Todd Snider’s Hard Working Americans Offer a Sobering Vision of Life on ‘Rest in Chaos’
Snider is still brilliantly unpredictable, still sharp as a broken bottle.
John Gorka’s ‘Before Beginning’ Revisits His Earliest Studio Recordings
These early versions, appearing as kind-hearted sketches and confessionals filtered through a perpetual outsider’s spyglass, are no less solid than their better-known variants.
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REVIEW Singer, Songwriter, Guitarist Andy Ferrell: At Home and in Nashville [VIDEO]
Midway through At Home and in Nashville, Andy Ferrell sashays out onto the dance floor with the jostling “Nobody to Answer To” and declares it’s time to move on.
Sarah Jarosz’s ‘Undercurrent’ Charts a New Course
Layered, textured tunes, some sparsely arranged with little more than solo acoustic guitar, retain the flavor of roots music
Album Review: Eric Bibb Demonstrates No-Frills Virtuosity on ‘The Happiest Man in the World’
With the inviting sentiment, “walking side by side, hand in hand,” Eric Bibb kicks off The Happiest Man in the World, and it’s the key to why his latest collection works so well.
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Shawn Colvin and Steve Earle Join Forces on ‘Colvin & Earle’
For this first album as a duo, they’re collaborating as songwriters
All the Feels for the Avett Brothers’ New LP, ‘True Sadness’: Listen to Single ‘Divorce Separation Blues’
Though their roots lie in hoot-and-holler bluegrass and folk, the Avett Brothers also embraced big guitar rock early in their career. Both strains of raising Cain thread through their latest, True Sadness. With thundering drums, rubbery bass, and Seth Avett’s cyclical acoustic guitar, opener “Ain’t No Man” is hand-waving gospel…
Review: ‘You and I,’ Recently Discovered Demos by Jeff Buckley
You and I, a cache of recently discovered demos by Jeff Buckley, offers a tantalizing glimpse into the artist’s subconscious.
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Freakwater Returns with Songs that Feel Old and Grim and Magical on ‘Scheherazade’
Their first album in 11 years is at least as good as anything they’ve ever done, and probably better.
Del McCoury Band Breathes Life into Unrecorded Woody Guthrie Songs
In McCoury’s hands, these songs sound like they were born to be bluegrass.
Review: Ryan Shupe, We Rode On
Briskly galloping out of the gate, the title track of Ryan Shupe’s self-released eighth album, We Rode On, announces the former country-chart-topper’s transition to alternative artist. This collection is bright clangoring pop-rock, focused on moving forward, but it’s grounded in the building blocks of Shupe’s bluegrass past—his earnest everyman vocals…
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Sultans of String’s ‘Subcontinental Drift’ has a Swirl of Worldly Influences
Sultans of String succeeds brilliantly, thinking like classical musicians and listening like jazzmen
New CD Offers Kurt Cobain Acoustically & Otherwise
Three songs into the 13-track Montage of Heck, a compilation of raw, lo-fi home demos and other recordings Kurt Cobain made, is a happy little acoustic instrumental titled, appropriately, “Happy Guitar.” Its Gypsy-jazz chording and fingerpicking reveal a perhaps unexpected fascination the late Nirvana front man seemed to have had…
Album Review: The Cactus Blossoms, ‘You’re Dreaming’
On "You’re Dreaming," the Cactus Blossoms revitalize music from the dawn of rock and country for a contemporary audience, and celebrate an era before genre boundaries calcified, and when possibilities seemed endless.
Allmans Show Their Acoustic Side on ‘Idlewild South’ Reissue
by Mark Kemp Forty-five years ago, the Allman Brothers Band went acoustic. Sure, Idlewild South was only the group’s second album, but from Duane Allman’s joyous strumming that kick-starts “Revival” to his ominous acoustic riff that drives the mournful “Midnight Rider,” the record was quite a departure from the sustained…
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James Taylor Reconnects with His Muse on ‘Before This World’
"I like the idea of slow evolution and practice, the way the Japanese revere their masters and pass their technique down to subsequent generations,” says singer-songwriter James Taylor, whose recently released hit album, Before This World (Concord), marks the second-longest wait between an artist’s debut on the Billboard charts and the coveted No. 1 spot.
Album Review: James McMurtry Strips Down to Acoustic Guitars on ‘Complicated Game’
There’s not a better living American songwriter than James McMurtry, whose literary bloodline—son of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Larry McMurtry (The Last Picture Show, Lonesome Dove)—makes a damn good case for a genetic predisposition for telling great stories.
Rodrigo y Gabriela Roar Back to Life On ‘9 Dead Alive’
These nine songs represent Rodrigo y Gabriela’s attempt to eulogize the dead by reviving their spirits in fiery instrumentals