I Don't Know How But They Found Me - RazzMatazz 2020

The members of the vibrant dance-rock duo I Dont Know How But They Found Me (sometimes shortened to IDKHow or IDK) knew each other for years before they formed in secret in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2016. Late that year, they played a few shows in the Los Angeles area before word of the project eventually spread. The band released their first single, "Modern Day Cain," in August 2017, following it a month later with "Choke." In August 2018, they signed with Fearless Records and made their label debut with "Do It All the Time." That November, the 1981 EP arrived; it soon topped the Billboard Heatseeker chart and reached number 14 on the Billboard Rock Albums Chart. A year later, the duo returned with the holiday EP Christmas Drag, which featured a cover of Slade's "Merry Christmas Everybody." A pair of singles, "Leave Me Alone" and "Razzmatazz," arrived in 2020. Both tracks landed on IDKHow's debut, Razzmatazz, which was released in late 2020. Inspired by Bowie and Prince, the funky set also included the singles "New Invention" and "Lights Go Down." AMG.

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Blanche - Little Amber Bottles 2007

Gothic indie-country folk medicine show revivalists Blanche formed around frontman Dan Miller nearly a decade after he folded his earlier project, Goober & the Peas. Looking back to early American folk music as an influence, he assembled Blanche during informal living-room music sessions, with Miller's wife, Tracee, filling in on bass and vocals, Detroit area producer and multi-instrumentalist Dave Feeny on pedal steel, newcomer Lisa "Jaybird" Jannon on drums, and Patch Boyle on banjo and autoharp. Their independent release If We Can't Trust the Doctors caught the ear of V2 Records, which signed the band to their roster in early 2004. Their subsequent touring lineup was filled out by the addition of multi-instrumentalist Little Jack Lawrence, who filled in on banjo and autoharp in Boyle's absence. The band hopped down to Nashville in early 2005 to record the songs that would later appear on their first EP, What This Town Needs. It featured two tracks from Blanche's forthcoming full-length album, Little Amber Bottles, and was scheduled for release in the States in late October 2006, but when V2 folded, the album's release was delayed. Blanche ended up on the Loose imprint and Little Amber Bottles was released in the U.K. in the summer of 2007; the album was released in the U.S. later that year. AMG.

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The Kills - No Wow 2005

It's hard to believe that the Kills could sound even darker and more stripped-down than they did on Keep on Your Mean Side, but somehow they managed it: No Wow is one of the most highly concentrated rock albums of the 2000s, with a relentless focus and intensity that make Keep on Your Mean Side's more traditional ebb and flow feel downright slack. The duo's throbbing guitars, to-the-point rhythms, and dangerously sexy lyrics have been simmered down to their rawest essences, so much so that No Wow often feels like a stark, stylized line drawing of rock. Less is usually more for the Kills, though, and they sound more powerful, more confident, and more distinctive here than they did on their debut. "No Wow" itself is a fantastic opener, a powerful statement of curdled but still compelling love (or lust), the likes of which haven't been heard since Rid of Me. From there, the album doesn't let up until the sweetly narcotized "I Hate the Way You Love, Pt. 2." No Wow's variations on its sounds and themes may be monochromatic, but they're never monotonous. Wisely, the Kills have chosen to let their drum machine sound like a drum machine, giving songs like "Love Is a Deserter" a skeletal clatter for a backbone, and others, such as "The Good Ones" and "Sweet Cloud," a piston-like thrust. The magnificently taut "Dead Road 7" adds shades of menacing, mysterious country/blues storytelling to the band's songwriting, a direction they should pursue more. Though the album downplays the poppier moments that balanced Keep on Your Mean Side's onslaughts, No Wow's soft, slow songs are thrown into even sharper relief. "Rodeo Town" is one of the loveliest, and grittiest, ballads that the band has written, and "Ticket Man" ends the album on a hypnotic, reflective note. While Jamie Hince's vocals are also downplayed (and missed), it has to be said that Alison Mosshart does a compelling job of handling the lioness' share of the singing. No Wow is a tight, mean set of songs -- there's no room for punches to swing, but all of the shoving and grappling makes just as big an impact. AMG.

