The Emmett Hughes Band from Huntington, New York is led by (as you might expect) one Emmett J. Hughes. His music is informed by symphonic, Motown, rock, jazz, world music, and reggae influences. His brand new second album is called The Third Degree.
Hughes is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, playing guitars, bass, and keyboards. He started out in the late 1970s with a variety of bands and now draws the best local New York City players to his many projects. Regarding the songs in this album, Hughes calls them “positive, sincere, and deeply personal, reflecting on the emotional ups and downs of life and how challenges can lead to deeper understanding.” There are 12 songs, and interestingly, if read top to bottom, they all seem to be about love or relationships. “What Will I Do” has an interesting intro, where you’re hearing tuned percussive sounds almost like a coffee pot percolating. When the amplified acoustics and organ join in, it’s with a chord progression you didn’t see coming, with a distinct Island vibe. Hughes has one of those warm folky voices that build intimacy from the start. The arrangement gets bigger as the song continues, including moments of saxophone that very much recall the ’80s. The chorus vocal harmonies are rich, sophisticated, and lovely. “Where Did I Go Wrong” is a gentle ballad with an easy listening vibe but also features a terrific lead guitar solo. Hughes sings a bit more dramatically here, the way Harry Chapin sometimes did. “Tell You How I’m Feeling” continues the heartfelt, confessional feel of the previous track but with a more funky beat and even more interesting mixing touches. There’s also a lovely female harmony vocalist on the chorus. “Love Me Tenderly” has nothing to do with any Elvis song. Instead, it’s a gentle, folky ballad featuring acoustic guitar, strings (I think they’re real!), and Hughes's heartfelt, endearing falsetto. “Crazy For You” is the most island-influenced track right up front, using ukulele and marimba and a solid reggae beat. “Loony Tunes is what I said!” The chorus breaks are interesting, totally dropping the island beat for an almost a cappella moment. Basically, this song describes the many ways you can lose your mind over being in love. “Better Days Ahead” takes an interesting detour into blues rock, featuring heavy fuzz lead, organ, and lots of dark, bluesy attitude in waltz time. “Beautiful Dream” is just that, with a dark smoky atmosphere thanks to wah-wah guitars, film noir saxophone, and low, mysterious vocals. My friends would call this MOOD. “40 Years” is a detour into folk-country with weeping slide or pedal steel guitars. For anyone into classical music, “Dark Bird” is an interesting track in that it opens with woodwinds playing two interweaving (and quite lovely) Stravinsky-like melodies, then settles into an approximation of the structure of Ravel’s “Bolero,” adding strings and note-perfect classical guitar. “Can I Speak for You” is another full-on reggae excursion, with all the tooting horns and percussive guitar licks you’d expect. “Uncle Bo John” concludes the set combining hip-hop, rap, and a spy-movie horn section. Seemingly out of place in this collection, it’s nonetheless an interesting and amusing assemblage. Hughes even sounds a bit like Ice T here. Certainly an interesting number of unusual influences for one album, but they all seem to work together quite well. Wonderfully put together and worth checking out!
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Wilson Getchell of Raleigh, NC, is the frontman for the Thirsty Curses band, as well as a solo artist. His new album as a singer-songwriter is Banned from Barflys, and the eight indie folk/dream pop tracks presented here have quite a storied history.
