CD and DVD reviews
Publicity photos of Katy Vernon are a little deceptive. She’s a pretty woman, sitting with a ukulele in hand. Therefore, one might rightfully expect her music to be stripped-down, old-fashioned ukulele-centered music. However, Vernon’s album, Suit of Hearts, is quite a different thing, indeed. The album opens with its title track, which bursts out like…
If you follow the underground sound, then you already know his name. Trevor Drury has been cutting one smash after another lately, and if you thought that you had heard the very best of this soulful singer’s material, you’d better think again – for his new single “Head on the Tracks” is making a big splash this season,…
The smoky timber of the vocal track in Midnight Shine’s “Heart of Gold” slips through the rambling rhythm of the guitars and texturizes Neil Young’s legendary lyrics with an exotic glow that speaks to the shared Canadian roots of the band covering the song. This supple serenade is central to bringing the dirge of the…
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/woongiband/ Piercing percussive textures are met with kaleidoscopic visuals of a psychedelic nature as we take in the first thirty seconds of the music video for Woongi’s new single “Not Sad Sequence.” Steeped in a surrealism of the most erudite quality, “Not Sad Sequence” is at times both visually demanding and audiologically overwhelming, whilst…
The Brothers Union go for a whispered loveliness on the intimate “Silhouettes”. Featuring fine portraits of loved ones, offering great reflection, the pieces have a soulfulness to them. Vocals go for a soothing reassuring quality. Guitar work feels particularly fine with a perfect blend of tenderness and passion. Arrangements are kept to the essentials as…
Zero Frequency embraces a feral lo-fi beast of a sound with “The Ocean’s End (Vol. 1)”. Everything has a raw grit and soul to it. Over the course of the album they eschew polish for a direct living breathing quality to it. Full of life, these pieces possess a poetry to them. Volume is a…
Daniel Coloprisco crafts a flawlessly smooth sound on “Winter’s Song”. With an urbane sensibility these two pieces shine with such polish. A highly expressive take on piano playing the pieces possess such grace. Never overdoing things Daniel Coloprisco keeps the sound to the absolute essentials. The ear for melody proves to lead the collection forward…
YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnAdpn24Z2E Summer is almost here, and Labán has got the perfect slow jam to kick it off in style. His latest single, “Para Ti” (from Todos Somos Dueños de Aquí), is a four-minute adventure through jazz history; in the first act of the song, he embraces the slow-churning grooves of the roaring 20’s;…
The old saying goes that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. That timeworn truism comes to mind while listening to Wood’s single “Shelter.” The chorus is actually a question: “Will you run to me?” There are few situations more difficult than being willing and able to help someone…
Meghan & Caitlin is a youthful duo that describes its music as acoustic indie pop. “Midnight” is a gentle love song of sorts, mainly built around a simple, repeated keyboard line. When percussion enters the mix, it sounds like a choir of handclaps. It’s a love song, only it’s also a little complicated. This girl…
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/joeycurtinmusic/ Like a gentle breeze initiating the first chilly evidence of autumn, a piano accents a torturous silence with a warm tonality that will soon yield an immaculate melody in “Chrysalis,” the new single from Joey Curtin. Curtin’s conservative dispatch of magnetizing harmonic notes churns us in a vortex of colors and textures before…
URL: https://www.safeashouses.ca/ A modest guitar picking reverberates into the dark ethers surrounding it. A second guitar’s strum interrupts its homespun harmony, only adding to the textures of expression that this wordless opening salvo of instrumentation is delivering at the start of “Lucky Lucky,” Safe as Houses’ new single. The melody blankets us in a warmth…
Ranzel X Kendrick sounds a little like Diamond David Lee Roth of Van Halen, in his gentler moments. Only this isn’t a heavy metal lead singer taking a volume break. Instead, it is the way Kendrick always likes to do it. He describes himself as “just a country son,” and this song details a good…
