I listened to Carole King's "Tapestry" for the first time in a long while this past weekend. The album seemed incredibly deep and grown-up and mysterious when I had the 8-track at age 11. Now that most of its mysteries have been revealed, "Tapestry" seems sometimes spot-on ("It's Too Late"), sometimes naïve ("Where You Lead") and sometimes like bad prog rock minus the gory synthesizers (the title track). (And gory synthesizers are the best part of bad prog rock.) ...more

March 19, 2009

BRAD PAISLEY: PLAY (Arista) *** On most Paisley albums, a musical Gettysburg usually takes place between the fleet-fingered guitarist and the aw-shucks vocalist. ...more

December 11, 2008

Downloading has killed the album, so the music industry would have you believe. Everyone just grabs their favorite tracks anyway, so what's the point of a carefully sequenced, start-to-finish listening event? ...more

December 4, 2008

The opening title track of My Morning Jacket's new album is hooky modern pop except for the middle section, which sounds like "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"-era Genesis, had Steve Hackett been way into bluegrass. ...more

June 19, 2008

If the stories are to be believed, The Mars Volta's fourth album was inspired by - and nearly wrecked by - a Ouija board. The duo (Omar Rodriguez Lopez and Cedric Bixler Zavala) bought the board in Jerusalem, consulted it throughout a tour and later buried it when unexplained mishaps (computer glitches, an engineer's nervous breakdown) threatened to derail this album's recording process. ...more

February 14, 2008