The Sighs – Wait On Another Day

 

The Sighs – Wait On Another Day  

URL: http://www.thesighsmusic.com/  

The Review: Massachusetts bred The Sighs has one of those sounds that’s familiar but yet you can’t quite put your finger on him. The closest I could place it would a cross between The Beach Boys and The Beatles without the rock n’ roll bombast.  

The Sighs are finally back with their highly anticipated third album, Wait On Another Day which really took a decade or so to come to fruition. The result is a rich musical stew, with ingredients from righteous power pop rock to heavy riffs and everything in between.  

The CD starts off with “It's Real” an explosive opener painted with gloomy vocal harmonies, threatening lead guitars and likewise menacing drum and bass lines. Track 2 “Words of Love” follows through nicely, moving from the angsty roars from the first single with captivating guitar lines and psychedelic undertones. The first 4 tracks really show how well these cats can really play outside the a-typical Pop embellishment of today, bringing some of that magic that made this genre so amazing back in the days. Speaking of nostalgia, "Summertime Roses" smells like Oasis everywhere, bringing those layers that made Brit Pop so great. Slowly but surely you are introduced to inviting baritone voice via more great music. As you may realize by now, this is really an album that enjoys diving into different eras of Rock music. From time to time, the record also shows great depth on the writing, they aren't exactly very meaningful but catchy in the way other classics used to be by sounding familiar, commercial but never manufactured. You feel there's a life, a soul behind those lyrics. As I listened to these songs over and over again, I noticed how fluid all of the arrangements really were. The whole CD moves from one moment to the next, one transition /track to the next. And despite the lack of ‘jolting moments’ to catch you off guard, all of all the tracks manage to grab your attention with its often gentle, lighthearted style that changes when you less expected. 

Most good pop songs have what I call a “sweet” higher tonal registry within the melody. While LaRoche never hits those big notes, the vocal work never feels odd. Though I would have loved the band take some risks. It sometimes feels like they were playing it too safe.  

“Wait On Another Day” by The Sighs rounds out an exceptional 11 Track CD presentation delivered by a talented group of musicians and songwriters who has definitely honed their craft over the years.

RELATED ARTICLE: http://austintownhall.com/2017/07/10/the-sighs-return-for-third-album/  

Jamie Russell 

Bunny Sigler – Angel Eyes

 

Bunny Sigler – Angel Eyes 

NAPSTER: http://us.napster.com/artist/bunny-sigler/album/angel-eyes 

Bunny Sigler dates back a long time as a producer and recording artist, from the Philly soul variety of R&B to all this time later crossing over to jazz with the release of Young At Heart. The first single is “Angel Eyes” which covers the Ella Fitzgerald song. His name should ring bells because he’s been working with artists like Curtis Mayfield and others since he started. This album combines R&B with jazz and the single is wisely chosen to show how well he pulls it off. There is no question the answer is yes. And that says everything about his effort to remake something with integrity. This isn’t something to turn your nose up at, it’s the real deal, so if you’re expecting a run of the mill rendition, think again. The video should be seen to further entice readers of what a beautiful version it is. The audio stands more important but sometimes a promo goes the distance too, with some great scenery to keep it interesting. But don’t let it distract you from the bigger picture. This is best experienced on headphones, so watching the video with them is recommended. Otherwise make sure to give it a listen without looking. You can hear the smoke with or without seeing it.

If you like his work this will come as no surprise, and it can turn anyone onto Bunny Sigler as well. You get everything with no added ingredients to muck it up. A male version she would be proud of, and that’s part of the magic of this whole experiment. I am a huge lover of songs with the mention of menu items, so I have always liked the track but he seriously takes it to another level. Not to say that is above the queen of jazz, but certainly no slouch himself, even if he is new to straightforward jazz. It sounds like he’s been doing it all his life though, so it’s in his blood already.  

 

The coolest part about his voice is the low register parts, it’s truly gifted how he goes just about everywhere on the map as well. The vocal performance itself is something to marvel at alone, and that should be the case when taking on someone so strong. Sometimes you want to go even higher or lower because the memory of the song is so powerful you overdue it on a cover, but he never overdoes it. When a song is mesmerizingly hypnotic in the first place it has a laid-back vibe that can take being in the mood to get used to. But not this, it’s on from his first breath. It never loses interest from there.

What more can you say about such a classy song and classy singer. It should be heard far and wide, and the album should get airplay if the rest of it is as extraordinary as this. Lovers of both jazz and R&B music can relate better than most, so the album should satisfy his fans and this single should whet plenty of appetites and lift every spirt that hears it. This is where two worldly legends meet, one of them alive or not. If it doesn’t pump your blood for more, the LP won’t be for you. But if-not you’ll get everything out of it that you put into listening. His grand signature is written all over it with jubilance.  

