Rating: 6.0 In 1990, His Name is Alive released their first album on the prestigious 4AD label in England. The Livonia, Michigan group established itself as an experimental and sometimes ethereal pop band throughout their tenure with 4AD, which ended in 2002. Last year’s critically acclaimed Detrola was their first release for the Silver Mountain […]
Author: Andrew Boe
I live and work in Seattle and have been here for ten years now. My addictions are records, coffee and red wine. Musically speaking, my tastes are grounded in a space where Leonard Cohen has dinner with the Reid brothers from the Jesus and Mary Chain.
Rating: 8.0 Rural Southwest England is where Polly Jean Harvey is originally from and it is where she has returned to after living abroad for several years. Her new album, White Chalk, is a stripped down, piano based recording that reflects the pastoral and remote setting where she once again resides. It is also the […]
Walking into a fairly empty venue on Sunday evening, I was surprised to see only about fifty people in attendance at what turned out to be a great show. I had missed the opening act and Nina Nastasia was already on the stage accompanied by one of the greatest drummers that I have ever seen, […]
Rating: 6.0 British Columbia native, Carolyn Mark, has been active in the country music world since the early 1990s. She established herself by performing all over Canada and frequently tours the West coast of the United States. In 2000, she released a CD with Neko Case under the band name the Corn Sisters before wandering […]
Rating: 8.5 It’s been three years since their last album, Carnival, which was a rhythm section led masterpiece and now New Model Army have just released High, an album that sounds a little more akin to their typical songwriting style, but is no less compelling. The band have been described as being everything from punk […]
Rating: 8.4 What a pleasant surprise the new Marissa Nadler CD was when it arrived in my mailbox. She is a relatively new artist from rural Massachusetts whom I knew nothing about. Songs III: Bird on the Water is her third record, and it is her first that was professionally recorded. It is a folk […]
Rating: 7.0 It is a bit challenging to introduce Akron/Family to those who may not be familiar with them. The group consists of four young men who mainly write a strange blend of folk-rock that most people will instantly lump into this trendy new category termed ‘freak folk.’ They are not from Akron, OH, and […]