Little Diamonds - New Orleans Bound

Little Diamonds - New Orleans Bound 

URL: http://littlediamondsmusicllc.com/ 

Young singer/songwriter Luke Leblanc, performing under the name Little Diamonds, began seriously pursuing music as his passion between his twelfth and thirteenth birthday. He successfully committed himself to learning a number of instruments and two formative events further solidified his future musical path. He attended a Bob Dylan concert in 2008 that awakened the artistic possibilities of a musical career and later won a Dylan impersonation context that garnered him much attention for his vocal talents. His songwriting developed at a brisk pace and his debut album 1^st Rail earned praise from numerous quarters for its undeniable quality and the inspiration fueling its performances. Little Diamonds is an un-ironic practitioner of a tradition that has an increasingly niche audience with each passing year, but he approaches his traditional minded material with absolutely no suggestion that these are museum pieces, modern approximations of dusty relics from a bygone time. His second full length album New Orleans Bound finds him discovering much more of an idiosyncratic songwriting voice than ever before and taking more musical chances. There’s plenty of confidence on the album’s dozen songs that would even be impressive from a veteran artist. 

“I Don’t Know About You” begins New Orleans Bound in an understated way. Little Diamonds has an approach that underplays the heavy emotions his songwriting discusses in such a way it actually underscores how much this is affecting the speaker. The guitar work is never too intricate for its own good, but every song has melodic substance coming either from his six string or the fiddle often joining him. He indulges in band efforts at a couple of points on New Orleans Bound and the first outing, “12-12-12”, hits a nice folk rock stride without ever sounding contrived or out of place with the rest of the album. “Too Early Gone” is one of the album’s sadder cuts and Little Diamonds sings with a conviction that explores the song’s emotions without ever wallowing in them. 

“Lord, Come Down” has hushed intensity from the outset and Little Diamonds never lets up on it. His vocal strikes a more serious note than any of the preceding songs and lines up very well with his equally focused guitar playing. The guitar playing on “Duluth Grandma” gives the song every bit as much of a marquee feel as the lyrical content. The words are very good – Little Diamonds’ greatest talent as a lyricist might be in rendering characters through his songwriting with three-dimensional clarity. “Old Man Al” isn’t quite as involved musically, but the vocal and lyrical content are both up to the same level.  

The album’s title cut is the second song incorporating a larger band format. Little Diamonds sounds just as comfortable as he does in the earlier song and genuinely moved to even greater heights by this particular track’s mix of musical styles. The mesh of traditional country with New Orleans jazz proves to be an excellent match and gives him a platform from which Little Diamonds gives his most convincing vocal performance yet. It wraps this album up with a strong conclusion that embodies the assurance he shows throughout the preceding eleven cuts. New Orleans Bound is a vital and completely modern work that just happens to utilize a number of time tested forms.  

9 out of 10 stars 

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/littlediamondsmusic/ 

Scott Wigley

Erica Sunshine Lee - Elixir

 

Erica Sunshine Lee - Elixir  

URL: https://www.ericasunshinelee.com/ 

The southern flavor of this collection is impossible to ignore. It would be even if Lee didn’t make a big deal about her regional roots. However, none of the regional flavor heard in Erica Sunshine Lee’s music prevents listeners from different areas getting into her music. The subject matter of her songwriting has universal appeal and even her most personal concerns have an overarching common theme of humanity that any feeling person will respond to. Her seventh studio release Elixir runs a little long with fifteen cuts, but she retains immense likability even when she’s repeating herself a little. It’s purely speculation, but it’s a valid interpretation to hear this abundance of music as a self-conscious attempt to knock one out of the park artistically and make an emphatic statement of her creative vitality. It certainly highlights her productivity and impressive consistency, but some will conclude that you are most likely to create a masterpiece when you are relaxed rather than flexing too much muscle to force the issue.  

You will be hard pressed, however, to hear any outright holes in this album. It starts off with a blast. “Shut Up Heart”, naturally, deals with some weighty issues of the heart but the lyric and vocal delivery alike play up the darkly comic aspects of the song much more than its painful elements. “The Bottle Ain’t Enough” is the first of a handful of bluesy stompers that Lee includes on the album. She handles these sorts of songs with such wide-eyed, uninhibited glee that she carries listeners along for the ride with minimal effort. These chest-beating rock influenced numbers, however, seem to convey less of her inner life than songs like “My Favorite Word”. There are a number of instances on Elixir where the posturing of songs like “The Bottle Ain’t Enough” falls away and listeners come face to face, ear to ear, with the unvarnished Erica Sunshine Lee. Beautiful, almost classically themed, piano playing is the musical highlight of “My Favorite Word”, but her stunning singing matches it every step of the way. 

