Slave Ambient, the latest from The War on Drugs, is adorned with hazy blue-and-red artwork that suits the album’s warm, swirling sound. The Philadelphia band places a premium on production: Soupy, Spiritualized-esque atmospherics surround Adam Granduciel’s Tom Petty sneer, and even the tunes themselves meld together at times, softened by Eno-like sonic washes. Yet Slave Ambient [...]
The posthumous release of Jack Rose's Luck in the Valley is a return to American roots music. Made up of Cajun, country, blues, and jazz influences, Rose's album is characterized by acoustic fingerpicking and ample use of slide. Guest artists on the album (including a banjo player, junkyard percussionist, and harmonica player) seem superfluous when [...]
Friday
State Radio, Big D and the Kids Table. 9:30 Club. $20.
Justin Trawick. Strathmore. $10 in advance, $12 at door.
Christian Tetzlaff Trio. Wolf Trap. $35.
Powder Kegs, The Torches. The Red & The Black. $8.
Juniper Lane, Melodime. IOTA Club & Cafe. $12.
US Royalty, Phil Ade, Poor But Sexy. Rock and Roll Hotel. $12.
Curbfeelers. Bangkok Blues. Call for [...]
Sunderland-based bandmates Peter and David Brewis' latest release Measure is a 20-song double album rife with rock. Three years after the pair's previous (self-titled) CD failed to make a splash, Field Music is back with a vengeance on its 70-plus-minute return. Measure sees the group breaking away from its standard post-punk minimalism and experimenting with [...]
When searching for a tune to accompany your adolescent depression, put down the emo albums and look no further than Daddy Lion's bluesy "Just Die Young." Fresh off its free self-titled EP, the song concerns the horror and stagnant nature of American suburbia and the suicidal thoughts of young adults. Piano, synths, and guitars make [...]
Friday
Haiti Benefit Concert for the Red Cross Relief Effort: Brother Shamus, The Walkways, No Second Troy, Boxcar Collision, Bobby Thompson and more. IOTA Club & Cafe. Donations based.
Sockets Records Showcase (with The Cornel West Theory, Hume, Imperial China, Buildings and Big Gold Belt). Black Cat. $12.
Mike Terpak Blues Explosion. Bangkok Blues. Call for [...]
What can we say? Our Music in Review issue required a lot of drinking.
Taking a look at the Numero Group label's new Light: On the South Side release, Jason Cherkis also took to some tippling. At the suggestion of the label's co-founder, Ken Shipley, he dug into the hefty book-and-LP set—featuring songs and Michael L. [...]
If having your first name added to the name of your band is a bellwether for burgeoning celebrity, then you could say 22-year-old Davy Knowles has arrived. A British blues guitarist with a soulful baritone, Knowles has sort of an Stevie Ray Vaughan-meets-Richie Havens thing going on. His band, Back Door Slam Davy Knowles and [...]
When Levon Helm and The Band hosted a five-hour send-off concert in 1976, it was a musical event of mythic proportions. The Band and its guests—among them Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell—were torchbearers of the American folk revival. And though it might be overly dramatic to say the movement “ended” with The Last [...]
There is a whole genre’s worth of performers who draw large crowds throughout the American South (and parts of the North) and who sell a sizeable amount of music, but rarely get mainstream media press, rock website attention, or airplay on stations that program for younger folks. I’m talking Chitlin Circuit soul aka Southern Soul. [...]
