Category: Country
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The Handsome Family: Unseen
Based on a series of complex algorithms, this is the second best album* we have received to review in the <mumble mumble> years we’ve been doing this reviewing game. That doesn’t mean it’s got the best tunes or the best singing or the wildest guitar solos: it’s a combination of meticulous song-writing, musicianship, production and…
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Charlie Parr: Stumpjumper
Listening to albums in recent weeks we’ve despaired at people who moan that “there’s no good music any more”. There’s more good music about than you can shake a big stick at, and Charlie Parr is a case in point, though he’s neither young nor new. See the word “blues” and you might think dull…
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Ciaran Lavery: Not Nearly Dark
Alongside King Harvest and the Weight (reviewed yesterday), we’ve spent a lot of time listening to this lovely new album. Ciaran Lavery is from the small village of Aghagallon, on the edge of Lough Neagh in County Armagh, and started playing and singing at the age of 15. Now based in the UK, his new…
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Sturgill Simpson: A Sailor’s Guide to Earth
“Outlaw country” musician Simpson has delivered an interesting album that musically sounds like what the Blues Brothers set could have been, had they delivered a proper show at Bob’s Country Bunker (where they had both kinds of music, country and western). He sounds old school country — Waylon Jennings is the obvious comparison — but…
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Cyndi Lauper: Detour
We don’t know much about Lauper other than the hits (Girls Just Want to Have Fun, True Colours etc). That aside, though we know she’s had a long and successful career. Given her wacky persona, an album of country covers might not work but this does and it’s entertaining: pop enough for a general audience,…
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Underhill Rose: The Great Tomorrow
This is not a ground-breaking album or anything new but it’s appealing and while it sounds modern they have a traditional sound too, with banjo, fiddle and pedal steel in there. It’s more to the folk side of country than the rock. Having said that, opener Our Time Is Done is the full band playing…
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Altan: Widening Gyre
Altan are one of Ireland’s longest lasting bands, 35 years and counting, and the longest running line-up of founding members in Irish music. We confess never having heard of them. (We have heard of equally long-lasting Irish band Aslan, the band random name generator obviously getting stuck at “A” in 1980s Ireland). Altan specialise in…
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Steven James Adams: Old Magick
One of the Review Corner’s favourite band stories concerns Steven James Adams’s former group, The Broken Family Band, back when he was merely Steven J Adams. All the band members had good jobs, so band money was band money only. One night while on tour, they went out for a meal and blew the entire…
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Chris Isaak: First Comes The Night
We’ve had a couple of Chris Isaak albums in the last few years, but we struggled to find much to say about them. Well composed and sung tunes, often with intelligent lyrics, but all a bit, well, worthy. Often a euphemism for dull. Still best known for Wicked Game, a career-defining tune. He’s popular in…
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