Lyia Meta sings straight from the heart on the powerful “All My Love”. With a swirling gorgeous style, Lyia Meta offers a soulful fiery sound. Everything about the song opts for a powerful emotionally wrought approach to storytelling. A lush approach informs Erik-Peter Mortensen’s “Dragon Song (feat. Sarah Moulton Faux)”. Growing ever more potent the…
URL: https://drakejensen.ca/ You definitely hear Drake Jensen’s rock influences in the first single “Talk Me Down” from his fifth studio album Sideshow. The track boasts a full bodied and boisterous sound without ever coming off melodramatic and, given the desperation of its lyric, this is no small achievement. Jensen has built a substantial amount of his reputation…
Simmering out of the silence, a synthesizer crashes through the speakers like a cathartic tidal wave and oozes with epic tonality. The rhythm is gentle, but the music that it is framing is anything but timid. We’re in the clutches of Scarlett Deva’s new single “In da Couch,” which might have a somewhat comical title…
Charlie Christmas may be a new name to you. It reads like a holiday TV special character name, doesn’t it? However, Chuck Crisafulli may ring a bell. Crisafulli is a published music journalist, who has written books about Elvis Presley and the Doors, as well as articles for many national music magazines. Nevertheless, Charlie Christmas…
Charlie Christmas’ “Happy Day” is a, well, happy sounding song. It’s built upon a slightly jangling electric guitar part. Christmas’ vocal sounds like it’s under water in places. The chorus is simple. “It’s a happy day/Everything’s okay/It’s a happy day.” This song is not to be confused with “Oh Happy Day,” the gospel rave-up the…
A true sense of Americana filters through Frank Trousdell’s “Bushline Sniper” proving him to be a deeply compelling storyteller. Everything about the song has a perfect kind of raw grit and soul. From the twang of the guitar to the ornate fiddle work that filters through, the piece possesses such authenticity. Layer upon layer of…
SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2fnV6seL0Y3klLT1gR7Qa2 In a lumbering pitter-patter that echoes a vibrant bass strutting its stuff in the foreground, the neatly arranged drums in Little Bird’s “gHost” are intent on capturing the lion’s share of our affections in the Charleston, South Carolina band’s latest single, but they face some serious competition from an angelic vocal and a…
With a true sense of majesty, Gregorio Garza Jr crafts an impressive cinematic tour-de-force with the colossal “War of Ages”. Everything about it goes for an unspoken classical narrative. Full of incredible flourishes and such gorgeous color the entirety of the album simply teems with an undue amount of life. Instrumentally dense the pieces have…
A bass comes creeping from the shadows and suddenly breaks open the floodgates on a heavenly harmony from none other than Szandra Mayer. There’s a reticence in her voice that sounds a lot like heartache. The melody that she’s straddling is ominous but spiked with a dash of hope inside of the clashing synthesizer and…
Heathcote Hill’s “Save The Ones You Love” begins with a melancholy, piano-driven groove. Lyrically, the song starts by questioning the validity of dreams. Then on the chorus, it advises: “It’s a wicked world/Save the ones you love.” Both musically and lyrically, this is an overtly emotional recording. Sure, it’s unlikely this is some sort of…
Woodfish’s “Damn Thing” is one funky slice of music. The trio’s nucleus is comprised of brothers Steve Kalorin, who plays bass, and Dominic Kalorin, the act’s drummer. “Damn Thing” is, if nothing else, a jam. You may want to think of it has a Tower of Power track, albeit without the horns. Rock music is…
A luxurious sound wafts from the silky-smooth style of Emex’s “Hello” (ft. YCee). Truly lush, the piece draws from the softest impulses of R&B, electro, and pop. Completely immersive the whole track simply washes over the listener. Vocals opt for a gentle, tender approach serving as the heart and soul of the piece. From these…
URL: https://themindisthemap.com/buy-the-book/ The library of self-help or self-improvement literature available to readers is enormous. This popular and profitable non-fiction genre has spawned countless sensations over the course of publishing history, particularly in the 20th century, though not every entry in the catalog left a lasting mark on the culture; sometimes wildly popular books enjoy a limited…
