Category: What We’re Into – Recent Interest

Many bands never get off the ground because they can’t find their “home.” Banditos, as confirmed by their second album Visionland, have no such concerns. For them, home is ‘70s Muscle Shoals country-soul colliding with psychedelia and occult, and stamped by the identifiable quaver of singer Mary Beth Richardson. Banditos’ bread and butter is four-to-the-floor…

“Am I the last of my kind?” Jason Isbell ponders on his new album, The Nashville Sound. Isbell, who hails from the Muscle Shoals region of Northwest Alabama, is singing, as he often does, in character, this time a down-and-out survivor struggling to play catch up with the rapidly changing country he calls home.

So this is what happens when a group of old jazz hands get into a Levon Helm kind of way. Hudson is the name of an album, a supergroup and a song on the album by the supergroup. The combination of Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield, John Medeski and Larry Grenadier is capable of so much;…

With their swampy riffs and mud-covered rock n’ roll, the North Mississippi Allstars have always honored the past while keeping an eye on the future. That tradition continues with their forthcoming album, Prayer For Peace, a collection of Allstars originals as well as reinterpretations of works by legendary artists that have influenced the band. Anchored…

Forming a trilogy with 2014’s Single Mothers and 2015’s Absent Fathers, J.T. Earle’s latest teams him with Omaha indie-rock don Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes) for his rangiest set yet. “What’s She Crying For” is a moaning honky-tonk weeper with pedal steel and roadhouse piano, “What’s Goin’ Wrong” is clarinet-spiked Texas swing impressionism, “15-25” is vintage…

The New Yorker once called the Mountain Goats’ frontman John Darnielle “America’s best non-hip-hop lyricist”. Here, the 50-year-old sometime novelist is in masterly form, reappraising his teenage goth years. The hints of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds in opener Rain in Soho aside, piano, woozy sax and sumptuous Prefab Sprout AOR combine with lyrics about Portuguese…

Jim Avett is a natural-born storyteller. You shouldn’t expect to have a seat at the dining room table with the man and have a conversation relegated to small talk and light commenting on current events. It’s more probable (by a long shot) that between loading forkfuls of green beans, you’ll seamlessly find yourself learning about…

He may appear to be a thick-bearded Seventies outlaw-country throwback, but make no mistake: Chris Stapleton is a soul singer, with a preternaturally creaky voice that can turn wizened or brawny, full of pained howls and distended vowels. His 2015 solo debut, Traveller, transformed him from an eclectically accomplished Nashville songwriter (for acts from Alison…

Robert Cray has been bridging the lines between blues, soul and R&B for the past four decades, with five Grammy wins and over 20 acclaimed albums. For his latest project, Robert Cray & Hi Rhythm, the Blues Hall of Famer traveled to Memphis with his friend, renowned Grammy Award winning producer Steve Jordan, to make…