What does it sound like?:

Let me start by saying that I am Thea Gilmore’s biggest fan, and have followed her career for years, so this review may not be entirely objective. I have seen her play live 5 or 6 times. I was at one of her Christmas concerts after the release of the Strange Communion album some years ago, and had shivers up my spine and tears in my eyes when she played ‘Cold Coming’, it was that good. Fan that I am, I’ve not entirely lost my critical faculties. I thought The Counterweight was suffocated by over-production, and her last album, Small World Turning, was patchy to say the least.

A recent thread on here referred to the circumstances of Thea’s rebranding of herself under a new name, Afterlight. The outcome of the disintegration of her marriage to producer Nigel Stonier, 23 years her senior, it has clearly been an acrimonious break-up of a marriage tainted by years of coercive control that she has now revealed through a series of online statements and interviews, though Thea has been careful never to mention Nigel by name. The result is this, the mother of all break-up albums, as » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This latest NY archive release is the first in the Official Bootleg Series, although it covers much of the same ground as a number of previous Performance Series releases – Fillmore, Massey Hall, Cellar Door and Young Shakespeare among them. It’s a generous 2-disc collection amounting to 90 minutes of music comprising 23 songs culled from Young’s early solo years, with the usual smattering of Buffalo Springfield tracks, Crazy Horse favourites and rarities like Bad Fog of Loneliness and See the Sky About to Rain, which have by now appeared on other archive releases. Given that the package contains 2 discs, it’s not particularly cheap. So why should you bother investing yet again in 23 songs that you have probably heard many times over umpteen previous releases?

Well for starters, despite its purported bootleg status, the sound quality is clear as a mountain stream. And despite a couple of remarks between one or two songs, Young focuses entirely on playing. And it’s the playing and singing here that is particularly good, exquisitely so in fact. The word that kept springing to mind while listening was Afterword word of the week – nuanced. The tempo » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Chrissie Hynde has form when it comes to Dylan covers. The Pretenders’ take on the crowd-pleasing Forever Young is one of the best versions of that song, arguably better than Dylan’s own, so expectations for a whole album’s worth of Dylan covers might be particularly high. Standing in the Doorway was released digitally a few months ago, timed to coincide with Dylan’s 80th birthday no doubt, but now gets a physical release on CD and vinyl. It’s a curious selection of songs – Hynde avoids all the obvious choices and opts instead for a focus largely on Dylan’s unloved 80s albums, although this might turn out to be fortuitous given the forthcoming bootleg release. It’s also very much a lockdown album, recorded with sparing arrangements and Hynde’s voice very much to the fore. There is piano, mandolin and beautifully resonant acoustic guitar, and that’s about it. Despite the odd choice of material, Chrissie Hynde makes each of the songs very much her own. Some work better than others – Blind Willie McTell is very spare and not immediately recognisable, but no less lovely for its slowed down tempo. Every Grain of Sand, Love Minus » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

It’s always a cause for personal celebration when a favourite artist releases a particularly fine album, and James McMurtry’s tenth studio album, The Horses and the Hounds, is just such an occasion. McMurtry has been around since the late 80s, with a fine back catalogue but largely unheard of in the UK. His stock in trade is storytelling songs delivered in his half-sung, half-spoken Texan drawl. The style is literate and very dry, as he peels back the underbelly of American life, often with comedic efficiency. This, his first album since the well received but rather more low-key and folky Complicated Game, is also the first for seven years. It’s chock full of riff driven songs that scarcely take their foot off the gas, and which become almost instant ear worms. ‘If It Don’t Bleed’ addresses concerns of advancing age and health with the throwaway ‘it don’t matter if it don’t bleed’; soulful ‘Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call’ deals wryly with a serious of mishaps where the punchline chorus is a repeated ‘I keep losing my glasses’, as amusing as it is unexpected and incongruous. ‘Canola Fields’, ‘Decent Man’, ‘Vaquero’ – sung half in English, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

