Jackson Browne & David Lindley "Love Is Strange"
(Inside Recordings)
"'Love Is Strange: En Vivo Con Tino' is a very fun collection that is both enjoyable to listen to and musically interesting enough that you genuinely want to pay attention. For fans of Jackson's early collaborative efforts with David Lindley (particularly the albums 'For Everyman', 'Late For The Sky', and 'The Pretender') this album is an essential purchase. But I also highly recommend it for those who like great songwriting and brilliant guitar playing!"
- Russell Paris / May 2010 -
Josh Rouse "El Turista" (Bedroom Classics)
"The new album 'El Turista' is a really fine album, containing several shimmering pearls of songs!"
- Musikindustrin / April 2010 -
Joel Rafael "The Songs Of Woody Guthrie" (Inside Recordings)
"Joel Rafael is a very pleasant acquaintance, 'Way Over Yonder In A Minor Key' is a remarkable song, and Rafael does it superb!"
- Lira Musikmagasin / March 2010 -
The Coal Porters "Durango" (Prima Records)
"The Coal Porters have been called 'the Clash of Bluegrass' and 'the first alt-bluegrass band in the world'. Maybe it's because of the front figure's background, the former Kentucky resident Sid Griffin. His band from the 80's, The Long Ryders, was after all the precursor and source of inspiration to the wave of alternative country that swept in about ten years later.
Now this London-based quintet's fourth album doesn't really have that much of an alternative sound. Instead it's quite traditional, with covers of 'Pretty Polly', Neil Young's 'Like A Hurricane' and a bunch of self-composed bluegrass-pieces.
Tim O'Brien and Peter Rowan guests on a couple of tracks, and what's possibly lost in production, is recovered in fresh and skillful musicality, and a musical joy that is easily caught by the listener!"
- Borås Tidning / February 2010 -
I See Hawks In L.A."Shoulda Been Gold 2001 - 2009"
(American Beat/Collector's Choice)
"Fiddles and psychedelics, humor and twang, harmony-singing and politics, cajun, bluegrass, honky tonk and hippies. Yes, this Californian quartet respectfully carries the heritage from Gram Parson's Cosmic American Music - Here's a scent of Flying Burrito Brothers, Poco, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Byrds, and various illegal substances. They've made it, successfully, on four albums now, and this is the summary of their first decade.
They call it a collection of greatest hits without hits, and these could very well have been hits in a more fair world. With tight three-part singing, glimmering pedal steel, twangy electric guitar and well-written songs filled with soul and confidence it's hard not to be charmed. And, if someone might wonder, this is true quality, not a gimmick.
The singer Rob Waller and the guitar player Paul Lacques, the main song writers, pick out grains of gold from the American roots tradition and put the pieces together into a lively unity. A unity that shamelessly slips by every label applied by reviewers : alt-country, country rock, americana, cosmic country, roots rock.
It's a well-chosen collection of songs, to be enjoyed by the new listener and it's also a generous collection for those of us who have heard the earlier albums. Nearly half of the tracks are previously unreleased. For instance, we're offered three newly recorded songs, of which I must mention the tex mex piece 'Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulet' with great vocals by a visiting Carla Olson.
Retro, some might say. Well, I'd like to believe that these hawks serve a purpose here and today. Even this century must need a dose of long-haired cowboys, especially as they've been blessed with humor, as well as feeling for harmonies!"
- Rootsy / January 2010 -
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