Joe Henry: “Civilians”

A hundred years from now, anyone who stumbles across Joe Henry’s liner notes essay from his album Civilians will be able to date it to the exact year, maybe even the very month in which he penned it. Oh, the references to government wire-tapping could be mistaken for some Orwellian flight of fantasy, and the [...]

Radiohead: “In Rainbows”

Radiohead once recorded a song called “Climbing Up the Walls”– a phrase that has long served as a fitting summary of the band’s own on-record persona. A restless anxiety and discomfort in their own skin has characterized the band’s vibe since the very beginning, only escalating as they gained further fame and notoriety– so it [...]

Matchbox 20: “Exile on Mainstream”

Nobody ever won any indie cred or hipster points for liking– or even talking about– Matchbox 20, but say this about them: They know how to write a monster hook with enough heft to get a whole arena to sing along, and, in the wake of Gwen Stefani selling out to the man, they just [...]

Bruce Springsteen: “Magic”

There’s something ironic about the timing of Bruce Springsteen’s Magic, an album that finds him working with his famed E-Street Band for the first time since 2002’s The Rising, and only the second time since Born to Run in 1984. Heralded as The Boss’ return to form as a bandleader and as a rock and [...]

Iron & Wine: “The Sheperd’s Dog”

At once admirable and alienating, Sam Beam’s latest LP under his Iron and Wine moniker is an album that will quite rightly be showered with praise, heralded by critics and fans alike as not just a step forward, but a full-fledged musical triumph. But tragedy of tragedies: The same qualities that make it one of [...]

Josh Ritter: “The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter”

Titles can be deceiving: The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter is not, in fact, a prog-rock concept album. It’s completely devoid of canny synthesizers, and it seems unlikely that Ritter will perform the album in elaborate costume. Nor is the album an anthology of dusted-off Appalachian folk songs-although, if Bruce Springsteen is any kind of [...]

Over the Rhine: “The Trumpet Child”

Stand back, folks… Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist are on a roll.
They tell us as much on the third track of their latest album recorded under the Over the Rhine banner, titled… wait for it… “I’m On a Roll.” And indeed, after over two decades of recording together, this dynamic duo has yet to release [...]

Spoon: “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”

Some of the greatest treasures on Spoon’s latest album– the embarrassingly titled Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga– are also some of the simplest: the crisp, clean crack of a snare drum; the pounding of an oddly-tuned piano; the rich, fluid splash of a crash cymbal.
It’s an album for musical sensualists– folks who love the rich [...]

Loudon Wainwright III: “Strange Weirdos”

Loudon Wainwright III is a crappy father. Or so I’ve been told. I’ve never met the man, or his children, but he’s admitted as much in his songs– usually with subversive humor, sometimes with brutally honest detail. Thus, hearing him sing a witty and wise ode to his “Daughter” over the closing credits of Judd [...]

Maria McKee: “Late December”

Maria McKee is one of a kind, but that’s really not giving her enough credit. Not only is she an artist like no other, but each of her albums is a Maria McKee album like no other. Her fans have long given up trying to predict where she’s going next; indeed, when the broadly theatrical [...]