For a Beach Boy fanatic, both albums might not add much to the story but what they add you’ll want to hear. And to hear Dennis, Carl and Brian performing together on stage can’t help but make you Smiley Smile.
Never before have they got a song on record as great as the eight minute guitar rock tour de force “Honey Trap”. Not just a standout on the EP, the guitar solo is just… it is amazing, it is pure melody taking over your brain while the band harmonize in the back of the track like a wall of sign.
Never before have they got a song on record as great as the eight minute guitar rock tour de force “Honey Trap”. Not just a standout on the EP, the guitar solo is just… it is amazing, it is pure melody taking over your brain while the band harmonize in the back of the track like a wall of sign.
There may be worse ways to review albums than on your work PC, with the sound low, while you do other things. If you know what they are, please send me a little message because I can’t imagine what it is. So consider this the before the first review review, a true sneak peak, a listen and learn a little experience…
ALBUM OF THE YEAR: Big Apple Blues – Tomas Docker Band – Yusef Komunyakaa and Tomas Doncker concern themselves with what people do and don’t do for each other, with a sidetrip to Alabama and a layover in Fun City.
An album about how the blues moved from the South to the North, from the plantations in Atlanta to the Church storefronts of Brooklyn, the story of how the blues came to New York City and what it did when it got here. Perfect subject matter for rock nyc’s album of the year.
1989 is a full-fledged, biggest album of the year, huge artistic statement thing but it is also “The Empire Strikes Back” of rock. It is neither a beginning nor an ending, it is a breather from the romances that have been the essence of her life since “Tears On My Guitar”.
So, from the seeds of a truly devastating setback which ended his retirement at the age of 75, Cohen is now one of two (Dylan) maybe three (Bennett –though I didn’t like the Gaga album) , still capable of producing world class albums and he wouldn’t have known it if it wasn’t for his business manager.
On one level you can admire the schoolyard punk hubris of Earle titling his record with a Robert Johnson reference, but his blues pastiches are so comparatively pale that it makes him seem completely blinded by his own arrogance. I’m left wondering if anyone in Earle’s camp ever tells him that he has a bad idea
What can you do with an album whose best song is all of them An album that ends with “Most Messed Up” and starts with “Longer Than You’ve Been Alive” and has “Nashville” bang in the middle and follows it with “Wasted”? It’s fucking great, that’s what you can say.
The difference between FKA Twigs album and D’Angelo’s is that she has songs that announce themselves and D’Angelo simply doesn’t. The debut album of the year and the sexiness thing around., it is a deep lovely different thing.; a modern day Bjork without the whimsy
It seems buried in time and a barely controlled anger, ready to flip you or the rest of the world. “Something’s not right…” is a carrion call, a sort of dread continuum to the Pogues early spirit:a s though your each back and back and find nothing is where you placed it
Justin Townes Earle might not be the greatest songwriter in the world but he is certainly the most consistently excellent songwriter in 2014. From 2012 to 2014, Earle has written, recorded and released 20 perfect songs. Absolutely flawless jewels.
A modern In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning by a guy with an immaculate voice, a sweet falsetto that hits every note with the ease of youth and lingers on it, to further the heartbreak. And the difference between Sam and Adele? Sam has much better songs
On their fifth album, songs as good as “Quartz”, “Careful You”, “Cound You” and the title track “Seeds” should have been enough, I mean, one of them should have, propelled the band up the charts. It would be a real pity if this ecellent soul album is considered a flop and not a return to power.
This isn’t a perfect record, but does display all the qualities we want from singer/songwriters – honesty, wisdom, insight, maturity. It’s not a world of happy endings and resolved conflicts. Really, is anyone’s?
A big hit in the UK, it is an almost perfect album within its own secret world, a haunting and beautify and, yes, big sound that can move you to tears of joy or boredom with equal ease. But it gets you here and as Guy notes on “My Sad Captain”, what a perfect waste of time.
I haven’t listened to it in months and so for this review the album was fresh again and it sounds better than I remember it, Gammages voice? A gorgeous Isaak blues and rockabilly thing, the tempo putting the laid into laid back, and the playing a concise evocation of punk discipline (not sound) and Chicago blues (not Southern) momentum.
Six songs from Madonna and to be honest I approached reviewing them with a little bit of nervousness. In 2012 I seriously overestimated MDNA. Still, this sounds better; less poppy more adult dance for mainstream Madonna fans. A solid “B+” of an effort
There is a lot going on here, one sweet natured song after another and on top? “Money To Me” shares the “heeeeey” hook with “Blank Space” except Caroline wrote hers a year before Taylor. And Caroline has those kind of songs, songs you want to hear over and over again
At nearly an hour the album has a few cliffs and sometimes it falls off but it always land somewhere cool, it is like a computer game with the sound different levels and the tracks seem to repeat till they are right on the edge and then fall. But we told you that years ago.
The battle here isn’t internal, it is against forces outside Mike Hadreas, perhaps the social bulling for those out of step, or perceived out of steppedness with the world, the otherness of sound and vision reckoning sideways into the Low-Fi of Bowie and Eno except in 2014 it sounds commercial
A huge problem that doesn’t dwarf Sam having sold a million copies (platinum!) of In The Lonely Hour, to go along with his (gasp) six grammy nominations. One of only three albums to reach the plateau in 2014, but what can he do with it if he can’t project it on stage?
The sounds are deep, beautiful, haunting and rough, violent images and the stories are working class stories of horror and faith, “Everywhere is monsters. Tits out, wet-mouthed, heads back. Shouting and screaming just to prove they exist” is how the story of Becky opens, she meets a guy in bar, he goes off to a bad drug deal, she becomes a sex worker and the happy ending isn’t at all.
