Terry Robb’s finger picking guitar skills and fidelity to traditional music, particularly blues, has earned him a sterling reputation among musicians and fans alike for four decades running and his creativity shows no signs of ebbing. Music like we hear with “How a Free Man Feels” may seem like an anachronism in 2019, but no […]
Gentle string melodies and a soft rock groove are tossed into a sonic mixing bowl in Jay Elle’s “Needs Fixing,” and with every verse that the talented singer/songwriter croons to us, his command of the adjacent instrumental harmony grows all the stronger. In this track and the five others that accompany it in the brand […]
2019 has been all about breakthroughs for established artists, but few that I’ve examined have evolved as much as Leo Harmonay has in his new record Naked Rivers. In songs like “Contour,” Harmonay focuses our attention towards the relationship between his smoky vocal and the tense melodic backdrop created by a fleeting guitar part’s yearning. Other […]
Numbers, letters, some carefree dancing and a few sock puppets are thrown into a singular melting pot of melody and marvelous grooves in the music video for Jeremy Rice’s new song “Arriianne,” but for as eclectic a collection of imagery as it is, this is one video that appeals more to conventional pop standards than […]
Paul Jacks first emerged in the music world as a front man and songwriter for Alaska’s Smile Ease in 2004 following a low profile solo single released the previous year. The song “Cowboys and Indians” attracted the attention of like-minded songwriter friends in the Anchorage, Alaska area and led to the band’s first incarnation. They […]
Nocturnal Blonde dispense a colorful, albeit confessional, opus in their debut album Still Gushing, a record that is both a twelve-song tribute to the life of Dave Williams and a chilling look into addiction that is unlike any other that I’ve heard in recent memory. Produced with a divinely evenhanded approach to melodicism, Still Gushing’s most formidable […]
A studded groove adorned with a rich vocal melody strikes Allocai’s “Be My Main” to life with a subtle chill-factor that goes unmatched this summer in both the underground and the mainstream. We follow the searing serenade through a whirlpool of harmonies that surge passionately beneath an atmospheric instrumentation strong enough to snuff out even […]
Progressive music is having one heck of a year because of the incredible work of artists like alternative pop/rockers the Sharon Lia Band, whose new single “Why Can’t We Pretend?” is being hailed as a watershed moment for the group ahead of their release of a brand new album in Beyond Wonderland. In “Why Can’t We […]
Mutlu’s musical journey has included a long standing collaboration with singer/songwriter Amos Lee and sharing the same stages as marquee performers like Joe Jackson, Shuggie Otis, Katy Perry, Todd Rundgren, and the Blind Boys of Alabama among many others. It’s the seven songs on his new album Good Trouble bringing us here today, however, and the first […]
The Merrymaker’s Orchestrina fire off some decadent rhythm in “Have Mercy on Me,” a throttling wallop of riffage in “Anarchy (Reloaded)” and some supple swing in “Imaginary Friend.” They experiment with the depth of their acoustic/electric skillset in the freeform “Thinking About You,” spellbind us with their exotic influences in “Space Robot” and throw a […]