Disc Reviews
by Max Ink Staff Writers
Frontperson - Parade
Frontperson
Album title: Parade
By John Noyd
Posted: Apr 2022
Label: Oscar St Records
(607) Page Views
Casually savvy pop polished in conversational playfulness, The New Pornographers’ Kathryn Calder and Mark Andrew Hamilton (aka Woodpigeon), stage sparkling heartache in the devilishly educated, “Parade.” Well-prepared flair paired with smooth musical nuance, the duo’s calm drama is gifted in uplifting riffs tumbling over punchy sunshine harmonies, fond swansongs waxing nostalgic with sunset forget-me-nots digitized in fizzy indie blizzards, plucked from baroque folk and tuned to tender acoustic roominess. A sensitive blending from multi-talented collaborators trading smart segues between seamless ideas, the entire record breathes in cohesive reprieves, compassionate distractions packing effortless gentleness inside romantic candor to sooth life’s bumpy patches into heavenly getaways blazing with radiant syncopation. Immaculate practitioners in crafted particulars, Frontperson looks ahead while refining what has passed into something reliably desirable.
Kyle Rightley - The Hum
Kyle Rightley
Album title: The Hum
By John Noyd
Posted: Mar 2022
Label: self-release
(1152) Page Views
Kicking things off with an aspirational Celtic jig melting into explosive folk, tinged with indie-rock, “The Hum,” is hard to summarize. Slide guitar slices to the quick, chamber-pop brass elevates poignant disappointments into elegant hesitation, mandolins swing in heart-wringing sympathy while ambient textures, crisp acoustics, gritty electrics and tasteful arrangements deftly fuse gallivanting dynamics into songs ambidextrous and effervescent. Ascending tensions both supportive and intriguing seize leads and control the flow jumping from miniature synth-rock operas to country-fried lullabies in an amazing display of multi-instrumental skills. Rightley’s perceptive lyrics unify the album’s encyclopedic styles; constantly evolving pondering, morphing meditations and persistent shape-shifting issues connect left-handed turns and expansive gambles to well-charted maps exploring contemporary territories in personalized fictions embodying modern contradictions within solid, accomplished compositions.
Tone of Voice Orchestra - Tone of Voice Orchestra
Tone of Voice Orchestra
Album title: Tone of Voice Orchestra
By John Noyd
Posted: Mar 2022
Label: Stunt Records
(1199) Page Views
A marvelous collaboration between singer-songwriter Trinelise Væring and Danish jazz saxophonist Fredrik Lundin, Tone of Voice Orchestra’s four singers, fiddle, hurdy-gurdy, bagpipes, cittern, saxophones, flutes, two drummers and double bass mix East European folk with North African jazz and Mother Earth Americana for Druid grooves, pagan refrains and snake-charmer barnstormers. Incorporating contemporary fairy tales into real-life delights and blossoming thoughts, ToVO’s celestial messengers address modern problems and universal concerns as meditative drum-circles merge with nurturing self-worth and campfire mirth, a rumbling coven of fertile dervishes manifesting tantric mantras with aspiring choirs, unfolding solos and simmering rhythms patiently weighing hypnotic options. Pastoral stories producing heady flowerbeds stuffed with anthropological solace, the self-titled debut gathers deep-breathing seekers under bright silk-screened skies with yogic motivation and wide-open eyes.
Destroyer - Labyrinthitis
Destroyer
Album title: Labyrinthitis
By John Noyd
Posted: Feb 2022
Label: Merge Records
(625) Page Views
Foppish yacht-rock kisses swish in a wicked laissez faire marriage between debonair doomsday soothsayers and groovy arthouse cabaret; “Labyrinthitis,” strides through stylish kaleidoscopes, a stymied primal dance dressed in frisky disco moments and dizzy synthesizer symphonics drawing royal cinematic sympathies. Admonished thoughts caught among casual affirmations and picturesque fiction slink in meandering anthems for castaway candidates, unrestrained language-plays staging mental mazes colored in palpitating pulses, rubbery hustle and aerodynamic glamour. A cabal of the banal twisted into mischievous quips, jaded persuasions and aloof truths, New Pornographer’s Dan Bejar and long-time collaborator John Collins deploy Destroyer’s glossy innuendos in shimmering crescendos rendering moody affluence, party pariahs talking behind your back as digital orchestras swell in chandelier soliloquies glow in smoldering myths, snickering enigmas and divested effigies.
Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa
Spoon
Album title: Lucifer on the Sofa
By John Noyd
Posted: Jan 2022
Label: Matador Records
(701) Page Views
Visceral bristling with slinky bootleg boogie slowly pouring over husky seductions singed in vintage derision while nestling tender affection, Spoon embodies irresistible rock ‘n roll grit with scrappy toe-tappers alluding to demonic grooves with crackling back-to-basics cool. Sweltering heartfelt rebels celebrating back-alley nostalgia with odes to radios and records, Austin’s primed front-line survivors dispense tempting friendships punctuated in sax blasts, scratched thrash and stripped riffs as load-bearing bass, rigid rhythms and doo-wop harmonies lay formidable foundations for antsy vamps and scampering slow-jams. Veering away from quick fixes and studio-assembled perfection, “Lucifer,” proves loose band bantering produces creative havens as well-rehearsed excursions unearth cozy lived-in verses, sensuous impetuous solos and boisterous choruses. A stunning band live, Spoon play’s Milwaukee’s The Rave April 23rd with Margaret Glaspy
Mitski - Laurel Hell
Mitski
Album title: Laurel Hell
By John Noyd
Posted: Jan 2022
Label: Dead Oceans
(668) Page Views
Cloistered confessionals injecting micromanaged humanity into sparse artifice, “Laurel Hell,” is a sensual reckoning bursting in pent-up tension emphasizing monumental empathy itching to exist. From bright to brooding, solitary to magnanimous, Mitski sings into the night with candlelit synths, somber chamber-pop whose militant diligence and shadow-dispensing despair ignite symphonic flares reveling in elevated faith and incandescent strength. Wisely bridling majestic trepidation to end her time in, “Hell,” with spritely rhythmic sprints, Mitski finishes with beat-driven epiphanies glowing in rekindled desire for gloriously sonorous transformation, soulful control snowballing into tuneful communion between dark thoughts and tentative memories. Suspenseful interventions creating sage paintings, Mitski’s songs treasure deeply personal expression. Count yourself lucky to have tickets to her sold-out show March 15th at Milwaukee’s Miller High Life Theater.
Fazer - Plex
Fazer
Album title: Plex
By John Noyd
Posted: Dec 2021
Label: City Slang
(723) Page Views
Placid jazz backed by Afrobeat Kautrock, the pleasant, intersectional, “Plex,” rests on post-bop launchpads whose stream-lined punctual funk jumps under smoldering twin-drummer grooves while spidery guitar, languid bass and voluptuous trumpet build vivid bridges over swift rivers. Chill yet willful, the German quintet’s distinct insistence weaves between eclectic musical territories carving safe harbors from foggy consciousness. A textured collective, Fazer fleshes sketches, stretches overlapping genres and wrestles polysyllabic collaborations, trading tempos, leads and moods to keep interests evolving, bright and chatty, mellow and meditative. Crisp precision, bold, but in control, the band’s energy juggles supple and eruptive, engaging and blazing in intercontinental conventions, treaties and alliances formed with refined compliance, integrating impatience into curious sensations whose lulling hustle shifts in rippling pictures and smooth opportunities.
