Amanda Shaw - Another Way to Be a Teen Sensation
Of all the homemade Britney Spears videos on YouTube, one of the harshest isn't a Britney video at all. Images of the pop-diva-in-disgrace then and now accompany "Pretty Runs Out", the title song from Amanda Shaw's debut album for Rounder Records.
"I'
Blue Rodeo - Small Miracles
Greg Keelor and Jim Cuddy, the Lennon & McCartney of Canadian roots-rock, have been writing and performing together for 25 years. While there's nothing to indicate that Small Miracles represents the end of the road, it does feel like it was written from a vantage point where that
Marah - Angels Of Destruction
Having endured enough Bruce Springsteen comparisons to make the Hold Steady feel sorry for them, Marah makes a balls-out effort to shake things up on their sixth full-length release.
The good news for those who dream of being buried in Asbury Park is that these Brooklyn-via-Philadelphia dudes haven't
Robyn Hitchcock - I Wanna Go Backwards
If Robyn Hitchcock had flipped out like Syd Barrett, dropped out like Captain Beefheart or broken down like Nick Drake, he would be immortalized as a visionary genius. Instead, Hitchcock has proven maddeningly sane and durably prolific, so the boxed reissue of these early solo albums by the former Soft
Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark
I have never quite loved the Drive-By Truckers.
For one thing, I have always been a little put off by the awkward self-awareness of Patterson Hood's ambitions. God knows the moral and cultural geography of the modern south cries out for cartographers, but it's one thing
Levon Helm - Midnight rambler
Sometimes the circle really is unbroken. Consider that the seeds of Levon Helm's new album Dirt Farmer and the intimate "Midnight Ramble" concerts he performs in his home studio were planted on a cotton farm in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas. Helm's dad, Jason Diamond Helm,