Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

Cody McCarver has the type of problem that 95 per cent of the guys playing the back room at Tootsie’s in Nashville wish they had. McCarver is the guy who recorded “Red Flag,” a fabulous modern country cautionary song about the “red flags” a woman should watch for when they ...

Gene Butler is of indeterminate age, though his leather voice would seem to be indicative of a 70 pack year history of cigarette smoking. He certainly does not fit into the Nashville pretty boy box --- he is based, at first blush improbably, out of Los Angeles --- so his ...

Kathie Baillie’s first solo album, Love’s Funny That Way, is a solid selection of straightforward country pop-rock and ballads that’s easy on the ears. Although, calling this a solo album might be a stretch: husband Michael Bonagura, who was another third of the trio from her Baillie and the Boys ...

Touring hard and with their first studio album in a decade, hopefully Little Texas is back to stay for awhile. The group had a string of top-ten hits in the 90s, and garnered ACM’s Vocal Group of the Year award in 1994, but split up in 1997 (their last concert ...

Little Texas was one of the most formidable country rock bands of the 1990s, racking up a string of top-ten hits, including: Life Goes On, Amy’s Back in Austin, Some Guys Have All the Love, You and Forever and Me, and their signature anthems, Kick a Little, and God Blessed ...

Missoula, Montana, native and Harvard graduate Liz Carlisle’s sophomore album. Big Dreams, is a coltish mix of heartfelt ballads and upbeat country pop: at times a bit wobbly on its knees, at times racing down the back stretch like a thoroughbred. The album suffers a bit from weaker-than-wished-for vocals. At her worst, ...

Mike Aiken’s latest album, Just Add Salt, presents a steady theme of wistful sand and water in a mellow rockabilly folk blues. But the leitmotif is drummed tenaciously, with each of the 12 cuts but two making some reference to boats, water or beaches; and of the two that don’t, ...

Robbie Fulks may well be the finest composer of country music songs working today. He is also a conundrum, in that at any one time he seems hell bent upon simultaneously building and destroying his career. It goes beyond his unwillingness to play the Nashville Music Row game. It’s more ...

In Your Dreams, Zachary Hunter’s third release with Wolf Records, is a mellow country album ranging from rockabilly to honky-tonk to sentimental ballads. The songs themselves—all 13 of them written by Hunter, who also co-produced the album—are mostly musically tight, but their performance doesn’t shine with all one might hope ...