These songs reflect a fun but turbulent period of Getchell’s life, basically partying and making bad decisions around the clock. Ultimately, he was indeed banned from Barfly's (an Austin, Texas dive bar). How you get banned from any dive bar in Texas is beyond me, and not even Getchell can remember why (though his website landing page shows a fully naked man enjoying a drink at a bar with friends). He wound up recording these songs for a fledgling record label in Richmond, Virginia, which promptly went under. Much later, Getchell happened to play the songs acoustically for some friends, and their enthusiastic reception caused Getchell to revive the project. Thematically, Getchell says these songs tell of heavy drinking, easy women, and personal inner turmoil, all wrapped up in a folk-punk/Americana aesthetic, though he also says they’re tongue-in-cheek. He concludes: “It was a weird experience to get so intimately reacquainted with this person I used to be. I can’t say it was entirely healthy, to be honest. But it was a good time.” Getchell recorded all instruments himself at his Raleigh home studio, with stellar mixing and mastering by Thirsty Curses veteran Benjamin Jenkerson. “Vowels in Her Name” opens the album in a jaunty, upbeat manner similar to the hit song “Chuck E.’s In Love.” Piano is predominant, but that turns out to be just the beginning as Getchell quickly triples the tempo for the song proper. Not sure how to say it, but Getchell’s voice matches his face, open and inviting but with hints of a few bumpy roads traveled. Later you can still hear the piano, but the acoustic guitar becomes his main axe, with some great drum tracks that play as real, even if not. The hook of this tune is Getchell’s continually reminding his listeners that his adventures happened because “we got drunk,” and there’s an amusing whistle chorus and glockenspiel melody to underline those lyrics. “The Bouncer Up At Stubb’s” immediately sounds more serious and dramatic, with Getchell’s acoustic carrying the weight of his narration… that is, until another unexpected changeup featuring several rapid temp shifts underlined by one of those wooden fishes you play with a stick. Instead of getting drunk this time, the narrator and his girl got “animated” until the morning when the singer finds himself alone in bed with no phone number. Based on the complexity of these first two songs, I can’t imagine how Getchell was able to play these tunes with just his acoustic around a campfire, but no wonder he was encouraged to get them on tape! “NICE GIRLS” continues the barstool theme (and the girls you can find sitting on them). For the third time I thought Getchell’s verses were a signpost as to where the song was heading, but the chorus is a total left curve with barbershop quartet vocals and a lullaby outro with lyrics like: “Let’s go play in traffic with a head full of acid… let’s push the kids into the deepest part of the pool.” Unique doesn’t quite capture it! “WO Regret” is yet another variation on the Getchell sound, bathed in crunchy but melodic electric guitar while again featuring glockenspiel melodies. It also has one of Getchell’s catchiest and most straightforward rocking choruses with absolutely beautiful harmonies. “Sterile Treasure Island” has a sound very much like a vibraphone (does Getchell own one of these?) along with his steady, crunchy rhythm guitar. “The Ballad of Kentucky & Virginia” is a folky miniature with just Getchell and some friends on acoustics and piano. Less than a minute, but I won’t say more because I want it to be a surprise! “Before You Reach Waco” is the big final rave-up, and owes more than a little to the Joe Walsh tune “Life’s Been Good” (though a bit faster). Here we have one last jubilant burst of acoustic guitar and whistling, along with a classic Getchell refrain: “You’ll be sucking off my enemies before we reach Waco!” To say Getchell is a unique voice within a very fractured genre barely scratches the surface. Worth a Listen, a Like, and maybe even a Buy!
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The One Tonic is the performing name for electro-pop artist Matt Soren of South Jordan, Utah. With music that is said to “blend the sonic flavor of Muse or Imagine Dragons with a dad who has ADHD,” Soren’s latest project is a single release called "Not Gonna Waste It."
In the years before the forming of his band, Soren struggled with depression, abuse, and addiction. Finally breaking free of these roadblocks, he got married and had children and found out how great life could be… until his wife got cancer. Despite all this, he remains happily married with six kids and has chosen to “give back” by contributing a portion of his music-related profits toward organizations that strengthen families and help individuals survive addiction, mental illness, and other obstacles. The cover image for the single is a spooky, haunted house-looking synthesizer, and the opening audio montage fits it like a glove. We hear what sounds like a frantic search on a long-lost radio frequency, which blasts in with the song proper: tribal drums, low synths, and a whispering, insinuating narrative vocal. Little by little, Soren adds color to his arrangement, first with vocal harmonies and then with big, assertive chords behind his wailing, sincere lead vocals. Interestingly, I’ve heard a few albums this week that remind me of David Bowie’s German period, and this track does as well. The arrangement grows more rich and diverse with each verse and beat. The final message, conveyed with majestic guitars and skittering synths, is that “Life is too short to waste / Not gonna waste it away. A hell of a journey in just three minutes! Check it out and check it out again while supporting a great cause!
North Dakota’s Tuesday X has just released Lo-Fi, its eighth album since 2015. I’m always interested when a band identifies its music as lo-fi, because that means there’s many possibilities. It might be the limitations of their recording gear, the sound of the instruments themselves or even the style of music being made (in fact one of my own songs recorded in a pro studio was called “lo-fi” on this very site!).