There’s piano in “Jesus and Georgia”, but it is much more understated. Acoustic guitar provides much of the song’s musical body and tasteful, brushed percussion stylishly accentuates everything. There isn’t one dominant musical element; instead, the approach here is much more orchestral with Lee’s singing having a crowning effect on the piece. “Medicine” is a slow burn country ballad that rejects a minimalist approach in favor of a slightly weepy mid-tempo jaunt. There’s piano lines diving in and out of the mix and precise, but never too thought out, drumming that sets a definite tone. “Drunker” is quite a playful tune this late in the album and its backing vocals, along with the jaunty tempo, give it different feel than any other song on Elixir. “Take the High Road”, the album’s closer, is a sharp contrast. The straight-ahead country beat, combination of acoustic and understated electric guitars, plus the climatic chorus are never heavy-footed at all, but quietly assertive and affirming the bedrock musical values informing Lee’s tradition and her own take on songwriting. It brings Elixir to a solid finish that will leave many listeners satisfied. 

8 out of 10 stars

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ericasunshinele?lang=en 

Michael Saulman

StonerPop

StonerPop

URL: http://www.stonerpopculture.com/

Maudie Michelle and Jimmie Maneuva, otherwise known as StonerPop, are a Louisiana based twosome whose five song self-titled debut introduces a vital new creative force to electronic music. Few experienced fans of the genre will fail to be impressed by the considerable confidence that these songs show and the patient development of each one that results in them being so memorable. There’s no sense here of two musicians who want to show off or overreach. They set an assortment of goals for each of these tracks that the performances comfortably reach and the bar is invariably high. The apparent ease of their achievement isn’t some knock against the overall quality of the compositions, or lack of, but rather a testament to their mastery of the technique needed to realize their ambitions. Few musical units of this strain could hope to emerge so strongly and conclusively, but StonerPop’s songs are unusual and promise much. 

Their surprisingly held back approach on the opener, “Preachers”, serves early notice that StonerPop does things differently than most. The electronic instruments drop distinctive touches throughout the song, never landing the same way twice, and Michelle mixes up her vocals as well, sometimes pulling great emotion out of herself, others times adopting a straight, affect-less approach. “Running”, naturally, has much more musical and vocal urgency than its laid back predecessor. This urgency is intermittent however; the song veers from a tense to breathless mood throughout its duration. The duo never falls prey to one of the most popular misconceptions about electronic music – the instrumentation has a wide range of color and always breathes with a warm glow flush with vitality. 

“You’re Never Listening (Get Over Yourself)” isn’t entirely successful, but interesting. The lack of melody here compared to earlier songs asks the audience to adjust accordingly and some may not enjoy the shift. This is a much more pyrotechnic display of electronica than before and can be accused of self-indulgence, but others will rightly hear it as merely another side of the duo’s musical character. “Monsters” is probably the musical and lyrical highpoint of the EP. The duo’s strengths come together here in a very obvious way – the lyrical complexity is greater than before and suggests a personal experience, the intimate manner Michelle uses to handle the singing reinforces this, and the arrangement manages an inspired balance between melody and moody atmospherics. The EP’s last track “Fox” foregoes any of the aforementioned moodiness in favor of a more clearly upbeat ending and the beautifully phrased piano playing scattered throughout the song gives it a flair that earlier songs lack. 

This debut EP from StonerPop has a distinctive character most artistic units don’t achieve until their second or third release. They clearly began the recording process with a clear idea of where they wanted to go with each song and enlisted the right collaborators to help achieve those goals but, ultimately, it’s emboldened young talent that make this recording succeed so well. StonerPop’s debut EP will please all fans of electronic music. 

8 out of 10 stars

CD BABY: http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/Stonerpop

Charles Hatton

 

Jesse Eplan – Dreams

Jesse Eplan – Dreams 

URL: http://info62103.wixsite.com/jesseeplan 

Jesse Eplan’s dreams are coming true every day. This young musical artist’s latest single “Dreams” promises that his live performances will only increase, his recent television appearances will be followed by more of the same, and talented potential collaborators will seek him out to help elevate him even higher than before. Eplan, however, is gifted enough that facilitating his own rise isn’t any issue. His latest self-produced single “Dreams” has the stuff of greatness confined within its three minute running time. Eplan is a multi-instrumentalist, so it might surprise some that he contents himself with employing a variety of electronic instruments to realize the song’s potential, but this is a completely modern artist informed by the past, but never beholden to its templates. It is quite clear, furthermore, that the nature of his instruments never restricts him from making credibly emotive music.  

