Author: Luke Torn
Not Fade Away - Reissue Review from Issue #53 Sept-Oct 2004
Dream Syndicate – Ghost Stories / Dream Syndicate – The Complete Live at Raji’s
Ah, the curious case of post-Days Of Wine And Roses Dream Syndicate. The Los Angeles quartet’s 1982 full-length debut was a stunning opus of crazed guitar shrapnel, phenomenally intuitive ensemble playing, and singer Steve Wynn’s wiser-than-his-years songwriting. Like Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade, Days Of Wine And Roses not only sent shockwaves through the American underground [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #45 May-June 2003
Minton Sparks – This Dress
Steeped in the minute details of life in the south, Nashville poet Minton Sparks picks up here where she left off on 2001′s Middlin’ Sisters: smack dab in the heart of rural America of indeterminate vintage. There’s a matter-of-fact fatalism in Sparks’ flat, nasal readings of the songs — really, they’re spoken word pieces with [...]
Not Fade Away - Reissue Review from Issue #45 May-June 2003
Warren Zevon – The First Sessions
These four discs represent the first, tentative steps at getting Warren Zevon’s back catalog in order. Wile it’s nice to have this material available again, it also represents, disappointingly, a series of missed opportunitiesFirst things first: The First Sessions is a true archaeological dig, and places the teenage Zevon smack dab in the middle of [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #42 Nov-Dec 2002
Steve Forbert – Any Old Time: Songs Of Jimmie Rodgers
Jimmie Rodgers’ body of work, some 100-odd tracks culled from a recording career cut short by tuberculosis, cannot be overestimated. Artists through the years, from 1997′s tribute platter of heavy hitters (Bob Dylan, Dwight Yoakam, Van Morrison) to perhaps the best of the lot, Merle Haggard’s epic, heartfelt 1969 double album, Same Train, A Different [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #42 Nov-Dec 2002
Domino Kings – The Back Of Your Mind
You might expect a band that sheds a key songwriter, in this case bassist Brian Capps, to lose a step, to go all fuzzy for awhile. Not so with Missouri honky-tonkers the Domino Kings, whose third album throws down the gauntlet to like-minded outfits on just how to delve directly into the heart of the [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #40 July-Aug 2002
Nathan Hamilton – All For Love And Wages
Centered around acoustic guitars, plenty of pedal steel flourishes, and the occasional off-kilter harmony vocal from fellow Texan Leeann Atherton, Nathan Hamilton’s second solo album hangs its hat on rugged authenticity and individualism, and of the strength of its storytelling and working-class roots. Like Robert Earl Keen, Slaid Cleaves, and perhaps a dozen other like-minded [...]
Town and Country - Shorter Artist Feature from Issue #40 July-Aug 2002
Cave Catt Sammy – Revitalizing rockabilly
The last thing you might expect to spring, fully formed, from the suburban high school environs of San Antonio is a greasy rockabilly band. The Alamo City is much more notorious for keeping heavy metal dinosaurs like Ratt and Great White in business than for contributing much to the authentic rhythm-bound rebel-rousing sound that arose [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #38 March-April 2002
Troy Campbell – American Breakdown
It’s been five years since the Loose Diamonds — Austin’s genuine link between its heady, 1980s indie/roots-rock days (think True Believers) and its contemporary status as alt-country haven — decided to suspend their career. Since then, guitarist Scrappy Jud Newcomb has proved to be a jack-of-all-trades on the Austin scene, collaborating with countless artists onstage [...]
Not Fade Away - Reissue Review from Issue #37 Jan-Feb 2002
Gene Clark – Gypsy Angel: The Gene Clark Demos 1983-1990
By the turn of the 1980s, ex-Byrd Gene Clark’s glory days were dwindling fast. Despite three good-to-dazzling mid-1970s solo albums, the major-label crash-and-burn of McGuinn, Clark & Hillman in late 1979 (after such a promising rebirth just two years before) signaled a retrenchment for Clark. By the time he hit the comeback trail, the majors [...]
Waxed - Record Review from Issue #36 Nov-Dec 2001
Gene Parsons – I Hope They Let Us In
The curious career of Gene Parsons stretches back to the mid-1960s, when, with guitar legend Clarence White, he founded the woefully under-recorded proto-country rock outfit Nashville West. Later, he was a key member in both the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, and recorded two critically acclaimed solo albums in the ’70s. A talented player [...]
Shop Amazon by clicking through this logo to support NoDepression.com. We get a percentage of every purchase you make!
