Angie and the Deserters – You

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/angieandthedeserters

 Third releases carry a certain weight. Many longtime music fans know that by the second or third album is when a band or solo performer finds the true range of their skill and delivers the fullest realization of their potential. Angie and the Deserters’ third recording You has six songs certainly showing that Angie Bruyere and her band have established a new level of excellence for their songwriting and musical performance alike. The good news is that there is no evidence they cannot and will not further develop with additional albums. Taken on its own and reflecting on previous releases, it is all but inarguable that You represents another entertaining leap forward for Bruyere and her accompanying musicians. These are songs that sturdily invoke tradition while completely rewiring the clichés and tropes for a new era and an individual experience.  

“Stay” shows depths and skills an emotive vocalist that Bruyere began hinting at with the previous release now fully bloomed. She caresses and slowly draws out the verses, playing off against the mandolin and guitar alike, weaving her voice through the creases of the song. There’s a beautiful artfulness to the construction of “Stay” that raises it far above the typical weepy modern country radio fare. There’s authenticity and real emotion. The same qualities make “Forgetting to Forget” equally memorable, but this song moves a step beyond with its exceptional lyrics that make use of tradition for greater purposes than tribute. In some ways, the song is reminiscent much more of outlaw country ballads with its deeper emotions than classic country from an even earlier era. “You” has a light-footed, graceful movement thanks to its time signature and Angie Bruyere takes great advantage of the waltz tempo to give an unusually emotive vocal. The theatrical aspect to the performance never undermines its credibility and instead helps make the unhappiness of the lyric softer and less grievous.  

We are back to first principals with the next song “17 Days”. This is one of Angie and the Deserters’ most respectful nods to traditional country crossed with a slightly rambunctious honkytonk edge. Her vocals clearly relish the song’s mix of personal imagery with many of the popular totems of American song – the highways, the empty beds, the taste of regret. It’s never too heavy handed, however, and the loose limbed approach from the band makes everything quite enjoyable. “When the Nighttime Comes” has its roots veering much closer to rock music than anything preceding it, but Bruyere and the band use it as a stylistic affectation rather than ever allowing it to drive the train. They layer the stringed instruments in with the addition of acoustic guitar and mandolin, but the crowning achievement of the song comes from Bruyere. She sings this just right, playing to the song’s need for atmospherics without ever crossing the line into the sophomoric and overwrought. It’s the last dramatic zenith on an EP packed with memorable moments. Angie and the Deserters have scored big with You.

9 out of 10 stars.  

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/AngieDeserters 

Charles Hatton

The Von - 3nity

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/TheVon4U/ 

Few power trios escape the leaden thud so common to the configuration like South Florida’s The Von. The band has established a great and growing reputation as one of the best young rock bands on the scene since their 2013 formation and their second recording, 3nity, solidifies that growing standing with a loosely threaded conceptual work that never forgets to entertain its audience and rocks out with conviction. None of the album’s songs run over four minutes in length and the opener is especially brief, but these are songs that lack nothing. Instead, they contain sonic multitudes and exhibit a stunning combination of finesse and power. The production is another notable strength – there’s a big sound here driven by intimacy. The Von sound like they are playing in a crowded, hot, and sweaty club sometime before last call and still in full flight. 

“I Know It’s Love” is the EP at its power pop best. It bears mentioning that the type of power pop The Von brings to bear is considerably more powerful than average entries in that realm. Bassist Luis Bonilla and drummer Elisa Seda form a powerhouse tandem in the engine room, but they bring great fluidity together with their sheer sonic force. The practically acapella beginning kicks things off in an unusual way, but it doesn’t sound out of place at all. The Von are quite talented at making the music breathe and leaving artfully shaped and chosen spaces of silences in the song that added a lot to the listening experience. 

“Nature of the Beast” is the EP’s high point as The Von delivers a swinging knockout with a fierce guitar attack and meaty rhythm section work that makes the breastplate rattle. This is a perfect example of the observation made in the first sentence – The Von’s performance here is hard hitting, but never immobile. The lyrical quality here, as elsewhere, is very high – they never lean too heavily on standard tropes, only just enough to create some resonance for the listener. The song title, for instance, is a loaded phrase with multiple meanings for many people and engrained in our cultural lexicon. It’s a mark of highly intelligent songwriting.  

