1) Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well She raised her game to a new level. The insight and emotion in some of the songs on this record really do make me think that cardinal was John Prine. I’m not sure there’s been a better song ever about growing up than the title track. 2) Billy Strings […]
Ben Chapman – Downbeat
Road house, honky tonk, dive bar. It doesn’t matter what you call the place, across rural America they’re the name for a drinking establishment with live music, frequently located near the crossroads of a couple of (sort of) major highways. The music can be from a few different genres, but the characteristics of the set […]
Effie Zilch – Multitudes
We are all, to some extent, a product of our environment. When it comes to music that frequently manifests itself in a favored genre. But what if you’ve worked with artists from Leon Bridges to John Legend to the Rolling Stones? And you’ve scored and acted in a Sam Shepard play and written a movie […]
Schmoon Song Premiere – Not A Girl
Remember when people asked kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, like they would have a single career, maybe even a single job? At this point in society’s arc that seems more nostalgic than realistic, witness the career of Portland, Maine (by way of Connecticut and NYC), artist Matt Cascella. His first […]
Iain Matthews – How Much Is Enough
A lot of the albums I review are from artists still early in their arc. Part of that is to try to expose less well known acts, but some of it is because what new are you going to say about someone who has 20+ records out in the public for people to hear. So […]
Warren Haynes – Million Voices Whisper
Although younger than Willie by almost 30 years, Warren Haynes is maybe the last leaf on a different tree. With the recent passing of Dickey Betts, Haynes is now the elder statesman in a large group of southern rock and jam band musicians building on the legacy of The Allman Brothers Band. He just released […]
Jeremy Dion – Bend In the Middle
It’s not unusual for musicians to have day jobs while they’re getting established, and frequently continuing it throughout their careers. You can read about many of them in our Why It Matters column. This is the first time, though, I’ve heard about the day job being a mental health therapist. Such is the case with […]
Yonder Mountain String Band – Nowhere Next
Although the roots go back further, the progressive, jam grass arm of the itself-upstart bluegrass genre really started hitting its stride about 25 or 30 years ago. One of the handful of bands that’s been around since then is Colorado’s Yonder Mountain String Band. Their 11th studio album, Nowhere Next, has just come out, and […]
West Of Texas – Hot Motel Nights
There’s a memorable line in The Blues Brothers movie where Jake asks the proprietor’s wife what kind of music they play and she confides, “oh, we have both kinds, country AND western.” I get that same sentiment from the latest album out of L.A.’s West Of Texas, their sophomore release Hot Motel Nights. Although front […]
The W Lovers – For A Day Or A Lifetime
I’ve heard many chefs wax poetically about how their success came not from 10,000-hour-developed technique or an encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s cuisines, but rather from the restraint needed to let really good ingredients showcase themselves. I get that same sense of coaxing the beautiful out of the basics from the latest album from Seattle-based […]