The Mekons may be more a phenomenon than a band. Their 1978 debut single “Never Been in a Riot” is one of the finest punk (and perhaps with Television Personalities’ “Part Time Punks” one of the finest anti-punk) songs ever.
Trying to keep it as brief as possible, the band had three of the most well regarded albums of the 1980s- 1985s Fear and Whiskey, 1987s Honky Tonkin and 1989s Rock and Roll. Wikipedia lists tons of plaudits contemporary and retroactively- (Best of the Year, Best of the Decade and so on) for these albums from a number of critics and websites like Pitchfork, Robert Christgau, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Allmusic, Village View, Blender and the New York Times.
It was part of that late 80s zeitgeist that the Mekons seemed to be the Rock Music critics’ favorite band. Hard to peg down, if anyone they resembled the Pogues as they merged folk, punk, rock and blues. It was “alt country” before that term existed.
But that momentum didn’t really carry into the 90s. Perhaps, there was really never a chance that they could turn into REM or U2 stadium fillers.
The Mekons continued to make music that critics loved, but 91s Curse of the Mekons wasn’t even released in the US and they soon were dumped by their label, A&M Records. I was in college when “I (Heart) Mekons” came out in 1993. With a focus on love songs in a way only the Mekons could do love songs- I loved the record and it generally still shows up near the top of fans’ ranking of Mekons records.
For whatever reason, I have followed the Mekons pretty closely over the decades. They’re not quite like other bands but they are fascinating. They have yet to have the same effect that they had on me as they had in 93, though critics still seem to love them (though part of that is that it’s quite hard to keep track of them. 2020s Exquisite was only self released as a digital Bandcamp release at first).
So listening to 2025s Horror was at once a surprise and not a surprise. In this case, Horror seems to be the real world and the politics in it. Not a surprise for the Mekons. “The Western Design” is a history of imperialism in pop song form. Titles like “War Economy” and “Private Defense Contractor” are clues that this isn’t normal pop song fare.
I believe there are six vocalists that take lead that are spread throughout, which is fitting in with the Mekons style. It also gives it a real concept album feel as a gorgeous melody like “A Horse Has Escaped” will follow a rocker like “Nightcrawlers”. In many ways, it’s a sound that’s identifiable as that critically acclaimed 80s band- jumping from sound to sound on each song throwing in elements and instruments like rock, reggae, violin, folk, dub, angular pop, waltz, accordion, and even whistling where it is appropriate. Not that far underneath is that late 70s punk band- the one that pops up from time to time, like it did in 2004 when the band re-recorded their early tunes for the album titled “Punk Rock”. You can find 16th Century British Politics and the Irish Famine and modern climate change. In other words, things you can only find in this combination on a Mekons record.
I spent a lot of time with this album and in a pop world where surprisingly there doesn’t seem to be that much politically themed music these days. I am happy to see the Mekons deliver an album this powerful. The early reviews I saw were average or below, but I tend to think that is partially due to the fact that the Mekons are one of those artists that will have a Rohrsach Test effect on its listeners. What you get depends on what you are looking for from the band. (To be fair, a wave of more positive reviews have since rolled in) I find this album particularly accessible and with a political punk edge that speaks to me more than a lot of their recent work.
Hayes Carll is on the list of one of my favorite new artists of the (not so) new Century. It was 2016s Joe Henry produced Lovers and Leavers album that I first noticed him.
On his early albums, he cowrote songs with Jim Lauderdale, Ray Whylie Hubbard and Guy Clark. Carll has established himself in that lineage.
Carll reminds me of a couple of musicians. One is one of my favorites- Steve Earle. Both are cut out of the Townes Van Zandt/Guy Clark cloth.
Long time Duke (Earle’s backing band) Bucky Baxter, guitarist Kenny Vaughn who played with Earle on”Some Dreams” (as well as spending time as main guitarist with sometime Earle collaborator Lucinda Williams) and Alison Moorer (who often toured and recorded with Earle for many years as well as being an established artist in her own right, and was married to Earle) make up part of the band on Carll’s 2005 album Little Rock.
The character in the title track of Carll’s title track of his fourth album KMAG YO-YO is a military serviceman not unlike the kind Earle has sang about, and “Stomp and Holler” from the same kind of ramble and rollick Earle does so effortlessly.
Of course, when I first listened to Carll and imagined him as the next great Earle style songwriter, I didn’t know their history was going to intertwine.
Earle’s seventh marriage was to Moorer (2005-2015). Carll married Moorer in 2019 and they are still married to this day. In a much publicized interview after the divorce, Earle said that his wife left him for a “younger, skinner less talented songwriter”.
Carll is a perceptive writer but has a sense of humor too. One of his most famous songs is “Bad Liver and a Broken Heart” (not the Tom Waits song. Though he does cover “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”). You don’t have to look too hard in his catalog to find songs like “She Left Me for Jesus” and “Jesus and Elvis”, or “Another Like You” a song about a Democrat and a Republican falling in alcohol-induced romance.
He reminds me a lot of the recently passed Todd Snider, who also has made a career of switching back and forth from serious country folk to humorous songs.
Carll would cover Snider (“Beer Run” “Play A Train Song”) and Snider would cover Carll (“Stomp and Holler”). The two were close friends with Snider acting as a mentor to Carll.
Critics say 2025s “We’re Only Human” is a different Carll album than previously. I don’t know that it is drastically different if you really want to compare. It is certainly a bit more mature for sure (and that may be why I connect it to more than any of his previous work) but it’s still him.
There is definitely a pervasive feeling of 2025 on this album. It is an album for a world where people just don’t get along anymore. There was always a sense of John Prine in his work, but that really feels like the vibe here. Very few songwriters can make sense of it all like the guy who wrote “Sam Stone” and “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You into Heaven Anymore”, but Carll accomplished that here.
