rescuing musical virtue in distress.
All too often you hear a song and it sounds like the vocals and the tune are two different components, the former just thrown on top of the latter with little in common save for a common melody. It is great, therefore, to come across a song where the vocal delivery sits right in amongst... Continue Reading →
From the outside, Every Soul A Story can be summed up rather quickly (and rather unfairly) by saying it sounds a little like The Proclaimers and if you like the music of the Scottish duo, you’ll like this. It’s true, there are similarities in theme, vibe and delivery but that doesn’t tell the whole story.... Continue Reading →
The world turning around us is becoming an ever more opinionated, polarized and divided place. Amidst the cacophony of 24/7 news coverage designed more to entertain than to inform, political correctness has taken center stage. In this maelstrom stirred up by unscrupulous politicians more concerned with maintaining the status quo than the welfare of their... Continue Reading →
There is a real difference between paying tribute to the rich sounds which have gone before and merely plagiarising them. It is easy to steal, it is much harder to create. Desi Valentine is most certainly a creator. The difference is that whilst the musical building blocks may sound familiar, what he builds with them... Continue Reading →
There is something ironic about songs like Sophisticated, at least from a journalistic point off view. Because of the understatement and space that such a song is crafted from, it is actually easier, not to mention more interesting, to write about. Those black clad alt-rockers, indie kids with their complicated hair, punks looking to smash... Continue Reading →
I’m probably the wrong person to review a blues album, my knowledge of the blues is sketchy at best and missing decades of artists and variations. I’m familiar with Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and BB King but then there is a huge gap until the era of Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, Peter Green and,... Continue Reading →
Many people have tried to sell the blues to me and I don’t seem to get it. Admittedly it's a broad genre and it is probably just that I haven’t heard the right artist, though I have had everything from Robert Johnson’s voodoo acoustic tones to Joe flippin’ Bonna-flippin’ Massa (repeatedly) thrown at me and... Continue Reading →
There is a thought in music that the freshest, boldest sounds come from the younger musicians, from those coming through with something new and dramatic that will test and blur the borders of music. Unfortunately the audience is rarely able to keep up with these new directions so inevitably there is an audience preferring to... Continue Reading →
I talk a lot about musicians delivering “effortless” sounding music, of course the reality is that making something sound that natural takes a lot of hard work. But there is certainly something effortless sounding about the way that Nik Novakovic delivers this bluesy gem. It meanders more than drives, it floats more than it grooves,... Continue Reading →
I love an album to open with some oomph, to be unashamed of giving the listener a kick in the pants and forcing them to sit up and take notice, some of my favourite albums have belting opening tracks and New York’s Annie Keating does this on her new ‘mini album’ Can’t Stand Still with... Continue Reading →
The story of The Jorgensens is a story of love, both of a shared love of music and a growing emotional connection which blossomed as that music was explored and created together. I’m not saying that music this sleek, this wonderfully emotive, this seemingly effortless, can only be made by people who know each other... Continue Reading →
Where some artists seem to revel in making music out of “sugar and spice and all things nice”, as the saying goes, Rod Hamdallah weaves a sonic design out of much more bruised and brooding elements. There is a time and a place for the sugar rush of the former but nine times out of... Continue Reading →
The subtitle of “Southern Rock Song for Tattoo Lovers” that accompanies this tells you everything that you need to know about the song. It conjures swaggering, Southern rock attitude, low-slung, blues infused grooves, outlaw biker vibes and of course a love of the art of the ink. And that is exactly what you get. Unlike... Continue Reading →
There have been some memorable A.C.C’s. The American Chemistry Council, Air Combat Command, of course and most famously St Francis of… But my favourite has to be this new musical meeting of minds that was formed when Lowlands main man Ed Abbiati hooked up with alt-country stalwart Stiv Cantarelli. Beautiful, At Night is the result... Continue Reading →
There is a word that will no doubt litter this review, and that word is ‘dark’. From the black and white album cover, to the song titles and the overall mood of British bluesman Ben Hemming’s latest release the word dark appears. Actually, it’s a bit of a strange album, often feeling in conflict with... Continue Reading →
