Honest to Goodness: Tyler Childers’ “Country Squire” Cuts Deep Album Reviews Music Features by Brian Carroll - August 2, 20190 "Oh the days are dark down in the holler / Waiting for the sun to shine / On the back you've been breaking / Trying to earn peace of mind " I'll do my best here to not regurgitate what has already been said about Tyler Childers' music. Another 'savior in the saving of country music'...you know, things like that, do of course, carry a large amount of truth and weight to them in respect to the singer songwriter. Such a statement is pretty damn bold, but if you have experience his music and felt "that thing" that creeps up your spine when the first crackling breathe of fire leaves Tyler's mouth, you know how much water it truly holds. But
First Listen: Erin Cassels-Brown “Dreamin’ On Overdrive” Album Reviews Music Features by Brian Carroll - August 2, 20190 From the first note Cassel's-Brown shatters my idea of what his music has been and has grown and evolved to be. 2017's Northern Lights EP was heavily carried by a more lo-fi feel, a strummed acoustic guitar driving the rhythm forward and only one of the tracks having that shit kicking, country swing that pairs so sweetly with his emotive vocal style. It was poignant, a bit quiet overall and let the words bleed out just a bit more until that last track, which was perhaps a signal of what was to come...on this latest release we get thrown right into the fire and the Vermont based singer-songwriter is holding nothing back. We lean in hard with punchy drums and electric
Heartfelt Heartache: Joshua Black Wilkins’ “Valentine Sessions” Album Reviews Featured Album Music Features Reviews by Brian Carroll - February 21, 2018February 21, 20180 I'll spare you the obvious comparisons of JBW's latest release. After listening to the album just twice through already, it is evident it is a collection that deserves to stand on its own merit. An offering of songs recorded just a week ago and released today. The process of which procured a sparsely recorded grouping of songs, a moment captured in time versus a meticulously arranged anthology of words and noises...and the songs are better as a result. Where in many cases, a situation such as this may falter as a result, but so is not the case with 'Valentine Sessions'. Wilkins voice and writing are at their zenith here and on display, fully. The confidence and grace that he sinks
Fresh Tracks: The Bean Pickers Union “Caterwaul” Album Reviews Featured Album Music Features Reviews by Brian Carroll - July 14, 2017July 14, 20170 Sad songs make me happy. I am not sure what the logic is behind that, but there is something in hearing some sort of sorrow in a song that makes me feel alive and human in some way. Bean Pickers Union frontman and songwriter Chuck Melchin writes songs that strike that nerve with me more than most are able to and whenever I receive a note from him saying he has something new rumbling, I drop everything I am doing to dive into the abyss and just let myself steep there in the coffee stained smoke of his narratives. Its been 10 years since the release from the collective that made me an immediate fan. 2007's Potlatch broke my heart
Fresh Track: Chris Capaldi “Hands” Album Reviews Music Features Uncategorized by Brian Carroll - June 23, 2017June 23, 20170 Another record coming from our dear friends down at Dirt Floor in Connecticut, Providence based songwriter Chris Capaldi releases a 7 song collection of rootsy, finger style acoustic driven tunes that are both benevolent and spirited. Capaldi sings in almost a whisper at times. His voice has a certain delicate quality to it. It is a bit soft in delivery, rolls off the slight cello bowing in the background and trickling acoustic guitar notes. There is a tenderness to the track "Hands" buried in the middle of the EP. The singer lets his vulnerability show in this tune, but its not necessarily a flaw in any fashion. An openness, an honesty are prevalent in his voice. The arrangement isn't over the
Album Review – Chastity Brown “Silhouette of Sirens” Album Reviews Music Features Reviews by Ken Templeton - May 23, 20170 Chastity Brown’s latest album, Silhouette of Sirens, is fierce. When I say that, I mean that it’s reflective of a whole range of emotions--heartache, vulnerability, anger, longing--that, taken together, develop a sense of honesty and strength that runs through the record. She is the type of singer who can perfectly match her vocals to the emotional depth of the lyric and melody, airy and light one moment, raspy and powerful the next. “Drive Slow,” the first song, sets the tone for the album, with Brown wringing out the chorus: “Drive slow, I don’t really want to miss. / What is even happening? One can only guess.” The instrumentation on the song varies from a full band to just a fingerpicked
A Sepia Sky: Pete Mancini’s Foothill Freeway Album Reviews Music Features Uncategorized by Brian Carroll - April 25, 20170 Pete Mancini is a bit of an enigma. In Foothill Freeway he steps off on his own and where his band Butcher's Blind evoked feelings and sonic landscapes of early Wilco and the 90s alt-country movement, before Americana was a broad stoke genre, Mancini infuses a whole slew of his own inspirations and influences into these songs. Steeped in that same roots-root palette, weeping pedal steels and all, but with tinges of pop punk embedded in his vocal inflections and early inspired inkings of The Band and Dylan that seep their voices into his solo sound. On songs like the title track Mancini paints a sparse landscape with a light acoustic strum and a pensive vocal weaving the tale's as swooping fiddle
Tug At Your Heartstrings: The Brother Brothers Tugboats EP Album Reviews Music Features Reviews Uncategorized by Brian Carroll - March 31, 20170 There is this space where very few songs live. That perfect balance between light and lonely sadness that flutters your chest a bit and when you close your eyes to listen to it you can feel your throat start to clench up a bit and your eyelids dampen ever so slightly. That is where the songs of Adam and David Moss live. That perfect place where emotion runs freely and unapologetically. Beauty thrives and a bit of sadness isn't a bad thing. Over the course of my short time knowing the music of The Brother Brothers I feel like I have gotten to know these songs fairly intimately, in live settings or on the old Youtube but the recordings on the
Fresh Tracks: Clever Girls “Loose Tooth” EP Album Reviews Music Features by Brian Carroll - March 8, 2017March 8, 20170 Burlington, VT based "Clever Girls" may not be completely made up of females, but front gal, singer and guitar slinger Diane Jean is as badass as they come in the current rock n' roll landscape. The trio just released a new EP titled "Loose Tooth" today, a 5 track grungy collection of attitude and emotion that hits hard...but hits so damn good. The title track kicks in hard with a "1, 2, 3, 4"...evocating of my first rock show, eliciting emotion and memories. There is a sort of nostalgia when I listen to these songs. Melodic guitar lines ring out, but hit the distortion pedal at just the right moments to take you somewhere else completely in the song (and your
Hail, Hail Rock n’ Roll: Ron Gallo’s Heavy Meta – Weighty, Heavy & Much Needed Album Reviews Featured Album Music Features by Brian Carroll - February 8, 20170 A couple of years ago the roots, rock and folk realm was filled with release after release of "holy shit this is the best thing I have heard" type records being sprung forth into the world, and our ears. Jason Isbell's Southeastern started a pattern in which you could write introspective, deep and poignant songs but still play rock n' roll guitar and have the words hit home just as deeply as if there was a sorrowful, lonely acoustic slowly picked under the lyrics. It's been a while since another one of these records has come along. I have been craving another record like that, with soaring riffs but writing that cuts deep below them. 2016 was dotted with a