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KBB - Age Of Pain 2013

Japanese progressive rock group KBB began in 1992. The members of the group are Akihisa Tsuboy (violin and guitar), Gregory Suzuki (keys and theremin), Toshimitsu Takahashi (keyboards), Dani (bass), and Shirou Sugano (drums). Their debut album, Lost and Found, was released in 2000. Their fifth record "Age of Pain" was released in 2013. AMG. 

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Cactus - Tightrope 2021

A rock & roll supergroup featuring members of Vanilla Fudge, Mitch Ryder's Detroit Wheels, and Ted Nugent's Amboy Dukes, Cactus emerged in 1969 with a sound that combined blues, boogie, and hard rock. Between 1970 and 1972, they issued four full-length efforts, including their Billboard-charting eponymous debut, before ceasing operations after the release of 'Ot 'n' Sweaty. They re-formed in 2006 and unveiled Cactus V, their first studio album in 34 years. Since then, the band has continued to tour and record sporadically, with drummer Carmine Appice serving as the sole original member.

The plan was for the Vanilla Fudge rhythm section of bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice to join guitar god Jeff Beck and singer Rod Stewart. The project came undone when Beck had a motorcycle accident that incapacitated him for 18 months. Stewart then joined pal Ron Wood in the revamped Faces, leaving Bogert and Appice to find alternates for their dream band. They recruited guitarist Jim McCarty from Detroit Wheels, and singer Rusty Day from Amboy Dukes. Operating under the moniker Cactus, the band's assured 1970 self-titled debut included six original cuts and a pair of covers, one of which was a souped-up rendering of Mose Allison's "Parchman Farm." They applied the same formula to 1971's One Way... Or Another, laying down six hip-shaking originals along with fiery covers of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" and Chuck Willis' "I Feel So Bad." The like-minded Restrictions arrived later that year and included a searing rendition of Willie Dixon's "Evil." McCarty and Day left the fold ahead of the release of the band's fourth long-player. The resulting 'Ot 'n' Sweaty, released in 1972, saw Appice and Bogert joined by guitarist Werner Fritzschings, keyboardist Duane Hitchings, and vocalist Peter French (ex-Leaf Hound and Atomic Rooster). Cactus disbanded shortly after the album's release. In June 2006, the band re-formed around a lineup consisting of original members Appice, Bogert, McCarty, and new vocalist and former Savoy Brown frontman Jimmy Kunes -- Rusty Day passed away in 1982. They issued their long-awaited fifth studio LP, the aptly named Cactus V, later that fall. Various lineup shifts preceded the release of 2016's Black Dawn, which featured McCarty, Appice, Kunes, and newcomers Pete Bremy and Randy Pratt. Founding member Tim Bogert died on January 13, 2021 after a long fight with cancer; he was 76 years old. Later that year Cactus released a new studio album, Tightrope. AMG.

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Baikida Carroll - Shadows and Reflections 1982

One of the better accompanists and section musicians, Baikida Carroll has added textures, colors, and bright solos to various free jazz ensembles and groups, among them the Black Artists' Group (BAG) in St. Louis. He's been an active composer, having written film soundtracks and scores and displayed a striking, full sound and solo approach. Carroll attended Southern Illinois University and the Armed Forces School of Music before directing the BAG's free jazz band. He went to Europe with other group members in the mid-'70s and recorded in Paris in 1974. Carroll's recorded with Oliver Lake, Michael Gregory Jackson, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jack DeJohnette, and David Murray in the '70s and '80s, as well as cutting a solo album in the late '70s and heading a combo in the early '80s. A 1994 session on Soul Note features Carroll in fine form with a quintet. Since that time, Carroll has kept busy performing and teaching and released the critically praised Marionettes on a High Wire on OmniTone in 2001. AMG.
 