“Dreams” begins sparsely, but comes together quickly and lays down a meaningful groove that Eplan will ride, in one variation or another, for the entirety of the track. The groove is centered on the bass and percussion he adorns the track with. Neither are assertive in the way that live musicians are, but manifesting assertiveness isn’t the mission here. Eplan wants to conjure a contemplative, deliberate R&B backing and this succeeds at doing so without ever allowing the theatrical nature of his atmospherics become the whole story. He’s included a number of short, but critically important, dips throughout each musical passage that gives the song some added drama, but it hits its big peaks and valleys throughout and contains some surprisingly rousing notes.  

His vocal is thoughtful yet entertaining. The wordplay is a bit advanced for typical songs in this genre, but never so much so that it seems pretentious or Eplan has trouble managing his phrasing. Everything rolls out of him with a smoothness of delivery that few, if any, will find fault with. He also knows when to raise the bar on his vocal intensity and those moments help to provide “Dreams” with some of its most memorable moments. The lyrical content has an almost confessional, singer/songwriter sensibility – Eplan certainly wants us to enjoy ourselves listening to this song, but he also wants to share what his experience getting his music out to the public and chasing stardom has been like for him. His sense, popping up throughout the track, that even these first inklings of commercial success can disappear as quickly as it came is an astonishing admission from such a young talent, but it further illustrates how he’s cut from a difficult cloth than a lot of artists working today. 

Jesse Eplan is a major talent. He may have spent a lot of time toiling in semi-obscurity with self-produced works appearing on websites like SoundCloud, but he’s no longer pop music’s best kept secret on the Internet. Instead, “Dreams” establishes him as an artist on the rise and it’s certain that his future follow ups to this fantastic cut will only continue to build on the success of this track.  

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jesse_eplan/ 

Dale Butcher

Big Tribe - In This Together

Big Tribe - In This Together

URL: http://www.bigtribemusic.com/ 

East Coast based three piece Big Tribe are much more than the sum of their parts. This is a creative collective held down by three primary members, a core group if you will, while still soliciting freely from the musical imaginations of their many guests. Over thirty musicians have brought their own distinctive gifts to Big Tribe’s songwriting through two studio albums and their contributions to the band’s second release, In This Together, help make this a far greater experience than what we would have if the band chose to confine themselves to their work as a trio. There’s a dozen songs on this outing and each one has an unique arrangement and sound that seems to challenge the musicians each time out and inspire them to different heights than those scaled in the preceding track. Big Tribe has two primary vocalists, songwriter Peter Panyon and Bonnie Eyler, and the use of these two radically different voices contrasts quite nicely and ensures there’s something here for everyone. 

The title song, “All in This Together”, has a lively feel and a number of unexpected musical elements. The dependability of the rhythm section creates a compelling juxtaposition with Panyon’s unusual vocals and the production brings these varying elements together in such a way that it sounds natural after only a brief listen. “10,000 Years” is Bonnie Eyler’s first vocal on the album and a slice of highly metaphorical songwriting with a decidedly airy, low-key approach. The majority of In This Together is devoted to acoustic or otherwise low fi sounds, but songs like “The Final Boat Out” are spiked with numerous electric guitar fills and powerful, but never overbearing, drums. There’s a wealth of lyrical detail in the song and leans towards a vaguely apocalyptic air that helps it stand out from the rest of the pack. The likely peak of the album, performance and songwriting wise, is “How the Mind Wanders”. Eyler gives listeners her most deeply felt vocal yet and it’s an excellent match that makes the most of the intelligently phrased and observed lyrical content. The music embodies every ounce of the nuance heard in the lyrics; nothing here is rushed and the patience they exercise during the performance pays off with one of the album’s best tracks.  

“You Lied” is one of the album’s true surprise, an often blistering outright rock offering that shows great discernment and never becomes too heavy-handed. Eyler’s previously docile vocal performances offer no hint of her capabilities in this area; she’s utterly believable in her role as a rock singer and Big Tribe responds accordingly. The band confounds audience expectations yet again with the song and first album single “July Carol”. Big Tribe transposes the idea of a Christmas carol to the summer months and brings all of the holiday tropes along for a grand time. The backing choir of voices is a clever and unexpected touch, but the songwriting and lyrical content remains as exceptional as ever and the song’s true drawing power. In This Together will satisfy a wide variety of fans – rock fans, unrepentant folkies, and rootsy devotees. Big Tribe are endlessly inventive songwriters and performers and they show themselves able of carrying off this material with an ample amount of personality as well. 

