Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen Even by the standards of Ruston Kelly’s previous heavy and confessional music, the task before him while creating The Weakness was particularly stark. Between finishing writing his previous album – 2020’s Shape & Destroy – and now, he endured a high-profile breakup with Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves and was continuing to… Read more
Photo Credit: Jonas Brothers via SNL Nostalgia is a powerful tool, and one that arguably has more currency now than it ever has – the ’90s sensation Friends is the sitcom of choice for people who weren’t alive to watch it in real-time, while Kate Bush’s ’80s hit “Running Up That Hill” has found its… Read more
Photo Credit: Neil Krug Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is Lana Del Rey’s version of the Beatles’ untitled “The White Album.” Like the Beatles had done the previous year with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Lana Del Rey has already written her magnum opus. Norman F*cking Rockwell! was a fantastic album on so many… Read more
Photo Credit: Stephen Ringer In 2020, Aly & AJ’s 2007 single “Potential Breakup Song” went unexpectedly viral on TikTok. It’s a testament to the duo’s artistic integrity that on 2021’s A Touch of The Beat… – their first album in 14 years – and now, on With Love From, they don’t shamelessly try to recreate… Read more
Photo Credit: Michael Schmelling The best song on Amanda Shires’ eighth solo album, “Everything Has It’s Time” is a kaleidoscopic collection of memories jarringly placed alongside dispatches from the present day. The song captures love in a state of irreversible disrepair and in doing so heart-wrenchingly captures all that has been. “There was a time… Read more
Photo Credit: Helen Kirbo Surely you haven’t heard a more ambitious album concept in 2022 than this: a 105-minute concept album – the first installment of a trilogy – that traces the journey of a character escaping a fundamentalist home only to meet a gruesome end at the hands of a cannibalistic psychopath. All of… Read more
Photo Credit: Danny Clinch At the outset, a major artist doing a studio album comprised entirely of songs made popular by other artists may seem like a lazy way to stay in the public eye and/or take care of one contractually-obligated release. However, it’s probably closer to being a rite of passage, as Bob Dylan,… Read more
Photo Credit: Pooneh Ghana Faye and I were born in the same year, we have grown up with the same musical influences, we are both convinced that the pedal steel is an amazing instrument, and I connect with everything she has the say about being sad, being happy, and just being. Releasing her debut album Run… Read more
Photo Credit: Shawn Brackbill Philadelphia’s The War on Drugs return with I Don’t Live Here Anymore, their first new studio album in four years. With their last offering, they already set the bar pretty high for themselves simply by titling it A Deeper Understanding. The album became their first Top 10 release in the US, meaning that… Read more
Photo Credit: Neil Krug Brandi Carlile, an artist who’s generally considered a folkie but also shows leanings towards both country and rock, has been impressing an increasingly large following ever since her 2005 debut. Her seventh studio album In These Silent Days is another powerful and heartfelt collection of original songs that will no doubt continue her… Read more