RedBelt - Beautiful Surround

RedBelt - Beautiful Surround 

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

RedBelt sure loves uptempo punky rockers. Their first release, Beautiful Surround, is packed with an assortment of souped up ragers that come flying out of the gate and hit listeners like a jackhammer. They have a strong melodic streak that keeps the song popping and jumping from the first note on and those melodic strengths are a compelling juxtaposition with the fiery attitude that they manifest. Half, at least, of the songs on their debut utilize this approach, but there’s nothing wrong with that. The band’s debut is likely a little too long for even the relatively short length of the album’s individual tracks, but they keep the energy level dialed up throughout and longtime fans of rock and punk alike will find much to like about their sound. This four piece from Milwaukee, Wisconsin brandishes considerable musical firepower from the first song on and their signature mix of three part harmonies and melody augmenting the songs clearly reveals them to be a band who hopes to be around for years to come. 

“American Mercy” is the album’s first high point. This is an impressive confluence of punk, melodic rock, and straight up classic rock. Lead guitarist Mike Mann proves time and again on Beautiful Surround that he could lift any rock band up with the fury and skill he has as a player. He has an excellent partner on the instrument with second guitarist and lead singer Kevin Brown. Brown’s voice is more than adequate to handle these songs single-handedly, but the addition of two other backing singers, Mann and bassist Ricky Ganiere, only further strengthens Beautiful Surround. “Shoot It All the Time” brings slide guitar and acoustic into the mix. These additions alone help the song stand out from the remaining dozen, but Brown’s vocal and the thunderous rhythm section performance give it even more muscular grit.  

“Sweet Release” is one of the hard-hitting punk rock songs on the album and has a skeletal power that explodes at crucial points and peaks nicely at various points during the song’s length. The intensity dies down a little for the song “Cold”. It’s the most obviously melodic effort on Beautiful Surround, particularly its vocal melody, but it doesn’t give up any of its gravitas to achieve that effect.  “30 Seconds”, unquestionably, is the most raucous reference to alternative and punk rock on the album. It clocks in at just under three minutes and there’s no wasted motion at all in the band’s efforts to hit their audience right between the eyes. “Throw Away” is their most fleshed out, fully developed effort in this area and nicely incorporates alt-rock, classic, and punk rock posturing in a single song better than any track before or after. The final track “Hard Light” doesn’t lean as heavily on Mann and Brown’s axe work and, instead, the rhythm section ends Beautiful Surround with a different sort of intensity than what the band has offered us on the preceding tracks. The album could be a 2-3 songs shorter for an even greater impact, but RedBelt are going to linger in memories regardless if they overreach a little here.  

8 out of 10 stars 

SPOTIFY:  https://play.spotify.com/album/2a5lfbgAHWZeMb4UmmyCVj?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open 

Robert Fulford

Jemima James - When You Get Old

Jemima James - When You Get Old 

BANDCAMP: https://jemimajames-tl.bandcamp.com/album/when-you-get-old 

Jemima James’ album from Team Love Records, When You Get Old, has been released with a companion piece, her thirty seven year old intended debut At Longview Farm. It’s instructive to compare the two albums. Both albums have a lot of musical credibility they derive from their command of traditional American music, but they put that knowledge to work in distinctly different ways. At Longview Farm is a product of its era more so than When You Get Old – besides the fact that there’s a bevy of instrumentation employed on the first album that is missing from her follow-up, the production wholeheartedly encourages listeners to hear both works as emerging from completely different contexts. At Longview Farm’s ten tracks are musically substantive, but they are also clearly geared for radio play. The thirteen songs on When You Get Old, however, have a sound and approach that signals they were truly written and recorded for no one else by Jemima James. She presents them in such a way, however, that those who share her tastes will find it well night impossible to not admire them as well.

She opens When You Get Old with its title song. While there’s a wealth of autobiographical musings in this song, there’s an abundance of humor as well. It isn’t jokey or punch-line oriented; instead, James conveys the darker humor of the piece through her vocal delivery and phrasing. The music has a deceptively light-hearted bounce as well that belies the song’s more serious subtext. She uses organ on “Magician” to further flesh out the color in its quasi-waltz time arrangement, but it is her voice and lyrical content working with the arrangement that really makes this song a success. The sleepy slide guitar stretching out over the even-tempered shuffle fueling “If I Could Only Fly” underplays the yearning at the heart of this song, but James really does well with weaving seemingly contrasting elements in a song into something lucid and credible.  

