Music Reviews

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Music Reviews
CD Review: Wilco
Billy Altman  |  Jun 03, 2007  | 

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Music Reviews
CD Reviews: 50 Cent, Kanye West
Jeff Perlah  |  Nov 04, 2007  | 

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Music Reviews
CD, DVD Review: Dinosaur Jr.
Jeff Perlah  |  Jun 07, 2007  | 

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Music Reviews
CD, DVD Review: Jay-Z
Jeff Perlah  |  Dec 18, 2007  | 

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Music Reviews
Cee Lo Green: The Lady Killer
Jeff Perlah  |  Feb 28, 2011  | 
 
Elektra
Music •••• Sound ••••

 

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Music Reviews
Changing to a country horse . . .
Rob O'Connor  |  Mar 05, 2009  | 
ATO
Music ••• Sound ••••
Let's hear it for Kitt Kitterman!

Who?

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Music Reviews
Chesky Records Uses Its Head to Make Better-Sounding Music
Steve Guttenberg  |  Apr 29, 2016  | 
I met singer-songwriter Amber Rubarth when she was recording her first Chesky Records album, Sessions From the 17th Ward, back in 2012. I instantly fell in love with her music and the sound of her voice, but more than that, I was amazed by how relaxed she was making an entire album in just two days. Most of the tunes were hers, and they were consistently good, but her covers of Tom Waits’ “Hold On” and Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman” blew me away. No wonder legendary record producer Phil Ramone said Rubarth was “part of the new old-soul generation.”
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Music Reviews
Circa Zero
Mike Mettler  |  Jun 03, 2014  | 
Performance
Sound
Never one to favor flash over substance, Andy Summers may very well be the most underrated guitarist of the rock era. Summers took a minimalist approach with his work for the juggernaut pop-alternative trio known as The Police, letting atmospherics and not pyrotechnics fuel such indelible hits as “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and “Every Breath You Take.” His echoing, chorused, chordal-centric technique schooled a generation of players from U2’s The Edge to The Fixx’s Jamie West-Oram. Even a player as accomplished as Rush’s Alex Lifeson added a Summersesque “less is more” dimension to his repertoire during the ’80s.
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Music Reviews
Classic Yes on Vinyl: The Steven Wilson Remixes
Mike Mettler  |  Oct 18, 2018  | 
Performance
Sound
Calculating how many times key entries in the Yes catalog have been remastered, remixed, repackaged, and reissued can sometimes feel akin to tallying how many official live albums The Grateful Dead have released over the years—well, okay, maybe not quite that many, but still…. It can also be somewhat arduous to keep up with all the ongoing Yes release permutations without a scorecard, let alone decide which ones are worth purchasing.
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Music Reviews
Concerts Go High-Def
Ken Richardson  |  Jan 03, 2007  | 

BLACK IS BLACK. True, but you won't believe how deep it goes on the high-def reissues of U2's 1988 concert pic Rattle and Hum (Paramount; Movie •••••; Blu-ray Disc Picture ••••, Sound ••••; HD DVD Picture ••••, Sound ••••½; Original Extras ½, New Extras: None).

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Music Reviews
Dave Mathews: Everyday
Parke Puterbaugh  |  Jun 10, 2001  | 

The first time I heard Everyday, I thought it was terrible, a train wreck of Led Zeppelin, fusion, and grunge. The material seemed contrived, formless, and prickly. And then I kept listening, adapted to it, and rather grew to like it.

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Music Reviews
David Bowie: Five Years — 1969-1973
Mike Mettler  |  Jan 11, 2016  | 
Also see “RIP: David Bowie”

Performance
Sound
“Five years—that’s all we’ve got.” That ominous prognostication, put forth by David Bowie ostensibly about an Earth heading toward imminent destruction in the opening track to 1972’s incendiary game-changer The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars, also serves as a fitting epigraph for both the core title and scope of this massive box set, the first in what will likely prove to be a series that will go well beyond merely making the grade.
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Music Reviews
David Gilmour: Luck and Strange in Dolby Atmos
Mike Mettler  |  Nov 13, 2024  | 

Immersive music, thy name be David Gilmour. Though Pink Floyd may be a semi-distant active memory, lead guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour has seen fit to issue some quite intriguing solo projects here and there over the past five or so decades. His fifth solo studio effort, Luck and Strange, which was released by Sony Music in multiple formats on September 6, 2024, may indeed be his best outing under his own name—most especially in its Dolby Atmos incarnation. Read Mike Mettler’s review to find out just how good that L&S Atmos mix really is. . .

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Music Reviews
Déjà vu: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
Mike Mettler  |  Aug 27, 2021  | 
Performance
Sound
As acclaimed as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's 1970 magnum opus Déjà vu is, it somewhat helplessly plays perpetual second fiddle to the sea change garnered by the stacked-harmonic conver- gences in evidence on 1969's Crosby, Stills & Nash, which preceded it by 10 months. Granted, CSN was a breath of fresh vocal-arrangement air and instinctual instrumental accompaniment, but Déjà vu fostered the initial intersection of the volatile four-way street of headstrong artistic personalities with the addition of Neil Young into the fold.
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Music Reviews
Debussy—Prlude l'aprs-midi d'un faune, Nocturnes, La mer, Berceuse hroque—Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Jrvi (Telarc) [SACD/CD]
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 11, 2006  |  First Published: Jul 11, 2005  | 
A trembling flute figure drifts into the air and hangs there, sensuously falling and rising. It's one of the most celebrated moments in orchestral music, and the free, blissful, agile development that follows does not disappoint. Nor does Telarc's multichannel recording of this sumptuous work.
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