MUSIC REVIEWS

James Raftery is loath to let a good song go to waste. He refined and recorded the nine song collection Tornado during the pandemic-prompted lockdown, but the songs first came to life during the writing for 2017’s Everything. These piano-inspired ballads strip away any self-indulgent gloss in favor of functional stylistic flourishes and a thorough …

Badgertrap’s latest album release Hope Springs Eternal is the latest collection from Hal Camplin. The Bristol, UK native plays unique yet oddly familiar punk-inspired material but there’s a surprising idiosyncratic edge distinguishing his songs as well. It’s the project’s sixth album since Camplin first debuted in 2009. The rapid and continuing evolution …

Chesca made some pretty big waves with her single “Crocodile Tears” earlier this year, and in her new album Feel the Breeze, she brings the aesthetical concept behind the aforementioned track to a feature-length unlike any other I’ve heard in 2021. Rather than skewing simple pop with an unreal knack for …

For the first couple of bars in Gigi Vega’s “Down Crazy,” west coast trap and retro g-funk conceptualism seems to hang in the air like a stubborn fog over the cosmopolitan city lights of early morning, but the fierce beat from the percussion is soon to break through the clouds. …

Rousting us awake from a musical mundanity-induced slumber, the Annie Minogue Band’s “Sandbox” slowly but surely starts to fill the air around us with a countrified blues-rock sound that has no equal on the mainstream level this summer. Certainly, it’s been said by quite a few critics before me that …

Adulthood has taught me many lessons. Not all of them are pleasant. Looking back on the younger version of me, circa my teenage years, I remember being smarter than the average sixteen year old, definitely more mature, but understand much more now. As smart as I might have been, as …

The Cold Stares’ new album Heavy Shoes finds this dynamic duo in fine fettle. The band’s ninth collection in eleven years features a dozen tracks steeped in the imagery and traditions that have been their calling card since their 2010 formation. Guitarist Chris Tapp and drummer Brian Mullins built the band’s reputation …

Although it would at first seem driven more by the acoustic strumming we encounter in its opening bars than palm-muted electric guitar parts, the quiet pulsations of the latter wind up lending a lot of soul to Wave 21’s “Why Does It Happen” that wouldn’t be present in the music here otherwise. …

Brooke Josephson has traveled a long way from her beginnings in Warsaw, Indiana. She parlayed her theatrical beginnings into work on several major network television programs and now has a handful of music releases to her credit. She leads off her upcoming EP release Showin’ Up with the single “Rainbow” and it’s …

The story of Little King is one that spans over two decades. Their newest album , Amuse De Q, is a testament to their staying power, or perhaps more accurately, their will to survive. Ryan Rosoff is the founder of Little King, and throughout the band’s 20 year history has …