Marla is a central presence beckoning you forward till you are in the middle of her world and yet you don’t know where you are. It could be 1974, it could be the day after tomorrow, but you are experience something, not half but a life entire
when you don’t have songs you make art. Hard to deny, and for sure Black Messiah is no Voodoo –the songs aren’t there, they are all multi layered vocals on top (and inside) funk grooves where another beat replaces the melody line time after time.
Pass on Haim, pass on Best Coast, but leave yourself open to this terrific L.A. band, a weird proto feminism about railing at diminished romantic and other expectations.
A tough sell and nobody bothered to sell it, so it seems to be as deep and strong and blue as a classical take on black music phenoms can be but also unheard of and hiding in plain sight of the world. released around the end of 2013, it is a lovely coda to a great career
If United States is a minor work, it is minor in the same way all aging is minor, in the same way Jerry Lee’s current Rock And Roll Time is minor, it is minor because we older people are minor.
From “Bindfolded” to “Spirited Away” this is a consistently focussed collection of songs which will give Simple Minds more than a hanger to place their hits onand when they hit it right, on the title track for instance, they are indeed alive and kicking.
As my friend, Allmusic Assistant Editor Mark Deming put it: I think the list should be called “Several of the best albums of 2014, and a few that were made by Jann Wenner’s close friends.” Yes, exactly.
Hollywood High – Mike Hudson And The Pagans – Cleveland rocks, even in LA, even 30 years after the fact, nothing is lost and nothing is left behind on this terrific punk, yeah, but just for a name because this label less hard rock.
Susan has taken the rock and roll idiom and created a world without doors, without escape, often without hope, except for one door, one possibility, her searing voice and an electric guitars, hard hit drums and anchor bass, she offers the escape route.
The rockers on the ten track album, the fiddly dee “Home Run King” were little gems, no less than the gorgeous steel guitar on “Lonely Saturday”. It sounds like Gene is channeling Jim Reeves. The album is an aching beautiful and sad thing. The live album sounds a helluva lot like the Hot Burritos brother, and it has a country soulfulness and swing the Eagles never came close to
The real interest here is, of course, the negotiation to get it on Spotify. Daniel needed something big to make up for losing Tay and Bey gave it to him. Im telling you, all the action is in the boardrooms…Beyonce Platinum Edition – A
Battles have ensued between those who claim the only song worth listening to is Dylan’s, those who think it is fun and shouldn’t be taken that seriously, those who consider it borderline Karaoke and Def Leppard are guilty if only by association and those who are going back to their GNR roots. Me? I say all of the above…
The trick here is don’t concentrate on Manu, he’ll come for you when he wants you, concentrate on the beats which are consistently hooky, they are like little tommy guns on all four tracks and they will keep your ears centered while you ride away on keyboards that kind sound Enoish and Ornette Colemanish within a coupla bars of each other.
The real question is, will it sell? Will it continue the world domination? It sure should, and if it hits 300K units in the States, consider it a hit. But if it doesn’t, I don’t know how One Direction can improve upon it or turn left or sideways or anything but force Styles to get a haircut.
It sounds like nothing else out there, neither of the time nor apart of it, it is a major rocker’s statement about redemption but Hudson is too hard headed to just say it: it weaves horror to extentuate the joy, it juxtaposes the terror of life so you can embrace the dream true love
Known for prominent guitar leads and stressed vocals, Knuckle Puck have recognized the conventions of a modern Pop-Punk band and fit it to their own, unique sound. Each track on this EP shows Knuckle Puck as a maturing band, ready to take their craft to the next level
If the sound wasn’t so crappy, this might have been my favorite on the entire enterprise. The first 12 tracks are real good with some much closer to being completed tracks. “Jelly Bean”, “Any Time” and “Down By The Station” may not be the major major “sign On The Cross” or “I’m Not There”… still, I don’t know em so it is more exciting.
First, liner notes helped but I tried not to steal too much. next, the heart of the matter are blues vamps after blues vamps. Writer Rob O’Connor claims it is his favorite, for me? A masterpiece no doubt, but I’m not a big blues guy…
So now the first two CDs feel like working off the rust, country and folk covers while they get in a groove, and the 3rd and 4th CDs are the heart of the original material. The problem is, it is a litle too archivival. I’m not trying to pass my exams.
The guest stars don’t help, the studios make not a whit of difference, the playing is loud and boring, the middling rock is an affront to 1992. The only reason I didn’t give it a D- is because the album cover is great. It stinks. Grade: D
Here we go, all basement tapes 75 all the time and I love it all but especially “You Ain’t Going Nowhere” take one and the stupendous mindbending “I’m Not There”. One of Dylan’s greatest.
He starts off doing drunken covers, raids the cupboard from some gone and little remembered country and folk contemporaries, and ends up with a handful of originals which are basically blues workouts.
Grade: B+
No Dice Tapes is Callum Kirkpatrick of Leeds in England, a one man record label not unlike our old pals at Bridgetown Records in Cali, and he has put together his favorite musicians from all over bedsitland and college campuses to produce this consistently entertaining piece of work
In roughly chronological order, the first thing you might notice is 16 of these songs are covers. The second is it is footed in country much more than folk. Third? It is awesome.
The actual music sounds even better, the band are tight as hell, Allen Toussaint is all over it, and the arrangements are less fussy and more incisive than Band On The Run. Paul is in great voice, he caresses everything he sings, even the rockers.
Heather Powell has an all-time classic kind of voice, she sings with very versatile, strong and beautiful vocals, expressing a wide range of feelings in a short amount of time,… think Karen Carpenter with even more possibilities as Heather can really push these notes very high
