You would think, judging by the luckless, 100-proof subjects on this album, that Scotland Barr has seen the underside of the bar and the soul-crushing side of relationships far too often to have retained a sense of humor, let alone to have enough unpickled brain cells to recall more than a blurry kaleidoscope of disjointed [...]

Sez here singer-guitarist Nyles Lannon keeps several irons in the fire, serving as wing-man in Krayg Burton’s shadowy slowcore combo Film School as well as gleeping and beeping with techno vendors Technicolor. But never is he so much himself as when he works under his own given moniker. Lannon’s 2004 disc Chemical Friends offered up [...]

Boasting a top rhythm section, a do-it-all keyboardist, a charismatic female/male fronting duo — powerhouse belter Cindy Wasserman and guitarist/vocalist/harmonicat Frank Lee Drennen — this well-met group of savvy road vets gelled into a remarkably distinct, cohesive unit right out of the gate. Honey And Salt is ‘Big Sky’ western rock with an inside-country draw [...]

There is a serenity, a stillness, in Lucy Kaplansky’s work that almost deflects attention; it’s a quality that may have contributed to her being overlooked in the AOR/post-folk world of Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, et al. On her sixth solo outing since 1994, Kaplansky is joined by a core group of string wizards (Larry [...]

Probably too smart by half for his own damn good, William & Mary alum Scott Miller has straddled the cerebral and the visceral since at least his days with the Knoxville-based V-Roys. But while there doubtless are some “early-stuff-is-best” doorknobs who’ll steadfastly insist he cut his peak work with that fine alt-pop outfit, the Virginia [...]

Born in Argentina and raised in the SoCal Mexican barrio of Pacoima, Fernando Viciconte fronted hard-rockers Monkey Paw before relocating to Portland, Oregon, in 1994. His sixth disc (and first in five years) finds the singer-songwriter backed by an accomplished outfit including Chet Lyster and Derek Brown of the Eels and Paul Brainard of Richmond [...]

As with his brilliant, eponymous 2003 debut, Sweetheart is all Dan Reeder. The American expat provides all the vocals, writes everything (except the minimalist reading of Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade Of Pale” that closes the set), and plays all the instruments (which he either designed and built himself or rescued from the trash heap). He [...]

A steady, grounding, and somewhat ghostly presence on the midwestern blues-rock-folk scene for more than three decades, guitarist Bo Ramsey has etched an enigmatic career arc. He broke out as a frontman with a play-all-night outfit in the ’70s, then meshed heady singer-songwriter aspirations with elastic guitar moves (1991′s Down To Bastrop is an enduring [...]

Despite her deceptively girlish delivery, Mary Karlzen brings a mature approach to this diverse collection. Karlzen took a well-received walk-in-the-park with the majors on 1995’s Yelling At Mary (Atlantic), but her hard-to-pigeonhole approach lacked radio traction, and she slipped out of the mix. Now a wife and mother of two, she returns with a stylish [...]