The final cut on 3nity, “My Heart Machine”, gives us a glimpse of the band’s affinity for psychedelia. It’s more of a genre hybrid than it is a straight bit of psychedelic music, ala Hawkwind or other similar “space” acts, and retains enough hard rock credentials to make labeling difficult. Bonilla delivers his most nuanced performance yet on vocals – he brings full throated fury to bear in some passages while showing a seamless ability to lean back and concentrate on relaxed phrasing. It’s a wildly successful conclusion to this EP and achieves all of its effects honestly rather than relying on cheap pandering to the listeners. The Von never indulges themselves too much and maintains a resolute focus on delivering maximum effect with little visible strain. 3nity is a memorable effort. 

9 out of 10 stars

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thevon4u/

Montey Zike

Stefanie Keys - Open Road

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/stefanie.keys.5/ 

California based vocalist par excellence Stefanie Keys’ third album Open Road is the peak of her recording career so far. The ten songs included with this new release are a deceptively ambitious group of compositions that doesn’t necessarily experiment, but it certainly explores virtually the full purview of Americana music with a wide open spirit and impeccable chops. The songwriting doesn’t attempt to remake the wheel but instead begins with the fundamentals and builds from there. She isn’t afraid to move from a gently rendered acoustic track into a slow burning and muscular soulful rocker. Credibility and confidence alike come from every song. The album has superb production that gives it a spacious quality while still surrounding it with the right amount of musical weight.  

The title song starts the album on an excellent note. She’s obviously a patient performer and songwriter on this release, content to allow songs to develop organically, and never attempting to force the song’s potential to bloom too fast. Her vocal phrasing is dramatic and attempts to fully embody its imagery and storytelling aspects. “3 Hours Till Yesterday” is one of Open Road’s cleverest bits of songwriting, but it doesn’t crassly announce itself or pander. The same energetic but careful confidence electrifying the earlier songs is present here as well and the band’s inspired response makes the song even better. Her storytelling talents as a lyricist come to the fore on “Sleeping Lady”, but it reaches high musically and makes a sonic impact as well. Her penchant for a well-assembled song comes through here too. Few listeners will expect the late turns it takes, but they will be happy they came along for the ride.  

“City Life” is an immensely stylish outing, but it isn’t all gloss and no substance. Keys’ musical cohorts turn in their most nuanced performance yet and create a deeply felt and bluesy landscape for her voice to inhabit. The slowly unwinding, even stately, quality propelling “Cold Day” forward is quite appealing and Keys’ writing skills shine through once again. The vocal effects applied to Keys’ singing in post-production might not appeal to some, but others will undoubtedly find that they add much to the song’s mood and narration. “Highway To Your Soul” is one of the album’s most convincing and rugged tracks. The solid base the band gives Keys to work from allows her the chance to let loose her most passionate vocals yet. Open Road’s highest point, lyrically and musically, comes with the character-driven track “Amos Crain”. There isn’t a single other moment in these ten songs when vocalist and musical arrangement come together in such a simpatico fashion.  

Open Road ends gently with the track “9 O’Clock”. There’s a lovely effect achieved with ending the album this way – it works as a final, emphatic period on the album’s overall coherence of mood and theme. Much of Keys’ work is centered on character and voice and this last song embodies those strengths quite well. Her third album is truly a moment when it all comes together for this great singer and songwriter.

9 out of 10 stars  

I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/open-road/id1147422456

Gilbert Mullis

Josh Birdsong - Simple Geometry

URL: http://www.joshbirdsong.com/ 

Everything has changed. If Billie Holliday or Hank Williams Sr. returned today to survey the modern music world, they would understand little. Even songwriters achieve prominence in vastly different ways than before. The idea, even thirty years ago, that young men and women could pursue high level college degrees in the art of writing popular song was unthinkable. It is now par for the course. Birdsong has been academically honored for his musical talents by the University of Michigan, Belmont University in Nashville, and has garnered awards for his lyrical talents. These laurel leaves give Birdsong a burgeoning reputation as a bright young talent that his debut EP, Simple Geometry, will only further burnish and expand upon. The five songs making up this first release show Birdsong isn’t ever confined to one style and approach. Instead, he is an open-ended conduit of his own talent who feels an obvious freedom to touch on different styles and approaches in a single song as well as the entire recorded work.  

 Everything has changed perhaps, but maybe for the better. We have more sources now. It’s hard to see these particular developments as a bad thing when you hear a song like “Unspeakable”. Despite our familiarity, as listeners, with things like effects-laden guitar, the see saw struggles between men and women, personal transformation, this song sounds truly new. Much of the responsibility for this comes from Birdsong’s distinctive approach to his instrument and how he completely merges his vocal with the arrangement. The dynamics of the first two songs owe much to the classic build for rock songs – new sounds are introduced along the way and, by the time the song moves past its mid way point, the full band is working at top volume. “Drive” is a much more relaxed effort, comparatively, but there’s great energy here despite that difference in moods.  