While it’s not a theme album. There’s enough songs here to bring that topic up. Songs like “Making Amends” and the title track are pretty self explanatory. The best songs are the live-and-let-love “Good People (Thank Me)” and “The Progress of Man” where “we all make big money on Bitcoin and cattle”.
There’s a bit of variety in sounds and topics with “High” being a mellow waltz that Snider would have approved of.
Songs like “One Day” and “Stay Here Awhile” sound like they could be off one of Earle’s late 90s records.
Throughout the record, a variety of guests from Americana to pop country offered their assistance in cowriting or instrumentation- Shovels and Rope, Brothers Osbourne, Jared Reynolds (Ben Folds), MC Taylor (Hiss Golden Messenger) Noah Jeffries (Jason Boland and the Stragglers), Gordy Quist (Band of Heathens), Brian Wright, Aaron Raitiere (Lady Gaga, Miranda Lambert) and Ray Wylie Hubbard.
I had my eyes on Carll for a long time. There’s a bit of parallel to Lydia Loveless who came out around the same time and has shifted from the bluntness of youth to really developing into an astute storyteller. I would attribute the comparison that both these artists scratch my particular itch (I haven’t seen any other reviewer make this connection and I doubt any will, though of interest, both Loveless and Carll show up to provide guest vocal spots on the Supersuckers’ 2016 album Holdin the Bag).
“We’re Only Human” is one of the great Americana albums of 2025 and a testament that Carl has delivered on his potential promise all those years ago.
Mark Mallman is a Minneapolis legend. I don’t know that I would have ran into his music if it had not been for a Minnesotan who told me to see him when he came to town. I saw him in 2006 which doesn’t seem that long ago.
Mallman has been described as “Elton John meets Darby Crash” which feels quite accurate. His reputation as a piano player with punk attitude made wanting to see him in concert a “no brainer”.
I find it hard to explain Mallman’s music as he is one of those musical chameleons but definitely the biggest influence is 1970s glam. There’s a lot of Bolan, Elton and Mott in his style. There’s plenty of 70s American rock too- a bit of Aerosmith, a bit of Springsteen, and yeah even maybe a bit of John Cale confrontational craziness.
He has recorded ten solo albums starting in 1998 and on those albums- a whole list of Midwest and Minnesota rock royalty have guested-Kat Bjelland (Babes in Toyland) Davey Von Bohlen and Dan Didier (The Promise Ring)Slim Dunlap (The Replacements) Ed Akerson (Polara) Erik Applewhite (Tapes and Tapes) Jeremy Ylvislaker (Andrew Bird) Craig Finn (The Hold Steady) and Shannon Frid (Cloud Cult).
Mallman is a Minneapolis legend with a star on the outside of the legendary First Avenue. It was a Minnesotan (a different one this time) that reminded me of Mallman. You see besides making solo records, he has written books, curated playlists, made music for TV and Movies, and maybe now in 2025, his highest profile gig- Musical historian on TikTok and Instagram.
It prompted me to look to see what he had been up to, and sure enough, he had released an album a few months ago called Magic Time. He’s always been on small labels and the only time the Press really seemed to cover him was those magical “indie rock” years of the late aughts before Pitchfork and their ilk moved from Fleet Foxes, Panda Bear and Bon Iver to more pop fare like Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar and Lana Del Rey.
In many ways. 2002s Red Ballroom was his high watermark produced by Paul Q Kolderie (Uncle Tupelo, Radiohead, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Hole, Morphine). It was around this time, he was making a name for himself with his marathon performances in Minnesota. In 2004, he performed a song over two consecutive days only breaking for the bathroom. In 2010, he performed for 78 hours straight.
He would outdo that in 2012 with “Marathon 4” a continuous 180 hour moving performance, broadcast on his webpage- starting in New York going to Los Angeles with Mallman wired up in such a way his biorhythms continued the music while he was sleeping.
I have to admit that the last time I took notice of Mallman’s 2016 The End is Not the End which was probably his most explicit Bowie homage- following his mother’s death, he drew heavily from Bowie’s Scary Monsters. When it came to 2020, Mallman like a lot of artists used his Covid-era time to record the memorable single “Quarantined”.
I totally missed his last album 2021s Happiness, an album that was an extension of his 2019 autobiography- “The Happiness Playlist”
Checking out Mallman’s short music history videos as suggested by my Minnesotan friend, I immediately thought I would check for recent albums and sure enough, there was Magic Time- released in June of 2025, how fortuitous to find it in time to mix it into my October listening.
As someone who had enjoyed Mallman’s music but never drawn to a particular album, I was shocked how much Magic Time sucked me in. I would imagine most would be put off by the cheesy horror movie cover and song titles full of cryptids, vampires and ghosts.
That surely isn’t the sales pitch for a lot of indie rockers, but it somehow is the perfect fit for Mallman.
His piano driven style is still hard to pin down, though there’s definitely an emphasis on 70s glam.
Like the things that go bump in the night, it’s hard to take the proceedings too seriously. Yet, the way Mallman weaves seemingly autobiographical facts makes it a compelling listen.
There’s a bit of Ben Folds. There’s Bolan of course. Yet I also hear some Warren Zevon who fittingly wrote his most famous song about a monster.
The best song on the album is “I Know the Mothman” in which the most memorable character may be that of Mallman himself-a long time, high mileage musician.
Songs like “Clowns” and “Christopher Lee” come close to that high watermark. For seemingly silly subjects, there’s a large amount of pathos.
While certain songs are better than others, there’s generally no bad songs here “Screaming in My Dreams” opens with a cinematic flourish fills with biographical details. Is the real horror the Music Industry?
The theme makes the album fun and smaller gems like “Seen My Own Ghost” give real depth with new wave keyboards and storytelling lyrics, while “Poison Flower” slows things to an Alice Cooper worthy glam horror ballad, and “The Cancer” is a string laden Beatlesque number with accompanying flute.
