If you’re sick of hearing the phrase “new normal” batted around like a squash ball by media outlets, you’re in good company with Rod Abernethy. On his new album, Normal Isn’t Normal Anymore, produced by Neilson Hubbard, the Raleigh songwriter […]
If you ever wanted virtually every musical utterance John Mayall made on his way to becoming the Godfather of British Blues, your homework is already done. The staggering 35-CD box set The First Generation: 1965-1974 features many of the Brit […]
If you were to judge Shovels & Rope’s new record by its cover, you wouldn’t be wrong to think it was a full-blown kid’s album. As the third release in their cover series known as Busted Jukebox, this volume is […]
A.J. Croce is enjoying himself on his new album, By Request, and he invites us into his living room to join him as he sings, rocks and rolls, and reflects wistfully with this collection of songs. Croce applies his deeply […]
There may not be anything more 2021 than an artist centering an album around climate change, and there may be no better artist to do it than Tamara Lindeman, who records as The Weather Station. Ignorance is the follow-up to […]
“How are you adjusting to the new regime?” Curtis McMurtry asks with more than a hint of a snarl in the spoken-word opening of his new album, Toothless Messiah. It’s less a question than an accusation, and the songs that […]
The opening piano notes of “Earthy,” the first song on Lia Ices’ new release, Family Album, sets the tone for what you’re about to hear and where it will take you: sun-dappled folk-pop, the mountains of Sonoma. When writing Family […]
Selwyn Birchwood is an old soul. But only 36 of his years have been spent on Earth. Prior to that, the singer/guitarist must have been wandering the cosmos soaking up the ghostly DNA of a passel of iconic blues purveyors. […]
A young woman escapes town in the dark, darting across the railroad tracks and into the woods. Why she left is unclear, but those were hard times of some sort. “Hey little girl you’ve got a long way to go / […]
At the dawn of 2021, the timing could not have been more apropos for Shall We Hope, the ambitious new album from banjo virtuoso Tony Trischka. Not even a week into the new year, the US Capitol saw rioters forcefully […]