Sometimes music gets boiled down so much to its essence that it transcends genres, swerves fads and ignores fashion. My Luv Notes makes music from many different locations on the sonic pallet but this time out she is happy to embrace a less-is-more approach and get right down to what is important. As Stephanie of... Continue Reading →
As opening salvo Homesick Blues punches its way out of the speakers you realise that, if there was even any doubt, True Strays have lost none of their energy. Always great at putting the rock and the swing into old school blues styles, right from the off they remind us that there are few bands who... Continue Reading →
I didn’t even know that people made albums like this any more…I’m glad that they do though. Off at 11 is the sound of fifties blues being pushed into a 70’s psychedelic blender, much as the likes of Hendrix and Beefheart actually did back in the day. The music is dense yet wonderfully intricate, meandering... Continue Reading →
There is no shortage of bands who deserve the moniker “funky.” Equally, blues bands are in no short supply, slide players are still easy to find and infectious music is two-a-penny. And you can't throw a mandolin these days without it hitting a band revelling in descriptions such as roots or Americana. What is harder... Continue Reading →
As someone who spends their time scribbling about grassroots, underground and left field music, I tend to have a fairly good feel for the music that lands in my review pile, even before hearing a single note. A combination of the artwork, the title, the label or PR company who sent it or just the... Continue Reading →
Okay, so I am a month late reviewing a song that would quite clearly have made more sense to have hit the site on the relevant day, the inference is that I’m either snowed under with work or just a bit lazy…I’ll let you decide. But, despite the adage, timing isn’t everything and good music... Continue Reading →
We hear a lot about DIY recordings these days. Much is made of artists locked away in the home studio laying down the constituent parts of the track from their multi-instrumental repertoire on the cheap. There is a current fad for semi-improvised approaches to things, perhaps to show just how creative and free-wheeling an artist... Continue Reading →
LoMB makes music which is the equivalent of bumping into someone who seems vaguely familiar but who you can’t for the life of you remember where you know them from. And so Cuts reminds me of many things, suggests that we probably have a similar sort of record collection, have watched the same bands live... Continue Reading →
If you need something bluesy but served with a slightly chilled edge, Bud Summers is your man. Looking for something jazz-infused with a soulful undercurrent? Again Bud has it covered. Yearning for songs that are deftly constructed but spacious enough that the light gets in and illuminates the sleek guitar lines and addictive groves? Spend... Continue Reading →
Every so often an album comes along that you instantly like, maybe it’s the alignment of the stars, maybe a certain piece of music slots into place and perfectly suits your mood or maybe the reason for liking it is something more basic; it’s simply a good album. Bristol-based singer Elles Bailey certainly knows how... Continue Reading →
With eighteen musicians listed in the making of the latest album by blues guitarist JP Soars, it comes as little surprise that the result is packed full of music that not only holds its roots in blues but encompasses other genres such as folk, Americana, soul and a heavy twist of rock. This is the... Continue Reading →
Given Nelson King’s usual rate of output, I was thinking of sending out a search party, having not had anything by him land in the in-box for quite a while, but thankfully Life Ain’t No Movie Show turned up as if to assure me that he is still very much in the game. Though its... Continue Reading →
Not content with inventing his own musical genres by taking the common building blocks of familiar sounds and fashioning them into new sonic architecture, Garden City is Slang building a whole new world for those sounds to inhabit. It's a place where “a red river flows through the veins of an enchanted forest” and “through... Continue Reading →
Books and covers, well, more properly Cd’s and covers; I never learn do I but I’m sure that I’m not the only person to look at this side project release from Jezebel Jones and automatically conjure words such as gothic, pagan, theatre, pathos, cliche, etc. But this is actually far removed from the Buffy watching,... Continue Reading →
Tales of romance within the music industry are still alive and kicking, you hear stories of buskers being plucked from oblivion to record debut albums, lonely minstrel-type performers suddenly thrown into the spotlight after years of sofa surfing and these kinds of background stories are much more interesting than the reality of someone going through... Continue Reading →