If you don’t like Mallman’s voice, it’s likely that this won’t win you over. That said, I was impressed with how Mallman was able to put together a signature album this far into his career. I rate it highly and find it one of the most compelling albums of recent years.
Voxtrot was a favorite band of mine from the early 2000s. The Texas-based band evolved from the same vein of the Smiths and Belle and Sebastian. Like some of the British bands of the prior decade (The Smiths, Suede, Cocteau Twins), they decided to release their music in a series of EPs. There's some fantastic music on these records, and those early songs of theirs finally got compiled in 2022.
The band planned on recording their debut full length album with Stephen Street (Morrissey, Blur, The Cranberries), but that did not work out and so it ended up being produced by Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Kirstie MacColl). The album did not receive the rave reviews that the early songs did. The expectations were surely too high in the days where Pitchfork and its ilk were looking to break the new big thing. As a fan of the band, I think it is safe to say the debut isn't good as the EP songs. That can be attributed to the album being less guitar fueled indie rock, and more wistful bedroom piano musings. But it also has some great moments, so dismissing it seems unfair, too.
In 2010, three years after that debut the band broke up. I am only making assumptions but I assume that based on singer Ramesh Srivastava's public communication and the musical environment, that the rollercoaster ride had lost its appeal.
I was excited to hear Voxtrot had reunited and planning music when they made the announcement in 2025, releasing their first song in years. Ramesh had released a solo album in 2014 but he had been largely out of the spotlight.
I am super excited to hear the new album. It's great to see the band get a proper "next chapter" in their story. I imagine "Quiet Noise" is the sound that the band wanted on that 2007 album. It sounds like a potential radio single and an arena singalong, but it still sounds intimate and real. It is important to focus on how great Ramesh's voice sounds. It wasn't important in the early days, but it is a real strength. I am not an emo fan, but I can see where he might translate to that crowd. Certainly, it feels in line with something that might appeal to fans of The Shins, Death Cab for Cutie and indie bands of that ilk.
The title track evokes a little bit of the Killers with its nostalgia for U2, Duran Duran and the Smiths. Srivastava no longer sounds like the bedroom depressive hiding behind jangle guitars. You may love the album or hate it, but he's not going down without a fight. "My Peace" even with its bright production recalls the driving hunger on those early Voxtrot songs.
"The Times" is reminiscent of C86 or perhaps the literate rock of Lloyd Cole, but smooth enough it could have been a college rock single from way back. "Rock and Roll Jesus" is surely more of a glam emo stomper. Those songs stray a bit from the early songs that I fell in love with, but there are those moments here too like "Fighting Back".
The band on Dreamers in Exile is one that has grown over the years. It is much more steeped in pop and emo sounds with way more polish. That said, I am glad to be on this journey with them and hope this is just the first of many more records.
As music fans, most of us value the times we find a really good band no one yet knows about. One for me has been Dari Bay. 2023s Longest Day of The Year captured my attention and though the band is not that terribly obscure, it’s nice to see them get a bigger re-release in 2025 for this album on Double Double Whammy records.
I assumed being the way they often present themselves on promotional material and social media (and album cover)that Dari was a person. Dari is a band but at the same time also is largely centered around vocalist/ guitarist/drummer (as well as producer/songwriter) Zack James. James also plays drums for Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
It feels like this may be the biggest artist to come out of Vermont, but when I read interviews, I think that state may be more fertile than I realize. Burlington has become a thriving scene with Dari Bay one of many artists making wave.
I was introduced to the band as an alt country act but that seems to be such a vague term. In my introduction to the band I heard they were Neil Young influenced. Of course, saying “they sound like Neil” doesn’t really narrow things down any.
But Dari Bay exist in that world where indie folk, alt country and indie pop meet. There’s elements of all those. There’s a bit of a straight line from Pavement as much as anything. I have seen Teenage Fanclub mentioned in their reviews and I have seen Camper Van Beethoven mentioned. (I don’t really think they sound like CVB but the idea intrigues me since there are similar alt “everything” vibes. They have opened for MJ Lenderman, which is probably the best comparison I can think of. In can’t case, the space occupied by bands like Big Thief that is indie with Americana influences.
When I saw Dari Bay was coming to town. It was a no brainer. They were opening for a band named Florry, that I don’t know a ton about but Uncut Magazine raved about them and they sounded unique.
I don’t like to go to concerts by myself so I told my friend to take a listen and he fell in love with them right away. With tickets being relatively cheap, it was easy to get another friend to join in.
Dari Bay in concert aren’t really an alt country band at all, and I realized why, though there were a few country sounding guitar chords, there was no pedal steel or banjo which features on quite a few songs on the album.
They are touring with Florry though and Jon “Tiltin” Cox of that band came out to play pedal steel on “Walk On Down”. “Walk On Down” is a favorite song- the highlight of the album and one of the best songs anyone has recorded in recent years.
The band are young - a fact often noted upon and noticeable in concert but they are also very talented.
James plays drums and sings which is an unusual setup and certainly challenging for the sound guy. He’s charismatic enough and band is great too.
I go back to the reviewer that compared them to “early Teenage Fanclub” and that’s more of the live vibe than anything. There really is a 90s indie rock feel. Although not sound alikes, bands like Dinosaur Jr, Pavement, and Superchunk came to my mind.
While James is largely credited with most all instruments on Longest Day of the Year, the band onstage is a four piece with two guitars and Nina Cates plays bass and adds occasional vocals (and is shown in the promotional video here). Cates and James play together in a band (that Cates leads) called Robber Robber.
I got to talk to her after the show but I didn’t know much to say except words of encouragement and buying some merch.
I don’t know what the future holds for this very talented group of artists but Longest Day of the Year stands as one of the great “under the radar” albums of recent years.
