Artist:
Daniel Merriweather
Review:
The debut from Aussie neosoul singer Daniel Merriweather
overflows with good taste — and better intentions. Produced
by Mark Ronson, Love & War is sharp and bright, full
of limpid melodies, punchy brass arrangements and, in songs like
"Change" (with rapping by Wale), beats that gesture to 1974 but
feel thoroughly 2010. The problem is the transparent influence...
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Artist:
Len Price 3
Review:
Britain's Len Price 3 are the least nostalgic modern-garage band
I know. The whiplash reverberations of the 1964 Kinks and '65 Who
on the LP3's third album, Pictures — the metallic
thwack and buzzing sustain of singer-guitarist Glenn Page's
Rickenbacker; the fast martial step and chrome-glaze harmonies in
"I Don't Believe You" and "Nothing Like You" —...
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Artist:
Shout Out Louds
Review:
Shout Out Louds are proud indie-rock neocons: 2007's Our Ill
Wills ripped a melody from the Cure, a song title from the
Smiths and vocal moves from Bright Eyes. The third album from the
Stockholm quintet brilliantly works a classic indie look: airy,
sleek, gingerly heroic guitar zone-outs about a love-starved dude's
battle against emotional torpor. Singer-guitarist...
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Artist:
Allison Moorer
Review:
Like sister Shelby Lynne and husband Steve Earle, Allison Moorer
drives her Nashville-born career all over the map. Here she unfurls
dark emotions in uncharacteristic chamber-folk settings. "Easy in
the Summertime" sketches childhood bliss with piano, strings and
shadows; "Abalone Sky" is a hushed waltz. Moorer's handsome voice
is remarkably twangless here. Also remarkable is that the most
indelible...
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Artist:
Danny Barnes
Review:
Texas country rocker Danny Barnes likes to do wild things with
his banjo — check out the explosive picking on his old band
the Bad Livers' turbocharged hillbilly version of Iggy Pop's "Lust
for Life." Barnes' seventh solo album, Pizza Box, is a
collection of banjo-based songs set against big rock ("Road"),
Memphis-style horns ("Sparta, TN"), barnstorming juke-joint...
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Artist:
Buddy Holly
Review:
This six-cd set is the definitive account of Buddy Holly's life
on record, from a crude tape of him at 13, yelping Hank Snow's "My
Two-Timin' Woman," to demos of Holly's last great songs, "Crying,
Waiting, Hoping" and "Learning the Game," made just before his
death in 1959 at 22. The big middle of Not Fade Away...
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