Recorded live at the Continental Club in Austin last year, Are You Ready For the Big Show is Radney Foster’s fourth album since the dissolution of Foster & Lloyd back in 1991, and it’s a good move for him. While Foster has always been the consummate country/pop songwriter — literate, melodic, daring, emotional — he’s [...]

An intriguing match of outsider traditionalists, Duet For Clarinet And Goat pairs Golden Delicious/Hazel main man Pete Krebs with Danny Barnes, whose punk/grass/roots excursions with the Bad Livers truly pushed the envelope as to what could conceivably come under the trad umbrella. A relaxed, minimalist affair featuring Barnes and Krebs trading songs, Duet is permeated [...]

Austin clubhoppers and two-steppers fondly remember Chaparral for their magnetic live shows throughout the early ’90s at beloved (and long-gone) dives such as Henry’s and the Black Cat, among other nightspots. Dishing out a wonderfully pure brand of honky-tonk and Bakersfield country, singer Jeff Hughes and company helped reinvigorate a dormant Austin country scene. Though [...]

Records like this are enough to make you feel that maybe the world isn’t going to hell in a handbasket. After making a regional splash with a self-released album in 1998, relative Sacramento unknowns Forever Goldrush return with a revelation. These boys can write songs, and the whole vibe of Halo In My Backpack makes [...]

The fifth album from New Jersey quintet the Schramms is one of those hushed, muted affairs that requires a close listen, multiple close listens, actually, to fully appreciate all its subtle charms. Heard at arms’ length, 100 Questions sounds unsubstantial, with only the occasional lyric or rolling melody sticking in the craw. But up close, [...]

Jean Caffeine’s second solo disc since dissolving the All Night Truckstop some years back finds the Austin singer-songwriter moving further away from the cool-kitsch and nouveau-country stylings of her past, and delving unflinchingly into mature, caustic, hard-boiled songcraft. Where her 1997 disc Knocked Down 7 Times Got Up 8 bitterly mused on the verities of [...]

Heartfelt and pure guitar pop doesn’t come much better than Bitter Fruit, the first album in way too long by former Windbreaker Bobby Sutliff. His first release since the Windbreakers’ swan song Electric Landlady in 1991, it’s actually the second solo Sutliff effort; 1987′s Only Ghosts Remain may have vanished without a trace in those [...]