As a fan of Dari Bay’s debut album, I was excited to see Dari Bay in concert. This was going to be the last night of their tour as opener for Philadelphia band Florry.
My introduction to Florry was as a selection on Uncut’s Best of New West Volume 7 from their October 2025 issue. That band is produced by MJ Lenderman/Wednesday producer/band member Collin Miller, and just released their third album, Sounds like Florry
I have to admit that I wasn’t that taken away by the band’s recorded output though I appreciated that they seemed to have a similar feel to Dr Dog and really were mining a bunch of different genres. Plus, though I had barely heard of them, they had got the highest of plaudits from places like Pitchfork, Bandcamp, Brooklyn Vegan, Paste and Sterogum.
So I was going to see the opener but seeing Florry would be a bonus.
Seeing Florry in concert brought to my mind the smell of 1970s Records. They still weren’t “my thing” but I sensed Running on Empty, Rust Never Sleeps and The Best of the Band. Hey wait, I own all those albums on vinyl! Maybe I am more of a fan than I thought.
When I heard about the concert, I was interested in seeing a six piece band that has a steel guitar player. That’s not something that you see everyday.
Here’s the spoiler, I am never going to be a huge fan of Florry. They are one of those hippy dippy bands that probably have strong opinions on THC.
But unlike the jam bands of the 90s I survived that would noodle endlessly, Florry can kick up a holy hell. Florry has less to do with those 90s bands that started to sound the same and more like the actual Rolling Thunder Revue, Crazy Horse or Anthem of the Sun- era Grateful Dead.
The band’s encore was a cover of NRBQ’s “It Comes to Me Naturally” which shows they kind of know their stuff.
They were a fun time. A band that could really rock out.
Fame is hard to predict, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see Francie Medosch become a big star. The potential is there. She’s got a bit of Dylan, a bit of Courtney Barnett, and maybe even a bit Lucinda Williams.
Again, I didn’t walk away a convert, but they never were going to be my thing and I never regret going to a live show.
(Side note: The selected video performance is not the concert I was at, but it is taken from a show 2 days after I saw them)
In 2016, I caught Kristen Ford in concert in a small Chicago venue and was immediately taken as a fan.
Ford played a loop style “one man band” concert which even then seemed to be a fad from a decade earlier. Technology made “looping” easier and musicians found a way to make it sound good. Famously, KT Tunstall would hit the US Top 40 charts twice in 2005.
A year previously, Howie Day had a Top 20 hit with “Collide”, the culmination of seven years of work constantly touring and making a reputation for accompanying himself on samplers and effects pedals.
(If you want to check out Ford's early work in this style- she has a fantastic cover of Steve Winwood's "Higher Love" you can look up on YouTube),
Tunstall has remained a star in Europe, but has yet to have another US hit. Day’s career has been marked by self-sabotage.
Other prominent loop artists like Andrew Bird expanded their pallet, and lest we forget, Ed Sheeran started as a looper.
There of course is a long history of “one man bands” going as back probably as far as time itself, and along the way cult figures like Hasil Adkins and Nash the Slash, and there always will be. But even in that context, some of those road warriors like Scott H Biram and Bob Log 3 don’t have the visibility now that they experienced circa 2005 when they might grab a review or mention in Pitchfork.
But of course, it’s the songs that matter and Ford had those. Fame isn’t fair (just turn on the radio and you are likely to hear JJ Abrams’s daughter within the hour) and I was shocked that someone so talented was not so well known.
Ford is the type of artist that truly must love their work. She constantly tours and records. She spent the early part of her career self releasing albums.
As she has established her career more in recent years, those albums seem to be scrubbed off her webpage and streaming services. But I believe she recorded four albums between 2011 and 2017. I am most familiar with 2014s Dinosaur and 2017s Rend and Renderer which have some real gems on them.
Showing her versatility and depth, consider some of her other projects. She formed a duo with cellist Kels Van Stran called EVRGRN and they released a 2020 album. She also was part of a hip hop duo with MC Genesis Blu called the Blu Janes who released their album that same year.
Ford’s online presence now treats 2021s self released War in the Living Room as a debut album. It is a mix of Ford’s styles (and has now been re-released on Righteous Babe Records.) What is cool is that it was co produced by June Millington the singer/guitarist of rock trailblazers Fanny (It is co-produced along with engineer Brett Buillon who worked with Low).
In 2022, Ford met Ani DiFranco and ended up signed to the Righteous Babe record label. DiFranco is a musical hero of Ford’s but the partnership seems logical. Both are prolific songwriters who have generally chosen to do things their own way through hard work and constant touring. Both write politically conscious folk music, though they blend multiple genres including Hip Hop, Punk, Funk and Jazz. Both are multi instrumentalists
2025s Pinto is Ford’s shot at greatness. Released on Righteous Babe, DiFranco coproduces, cowrites with Ford on four songs and sings on album opener “Here’s to You Kid”. Also producing with DiFranco and Ford is John Driscoll Hopkins of country hit makers Zac Brown Band. Hopkins duets on Richest in the World. Nashville indie rocker Joseph Jared of the Dangerous Method sings on the album’s closing track.
The album is engineered and mastered by Randy Merrill who has seemingly done the same for the biggest albums of the last 25 years (Taylor Swift, Adele, Harry Styles, Chappel Roan, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga)
Pinto is a fantastically put together album. Like a lot of her previous work, there is defiantly a sense of being “on the road”. Upon listening, I can’t help but think that Ford and I couldn’t be much more different, though I doubt she thinks anything of me listening.
It is hard not to think that the great “on the road records” have been made in a genre that has been dominated by straight cisgender white males for most of its history, and before that decades of fiction novels dominated by same. So even with modern exceptions to that (Ezra Furman’s excellent 2018 album Transangelic Exodus for one) and besides the fact that Springsteen and Dylan seemingly perfected the art, it does seem notable when a queer biracial female drops the perfect “road album” but this time it has tampons, weed and long term lesbian relationships.
