Category: Folk (Page 5 of 23)

Susan Cowsill: Lighthouse

July 23, 2010 /


RIYL: Eva Cassidy, Jackson Browne, Shawn Colvin, The Cowsills

Susan Cowsill’s second solo effort, Lighthouse, is a deceptive album. On the surface, it’s a collection of heartfelt, pretty songs sung by a woman whose voice is rich with texture and soul. Especially when listening through headphones, you get a real sense of how wonderful her voice must be when heard live in a small setting. When you sit down to listen to Lighthouse, the first two or three songs lure you in for what should be a pleasant experience. However, once you get midway through the CD’s twelve tracks, Cowsill’s limitations as a lyricist begin to become apparent.

The singer/songwriter deals with some heavy themes on this record. A majority of the songs were written after the death of her two brothers, during a period that followed the wrath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated Cowsill’s home in New Orleans. Cowsill tries to fill each song with a sense of spirituality and optimism that is refreshing, yet her delivery and her lyrics are so earnest that the whole album starts to wear thin. Think of it as neo folk alt pop emo; taken in small doses it’s nice to the ears, but an entire album’s worth may lead you to whip the CD down the driveway.

Still, there are some great songs on Lighthouse. “Avenue of the Indians” features a fine guest appearance by Jackson Browne – Cowsill’s voice is lovely when singing harmony; a beautiful cover of Jimmy Webb’s “Galveston” is near perfect; the title track is an aching, hopeful prayer made delicate by Jack Craft’s piano and cello playing; and “ONOLA” is a hell of a show of strength and loyalty to her adopted city of New Orleans. In fact, when backed by a full on, rocking backing band, as on “ONOLA,” Cowsill’s urgency comes across much better. If only she’d chosen to bear her soul with more hard driving songs instead of ballads and Lighthouse would have been much more memorable. (2010, Threadhead Records)

Susan Cowsill’s MySpace Page
Purchase Lighthouse through Amazon

Americana, CD Reviews, Folk, Pop

Me, Myself, and iPod 7/14/10: Set phasers to chill

July 14, 2010 /

esd ipod

Note to self: never go away for the weekend. Had 160 emails waiting for me when I got back. Ugh.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – Vocal Chords
Fans of Robin Williams comedy album Reality, What a Concept surely laughed out loud when they saw the name of this Detroit band (“Oh no, Sammy Davis Jr. Jr.!”). For a city known for its no-nonsense rockers, this tune is remarkably sunny and airy, a lot like many were expecting the most recent Vampire Weekend album to sound like.

SAADI – Bad City
Sounds like an unfinished Curve track. That’s not a bad thing, in our book.

Here We Go Magic – Casual
Ooh, dreamy. Perfect post-rave chill music. I bet the Magic Numbers like these guys.

New Collisions – Dying Alone
After my beloved Tribe stalled on their way to world domination, I never miss the chance to pimp a Boston band, especially if it’s a female-fronted five-piece, just like Tribe. Oddly enough, this group may be coming 20 years after Tribe, but this song sounds like it was recorded roughly five years before them. (Read: it’s new wave-y.)

Neon Indian – Psychic Charms (Apache Beat remix)
As Otto said when he watched Bart play his drums “Hardest Button to Button”-style on “The Simpsons,” “Ooh, trippy!”

Lower Dens – Hospice Gates
Bravely venturing into Mazzy Star-ish ambient guitar pop territory without boring me to tears. Well done, gents. That’s a compliment, seriously.

S. Carey – In the Dirt
Bon Iver percussionist makes solo album. Pitchfork wets themselves. And while I live for resisting anything that can be remotely classified as hipster, this is pretty. Very pretty, in fact.

Alternative, Ambient, Artists, CD Reviews, Dance, Downloads, Electronica, Folk, Hipster, Pop, Rock

Indigo Girls: Staring Down the Brilliant Dream

June 29, 2010 /


RIYL: Brandi Carlisle, Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin

Throughout their 20-plus-year career, the Indigo Girls have maintained not only their integrity as songwriters, but they have managed to consistently produce music that pierces the hearts of their listeners. While the music industry may have forgotten about Emily Sailers and Amy Ray, their loyal fans have stuck with them as they’ve branched out from an indie folk act to incorporate blues, Americana and straight-up rock and roll into their sound. While the sound may have changed, one thing that has remained intact after all of these years is the Girls’ immaculate harmonies. They still sound pitch perfect and as beautiful as they did the first time we all heard “Closer to Fine” back in 1989.

On Staring Down the Brilliant Dream, the group’s new double-CD live album, those famous harmonies are front and center. Recorded during their 2006-2009 tours, there are 31 songs on this album, each hand-selected by the Grammy-winning duo. Those of you thinking that you could never sit through two CDs of the Indigo Girls, their acoustic guitars, and a concert hall full of their adoring fans, fear not; the Indigo Girls are accompanied by their killer band, with the band members filtering in as needed. Full band arrangements of “Shame on you” and “Fill It Up Again” are lovely examples of Ray and Sailers acting as expert bandleaders, while “Fly Away” and “Watershed” show that the Indigo Girls can still captivate a crowd with just two instruments.

Highlights on Disc One include the haunting “Ozilline,” a rousing cover of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, “ featuring guest vocals by Brandi Carlisle, and a superb rendition of “Kid Fears,” with Three5Human lead singer, Trina Meade, taking the Michael Stipe solo. This version of the song from their debut album rivals the original recording in it power. Disc Two highlights are the rollicking “Rock and Roll Heaven’s Gate,” the breathtaking “Fugitive,” and the great ‘fuck off’ song, “Become You.” Sound quality on Staring Down the Brilliant Dream is outstanding. The clarity of the vocals and the separation between the instruments gives you the full effect of being at the venue and hearing the Indigo Girls live.

