Reviewed by Eric Saeger Like an airier, less in-your-face James Blunt, singer Brock Scott leads this alt-folk quintet into a sound that evokes angels dancing on the head of a pin, tempering progressive, complicated statements with chill mix levels in a combination that might best be described as Vampire Weekend vs Blind Melon. A lot […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger Pegged for convenience’s sake as a jazz artist, this Dutch piano guy often sounds more New York than anything you’ve ever heard, as evidenced on the post-bop burnfest ‘Kvartet II’, which gets some pretty whizzer beatnik drums from the concrete-solid Henry Cole and as well from sax-player Dick Oatts. The good […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger Sounding like a more controlled Conor Oberst, Gibbons often comes off a bit loud over this strummy Americana-rock, but the tunes themselves make up for any questions about the mixing levels. Perhaps one reason his lines are so adamant is a psychic needs to be heard over the Red Shirt violence […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger Mixed bag, thy name is The Hit Back. At the start this DIY album behaves like most of your basic quirk-electropop records, endlessly inviting, understated electro-twee in the manner of Here We Go Magic’s more subtle material, stuff that’s considered electro-folk for lack of a more imaginative term; it’s simply very […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger Puttering, burning and filibustering from the Philly-based jazz guitarist. Somewhat typical example of this sort, power trio setup as jazz outfit, with Butrey switching deftly enough from Carlos Santana doodling to flamenco-plucking, then over to di Meola Weather Channel stuff, but the goal appears to be self-fulfillment over resumé, particularly when, […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger From the title you might deduce either a) weirdo indie techno or b) epic hipness fail by old dudes. Actually it’s neither, this large-scale prog-jazz project. It could be more rightly assumed that the word ‘dance’ really means ‘play’ in this context, as the scope of these ten mini-concertos allows for […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger This Minneapolis alt-rock quintet have an embarrassment of riches in that they can sound exactly like many popular acts of both the present and the not-crazily-distant past, such as first-album OK Go, Snow Patrol, Killers and stuff, not to mention singer/keys chick Kari Gray’s gold-medal-level karaoke of Dolores O’Riordan. There’s a […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger Someday, the Royal Potato Family company is going to own Bonnaroo. You can always count on friendly, distinctly American, blatantly flawed records from them, like this spinoff LP from Apollo Sunshine’s Sam Cohen. Yellowbirds are from Boston, so there’s some Berklee-drop out guitar solos that absolutely blow doors, and they’re also, […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger Although sporting much better production than they’re used to, this Florida death metal outfit doesn’t need it as much as bands like Nile do. Riff-wise, this is quite experimental in a sense, with guitarist/frontman Erik Rutan trying to find the longest route between two adjacent notes in a (heavy-ass) scale, sort […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger There’s a certain kind of New Ager who’d dig Mia Doi Todd, whose voice is a cross between Annie Lennox and Joan Baez. And then there’s folks like me, who don’t lose sleep over not having any new music that sounds like the singer is battling tooth and nail just to […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger Proffering their (relative) Irishness to the ever-eager whitey masses comes Primordial, one of the more interesting power-sludge bands to be heard nowadays, owing to a slightly wonkish nod to their heritage. But only slightly; this ain’t Glengarry Bhoys, it’s what the kids call ‘extreme metal’ with a great marketing angle – […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger It could be said that this surf-Americana-rock solo project from Everyday Visuals frontman Christopher Pappas mimics the effect of putting CDs from Bright Eyes, Glasvegas and Snow Patrol in the stereo and hitting Randomize. Owing to the predominance of it, I get the feeling Pappas most prefers doing bummer-busker stuff, strumming […]

Reviewed by Eric Saeger Of the three main singers in the Guster-style folk-infused, Brit-alt band Gomez, Ottewell is the one who sounds like Eddie Vedder (Ottewell sang ‘See the World’ and most of their other sellable stuff, thus it’s awful white of him to downplay his importance to the band in the press release for […]