It’s also probably a shame this album didn’t come out in the Lillith Fair years or that golden era circa 2012 -2014 where artists like Tegan and Sara, DiFranco, and Tori Amos were big deals before Pitchfork and its ilk flipped over from covering songwriters to highlighting pop music.
The best moments are spread out throughout the album. My choices are “Grrl in the Mirror” a rollicking story of past loves. “Wild Heart” rocks hard with the arena rock cock rock getting a gender change . “Pop Pop Fizz Fizz” is a fuzz guitar fan’s dream meet an “us outsiders taking on the world” vibe. Between the references to sports bras and Kardashians, Ford is equally adept at the more-than-just-breakup-song “Whiplash” and at the political (but no less rocking “White Man’s Dream”)
Opener “Here’s to you Kid” is kind of lightweight given the DiFranco debut but sets up the album quite well. The album closes with “Brand New Pair” which is a bit of a love song that is an absolute perfect ending. The angelic vocals open it up to interpretation. It is perfect for the “movie” feeling album gives and I can picture it as a happy ending but the song also has an unspoken weight that could mean things aren’t so perfect.
The Great American Records have allusions to Charles Starkweather and Abraham (from the Book of Genesis) but what makes those albums so good is the autobiographical elements. I am not surprise that Pinto is good, but I am surprised how gripped in it I became.
There are still plenty of great American albums being written - the Killers’ 2021 Pressure Machine album for one- and I am making assumptions because I assume there is surely some artistic license here, too- but Pinto joins that list of great insightful American journey
albums.
Listening to Curtis Harding’s 2021 album If Words Were Flowers was a revelation. It led me to his two previous albums- 2014s Soul Power and 2017s Face Your Fear- all three are terrific.
Of artists who have come out in the last 10 years, Harding is probably a Top 3 “most listened” to for me.
Harding’s pedigree is the kind of multi-genre path that is reflected in his music. That’s probably coincidental but it is a list of some of my favorite artists of the last 25 years.
In 2002, he made his first appearance on the hip hop soul debut album of Cee Lo and His Perfect Imperfections (he would appear on Cee Lo’s 2010 solo album The Lady Killer too).
In the latter part of that decade, he worked with members of garage bands The Black Lips and Night Beats.
His debut album (2014s Soul Power) would be released on the garage rock heavy Burger Records label. There was even a brief collaboration with Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds in that same time frame.
He moved to Anti Records and producer Danger Mouse for 2017s Face Your Fears and start collaborating with Sam Cohen of Apollo Sunshine that would continue on the next album.
2021s If Words Were Flowers might be my favorite Harding album to date. Produced and cowritten with Cohen, it’s a soul album, but an album that sounds out of time. The video for “Can't Hide It” imagines Harding in 1971 on a "Soul Train" type show, and it evokes Funkadelic, Gil Scott-Heron and Stevie Wonder. And of course, with the name similarity, it’s impossible not to also think of Curtis Mayfield.
You can hear a multitude of genres coming together- soul, pop, funk, gospel, hip hop, psych, jazz and R&B. Unfortunately, there’s no longer a home for this type of music outside of indie rock.
It’s great that he’s found a home on ANTI-, with its roster of Mavis Staples, Bettye Lavette and Booker T Jones. But it’s also sad that he doesn’t get a bigger audience.
You can name a list of recent artists that had that similar 70s sound - enough it’s a genre within itself- Durand Jones, Charles Bradley, Black Pumas, Michael Kiwanuka, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings- and this crowd does well with critics. There is also the Americana-adjacent Adult Alternative format which has given us St Paul and the Broken Bones, Leon Bridges, Alabama Shakes and Nathaniel Ratliff to name a few- that play in bigger venues and inch their way a bit more onto radio playlists
Which isn’t to say Harding isn’t doing well. It’s just the frustration of a fan that wishes he was a household name.
I have to admit some trepidation for listening to 2025s Departures and Arrivals: Adventures of Captain Curt. Harding has had such a solid three album run that eventually he will release a dud, right?
But I need not worry. Even if it might not have quite the killer single of "I Can't Hide It", it’s a solid album. As you can guess from the title, it’s a bit of a concept album. The music again is soul backed by lavish orchestration. The theme isn’t pushy though it does tie the whole thing together.
Opener "There She Goes" is punctuated with what sounds like Ernie Isley’s classic 1970s guitar.
Across the album we are sent to "Hard as Stone" with its indistinguishable lyrics floats out in the world of OutKast and Cee Lo to a dreamy bliss and later the disco stomp of "The Power" with plenty of high hat and keyboard riffs along the way with dabbling in the sounds of the Fifth Dimension and Marvin Gaye along the way.
This album is such a thrill for me as a listener taking me to some classic records with no missteps along the way. I don’t know what the future holds (no pun intended for such a futuristic concept record) for Harding but he’s doing amazing work.
("There She Goes" follows Harding's 2021 video "Can't Hide It" in giving nostalgic vibes visually as well as audibly, in this case a Night Gallery/Twilight Zone pastiche)
In July 2025, Old 97s bassist Murry Hammond released a solo album. Last month, lead singer Rhett Miller released his tenth solo album.
There is a new Old 97s album likely forthcoming next year.
The Old 97s have not had any lineup changes and their interviews focus on them as the friends they have been for the last 40 years. U2 is the only other band I can think of quickly that portrays similar chemistry.
While lead singer solo albums seem redundant, Miller has generally been purposeful in making them something different. While there are some moments on his solo albums that have the rollicking alt country of Old 97s, that’s usually the exception
2025s A Lifetime of Riding by Night has its own vibe. It’s focused on Miller’s lyrics as the accompanying music is stripped down for an intimate folky feel. This also may be an effect of Rhett’s recent vocal cord surgery.
