2017 Album Reviews (Click on the cover for link)

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Album Review: Annie Capps - How Can I Say This?

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  www.anniecapps.com If you enjoy diving into a deep lyrical pool, then the latest album from Annie Capps is a smart listener's delight. Taking a detour from her work with partner Rod, she plunges headlong into this stark and thoughtful solo project to deliver a dozen-strong collection. This presents HOW CAN I SAY THIS? as a body of personally driven songwriting of the highest calibre.  The notes inform a 40-strong cast of all women collaborators have assisted on this project, but you feel forever secure in the solo arms of a songwriter exploring life and nostalgia from numerous angles and experiences. The album plays out on a level plane with minimal highs and lows. A few more notable peaks may have boosted the impact for casual listeners, but sufficient elegance and guile puts the album firmly on the road to laudable acceptance. Truth or fiction are a creative writer's prerogative. We can only surmise the directions Capps takes throughout the songs here. She relies heavily o...
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Album Review: Jason Ringenberg - Rhinestoned

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  www.jasonringenberg.com You can't keep a good man down and Jason Ringenberg is one of the best of them. Boosted by the reception and satisfaction of his 2018 album STAND TALL, everybody's favourite cowpunk, witty, incisive, intelligent lyricist is back with another record as deep and broad as its predecessor. RHINESTONED is a passionate release depicting every inch the portrayal of Jason Ringenberg, namely historical curator, proud custodian of a style and blessed with a cavernous conscious. The starting point of this album may have been some of the leftovers of the previous record, but it has soon developed its own entity and matches up well with what Ringenberg has produced in a long career whether heading the Scorchers, playing up to the Farmer Jason moniker or just the plain solo act with something to offer.  This album has all the distinctive hallmarks of a Jason Ringenberg record from a vocal perspective as well as the routes chosen for the material. Of the four tracks...
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Album Review: The Pawn Shop Saints - ordinary folks

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  www.jebbarry,com Releasing an album two weeks before Christmas runs the risk of being buried in the avalanche of end of year lists with folks generally in a reflective mood. Perhaps this unassuming release is just content to sit quietly peering from the sidelines very much in line with the image on the front cover and pounce when the dust settles. ordinary folks is not one to punch above its weight, even the omission of capitalisation suggests a far from bombastic approach. Just like it says on the tin, this is a gaze into a mundane world of well, just ordinary folks, and the world of simple truth and reality that brings out the best in a certain mindset of observational troubadour. Singer-songwriter Jeb Barry has dropped his name from the title of this album and gone solely with The Pawn Shop Saints. Whatever the motive he delivers a decisive slab of acute perceptive songwriting wrapped in a sound that echoes the curiosity of a southern road trip.  Long before the term 'rea...
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