The fresh and individualistic is still out there – just be willing to look. If you give Bray and The Dens a chance, however, there’s no need to look further. Bray’s personal songwriting vision draws from a recognizable frame of reference, longtime music devotees will spot his influences, but he filters them through talents that
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Few modern pop singles come as inspired and thought out as Alice the G00n’s “CYA”. Listeners responded by catapulting the track to #2 on the Mediabase Top 40 Independent Artist chart, and the video will bring the cut renewed attention. “CYA” richly deserves such success when taking stock of its well-rounded presentation and direct lyrics.
Chris St. John’s intimate brand of singer/songwriter country musings carries listeners aloft with the title track of his new EP With You. The frank autobiographical trappings of the material never pose any obstacles for us enjoying the song as St. John’s talents allow him to tap into a near-universal strand of human experience. Marrying those autobiographical
2 Shadows’ “Mad God” harbors enough grandeur and violence for a half dozen bands. There’s almost something orchestral about the way 2 Shadows develops the single that you hear in the alternating light and heavy passages, the presence of piano, and the flamethrower intensity of its emotions. There’s abundant artistry here, but you get the
Texas native Chris Chitsey paid his dues as a singer early on belting out classic country songs for customers at his dad’s downtown Austin barbecue restaurant and entertainment venue, but he wasn’t quite ready for the big stage. It’s only after Chitsey refined his burgeoning talents in the hardscrabble world of the Texas honkytonk circuit
Say what you will about pop music as a whole, but there’s no denying that Nashville belongs to a new generation of players, and among the sharpest of those players is Hannah Ellis. Her new album is That Girl, and when any of its songs begin to play, its title starts to make a lot of sense. In
Thank you for joining us today! We are joined by Ally Bakst to chat about her music and future in music! We’re excited to learn more about you! Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your latest release? What motivated you to create this particular piece of art? Thanks for having me! I actually wrote
True artistry is rare. What we often hear from musical performers, instead, is a combination of discipline and workmanlike self-expression. Formula, as well. True artistry, however, manifests itself as the ability to work within recognizable forms while finding otherwise unseen or unheard variations within the expected where the musical artist’s genuine vision and personality emerge.
Georgia’s Charlsey Etheridge doesn’t enjoy the same mainstream cachet as many of her contemporaries, some of whom she’s written songs for, and as such may fly under the radar. This review is an attempt to redress that near-criminal neglect. The truth is that I may have never heard of her if it wasn’t for my
I am amazed by James Robert Webb’s music. It is not because it is groundbreaking. There’s no remaking the songwriting wheel with his new single “I Just Wanna Be Your Santa Claus”. I’m amazed that Webb can produce such high-quality musical fare and build a music career with dedication while sustaining a thriving practice as
The High Plains Drifters are two releases into their existence as a band and show no signs of slowing down. I’m a big fan of their accomplishment with their most recent EP 2021’s Songs of Love and Loss – they came out of COVID with no appreciable loss of momentum. Their Yuletide single “Alone on
How would you classify your music? If I look at all the music I’ve made over the past twenty years, it’s kind of all over the place since my background draws from so many different influences and I’ve worked with different producers and collaborators. But all of it is driven by feminine vocals, lyrics, and
You’ll come away from Peter Gural’s new album Birdy’s World feeling both in touch with life’s deeper moments and invigorated by its ongoing if complicated at times, promise. There aren’t many releases you can say that about. It’s a song collection that achieves its effects with individual flair. Its opening song “Birdy’s World” is a recognizable track
From the looks of his body of work in general, there isn’t much that Davie Simmons isn’t willing to experiment with when it comes to making a strong emotional point in his music, and his new single “Traffic Disruptor” sees him grabbing hold of a beat like never before. There have been plenty of songs
In the opening bars of Stepping Out of Time’s title cut, Steven MacDonald welcomes us into his soul with a warm embrace, washing us in rich tonality and folky timbre. A message of holding onto your love whilst letting go of the past is imparted to us through bittersweet lyrics that ebb and flow with the
A spell of fleeting string melodies. Gilt vocals that intertwine with contiguous instrumental harmonies. A rhythm that strikes just hard enough to make our hearts bolt right out of our chests yet falls short of tiring us out ahead of the next song. FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/brookejosephsonmusic/ This is Brooke Josephson’s Live & Let Live, and to say
One of the qualities of Christian-themed musical material that stands out for me is that it’s often created by men and women who have faced adversity and are full of optimism despite those travails. Coppe Cantrell has definitely faced hard times. Her husband, music producer and all-around mover and shaker Johnny Jackson, aka Johnny “J”,
Ava Della Pietra has proven herself a talented and prolific musical force in a short time. She’s been recording her original material since the age of ten years old and has amassed an impressive 130 songs plus since she began composing in earnest. She brings a wide array of talents to each new track, her
The southern rock genre has been coming back in a really big way this year, and in Greye’s new single “Down Not Out,” we learn why in a very big way. By keeping things centered on a smart formula in “Down Not Out,” a band like Greye can direct all of our attention towards the
The path ahead for Littlemen follows a distinctly different trajectory than previous incarnations existing under this moniker. The Nick Allen-led iteration of the band’s new single “Visions” solidifies his claim to helming one of the U.K.’s best new syntheses of English and American influences I’ve heard in quite a while. “Visions” stands as one of