Nick Cristiano

It’s a cliché, but there’s no other way to put it: Even back on his 2017 debut, released when he was 22, Colter Wall sounded like an old soul. A lot of it has to do with his voice: His baritone has a weathered quality, making him sound

Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton come at rock generally from different angles — she from the blues, he from country. Nevertheless, they have a lot in common. Both pen sharply drawn songs that help them put an indelible personal stamp on blues-rock and country-rock, respectively. Both deliver those songs with a

Near the end of his new album, Altitude, over the locomotive drive of the track “Tomahawk,” Marty Stuart delivers the song’s key observation: “There’s absolutely nothing new underneath the sun.” That pretty much goes for music too. So, the question facing any artist is: How do you keep

If you’re looking for music to get a party started, or to blast while cruising the highway, Joe Henry’s is not for you. Lyrically dense and cerebral, it does not reward casual listening. That certainly goes for All the Eye Can See. The singer-songwriter’s 16th studio album

Alex Williams’ debut, Better Than Myself, was one of the best albums of 2017. The Indiana native had the voice, the sound, the swagger, and — most important — the songs to come across as a legitimate modern-day outlaw. As it turned out, Williams was living too closely to the lyrics of

Near the end of his new album, Loudon Wainwright III asks, “How old is 75?” His answer: “So old that you’re barely alive.” Consciousness of age and a nagging sense of mortality have been present in the work of this erstwhile “New Dylan” since he started more than five