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Black Country, New Road - For The First Time 2021

Black Country, New Road was formed in 2018 and quickly earned a reputation as a ferocious live act due to their startlingly unique combination of post-punk, free jazz, klezmer, and math rock, with frontman Isaac Wood's volatile rants immediately grabbing the audience's attention. Following numerous sold-out concerts, including collaborations with close friends and kindred spirits black midi, as well as two heavily hyped 7" singles that sold out instantaneously, the London-based septet signed with Ninja Tune and released their debut full-length in early 2021. While documenting the energy of the group's performances during the earliest years of their existence, the album displays a marked evolution from their beginning. Both of the band's initial singles have been reworked, and sound significantly less unhinged and sexually frustrated. "Athens, France" is reminiscent of Spiderland-esque post-hardcore, but with ethereal saxophone and glistening keyboards elevating the song's mood during its more reflective moments. The post-rock/prog epic "Sunglasses" stretches out to nearly ten minutes, slowly unfolding until a rush of words spill out, culminating with the phrase "the absolute pinnacle of British engineering." After a woozy, horn-smeared breakdown, the band shifts to a more insistent post-punk rhythm, as Wood nervously affirms his invincibility, dropping several names (Richard Hell, Scott Walker, Kanye) along the way. The more atmospheric "Track X" shows a more vulnerable and romantic side of the group, as Wood confesses "I got down on my knees, I told you I loved you in front of black midi" over a lovely post-minimalist arrangement for guitar, violin, and saxophone. The album has moments of sheer joy, too, particularly the festive, celebratory klezmer of the opening tune "Instrumental" and the rousing peaks of the emotional rollercoaster "Opus." Occasionally the vocals (and the constant name-dropping) become overbearing, but the musicianship is strong and adventurous, taking familiar instrumentation in unexpected directions, and Black Country, New Road are undeniably original. AMG.

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Cage the Elephant - Social Cues 2019

Considering how Cage the Elephant brought home the Best Rock Album Grammy for Tell Me I'm Pretty in 2017, it's a bit startling that its successor, Social Cues, abandons the rough-and-tumble aesthetic producer Dan Auerbach brought to the band. Auerbach helped Cage the Elephant emphasize the bash-around garage elements lurking within their music, a sensibility that is absent on Social Cues. CTE work with producer John Hill, who previously helmed albums by Florence + the Machine, for this 2019 album, but a better touchstone for what they're attempting to achieve is Beck, who appears on the single "Night Running" and joined the group on a co-headlining tour in support of the album. Particularly on Colors, the 2017 LP that snagged him a Grammy for Best Alternative Album, Beck specialized in a bright, vivid pan-cultural pop, echoes of which can be heard on Social Cues. Cage the Elephant also paints Social Cues with bold hues swiped from a primary palette, but they aren't especially interested in the here and now. While there may be some hints of modern flair on the margins -- they exhibit a particular fondness for drum machines -- Social Cues beats to a neon-lit pulse appropriated from the glory days of MTV. Such a bright glare evokes the '80s, but like all Cage the Elephant albums, Social Cues is a canny blend of familiar elements whose origin lies just out of reach. By making such a decisive shift in direction, CTE wind up dampening the squalls of White Stripes, Strokes, and Pixies that defined their first decade of records, but that change also emphasizes how the group is at heart pop-pastiche artists, favoring style and sound over a finely honed song. AMG.

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Dopapod - Never Odd or Even 2014

Dopapod is an American rock band from Boston, Massachusetts. The current lineup includes keyboardist/vocalist Eli Winderman, guitarist/vocalist Rob Compa, bassist Chuck Jones, drummer Neal “Fro” Evans, and lighting director Luke Stratton. Although classified as a jam band, Dopapod incorporates bits of funk, heavy metal, jazz fusion, and country. They have self-released five studio albums, and spend most of their time touring.

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Dale Jenkins - Undesirable Element 1985

Arriving to the world for the first time, really—beyond the ears of the deep-digging few—Dale Jenkins’ Undesirable Elements, issued privately in the Washington, D.C. area circa 1985, is a homespun effort deserving of the audience and attention it never received upon initial release.

Undesirable Elements—here expanded as Undesirable Element with appended bonus tracks—is a desolate and deconstructed album that touches on the subtleties and extremes of the human condition, and the nuances in between, across gnarled bits of proto-punk via abrasive, fuzzed guitars and refracted mutant strains of British post-punk through a distinctly American underbelly sensibility.

