// Category Archive for: Music Reviews

Music Review: Ryley Walker, Golden Sings That Have Been Sung

By Melissa Bratcher

The Ryley Walker that brought to mind frolicking in sun-dappled fields on his last album, Primrose Green, has vacated those fields. His latest, Golden Sings That Have Been Sung, moves past his love to 1960s and ’70s British folkies (though the occasional field is still dappled in sun) and embraces a more “whole band” approach, throwing in unexpected instrumentation and taking his experimental playing even further. His unbelievable finger-picking is still there, but it’s come with friends this time.

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Music Review: The Hollywood Brats, Sick On You: The Album/A Brats Miscellany

By Hanna

The Hollywood Brats are really an anomaly; difficult to place and more difficult to analyze the longer you listen to them. While they don’t quite have the almost intellectual artifice of the New York Dolls and Heavy Metal Kids, they do share the same deep sense of bad taste and irony. The defining characteristics of their music are a tendency to shock and a rather cutting irony, combined with a deliberately simplistic style of music which can be seen as a precursor of punk. For a short space of time they were shouting obscenities into the void of American glam rock, before disbanding in 1974. But right now, they’re having a moment of revival after singer Andrew Matheson’s book came out last year out and he’s been playing again, so it’s a good time to have another look at their actual output.

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Music Review: Stewart Eastham, Dancers In The Mansion

By Tyler Hodg

Stewart Eastham’s latest effort, Dancers in the Mansion, is like a wild night in a Nashville bar: the swinging country music encourages you to hit the dance floor, while occasional somber sounds result in moments of reflection. All that’s missing is a little too much bourbon. (more…)

Music Review: Hymn For Her, Drive Til U Die

By Melissa Bratcher

You know what’s easy to love? A two-person band. Do you know what band you’re about to love? Hymn for Her, a nomadic pair who make their home in a ’61 Bambi Airstream trailer (with their daughter) and make the kind of music you can crunch away the miles to.

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Music Review: Wyatt Blair, Point of No Return

By Tyler Hodg

Break out your hairspray, headbands, and shoulder pads: the 1980s are back thanks to Wyatt Blair. His new album, Point of No Return, is a love letter to arena-style glam rock that not only celebrates the music of the past, but also makes it cool again. Now that’s radical!

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Music Review: Jon Reynolds, Generation, Love

By Melissa Bratcher

On the nature vs. nurture question, music so often comes down to nurture. It’s a time and place thing, colored by experiences and environments. On Jon Reynolds’s new EP, Generation, Love, Reynolds explores racism, sexism, and gender roles, specifically in the American South. Having recently moved to Tennessee, Reynolds found himself wrestling with the intrinsic, embedded prejudices (including his own) and has taken these things and molded them into a quartet of 1950s-flavored, hooky pop treats.

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Music Review: Tiny Tim, Tiny Tim’s America

By Hanna

The 20-year anniversary of Tiny Tim’s death continues with an absolute treat for fans in the form of Tiny Tim’s America. This release is special because it’s comprised of new material, from recordings Tiny made in 1974 when he was in between recording contracts. Using this demo tape, a number of songs were chosen to compile a vinyl album (plus mp3 download). The original entire demo recording is also included on the mp3 download.

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Music Review: The Move, Move and Shazam (Reissues)

By Less Lee Moore

Though I’d always been a fan of “Dream Police” and “She’s Tight,” it wasn’t until 1993 that I fully embraced the many pleasures Cheap Trick had to offer. Checking the liner notes on their 1978 album Heaven Tonight revealed that amongst the album’s many fantastic tracks was a cover by someone named Roy Wood. “Who the hell was Roy Wood?” was my first thought and my second was “This song is incredible!” As it turned out Wood was the main songwriter for British band The Move, who’d found much success in the late 1960s and was a big influence on Cheap Trick’s musical style.

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Music Review: Masked Intruder, Love and Other Crimes

By Tyler Hodg

Who needs time machines when throwback bands like Masked Intruder exist? The band’s latest effort, an EP titled Love and Other Crimes, sounds like a direct callback to pop-punk’s heyday in the early 2000s, but perhaps a little too much. Although still a fun listen, a lack of originality removes much-needed substance from the album.

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Music Review: The Muffs, Blonder and Blonder (Reissue)

By Less Lee Moore

For the first half of the 1990s, if Redd Kross was involved in something, I was interested. Any band they toured with or recorded with or even name-checked was a band that I would check out. I was rarely disappointed. Enter The Muffs, who I associated with Redd Kross originally because they were both from Southern California and had both punk rock and bubblegum pop cred. And there was the Bill Bartell connection. Plus, Kim Shattuck and Melanie Vammen were ex-Pandoras members, a band I was fond of after hearing them on WTUL New Orleans in the mid-’80s.

Not long after the band’s eponymous debut, Melanie left and former Redd Kross drummer Roy McDonald replaced original drummer Criss Crass. So I was extremely interested in hearing Blonder and Blonder, The Muffs’ 1995 release from Warner Bros./Reprise Records.

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