// Category Archive for: Current Faves

Music Review: Charlie Faye & The Fayettes

By Melissa Bratcher

You may be hard pressed this year (or any year) to find an album that is more fun and delightful than Charlie Faye & the Fayettes’ self-titled album. It’s a tribute to the best groups of all: Girl Groups. It’s a love letter to the Shangri-Las, the Shirelles, the Ronettes, and those ladies on the Red Bird label, with sugar crush harmonies from leader Charlie Faye and her Fayettes, BettySoo and Akina Adderly. It’s packed to the edges with ear catchy melodies and joyous vocals, even when the lyrics get less-than-light.

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Comic Review: B.E.K. Black Eyed Kids #1

By Tim Murr

What’s creepier than creepy kids? Children Of The Damned, Children Of The Corn, The Brood, Pet Semetary—these are unsettling movies, because the epitome of innocence becomes the epitome of terror. Those cute little creatures that say silly things, making funny observations about a world that’s all new…to have them murderously turn against you is still one of the most fertile concepts in horror. It is not only the idea of killer kids, but also the idea of fighting them, or God forbid, killing them. It’s such dark and taboo territory.

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Music Review: Daniel Romano, Mosey

By Melissa Bratcher

It’s difficult to call Daniel Romano’s new album, Mosey, a follow-up to last year’s country-flavored If I’ve Only One Time Askin’ (review). It follows the prior album, but stylistically, it’s an exciting left-hand turn.

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Music Review: Big Thief, Masterpiece

By Melissa Bratcher

Nearly every person who will write about how Big Thief’s debut for Saddle Creek, Masterpiece, will note how nervy it is to name an album that… blah blah blah. I wanted to write that, too (because we’re all so very clever). And then we’ll all come to the same conclusion: it’s a pretty apt title.

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Music Review: Voyag3r, Are You Synthetic?

By Tim Murr

Following up 2014’s Doom Fortress (review), Detroit, Michigan’s Voyag3r returns with a spaced-out concept album called Are You Synthetic? Artist and Acid Witch singer Slasher Dave provides the gorgeous album cover, outdoing his iconic cover for Doom Fortress. Musically Voyag3r continues to give fans what they want while growing and evolving.

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Music Review: The Monkees, Good Times!

By Tyler Hodg

Nearly everyone has a personal anecdote about The Monkees, but in their 50th year, a commemorative album destined to be a throw-away discount bin item is sure to create an entirely different set of memories. Good Times!, the first record from the band in 20 years, is a collection of new and unreleased (but recently finished) songs that few people asked for, but many will enjoy.

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Exclusive: Third Single From Popincourt, “Happy Town”

By Less Lee Moore

The third single from Popincourt, “Happy Town,” provides an answer to what might have happened if Paul Weller had been French instead of English.

Check out our exclusive stream of Popincourt’s latest single from their upcoming album A New Dimension To Modern Love, released on June 17 from Jigsaw Records.

Popincourt says of the track:

On this one, I really wanted to have an up tempo beat, mixing Soul and Pop. I had “Dancing In the Streets” by Martha and the Vandellas in mind, but as well “The Gift” by the Jam. Then came the first terrorist attack in Paris early 2015: I was at this Unity March in Paris on January 11. Something you cannot forget: great sadness but at the same time this massive feeling of fraternity. People were even kissing cops!

I finalized the lyrics having this in mind, in a very naïve and optimistic way: the power of the street, the music that could change the world, the fact to live any minute “now”! Sadly enough, I received the master of the album two days after the second terrorist attack where 130 people were shot dead, some of them at this rock venue, le Bataclan, in November 2015.

Music Review: The Honeycutters, On The Ropes

By Melissa Bratcher

Asheville, North Carolina’s The Honeycutters have followed up 2015’s sublime Me Oh My with the completely wonderful On The Ropes. It’s good to have them back with such strong, satisfying material. Vocalist and songwriter Amanda Anne Platt’s voice is a treat: maybe older and wiser (by a year), but still hopeful. Hearts have been broken and mistakes have been made, but she’s not giving up. Ever.

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Music Review: Shoot Your Shot: The Divine Anthology

By Eric Weber

The time was 1991; the place was Wax n Facts in Atlanta, Georgia.

Flipping through the packed cardboard box, my jaw dropped when I saw the huge white letters emblazoned across the top of the record sleeve: DIVINE.

I quickly snatched it up, examining every inch of the album. I couldn’t believe it. Divine: Greatest Hits. He had hits?

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Music Review: Gregg Martinez, Soul Of The Bayou

By Melissa Bratcher

Louisiana Swamp Pop king Gregg Martinez has the kind of powerhouse voice that seems to grow slow and deep, like the roots of an ancient tree, straight up from the earth. It’s an incredible voice, and Martinez has a gift for adding an extra lagniappe of soul to everything he sings.

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