Ninety percent silk and ten percent grit, Philadelphia blue-eyed-soul man Amos Lee’s pipes are steeped in both the smooth R&B stylings of Billy Paul and Smokey Robinson and the Seventies singer-songwriter tradition of James Taylor and Harry Chapin. The late-twenty-something schoolteacher turned singer — whose unfussy, jazzy folk-soul tunes and…
Emerging in 2005 from the wreckage of bands like Call Sign Cobra, Pariah Caste and Murder Scene Clean Up Team, Big Timber has waited until the waning hours of 2006 to issue its first full-length. Taking its title from the unglamorous town where it was recorded, Alma (slated for release…
Over the past twelve months, ten very different releases have dominated my personal playlist. And although 2006 still has three weeks left, I doubt that anything coming out in that time will knock off these personal bests. 1. TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain (Interscope). Critical consensus suggests…
Imogen Heap has no excuse for being self-deprecating. After all, this British import started improvising classical airs at an age when most of us were still figuring out how to tie shoes, and today, on the cusp of her 29th birthday, she’s a gifted singer-songwriter who’s as comfortable making music…
It’s been five years since Redman’s last album, and although Malpractice is a record that can stand the test of time, fans have been clamoring for new music from Funk Doctor Spock. To hold them over, Red dropped a couple of mixtapes, but they hardly qualified as true Redman albums…
Album of the Year This Week Describing the duration of your morning commute by saying “It’s about the length of a song on the new Joanna Newsom record.” Okay, maybe a song and a half, if you’re taking light rail. This Song Will Change Your Life Willie Nelson’s brash addition…
The members of Boys Like Girls live at home in the suburbs with their parents and write vague, emotionally charged songs sugarcoated with precision pop hooks. Add Martin Johnson’s wavering, pained voice, a requisite ambiguous name and producer Matt Squire (Panic! At the Disco), and the band fits emo to,…
Few believed Jay-Z would actually stay retired, so his return is no surprise. But why come back now? He went out on top, and as president of Def Jam, he’s the head of rap’s premier institution. What more could he want? The Dr. Dre-produced track “30 Something” may provide some…
Love is yet another attempt to entice consumers into repurchasing repackaged Beatles music they already own in various formats. The 26-track disc was mashed up in a massive 5.1 mix specifically designed for the custom-built surround-sound theater at the Mirage, where it will be blasted twice nightly to Las Vegas…
Every syllable Tupac Shakur uttered near a microphone constitutes a potential sample, and a decade after he hit the grave, his estate’s caretakers are still finding ways to turn old recordings into “new” songs. But while the latest posthumous Shakur disc should enhance his brand, it diminishes his legacy by…
First impressions can be tough, especially given that we reportedly form an opinion within the initial three seconds of meeting someone. So it’s unfortunate that potential fans of Brand New, which debuted in 2001 with the easily overlooked pop-punk vehicle Your Favorite Weapon, may never know what five years of…
It’d be easy to dismiss 8traC as just another jam band in an area awash in groups fitting the same description — but resist the temptation. Whereas many acts of this ilk play loose with their grooves, these guys are tighter than the skin stretched across Joan Rivers’s cheekbones. This…
Singer-songwriters can be hard to swallow. There are few who can pull off winsome sappiness without looking like a total sap. Then there are guys like Dan Craig, who seem to hover somewhere between sentimental mush and genuine potential. Wirebird (due for release on Thursday, December 14, at the Walnut…
Bell Hollow, Sons of the Burgess Shale (Five03). While so many latter-day post-punk bands fall all over themselves trying to mimic the more danceable moments of a Gang of Four record, Bell Hollow chooses to embrace atmosphere and mood. The act’s songs — which sound like the Chameleons playing haunted…
Though the members of Division Day cite noise-rock auteurs Unwound and Drive Like Jehu as influences, their music has more in common with the atmospheric inclinations of acts such as Boards of Canada and Smog. Singer Rohner Segnitz’s voice carries a hint of Travis Morrison’s plaintive expressiveness, and Division Day…
Alabama-born Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay is best known for her vocal contributions to legendary Muscle Shoals Studios recordings by the likes of Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and, later, the Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band. In 1980, shortly after leaving the Dead, she lost her first husband in…
Ah, Swedish death metal: Nothing rings sweeter than the combination of those three words. The adorable headbanging Scandinavians in Grave don the black uniform with a nihilistic fervor characteristic of their fellow countrymen in Entombed and Dismember (both of whom will also play this Saturday at Hubba’s, 13740 East Quincy…
Andre “A.G.” Barnes, also known as Andre the Giant, has paid his dues for so long, he deserves a free pass — not that he needs one. He was an original member of D.I.T.C. (Diggin’ in the Crates), a NYC outfit that included producer Rodney “Showbiz” Lemay; the two subsequently…
Croques monsieur. Ponderous films. Ennui. You can now add vicious, monstrous metal to the list of things for which France is famous. Bayonne’s own Gojira (the Japanese name for Godzilla) unloads a brimming bag of hefty, riff-tastic, thoroughly thunderous metal. The quartet — freres Joe and Mario Duplantier (guitarist/vocalist and…
Back in 1998, when she arrived on the national blues scene, Shemekia Copeland was promoted as a chip off the old block — that block being her father, famed bluesman Johnny Copeland, who had died the previous year after a long, very public struggle with heart disease. Since then, however,…
Nearing her fiftieth birthday, Lisa Germano has no reason to shy away from the tough stuff. Not that she ever has: Looking back to her early-’90s singer-songwriter beginnings, you’ll find the Indiana native tackling obsession, depression, addiction and death with a surprisingly straightforward and undaunted stoicism — and no shortage…
Spacemen 3 very well may have taken drugs in order to make music to take drugs to. Action Packed Thrill Ride, on the other hand, appears to drink to deal with problems caused by drinking. Although Thrill Ride is firmly rooted in the country tradition, its songs don’t twang as…