A huge amount of energy flows through the hard-edged Pop Hip-Hop style of Farrah Frostt’s “Not In The Mood”. The song is produced by Sam Sneed (formerly Death Row Records) who produced Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, 50 Cent, and others. The slick video is Directed by Rock Davis (DJ Khaled and P. Diddy), Itchy…
Heathcote Hill’s Save The Ones You Love album arrives at a time when frothy pop music rules the world. Radiohead didn’t headline the famed Coachella Music Festival, but Ariana Grande did. This is not to put Grande down. However, Grande makes music for fluttering teenage girl hearts, not for fully grown adults. Tragedy for Grande’s…
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/victorpedroofficial Out of dark and mysterious silence, a fragile melody driven equally by a synthesizer and a sexy vocal harmony emerges and imparts a chilling glow with every note that it emits. There’s something coming for us just over the horizon, and whatever it is, it means business. “You know I miss ya,” the…
Surreal melodies and beats that don’t back down are just a couple of the ingredients that Heather Fay tosses into the melting pot of tonality that is her new single “The One,” a three and a half minute pop jam that will get stuck in your head even when you’re not intending for it to.…
URL: https://www.charliemariemusic.com/ Like a wispy spring breeze, a soft and tender vocal from Charlie Marie slips out of our stereos and into the airspace alongside a mischievous string picking. “Just because you wear a Stetson, and you say you were made in Texas, doesn’t mean that you’re country and western,” she croons, her words dripping…
Surrealism has been finding its way into pop music on a more consistent basis since 2015, and we find its fingerprints all over Kingdom of Birds’ Glitz extended play without having to look very hard. Cornerstones of the band’s latest release include the single “Goodbye” (and its spacy music video), the grinding post-punk track “Dotted…
Golden sound, brilliant intensity, sheer romance – the thrill of the Italian tenor voice is back on From Now On, the ninth album of tenor Jonathan Cilia Faro, to be distributed by BFD / Sony Orchard on April 26. A fiery passion flows through the whole of Jonathan Cilia Faro’s impeccable “From Now On”. Effortlessly…
Hardcore punk five-piece from Detroit containing ex-members of Tommy Gunn and current members of The Purps, Aggro Or Die and Saint Ridley. Influenced by 7 Seconds, AFI, Bad Religion, Minor Threat, Comeback Kid, Rise Against, and Sick of it All. Come Out Fighting embody the hardcore punk rock ethos with their intense riotous work. Speed…
New York-based indie rockers Earthquake Lights take listeners on an introspective journey with their new single “So Far No Luck”. The band members met in the music department at Hofstra University and developed their sound playing local gigs in and around New York City. As evident in their songs, their literacy extends far into the…
Seconds into “Light Up,” the latest irresistible jam by the Nigerian artist Demola, an instrument not usually associated with Afrobeat enters the mix: a classically-inspired violin. The rhythm track is a sun-baked, buoyant bounce, and the violin part is a cool forest breeze. They shouldn’t work perfectly together, but somehow, they do. That’s exactly the…
Finding September hold nothing back with the fiery passion of “History”. Done with the utmost of style, Finding September incorporates elements of punk, alt rock, and pop into a coherent cohesive whole. By far the true driver of the sound comes from the powerful vocals which possess a commanding presence. Reminiscent of similar pop punk…
Fabpz the Freelancer recently performed at an Open Mic Live in New York City. Fabpz has always been one of the top artistes to watch with the help of his X-Calade Promotionz label ensuring that his music gets as much publicity as possible. Fapbz is an underground Hip Hop artiste that has released many mixtapes…
The song “Complicated” is built upon a – surprise, surprise – relatively simple arrangement. Even singing about complications can get, well, complicated. The song begins with a funky, keyboard groove. Quickly, jazzy saxophone and tinkly piano come in. The first verse complains about people’s busy lives. This couple just wants to plan a simple dinner…
Black and white drumming adorns a full-color bassline as we wander through the first couple of bars in “Mile High Lady,” the new single from The Hugs, and it’s soon met with a funky little guitar part as well. The percussion is a little robotic, but it’s creating a strong framework that will be filled…