The tempo picks up some on “If It’s the End” and some of the darker humor present in songs like the title cut returns here. James gives this song a much straighter delivery than the earlier track and the music certainly doesn’t attempt approximating or exceeding the jauntiness of the first song, but the sighing with a smile resignation in the lyrics is difficult to ignore. Harmony vocals make a significant contribution to When You Get Old and few songs benefit more from their use than “Bats in the Belfry”. The same lazy bluesy feel surrounding the earlier “If I Could Only Fly” is strengthened further on the song “One and Only” along with some tasteful brush drumming that gives the track a consistent, but never overpowering, pulse. James ends When You Get Old with “Nothing New” which somehow manages to be a little moodier than the earlier songs while still affirming life before she exits. It is, for all intents and purposes, a solo performance sans any sort of double-tracked or harmony vocals and, like the rest of this album, James carries it off with subtlety and panache.  

9 out of 10 stars 

I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/when-you-get-old/id1164766266 

Shannon Cowden 

Martin X. Petz - Broken Man

Martin X. Petz - Broken Man 

REVERBNATION: https://www.reverbnation.com/martinxpetz 

The best songwriters resist pigeonholing. It might be easy for the uninformed to give Martin X. Petz’s latest full length album Broken Man a single listen and slap an ill-fitting label on it as faith-based or intended for adult oriented radio play. The source and appeal of this nine song work, however, is much broader. These are songs that attempt to dramatize Petz’s own interior struggles, but they just as often look outside the confines of self and connect wonderfully with facets of our lives that, undoubtedly, resonate with a wide swath of potential listeners. His lyrical content avoids inaccessible or high-flown moments of pseudo poetry, but make no mistake that Petz isn’t a superior writer when compared to many of his contemporaries in the field. There’s great intelligence and literacy driving these songs. He emerges from this album not just as a gifted songwriter and musician, but as a storyteller with a voice that’s an ideal vehicle for communicating with his audience. 

The title song incorporates a full band, but their touch is light. Petz keeps this track clipped and doesn’t waste a word or note, but the atmosphere of the song keeps the energy level at an engaging medium. It’s a credit to his songwriting skill that Petz never lets things get too overwrought, but his plain-spoken depiction of despair will be an affecting listening experience for many. “Noble Blues” takes on some of the full band trappings heard on the first song but tempers them somewhat. The result is a much more intimate approach for the song’s first quarter before Petz opts for ramping up the musical stakes during the remaining duration. The album’s third track “Fall” is constructed around a tasteful half shuffle tempo accentuated by understated drums. His vocal shows all of the care and sensitivity for phrasing apparent on the album’s first two songs and there’s some tasty lead guitar here as well. 

A classic count-in opens “Heart & Home” which, as the title implies, celebrates the connections that sustain our lives. The arrangement is full of the sound musical decisions and compelling playing that characterizes the album as a whole, but it does more than that. The song has a great uplifting swing that picks listeners up and keeps them engaged throughout the song. “Count” reaffirms the virtues that guides much of the album’s songwriting with a clean, uncluttered track primarily centered around Petz’s evocatively recorded vocals, his guitar, and light percussion. “They Say (You’ll Know)” has much of the same breezy confidence heard on the album’s best songs and a light shuffle pace that keeps things moving without ever forcing them along. Broken Man’s final song, “Chained”, has much of the same musical focus characterizing earlier tracks like “Count” and relies on intimacy to make its case to the listener.  

There’s deceptive simplicity here, but Petz is a songwriter who realizes the virtue of a song having no more than it needs to get its message/point across to the listener. The nine songs on Broken Man do not pretend to remake the wheel artistically – instead, Petz is a fine product of the singer/songwriter school of popular music and excels at giving his audience entertaining musical material along with substantive words that will reach and touch many hearts.  

9 out of 10 stars 

CD BABY: http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/MartinXPetz

Lydia Hillenburg

Django Mack - ‘Round Christmas

Django Mack - ‘Round Christmas 

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

Music devotees are familiar with the customary glut of Christmas music releases that has long been a staple of the business. It’s usually a safe bet. The better performers choose top notch material and put it over with all of the skill and technique that’s helped them to build successful careers. No one questions the sincerity of such efforts. It’s entertainment and serves a purpose. Sometimes, however, an artist doesn’t restrict themselves to sentimental and hopeful invocation of the season. Django Mack’s latest release, a single entitled “’Round Christmas” is a heavy duty lyrical drama with an elegant, slightly ghostly performance from sharp collaborators who play to Mack’s voice well while never neglecting the arrangement. It’s accompanied by a bonus track called “Big Black Dog” that highlights Mack’s talent for shifting gears.  

