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CD Reviews

Filling up with Putnam Smith

Kitchen, Love, and Emily Dickinson
Putnam Smith wishes he could trade places with Emily Dickinson.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 16, 2013

Tricky Britches are in Good Company

Don’t call it a throwback
Tricky Britches lean pretty heavily toward the old-timey end of the spectrum, with a deep and abiding respect for the body of American stringband work, manifesting itself in original songs that are instantly familiar.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 10, 2013

Four new works from Whitcomb

The free Conqueror
Part of Whitcomb's appeal is that the material and the performance are of a piece, everything placed just so and meticulously machined.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 10, 2013

A vibrant and forward Worried Well

Baroque me, Amadeus
There's something baroque, something emotional and primal, vivid and stark about Luck, the band's first proper full-length release.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | May 03, 2013

The Malletts know the lay of the Land

Rub some mud on it
On their new and third full-length release, Land , the Mallett Brothers Band alternate between boozy and anthemic ballads and boozy and anthemic sing-along stomps, always providing plenty of opportunity for just about anybody to find a personal touchpoint.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 24, 2013

Arborea erect fortifications of light and darkness

And the horse they rode in on
"After the Flood only Love Remains" is stop-in-your-tracks beautiful, and what passes for a single for them. If you can slow yourself down to their pace, see the world in half-time for a bit (which is almost impossible when you try to keep up with the pace of things like the Internet), it becomes incredibly catchy, a sing-along.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 10, 2013

Surviving winter with Max Garcia Conover

Gone to ground
Max García Conover's debut full-length, Burrow , has a starkness, like listening to music through an Instagram filter, that conveys a feeling of going to ground.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | April 04, 2013

Cozy up to KGFREEZE

Songs for people who don't like people
When Kyle Gervais says he has a solo project in the works, people pay attention. A musician's musician, with a deep knowledge of and love for a wide spectrum of work, Gervais has a way of pushing boundaries and challenging the listener with songs that are familiar at their core.

By: | April 04, 2013

Wisdom gets fired up on Flannabis

Smells like smoke
With so many odes to weed already out there, it's pretty hard distinguishing yourself this way, b ut Wisdom doesn't beat around the bush

By: SAM PFEIFLE | March 27, 2013

Just Duquette This Time

Playful solo work from half of Cactus Highway
The best thing about Rob Duquette's kid-oriented work is that it's not always obviously kids' music.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | March 20, 2013

Endless Interstate gas up and get going

Reading the Roadsigns
You might expect '50s-style sock-hop fare, or maybe Highway 61 folk tunes for the American dream, but the band's sound is actually more in the '80s/'90s pocket.

By: SAM PFEIFLE | March 20, 2013

How To Destroy Angels | Welcome Oblivion

Columbia (2013)
Whereas the monsters and ghosts of NIN songs can scream in your face and rip you to bits with their fangs, Welcome Oblivion tracks like techno-folk haunter "Ice Age" and the doom-pop jaunt "How Long?" make uncredited cameo appearances in your nightmares until you go insane and eat your own hands.

By: BARRY THOMPSON | March 13, 2013