Label: Temporary Residence Limited Released: November 6th, 2007 You shouldn’t need this CD. After all, you should already have all of the Drift’s albums and you should definitely have them on vinyl. However, if you’ve missed either boat, the kind folks at Temporary Residence feel bad for you and have released this collection of The Drift’s non-CD tracks. For those… Read more »
Label: Malamute Records Released: March 4, 2008 Crooked Paths is an album that is seldom just good. Instead, it sometimes struggles just short of good and at other times pushes fantastic. Without question, Star Anna’s voice is wonderful. It’s dynamic and has really good movement that can be both subtle and bold. The problem is she doesn’t let it loose… Read more »
Label: Padre Records (available through CDBaby.com) Released: March 1, 2007 Caleb Klauder’s band Foghorn Stringband is instantly contagious. Its authentic bluegrass instantly wraps you in its warm, genuine strings and heartfelt twang. Klauder’s Dangerous Me’s and Poisonous You’s, on the other hand, takes some time to sink in, not because it isn’t as good, but because it has more dimension… Read more »
Label: Woodstock Musicworks Released: November 1, 2007 A Million Yesterdays‘s brand of Americana generally alternates between country and country rock, finding the most consistency with the former, but perhaps their best moments with the latter. Their more traditional songs show clear command of the genre. Avalon Peacock’s voice might get a little shaky in her vibrato, but that along with… Read more »
Label: Equal Vision Records Released: March 18, 2008 “The sky was cold-fire sunrise, the clouds alive in wild paint, but all of it blurred in the dynamite crescendo.” These words from Richard Bach’s Illusions not only give Alive in Wild Paint their name, but also their essence. Not only do they evoke soundscapes every bit as vivid as these words,… Read more »
March 12, 2008, Baltimore Chop Books, Baltimore, Maryland This was a night of endangered and lost arts: folk music, storytelling, community…and geography. That’s right, geography. Over the course of an intimate night of folk music in a small (and very cool) independent book store, Sarah and Claire Bowman, through the stories attached to and included in their music, illustrated the… Read more »
Label: MVD Entertainment Group Released: January 22, 2008 This is the story of the Smiths through the eyes of Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke. Who you ask? The guys who sued Morrissey and Johnny Marr a few years back. Oh yeah, they were also the rhythm section of the Smiths. Under the circumstances, I expected Inside the Smiths to a… Read more »
Label: Released: January 29, 2008 It’s not often that I find a record that offers as much musically as it does lyrically (unless, of course, it’s bad at both). On Highway Prayer, it’s hard to decide which Twilight Hotel does better. The songs fill the whole spectrum from the fun, upbeat opener, “Viva La Vinyl,” a song about record collecting,… Read more »
Label: Lujo Records Released: February 12, 2008 For this review, Chuck and I decided to collaborate. We both queued up the album at the same time and had a conversation about our thoughts. It came out more as the anatomy of a review, but the result was at least interesting. We’ll be trying this again (maybe every other week) to… Read more »
Check out Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles’ new video for “Stop and Think It Over”. If you aren’t familiar with their, here’s a review their latest album, Diamonds in the Dark. Myspace