Music Review: Luke Winslow-King, I’m Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always

By Melissa Bratcher

Luke Winslow-King’s new album, I’m Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always, begins like you’d expect one of his albums to begin: killer bottleneck riffing and sonic space. Then, it quickly becomes something unexpected. He’s no longer playing stripped-down, front porch-blues. He’s moved boldly into the realm of contemporary blues players (Gary Clark, Jr. is an apt comparison) with a full band, with any trace of whimsy eradicated, and Winslow-King’s fine voice prominent. It doesn’t sound like him, though. Not the him that we’ve come to expect.
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Music Review: Various Artists, Afterschool Special: The 123s Of Kid Soul

By Melissa Bratcher

Have you ever listened to an album that is so charming that you just can’t bear it? I have. The fine folks at Numero Group have added to their considerable catalogue of genius compilations with Afterschool Special: The 123s of Kid Soul. Think: bubblegum pop + funk = sheer delight. Think: the Jackson 5. Think: infectious beats, voices so sweet you just want to curl into a ball and giggle, and true love. It’s hard for me to be objective; it’s so darling.
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Music Review: Riley Etheridge Jr., Secrets, Hope & Waiting

By Melissa Bratcher

There’s always a trickiness to concept albums. Do the songs work on their own merits, or do they need the framework of the concept to bolster them? Is the concept explicit, or do you need to read copious press materials or liner notes to ferret out a theme? Will I need to take psychedelics to understand this album?
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Music Review: St Paul and the Broken Bones, Sea Of Noise

By Melissa Bratcher

It would be hard not to like St. Paul and the Broken Bones. You can call them what you like, soul revival or neo-soul or just soul, but the end result is the same: a band that makes bracingly soulful music that feels both classic and modern. Lead singer Paul Janeway vocally brings to mind the greats (Otis Redding in particular) and adds his own particular twist, with his testifying vocals (as you may recall, Janeway studied to be a preacher, and it certainly shows in his voice).
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Music Review: The Meters, A Message From The Meters: The Complete Josie, Reprise & Warner Brothers Singles 1968-1977

By Melissa Bratcher

We truly live in an age of miracles. You can stroll down to the record store and pick up A Message From The Meters: The Complete Josie, Reprise & Warner Brothers Singles 1968-1977, and then you will hold in your hot little hands, a collection of ALL of the Meters’s singles, with B-sides. And you will be given a fantastic entry point to the best funk band of all time (Oh yes, I will die on that hill because it is a true fact). You could even download it digitally, if that’s your jam, and then you’ll at least have it. But the point is, you need this album.
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Music Review: The Turtles, All The Singles

By Melissa Bratcher

It’s time to give the Turtles another listen. And, lucky for you, their long out of print albums are being rereleased in a handy six CD box set, The Complete Original Albums Collection. If you’re not feeling that completist, a double CD set, All The Singles just might do the trick (what it did for me was make me want to get the six CD set, thankyouverymuch).

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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: 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: 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: Big Deal, Say Yes

By Melissa Bratcher

After a split with Mute, Big Deal are back with their third album, Say Yes, on Fatcat Records. The path to Say Yes has been a difficult one, with band members leaving, relationships ending, and the theft of the band’s laptop, which had Big Deal’s demos and ideas for their new album on it. “It was fight or flight, and we decided to fight,” the band says. So they said yes.

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