Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

If you’re ready to party, Altered State will provide the soundtrack. In their own words their new album “Get Real,” is made to be heard at Thanksgiving, BBQ’s, staff functions, housewarming parties, New Year’s Eve celebrations, birthdays, during long drives, short drives, long weekends, sex, when school’s out, spring break, ...

CATCH AND RELEASE was a chick flick that was released and few caught. I'm not sure what it was about; I consider a chick flick to be the first half of HOSTEL, every minute of …ALL THE MARBLES, you know what I mean. The genre is kind of lost on ...

I hate spiders. I mean, I HATE spiders. A 12 gauge shotgun locked and loaded with double-ought buck is not an overreaction to a corner critter. So…a movie about one? Nope. With a talking pig? Heck no. If I want to listen to a talking pig, I can see one ...

As implied by their name, Dead Leaf Echo captures a dark melancholy sound, mixed with sweeping ethereal guitar, relentless down beats, and broken U2 style vocals to create the very unique mixture evident on "Faint Violent Whiff." With their five-song EP, Dead Leaf Echo as struck a chord in the underground indie ...

Ok, I'm going to keep this short, which happens to make sense to me.   I'm 23.  Earth, Wind & Fire(EWF) is 38 years strong.  A majority of their best body-movin' stuff came out before I was born.   As a matter of fact, if I had to put money ...

I found it ironic to be listening to an album called PRAYER OF DEATH during a four day period of uninterrupted mental and physical pain, via influenza, in which I truly embraced the album's title concept… over and over.   Between bows to the "porcelain god" and fever sweats I ...

Welcome to yet another three hour show in the long, strange trip of the Grateful Dead.  Live at the Cow Palace, New Year’s Eve 1976, captures the original jam band in peak form. As a special treat, The sound quality easily surpasses that on most live recordings from this era.  In ...

What can be said about John Mayer or his album, CONTINUUM, that hasn't already been said.   I mean this review is getting in several months after the release date to begin with.  The music awards have been awarded, the videos shot, the singles released, the new material emerging.   ...

The French Canadian band Malajube has created a vast sonic landscape on their new album, Trompe-L’oeil. In English the title means the art of illusion. Throughout the dozen tracks which comprise the album Malajube paint pictures with the music that are so vivid it doesn’t matter that the lyrics are ...

Redlight Cinema is an Indie / Garage rock band hailing from New York. These guys have a kind of unique style of music and, I have to say, they're pretty good at it. If I had to compare Red Light Cinema to somebody else out there, I would have to say that ...

GREY TOWN by Roy Davis is lodged solidly in familiar Americana territory. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I have been unkind enough elsewhere to suggest that a good deal of Americana releases sound as if somebody in Texas had been slapping five hundred different labels onto the same ...

Tape Recorder Three is Todd Zack, a one-man show who plays all of his instruments, fairly competently and sings in a disembodied voice that is a cross between an extra-snotty Jim Morrison and a more accessible Lou Reed. Which, I think, kind of sums up CHARACTER AMOUR, Zack’s first long-play ...

One of the things that I absolutely love about doing what I do is that it gives me the opportunity every once in a while to get blown away by a band I've never heard of. I have a subscription to SPIN, but never read it; if I did, I ...

On "Let’s Do It!," The Slow Burn deliver a well-balanced mix of blues, alt-country and three part harmonies. Based out of the Washington DC area, each member brings both experience and unique qualities to the table.  Lead guitarist Paul D’Andrea indulges in the occasional solo and trades off well with ...