Young GuvGUV IVRun For Cover Records [2022] Ben Cook — a.k.a. Young Guv — completes his pandemic GUV series with the final installment IV. The New Mexico sessions that were recorded back in 2020 have already spawned three albums with IV showcasing the last of the quarantine tracks. The interesting thing about I-IV is how … Read more
ShearwaterThe Great AwakeningPolyborus Music [2022] In the six years since that last Shearwater album, Jonathan Meiburg published a novel, formed a new band with members of the band that had opened for them on their last tour called Loma then recorded and released two albums, played and recorded adaptations of David Bowie’s Lodger album, eventually … Read more
Tim HeideckerHigh SchoolSpacebomb Records [2022] Tim Heidecker is a talented artist that over the years has been known both for his comedy and a more serious singer songwriter side that has tackled tough topics like divorce, middle-age, and global warming. His balance of being able to address those areas with compassion while still successfully lifting … Read more
The Dream SyndicateUltraviolet Battle Hymns And True ConfessionsFire Records [2022] In many ways, Steve Wynn and his reconstituted band, The Dream Syndicate, have spent the decade since the band reformed in 2012 trying to sort out who they were and how they wanted to sound in this new era, or as Wynn sings in the … Read more
Andrew BirdInside ProblemsLoma Vista Recordings [2022] In the follow-up to his fine, Headphone Approved 2019 release, My Finest Work Yet, Andrew Bird continues to deliver smart, thoughtful music that displays his talented violin skills in catchy pop-oriented songs, most that defy simplistic genre categories. On that work, he seemed quite taken with the world of … Read more
John DoeFables In A Foreign LandFat Possum Records [2022] Before “Folk music” was an established commercial genre and came to be associated as a specific style of acoustic music, it was first and foremost music made by and for regular folk. Whether sung around a campfire or on street corners, and broadly speaking folk music … Read more
Mitch Mitchell’s Terrifying ExperienceAppalachian TontineThrill Kill City Music [2022] Somewhere in a Dayton, Ohio neighborhood, squalls of guitar feedback escape into the night air. Cans of cheap beer and ash trays are scattered around the makeshift home studio, where riffs seemingly transported through time from somewhere between 1967 and 1975 keep pushing the levels on … Read more
SlangCockroach In A Ghost TownKill Rock Stars [2022] Slang started out as a side project for drummer Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney) and singer/guitarist Drew Grow, in Portland, Ore. over a decade ago, singing covers of the Everly Brothers and Traveling Wilburys, but Cockroach In A Ghost Town finds them joined by Anita Lee Elliot on guitar … Read more
Craig FinnA Legacy Of RentalsPositive Jams/Thirty Tigers [2022] By now, after eight albums with The Hold Steady and four solo studio albums, we’ve figured out that Craig Finn is as much of a storyteller as he is a songwriter. Finn has a penchant for dark narratives about folk trapped in the difficult outcomes of bad … Read more
Weird NightmareWeird NightmareSub Pop Records [2022] Weird Nightmare is the new project from METZ guitarist and singer Alex Edkins. This self-titled debut record showcases a new side of Edkins, as it was created of mostly ideas that didn’t seem to totally fit the more in your face post punk noise rock of METZ. Some of … Read more
The Black KeysDropout BoogieNonesuch Records [2022] For the last 20 years, the former Akron, Ohio duo that make up The Black Keys have been refining their own take on the blues and R&B influences that are the underpinning of early rock icons like Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton’s Cream. Guitarist and vocalist Dan Auerbach and … Read more
Arcade FireWEColumbia Records [2022] Nobody accuses Canadian band Arcade Fire of lacking ambition. In a brief paragraph attached to the CD-ROM version of their 6th album, WE, Win Butler describes the inspirations underlying this collection, starting with tracing the recording’s title and division into two sections, I and We, to a Russian Sci-Fi novel written … Read more
Pink MountaintopsPeacock PoolsATO Records [2022] Peacock Pools is the first Pink Mountaintops album in 8 years, and its creation was inspired by a wide range of subjects that includes early Pink Floyd, Gary Numan, sci-fi and horror movies and even an essay on the cult of bodybuilding by postmodern feminist Camille Paglia. That spectrum of … Read more
