Nick Black - Summer + Spring (2017)

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Written by David Shouse, posted by blog admin

There’s scant or no power chords to be found on Nick Black’s Summer & Spring, it isn’t his style, but there’s plenty of guitar driven fireworks spread out over the album’s thirteen songs. One gets the feeling that there’s likely nothing Nick Black couldn’t play if he applied himself to doing so, but the spectrum of styles covered on his third full length album cover the areas of R&B, funk, soul, and a little bit of blues. He’s equally at home on the acoustic guitar as he is the electric and his vocal skills are the icing on the cake – history is littered with the atonal output of expert axe slingers whose singing talents never quite measured up. With Black, they’re part of an overall outstanding package. It’s all wrapped up in classy, first rate production that treats every part of the song as essential and renders the instrumental work with bell-like clarity. The songwriting driving his first two albums was remarkable, but he’s certainly stepped up his game with this release and the inclusion of some comedic elements indicates a performer of growing confidence rather than someone merely angling for attention.

One of the album’s first two singles, “Joy to the Girl”, begins things on a wry and slightly funky note. It’s an infectious, celebratory number that makes great use of the uptempo churning of its verses. This is a song that’s light on its feet and has a bright spirit embodied by the tightly coiled rhythms and crisp dispatch from every instrument. The album’s second single and title track “Summer & Spring” is a much more sedate number by comparison, but its stylishness never undercuts the heart and soul Black so obviously pours into its performance. “Nick at Night” is a rollicking romp with jazzy inclinations that we seldom hear on Summer + Spring, but when those traits come out, they capture your attention. His guitar work has a rugged quality on the song that it doesn’t typically sport, but it also pushes through the song with the same bounce we hear from the horns and rhythm section alike.

“Change” is more like a light rock track with horns brought in as an added musical measure. The steady 4/4 beat never wavers and avoids unduly spicing things up with any sort of ostentatious fills or self-indulgent notes. The same lean, muscular focus defining so much of the release continues with this song, clocking in at just a hair over three and a half minutes, but the relative brevity of these songs doesn’t indicate a paucity of ideas. Instead, Black and his musical cohorts come off as a musical unit that knows exactly what they want to say each time out. He continues flirting with light AOR rock on the song “Neighbor” and it’s the drumming that, once again, gives this a four on the floor quality impossible to deny. It’s the first song to exhibit his talents as an acoustic player, but soon cedes ground to a musical arrangement more common for Black. He turns up the funk heat with his song “When the Morning Comes” and it dials in to a bite missing from most of Summer & Spring’s songs without ever sound radically different from the surrounding material. “The River” closes Summer & Spring with a bluesy acoustic track that varies from the bulk of the material, like the aforementioned tune’s sound, without ever standing out as some sort of oddity. It proves to be a fine ending to one of the year’s most rewarding releases from any genre.

Black Note Graffiti - Volume II: Without Nothing I'm You

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Written by Frank McClure, posted by blog admin

This is a little bit harder of a review to write than most. You aren’t likely to hear the songs on Black Note Graffiti’s second studio release, Volume 2: Without Nothing I’m You, performed like this ever again. The reason is that, after recording this album, the Ann Arbor, Michigan based four piece added Gabrielle Bryant on vocals. The songs, undoubtedly, will continue to be incorporated into the band’s live set, but they will take on a distinctly new quality with Bryant’s presence on vocals and the chemistry she finds with long-standing singer and second guitarist Ricardo Ortiz. It’s a pivotal time for this band. The eleven songs included on Volume 2 are the band’s strongest yet and it is clear that Black Note Graffiti are a band well on their way towards realizing their potential and, undoubtedly, drafting a female voice to join the band as a singer will transform and, likely, further elevate their art.

They may bring intelligence to hard rock/metal and alternative rock guitar workouts, but they bring the firepower and thunder as well. “No Love Lost” is, indeed, shorn of all sentimentality and is one of a few songs on Volume 2 where the guitars and rhythm section whip up a hard-edged swagger any rock band with ears would covet. “Such is Art” is a little more finessed than the first song, particularly in regards to its lyrics, and singer Ortiz impressively tailors his voice to the song’s demands. Drummer Kurt Keller and bassist Adam Nine often figure as the band’s less than secret weapon with the assertive performances they serve up that, thanks to their good sense and production alike, understand their place in the band’s mix. They also provide all important bedrock ballast for the album’s songs which allow Ortiz to stretch as a singer while the playing can take any direction it likes knowing the two can ably hold down the bottom end.

“Castles” harnesses thumping hard rock drums into a jagged guitar-driven alt rock body and gradually wins the audience over despite being a slow-starter. The guitar sound, warm yet unforgiving, redeems the deliberate tempo and Ortiz hits listeners hard with a desperately emotive vocal. The song “Bars from the Cages” dispenses, for the most part, with any glimmers of hard rock posturing in favor of a more atmospheric and moodier guitar focused arrangement. The vocal emphasizes a more theatrical side of their presentation as well. “Shadows” continues the move away from outright metal and hard rock towards guitar heavy riff music that’s coupled with astonishing variations of texture. The movement of this song from a highly artful introduction into its explosive guitar and rhythm section pyrotechnics is one of the album’s indisputable high points. The strongest part of Volume II continues with the album’s moodiest number, by far, “Why We Trust” and the seeming portentousness of the song title isn’t reflected at all in this intelligently written piece. It grapples with big themes and questions in a decidedly talented way. The dark dance between bass and guitar opening “Relapse” is the ideal sonic preamble for the song as a whole and ranks among the album’s best songs. Volume 2: Without Nothing I’m You may already be consigned to be a bit of a curiosity in the band’s discography, but there’s no question the songs have a tremendous amount of life in them. Black Note Graffiti are a band with their eye on the future and looking to grow in any positive way.

