country
Album: Miranda Lambert - Postcards From TexasFriday, 20 September 2024
Miranda Lambert is one of those country stars who’s massive in the States but no-one’s heard of this side of the Atlantic. Famous since her early twenties, she’s had a quarter century career, encompassing seven Top Five US albums, including one... Read more... |
Album: Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - WoodlandSaturday, 17 August 2024
Named after the duo’s Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, badly damaged in a 2020 tornado and restored by them, Woodland Studios is Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ first album in four years, when All the Good Times won the Grammy for Best... Read more... |
Album: AJ Lee & Blue Summit - City of GlassThursday, 11 July 2024
In the world of popular music, tangential connections to success are profile-raising. They offer an immediate connection to an artist. It is beholden on me, then, despite not knowing it when I first enjoyed this album, to mention that rising Grammy... Read more... |
Le nozze di Figaro, Garsington Opera review - fine-tuned telling it as it isSaturday, 29 June 2024
“Tradition is sloppiness,” Mahler the opera conductor is credited with saying. But in the case of old master John Cox’s long-serving Garsington production of the greatest of operatic comedes, not if it’s refreshed with the subtlest insights in to... Read more... |
Album: Johnny Cash - SongwriterThursday, 27 June 2024
Wow, this is a trip back in time. A visit from "The Man in Black" 21 years after he passed away, just a few months after his beloved wife, June Carter Cash, who stood by him through thick and thin as together they made such beautiful music.I saw him... Read more... |
Album: Willie Nelson - The BorderMonday, 03 June 2024
At 91, Willie Nelson is about to tour the US with The Outlaws, AKA Minnesota youngster Bob Dylan, 83, the even younger Robert Plant, 75, with Alison Krauss, a mere 52, and 72-year old John Mellencamp (plus a trio of 21st century artists in Celisse,... Read more... |
The Great Escape Festival 2024, Brighton review - a dip into day one and the elephant-in-the-roomFriday, 17 May 2024
Before reviewing The Great Escape, we must first deal with the elephant in the room. Or, in this case, the room that’s crushing the elephant, like the trash compactor in the first Star Wars film.THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM BITThere is a boycott, by... Read more... |
Album: Abigail Lapell - AnniversaryFriday, 10 May 2024
Anniversary is Canadian singer-songwriter Abigail Lapell’s sixth album (if we include last year’s lengthy EP of lullabies). Her success has not reached much beyond her native land, as is often the way with Canadian acts, but she’s a proven talent,... Read more... |
Album: Kings Of Leon - Can We Please Have FunThursday, 09 May 2024
The buildup to this album offered quite a bit of hope. The promo blurb with it talks about “cutting loose, trying new things… hark[ing] back to their gritty origins… freed from any expectations.” Most glaringly, it says it’s “the album the band says... Read more... |
Mitski, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - cool and quirky, yet deeply personalWednesday, 01 May 2024
It was her 2018 album Be the Cowboy which saw Mitski propelled to stardom status. Laurel Hell, which followed in 2022, saw her continue on the popstar trajectory with synth-heavy songs, so the more laid back folkiness of last year’s release, The... Read more... |
Album: Khruangbin - A LA SALAFriday, 05 April 2024
This is a reviewer’s nightmare: it’s literally just Khruangbin doing what Khruangbin do. As ever, the Texan trio are rolling out laid-back psychedelic spaghetti western Tex-Mex country-soul-funk groove after laid-back psychedelic spaghetti western... Read more... |
Album: The Dead South - Chains & StakesSaturday, 10 February 2024
There are few ways of describing the music of The Dead South – progressive bluegrass is my favourite because it's so meaningless to so many. By which I mean it doesn't matter what the genre, it's just good music, and that's all you need to know.I... Read more... |
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