Drum-led and in-the-red, Undesirable Elements is a loose concept album of sorts, from the sympathetic pen of an innately skilled commentator. The album displays polemical disdain for the behavior of humans, insular views, and blindly moving forward on simple suggestions while carrying a keen eye into the many textures of the mindscape of man. While you may hear occasional tears aiming at the trends of the times, Jenkins’ direct, intensely personal, and lyrically sophisticated material, combined with his charged attack, is in a realm all its own. Jenkins’ lyrics are nearly cinematic, like bite-sized scripts, or character vignettes, filled with wizened, introspective, and radicalized perspectives. The self-contained home-recording maverick was searching, sensitive, subversive, topical, yet several steps from the soapbox. guerssenrecords.bandcamp.com

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Mink DeVille - Le Chat Bleu 1980

After the critical acclaim of their self-titled debut and Return to Magenta in 1977 and 1978, respectively, Willy DeVille and his band took another look at the sassy, street-tough rock & roll they'd dished up and took the first step toward the swinging Spanish soul the band's subsequent albums would strive for and the crooning R&B heartbreaker DeVille himself would become as a solo artist. Le Chat Bleu is angel-headed hipster rock. The Doc Pomus influence on the opening track, "This Must Be the Night," with its cascading harmonies and 1950s girl group melodies, is a doo wop fantasy for the punk age. That influence was more than that as Pomus and Willy DeVille co-wrote three songs together for this stellar effort. Far more reverent than the Ramones and nowhere near Robert Gordon's stilted revivalism, Mink DeVille could sing and play rock & roll sweetly and razor sharp, kind of like a lollipop on the edge of a dagger. The first of the DeVille/Pomus soul ballads is included here. "That World Outside," with producer Steve Douglas' lilting tenor saxophone that twists itself around each line and breezes through the chorus, is pure Pomus, with DeVille carrying a vocal he'd never attempted before. This was the beginning of something for the band, and the end of something else. Piss and vinegar were not enough to fuel the band's muse any longer -- it also took polish, sensitivity, and a deep commitment to subtlety and drama, and this ballad contains them in spades. The other two, "You Just Keep Holdin' On" and "Just to Walk That Little Girl Home," burn as brightly. Of the rockers, "Savoir Faire" and "Lipstick Traces" contain the wooly garage stomp of the earlier records and keep their switchblade honesty and punky edge. Contrary to popular belief, this album is not the sound of a band losing its innocence as much as it is the sound of a rock & roll band finding its identity. AMG.

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Abner Jay - True Story of Abner Jay 2009

The semi-legal/semi-bootleg label Mississippi Records released this collection from raconteur and one-man-band troubadour Abner Jay. Songs such as "Cocaine" and "Vietnam" are equal parts protest folk, country-blues ballads, and outsider treatises. Jay sings his hard-times tales with deep soul and the haunted lilt inherent to men of vision. The songs are all stomped out by Jay and Jay alone--on electric banjo, harmonica, and bass drum--and illuminate both the artist's pure talent and his strikingly idiosyncratic aesthetic. THE TRUE STORY OF is about as fine a collection as one could hope for from this nearly forgotten American oddity. AMG.

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The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - Strangelands 1988

Recorded in the late 1960s, but not issued until the late 1980s, this is Arthur Brown's missing second album. Had it appeared right after it was recorded, it would have bewildered listeners to no end. Brown was no longer weird in an accessible and entertaining fashion -- he was just weird, period. It's as if he decided to do his debut album over again, but concentrated almost exclusively on the hellish dissonance bits that linked, opened, and closed some tracks, rather than the songs themselves. Loosely arranged as a suite divided into the four parts of "The Country," "The City," "The Cosmos," and "The Afterlife," it's untuneful and demented stuff that owes at least as much to free improv jazz as psychedelic rock. It's also much heavier on the operatic vocal histrionics and unfathomably metaphysical lyrics, with few of the R&B-grounded organ riffs that helped put his debut album into the Top Ten. The one song that sounds as if it could have -- just barely -- fit onto the first Crazy World album is "Planets of the Universe," with its floating organ and lilting, melodious vocals, although these unexpectedly cut into a busk of "Dem Bones." A distraught, lo-fi cover of the '50s death rock hit "Endless Sleep" ends the strange, sprawling, messy affair. AMG.