Hammond produces while cameos and the guest list on this album consists of Evan Felker of the Turnpike Troubadours, Caitlin Rose, Jesse Valenzuela (of the Gin Blossoms), and Nicole Atkins.
Rhett (and the 97s) contains multitudes but it bears reminding that this is the singer who gave its one of the great songs of the last quarter century can write a tune. (I am referring here to “Question” from the 2001 album Satellite Rides, probably the band’s most well known song. It appeared prominently in the TV series Scrubs . Miller re-recorded it in 2006 for his solo album The Believer) his is an also a guy who has covered Prine and Jon Langford. As fun as the 97s are, let's not forget just how talented of a lyricist he is.
Miller’s albums are often different than the Old 97s- they are more pop, less alt country. This album doesn’t sound like much of his previous work, but has a wonderful distinct vibe.
I give Hammond a big thumbs up for capturing that mood. Rhett has always written some great reflective lyrics of life as a musician - the rollicking “Longer than You’ve Been Alive” off the Old 97s 2014 Most Messed Up album as one example. There’s definitely some of that Mott the Hoople style career rumination, but here he tackles it from a more self reflective angle on the disc's title track.
“All Over Again” is a positive looking song that is the hallmark of Miller’s solo records. “Be Mine” might be the best song here because it combines that optimism and the detailed narrator sides of Miller.
There’s surely an alternate world where only Miller’s solo albums exist and he is an underappreciated troubadour.
I was born up in a home where country music was played often. There’s a few really good artists on country music radio these days but more often than not, I generally am not a fan. I was born as the era of Anne Murray, Crystal Gayle, Kenny Rogers and Conway Twitty gave over to Urban Cowboy.
While that was the image of country I grew up with, I occasionally found some things I would like- for example, songs like Willie and Merle’s cover of Townes Van Zant’s “Pancho and Lefty” and of course, old Johnny Cash classics.
Trends can only last so long and towards the end of 1987, the next big thing was something called neotraditional country and the biggest star was a guy named Randy Travis who sang songs like the last decades hadn’t really happened.
It’s not that much different than the current era of country radio where years of lightweight party content has given to more serious fare. As with the current environment, it doesn’t mean that I like everything on the air, but as someone who prefers the singer-songwriter style, I can find a lot to like.
I also can’t separate 1988 with it being a time that I would read copies of Country Music magazine from cover to cover at my Aunt’s house after school.
Some of the biggest stars of the day were Rodney Crowell and Roseanne Cash- who were a real life couple. Their songs weren’t that much different than Mellencamp and Springsteen who would play on the pop and rock stations.
Looking at a list of the # 1 country s in those years is revelatory. While I am not particularly a fan of all the bands of that time, it’s interesting that even some of the bigger bands of the day - the Judds, Keith Whitley, George Strait had similar neo traditionalist styles. Of course, Whitley and another huge star of the day- Ricky Skaggs came from a bluegrass background, having played together in Ralph Stanley's band.
You had plenty of artists who were born out of either Bluegrass or Bakersfield- Dwight Yoakum, Kathy Mattea and the Chris Hillman-led Desert Rose band all took the top spot at some point in those years as did some old timers like Vern Gosdin, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson who had # 1s
I would turn to the back of the magazine and a lot of times in those days, near the top was a band called Shenandoah- a band that mixed country with gospel and bluegrass. They would have four # 1 country songs in those two years and a few years later, would record a collaboration with Allison Krauss which would be her chart debut. You rarely hear about the band nowadays. (As I write this, they have just announced a new recording of their biggest hit "The Church on Chamberlain Road" with Nickelback to introduce it to a new generation).
I would say there’s two things to bear in mind. One is the fact that I am nostalgic for the music of my early teens, which is no revelation. That’s going to pretty typical of everyone on the planet. Secondly, despite the influences and a handful of truly great songs, most of the country songs of this time suffer from what I call sterile production. My preferences were always going to be rock and pop.
But I did particularly like Crowell and Cash. Crowell’s album Diamonds and Dirt had five # 1 country songs - the first album to achieve that.
Songs like “I Couldn’t Leave You if I Tried” and “Above and Beyond (the Call of Love)” weren’t all that dissimilar from what Mellencamp or Steve Earle (who had jumped from country charts to a rock audience) were doing.
Although Crowell wrote many famous country songs, his chart career was as red hot as it ever was, but his time at the top ended up being short lived (he would touch the Top 20 with 4 more songs between 1990 and 1992 but no more chart toppers)
Roseanne Cash’s biggest hit was “Tennessee Flat Top Box”, a cover of a song her Dad had once did. Cash was already an established star with crossover appeal but here she was with a truly all time great song. I remember it getting some play on pop/rock stations. I had a hard time finding where it landed on the Billboard 100 but I found a mention that it only reached # 84. She had 5 Country # 1s between 1987 and 1989 (and was on one of Crowell’s # 1 as a duet if you want to say 6)
Yoakum made a big impression too. He was not quite as dominant on the charts, but a big enough star that he had two number ones in 1989 and had seven other Top 10 country hits from 1986-9 including the title track of his breakout album “Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc…”. Earle had a lesser amount of chart success (seven Top 40 Country hits in 86-89) but was getting plenty of buzz. His 1988 album Copperhead Road was notable for him changing from country to rock. Even if it didn’t get a ton of airplay (it did manage to find a spot on the mainstream rock chart) somehow everyone knew the title track and it had become one of the most iconic country songs of all time. It regularly is listed as one of the most played songs on jukeboxes year after year and it is now the current song used in Chevrolet ads.
Earle would have one last country chart hit in 1989. His cover of “Six Days on the Road” reached # 30 as part of the Planes, Trains and Automobiles soundtrack.
