// Category Archive for: Music

Music Review: The Legal Matters, Conrad

By Melissa Bratcher

What happens when you take sugary Teen Beat harmonies, marry them to chunky guitar tones, and then throw in grownup lyrics? You get a timeless power pop treasure that instantly feels like a classic. On their second album, Conrad, Detroit band The Legal Matters have crafted songs of love and loss and wrapped them in sunny sweet melodies with just the right amount of ache.
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Music Review: Tim Buckley, Lady, Give Me Your Key

By Melissa Bratcher

We live in wondrous times. Tim Buckley has been gone since 1975, and yet, here we are in 2016, with never before released Tim Buckley material coming from Light In The Attic Records on October 21. How is it possible?
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Music Review: Kadhja Bonet, The Visitor

By Melissa Bratcher

Kadhja Bonet’s debut, The Visitor, is timeless and otherworldly; pulling the lucky listener into a spacey, jazzy world of poetic lyrics and Bonet’s stunner of a voice. It’s a bit psychedelic, it’s definitely jazz influenced, and it’s a cinematic type of soul that no one else is making.
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Music Review: Tony Hadley, The Christmas Album

By Melissa Bratcher

As the front man of Spandau Ballet, Tony Hadley was the purveyor of slick, soulful songs. His rich voice was perfect for their tracks of intrigue, drama, and yearning love. And, as Tony Hadley’s The Christmas Album shows, he’s still soulful and slick.
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Music Review: The Flat Five, It’s A World Of Love And Hope

By Melissa Bratcher

The Flat Five’s debut album, It’s A World Of Love And Hope, is perfect antidote to the weird awfulness of 2016. Full of exquisite, goosebump-inducing harmonies and ear-worm melodies, it’s a vacation on vinyl (or digitally, as you do). The songs lull you with prettiness and then… you listen to the dryly hilarious lyrics. It’s the perfect marriage of those two factors and endlessly relistenable.
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Music Review: Opeth, Sorceress

By Tim Murr

Opeth began challenging the parameters of death metal in the 1995 debut Orchid. Mixing in clean vocals, piano, and acoustic instruments, the band was destined to stand out. Frequent lineup changes occurred, leaving Mikael Åkerfeldt the only constant member. These days, the death metal connection seems tenuous at best, given the greater prog rock direction Opeth has taken. And that’s fine.
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Music Review: Melvins, Basses Loaded

By Tim Murr

Aberdeen’s Melvins have been around since 1983 and remain one of America’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands. That’s not hyperbole; that’s just a fact. They have released a slew of albums exploring the boundaries of stoner, doom, sludge, and grunge music. King Buzzo and Dale Crover have been the only constant members with several different bass players coming and going. Which brings us to the new album, Basses Loaded.
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Music Review: Shovels & Rope, Little Seeds

By Melissa Bratcher

The last time we checked in with Shovels & Rope, they had released Busted Jukebox Vol. 1, a collection of covers and collaborations. That was in 2015. Now, they have followed up with Little Seeds, an intimate, confessional return to form. It’s breathtaking in its honesty, chronicling some life-altering events in Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent’s lives.
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Music Review: Julia Jacklin, Don’t Let The Kids Win

By Melissa Bratcher

I’m going to admit this right off the bat: there were a few times in listening to Julia Jacklin’s fascinating debut, Don’t Let The Kids Win, that I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying. On the opening track, “Pool Party,” I was drawn to the languid retro feel, a slow dreamy sway of a song, and the unusual timbre to Jacklin’s voice. I just had no idea what the lyrics were (and to me, as a reviewer, lyrics are important). But it didn’t actually matter, because the feelings are evident; there is a heaviness, a sadness that runs through the Americana-esque song.
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Music Review: True Widow, AVVOLGERE

By Tim Murr

When I was two tracks into True Widow’s second album, AVVOLGERE, I said to myself, “Wow, this is everything I love about Sonic Youth’s Confusion Is Sex and Bad Moon Rising, but without all the arty filler.” This Texas trio just rolled into my life with the exact kind of album I’ve been wanting for a really long time.
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