Imarhan - Aboogi
Imarhan
Album title: Aboogi
By John Noyd
Posted: Dec 2021
Label: City Slang
(695) Page Views
Dancing with fire, unfolding like a blossom, “Aboogi,” writhes in tireless vitality, flowing from intimate to inflammatory, layers wavering in mounting prayer, vocals coasting against sustained constraint and ecstatic passions as incandescent manifestations find labyrinth pathways, cleansing, fusing, seeking solutions. Generative demonstrations tamed in free-wheeling yielding and buoyant resourceful persistence, the South Algerian quintet showcase their new hometown studio’s high-tech production, cultivating roots while nurturing cross-pollinating occasions, drawing international cameos into Tuareg traditions to enrich an already wealthy melting-pot stocked in rejoicing and reckoning, bitter protests and savory praise. Welcoming sounds hosting tangy flavors wrapped in gangling shapes, Imarhan’s guitar-driven vibes grow from simple and soulful to scintillating and celebratory, inextinguishable winds blowing through cozy after-glow, sowing primal trance from cosmic improvisations inside ancient frameworks
Louka - Testing Your Patience
Louka
Album title: Testing Your Patience
By John Noyd
Posted: Nov 2021
Label: self-release
(995) Page Views
Gorgeous chords flourish into exotic options while intoxicating stompbox romps saunter through roots-music traditions, “Testing Your Patience,” dazzles in dark and dirty flirtations, bursting in meticulous menace whose lively asides and meditative meanderings enchant in fancy fretwork and lyrical pirouettes. Incorporating years playing jazz, country and reggae, Louka’s impeccable sideman resume has laid a towering foundation for a diverse third album. Rambling mandolins dance alongside balalaika haikus spritzed in slick ricochets, locomotive lullabies melt into grooved rocking chair blues as expressive messages simmer in hospitable whimsy. Acoustic music layered in global kaleidoscopes and electric eclecticism, Madison guitarist Louka Patenaude’s skulking rock, foxy folk and baroque Americana turns wonderful conundrums into effortless treasures, a casual world-class palette colored in trotting chops, skittish licks and bluegrass flash.
Eva Cassidy - Live At Blues Alley 25th Anniversary Edition
Eva Cassidy
Album title: Live At Blues Alley 25th Anniversary Edition
By John Noyd
Posted: Nov 2021
Label: Blix Street
(753) Page Views
A cornerstone of a career cut short, “Live At Blues Alley,” highlights Cassidy’s versatility and good taste in a thirteen-song set that swings hard in club-jazz mastery while soaring high with bell-like clarity and sensual empathy. A business decision turned historic document when Eva succumbed to cancer a short few months after the iconic D.C. gig, the 25th Anniversary edition beautifully restores the original’s gospel growls and choir-angel arrangements with mesmerizing delicacy. Funneling all her money into the recording, Eva put her heart and soul into a performance whose intimate setting focused on her tender strengths and supple vulnerability as she wound pop standards, childhood favorites and jazz ballads around pianist Lenny Williams and guitarist Keith Grimes’s subtle accompaniment with graceful cadence and soulful emotion.
Neal Francis - In Plain Sight
Neal Francis
Album title: In Plain Sight
By John Noyd
Posted: Nov 2021
Label: ATO Records
(808) Page Views
Brewed in sugary Southern boogie, funky blue-eyed soul and sly seventies jive, “Sight,” cooks tasty honky-tonk gumbos glazed in assorted keyboards and peppered in barbed slide guitar and slippery rhythms. Dodging life’s knotty problems with tuneful grooves and nomadic attitudes, Francis’ incandescent piano propels bold romantic gestures into sweet-talking propositions, sending fate-tempting epics jumping and tumbling in velvety bell-bottom textures. A forward-thinking throwback, Francis’ roadhouse showtunes are dreamy and steamy, celestial and terrestrial, cavalier but caring, elegantly dressed in glitzy synths, restless celeste and moseying Fender Rhodes. A dazzling live act, adding, “Sight,” to Neal’s awesome concert catalogue can only heighten an already upbeat jamboree. Find out for yourself when Neal Francis plays Madison’s High Noon Saloon January 13th with Chicago’s alt-Latinx powerhouse Dos Santos.
Constant Smiles - Paragons
Constant Smiles
Album title: Paragons
By John Noyd
Posted: Nov 2021
Label: Sacred Bones
(882) Page Views
Solemn, steady, cellar detectives, Constant Smiles’ cool elusive mood casts placid spells over merciful searching, enigmatic passions and rumbling conundrums. Tenacious patience makes, “Paragons,” a rising survivor’s champion companion, each song building upon ascendent defendants conjuring strong longing on bedrock clockwork while stark guitars whose ghostly solos skim weighty bass and dark synths lift with thrift and hopeful focus. Hallowed shadowy scenarios pushing unbendable agendas in whispered persistence, the Ben Jones-led collective hovers between meticulous Krautrock fits and tight dream-emo flights, effervescent sentries guarding and harboring floating innuendo with scissor precision. Evenly breezy in serene freedoms and fleeting machine-tooled soothsaying, this major label debut navigates half-remembered embers from burnt bridges in mesmerizing leveled-headedness, undeterred psychic surgeries meandering in candid analysis but direct in brooding execution.
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