“DD Review: Midlake – For the Sake of Bethel Woods.”

Score: 8/10 Midlake happens to be a band holding a somewhat special place in my heart, the reason being that I discovered them at one of those old CD listening stations in a thing called a “record store,” formerly a significant entity on ides other than “Record Store Day.” The album was The Trials of … Read more“DD Review: Midlake – For the Sake of Bethel Woods.”

“DD Review: Circles around the Sun – Live at the Charleston Pour House 11/12/21.”

Score: 8/10 Don’t do online research on anything. That’s my advice to you. Can you have a cookout? Do you have a grill? Do you have a badminton net, He**, a frisbee? The weather’s getting nicer. Simplify. Breathe. Gyrate. And listen to this fu**ing album because it’s the best jam rock album since Umphrey’s McGee … Read more“DD Review: Circles around the Sun – Live at the Charleston Pour House 11/12/21.”

“DD Review: Michael Lane – Take it Slow.”

Score: 7.5/10 Michael Lane is your new soft rock radio, crooning out majestic, tranquil but aching songs drawing stylistic influence from Mumford & Sons and Bon Iver but always filling the mixes with an anatomical swagger of originality. Lyrically, he does a nice job of shifting topic too, letting existential philosophy and second-person rancor team … Read more“DD Review: Michael Lane – Take it Slow.”

“DD Review: Sea Power – Everything Was Forever.”

Score: 7/10 “Sea” is a funny word. This is especially true in the case of us Americans, who, as far as I know, don’t have access to anything officially classified as a “sea” anywhere on our contiguous landscape. The very mention of the term, too, seems to imply something grandiose and dramatic, such as mentions … Read more“DD Review: Sea Power – Everything Was Forever.”

“DD Review: The Lucid Furs – Da**! That Was Easy.”

Score: 10/10 One of my first impressions of this new album by Detroit’s blues-rockers The Lucid Furs was seeing this dude on some site list them as a “clone of Led Zeppelin, Blood Ceremony and Blues Brigade,” the person hence of course exhibiting a commendable ability to claim someone to be a clone of many … Read more“DD Review: The Lucid Furs – Da**! That Was Easy.”

“DD Review: The Vaccines – Back in Love City.”

Score: 9/10 With The Vaccines, for me, it’s been all about energy, energy, energy, combined on 2018’s Combat Sports with a newly spiced attention to production that prompted me to rank that best album of the year on this site. In general, they take what you might call a British approach to pop-punk, as the … Read more“DD Review: The Vaccines – Back in Love City.”