It’s a short, inner-directed musing, but one that encapsulates the desperation that’s one of the essential elements of Darkness On The Edge Of Town. Bruce wanted this album to be relentless, to never let up You May Also Like: Reevaluating Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Wild, the Innocent and the E StreetRead More

A fizzy combination of Cocteau Twins-style dream-pop and stamping R&B grooves, Poliça is a meeting of the musical minds by electronica producer Ryan Olson (Gayngs) and vocalist Channy Leaneagh. Together, they’ve fashioned an album in the forthcoming Give You The Ghost that is both haunting and hooky — like next-genRead More

A vibraphonist very much in the tradition of Lionel Hampton, Peter Appleyard — who’d, fittingly, worked with Benny Goodman in the period that these recordings were made — has issued 21 albums as a leader. Unfortunately, many (maybe most) of them have long been out of print, including a pairRead More

Whereas Audra Mae’s initial album, 2010’s The Happiest Lamb, boasted this gloamy, lightly swinging throwback appeal, the addition of the Almighty Sound gooses her into sizzling new soul-packed places. This self-titled album, set for release on February 14 courtesy of Side One Dummy, is still shaped by her dark andRead More

Originally released in 1976, loverman/maestro Barry White’s sixth album — despite including three monster hit singles, including the title song, “You See The Trouble With Me” and “Baby, We Better Try To Get It Together” — somehow had gone out of print. That is, before this new reissue from Hip-ORead More

Singer-songwriter Kevin Gordon drills in on the second half of that descriptor, telling stories that resonate like age-old fables, even on the first listen.

In a genre that’s rapidly becoming overwhelmed with vocalists reinterpreting the Great American Snoozebook (important in their time, but rapidly becoming threadbare old saws — if only because of their endless modern repetitions), Lorraine Feather (daughter of the legendary jazz critic Leonard Feather) is not kidding with this album title.Read More

As much as I enjoy Steely Dan songs and can listen to most of them over and over (which is a good thing, since I’m writing about them every week), only one of their songs is what I’d call an “earworm” You May Also Like: Steely Dan’s The Royal Scam:Read More

Look past the doo-wah diddies (though that formed a memorable hit in 1964) and Manfred Mann — part of an early 1960s wave of Answers To The Beatles — is your basic renaissance hipster doofus. You May Also Like: The Only Thing That Disappointed Me About Aimee Mann’s @#%&*! SmilersRead More

A delicately refined update of band leader Tim Baker’s 2008 project Into Your Lungs, Hey Rosetta! (with an assist from producer Tony Doogan, who’s worked with Belle and Sebastian, and Wintersleep) offers another retro-cool chamber pop triumph here, but with a pleasant dash of pop-music raucousness. ATO is releasing SeedsRead More