MUSIC REVIEWS

Piercing but hardly colorless, the immeasurable strength with which the opening squeal of the guitar in “Enemy Within” starts up with is intimidating and tone-setting, but it’s representative of a small dose of what the Jeff Carlson Band came to do in 2021. With rock n’ roll’s reputation in total …

Streaking in Tongues’ latest project, Slow Dancing with Bigfoot, is a collaboration with Michigan writer and two-time U.P. (Upper Peninsula) Poet Laurate Marty Achatz. The fifteen track collection marries Achatz’s verse with the aural landscapes that have been the father/son duo’s stock in trade since their first release in 2015. The …

With 2020 still freshly in the rearview for many, breakups were on the rise and many of our true natures were exposed to our closest to us. It certainly wasn’t pretty and I have heard my fair share of near horror stories of couples disbanding over angry disputes. But, I …

Paul Rocha’s résumé is legendary in the New England underground, but you don’t have to be familiar with the decades’ worth of session work he’s done nor the two solo albums he’s put out thus far to appreciate the wealth of experience he puts into his new album Apophenia. There’s nothing …

In a short, simple country song like “Tiki Bar on the Beach,” it really doesn’t take more than just a couple of seconds into the track for listeners to immediately get a feel for what the music is all about – and in this case, the material is everything its …

There’s a new normal taking the music industry by storm, partially thanks to the last year being such an abnormal one; young artists are using their insider knowledge in regards to social media being so finicky and intricate in its usage, and the knowledge they have is giving them more …

I am a firm fan of Melanie Rogers’ latest single “R.U.O.K”. Her previous single release “Fever” played like a fresh breath of musical air during the pandemic and announced the arrival of a major new songwriting talent. I predict Rogers will not toil for long in semi-obscurity and will, with …

Long Island singer/songwriter Joe Piket has earned a variety of well-meaning labels over the years but defies them all. His idiosyncratic songwriting shares a common frame of reference with older performers such as Billy Joel, among others, but his album Everything is Different feels more like a wholly personal release than his …

Led by its ethereal melody, entirely synthetic in substance and yet capable of drawing us closer in the same way an acoustic instrument would, “What This Means” has all the guts and glory of a lead single like “Little Waves” or “When the Lights Go Down,” but as a deep …

Bill Abernathy’s new EP release Who Are You, Who Am I? is a four song collection continuing in the same vein as his past two releases 2017’s Find a Way and its follow-up Crossing Willow Creek. His preceding efforts have experienced considerable commercial success charting on the Roots Music Report Traditional Folk category, winning December …