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/18yNSvSs6xgeOz8sEXPNt4

Mike Tabor

Weatherboy

 

Weatherboy 

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

Employing guest musicians working alongside them like no less than Grass Harp’s iconic guitarist Phil Keaggy, multi-instrumentalist Ragnar Rosinkranz and artist John Walquist ten song debut collection as Weatherboy ranks among the most compelling debuts in a commercial genre over the last five years. Let’s be honest however – despite the melody, glossy surfaces, and vocal beauty exhibited here, there’s very little that you’ll hear on Top 40 radio. Weatherboy has musical muscle to bring to bear as well as a sense of personal mission not campaigning for any cause but that of communicating their inner most thoughts to the audience in all its forms. The lyrics are an underrated part of the overall package – they are rather personal in nature and, thus, retain a little obscurity, but they communicate through image in such an impactful way they enhance their musical landscapes. Everything here is framed for maximum effect. 

 

When you hear the vocals boasting about the good thing they’ve found in the opener song “Got a Good Thing”, it doesn’t come off as ham-fisted or insincere and listeners experience a similar effect with the second song “Great Great Life”. These two opening songs practically demand to be taken as a tandem and, having done so, they make a marvelous impact thanks to how well and unpredictably they weave brass, guitar, and rhythm section playing into a fluid and hard-hitting whole. “Riding on the Wind” is cut from a different cloth. Weatherboy temper their more pronounced pop inclinations in favor of something much more atmospheric and understated in comparison to earlier performances. The variety of colors at their disposal doesn’t sound readily exhaustible/ :Some more cynical listeners might be immediately suspicious of a song entitled “Good Morning LA”, but the duo’s aim is true as they pour out with a good natured song dedicated to the City of Angels. There’s more than a little melancholy coming out of this track belied by a friendly, good natured vocal. “Bennett” has a number of impressive musical ideas and some truly gut-wrenching and inspired vocal passages on an album brimming with such moments. 

 

“Eva” is nearly pure unadulterated folk given only a slight pop spin thanks to the vocal and its evocative modern production. It seems outright simple compared to “All Your Fault”, a raw yet expertly dispatched meditation on competing emotions that the duo gets over quite nicely with some memorable contributions from Phil Keaggy. It sets up the album’s final tracks in a decisive way. “Home Fire” and “Full Bloom” are, largely, low key affairs, but the latter tune is particularly effective as a closer and the marriage of piano and voice alone stands in sharp and remarkable contrast with the album’s earlier performances. Weatherboy is a remarkable project by any standard, but the fact they are coming out of the gates with such quality and intelligence to burn suggests they may have remarkably brilliant dawns ahead of them as a partnership. This is an exceptional debut.  

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/weatherboymusic 

Wayne Toole

Sam Baker – Land of Doubts

 

Sam Baker – Land of Doubts

RELATED ARTICLE: http://www.folkradio.co.uk/2017/07/sam-baker-land-of-doubt/ 

Following a European tour behind his new album, Land Of Doubt, Sam Baker is turning his attention to creative projects in 2017: Opening his first-ever exhibition as a visual artist, staging an original play and filming a documentary. As you may know, Sam has limited hearing after being on a bus that exploded during a 1986 terrorist attack in Peru, but he’s from Texas, now living in Austin. There’s a lot more bio to cover on him but the album has 15 songs and they’re all worth talking about on one level or another. This is his 5^th album since launching his music career, and he’s now expanding his reach by writing a play called Broken Fingers, filming a documentary and staging an art exhibition (Dream Of The Snow Geese) in Santa Fe, NM. And this album which serves as a companion to 2013’s Say Grace, starts off with “Summer Wind” and it quickly passes with some nifty guitar parts into “Some Kind Of Blue” which kicks up into high gear in the songwriting department.

A serious war number with everything he’s got behind it to really pull off a top shelf song, and that is honestly what it is, nothing more to really explain except to recommend headphones. You won’t be sorry you listened, especially if you like a narrative approach to the army about Charlie fighting Charlie. It goes through all the gnarly mud to be held in the trenches. You’ll have to just hear the rest for yourself. The instrumental “The Silvered Moon” is up next and it’s a quick set up for what comes next in the form of “Margaret” which gets tagged the token love song. And this is where it gets a little soft but bounces back after you get through it.