The single has persistent and precise drumming without ever cluttering things up with too much percussion. It’s illustrative of one of the central qualities present in Mack’s music. His memorable vocals never attempt biting off anymore than they can chew and the musical backing never attempts to overshadow his role in the performance. “’Round Christmas” hits listeners with the gloom more or less from the first line on and Mack doesn’t bother with allowing the audience any sort of release. The release comes in the form of often beautiful guitar work accompanying his vocal and the delicacy of their performance is another of the track’s highlights. The effects surrounding the lead guitar give it an assertive side when required and the song peaks at just the right times.  

His lyrics for the track will definitely capture the attention of first time listeners who appreciate that sort of thing. Some of the lines and rhymes alike are a sort of inevitability that marks the best songwriting and never seem forced. Like his vocals and the arrangement, Mack doesn’t waste a single word in the songwriting process and everything sounds tuned for maximum effect. 

The second song “Big Black Dog” is a funny romp, but it has musical value. Mack is in high-spirited form from the first line on and his vocal locks in really tight with the vibrant, energetic piano that’s pushing the track forward. Mack has some great backing singers working with him on this song too, but he uses them lightly and thus makes the presence all the more memorable. It’s a great song because it shifts the mood of the release so well, but more so because it shows off Mack’s ability for excelling with very different styles within the same wheelhouse.

This isn’t just some novelty tune for the holidays that you quit playing by December 27^th. “’Round Christmas” traffics in much more serious emotion than those sort of songs and has the sort of sharp-eared music that suggests he wants to write and record music that invites multiple listens and more. “Big Black Dog” is every bit as entertaining, albeit in a different mode, and makes a great match for the single.  

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/djangomack

Aaron Ellis

Kelly McGrath - You and Me Today

Kelly McGrath - You and Me Today 

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

Despite its painful subject matter, Kelly McGrath has returned with a new single that rates among the most beautifully penned numbers of the year. This harbinger from her soon to be released fourth album shows that her musical evolution is ongoing and that she continues improving with each successive release. This single is perhaps the best job of song construction she’s managed yet – “You and Me Today” has deliberate pacing and assorted passages that hang together nicely with the pleasant sense of inevitability. Experienced listeners will often recognize where McGrath is going musically but she gets there so artistically that it’s impossible to not enjoy the journey. She is nominally an Americana artist, particularly since she’s based out of an admittedly more cosmopolitan than ever before Nashville, but the reality is that McGrath is much more of a comfortable fit in the singer/songwriter school of performers with irrepressible commercial appeal.  

This is much more than some weepy overwrought tribute to her dead father. McGrath fashions some beautiful melodies to help depict for listeners her journey in grappling with the enormity of her loss and reflecting on the significance of the relationship with the man. Her voice reflects the miles racked up in dealing with these truths – it emotes beautifully, aching one moment, scaling great heights in the next. She plays her cards right with the phrasing as well and never renders a single line in the song in some cheesy, off-putting way. Her voice likewise shows how much she listens to the band’s performance. Her singing dovetails neatly into every musical movement and truly embodies what it means for a human voice to serve as one more instrument in a musical performance. 

Her lyrics could do for all of the Hollywood moments, the common images we would associate with this topic, but instead she takes on a more introspective tint while still peppering the track with a number of relevant details that help create a narrative. The song has a great running time to pull this off and never wastes the audience’s time at all waiting for payoffs that never arrive or fail to satisfy. The chorus is the song’s big top moment and it doesn’t disappoint, but even then, McGrath is clearly determined to do this song the right way and resists any urge for vocal showboating.  

Certain musical performances stand out. The guitar work on “You and Me Today” essentially acts as a second voice answering McGrath in an elegant quasi-call and response fashion. It’s the central way “You and Me Today” delivers its melody and, in the end, melody is the key to making this subject easier to handle. McGrath never cheats the listener though. This is a challenging track emotionally and shows Kelly McGrath has developed into a fully-realized artist unafraid to bare her pain in her art. 

NO7DIGITAL:  https://no.7digital.com/artist/kelly-mcgrath/release/you-and-me-today-5810335

Aaron Ellis

Jemima James - At Longview Farm

Jemima James - At Longview Farm 

I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/jemima-james/id5125882 

The album At Longview Farm was initially recorded by Jemima James in 1979, but was shelved and never released until now. Team Love Records is the label for James’ son Willy Mason and, following the release of his own debut, Mason began pushing label co-owners Conor Oberst and Nate Krenkel to investigate the possibility of releasing his mother’s long neglected collection. The ten songs on At Longview Farm have a wide ranging command of American popular music styles without ever overexerting in an effort to impress its audience. This isn’t a confessional album in the mold of Joni Mitchell’s earlier work, but instead shows great imagination in the songwriting that’s much more the wont of a storyteller than heartbroken poet. James gathered some great musicians to accompany her on this album and there are a number of tracks that are clearly intended to push outside the relatively narrow confines of the folk rock genre towards something much more commercial that, nevertheless, doesn’t pander to her desired audience. 

