Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

W.A.S.P. "The Sting . . .," is a recording of a live Web Cast from the Key Club in April of 2000. Because of the hundred thousand plus audience that was unable to tune in (we all know that "Server Busy" error!), a video of the show was released. The ...

Wagon Cookin’ is an instrumental/dj/production team from Spain which is now residing in Brazil. And consists of brothers Javier and Luis Garayalde. The bros are multi-instrumentalists with solid backgrounds in classical and jazz music (their father is Javier Garayalde, a noted sax player); the brothers have played in a number ...

I don’t think I’ve heard a country rock project as good as DIAMONDS IN THE SUN by Walt Wilkins & The Mystiqueros since…well, HEAD OVER HEELS by Poco? The first couple Pure Prairie League discs, with Craig Fuller aboard, or maybe the first McGuffey Lane disc, or ...

The Wannabe Hasbeens, a power quartet from Minneapolis, makes a habit of oxymorons, at least in their presentation: that would be their name, and their debut EP, FORMER TRANS FUTURE VOL. 1. There is nothing contradictory or complicated about their music, however. It’s straight ahead, 1980s -era British guitar rock, ...

Warren G. was the architect behind one or the truly best hip-hop jams of the 90's "Regulate," but really has not found too much success since. His last release, 1997's, Take A Look Over Your Shoulder, Failed to garner a hit like "Regulate," so that may be the reason why ...

My wife absolutely loves this record. Accordingly it's been played -- a lot -- around casa de  Hartlaub. It never makes it into my car, which is stuffed to the gills with The Strokes and Miles Davis and Nuggets and New Orleans '50s R & B by guys so off ...

Okay, they had me going there a second… But the other band I'm thinking of is Waysted and the album was "Save Your Prayers." Similarities? Hell yeah, actually. Not between the two albums but in that vintage early '80s Hard Rock sound, you know, back when it was okay to ...

Looks like Victory scored another one with these guys. This is some of the best Modern Rock music I've heard in a long time - deep, creative, edgy, melodious, and each track properly positioned for maximum impact.  There's of course more to the story than simple "Hard Rock" would have ...

There is a lot of electronica crap out right now, everyone with a couple of turntables and a sequencer fancies themself as a dj. I can't keep track of them all, to be honest. My younger son is into that scene to a marginal extent and when he drops by ...

Wayne Gratz is Narada's answer to George Winston ---nothing wrong with that, actually --- and A PLACE WITHOUT NOISE is a perfect title. While Gratz does make some noise (what would be the point, otherwise?) it's unobtrusive, just Gratz and his piano, with Paul Fleury on cello. I'm kind of ...

Fans of Sufjan Stevens, Bright Eyes, and Iron and Wine will love Waz. His debut album The Sweet Bye and Bye is filled with songs that make one recall the great indie sound before shows like the OC and Laguna Beach spoiled it for the genre’s fans. Unfortunately or fortunately ...

Now this is a movie sound track with an identity crisis. I get it... We Own the Night pits brothers on opposite sides of the law against each other, is set in the midst of 80's club culture and wants the sound track to reflect that. And it does.  However, ...

  You can't judge a book or a CD by its cover. The AMERICAN ART CD by Weatherbox is done up in pastels, with a drawing of an androgynous Mayan or something with geese flying overhead, and I expected some sort of acoustic disc fronted by an Ani DiFranco clone. ...

Weezer seems to be on a creative inspirational streak by releasing another album barely a year after the much hyped so-called Green Album.  Maladroit arrives with much less ado, but better demonstrates why this band has survived the test of time with its clever form of rock.  Fans who were ...

The only thing I can say about this album is "Wow" and in most cases that's a good thing, but not this time. This album was just an embarrassment to music of all kinds. The writing was dreadful and the singing was even worse. There is absolutely no way that ...

Still alive in the days when rock and roll talent seems to have gone the way of the barber’s chair, there remain a handful left with fortitude enough to forward their own interests, play skillfully, loud, and without pretense.  Supergroup as a term, in this day and age, means little ...

From Pressure Point to Whiskey Rebels to bare knuckle brawling and a bottle o' 90 proof to wash it down… The "Sacto" scene appears the latest in a regional uprising that finds a flurry of Punks foaming with pride and power. Got about four or five too many down this ...

Where to begin?  Where to begin?White Flight is original, there is no denying that.  Justin Roelofs’ solo effort is an explosion of electronica sounds and funky lyrics that melds together into a slightly interesting, but, for the most part, annoyingly frustrating album of 13 tracks.  By and large, the CD ...

I don't know about you, but when I think of a Christmas album, I hear soothing music that goes well with focusing sleep-weary eyes on overly wired kids who just can't open their presents fast enough.  It's "Silent Night" and "We Three Kings", audio Valium for an otherwise crazy and stressful morning.This ...

It was inevitable, I guess, that with the rise of Disney pop tarts such as Hannah Montana and Hilary Duff there would be an onslaught of teen singers trying to do the same thing, sans the benefit of Uncle Walt’s bucks and promotional machine. Whitney Wolanin is one of these; ...

The Whitsundays self-titled debut is generally a vanilla output. It’s mellowed and yellowed, resurrecting the spirit of The Animals and, fittingly, The Zombies.It doesn’t go anywhere. I suppose it doesn’t have to. It’s sort of the soundtrack of the abhorrent beach loafer, or rather the LSD smacked ...

It seems as if every decade or so a band comes along with a perfect combination of looseness and tightness, that Is grounded but threatens to fly off loose of its moorings and take you with it. That was the Rolling Stones in the 1960s, Aerosmith in the 1970s, the ...

Local Boston favorite and winner of the 2006 Boston Music Award for Best Male Singer Songwriter, Will Dailey proves he knows how to put together an album with his latest release Back Flipping Forward. With ten tracks Dailey gets the job done and just right. His mellow, easy going style ...

No less than Hank Williams’ grandson, wildman Hank III, has fully endorsed Neal's cataclysmic country ramblings. Neal is a Pensacola, Florida boy, a post-punker who found that the recordings of Ernest Tubb, Faron Young and Hank the First were far more startling and angry than any ...

There were only two musical genres in 2001 that experienced an increase in CD sales over the previous year. They were...country music, which experienced a growth of one percent (not much, gang, but growth is growth) and...Christian music, which had an increase into the double digits, my friends. This might ...