Fans of the Indigo Girls are going to buy this album regardless of this review, but for those of you who’ve never experienced one of the Girls’ concerts, or for those of you who stopped listening to the group after their early ’90s heyday, Staring Down the Brilliant Dream is a fine way to become (re)acquainted with the band. (IG Recordings/Vanguard Records, 2010)

Official Indigo Girls website
Click to buy Staring Down the Brilliant Dream at Amazon


Alternative, Americana, CD Reviews, Concert CDs, Folk, Vocal

Luce: The Year We’ll Have

June 21, 2010 /


RIYL: Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, Ben Kweller

Not everyone quite gets the laid-back shuffle of acoustic-geetar-totin’ beach poets like Jack Johnson or zippity-bippity wordplay specialists like Jason Mraz, but that doesn’t stop them from selling tons of records and playing sold-out venues, does it? Tom Luce and his decade-old San Francisco-based band fit in that mold, and certainly could, with a bit of luck, take their mid- and up-tempo numbers to the masses, churning out the feel-good platters for the our beloved generation of peace-lovin’, hemp-wearin’, endless summer-celebratin’ kiddies to shake their tushies to year-round.

It’d be a shame, though, if his band’s exercises in featherweight groovin’ wound up overshadowing its true strengths. As we hear in this odds-and-sods acoustic EP, Luce (the band) can certainly build a solid backdrop for the wry observations and lovelorn sentiments in its songs. Folks outside the Bay Area might remember the band for the minor hit “Good Day,” which gets a cool walk-through here (though I miss the horns that punctuated the original). “Won’t Change a Thing” and the title track likewise get mid-tempo workouts, but it’s difficult to put a finger on what makes the performances sound so perfunctory.

That difficulty ends when one cues up the ballads on the EP, and a fuller, better-rounded Luce merges. Take the piano ballad-style reworking of the band’s 2002 track “Corner of the World.” On the original, Luce’s moving observations of life passing by get lost in a heavy-handed rock arrangement; left with just Tom Luce’s voice and bare but sympathetic accompaniment, the power of the lyrics comes to the fore. Same goes for “Willing to Try,” in which the band slowly builds behind a foundation of bare acoustic guitar, all serving the exquisite melody and words. The harmonies that lift “After Tomorrow” highlight the hopefulness of the lyric, and the slide guitar that fades in the outro is a perfect farewell.

The ballads on The Year We’ll Have make it worth owning (check out the Amazon link below or take the band up on its “pay what you want” offer, on its Web site). If Luce can play off the strengths they display there, they could be a household name one of these days. (Luce 2010)

Luce’s Myspace Page
Click here to buy The Year We’ll Have from Amazon.

Alternative, CD Reviews, Folk, Pop, Rock

Against Me!: White Crosses

June 9, 2010 /


RIYL: Fugazi, The Weakerthans, Anti-Flag, Needless Exclamation Points!

Against Me! was accused of selling out by many of their “fans” when word came out that they were leaving indie label Fat Wreck Chords for major label Sire. It was a stupid claim (more on that later), one that was deflated even more by the fact that New Wave, the band’s major label debut, was by far their best release to date. It was a blistering burst of band’s trademark semi-acoustic punk rock that some even claimed would be “The Next Big Thing.” And while that never came to pass, it was a damned good record that sold pretty well, which is probably the most a rock band can hope for nowadays.

Against_Me_01

Now there’s White Crosses. Old-school fans hoping for a return of the raw, acoustic punk of the band’s early work are going to be bummed. Newer fans hoping for another pack of well-written, tightly produced pop-friendly (but not pop-punk) rock songs to accompany the band’s 2007 masterpiece will be even more disappointed. White Crosses takes everything that was great about New Wave and pushes it too far. Against Me! really does sound too polished and too “mainstream” this time around. Any edge they had left on New Wave is way past long gone now. That in itself isn’t horrible, but even if these songs were stripped down to singer/guitarist Tom Gabel and an acoustic guitar, they still wouldn’t be very good. No hooks, no catchy melodies, and with rare exception there aren’t even any lyrics, always the band’s strong point, that stick around in your head moments after the first listen. What makes the band’s sudden descent into mediocrity even more frustrating is that the album starts out great. First with the killer title track and then with “I Was a Teenage Anarchist,” a perfect dis track against those who accused them of selling out in the past. Sadly, with White Crosses, those same fans don’t need to accuse Against Me! of selling out anymore, they can just (accurately) accuse them of being boring. And that’s even worse.

A quick afterward on what selling out actually is: Crafting a polished and tightly produced record isn’t selling out. Many times what people consider to be “raw” is really just bad production and amateur recording equipment; contrary to popular belief, most artists don’t want their albums to sound like shit. Signing to a major label isn’t selling out, either. The only difference between Sire Records and Fat Wreck Chords is that Sire is better at what they do. Given the chance, Fat Wreck would love to be rolling in dough just as much as the big guys. So what is selling out? How about releasing two versions of your album, a standard edition with a scant 10 tracks, and a “limited” edition that costs a few bucks more with four additional tracks. And then making that version a “deluxe” edition on iTunes by adding in an acoustic version of one of the tracks that’s “exclusive” (but not really, it’s on the single) to iTunes. There’s nothing that says Against Me! has to be against making money, but considering they’re built on a foundation of left-wing, anti-capitalist viewpoints, they should really know better than to pull crass crap like that. Next thing you know they’ll be doing horrible reunion concerts at corporate festivals, pretending like they still hate that machine they’re raging against. (Sire 2010)

Against Me! MySpace Page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Emo, Folk, Punk, Rock

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