Live Wire - No Fright 1980

An excellent and sadly overlooked British pub rock band that came along with the renewal in English rock from punk to new wave.
The band released three albums of top-notch riffy rock from 1979 to 1981. This is the band's second from 1980. If you're into riffy English pub rock, Live Wire is highly recommended. The group's bassist also visited Sniff'n The Tears, which can sometimes be compared to Live Wire, but this band sounded much tougher. Guitar-based rock like Dire Straits at their rockiest, but with the pub rock attitude.

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David Bowie - ChangesNowBowie 2020

This is not a singles/hits album like the other ‘Changes’ releases.
Instead, these are 1996 alternate performances of classic Bowie tracks and very good ones at that. They aren't better than the originals but instead offer a really nice alternate approach to the songs. AMG.

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The Weight Band - World Gone Mad 2018

Keeping the spirit and the music alive that helped define an era, members of The Weight Band were either actual players in The Band or are directly and deeply connected to their legacy. Touring nationally for the past four years featuring members of The Band, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, and Levon Helm's band. The Woodstock-based Weight Band is not a tribute to The Band but rather a continuation of where The Band and its members left off. Members include Jim Weider, Marty Grebb, Brian Mitchell, Albert Rogers, and Michael Bram… Songs were written by The Band, Levon Helm… and Colin Linden. Summer 2018, The Weight Band releases its first full-length, 11-track studio album World Gone Mad in Europe. It features eight original tracks, guest vocals, and slide guitar from Jackie Greene on a cover of a Jerry Garcia-Robert Hunter song, and writing contributions from the late Levon Helm on previously unreleased songs. The Weight Band originated in 2013 inside the famed Woodstock, New York barn of Levon Helm when Jim Weider and Randy Ciarlante both former members of The Band performed Songs of The Band with Band founder, Garth Hudson, alongside Jimmy Vivino and Byron Isaacs. Inspired to carry on the legacy of the unforgettable rock group, Weider, Ciarlante, and Isaacs began performing fan favorites from The Band catalog to audiences across the country, inviting Marty Grebb and Brian Mitchell to complete their sound. The Weight Band later added Albert Rogers and Michael Bram to make up their current lineup with Weider, Mitchell, and Grebb. Together, after four years of touring, The Weight Band has recorded a new album of original material, capturing The Band's musical tradition and packaged it for today's vibrant Americana base. Released in Europe in September 2018, World Gone Mad is an Americana/Roots Rock masterpiece of the Woodstock sound.

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Trey Anastasio - Lonely Trip 2020

Since co-founding the seminal improv rock outfit Phish in 1983, guitarist, composer, and songwriter Trey Anastasio has explored a wide variety of musical pathways ranging from atonal fugues and elaborate charts with Phish to adventurous free jazz on his first solo project, Surrender to the Air (1996), to collaborations with the likes of Tom Marshall, Les Claypool, Philip Glass, Stewart Copeland, and others. Anastasio pursued many of these projects during the 2000s, a period when Phish embarked on several extended hiatuses and breakups. After releasing a shiny, pop-oriented eponymous solo album in 2002, the guitarist formed Oysterhead -- a group featuring Claypool and Copeland -- and instituted a large solo band that supported him both on record and in the studio. Once Phish became active again during the 2010s, Anastasio continued to pursue extracurricular musical ideas in his solo career, including Lonely Trip and Mercy, a pair of albums he largely recorded on his own during the COVID-19 pandemic. AMG.

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Caroline Davis - Heart Tonic 2018

Reared in Chicago where she attained her Ph.D. in Music Cognition at prestigious Northwestern University, alto saxophonist/composer Caroline Davis recently migrated to New York, while nestling into its fertile jazz and improvisational environs. And while this vibrant quintet date is perhaps more conventional than some of her freer works, Davis' complex harmonic fabrications ring loud and clear via these noteworthy compositions. Moreover, the album title refers to Davis' heart research to obtain a better understanding of its properties due to her father's heart ailment, serving as a principal force behind this production.

Davis' effervescent attack is often tempered by her warmly articulated phrasings and contrasted by soaring climactic buildups amid sinuous and knotty unison choruses executed with trumpeter Marquis Hill. However, the group abides by a democratic mode of operations; hence, the artists' teamwork is evident throughout the production. As the quintet imparts lovely melodies and balances the tightly coordinated frameworks with variable currents, modulating cadences, speedy bop movements, dabs of jazz fusion, and the Latin element.

