Category: Reviews

Album | Lambchop – The Bible

On the ‘His Song Is Sung’, the opening track of Lambchop’s new album The Bible, the listener is eased in with plaintive piano and orchestration before Kurt Wagner’s voice cracks through warmly – ‘In the spring the view was better/And…

Album | Jon Boden, Seth Lakeman, Ben Nicholls, Emily Portman and Jack Rutter – Sea Song Sessions

United for last year’s Folkestone Festival, a wide range of folk’s modern luminaries come together on a collection of maritime songs old and new. Granted, it wouldn’t have killed them to come up with a band name – though in…

EP | Iron & Wine – LORI

Being named after the senator that help bring down Richard Nixon in the year he was born, Samuel Ervin Beam has had a tough legacy, choosing to ignore it entirely by recording as Iron & Wine. Beam has released LORI, a collection…

EP | Susie Merry – Body in Time

There are points in life where things don’t seem to match up, for example the photo, Susie Merry on the cover of Body in Time and the lyrics to the album, where this seemingly sweet thing takes a harsh look at life…

Album | Mason – My Kind of Trouble

It’s been a half-decade since Mason dropped their debut album, Midnight Road. They electrified Arizona crowds with their smoky blues and they’re ready to do it again with a psychedelic lick of paint with My Kind of Trouble. Their second…

Album | The Brother Brothers – Cover to Cover

The Brother Brothers have grown into a notable force on the roots circuit, regaled for reflective songwriting and gorgeous harmonies that have drawn comparison to the best of ’em. As the Milk Carton Kids would jest about the dubious identifiability…

Album | Chloe Kimes – Self-Titled

One of Nashville’s most promising new implants, Chloe Kimes, released her self-titled LP this summer and it reliably swings between worlds. Originally from Ludington, Michigan, the singer-songwriter is as well-rounded as her pitstop portfolio; she sells her narrative lyricism with…

Album | Loudon Wainwright III – Lifetime Achievement

While Loudon Wainwright III has won a few awards, Lifetime Achievement downplays that aspect of his life. Justifiably so. It’s never been about the awards. Or the press for that matter, even though Time Magazine named him the “new Dylan” back in…

Album | Lauren Balthrop – Things Will Be Different

Nothing ever goes as planned, be it records or relationships, and for Lauren Balthrop her latest long player, Things Will Be Different, is no exception. This isn’t a record about nostalgia as some have suggested, rather it is about pain and…

Video | James and the Shame – Believe Me

Best known for his work as a YouTube “internetainer”, Los Angeles artist Rhett McLaughlin is breaking from his trademark comedy to hone-in on another passion—country music—as James and the Shame. His debut single, ‘Believe Me’, takes a jab at political…