Those more commercial efforts, like the opener “Sensible Shoes”, “Easy Come Easy Go”, and “One More Rodeo” more often than not embrace uptempo energy to help put over their pop-oriented sensibilities. They never entirely abandon the folk music influence woven through her songs and while they make their concessions to the marketplace, in the form of catchy choruses for example, they retain great substantive value both lyrically and musically. Melody is one of the hallmarks of the collection and there isn’t a single track that doesn’t benefit from James’ skills in this area, but the musicians playing with her on this album are equally responsible for realizing its musical potential. Manifesting the necessary restraint to play simply and coherently isn’t always easy for well-versed and proud musicians, but the best technicians in the genre are those who serve the song first and eschew any ego trips. The stamp of this can be discerned on every track.  

There’s a solid storytelling aspect that defines many of the songs. “Havana Cigar”, “Jackson County”, “Billy Baloo”, and the final song “Water at the Station” are all full of simple, conversational elegance and flashes of real poetry thanks to her frequently deft use of imagery to make a point. They likewise gain much from her phrasing – there’s never a single passage on the album as a whole where James fails to sound completely invested in the moment. Her ability to make full use of her talents as an interpreter of Americana musical traditions helps strengthen the album as well. Tracks like the aforementioned closer, “Book Me Back in Your Dreams”, and “Precious Love” are all solidly rootsy affairs that always sound credible rather than studied recreations of old-timey tunes.  

Sometimes better late than never really has meaning. Fans of folk rock and singer/songwriter works will keep coming back to this over and over and finding new riches in the impressive array of songs James brought to this release. At Longview Farm references the long tradition of American popular music without ever being beholden to it and makes a personal statement that’s revealing and highly entertaining.  

9 out of 10 stars.

ALLMUSIC: http://www.allmusic.com/artist/jemima-james-mn0000321919 

Charles Hatton

Leo Harmonay - The Blink of an Eye

Leo Harmonay - The Blink of an Eye   

URL: http://www.lharmonic.com/

The Blink of an Eye is one of 2016’s best albums in the folk/blues vein. Much of it is powered by acoustic instruments, but that shouldn’t confuse listeners that the collection is some elevator music approximation or soft-pedaled imitation. Each of its ten songs are marked by unquestionable authenticity and are never content simply aping the genre basics. Harmonay, instead, consistently attempts expanding the vocabulary of the form with unexpected instrumental moments and novel turns on tradition that never sounds out of place in this context. He has an unique vision for traditional music that reflects his personality and experiences in a way that few performers of this style manage in the modern era. There’s no self-indulgence here either and Harmonay’s voice is quite up to the task of retaining the listener’s attention over the course of The Blink of an Eye’s ten songs.  

“Up to You” starts The Blink of an Eye off with a blues song. It isn’t some clumsy or hamfisted attempt to summon the form’s expected turns but, instead, takes on the style with surprising ease. The personal desperation in the lyrical content never goes in for melodrama either and, instead, speaks with the same plain-spoken physicality that the drumming embodies in its bare bones approach. “River Dancer” has much more sophistication than the first song, but it isn’t radically different in tone and temperament from the other tracks. The same attention to detail that fuels the lyrics of songs like the opener is just as present in these more poetic-minded outings and the same unerring instinct for artistic taste stays just as steady here as elsewhere. The musicianship is quite high here, but naturally keeps its focus on remaining accessible to listeners. Backing vocals have a significantly positive effect on “Washing Myself Clean”, but it isn’t because Harmonay needs the singing help. Instead, the chorus of supporting voices gives the song a light suggestion of gospel that many will enjoy. He reins in his adventurous edge on the song “Wounds of Love” and gives listeners one of The Blink of an Eye’s most accomplished folk tunes. He backs it up with a sparkling vocal full of emotion and smarts.  

“Gone Are the Days” has a rough-hewn sound quite unlike many of the others songs and Harmonay’s vocals are more than up to the task of match its forcefulness. “Dirty River Town” is, like “Wounds of Love”, a pure and unadulterated folk song that doesn’t run very long but has an impressively complete feel and seems to encompass an entire world in less than three minutes. The album’s conclusion, “The Joy in Our Sadness”, is the most musically ambitious piece on this release and has a great lyric that speaks to the heart with clarity and just the right touch of poetic grace. It ends The Blink of an Eye on an elegiac note, but listeners won’t walk away disheartened. Despite its often rueful or sad demeanor, these are ultimately life affirming songs that Harmonay invests with gentleness, passion, and patient artistry.  

9 out of 10 stars

CD BABY: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/leoharmonay 

Aaron Ellis