MUSIC REVIEWS

It can be hard for cover bands to convey the same sense of emotionality that their source once did – most often in iconic fashion – but that’s not the case for Stingchronicity, an east coast Sting/Police cover act that have been making big waves in the underground circuit recently. …

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 …

Fragments of a harmony bubble and crash into one another in a violent, but ultimately slow-motion, volley as we listen in on the first few moments of “Aurora,” the first track in JD Lion’s new record Northern Lights, but while this opening salvo is indeed quite enamoring from the jump, it …

“There You Are” is the latest single release from rocker Jack Pfeffer. The song is rock in its purest form and ventures into indie pop territories. Relying on strong vocal delivery, interesting guitar work and bass rhythms, Pfeffer keeps the listener attached to his little ditty of a song. Sincerity …

Strings of Atlas’ new EP How Far We’ve Come With a guttural guitar’s venomously distorted melody to lead the way, “Gone Away,” the opening cut in Strings of Atlas’ new EP How Far We’ve Come, comes to life with a ferociousness that will only grow stronger with each passing moment this firestorm …

As velvety and accessible as it is driven by a stirring poetry, the vocal that Mike Rickard lays down in “Taste Your Smile,” one of the smoother cuts from his album Out Loud, is perhaps the most sterling component that this phenomenally captivating track has for us to behold, but while …

Though nestled against a backdrop as vibrant and vivacious as the bright lights of Vegas amidst the arid desert night, the vocal harmony in “Point of View,” one of the new songs on Gordy Hunt’s Mood Swings LP, is as much of a sonic centerpiece as listeners could have hoped for in …

Piano keys dance around us to a gentle but unsuspectingly eviscerating beat in “Invoked.” Drums crash into the instrumental entanglement fashioned as a foundational harmony in “Insane.” Luis Mojica circles us with a vibrant vocal like a shark sizing up its prey before going in for the kill in “De …

If ever there was a time to be transported to a world ripe with surf guitars, swanky sax and crisp drumming, this is it. The Grunions, a misfit group from Montreal, has it covered. Oddly named after a sardine-sized fish species, The Grunions worm their way around jazz, lounge music …

Presented in a half-whisper in “Cat Food Fairy” while offered up in an Alex Dingley-style punkish croon in “How Long,” Badgertrap’s vocal in his new LP Man Shed Head Crisis is easily one of the record’s most fascinatingly hypnotic elements to behold, but as intriguing as it undeniably is, it’s but one …