While his peers are seemingly content to relive the past in their work through one melody or another, Lucas Jay doesn’t want to be the same kind of glamor poet that has dominated the pop music conversation for three generations-plus; quite the opposite, if you ask me. In Jay’s new single, which is titled “Sunshine,”
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Raw, rough-edged hard rock will never sound passe to my ears. It captures the spirit of unbounded possibility and unbridled youth like no other type of music. It’s accessible, as street as any hip-hop, and makes no apologies for what it is. California’s OF LIMBO works in the best hard rock tradition and embraces it
PRETTY AWKWARD’s Get Weird is a career-defining moment for this Northwest band. The Austin Held and Nicholas Wiggins-led outfit concocted eleven imaginative compositions for this release spanning the gamut from rock, hip-hop, EDM, and pop. They often mix and match those styles synthesizing them into a cohesive whole where the sum is greater than its individual parts.
As the summer begins to wind down, there’s an undeniable sense of Americana impacting indie rock, and for those in search of a prime example of this growing trend, I’d point towards Wreckless Strangers’ new single “Fast Girls.” Both the structure of the song and the original substance itself are primed with a surreal mix,
We are getting to talk with the fun new group DANJO! Welcome. Tell us how you all became DANJO and more about each of you and your breakout into music. (Danny Kensy): Howdy y’all! We’re DANJO! We’re super stoked to be chatting with you. Thanks so much for having us! It’s pretty simple how we
David Gelman has made some intriguing alternative music in the past dozen or so years, and in his fourth studio album, the enigmatically titled Dusty Highway, he doesn’t hold anything back from an audience that has grown to expect a lot out of his music. From the jaggedly groove-laden “Lay Me Down” to the haunting, harmony-based
Rob Alexander issues a potent, slow-churning classic rock crossover cut in his new single “The Soul or the Skin” that works just as well for occasional pop listeners as it does diehard beat-addicts in the mood for something a little more pendulous and seductive than the status quo normally calls for this August. Utilizing a
Bird Songs of the American West, the latest offering from Birds of Play, is a breathtaking exploration of sound and storytelling. With their fourth studio album, this Americana Roots quartet takes flight, showcasing their undeniable talent and their deep connection to the land that inspires them. URL: https://birdsofplaymusic.com/ From the very first track, “Texture,” Birds of Play establishes their mastery
Welcome to Teyquil. We couldn’t stop tapping our feet when listening to your new hit, “Flashy.” What was your source of inspiration behind this fierce single? Awww, thanks so much for the kind words! My source of inspiration is quite simple, I love 80’s pop and new wave and I feel that era was a
Strikingly bucolic in “Dead Star Light” or surreal to the point of sounding almost entranced in “Fever Dream,” the subtle beats that we hear in the new album Minefields by The One Eighties are never conventional, but they define the very backbone of this record and its most cathartic moments without question. Employed as a channel
For the last two years, critics in both country and Americana music have been talking about an age of hybridity taking hold over the narrative for the two genres, and in new singles like the new cut from Chris Chitsey, “Last Time I Saw You,” it’s hard to argue against the legitimacy of the buzz.
Though it comes to us in a gentle strut, there’s a lot of urgency to the lyrical narrative in the title cut of Robert Jon and the Wreck’s Ride Into the Light, currently out everywhere good southern rock is sold and streamed. From the beginning, this feels like a radio-bound single from the record, and this
Over-conceptualizing has been an increasingly negative issue for American folk music in the past decade, but if one artist is rejecting it in every way, it’s Joshua Radin in his new EP though the world will tell me so, vol. 2. though the world will tell me so, vol. 2 has a lot of dimensions to it, starting
American Courage is a ten-track outing from singer/songwriter Brian Seymour and his first such collection in a decade. He highlights his social concerns over the course of the song cycle and Seymour contends with the lingering effects and aftershocks of the pandemic, but don’t mistake these songs are broadsides ripped from headlines and set to music. There’s a personal touch
Longtime Evergrey member Tom S. Englund and virtuoso pianist and composer Vikram Shankar, an alumnus of projects such as Lux Terminus and Redemption, make a formidable creative duo on their Silent Skies project. Entitling the tandem’s third album Dormant is almost funny. There’s nothing staid or inert about this music. Shankar’s talents on piano, keyboards, and synths envelop listeners in
Gideon King & City Blog have been taking the alternative underground by storm in 2023, and after checking out their interpretation of the song “Somewhere Only We Know (featuring Ashley Hess),” it’s easy to see what all of the hype has been about. Where other songs in this group’s discography are more conservative in structure,
Big immersive melodicism is a major ingredient in Lindley Creek’s recipe for a perfect folk album, and this is all the more obvious when listening to the prime cut “Over and Over” from the esteemed Whispers in the Wind LP. While there’s a lot to be said about the string thunder that circles us in tracks like
Combining firm guitars, a bittersweet beat and a lead vocal that melts hearts on the spot isn’t necessarily a new concept when developing a single, but when Shane Britt does it in his song “I’m Not Well,” he elevates the role that each of these components has to play. Britt wasn’t determined to pen a
Rolling out of the silence like a train ripping through open pastureland, Drew Cooper’s “Best of Me” kicks off with an electrifying intro that immediately lets us know just how freewheeling a jam we’re about to get into. The guitars gallop alongside the drums effortlessly, joining in a vicious groove that will make anyone want
The union of musical talents making up Studio D’Lux promises remarkable things and delivers. Keyboard player/pianist, singer, and songwriter Doug Kistner’s project enlist drummer Liberty DeVitto, Steely Dan guitarist Jon Herington, respected singer and songwriter Bill Champlin, and bass player Malcolm Gold in a band that has one EP under their belt and a new