Review Corner

Category: Americana

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    Neil Young and the Promise Of The Real: Noise and Flowers

    Young is churning out his archives at a prodigious rate, some of which are excellent, others for the completist only, as they say. This one is great and if you’ve got a Neil Young fan in the fam, this is one gift you don’t have to worry about for Christmas. The great thing about Young…

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    Luke Sital-Singh: Dressing Like A Stranger

    We liked Luke Sital-Singh’s early material but found his last album a disappointment, something that in turn was itself disappointing, as he can be good. He said thank you on Twitter for the poor review, and we’re assuming he was not merely being sarcastic but had a wake-up call, and this new album is really…

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    Mean Mary: Portrait of a Woman (Part I)

    This album is so good we forgot to review it; we played it and played and got to know it so well we thought we’d written about, but we never did. It is, as one might expect, really good. Mary James is basically a country singer, leading on her banjo, but if you can tolerate…

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    The Lucky Ones: The Lucky Ones

    The Lucky Ones sound like they come from Kentucky or some other Appalachian area, playing what is musically straight bluegrass / roots string music, but they’re actually from the Yukon, Canada, made famous by the Klondike Gold Rush and more latterly by Ice Road Truckers. (We once went to the Motown Museum in Detroit, where…

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    Peach and Quiet: Just Beyond the Shine

    This self-released album from a Vancouver Island duo is a pleasant mix of pop, country and Americana, with a nice organic feel, possibly recorded in minimal takes.Opener Empty To Fill is a catchy 60s pop tune reminiscent of The Byrds, while the next one up is For My Love, a gentler folk/pop tune with some…

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    Still Corners: The Last Exit

    Still Corners are, as they say, a dreamy pop duo who tweak their sound with every album, from pop to a more synthy sound to this, more Americana and even Tex Mex: half of Still Corners, Greg Hughes, grew up Arizona and Texas so perhaps not surprising. Tessa Murray is English, and the two met…

  • Ben Bedford: Portraits
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    Ben Bedford: Portraits

    This is Bedford’s sixth album; his last, Hermit’s Spyglass, was excellent and this is even better. Perhaps not surprising, as he has picked songs from his first three albums to create a collection of songs, the intention’s clear from the album title. Hermit’s Spyglass told some good tales – it mapped daily life on a…

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    Jack Henderson: Where’s The Revolution

    If the injustices of the world leave you feeling helpless because there’s so much wrong and so little you can do, we can offer a small action you can take – buy Jack Henderson’s new album.Henderson sounds as if he’s a jobbing musician who does well – his biography says he’s played with the likes…

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    Justin Wells: The United States

    The title is a pun: it’s about life in the USA in these divided times but it’s also about the fact that we have more in common than differences, particularly the fact that we’re all born, live and die. “This record starts in the womb, and it ends after death,” Wells says of the album.…

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    Jeffrey Foucault: Blood Brothers

    When we started this reviewing lark we’d sometimes have a record of the week, although we usually forgot: this week it would be this. Foucault’s from Wisconsin so this is Americana with some of the twang of country. He has an evocative voice and the songs are all good. We’ve not felt this much settled…