The band Tuesday X is actually indie solo artist Seth Babbitt. He says that Lo-Fi is “a breakup album that focuses on the struggles of moving on and accepting the beauty in our flaws.” Stylistically Babbitt describes his sound as indie pop, with elements of jangle-pop, psych rock, power-pop, and shoegaze. He cites Field Medic and Pinegrove as influences, along with female lead groups like The Ophelia's, Boy Genius, Wilt and Great Grandpa. Some of his lyrical themes include fear, loneliness, abandonment, acceptance, growth, substance abuse and feeling misunderstood. The lo-fi aspect of the album is conceptual, as Babbitt chose to “return to his roots” and record the same way he started at age 17, “as a way of learning self love for my art and embracing the flaws in my music, regardless of how other people perceive it.” He recorded mostly in his bedroom, except for drums (tracked in his basement) and vocals (in the car). His vocal mic was a smartphone. As in his early days he layered his tracks on BandLab’s Cakewalk program. There’s 18 songs here and I can’t possibly review them all, but I also have some thoughts before I start. First off, I greatly admire anyone who turns to music to work out a romantic crisis or breakup. I’ve done it myself, and sometimes even hoped for a breakup so I could get some fresh creative inspiration. The fact that an artist can craft a full-length album out of just this one topic or situation amazes me. Secondly, I admire Babbitt’s decision to go purposely lo-fi, revisiting methods he used when starting out. His music is often shrill or distorted but it feels absolutely right. Finally, and weirdest of all, Babbitt sometimes has an eerie vocal similarity to, of all people, Peter Gabriel! I just noticed that under his Bandcamp photo, Babbitt calls himself “The Emo Beatle.” This is actually kind of true, as the strummed electric chords of “Ignis Fatuus” immediately reminded me of The Lads, along with the eerie, backward effects fading in and out around the edges. The Smartphone vocals have a strange quality, like they’ve been called in from a space station, but Babbitt’s voice is good (though improbably with a bit of an English accent). There’s also an actual phone message fragment, though whether this was from his lost love is impossible for me to say. “New” is a high energy alternative track with constant, ranting vocals and a very busy basement drum kit. “Brisket” is the shortest track with a very simple message: “I’ll keep getting high all the time to curb the mood swings… I’m sad it had to end like this.” This track seems like a direct intro to “My My My” which has the molten energy of Bob Mould, also known for making whole albums about breakups (actually, Mould sounds restrained compared to this). There’s lots of instruments going full bore, but boy are they packed together tightly! “CPR” is built on picked acoustics and a high-pitched, Bowie-style vocal in which the narrator seems to take responsibility for the breakup. “I hope one day you’ll realize I’m on your side… Til then you’ll judge me as I am.” With just guitars and vocals, it’s pretty amazing Babbitt got such great quality singing into a phone in his car! “Womanizer” is my favorite song by far, not least because it sounds like Peter Gabriel suddenly walked into the studio! The mix is tinny and bizarre, with drums sounding like thunderclaps. At this point I jumped ahead to track 18, which is the same song performed live with just guitar and voice. It’s a boomy recording but confirmed the lovely melancholy of Babbitt’s chords and vocals. I may be wrong but “Two Jobs” seems to describe that weird in-between state in a relationship where you still see each other, maybe even share a bed, but the love is inexorably fading even as you still have hope for the future. Musically it’s mostly acoustic with those familiar, backward-sounding keys. It even sounds like there’s a female harmony vocalist, which adds to the eerie atmosphere. “Funk E Boi” is not quite funk, more like a twisted, Beefheartian gloss on Babbitt’s usual style. Emotionally he’s swung back into anger, made clear by the final line: “Get the fuck out of my life.” “Don’t Overthink It” is a jolly, British Invasion-style rocker which embraces ambivalence (“If it feels good, just do it / Don’t overthink it Baby, I’m already gone.”). Am I hearing a touch of the Police? There’s eight more songs here (the final three performed live) and they are all worthy additions to this unique document. If you’re the kind of listener who’s willing to roll with the peaks and valleys of lo-fi music (I certainly am) I recommend this deeply-felt confessional quite highly!
Kaptain Kollnot (and fair warning, I always love bands with “Captain” in the name) is an 80’s-style metal project from Grand Rapids, Michigan. The band’s leader is Jeff Kollnot, who writes all the songs and plays guitar and bass, joined by vocalist Stu Block and drummer Eric Landon. The group has released a couple of albums and EPs since 2019, and its newest single is titled "Mankinds."