As with any genre, the influence remains, but the industry looks to find a way of bending the sound to something that will increase sales. Starring in December of 1989, you have the first # 1s from Garth Brooks, Travis Tritt and Clint Black. 1991 brought Alan Jackson and of course by 1992 it was time for Billy Ray Cyrus.
I still heard plenty of country radio riding in a car with my father but hardly any songs I liked. Earle got into trouble but reemerged with a string of albums that didn’t care about pop charts and were as good (maybe even better) than his previous albums.
Yoakum stayed on the charts, and Mary Chapin Carpenter, who had emerged with a couple of top 20 songs in 1989 would find a niche for a few years as folk influenced country music. But these were now the exceptions.
You could occasionally find something exciting that might show up on CMT. In 1996, the Western swing influenced BR549 would hit # 44 on the country charts with “Cherokee Boogie” and bluegrass legends Del McCoury Band would get some occasional video airplay with “My Love Will Not Change” in 2003 but it would take another couple of decades to again find some interesting music on country radio.
In 1989, I might have considered Crowell, Cash, Yoakum or Earle my favorite country artist depending on the day. But after the mid 90s, the only one I followed consistently was Earle
I hadn’t really given Crowell any thought until in 2019, Uncut magazine named his Texas album one of its best of the month. There’s a point in an artist’s career that the record company thinks the best bet is to surround the aging star with talented guests. This, Texas also features Earle, Ringo Starr, Billy Gibbons, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, Lyle Lovett, and Lee Ann Womack.
Texas was a great album though. Crowell still had the songwriting chops and so the pattern would repeat.
2021s Triage took a direction without the A List guests and the songs gathered more around the themes of mortality, faith and love. Texas was a very good record. Triage was even better.
I dig a bit deeper in Crowell’s 21st century catalog but it’s pretty hefty. 2001s The Houston Kid and 2017s Close Ties have been a nice discovery but there is still a lot more to dig into
2023 saw Crowell teaming up with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco as producer. Pulling out more of a blues influenced and late 70s country sound, it’s not a bad album, but I don’t rate it as high as his other records, and I doubt I will revisit it anytime soon.
2025s Airline Highway sees Crowell match up with a producer and fan who I think has a great ear for his work in Tyler Bryant (of Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown). The band is top notch - guitarist Dave Grissom (John Mellencamp, Joe Eli, James McMurtry), keyboardist Catherine Marx (Willie Nelson) Drummer Conrad Choucroun (NRBQ, Bob Schneider) Grammy winner Accordion player Dirk Powell (Joan Baez, the Ranconteurs) and violinist Eleanor Denig (Eric Church, Margo Price, Old 97s).
The guest list is a perfect complement of rising alt country stars who fit Crowell’s sound- Bryant, Lukas Nelson, Larkin Poe, Ashley McBryde and Blackberry Smoke guitarist Charlie Starr.
The songs feel like classic Crowell with “Rainy Days in California” showing that pop sensibility, “Maybe Someday Down the Road” is the whisper/sung reflective narrative and “The Twenty One Song Salute” the nostalgic celebration. In the case of the latter, he’s made it a dedication to GG Shinn- a legendary swamp pop musician who led the Boogie Kings during a decades long career- and Cleoma Falcon- one of the first musicians to record Cajun music and a trailblazer being one of the few women to perform live music onstage in the 1920s and 1930s.
Airline Highway is a strong album that catches Crowell’s spirit. I still picture him as the guy on the Diamonds and Dirt album, but these days he is the elder legend. It’s hard to say this is better than Triage or Close Ties. Crowell has been so consistent so the idea of “star with one last great album in him” is not really applicable here, if otherwise it would have been true. But this is a great one and hopefully finds its way to a lot of peoples’ ears
I was a huge fan of the band Suede (who were forced into the moniker the London Suede in the US). They were one of my favorite bands of the 90s.
Suede were a big deal in the UK, so their career in the US is overshadowed by the fact they could not make the same impact here. Though Britpop in general had only a mild effect on charts here, bands like Oasis, Elastica and the Verve did become household names.
With hindsight, 1993s self titled debut album was a bigger cultural shock than we probably give it credit for. Even Blur ended up with a radio hit, but Suede remained outside looking in. But their was a lot of buzz around the first album, even some MTV airplay and it seemed that everyone who needed to know, knew. Most bands would be jealous of that kind of success.
At the time though, it seemed they were one and done.
I saw them in 1994 and they were playing a fairly small venue. No surprise with returns like that they gave up conquering the US so easily.
Even then, Dog Man Star, the second album, is in my mind, a masterpiece. Much loved by the UK press, you never hear about it on this side of the Atlantic. Unlike the glam stomp of the debut, It was overdramatic and overblown in all the best ways. It also caused a lot of problems with the band, with guitarist Bernard Butler leaving the band before the album was finalized and released.
Richard Oakes and Neil Codling joined the band then in Butler's stead. Oakes took the reins as lead guitarist and Codling as keyboardist, with both taking over most of the songwriting (usually in combinations of Anderson/Oakes, Anderson/Codling or Codling and Anderson individually).
1996s Coming Up is focused on three and a half minute radio ready singles. In my mind it’s overshadowed by the brilliance of the predecessor but it’s still a very good record.
1999s Head Music is in “difficult fourth album” territory, made tougher as Suede had also cranked out two additional albums worth of material in B-sides and non album tracks. It’s a pretty good album even if it didn’t quite match previous heights.
It took me awhile to find a copy of 2002s New Morning- the final album in the first chapter of the band. I find it quite uninspired though Allmusic gives it a generally positive review.
Suede would break up but reunite a decade later.
They have now equaled the original iteration’s output - five albums in nine years.
Suede’s reunion albums have got plenty of positive reviews and yet in a lot of ways, I found the “second act” a pale imitation of the original. Of these albums, I generally only rate the second (2016s Night Thoughts) highly which is also probably the closest they have gotten to returning to the sound of Dog Man Star.