9 out of 10 stars 

I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/in-this-together/id1173692481 

Dale Butcher 

The Cavalry - Build Your Own Empire

 

The Cavalry - Build Your Own Empire 

URL: http://www.thecavalry.fm/ 

Many potential listeners for The Cavalry’s debut Build Your Own Empire will be mislead by preconceptions of the Nashville rock genre being inherently disposable, but the five songs on this first release and accompanying performances are quite capable of dispelling any such cynicism. The Cavalry has great rousing musical energy and a surplus of melody, but Tristan Jackson’s vocals are among the deepest feeling in the genre and refrain from taking any short cuts towards satisfying the listener. Instead, the songs touch on experiences virtually all listeners can share while still speaking from a very personal place. Tristan Jackson throws himself wholeheartedly into this material and never backs down once from investing it with all of the energy and passion that it deserves. It benefits, lastly, from exceptional production that renders everything in vivid color and hits a great balance between the competing sounds.

The strengths of that production are evident on the first song. “JFK Intro” sets a strong and eloquent tone for the remainder of the album without ever sounding out of place despite its decidedly different musical slant from the EP’s remaining four songs. It never goes on too long either and, as a result, doesn’t throw the album off balance. “Don’t Mean You’re Gone” has some predictable lyrical and musical turns for the genre, but The Cavalry are adept at pouring old wine into new bottles and the genuine verve that Jackson and his cohorts bring to this performance redeems any familiarity. The predictable path that the track takes is doubly smooth thanks to how well both vocalist and players execute its changes. Kristie Lane guests on the ballad “Wake Up Call” but, rather than dueting with Jackson, she provides beautiful and impassioned counterpoint to the primary vocal. There’s a melodic density to the song that makes it one of Build Your Own Empire’s most unusual and lasting achievements.  

One of the EP’s best moments comes with “When the Radio’s Gone”, a deceptively simple bit of songwriting that, after repeated listens, reveals a wealth of undercurrents sure to please a wide audience. It is clearly the song most clearly aimed for commercial success and a number of factors make this possible. The strongest of these qualities, however, is the subtle uptick in tempo that comes with the chorus and its rousing effect on the song is impossible to ignore. The last song “Red, White, & Blue Jeans” hits on some common, universal imagery that hits immediately hits home with the audience embedded into a strident and strongly arranged Nashville Rock track. It ends Build Your Own Empire with a big number that emphasizes The Cavalry’s ambitions with this release. Tristan Jackson obviously intends on making the deepest possible impact with this release and the quality enables him to succeed. The EP’s five songs have a variety of moods and aren’t ever just simple-minded and straight forward pop country songs – instead, the personal and universal meet here with memorable and often combustible results.  

9 out of 10 stars 

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/CavalryNation/status/779881131168632832 

Charles Hatton

Uncle Frank – Fountains

 

Uncle Frank – Fountains 

URL: http://www.unclefrankband.com/ 

The Europeans have always had a take on electronic dance pop that their American brethren rarely share. Frank Benbini and his band aren’t just as assemblage of musicians and electronics mavens looking to make people dance and cash checks but come off, instead, as well-rounded songwriters and performers intent on providing audiences with a good time and connecting with them emotionally. The first single from their forthcoming second album Love Lion entitled “Fountains” is a reminder of many things, but two are most prominent. The first that this is an art form capable of saying much more to its target audience than just forget about your cares and dance and the second is that, in general, this music doesn’t have to be made be machines alone and, instead, it is better served being performed by flesh and blood musicians working at or near the top of their form.  

There’s certainly no question, even hearing “Fountains” for the first time, that Frank and his accompanying musicians are playing at their peak of their respective powers. Benbini immediately takes charge with all the nuance and style that he can bring to bear as singer. His technique is to tie his voice tightly to the movement of the song and he does that to superb effect here. His phrasing has a way of weaving around the warm bass thump courtesy of bassist Luke Bryan and Junior Benbini’s  rock solid and grooved out drumming that makes this band, this performance, a practically impossible combination to beat. The song kicks off by hitting the chorus first and, while it isn’t an unheard of move, it’s relatively audacious enough to deserve particular note. By doing this, Benbini and his band brings listeners directly into the experience of the song.

The experience is much more upbeat than the lyrics might sound on first hearing. They express a desire for escape to someplace better, an escape from loneliness, and uses perfect language to convey that sentiment. It’s a blend of the specific and general – we never really know what exactly the fountains are Uncle Frank is referring to in the title or why dreaming of such deliverance constitutes shooting off his mouth, but there’s little doubt that the vast majority of listeners will draw their own conclusions and profoundly relate. There’s equally little doubt that the longing in his voice is inextricably connected to the song’s experience and, together, they conjure a spell for listeners that gives this song a lot of impact. 

Based on this single alone, Love Lion is set to be one of 2017’s most meaningful releases in the genre. Few bands, collectives, or solo artists can boast the same skill set that is on display here. Instead, Uncle Frank and his band of talented players reach deep for the heart of the audience and capture it, but they never forget to get them moving as well. 

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/UncleFrankMusic/

Joshua Stryde