“Love Is Patient” is an otherworldly thing worth waiting for, so anything could come before it and not have any worries. This is my favorite song by Sam Baker, and I wouldn’t have looked past this album if it were not for this amazing opus. Nothing on the album is composed quite like it, in fact nothing out there I’ve heard lately sounds so majestic and real. It’s a fake world of a little of everything, and music is no exception. It’s a breath of fresh air to hear something from so far out in left field. I’m glad I heard it and kept looking-into his work. It should hold up in my playlist for a long time coming. The track already feels like it has that much resonation quality.

“Leave” is almost a complete 180 in contrast, but not a complete loss as a song to enjoy after that. It just never quite picks up until it threatens to at the end, but he makes his message perfectly clear in the lyrics. “Pastures Fit For Thoroughbreds” and “Song Of Sunrise Birds” are two more instrumentals, the former being the longer and more enjoyable sounding of the two, and a lot more interesting as well. This isn’t your grand-daddy’s jazz, but it isn’t exactly modern either. It falls somewhere in between the two. And “Peace Out” gets the last word in edgewise, which is by far one of the most modern moments on what is an amazing collection of modern folk songs.  

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/sambakermusic

Randy Jones

bd Gottfried

 

bd Gottfried 

MP3RED: http://mp3red.me/37514877/b-d-gottfried-breakaway.html 

“Something You Weren’t” begins a show that if didn’t have a few turns could be the product of a progressive rock play of sorts. But I’m no expert on this artist, so, call it what you want but it has a storytelling feel about it. There is a looseness to some of it that veers off the beaten path sometimes, and that is why it goes both ways as an album. You’d have to know him enough to know these things, but anyone can get either impression just by listening to it. There is no question he is a crafty songwriter and excellent musician and singer. But the opening track doesn’t encapsulate everything he’s capable of. The second track “Crosshairs” doesn’t either, but it’s a bit more progressive and even has a more aggressive energy to it. And while not being new on the block, that is where it gets testy for any veteran solo artist. He’s done some heavy studio session work in his career, and a lot of his own albums, and while his maturity shows, his spirit remains youthful in this song, with a wise lyrical effort to round it off. This has both a modern and a retro sound and you can pin point where it might be coming from or not. I found it to be one of the more interesting tracks, whether-or not it holds any accessible interest. “Blame It On The Money” is somehow better in both departments, but perhaps a little on the mainstream side for this album. If there are a lot of familiar rings on this album, this has one of them wrapped around it. The problem is I can’t remember where I heard it, but that won’t be his problem. It works on that strength alone for me, but there are better instances to give on tracks like the following “Frequencies” which tones it down a lot. It could be the sleeper track of the album, as it bubbles along nicely enough for jazz to mark a turning point. It’s good enough to call it at least that vital of a point. 
 

“Eye Of Time” is my favorite, but that could change with time, as several of these tracks are growers. But the drums pick up here on what is-actually more like a ballad, than a rocker of any kind. That’s why the drums play such a great role on it and make it worth the whole price of admission. I also recommend “Breakaway” as my second pick, and I find it likely the most accessible track too. “Incarnation” doesn’t float my boat as well, but it helps pull off yet another big moment in the finale which is “SOS with an IOU.” It takes the album out more like it should’ve come in. And that can’t be bad. 

YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoFuRRHCOEA

Todd Bauer

John Elderkin and ¡Moonbeams No Mas!

 

John Elderkin and ¡Moonbeams No Mas! - The Fall and Rise of John Elderkin and ¡Moonbeams No Mas! 

URL: https://www.moonbeamsnomas.com/ 

You won’t hear another release like this in 2017. John Elderkin has surrounded himself with a cadre of top shelf of North Carolina indie musicians, a virtual all-star roster of regional talent, in order to pull off this sprawling seventeen song collection entitled The Fall and Rise of John Elderkin and ¡Moonbeams No Mas! and they are more than capable of aiding him in realizing his wild ambitions. This is a tribute of sorts and testament to the effect David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust exerted over Elderkin’s imagination, but it is also a monumental riff on that classic album that finds Elderkin re-envisioning its impact on him with a distinctive individual artistic point of view that moves this far away from mere imitation. It’s a collection rich with characterizations, a love for the musician’s life coupled with some jaundiced humor at its pratfalls, and undeniably intelligent from first note to last. 

