Music
Sloan, Never Hear the End of it (Yep Roc)
You don’t have to have lived in Canada to get Sloan, but it seems to help. They’re unassuming pop classicists with a sly sense of humor—witness the album title, […]
Diana Krall, From This Moment On (Verve)
Diana Krall’s lack of self-consciousness is the chief virtue of From This Moment On. Big band swing feels dated, but Krall performs it as if a half-century hasn’t passed […]
Kenny Bill Stinson, F-Earl (Independent)
A good man recognizes when someone has made his life easier. After Shreveport rocker Kenny Bill Stinson’s son traveled the country, putting stickers with a crude drawing of a […]
Mista Allen, Area 504 (Smacktite)
The indie hip-hop of Mista Alien is a very different animal. He seems to recognize that hip-hop has become yet another a pop genre, and it’s the genre that […]
Truth Universal, Move the Crowd Mixtape (Truth Universal)
Truth Universal’s Move the Crowd Mixtape starts powerfully, with a turntable scratching before letting a talking head say, “God did in one weekend what we’ve been trying to do […]
Otis Taylor, Definition of a Circle (Telarc)
All of Definition of a Circle are evident on “They Wore Blue,” which Taylor describes in the liner notes thusly: “While watching television coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane […]
Dash Rip Rock, Hee Haw Hell (Alternative Tentacles)
How do you review a Dash Rip Rock album? It’s hard to compare it to other Dash albums because the band doesn’t put a lot of stock in those […]
The Eames Era, Heroes + Sheroes (Independent)
“Indie rock” tends to conjure up thoughts of recordings that sound intentionally underproduced made by people so suspicious of the music industry and its conventions that they sabotage their […]
Jerry Lee Lewis, Last Man Standing (Artists First)
An album of Jerry Lee Lewis doing duets Neil Young, Mick Jagger, Willie Nelson and Bruce Springsteen sounds like a good idea on one level—it’ll sure get attention and […]
Alejandro Escovedo Duo, the Parish, January 19, 2007
Acoustic guitars get a bad rap. Far too often, they’re strummed in a banal fashion that adds little to the song beyond a chorded backing. Alejandro Escovedo and David Polkingham […]
