Album Review: Tift Merritt, “Stitch of The World” Album Reviews Music Features by Ken Templeton - January 20, 20170 Tift Merritt’s fantastic new album, Stitch of the World, perfectly represents the depth of her voice and songwriting that so many fans have come to know and love over the past 15 years. There is a thread through these songs of confidence and control while being pulled emotionally in different directions--some good, some not so good. It’s that tension that makes these songs so interesting and compelling: the songs are evocative rather than narrative and reflect a clear groundedness even when the ground shifts. “Heartache is an Uphill Climb,” for example, begins somberly and ends defiantly, echoing the determination and resilience the song evokes. Merritt’s voice follows a similar path on the song, breaking perfectly on the first verse and
Album Review: Cris Jacobs “Dust To Gold” Album Reviews by Ken Templeton - December 14, 2016December 14, 20160 With just a couple of weeks left in the year, listening to Dust to Gold, Cris Jacobs’s second solo album has been a breath of fresh air. With sharp, economical chops on the slide and lead guitar, and backed by a nasty band, Jacobs delivers an album full of blues-based and soulful rock n’ roll. Jacobs’s has one of those pure blues voices: rough around the edges, but powerful and deep. On “Kind Woman,” Jacobs lets his slide guitar set the tone and delivers the lyrics casually: “I got nowhere to be / Ain’t nobody else I’m looking for, ain’t nobody lookin’ for me. / Been a long time loner on the boulevard, don’t ya know / I say we
Sing Sweetly: Hannah Christianson’s “Grow The World You’re Dreaming Of” Album Reviews by Brian Carroll - November 29, 20160 There is music that can transport you in some fashion. From the first note through about the one minute, fifteen second mark of the first track off of Hannah Christianson's new release, I am transported to a cavernous, blue shadow cast room with columns stretching to the soaring heights of the ceiling. Her gently swooping and lilting voice carries effortlessly over the cascading notes of a piano and I am alone in this room listening to the song. A vision, concrete and vivid in my mind...I mean, music that does that is something special. At one minute, sixteen seconds I am pulled from that zone and the song erupts in a sonic explosion of swirling drums, keys and harmonies. There
Jonatha Brooke’s ‘Midnight. Hallelujah.’ : Songs for Carrying On Album Reviews by Guest Writer - November 2, 20160 “Put the gun down/come talk to me—“ Jonatha Brooke’s signature vocals announce the first line of the opening track on her twelfth studio album Midnight. Hallelujah. Delivered acapella, the lyric reaches out like a pair of fists collaring the listener to bring you nose to nose with a tune about desperation, fear, and the possibility of redemption. “Put the Gun Down” is a political statement that makes some ballsy gestures in lyrics like “you got a lot of nerve/bitching ‘bout your freedom” and “no one keeping you clean/is it just attention that you crave,” calling out the nuances of America’s gun violence epidemic that are often too uncomfortable to address. Brooke lets us sweat a little bit with those thoughts
Album Review: Glen Phillips “Swallowed By The New” Album Reviews Uncategorized by Brian Carroll - October 25, 20160 There are voices that you can often trace back to moments that define your life, creative or how you have grown as a human. The voice of Glen Phillips has been a constant thread in both my creative life and my day to day (I mean, I have one of the guy's lyrics engraved inside my wedding band). For as long as I can remember songs like "Fall Down", "All I Want" and of course "Walk on the Ocean" gave me a desire to be a singer and songwriter, even before I owned an instrument on which to write those songs. Winter Pays For Summer was the record I spun most in my college days, and songs off of Abulum
Album Review: Aaron Lee Tasjan “Silver Tears” Album Reviews by Ken Templeton - October 25, 20160 “Living Proof,” from the EP Telling Stories to the Wall, features these lines near the end: “Nobody’s got the time, and everybody’s got an opinion / Well, my opinion is: Damn The Torpedoes is totally awesome, thank you, Tom Petty.” With his new album, Silver Tears, the influence of Petty on Aaron Lee Tasjan’s work is clear, as songs feature the lush instrumentation and vocal range that made Petty’s work so infectious. That said, there really is only one Aaron Lee Tasjan, and even as he branches out beyond East Nashville and its songs about trains, he maintains his unique ability to thread the needle between gravity and humor and continues to come back around to where it all begins
Shovels & Rope “Little Seeds” Album Review Album Reviews by Ken Templeton - October 4, 20160 This summer at Newport, Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent (aka Shovels and Rope) hung out at the Museum Stage for an unannounced set of new material alongside longtime friends and road buddies Hayes Carll and Allison Moorer. They traded songs back and forth, with Cary Ann and Michael exclusively playing new material from Little Seeds, which will be released on Friday. It was a special part of the weekend, and that setting allowed them to underscore some of the vulnerability expressed on the album. Part of growing up is also losing the previous generation and Cary Ann talked about this challenge and how both illness and loss have colored their work recently. What results is an album that runs
Blurring Lines, Expanding Boundaries: Joe K. Walsh’s “Borderland” Album Reviews Reviews by Brian Carroll - September 21, 2016September 21, 20160 There is a skepticism, perhaps the wrong word...there is an automated assumption made when you see someone with a mandolin in their hands. "Bluegrass" is the name of that assumption and while in most cases you may be correct in jumping to that conclusion the music of Joe K. Walsh expands reaches far stretching from that namesake. Don't get me wrong, Walsh can and does often times play straightforward bluegrass and is one of the most accomplished mandolinists in modern day folk and roots music but his ability to melt, mold and reshape the music into a form that he has defined through his own artistry is remarkable. There is an ease and comfort in the way that Joe plays and
Wilco “Schmilco” Album Review Album Reviews by Ken Templeton - September 16, 20160 Last year, during their tour, Wilco rearranged the stage for the encores into a setup for an all-acoustic hootenanny, trading the showmanship of their main show for intimacy. Pat Sansone said that it was their backstage rehearsals, which often followed a similar, small set-up, that inspired the approach they’ve taken with Schmilco, their tenth album. (I thought immediately of their tiny desk concert where Glenn Kotche made a percussion kit out of items on the eponymous tiny desk.) It’s an album that invites attention to the small sounds and lyrical precision that have long-defined Wilco as a band--a group that cares deeply about exploring the intersection of telling stories with sound and words, using both to evoke feeling, and encourage
All The Right Moves: Sara Watkins “Young In All The Wrong Ways” Album Review Album Reviews by Brian Carroll - July 8, 2016July 8, 20160 As an artist there is a large amount of change and metamorphosis that can be undertaken as you progress in your career. At least, for some of us this is the case. On "Young In All The Wrong Ways", singer-songwriter Sara Watkins has shed a skin in a sense and emerged in brilliant new colors and spread her wings to reveal a beautiful collection of introspective songs that have an edge and attitude that is both captivating and gorgeous. Watkins is probably most well known to many as one third of the progressive bluegrass band Nickel Creek. A band that shaped many folk-bluegrass musician's paths in the last two decades, but more recent years have seen her delving into other projects,