Croatia-based singer-songwriter Nemo James released la 17-track album last August titled The Minstrel, which should be categorised in the adult contemporary genre. For the most part, it can be summed up in one word: mellow. The lyrics make most of these songs almost come off as poems set to music while everything about the instrumentation… Read More Music Review: Nemo James – ‘The Minstrel’
San Francisco-based J Burn’s latest EP, the four-tracked Burnt Blue, is a low-key Americana rock collection filled with nostalgia and longing for better days long gone. Released this past June, Jay Burn (vocals, guitar), Jay Lane (drums, percussion), Robin Sylvester (bass, slide guitar), Jason Crosby (vocals, piano, violin), and Michael Nuzum (guitar, banjo, mandolin) are… Read More Music Review: J Burn – ‘Burnt Blue’
This month, Dallas, Texas-based Kimia Penton is releasing her new EP Lessons From Life and Love in which she examines, with emotions ranging from melancholy to joy, the various things adulthood can teach. Kimia Penton takes care of the main vocals and violin and gets help from Wes Stephenson on bass, Leslie Williams Blum on… Read More Music Review: Kimia Penton – ‘Lessons From Life and Love’
New York City’s Gideon King & City Blog is not a band. They are a collective that has brought to life a collection of 10 tracks fusing together jazz and rock. The chill smoothness of jazz and sharp edges of rock create a unique sound cradling pointed lyrics The collective includes quite the sizable band:… Read More Music Review: Gideon King & City Blog – ‘City Blog’
Bogotá, Colombia-based electronic artist Leonardo Suárez Jiménez has put together an audiovisual project called Lozk, under which he will be releasing early next month a project titled Meaningless Words. Words are in fact so meaningless in this project that they are non-existent; this electronica, post-industrial, world-inspired, and folk-tinged experiment features only syllables, with the thought… Read More Music Review: Lozk – ‘Meaningless Words’
North Carolina’s Space Apaches released earlier this month their 14-track album Smokin’ Voyages, a collection of alternative rock numbers with country and blues nuances. Jim Arrendell (drums), Rob Geisler (bass), Aaron Price (keyboard, piano, guitar), Andrew Reed (guitar), and Tom Leiner (guitar) make listeners who grew up in the late 1980s and early 1990s feel… Read More Music Review: Space Apaches – ‘Smokin’ Voyages’
Tumbler band members Richard Grace, Dave Needham, and Harry Grace have put together a 12-track album titled You Said that was released earlier this month. It is a collection of beautiful, fun, and melodic music well worth the listen. The thumping drum beat of “Moments (She Reappears)” opens the album, joined first by an acoustic… Read More Music Review: Tumbler – ‘You Said’
I’m all about questioning the status quo, as anyone familiar with my writing can attest to. And so it comes as no surprise that I was intrigued by the idea of a group of young men throwing off the paralysing mantle they were being told to wear for another one that suited them better. This… Read More Music Review: Jon Briggz – ‘Still Lost’
Winnipeg-based Elessar Thiessen was forced, like so many others in his native Canada, to stay indoors often during the winter months. He passed the time through music, buying his first guitar at the age of eight. With a little help from Cam Friesen (drums, percussion), Brody Britton (percussion), and David Landreth (bass), Thiessen is clearly… Read More Music Review: Elessar Thiessen – ‘A Rainy Week in Paradise’
Canadian band We Are Ardent is releasing the EP Bright Shadows from Dark Lights in November. The six numbers from the EP are certainly “ardent”—they are enthusiastic and burn with passion. Josh Brazeau (guitar, vocals, bass), Kat Kerley (vocals, kalimba), Matt Dalton (bass, guitar), and Justin Brazeau (drums) have put together a set that provides… Read More Music Review: We Are Ardent – ‘Bright Shadows from Dark Lights’ EP