Proving the worth of one’s own flow by rapping about the inherent superiority of one’s own flow is a hip-hop antiquity. It’s akin to rock ‘n’ roll’s extension of a handful of basic chords into millions of songs. New artists making new efforts under an old paradigm can only strive to make something good, not […]
Record Review
Posted inMusic
American Aquarium’s Antique Hearts
Live, American Aquarium is a big, roots-rock blunt object, a monolithic, acoustic guitar-based band, vicariously drinking behind the wheel and careening down a North Carolina country road via B.J. Barham’s major chord laments. It has its moments, but the band can be as guilty of overplaying as Barham can be of oversinging. On stage, American […]
Posted inMusic
Hooverville
Hooverville Follow That Trail of Dust Back Home (Back Up and Push Records) The rustic work of Triangle-based quartet Hooverville will not likely be mistaken for the flashiest slacks in the closet. Nope, their roots music is more like Dickies work pants– durable and utilitarian with a certain rugged appeal. And because the band sports […]
Posted inMusic
Various Artists
Various Artists Songs for 65 Roses: Re-Working the North Carolina Jukebox (The Splinter Group) On an album sporting covers of bands like Superchunk, Let’s Active, Des Ark, The Moaners, Metal Flake Mother, Stillhouse, Ryan Adams and Fetchin’ Bones, you can be excused for expecting a good deal of electric execution, a raucous rock ‘n’ roll […]
Posted inMusic
Tres Chicas
Tres Chicas Bloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl (Yep Roc) All the Shade Trees in Bloom” is one of several songs on this second release from harmony-rock trio Tres Chicas that makes a strong case for centerpiece status. Among many other virtues, it has a chorus that pleads “I want something beautiful, I want something […]
Posted inMusic
The Avett Brothers’ Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions
One worries about The Avett Brothers. If half of the tales the North Carolina trio of brothers–Scott and Seth Avett and Bob Crawford–have spun since their 2002 debut are true, their lives hitherto have been highly debauched, temporarily delightful and regularly depressed soap operas lined with episodic accounts of feminine paramours worth loving and leaving […]
Posted inMusic
Caltrop
Caltrop Caltrop (self-released) The word on this Caltrop four-track: It’s a demo recorded by Mark Messings in Chicago in September that turned out so well when it was peeled off of Nick Peterson’s mixing board at Polyphonic Studios in Chapel Hill, the band decided to self-release it as an EP, artwork done by bassist Murat […]
Posted inMusic
Jeffrey Dean Foster
Jeffrey Dean Foster Million Star Hotel (Angel Skull Records) When a songwriter compares a lost love to a “perfect three-minute song on the radio,” as Jeffrey Dean Foster does in the sparkling “Don’t Listen to Me,” you know you’re dealing with a musical lifer. Winston-Salem’s Foster is one of North Carolina’s most famous should-have-been-huge stories, […]