ALBUM REVIEW: The Bros. Landreth Hope for Better Days Ahead on ‘Dog Ear’
2025 has been a year of great reflection. As storms rage outside, seeking refuge – in our favorite movies and TV shows, in great books, and in favorite records – becomes increasingly important. With their new album, Dog Ear, The Bros. Landreth extend a comforting embrace with calming musical waves and profound,
ALBUM REVIEW: On 'Memories and Empties' Colter Wall Turned Up a Notch
From the first measure of Colter Wall’s new album, Memories and Empties,something feels different. Against the resolute opening track “1800 Miles,” Wall's full-bellied baritone seems to have a newfound intensity. His strings are even richer; the pedal steel, more vivid; the rhythms, somehow punchier. With each
ALBUM REVIEW: North Carolina songwriter Abigail Dowd Grooves from the Lows to the Highs in 'Saints & Warriors'
In “Sister’s Heart,” Abigail Dowd tells what is likely a story of indigenous North Carolinians hiding and surviving, holding onto their culture and family ties despite four centuries of colonization. “Sisterland of the longleaf pine / hold our brothers where the canebrakes hide,” she sings over twilit blues. In her
‘Pain Puts Us In Our Bodies’: A Music Journalist Investigates How Cancer Changes Musicians’ Lives (And His Own)
Kamara Thomas lives in a comfortable hippie house with guitars lining the walls in an older, wooded Durham neighborhood. She and an affectionate, tiny dog greet me at the door and welcome me inside. Thomas takes mochi from the freezer and leads me out to the picnic table in her
ALBUM REVIEW: Courtney Hartman Assembles Her Village for ‘With You’
That old adage “it takes a village” is, quite literally, what made it possible for Courtney Hartman to make her latest album With You, a soft study of motherhood and all the beautiful and harrowing ways it upends a life. Hartman did what might be the hardest thing a new
ALBUM REVIEW: On Full-Length Debut, ‘You’re No Island,’ Andrew Daly Frank Captures the Beauty of Flux
With his full-length debut, You’re No Island, Andrew Daly Frank offers a moody and transportive set. Carried by Frank’s distinctly supple voice, the album highlights the Pittsburgh, PA-based singer-songwriter’s knack for crafting low-key yet engaging tunes, his mixes shimmering like still-wet watercolors glistening in autumn light.
Island,