When we first heard from the Fiery Furnaces in 2003, singer Eleanor Friedberger revealed a dark secret. “The only thing I surely own,” she confessed on the New York duo’s experimental-blues debut, Gallowsbird’s Bark, “is a worried and troubled mind.”
Blueberry Boat is proof she wasn’t lying. With nearly every song a work of [...]

Their 2003 breakthrough release Alone At The Microphone earned Royal City comparisons to the Byrds, but the Canadian quartet has toned things down – way down – for its follow-up album. Lacking the bluegrass-meets-gothic feel of its predecessor (not to mention its obsession wit bodily fluids), Little Heart’s Ease plays like a coalescence of [...]

It’s a tale you can almost hear Garrison Keillor tell: Small-town Minnesota girl strikes out for the bright lights of Minneapolis, leaving folks back home to cluck and shake their heads. You heard about the Thompson girl? Yah, she’s singing in a country-western band down there in the cities.
In fact, that’s pretty much [...]

On its debut album, Sweetness & Dark, American Ambulance somehow found itself racing to the scene of a tragedy that hadn’t even occurred when they wrote their songs. “Towers up, a city so fair, shine like diamonds up in the air”, Pete Cendella sang on the album’s opening track. “People all scurry in [...]

Admirers of Jason Lewis’ writing and lead vocal work with the East Coast alt-country outfit Star City may well have been wondering what he’s been up to. This five-song EP answers that question well.
The tracks were produced and recorded by Lewis along with Jay Bennett, who also adds his multi-instrumental arsenal to Jason’s. [...]

Last year’s Country For True Lovers found Los Angeles chanteuse Eleni Mandell turning her sights on twang rather than her previous more PJ Harvey-oriented material, and she received plenty of critical acclaim in the process, sharing the LA Weekly 2003 songwriter of the year award with the late Elliot Smith.
On Afternoon, her fifth album, Mandell [...]

Ken Stringfellow’s follow-up to 2001’s Touched, bears the mark of consistent movement. A glance at the CD booklet notes reveals the various geographies Stringfellow’s schedule has found him in: The songs were written and recorded in Seattle, New York, Hollywood, Vancouver, Athens, Sweden and Paris. No surprise, then, that the record feels [...]

Liner notes must be presumed to have a commercial purpose, yet they can also be truthful. When Ron Thomason’s notes to this second self-release by one of bluegrass’ most beloved groups assert that Russell Moore’s singing “rises to the level where only a few giants have stood,” none but the most obdurate devotee of rough, [...]

It may make some of us feel suddenly just a bit older, but there’s a new generation of roots-rock bands showing up lately who call on us — sometimes very directly — to “try to remember” the joys of the straightforward roots-pop of Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, or even the Wallflowers. With the future of [...]