Reviews of New Music CDs, DVDs, and Music Downloads (iTunes, Amazon, MP3, etc.).
REVIEW: A Southern California band formed in 2014 from local seasoned musicians, called “The Usual Suspects,” is rocking fans with delicate flavors of the Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren, and Tower of Power for a unique recipe.
MuseWire REVIEW: Mysterious goth band The Catholic Comb created a disturbing smoky concoction in 2005 and then apparently remained underground. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of them, either, but now that I know, I’m a convert. Sometimes a good album goes unnoticed. For a while. This one came to me purely by chance. I say by […]
REVIEW: Playing together since 1986, Dennis Davison and Jonathan Lea have now done the impossible: they have created an original Christmas album that still rocks (well, folk-rocks, anyway). Plus, it covers all the emotions that surround the season, not just the traditional upbeat ones. That the album does so at all is deserving of a […]
REVIEW: Hearing one of the softer tracks from this album playing in my studio, a visitor dismissed it as “NIN lite.” I hear it as something much more complicated: “NIN expanded to include the invasion and conquest of modern classical music.” A chameleon alters its appearance to blend into its surroundings. A load-bearing wall supports […]
REVIEW: If his name sounds familiar, you are probably already a fan of rockabilly. But even if that genre’s blend of rock and country ain’t your thing, these songs are so much fun that you might become a Burnette-ette by the time you get halfway through the album’s dozen hip-shaking tracks. Perhaps you feel you […]
REVIEW: Before seeing the singer perform live, this album sat around the studio for a few months. After playing it a couple of times at various volume levels, the urge to write about it became too palpable to pass up. While several tracks leave me unmoved, the ones that work are propulsive, powerful and possessed […]
MuseWire REVIEW: “Dhana” is a European born blonde diva and lead singer of dance rock group “TaxiDoll.” In this, her first solo release, “Confessions of a Lily Rouge” (Fly Me To The Moon Music), Dhana delivers a potent concoction of electronic pop and emotive balladry, with sonic characteristics reminiscent of Dido, Tori Amos, Natalie Imbruglia […]
REVIEW: The four piece group “B and Elephants” delivers innovative yet passionate progressive world music comprising fundamentally of Spanish folk and Classical Indian styles embedded in a dreamy and fresh psychedelic rock constant. B&E appear to be an unusual phenomenon, referring to themselves as ‘Psychedelic ethnic acoustic rock.’ A distinctive continental tone is produced by […]
COLUMN: You go through your musical memories and up pops that long lost classic, that awesome album from years gone by, that ideal example of “the way music used to be,” that shining beacon of sonic excellence that puts today’s posers to shame. “I’ll purchase this fine example of harmonic distinction,” you say to yourself, […]
REVIEW: Two fast-paced and entertainment documentaries in the same week? Yup, and both saturated with superb music from fade-in to fade-out. “It Might Get Loud” has the pedigree (director Davis Guggenheim won an Oscar for “An Inconvenient Truth”) but “I Need That Record!” has the street credibility (Brendan Toller’s stimulating flick is so underground that […]
REVIEW: I would probably have liked this album more if it was comprised of personal friends, or the brother of my girlfriend, or fronted by the lads working part-time at the local Auto Club, but coming in cold I found the album “The Butterfly Net” to be a bit tedious and lyrically annoying. While there […]
REVIEW: These Thousand Emotions — Have you ever thought about what is inside the sounds you like to hear? Harmonics and overtones are in there, for a start, but it can go way beyond that with some artists. A few special people are able to capture raw emotion and inject it into notes and chords. Such an artist is Claire Tchaikowski.
REVIEW: New Jersey based Phoenix Block’s new CD “Chemtrails” nicely combines ’80s flavored world alt-rock with modern rock and sits nicely in various places if you happen to like artists as varied as U2, Bon Jovi and Remy Zero. Once I got past the hand addressed envelope with the phony ‘you requested it’ note on front (um, when did I do that, folks at MLC PR firm?), and the hype-sheet included that provided the usual mini-bios of the band mates, I popped in the CD and spun it up to play…
REVIEW: Blending big ballads with confessional lyrics, Sheva touches listeners at the core of their emotions. Scott G gets lost in the melodies of “The Closest Thing” even while admiring the sonic textures of her band.
REVIEW: You’ll find clever lyrics, strong melodies, and excellent musicianship on songs in several genres on the new Rob Kendt album. But as Scott G points out, this may be too much of a good thing. Rob Kendt is a tall quiet fellow who writes nifty songs and evocative music for theatrical productions. He’s also […]
REVIEW: Scott G goes back to old habits by writing a batch of CD reviews. As in his prior reviews, the musical styles he covers are all over the place, from the hip hop of Enjae to the glorious organized noise of Nine Inch Nails, from East/West chanteuse Noa Dori to two very diverse soundtracks […]
REVIEW: Some music soothes you. Some seduces you. And some swaggers up to you and hits you over the head with a box of skateboard parts. Scott G (The G-Man) writes about an upstart new band called Manic Circuit that slams its way into your skull with songs of raw power combined with progressive structure.
REVIEW: I was pretty excited to hear about the new disc “Fingerprints” (A&M/New Door/UMe) from Peter Frampton, a seminal guitar god from the ’70s who became enormously famous for his “Frampton Comes Alive” album and for his formant-tube guitar “talk box” sound on that record 30 years ago. I hadn’t really thought about him much lately except when my iTunes jukebox cycled around to his tunes. So, getting the new disc was like hearing from an old friend again.