The quintet blends a piquant Afro-Cuban groove into an airy, yet buoyant vibe, along with zesty soloing spots by the frontline on "Loss." Yet the following track "Constructs," is an invigorating, up-tempo bop sojourn, and "Air," is a cheery ballad, solidified by bassist Tamir Shmerling's pliant bottom-end and drummer Jay Sawyer's gentle cymbal swashes and snappy rim-shots. However, the primary theme implicates a march progression, expanded by Julian Shore's animated piano solo, leading to melodic subplots as the band steadily raises the pitch with an upward trajectory, followed by a soothing fadeout.

The album finale "Ocean Motion," is formed with intricate percussion treatments within a simmering Latin motif, including knotty unison phrasings and the hornists' extended notes, shaded by Shore's dark synth passages. But the musicians rebuild the primary theme with regal statements and movements akin to fitting pieces into a puzzle, intensified by Sawyer's burgeoning press rolls and polyrhythmic undercurrents. Even though Davis hovers near a straightforward modern jazz approach it's not a grassroots effort where everyone plays it safe, partly due to her vast musical resources, distinct creative sparks, and multidimensional approach to composition. Whereas, her band rises to the occasion with great aplomb and a penchant for dishing out meticulous plot developments on a continual basis. AllaboutJazz.

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Laibach - The John Peel Sessions 2002

Laibach is a Slovenian group whose music, performances, and entire aesthetic have been immensely influential across nearly the entire genre of industrial music, especially the martial industrial style. Its members prefer to be known as a collective rather than reveal their individual names; they've been accused of being fascists and practicing Germanophilia because of their music's Wagnerian thunder and their military attire. According to Laibach, "We are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter." Since fascism needs a scapegoat to flourish, the members of Laibach mocked it by becoming their own scapegoat and willingly sought alienation. Showing a ridiculous lust for authority, Laibach's releases featured artwork influenced by anti-Nazi photomontage artist John Heartfield, and the group's live shows portray rock concerts as absurd political rallies. In interviews their answers are wry manifestos, and they never break character. While Laibach's early recordings such as the group's self-titled 1985 effort were more experimental, the group became more popular when they began incorporating covers of well-known rock songs on 1987's Opus Dei. They soon began recording entire albums of covers, beginning with a take on the Beatles' Let It Be in 1988. Laibach's music became more sample-based and techno-influenced on early-'90s releases such as 1992's Kapital, while 1996's Jesus Christ Superstars was heavier on guitars. During the 21st century, the group has interpreted national anthems (Volk, 2006) and show tunes (The Sound of Music, 2018), in addition to performing historic concerts in Korea. 2022's Wir sind das Volk contained music written for a theatrical production based on the texts of German playwright Heiner Müller. AMG.

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Ian Dury - Lord Upminster 1981

When Ian Dury left Stiff Records, he also left the Blockheads behind, recording Lord Upminster with reggae superstars Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar as producers. Lord Upminster turned out to be a set of uninspired funk that lacks the joyful energy of his three previous records. AMG.

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Caetano Veloso - Cê 2006

During his long career, spanning five decades, Caetano Veloso has managed to sustain a remarkable consistency, year after year composing beautiful, inventive, and very often simply ingenious music. His previous album, A Foreign Sound, where Caetano interpreted classics from the American popular music scene, was widely applauded abroad and especially in the U.S., but Brazilian listeners were much less impressed. And truth be told, by Caetano's own high standards and with the exception of a few songs, like the reggae-rap version of Bob Dylan's "It's Alright Ma," A Foreign Sound lacked much of Caetano's usual inspiration. Cê, though much lighter and unpretentious, suffers from the same lack of lucid inspiration that has always been the trademark of Caetano. It is not in anyway a bad album, but after having been spoiled with Caetano's unique brand of musical magic and brilliance for so long, Cê just doesn't excite. For the recording, Caetano teamed up with a trio of young musicians, thus forming a traditional rock band relying on an electric guitar, a bass, drums, and the occasional keyboards. The sound is finely tuned and further helped by the excellent production by Caetano's son Moreno and Pedro Sá. The music ranges from the light, carefree punk-pop of tracks like "Outro" and "Odeio" to the laid-back, sentimental "Não Me Arrependo" and "Minhas Lágrimas." "Musa Híbrida" is an interesting mix of samba and rock, with a touch of '70s funk. On "Não Me Arrependo," Caetano uses influence from both Lou Reed and Peninha, and it is perhaps the most melodically impressive song on the album. On "O Herói," Caetano, in a talking voice, recites the lyrics over a sparse and slightly hip-hop-inspired rock groove. The gentle and sweet "Um Sonho" is another highlight. Cê is an enjoyable, finely crafted, and elegantly executed album, but at the same time very far from Caetano's best. AMG.

