Tag Archives: music-album-reviews

There is a thriving new genre of internet videos that document rap superstar Lil Uzi Vert descending from his celebrity perch to mingle with the people — walking (or running) among us, casually interfacing with his fans on sidewalks, at department stores, amusement parks, and festival grounds. When the flow …

Seasons change: every Hot Girl Summer must turn into a Mad As Hell Winter. So Megan Thee Stallion chose the right moment to break free. Her 9-song EP Suga drops just as the Houston rap goddess goes to war with her label 1501 Certified Entertainment, calling her contract “not only …

“Gospel goes deeper than entertainment,” Pops Staples said in 1968, shortly after his group, the Staple Singers, signed with Stax Records. “It is the word of god. But you can’t push that down anybody’s throat. All we can do is get as many people to hear us as we can.” …

Since releasing his debut single “Hurricane” in 2015, the burly North Carolina singer Luke Combs has ascended to the very top of commercial country music. His well-crafted, down-the-center power balladry arrived at a transitional moment for the genre, when artists like Chris Stapleton and Sam Hunt were providing two (very …

Tool’s first album in 13 years opens like a grievous European symphony drawn in electronic tones; what sounds like the chiming of a hammered dulcimer enters alongside Danny Carey’s tablas, which tag-team with kit drums, heavy electric guitar and bass. Maynard James Keenan, his voice still striking youthful — he …

In her seventies, gospel-R&B legend Mavis Staples has emerged as perhaps the hardest-working singer of her generation, releasing more albums of original material over the past decade (five, and counting) than even her famously prolific contemporary Willie Nelson. Beginning with the rebirth of 2010’s You Are Not Alone, Staples has …

“I believe that one can never leave home,” wrote Maya Angelou in Letter To My Daughter; “I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of one’s eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe.” …

In 1987, Stephen Malkmus had a bad MDMA trip. This was one reason, according to the press release for his new album, that he gave “a wide berth” to rave culture in the following decade; he was also busy making several classic indie-rock albums with Pavement at the time. But …

Maren Morris made her bones as one of country’s brightest new upstarts three years ago with her major-label debut, Hero. She introduced herself as a Texas songwriter with a sharp eye, a velvet voice and a mean streak, especially when it came to her irreverent attitude toward Nashville pieties. “My …

Gary Clark Jr. has spent the better part of a decade figuring out how to translate his guitar wizardry into compelling album-length statements. His first two offerings — 2012’sBlak and Blu and 2015’sThe Story of Sonny Boy Slim —were steeped in a sleek, modern blues-rock production style that mostly failed …