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No Depression has been the foremost journalistic authority on roots music for well over a decade, publishing 75 issues from 1995 to 2008. No Depression ceased publishing magazines in 2008 and took to the web. We have made the contents of those issues accessible online via this extensive archive and also feature a robust community website with blogs, photos, videos, music, news, discussion and more.

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Record Review

Record Review from web archive June 30, 2009

Future Clouds & Radar

If last year’s self-titled debut album of Future Clouds & Radar was immediately accessible in places and bewilderingly opaque in others, this follow-up combines each side of leader Robert Harrison’s brain in every one of its eight songs. The melodies may not be as bright this time – there’s no “You Will Be Loved” or [...]

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Record Review from web archive May 2, 2009

Model Rockets

(Editor’s note: About a year ago, Model Rockets ringleader John Ramberg dropped me a line to let me know that the band was planning a small-scale reissue of this album, which came out in the fall of 1994. Ramberg had apparently appreciated a review I wrote of the disc which ran in the late, great [...]

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Record Review from web archive May 1, 2009

Tim Easton

Tim Easton plays and sings like an old man. For the record, that’s meant as praise, not a taunt. He often sounds as if he’s channeling any number of discovered-late bluesmen, as well as Doc Watson and everybody’s favorite great-uncle Bob Dylan (especially right after Uncle Bob went electric in his younger days). His voice [...]

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Record Review from web archive April 30, 2009

Nakia

Soul music. With its categories and subcategories – from northern and neo to country and deep – it can be a tough concept to pin down. You might want to rely on a variation of that classic method for identifying porn: you know it when you hear it. On the first half of this assured [...]

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Record Review from web archive April 29, 2009

Slaid Cleaves

There’s something sleight-of-hand-ish about Slaid Cleaves’ new CD. While thematically and even in mood, the songs reflect the album’s dour title, it’s impossible to listen to these tracks and not feel a sense of uplift and hope. Part of that optimism stems from Cleaves’ voice, a boyish, casual, slightly scuffed tenor that belies the Austin [...]

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Record Review from web archive April 28, 2009

King Wilkie

The King Wilkie of 2009 is not the same King Wilkie that heartened fans of traditional bluegrass with their youthful prowess five years ago. Nor is it the same King Wilkie that offered weighty, polished acoustic fare even a couple years back. No, this is, quite literally, a different band. Gone is most of the [...]

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Record Review from web archive April 24, 2009

Eilen Jewell

Eilen Jewell can brood with the best of them. As she pushes forth her way-down-but-not-quite-out tunes on Sea Of Tears, her third album, you can just about feel the scar tissue that has built up around her heart. You can almost see the fog rolling in around her. Jewell evokes the same knowingly dolorous spirit [...]

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Record Review from web archive April 23, 2009

Jesse Winchester

It’s been nearly 40 years since Jesse Winchester released his first album, a spare and loose-limbed masterpiece right down to the gaunt cover shot of the exiled Winchester giving the camera a haunted stare. Looking at that picture and hearing that record’s anguished songs of pained longing on, it was hard to imagine that Winchester [...]

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Record Review from web archive April 22, 2009

Webb Wilder

At first, Webb Wilder seemed like a novelty act. He wore the glasses and the suits, he had that basso profundo vocal trick, and his songs were a bit nonsensical. But seeing him perform live made it obvious that this was a man steeped in the traditions of rock, country and soul, and that he [...]

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Record Review from web archive April 21, 2009

Allen Toussaint

In an illustrious recording career spanning some five decades – as an artist, songwriter, arranger, producer – Allen Toussaint has never fronted a project anything like this. Containing only one vocal track, his latest collaboration with producer Joe Henry spotlights Toussaint’s bluesy elegance as a piano player. And in doing so, it leapfrogs over his [...]

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From the Blogs

  • CD Review - I See Hawks in L.A. "Mystery Drug"
    Cinematic and atmospheric Alt-Country After nearly 50 years as a music fan and 15 as a reviewer I still get excited about discovering new bands and having my breath taken away by songs and tunes that I’ve not heard before. I was aware of I See Hawks in L.A. but only owned 3 tracks on VA compilations when this album arrived, so was only mildly interested at t […]
  • CD Review - John Reischman "Walk Along John"
    As a west coast Canadian, bluegrass has always seemed like an exotic musical form.  When I hear it, I think of mountains, forests, rivers, and a rural lifestyle that has long past and gone.  Artists like Ralph Stanley and the Monroe Brothers loom like Biblical characters in my imagination, leathery, rugged and indisputably American. In the same way that I al […]
  • CD/DVD Review - Leonard Cohen "Live At The Isle Of Wight"
    Good new for those awaiting the release of more old Leonard Cohen from the days when he was still depressed and very much on the edge. In 2009, a CD/DVD package was released on Columbia of a concert that took place on The Isle Of Wight for the English version of Woodstock in 1970. Both the CD & DVD are complete with many charming Leonard songs from his s […]
  • An Interview with Bahhaj Taherzadeh of We/Or/Me
    We/Or/Me is Bahhaj Taherzadeh, a Chicago-based, Irish-born artist whose music has quietly and gradually been attracting the attention of critics over recent years. Jon Martin calls it “the soundtrack to your most quiet moments”, Sean Michaels says, it's a salve and a peace, and Robin Hilton at NPR has been a consistent advocate of the “wise and slightly […]
  • A Double Shot of Southern Comfort With Tom Petty and the Tontons
    The Hangout Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama, isn’t all about the headlining acts such as Kings of Leon and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The pride of Gainesville, Florida, Petty had sort of the home-field advantage Saturday night on the Hangout Stage, playing just one state over and practically a direct Interstate-10 shot from Heartbreakers… […]
  • CD Review - Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters "Just For Today"
    Just For Today Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters It's Ronnie Earl's band, but he doesn't dominate it. Recorded live at a couple of venues in his home state of Massachusetts,the Stony Plains release is a seamless blend of jazz, soul and r&b by a band of seasoned vets comfortable enough with one another to have an intense musical conversation […]

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