Birdsong returns to the winning formula of the EP’s first two tracks for the fourth, “Why?”, but he can’t resist twisting the template for the better. This is a more dramatic outing than either of those earlier songs thanks to the underlined focus on contrasting muted passages with much busier sections. Birdsong sounds completely at home here and that confidence enhances the song overall. Simple Geometry concludes with the solo performance “You and I”. This is Birdsong at his most vulnerable, armed with only his voice and an acoustic guitar, and he proves himself every bit as able to believably carry this sort of material as he proved to be with the earlier performances. While the lyric’s subject might not be particularly new, Birdsong sings with such passion that you’d be forgiven for thinking he’s the first guy to ever sing about relationship issues.  

Simple Geometry is part of a new paradigm. With songwriters emerging now in such a wide variety of ways, the music is deepening and reflecting those diversities of background. The intelligent and literary presentation here on Simple Geometry never comes into conflict or otherwise undercuts the musical value. Josh Birdsong’s talents are formidable and we only get a tantalizing taste here.  

9 out of 10 stars.  

YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/user/JoshBirdsongMusic 

William Elgin III

Alex Di Leo - So We Go

URL: http://www.alexdileo.com/ 

After the break up for South Florida mainstays Wyld Fly, Alex Di Leo didn’t lay fallow. The results of the interim since their dissolution are fully heard on his debut solo release So We Go. This six song EP is a collection focused, in equal parts, on the basic elements that make a great pop song along with a strongly individualistic bent that twists his obvious influences in unexpected directions. Di Leo has clearly listened long and hard to modern acts like Fleet Foxes, Coldplay, and others of that ilk, but he’s learned different lessons than most from the attention paid. The songs on So We Go bristle with youthful energy and confidence, but the instincts shaping the EP’s art belong to a much more developed sensibility. Di Leo wants to impress us with So We Go and, by that measure; the release is a resounding success.

 Di Leo bravely starts things off with the title song. It’s a dramatic, expertly plotted piece of musical theater thanks to Di Leo’s eye for expansive sonic textures. Even though the songs rarely exceed four minutes in length, they feel much wider, bigger. Di Leo generates impressive energy on the EP’s second song “Making It Easier”, but the real highlight of this track and others cut from the same cloth is the skillfulness with which he manipulates emotion through movement in the music and seesawing back and forth from a full-on musical attack to passages much more lean and stripped back. This approach reaches one of its peaks with the third track “Reason”. There is a fair amount of Di Leo’s heart-stirring pop theatrics rising to the fore here, but it’s the sincerity and individuality of the piece that truly makes the deepest impact.  

Another of the EP’s peak moments arrives with the song “When We First Met”. It’s hoary but dependable subject matter for a pop song, forever resonate, but Di Leo expresses his narrative in language all his own and the sonic vocabulary has a totally modern slant that will, nonetheless, appeal to older listeners as well. Di Leo’s songwriting does a superb job of alternating dramatic and muted sections on the EP’s penultimate song “I’ve Been Waiting”. The positive point of view dominating the lyrical content continues here, but like elsewhere, it’s never a Pollyanna interpretation of adult life. Instead, songs like this underline the bittersweet interludes we all face while promising ultimate happiness and/or resolution. The EP’s closing number “Waking Up” is the crown jewel in So We Go’s crown. It’s almost classical in its ambitions despite the relatively mundane running time and has a bevy of layers, both lyrically and musically, for listeners to explore. Di Leo could have scarcely concocted a better closer and So We Go would have strained mightily to be any better than it is. This is as fine of a debut as you’ll hear this year and the future is boundless for Alex Di Leo’s musical future.  

9 out of 10 stars. 

I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ive-been-waiting-single/id1154525156 

William Elgin III

Juliet Huns - Behind the Scenes

URL: http://www.juliethuns.com/

Behind the Scenes is a great title. The three songs on Juliet Huns’ debut album do take listeners behind the curtain of her heart and reveal to anyone listening an artist of great passion and skill. She is a singer with a wide emotional range; her voice traverses a path from passion to playfulness, determination, and soulful reflection. She is accompanied by a bevy of keyboard and synthesizer sounds that never strike listeners as having been constructed thanks to their warmth and the lack of omnipresence in the mix. Some performers in this area rely too much on those artificial sounds at great expense to the songwriting or else fail to achieve an interesting balance with broad-based appeal. This Kenyan born performer never sounds foreign to our experience and the material on Behind the Scenes will resonate strongly with anyone who has a beating heart. 