After 7 albums and a couple of EPs released under the name of Oh Susanna, Suzie Ungerleider has opted to distance herself from the connotations of that moniker and release her 8th album under her own name. It’s short at 37 minutes, with very minimal acoustic instrumentation and consists of 10 self-penned songs. There’s no great stylistic departure from previous albums, and in some ways this is a strangely muted affair, an unassuming way of relaunching herself. With a voice pitched somewhere between Laura Veirs and the late Nanci Griffith, Suzie Ungerleider treads a path through tasteful grown-up folk music. Her last album, A Girl In Teen City, dealt with her Canadian upbringing (she was born in the US), and her tone is very Canadian – a hard statement to quantify, but it just oozes an unhurried cool detachment that doesn’t sound American. Teen City was a strong set of songs – there is something winningly attractive about the way she enunciates ‘Puget Sound’ in the song of that name – but the low key nature of the new one is unlikely to win her a host of new fans, although you sense that » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Hard to believe it’s more than 30 years since Uncle Tupelo released No Depression and defined the alt-country / Americana movement, at least by reputation if not by their own design. That band’s moment of glory was all too brief; by 1995 Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar had split and released albums under the banners of their new outfits. While Wilco might be said to have strayed further and more experimentally from the Uncle Tupelo sound, it is Jay Farrar’s Son Volt that has stayed truer to the alt-country template. This latest album doesn’t sound that much different from 1995’s Trace, but that said, there is something irresistibly attractive about Jay Farrar’s mournfully warm and distinctive voice. Like more recent Son Volt albums, Electro Melodier concerns itself heavily with political issues, expressed most obviously (and least subtly) on Living in the USA, a kind of Born in the USA for millennials. There are songs on matters of the heart too – particularly the lovely Diamonds and Cigarettes, which features harmonies from Laura Cantrell, and Lucky Ones. War on Misery is a sparse blues with a brushed drum shuffle, These are the Times rocks like » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The Crosby Stills Nash & Young soap opera has lasted for 50 years. Its latest plot twists have seen Crosby and Nash no longer on speaking terms, and Crosby and Young seemingly irreconcilably estranged over remarks Crosby ill-advisedly made about Daryl Hannah. Cameron Crowe’s excellent Remember My Name biopic captures all the gory detail, with Crosby apparently resigned to the fact that no one he made music with, from Roger McGuinn on down, wants anything more to do with him. The upshot from this has been a hugely prolific streak that has seen 5 solo albums since 2014’s Croz. Music, Crosby contends, is all he has left. Just days from his 80th birthday, Crosby has achieved the seemingly impossible by living this long after a lifetime of drug abuse and latterday ill health as a result. He knows he doesn’t have long, and therein lies his newly awakened creative desire. For Free is the fifth of those recent albums. Less laid back than its predecessor Here If You Listen, it is a decent set of songs, although occasionally sounds a little dated. As with most Crosby albums, nothing particularly stands out; instead it effectively » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Starting with The Houston Kid in 2001 and culminating in 2017 with Close Ties, Rodney Crowell delivered a slew of late period albums characterised by pin-sharp, sometimes acerbic lyrics, and top drawer songwriting. In between there were a couple of duet albums with Emmylou Harris, a collection of his own ‘acoustic classics’ and a covers album of Texan songs. Much more than just another Texan songwriter and former Mr Rosanne Cash, Rodney Crowell has turned out half a dozen late period albums equal to anything released by his former father-in-law. Indeed, arguably more so, as the material is all Crowell’s own. Triage adds significantly to that late flowering – it may well be the best of the lot. From the softly spoken Transient Global Amnesia Blues, to the rattlingly good Something Has To Change, here are 42 minutes and 10 songs that testify to the very best of the songwriter’s art. Characteristically deft lyrics, solid tunesmithery, subtle and sympathetic production, this is a real cracker of an album. Rodney Crowell may never have been fashionable in the UK; this album is unlikely to change that, but do yourself a favour and listen to some » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

This review comes with the general acceptance that a new album by Jackson Browne is probably about as fashionable as leprosy, and more than likely has zero relevance to the current music scene. It’s unlikely to feature in any hip and happening top 50s of 2021, though might just scrape a mention in Uncut. So, with that all said as a way of managing expectations, is it actually any good? Depends on your perspective I guess. If you live in dreary old Blighty but your heart is in Laurel Canyon sharing a spliff with Henry Diltz circa 1971, then you are likely to be a convert to whom I have little need to preach. And yes, Downhill From Everywhere is rather good. All the usual concerns are present and correct – matters of the heart, the state of the planet – with a few Caribbean and Spanish vibes to spice up the tastefully played guitar and lap steel. David Lindley is no longer on board, but it almost sounds as if he is – this is music that doesn’t stray far from the mould. Still Looking For Something wouldn’t be out of place on » Continue Reading.