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Alexander Tucker - Don’t Look Away 2018

Don't Look Away completes a trilogy of solo albums from experimental singer/songwriter Alexander Tucker which began with 2011's Dorwytch and continued with Third Mouth the following year. These albums marked a shift from the enigmatic artist's earlier style, which was far more abstract and freely flowing, to more traditional forms of songwriting. Since those two albums, Tucker has devoted much of his time to Grumbling Fur, a project with Daniel O'Sullivan which has explored Eno-esque avant-pop in addition to heady minimalism (as Grumbling Fur Time Machine Orchestra). Don't Look Away immediately sounds closer to Grumbling Fur's poppier aspects than Tucker's prior solo albums -- there are drum machines and synths (which still manage to sound warm and organic), and the melodies are much catchier and more stirring than before. The wistful folk-pop of "Visiting Again" and the vaguely cosmic "Ghost on the Ledge" are two particular highlights. While Don't Look Away is undeniably more focused than his past works, Tucker still finds beauty in imperfections, and continues to assemble his samples off-grid. Moments like the wobbling echo to the drum machine at the end of "Objects" or the slightly detached feel to "Yesterday's Honey" point to where things start to slide off the rails, but it never sounds sloppy or disorganized. There are also some more overtly experimental tracks, but even these fit into the flow of the album rather than disrupt it. Apart from a handful of brief instrumentals, there's "Gloops Void (Give It Up)," a dark, misty beat/drone collage filled with floating delay effects and filtered vocals from Factory Floor's Nik Void. Ending the album is "ISHUONAWAYISHANAWA," which repeats its nonsensical mantra over a lush acoustic guitar rhythm and cascades of billowing flutes, which gradually become intertwined with the increasingly twisted vocals. Maintaining a healthy balance of sunshine and rain, Don't Look Away is the best example yet of Tucker's singular approach to music. AMG.

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Camisa de Vênus - Batalhões De Estranhos 1985

Influenced by the precursors of Brazilian rock, Raul Seixas, and British punk bands like the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Buzzcocks, Marcelo Nova, a DJ at Rádio Aratu FM (Salvador, BA), rounded up guitarists Karl Hummel and Gustavo Müllen, bassist Robério Santana, and drummer Aldo Machado to form Camisa de Vênus in late 1980.

In the next year, Hummel departed for a period in Europe, and the band preferred to wait for him rather than replace him. In March 1982, the band really began their activities, recording a single five months later, "Meu Primo Zé," which scored a hit in Rio/São Paulo. Soon, they were recording their first LP for Som Livre, Camisa de Vênus. Released in October 1983, the album had good repercussions; but their record company complained about the group's aggressiveness, trying to change their name. The band abandoned Som Livre and departed for two years on the road without a label behind them. In late 1985, Camisa de Vênus signed with RGE, who reissued Camisa de Vênus and released the band's second LP, Batalhão de Estranhos, keeping their crude formula. The album's success was immediate, and the two first albums yielded gold records. The third one also bet on spontaneity, being recorded live in March 1986. The album had the hit "Sílvia." A few months later, the band left RGE and signed with WEA, recording Correndo o Risco. A different album, this one even featured an orchestra in "A Ferro e Fogo," but it didn't scare away their fans, selling 200,000 copies. In 1987, they recorded a double album, Duplo Sentido, which sold 40,000 copies. The album, featuring the participation of their idol, Raul Seixas, in "Muita Estrela, Pouca Constelação," evidenced different concepts and directions, making it clear that a separation was near. And indeed Nova left the band with Müllen, and, inviting keyboardist João Chaves, bassist Nadinho Feliciano, and drummer James Müller, formed the band A Envergadura Moral. In 1988, the band recorded Marcelo Nova & A Envergadura Moral. In the next year, Nova recorded an LP with Raul Seixas, A Panela do Diabo, which was Seixas' last album, as he died on August 21st. A Envergadura Moral also recorded (with Nova) the album Blackout in 1991 (Continental), taking a break after its release. In 1994, the group teamed again, with Marcelo Nova, Karl Hummel, Robério Santana, guitarist Luís Sérgio Carlini, keyboardist Carlos Alberto Calazans, and drummer Franklin Paolillo, recording the live CD Camisa de Vênus ao Vivo: Plugado! (1996, Polygram) and Quem é Você? (1997, Polygram). AMG.

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