Elliot Schneider - Don't Put All Your Eggs Back In One Basketcase (2017)

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Written by Frank McClure, posted by blog admin

Elliot Schneider’s new album, the improbably titled Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basketcase, is an eleven song collection accompanied by some supplementary historical material intended to further elucidate Schneider’s musical career for the uninitiated. The mixture of this new and past material never damages the overall presentation of this release; there’s a clear distinction between the new and old material while still sounding part and parcel of the same artistic vision. Schneider’s skills as a musician, performer, and songwriter are naturally honed to a razor sharp edge because he continued playing and writing for passion’s sake alone so his albums released since his late-life re-emergence as a recording artist come across as impressively well rounded – he’s just as home with modern rock as more traditional guitar driven styles. Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basketcase is one of the year’s most inventive recordings and pulses with life.

It begins on a decidedly high note with the track “The Moon Has Flown Away”. This has a pleasant, non-assertive feel while still maintaining a solid stream of energy. There’s definitely a strong retro influence on the song, but it has an engaging and warm sound coupled with sharply worded lyrics brimming with well chosen energy. Some of the songwriting is particularly engaging, like the way it builds up to its pay off line and the light touch of harmony vocals exerting their influence over the final product. “Diehard Killjoy” uses backing vocals more generously and it tempers what might be a lightly tedious recitation in song of an obnoxious subject. Other elements of the performance are equally good at distracting us – namely, the understated piano brawling just under the mix along with rough and rowdy guitar work. There’s a more meditative mood coloring the song “Captain Argent” and it comes with far less reliance on the guitar and the classic rock tropes of earlier numbers. Schneider’s vocal displays much of the same spirited engagement we hear on the earlier numbers, but there’s a little more consideration at play here as well.

The propulsive drumming opening “A Key To You” unfolds like you might expect when some low-hung, riffing guitar dive bomb in over the top and the band immediately establishes an immediate groove. There’s some light keyboards buried in a little in the mix, but their effect isn’t negligible. There’s a practically doo-wop sound coming over on one of the song’s more memorable bits of rock and roll, “Overruling Neo-Fascists”, and both every instrument is handled with considerable aplomb. Listeners and lovers of Schneider’s more overt rock tendencies will flock to the track “Surreal Survivor” despite it being a re-recording of a track from earlier in Schneider’s recording career. There’s an especially hard hitting quality about this number that’s lacking on the album’s other guitar work outs. Elliot Schneider’s Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basketcase is a thoughtful and expansive album with understated ambitions and the talent to  hit whatever lofty peaks he sets for himself.

Grace Freeman - Shadow (2017)

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Written by William Elgin, posted by blog admin

Shadow isn’t Grace Freeman’s first taste of the experience had writing, recording, and releasing an album. Her emergence into the recording world came with the 2015 release of The Moon Police’s The Lost Go Sailing By and it is only in the last two years that Freeman has started to open shows as a solo artist for figures like Suzanna Vega and Macy Gray, among others. It’s impressive for any young performer, but when you take into account that Freeman hasn’t had her twentieth birthday yet and wrote all eleven songs for this release, it’s nothing less than a marvel. She shows off some various influences during the album’s duration, but they are filtered through her consciousness and particular skill set in such a way that they emerge as something much different and highly individual. Shadow marks Grace Freeman’s emergence in full and, based on its strengths, she’ll be around for some time to come.

“Oliver” begins things on a very pensive note. It’s obvious, even from a cursory listen, that Freeman is an unusually considered writer, no matter her age. There’s a discipline she applies to both her musical arrangement and lyrical content ensuring there not a single extraneous word or note to be found in either. “Shadow”, the album’s title song, takes a different musical direction from the opener thanks to its elegant piano lines and the introduction of a rhythm section that adds much more audible weight to the performance. Freeman works just as well with an expanded musical lineup as she does weaving magic essentially solo and the poetic touches distinguishing this song help it stand out as one of the album’s peak moments. Listeners are brought back to much more fragile, sensitive music surroundings with her performance of the track “Blue Eyed Boy” and the crystalline beauty of the arrangement and Freeman’s voice will hang in your memory for a while.

Another high point of the album comes with “Autumn” and, even though it embraces a rather spartan sound, still manages to incorporate elements like bass to give the arrangement extra heft. Her ethereal vocal musings are ideal for the poetic nature of her lyrics, but she never strains for effect as a writer. The clipped melodicism of “Dreams” will brighten the mood of listeners after two relatively exhausting tunes emotionally and Freeman’s beguiling vocal magic is just as capable of embracing upbeat material as it is the album’s more introspective fare. “Muddy Puddles” is an artful piece of writing, especially lyrically, and Freeman performs the song with unfaltering and graceful confidence. The literary qualities in Freeman’s writing are impossible to ignore. “God Forbid” is another highlight on the album – there’s a stunning mixture of sorrow and ruefulness filling the lyric and Freeman embodies both qualities extraordinarily well in her singing. The musical accompaniment is ideally suited and presents itself in such a way that it only helps highlight the masterful writing job that she turns in with this number. Shadow is an impressive album under any context, but as a solo debut, this release will have lasting impact on Grace Freeman’s life from this point forward. It sets the bar high.