It's likely you've seen him with the Grumps somewhere. The band play most of the local spots all over the state, and Michael Krapovicky plays bass behind frontman Ryan Halliburton. Turns out Krapovicky has songs, too, though, and he's released an eight-song solo album, Lowlife, populated with tracks he put together for the RPM Challenge in 2008 and 2010, along with some newer self-recorded work.The older stuff is a bit Jersey, including the piano ballad "Here and There," where Krapovicky is gritty and growly, but also kind of camp, as he is with the organ-filled "Seasons," about a gambling addict I didn't quite believe. On the newer tracks, Krapovicky is higher in register and lighter in delivery, from the reverb-warm "Lowlife" to the jazzy "Weekend Warrior," both of which are charming and self-aware.
The album sometimes suffers from overly digital tone where it should be warmer and Krapovicky does things like toggle the channel from left to right as he sings "I am here/And you are there." Three of the songs stretch toward six minutes without any good reason. These are the things that populate self-recorded debut albums, though.
Lowlife | Released by Michael Krapovicky | reverbnation.com/michaelkrapovicky
Related:
The Big Hurt: Faces refaced, Trans Am | What Day Is It Tonight? Trans Am Live, 1993 - 2008, Various Artists | Panama! 3, More
- The Big Hurt: Faces refaced
Faces refaced, Spears speared, Hook hacked
- Trans Am | What Day Is It Tonight? Trans Am Live, 1993 - 2008
Trans Am are distillers of guilty pleasures, mixing fat AOR riffs with sleazy electronic accents and a propulsive attitude typically reserved for arcade soundtracks. What Day Is It Tonight? covers the DC-area band’s 20-year history with high-quality, high-energy live cuts taken from their many tours.
- Various Artists | Panama! 3
If you purchase a copy of Soundway’s wonderful Panama! 3 — and you should — you get two things for the price of one. First, this is a carefully curated CD of “Calypso Panameño, Guajira Jazz & Cumbia Típica on the Isthmus 1960-75” that will keep you smiling — and perhaps dancing — for a healthy while.
- The Big Hurt: Season's beatings
Taking advantage of your seasonal obligation to buy stuff for people, the music industry unleashes its annual torrent of giftable crap: holiday albums, greatest-hits packages, high-profile releases, deluxe reissues.
- Rihanna | Rated R
Look, it’s not as if there were a song where she says, “Chris Brown, you chicken-shit motherfucker, your ass is gonna pay.”
- The Rolling Stones | Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert
This live 1969 Madison Square Garden set was released at the band's peak, following Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed , preceding Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street , and recorded a week before the disaster at Altamont.
- The Big Hurt: Lambert works it, 50 blows it, Moz ends it
ADAM LAMBERT 's spicy AMA performance continues to dominate entertainment headlines, weeks after it first scandalized the nation — but why does America care what a man does with another man in the secluded privacy of the American Music Awards?
- Winter warmers
Sure, some bands take the easy route and have album releases through the summer, enticing you to shows with back-patio barbecues and all-night rooftop after-parties. In January? Not so much.
- Beyond Dilla and Dipset
With a semi-sober face I'll claim that hip-hop in 2010 might deliver more than just posthumous Dilla discs, Dipset mixtapes, and a new ignoramus coke rapper whom critics pretend rhymes in triple-entendres.
- Various Artists | Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010
The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.
- Review: In Search of Beethoven
Phil Grabsky's exhaustive documentary doesn't exactly dispel any stereotypes about Beethoven's being a shaggy genius prone to rages.
- Less

Topics:
CD Reviews
, Music, Lowlife