2025s Antidepressants may be the most well received album of their post reunion years. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical. The joke has always been that Suede was too indebted to Bowie and specifically Ziggy Stardust. There’s not been a lot of diversity in their sound since Headmusic and perhaps they have decided that they aren’t going to venture far away from what their fans want.
But Antidepressants does feel like Coming Up. Every song has that radio single three and a half minute feel. It’s hard to say why it works so well. Ed Buller is the producer again after the band opted for Alan Moulder on their last album. That’s probably a good thing as he helmed the band’s first three albums, and really has an ear for them.
The songs feel like they are made to be played live. The previous album’s orchestral accompaniment is gone. Brett Anderson has made a big deal about the band being a forward looking concern and not Oasis style nostalgia.
With bands like The Cure and Pulp capturing a bit of their old lighting in a bottle. Producer Buller and songwriters Anderson, Oakes and Codling (the three credited together on many songs) have managed to do a bit of that themselves.
On August 22, Jim Bob released his 13th and 14th albums on the same day- Automatic and Stick.
While this is a basic generalization, Automatic is in the mold of his last three albums- a series of narratives from everyday life in which Jim Bob can skewer society when it needs it and compliment the positive aspects we need to hear too.
But Stick is a louder, noisier affair that is closer to the albums he made 30-some years ago as part of Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine.
Songs like “Art” and “Last Day of the Tour” are pure glam rock stomp a la Slade and the Sweet and not altogether that much different from Carter USM’s 1991 album 30Something.
Closer "There’s Not Enough Space in the Hall" brings the proceedings to a close with an (almost) life affirming singalong with a reference to Amazon Alexa thrown in (it’s Jim Bob after all).
Opener “A Song by Me” is an expletive filled statement that would have opened a Carter album with the band in “power trio” mode. A song like “What a Sh*tshow” wouldn’t fit on Automatic lyrically or even musically (its melody similar to a punk reading of “I Had too Much to Dream Last Night” but we are better for having it.
While Carter USM were one of my favorite bands of that era, they probably weren’t in my top five favorites. But as implausible as it seems, Jim Bob has been honing his craft. I would put him up against any songwriter today, and Stick is kind of the fun punky record but the lyrics are solid too.
On Bandcamp, Jim Bob says ‘Automatic’ and ‘Stick’ are both the greatest album (sic) Jim Bob has ever made. He might not be wrong.
In the early 1990s, Carter USM rode a wave of indie rock that incorporated dance, hip hop and punk.
The band hit their peak in 1992- going to # 1 on the UK Album charts and their biggest success in the US with 1992:The Love Album.
Though the music of that time has faded largely from memory, 1992: The Love Album is an all time favorite of mine. Critics will occasionally bring up the band that form forgot. Carter threw puns about while making wry observations about the mundane day to day or sneaking in social criticism into catchy pop songs. The band had Ian Dury show up for a cameo, and though it may have seemed an unusual pairing at the time, there was definitely a linear path from Dury to Carter’s lyricist “Jim Bob”.
Although it felt trendy at the time, the music from the era didn’t age well. Now if doesn’t help to name your band “the Unstoppable Sex Machine” or have unconventional hairstyles or have the guitarist name himself Fruitbat.
But none of these bands get much praise anymore. In the US, the most successful band in this genre and time was Jesus Jones. Even with their massive success, you never hear anything about them.
I often hear among those friends around 50 years of age who much they loved Ned’s Atomic Dustbin but between Britpop and Grunge, it seems like this music was just a short lived fad.
Jim Bob didn’t stop when Carter broke up in 1998. He wrote an autobiography and then became a novelist. From 2003 to 2016, he released 7 albums. But it was 2020s Pop Up that brought him back to attention, breaking back onto the UK Album charts.
It was also the first time I had heard his solo music (and indeed, the first I had given him some thought in some time).
That album Pop Up, 2021s Who Do We Hate Today and 2023s Thanks for Reaching Out were revelations. Each record took personal narratives to make comment on the current world- whether it be toxic masculinity, cancel culture, gun violence or any number of other topics.
For my money, I am not sure there’s a better songwriter with that much quality output in that time frame.
My expectation would have been that after being so prolific, the quality would go down or the artist burn himself out. So I was shocked when JimBob approached 2025 by releasing two albums on the same day. More shocking is that they seem to be both quality.
Today, I am going to focus on Automatic. The other album Stick is a noisier affair that recalls the Carter USM days, but Automatic is very much in the vein of the three previous albums and is recorded with the same backing band.
On lead single “Danny From Nowhere”, he sings “I have broken a promise that I made to myself I’d never write another one of these songs”
But he has and he has done another album of them. Whether the lyric is true or artistic license Automatic follows the template and showcases his narratives of common people and their hobbies and worries whether it be drones, knitting or mortgage. There are everyday villains and everyday heroes. There are also killer one liners like “wars don’t end/just like Boy Bands they just go on hiatus”.
As good as his recent run is, the album unexpectedly may be the best one of his solo run yet. “Danny” is the single and it’s fantastic but my favorite song on the album is “Can you hear us at the back of the room”. At its heart, a riposte to people who complain about new music being derivative, but is a celebration of a lot of bands that influenced Jim.
There’s still no one quite like Jim Bob. Half Man Half Biscuit come to mind but they seem to come at things slightly different. There’s a bit of “how the hell do I categorize this” in that way you might say the same thing about The Divine Comedy or The Wedding Present or Gorkys Zygotic Mynci.
While Jim Bob says Automatic was originally planned as B-sides for his other album (an idea he quickly gave up deciding on two records) it is really one of my favorite records of the year and proof that Jim Bob is one of the planet’s underappreciated artistic geniuses.
