Author: Mark Guarino
Record Review from web archive April 8, 2009
Maria Taylor
For her third solo album, Maria Taylor walks the furthest she has from the slo-mo melancholy of indie duo Azure Ray. The departure summons comparisons to Mary Lou Lord, Freedy Johnston and other songwriters who carried the flag for folk-minded popcraft in an era when grunge insisted on everything loud and shaggy. LadyLuck would be [...]
Record Review from web archive February 18, 2009
Eleni Mandell
Musical shapeshifter Eleni Mandell is a cult favorite among lounge lizards; her coolly detached vocals and sly humor are well-suited for late nights and ready cocktails. Artificial Fire, however, drags her sound from the dark recesses of the corner bar and into the daylight. For a songwriter who is celebrated so much for her live [...]
Record Review from web archive February 15, 2009
Marykate O’Neil
Titling this album Underground is the equivalent of Wall Street bankers pulling out their CBGB T-shirts on Memorial Day weekend in the Hamptons. Marykate O’Neil, a Boston music vet now based in New York City, incorporates as many East Village references into her fourth album to earn credibility among couture thrifters, yet the resulting songs [...]
Record Review from web archive January 28, 2009
Fiction Family
The fact that Hear Music, the label which keeps the front counters at Starbucks littered with CDs, was the initial home to this debut collaboration signals what’s in store: sunny folk-pop that goes well with caffeine and the Sunday paper. But Jon Foreman and Sean Watkins demonstrate deeper into this album that they have far [...]
Record Review from web archive January 21, 2009
Ben Nichols
Only fools try making a movie from a Cormac McCarthy novel, which is why, forthcoming screen treatment of The Road aside, not many have tried. Similarly, a song-cycle drawn from the enigmatic writer’s world is no small feat. Ben Nichols chose to base this disc’s seven songs on Blood Meridian, McCarthy’s lore of western gore [...]
Feature from web archive December 18, 2008
Judson Claiborne’s journey to his own roots
In the suh-un, the group harmonizes, In the su-uh-uh-un. Dollops of sweet guitar bend to the floor, like a Stax house band fatigued after recording until dawn but not yet ready to call it a night. The music lazes as if drifting from a front porch in August, the only shade across a horizon of [...]
Record Review from web archive December 5, 2008
Gary Louris
There’s little surprise that Gary Louris could make a solo album superior to or at least comparable with the seven albums he recorded with the Jayhawks. The band’s seventeen-year career required more the endurance of a marathon runner than of an afternoon jogger; successive lineups faithfully maintained the brand name even as the audience for [...]
Live Reviews from web archive November 17, 2008
Drive-By Truckers/Hold Steady
You can make yourself dizzy thinking of ways the Drive-By Truckers and the Hold Steady are similar, because each reason will ring untrue. It just may be that the only thing connecting these bands is their audience: you know, the beer-slugging collegiate types now suffering adulthood who appreciate the underdog passion of both bands, even [...]
Record Review from web archive November 2, 2008
Donavon Frankenreiter
Surf-rock used to mean Dick Dale and the Ventures, who were known for gonzo guitar instrumentals that replicated the rush of riding the waves in the midday sun. Now, with surfers-turned-soul-men Jack Johnson and Donavon Frankenreiter, the term is more about sipping light beer under a beach umbrella. Frankenreiter stays under shade for this third [...]
Feature from web archive October 29, 2008
Lambchop still believes in the old, weird Nashville
Kurt Wagner has led a life in music for a couple of decades now, but one thing he had never tried was something most songwriters do after learning their first three chords: Perform solo. “I steadfastly tried to stay away from that,” he said. Understand the reason: This is the lead singer of Lambchop, a [...]
