When Paul Sanchez tells you that someone is the best rhythm guitarist they’ve ever played with, you pay attention. Due to the events referred to in my previous series, Your Twenties Are a Motherfucker, etc etc I’m only just now…
If you want to win my heart, write a good murder ballad. I’m swooning over the Cannondolls’ “Bed on Fire.” In general, it’s a genre that I wish would be put to rest (so to speak), as it perpetuates a…
Bill Waterson once famously noted that “People who get nostalgia about childhood were obviously never children.” Chris Staples (not to be confused with Chris Stapleton) seems to have applied that maxim to early adulthood in Golden Age (thus concluding our…
Moving forward with my series, Your Twenties Are a Motherfucker But It Probably Gets Worse (NB: I don’t personally think it does…at least not for a while…), there is no better conveyor of suck-titude than Lydia Loveless. I find Loveless’…
Courtney Marie Andrews has many accomplishments under her belt: playing with Damien Jurado, collaborating with Jimmy Eats World, touring internationally, producing the finest album of 2016 (this one.) She has one more important but dubious notch to add to her…
BJ Barham, American Aquarium frontman, recently released his first solo album. Not surprisingly, all of the important things about American Aquarium are here — beautiful lyrics, hard-hitting songs. The main difference is that I don’t think the songs on Rockingham…
Kelsey Waldon’s sophomore release brings us back to the days when country music was plainspoken. Waldon, an East Nashville transplant from the tobacco town of Monkey’s Eyebrow, KY (really), knows how to craft a tune that is honest and sincere.…
Though the hail from Brooklyn, there’s nothing smarmy or ironic about Tatters & Rags’ debut album. The band’s traditional(-ish) take on country and irreverent personality is reminiscent of Girls on Grass, with whom they often share a stage. My first…