 

The first full song on the album, “We Waited Five Years”, is one of the album’s direct references to Ziggy Stardust and embodies the aforementioned wont of Elderkin’s songwriting to mix pathos with dashes of smirking humor. A truly singular voice comes from this recording – it bears some marks of modern influences, but everything is so seamlessly transmuted through Elderkin’s personality that it renders such observations mute or meaningless. “Song for David Bowie” might prompt some listeners to believe it’s another in a long line of heavy handed, but well meant, tributes to the Thin White Duke, but this song takes on a much larger scope beyond merely paying Bowie his due and patiently unfolds into something quite memorable. It confines itself to acoustic guitar and vocals for much of its duration before expanding in the second half to include electric guitars and forceful, slightly uptempo drumming. “Gather Your Strength” has some gritty electric guitar and a steady march tempo with Elderkin’s relatively sweet, clean vocals offsetting the dissonance from the instruments.  

 

“Don’t Look Straight Into the Sun” is, arguably, the most guitar heavy song on the album and features some particularly blazing axe work in the second half. It has an ambitious scope that finds Elderkin and his collaborators moving through an assortment of textures and tempos as well as including more of the evocative lyrical content that contributes to this being such a memorable release. “Get Back in the Van” is a band on the road song quite unlike you’ve likely heard before and has one of the best opening lines of any track on the album. Elderkin’s vocal gets over the storytelling aspects of the song in a gripping way that ensures even listeners who have never been in a band will relate to its sentiments. There are two instrumentals, “Teletar” and “A Trip to the Moon”, that set up the album’s climatic number “Give Me Your Hands”. It’s a surprisingly low-fi conclusion to a grandiose album and has the same hazy, dream-like ambiance defining many of the other tracks. It ends the release on a satisfying note and ties everything in quite nicely. This is, as the review began, a truly unique release unlike anything else you’ve heard in recent history and well worth your time and money.  

CD BABY: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/johnelderkinandmoonbeams 

Joshua Stryde 

Suntrodden III – a Mood-Pop Experience

Suntrodden III – a Mood-Pop Experience  

BANDCAMP: https://suntrodden.bandcamp.com/album/suntrodden-iii  

Suntrodden III, the latest EP from Atlanta, Georgia based musician and songwriter Erik Stephansson, is a delightful experimental journey through mood and sensation using the vehicle of lo-fi recording and minimalistic composition. The collection opens with “There’s a Place,” which is a melodic and optimistic song, with a bit of a somber edge, reminiscent of some early R.E.M. tracks crossed with deep cuts from the latter years of the Monkees. The layering of instrumental movement and lyrical musing mesh beautifully to create a song that captures the very essence of a bittersweet attempt to exist encompassed with another person. It’s a truly beautiful tune that is inspiring while still being a bit sad.        

The next track in this collection, “Pure,” is musically reminiscent of Radiohead’s commercially successful, critically acclaimed, and some might argue, cornerstone hit, “Creep.” However, Stephansson takes a very similar series of notes and arrangement and drains it of all bile-self-loathing, and pain, instead infusing it with an infectious joy, which is guaranteed to bring a smile to any listener’s face. Where, “Creep,” is a declaration of degradation, “Pure,” seeks a brighter answer to similar existential doubt and fear. This is possibly the most radio-friendly tune in the entire collection, but still manages to communicate some interesting ideas above and beyond the basic pop formulae, despite its eminently familiar feel.          

“Moonflower,” the next track in this collection, takes a more somber turn. Though retaining the smooth and relentlessly airy melodic nature of the earlier tracks, “Moonflower,” seems to be the first track in the collection that dwells in the darker end of the emotional spectrum. The opening half of the song dwells in the darkness, relying on a deep piano melody to drive the song forward through a murky and reflective place. The vocal quality of this song remains in a more upbeat, poppy sort of register, but lyrically the song owns its reflective nature, making for a beautiful juxtaposition of sound and meaning. After the breakdown, the song evolves into a repeated, anthemic declaration.         

Track four, “Never Again,” brings the collection back to an upbeat place, and definitely owns a clear Beatles/Monkees trip-pop feel.  Musically, it is easily the most complex track thus far, but retains a memorable melody that will stay with you and keep your head bobbing.          

The final track, “The End (Haunt Me)” is an emotional and musical tour de force, revisiting the various instrumental, emotional, and lyrical destinations previously touched on in the album. Through the entirety of this track, Stephansson displays his unique prowess in acting as an emotional tour guide, bringing the listener on a brief, but enjoyable musical journey reminiscent of some of Lou Reed’s finest work.  

All told, Suntrodden III is a deft display of songwriting prowess from Erik Stephansson. The use of lo-fi recording techniques, extant, real-world instrumentation, and a limited number of takes per performance show through in the final product as a raw, emotional piece of art. The effort was well worth it, and the care taken in the crafting of this EP is clear in the final result. I give Suntrodden III an enthusiastic 8 out of 10 stars, and highly recommend it!  

CD BABY: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/suntrodden3 

Travis Legge