Bloc PartyAlpha GamesInfectious/BMG [2022] Alpha Games is the sixth studio record from London’s Bloc Party and right from the opening track you can hear the dance-punk band reaching back for the glory beats of their fantastic 2005 debut Silent Alarm. Since a solid sophomore record, Bloc Party has never hit the same gold and appeared … Read more
Curse of LonoPeople In CarsSubmarine Cat Music [2022] The path to wrapping your head around the London band Curse of Lono and its third album, People In Cars, is nothing if not an invitation to cultural literacy. The band’s name comes from an obscure Hunter S. Thompson book based on his adventures in Hawaii, while … Read more
Christian Lee HutsonQuittersANTI- [2022] In the songs from his ANTI-Records debut, 2020’s Beginners, modern folk/rock singer/songwriter Christian Lee Hutson wrote songs that looked back to one’s formative years and experiences, the memories and disappointments that shape the person you become. In his follow-up, Hutson seeks to make sense of the events that followed, sorting one’s … Read more
Yumi ZoumaPresent TensePolyvinyl Records [2022] While Yumi Zouma is most comfortable in gentle confines of the midtempo electronic tones of classic Euro-pop sounds, the band which got its start in Christchurch, New Zealand, leans into the energy of live drums and a wider spectrum of organic, orchestrated sounds on their fourth full-length album, Present Tense. … Read more
Ceramic AnimalSweet UnknownEasy Eye Sound [2022] Ceramic Animal, the 5-piece rock & pop band out of Doylestown, PA, had already released three independently produced albums before signing with Black Key’s Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound. So they arrive on Sweet Unknown with a distinct sound and a highly developed sense of band identity that’s deeply … Read more
MidlakeFor The Sake Of Bethel WoodsATO Records [2022] Midlake, a band a UK reviewer described succinctly as “the Texan masters of folk-proggy-Americana, return nine years after their last album, Antiphon, which recorded six months after the departure of their previous frontman and singer/songwriter, Tim Smith. And if early listens of For the Sake of Bethel … Read more
The Weather StationHow Is It That I Should Look At The StarsFat Possum Records [2022] The Weather Station’s 2021 release, Ignorance, won widespread critical acclaim with its more expansive and percussive jazz orchestrations, and Tamara Lindeman’s heady mix of smart song-craft and lyrical reflections on the challenges of modern life, the planetary crisis, and the … Read more
Hurray For The Riff RaffLife On EarthNonesuch Records [2022] While this is Hurray for the Riff Raff’s is its debut on the Nonesuch label, it’s the 7th studio album from singer/songwriter Alynda Segarra, who currently dwells in New Orleans and also fronted the “hobo band” Dead Man Street Orchestra. My first encounter Hurray was an … Read more
Sonic YouthIn/Out/InThree Lobed Recordings [2022] Okay, my favorite time seeing Sonic Youth they were on tour opening for Neil Young & Crazy Horse in 1991, with Social Distortion opening the show. This was before Nirvana and Pearl Jam, so the closest thing to “grunge” on mainstream rock radio was NY&CH; but still, I thought it … Read more
Sarah Shook & The Disarmers NightroamerThirty Tigers [2022] North Carolina’s Sarah Shook & The Disarmers return with their third album, actually recorded just prior to the pandemic, which along with the sale of Bloodshot Records, delayed the release. Out now, in time to hit the road where the band has won their strongest notices, Shook … Read more
Dashboard ConfessionalAll The Truth That I Can TellHidden Note Records/AWAL [2022] Harlan Howard’s oft repeated description of country music as “three chords and the truth,” has been picked up by artists across the musical spectrum, from U2 and Van Morrison to punk bands who weren’t convinced that third chord was entirely necessary. In “Pain Free … Read more
Band Of HorsesThings Are GreatBMG [2022] We all know, Things Are Great is what you say, when you don’t want to tell people that you’re really going through a challenging time. It’s the more grandiose version of “I’m fine.” And like many of the songs here by Ben Bridwell and his Band of Horses, the … Read more