The group’s music has been described as “metal with an arena rock flavor” as well as “progressive metal/shred” (Encyclopaedia Metallum). Kollnot explains that this song is about “Homo Sapiens collaborating with inter-dimensional evolutionary descendants of ourselves in a post-UFO disclosure world. Some consider it sci-fi, others don’t.” Mixing and mastering were done by CJ Gardineer. To set the stage: imagine the vocals, speed, and galloping drums of Metallica, with some of those classic guitar harmonics of Eddie Van Halen. For the first chorus, the band makes a quick but seamless change to a slower tempo (though “slower” is relative, of course!). Then they go back to the template from the first section, before the second chorus adds even more brazenly fuzzed-out melodies. For the third section, we enter the “prog” part of the equation, with crazy, fractured riffs leading into a dueling lead solo section that will cause your jaw to fall to the concrete. The big conclusion is basically the chorus on steroids, and by this point I’m surprised the snare drum hasn’t been reduced to a pile of wood shards. This is speed metal so fast and intense you can barely believe you heard it. I loved it and wish there were a whole album’s worth. Get on it, Kaptain!
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Stoned Turtle is an alternative rock band featuring “powerful guitars, pounding drums, and gritty bass for a real 90s-inspired sound.” I was expecting them to be from Seattle, but they're actually from Genoa, Italy! Anyway, the boys have just released a new CD titled Blackout.
Stoned Turtle was formed when two previous bands (Hydra and Blank) broke up, and some of the remaining members joined together for a five-piece group, allowing for more refined vocal harmonies and intricate guitar arrangements. The members are Alessandro Vito (vocals), Alessio Lai (guitars), Stefano Arecco (guitars/backing vocals), Nicolo Cavazzoni (bass/backing vocals), and Fabrizio Ferro (drums). Their original sound was noise rock à la Sonic Youth, but they evolved to show influences from Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Metallica, System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine, and Smashing Pumpkins. Their songs deal with the human state of mind in different situations, including difficult ones: the pandemic, the fallout from war, and the inability to see the future are some examples. Recording and mixing took place at Blackwave Studio by Fabio Palombi, with mastering by "Bernie" De Bernardi at Eleven Mastering (PFM, Nanowar). “Sweet” incinerated my speakers right out of the gate with a track that actually dates back to the band’s “Blank Period.” Structurally, it has that Nirvana quiet-loud dynamic with vocals similar to Greg Lake (for those who remember). The riffs are not particularly complex, but the whole works quite well, along with a classic wah-wah solo. And for a song that starts with “We are flies inside a glass / waiting for our day to die,” it actually gets pretty hopeful toward the end! The band says “Blackout” is about “the blindness towards the future, in an increasingly complex society.” However, they also admit it was written and recorded during the pandemic, which is clear from the lyrics: “You open up the door, there’s just silence outside.” However it got here, this is an upbeat hard rocker with another great wah-wah solo and some interesting mix choices. “What Are You Waitin’ For?” brings some of the more distant Metallica influences to the fore, though even at their most depressed, these guys seem to be having more fun than those other guys. The different gradations of fuzz guitars are subtle but reward close listening on headphones. “Crazy For You” starts the track acoustically but soon returns to full-bore rock. Given the intimate opening, I was expecting this to be the obligatory love ballad, but that love appears to be for someone who is NOT the narrator. The boys have devised a clever countdown motif for the choruses (“One, two, three, you’ll be falling apart / And in four, five, six I’ll be breaking your heart”). The lead solo is straight (no wah pedal), and I think I prefer it that way. The “Doors Of Perception” was a book from which The Doors band borrowed their name, so I was interested to see if there would be any Doors sound in this song. The answer is no, though the lyrical ideas are not far from Jim Morrison's. Musically, it’s a rollicking, tumbling rock fest with 60s-style harmony vocal choruses. “Killing For The Master” was the first song specifically composed for this album and is said to deal with the theme of war and refugees. It alternates between frantic Brian May-like riffs and chiming guitar choruses. Wherever it comes from, the energy and forward momentum are unstoppable. “Beyond The Truth” starts the final track with acoustic guitars and muted electrics. The boys increase the volume judiciously, then add a guitar effect that sounds like it was beamed to Mars and back. Vito’s soulful vocals are center stage, and I’m sorry but he really does sound like Greg Lake. Since we no longer have Greg in person, that’s fine with me. Interestingly, this is one of the most accessible tracks: quite heavy but with an extra sweet mix that should appeal to most anyone. A great set of killer rock songs with a classic edge. Highly recommended!
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