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Idles - Crawler 2021

For their fourth studio album, 2021's Crawler, Idles embraced more dynamic arrangements, adding the influences of soul and electronic music without reigning in their energy or attitude. As the band's audience grew, they collaborated with other acts of note, including Sharon Van Etten (covering "Peace Signs" on 2021's Epic Ten), Tom Morello (appearing on "The Bachelor," a track on his 2021 release The Atlas Underground Flood), and Metallica (interpreting "The God That Failed" on the Black Album tribute box set The Metallica Blacklist). AMG.

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Da Lata - Fabiola 2013

The London-based Brazilian fusion group Da Lata established themselves long before it became fashionable for a dance act to quote South American forms. In 1992, the group's core members -- Christian Franck and Patrick Forge -- formed Batu, which played numerous live gigs and recorded a couple of songs for Big Cheeze in Paris and for the excellent Rebirth of Cool, Vol. 4. After several years of group inactivity, the duo re-formed in the summer of 1998 as Da Lata and invited Portuguese percussionist Oli Savill and Brazilian singer Lilana Chachian to join the band. Along with a lengthy roster of string musicians, horn players, vocalists, and percussionists, Da Lata released Songs From the Tin in 2000 on Palm. Respectfully interpreting Brazilian musical styles from their predominately Western European perspective, Da Lata blended Savill's live percussion and Chachian's authentic Brazilian vocals with Franck's gentle guitar work and Forge's production. The Remixes album followed two years later, and their proper follow-up Serious appeared in 2003. AMG.

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Captain Sensible - The Universe Of Geoffrey Brown 1993

A Captain Sensible LP is a rare event. Since his first two albums appeared in 1981 and 1982 while he was still in the Damned, only 1989's Revolution Now and this new effort have been released. Not that it's completely his fault; this new work was completed over two years ago -- it stinks when a legend of this ability can't find someone willing to issue an already recorded album. Nonetheless, the good Captain doesn't fail us and never has. While not as strong as Revolution Now, all of his usual goofy, nostalgic neo-psychedelic guitar tricks and surprisingly crafted pop tunes are in place and sound 1993 despite his most retro prank yet: "Damned" if this isn't a concept album about one Geoffrey Brown, whose sedate corporate life is turned topsy-turvy when now-extinct aliens start leaving warning messages on his computer screen about our similar self-inflicted demise. The concept is amusing, listening to Brown's wife, co-workers, and friends abandon him as a crackpot only for the government to recognize his value in the end. It combines two common Sensible themes: our own self-destructive impulses and the ostracizing of folks who go against accepted practices and actually dare to use their own brains; can there be any other truly lasting positive message from the supposedly (not really) nihilistic (actually really fun) punk days that loony-tunes like Sensible helped found? And such glitzy tunes as "Holiday in My Heart," "Street of Shame," and the title track claw their way into your affections in a few plays. The man can write -- like his pal Robyn Hitchcock, only much more consistently and without the nonsense lyrics, Sensible loves a pop song, knows one when he hears one or writes one, and has 30 years of great pop song riffs and styles stored in his brain to compose his own. Ever since the Damned's masterful Strawberries revealed his prowess, he's been loved by those in the know: He's one-third ridiculous clown, one-third lovable English eccentric incapable of growing old, and one-third (barely noticed as a result) great artist. Sensible has made some of the happiest, most enjoyable tunes around ever by a musician so scoffed at, and this is another ambitious yet modest gem from a true personality original. AMG.

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