The first song “Realized” is an ideal way to begin the EP. It’s the closest thing to straight pop song that you’ll find on Behind the Scenes and shows her authority with this sort of material is absolute. Huns’ phrasing and her confident trajectory are the stuff that distinguishes veteran performers, but she brings a surplus of energy to her vocal that sparkles with youth. Even the relatively bitter experience related by the lyrical content never turns into drudgery with her skillful voice manipulating the lines for maximum dramatic impact. The traditional pop elements at play here help immensely in putting the song over, particularly the effective crescendos marking the song at its midway point and near its conclusion.  

“Gone” bears some resemblance to the opener, but Huns marshals different sounds to make her point. The quasi-guitar lines, courtesy of the wealth of electronic instruments employed on this EP, give the song a jaggedly edgy appeal. The chorus is probably the song’s high point and doubles down on the guitar-oriented sound with Huns delivering a very emphatic vocal. Like the other songs on Behind the Scenes, Huns never taxes her listener’s patience and keeps the running time well within the lengths of the typical pop track. 

Behind the Scenes concludes with “Red Line”, a song with many moods. The verses rely on a relaxed, laid back approach but the song has excellent dynamics that build those restrained passages into an assortment of memorably climatic moments before the final curtain. The imagery is a little unusual for a familiar subject, but it gives a pleasantly fresh spin to otherwise standard fare in the genre.  

Juliet Huns lays her heart bare over the course of these three songs. The synthesizer and keyboard work never deprive her voice of its humanity or musicality and complement it quite well. Behind the Scenes is a short release, but she never fails to explore a variety of moods and sounds to make it sound like a much bigger experience than its duration might otherwise suggest. We will be hearing more from Huns and, undoubtedly, it will continue to build on the stunning success she’s achieved here. 

9 out of 10 stars.

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/juliethuns

Michael Saulman 

The Good for Nothin’ Band - Maniac World

FACEBOK: https://www.facebook.com/thegoodfornothinband/?hc_location=ufi 

The ten song first release from New Orleans Dixieland jazzers and blues aficionados The Good for Nothin’ Band doesn’t confine itself to one or two narrow representations of these classic American forms. Instead, Maniac World veers across the full expanse of that area on the musical map and takes chances that lesser bands would have avoided. They are clearly as well versed in blues music as they are jazz, but the album only features a few nods in that direction. The addition of a trombone and trumpet player to these songs makes them take on new shapes, highlights melodies, and competes with vocalist Jon Roniger for a vocal role in the mix. It’s almost like the band has three vocalists and some of the most remarkable harmonies and counterpoints in modern popular music.  

The first song that will likely grab every listener by the lapel is the album’s second track “DNA”. The band’s writing flair gets a real exhibition here as they make outstanding use of the central metaphor and pull out impressive variations on it. It’s vocally dead on from the first line to the last and Roniger’s vocal only strengthens the inherent qualities in the lyric. The Good for Nothin’ Band raise a worthy racket with this song and the energy is palpable. The album’s title song, “Maniac World”, has a lot of musical style, but the lyrics don’t quite measure up because they are working within a tradition that the writing can neither transform nor transcend with the personal. Another school of thought is that this is solid songwriting for exactly that reason – it plucks on a resonant chord in all listeners./ The blues backing is very theatrical, sometimes a little heavy handed, but ultimately ideally atmospheric for the song.  

“Bosom of Extremes” steers back to a much jazzier direction, but the band’s touch remains light and distinctly melodic. Time after time on this album listeners will hear just how important the trombone and trumpet are for adding color to this album. “Romeo in Rags” is an acoustic based blues vividly augmented by the brass section’s contributions. Roniger really knocks his vocal out of the park here and it’s the album’s best blues pastiche yet. The closest the band ever comes to rock and roll comes on “Lips Like Candy” with its high energy level and an appropriately stirring vocal. “Snowing in New Orleans” is an incredibly percussive tune with a variety of pulses that the other players weave their magic around. The lyric is, likewise, quite good with its invocation of place so crucial to the band’s identity. It’s an excellent prelude to the album’s last song “One Last Call”. This is the long, deliberate goodbye that listeners deserve and it feels like one of the album’s more personal statements. There’s an almost perfect circular quality to this album, a sense of classical unity that’s difficult to achieve on a music album, but that’s what we have here. Maniac World is a fantastic achievement by any measure.  

9 out of 10 stars. 

I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/maniac-world/id1134959473 

Scott Wigley