Aging Young Fresh Fellow Scott McCaughey seems to be a guy with a lot of friends, and sometimes the lucky bastard gets to make records with them. Down With Wilco is the fourth or fifth album by McCaughey’s “other band” the Minus 5, depending on whether you count October 2000’s almost-live-in-the-studio In Rock, which was [...]

Eric Hisaw’s second album is edgy, straightforward and lyrically superior to his debut. The New Mexico native is at his best with basic Stones or Petty grooves on songs such as “Ain’t How It Was”, “First Time Again”, and the “Under The Moonlight”.
When he’s not roots-rocking, Hisaw crosses into dry country twang, but even [...]

Good young singers are a dime a dozen. The ones who create careers they are proud of, artistically, have something to say. On her debut disc, Heather Morgan delivers simple, direct songs in a voice that’s somewhere between Dolly Parton and a country Jewel, without losing its own distinctiveness.
Six Strings & Slow Backroads includes three [...]

Few tales bear such frequent retelling as the settling of the west, and Red Steagall has added his own handsome version to the treasure trove of stories with Wagon Tracks.
Taking on the persona of a young Irishman who leaves the security of home for opportunity and adventure, Steagall pushes through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, [...]

New York neo-folk ballad singer and writer Rebecca Hall has been winning compliments from fellow musicians Laura Cantrell and even Roger McGuinn for her updated take on mid-to-late 1960s pop/folk sounds. Sunday Afternoon, her second album, recalls in style the acoustic guitar and strings arrangements heard first on Judy Collins’ In My Life, then on [...]

Listening to Kip Boardman’s debut of piano-oriented pop ballads brings to mind several images: Harry Nilsson without the jagged edge, early Elton John with normal glasses, Carole King new to the Brill Building zip code.
OK, Upon The Stars is not quite Tapestry, but it’s a solid start for a singer-songwriter previously known for playing bass [...]

The old country meets the old west on The Rodeo Eroded for a Transylvanian cattle drive. With all the expansiveness of a Sergio Leone epic and the latent strangeness of a Tim Burton film, San Francisco’s Tin Hat Trio makes a sort of Baroque western music. By mixing jazz, cowboy music, classical, Eastern European folk, [...]

Though he didn’t truly harness its possibilities until 2001’s Roomsound, Califone singer and chief songwriter Tim Rutili (ex-Red Red Meat) has been steeping his strange brew of roots and rock for more than a decade. Now, however, his band sits at the center of something resembling a scene in its native Chicago, uniting local rock [...]

You might not be familiar with singer-songwriter Steve Von Till’s band, the post-apocalyptic metal outfit Neurosis, or their more experimental offshoot, Tribes Of Neurot, but no matter: It’s safe to say that Von Till’s second solo outing, If I Should Fall To The Field, bears little relation to either of them.
A spartan, gorgeous and unrelentingly [...]