After the first listen to The Hackensaw Boys Look Out!, which is to be released on June 19th by Nettwerk Records, I felt the album could be summed up in one word, Wow!! This is their best album to date. After years of relentless touring with such diverse acts as Modest Mouse, Camper Van Beethoven, […]

I’ve reached a significant conclusion in my life. I need to quit my day job. What made me realize that was that even though Bret Dennen’s album So Much More was released in late 2006, I am just now getting around to listening to it as he is releasing his follow up EP, More So […]

The amazing atmospherics of “Like Love Lust and the Open Halls of the Soul” are apparent from the outset of the album. The ambience of the album is due as much to the subdued jazzy vocals of Jesse Sykes as it is to the instrumentation. At times, Sykes sounds like a more throaty Billie Holiday. […]

Three songs into her set at the Workplay Theatre in Birmingham Elizabeth Cook broke into the Merle Haggard tune “Today I Started Loving You Again.” Somehow she took this Haggard composition and channeled Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynne simultaneously. There is no doubt in seeing her live that she is every bit as authentic as […]

Rocky Votolato has come full circle. Prior to going solo he was in a post-punk/emo band called Waxwing. On his new album Brag & Cuss, set to be released on June 19th by Barsuk, the influencesof his Texas childhood are more apparent. Votolato was born in and spent his early childhood in rural Texas. His […]

“I feel a podium under my feet” says Keri Latimer on “Scarecrow” from the new album Key Principles by the Winnipeg based Americana quartet Nathan. With a voice as enthralling and Charming as hers, she can stand on the podium and say whatever she has to say. The album starts with “John Paul’s Deliveries” about […]