CATCH OF THE MONTH

In a gentle but pulsating groove, Ronnue breaks the dam on an ocean of catharsis just waiting to wash over us in his cover of Janet Jackson’s “That’s the Way Love Goes” this October, the moodiness of the rhythm already making its presence known long before lyrics have even come into …

Anthony Crawford and Savana Lee are the Alabama duo Sugarcane Jane, and their new CD Ruffled Feathers; Songs In The Key Of Me – is a brilliant bunch of folk leaning America tunes made over an inspiring one week period. These seasoned vets are on their tenth release, so there …

Skulking into focus with a pendulous swagger, we find the opening cut in Daniel Tortoledo’s Through out These Years, “Dark Times (Brothers and Sisters),” ready to crush us with its sonic presence just as it would the grim-shaded imagery of its music video. Tortoledo’s voice meshes with the melody of the …

Jesse Lynn Madera’s debut studio album Fortunes brings a high degree of musical and songwriting acumen together in a stylish package. The collection is brief, only seven songs, but Madera synthesizes country, jazz, and soul with such completeness that few listeners, if any, will feel cheated by its length. She builds her …

Roaring out of the ethers with an anger that will continue to swell for the next forty minutes, Culture Shock Treatment’s opening cut – its title track – doesn’t waste our time with a big, bombastic intro before getting right into the ferociousness of Round Eye’s one of a kind punk …

Divinely conjoined to an adjacent instrumental wallop and the mighty melody it produces in any given scenario here, Marilyn Castillo’s vocal is the flash point of the most powerful of harmonies in Project Grand Slam’s East Side Sessions. Castillo, along with Alex Blade Silver on sax, is one of the newest …

American folk music has never been as diverse a genre as it is today, and that’s more than obvious even when engaging in a cursory listening session with Haley Johnsen’s London Sessions (Live From Abbey Road, 2020). Johnsen, a product of the Oregon underground, isn’t content to rehash the same rhythm …

Though as powerful as the riffs beside it in “Fuck Yeah” and yet approachably melodic in the title track from Kingdom Illusion, the lead vocal in Whiskerman’s all-new album is hardly the conventional linchpin some would expect it to be in a record as ambitious as this one is, but it’s …

A ghostly piano harmony follows every word Thomas Charlie Pedersen sings to us in the balladic “Green Plateau,” but as strong an impression as this song makes, it doesn’t dwarf the ensuing emotion we’ll soon embrace in the guitar-driven “The World is Not Your Oyster,” the tune that immediately follows …

Surreal and soft as silk in “The Flame (featuring Kerry Ironside),” robust and yet gentle in “Planet 8 (featuring Sharon Court),” the string play in Andy Michaels’ new album Incendiary Heart is a cornerstone of the record’s charisma, but don’t get me wrong – it’s but one component in the multifaceted splendor …