased CHINESE DEMOCRACY by Guns n’ Roses. Nope, what it says is what you get, which ...

Abigail Hopkins follows up her acclaimed debut album Smile Road, with her sophomore album Blue Satin Alley. Smile Road was a much more cheerful-sounding album, but Blue Satin Alley still contains Hopkins’s mesmerizing gritty sound, reminiscent of PJ Harvey, an artist who she lists as an influence and one who ...

Technically considered “noise rock,” Aids Wolf is much more “noise,“ and much less “rock.” This foursome from Montreal seems to strive for something different, but is ultimately way too bizarre for their own good. The Lovvers LP is strange, uncoordinated, and honestly sounds like nothing but noise. The vocalist, Chloe ...

Immediately upon popping in the sophomore album of this Wisconsin native, one thing is obvious: she was incredibly influenced by Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks. While I think Taylor's voice is more powerful, I can hear a bit of Stevie in there... I was especially impressed with the tracks Nobody Else ...

Alex Clements’ Waiting for you… is an excellent example of today’s smooth jazz. His music speaks through the quick tones of the saxophone, a soft and light drum beat, and pleasant chords of the piano. The album debuts with a more upbeat melody, Blues for GB, which is a rather ...

Listening to Angie Stone’s The Art of Love and War is like spending a pleasant afternoon with someone you haven’t seen in a while. There’s nostalgia and comfortable familiarity, but also the excitement of rekindling an old friendship. Stone’s brand of smooth neo-soul with smatterings of funk is the kind ...

Anoushka Shankar and Karsh Kale are a miracle of fusions.  Through their music emanates beats and sounds that wouldn’t sound out of place be-bopping from headphones in Mumbai.  But, yet, they are more than merely a songwriting duo influenced by the subcontinent.  Their grandiose orchestrations with sweeping cellos and drum ...

I think it is safe to say that the metal scene is living in the age of the mediocre. For every great album that is released, there are ten albums that are completely boring and uninspired. Look at The Final Dawn, for example. This album sounds like ...

Oh, how I wanted to love this CD. I’ve always had a secret hankering for the deep-throated bass that is Barry White. My obsession was similar to Peter MacNicol’s character on Ally McBeal: each time he’s played on the radio, I start swaying my shoulders and tapping my foot. But, ...

Former Grammy winner and long-time country music artist Bobby Bare has done it again... sort of. I say sort of because the latest release bearing his name is the album Drunk and Crazy... Plus, which is actually a re-issue of his classic 1980 released, with some extra tracks thrown ...

If you’re walking through a shopping mall department store this holiday season and hear pleasant sounding Christmas jazz playing in the background, it may very well be the music of Boney James. James music, I hate to say, is very similar to that of Kenny G. Thankfully it seems ...

Brush is a five-man band from Seattle whose debut album Love Sublime is a refreshing break from the pop/indie sound that’s become fairly typical. They mix fantastic, catchy, poppy guitar rhythms with a piano and interesting synth and keyboard generated clicks and beeps to create track after track, a ...

Greatest hits compilations are always a mixed bag.  Devotees usually don’t get much out of them.  They have already compiled the tracks on the original albums, and normally there’s no need to shell out more dough and revisit their childhood.  The other category of listener, the wandering passerby who has ...

I think I’ve stated that I hate Christmas music, and generally hate Christmas CDs, with a couple of exceptions. I’ll add Darlene Love’s It's Christmas, Of Course, to my good list, simply because seasonal aspect notwithstanding, you could listen to this bad boy all year long.Love is a relatively unheralded ...

While I normally like self-taught musicians, there is just something about Davey T that rubs me the wrong way. I have no problem with his style, as he sounds a lot like one of my favorite groups -- Rascal Flatts. So it's not the sound either... I guess that I ...

If a band modeled itself after Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones, and the Allman Brothers, one might think they were a bunch of idiots, because nobody could live up to the precedent set by those great bands. But Delta Moon, co-fronted by steel guitarist Tom Gray and guitarist Mark Johnson, is ...

The San Francisco artist Divasonic (Lynda Arnold and friends) first release Changing Wind is an interesting mix of pop, folk and, dare I say, new-age? I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this album, and as a guy who likes to listen to a lot of Nine Inch Nails, ...

There is an interesting story behind the release of The One Who's Leavin'. Doug Spartz, following his critically acclaimed AMERICAN STORIES, LIES, AND TALES in 2006, was diagnosed with cancer and suffered a heart attack. While still in the hospital, Spartz booked studio time and began planning the recording of ...

Van Halen is on tour. Nikki Sixx has a new CD. Power ballads are all over the radio. Here come the 1980s. That’s not a bad thing. The whole hair band/ heavy metal thing kind of disappeared before everyone was ready for it to go away, and it took a ...

The release of Storm Chaser by Erasure both asks and answers the question, “Was this really necessary?” The answer is, “That depends.” Storm Chaser is an EP containing remixes, radio edits, extended mixes, blahblahblahblahblah, of a few of the tracks from Erasure’s most recent CD release, LIGHT AT THE END OF THE WORLD. If ...

Galactic Funk, the album by Eric Terdjman is an attempt at something different. From the title, I gathered that he is trying to sound futuristic yet soulful. The concept of this appealed to me before I heard the music. However, once I was able to hear Galactic ...

Far From Finished is a quartet from New York, or a quintet or a trio from Boston. Or something. The membership of the aggregation is somewhat hazy and inconsistent, I think partially by deliberation. What is a certainty is that Far From Finished is really, really good. ...

What a refreshing group. Foreign Born started in San Francisco late in the summer of 2003, but soon relocated to Los Angeles. After forming, they released their debut single We Had Pleasure, and later recorded and released their debut EP, entitled In The Remote Woods, on Star Time International Records. ...

Anthony Gallucio has been a star on the Philadelphia music scene for years. Finally, his debut album as simply Gallucio, All For You, gives him a chance to garner acclaim from the rest of the country. First and foremost, Gallucio brings top notch guitar to the fold. It’s ...

What can you say about Heart that hasn’t already been said? They are one of the very first female rock groups, and they are still going strong. This release is proof of that, as Ann and Nancy Wilson rock out on this combo CD/DVD release. Ann Wilson, quite possibly one ...