PICK OF THE WEEK

Lisa Marie Claire has a poet’s soul. The singer/songwriter takes her cues from the tradition established by such artistic luminaries as Joni Mitchell, but it misses the point to stop there. She does what any talented artist, musical or otherwise, sets out to do – use their influences as a …

Something is chasing us with immense urgency the second we press the play button on “Proof of Monsters” that is immediately dark and yet freewheeling at the same time, but as is the case with the majority of the tracks you’re going to hear in Darren Michael Boyd’s Thoughts & Scares, …

While they’re entirely organic and available to us in a litany of successful singles found across the country music spectrum in 2022, the string elements of the main melody in “Dandelion,” the new single from Justine Sletten, are some of the warmest I’ve heard all year long. The guitar parts …

Sometimes a solo outing is the only way to get something off of your chest as a creative, and I think this is partly what led Chris McCooey to issue a masterpiece of a one-man effort in his new album Missing Pieces this December. McCooey’s melodic moxie is as powerful as ever …

Talented vocalist Dianña has made a couple of prior forays into the pop country arena and her latest “Missing You Underneath the Mistletoe” marks her first Christmas song. I am normally not much a fan of these types of songs, they tend to be calculated far more than other such …

  The strings on Christine Hand’s acoustic guitar are played in a variety of different ways on the Dallas-based singer/songwriter’s new album Standing on the Shoulders, but whether they’re slowly picked in the melancholic descent of “House of Bread,” forged into playful licks in “Take it Slow,” transformed into a melodically-faceted …

Living within the shadows, you’ll find the darkest secrets this planet contains, existing somewhere in the ethers between our realm and hell, constantly leaning in on us when we’re least equipped to manage the weight of their woeful untruths. Elektragaaz bravely enters this universe in their new record The Synaesthetic Picture …

The Sisters J, collectively Lily and Elisabeth Jackson, are extraordinary young vocal talents and siblings who’ve partnered as a singing duo. The latest single from Nashville’s latest musical exports is “Clearly”, a song that marries a top-notch AOR rock backing with the sisters’ outstanding vocals and harmonies. It may sound …

Onetime manager of Guns ‘n’ Roses, among others, Vicky Hamiliton’s Dark Spark Records are gatekeepers for Elsewhere’s full-length Life… is a Fraction. The first ten tracks of the dozen included on this release constitute a conceptual work telling a story about a character who discovers the Fractional Theory of Incremental Time …

In a determined clap of the drums, Jeremy Parsons launches into his new song “Tickin’,” and brings with him all of the intensity that a young singer/songwriter can muster in the recording studio and then some. The drums pitter-patter like a broken heart that has just found its other half, …