Threefifty - Gently Among the Coals URL: https://www.threefiftymusic.com/about Threefifty has massive ambitions, but their music doesn’t readily communicate them. This new collection Gently Among the Coals isn’t some chin held high over-exertion of musical strength in an effort to will some masterpiece into being. Instead, Threefifty produce music that sounds like a natural outgrowth of their interests, passions, skills, and experiences and possess an effortless creativity in this direction that manifests itself as a wide-ranging and quite surprising effort. Gently Among the Coals is an album never content with taking straight lines. It is, instead, a winding and imaginative musical ride with literary power frequently unheard on mainstream releases. Daring can only pay off if you possess the chops and the discipline to back it up. Even a cursory listen to Gently Among the Coals convinces you Threefifty has plenty of both qualities to burn. 

Gwyneth Moreland – Cider URL: https://www.gwynethmoreland.com/ Gwyneth Moreland’s California upbringing and sense of community greatly informs the songwriting on her release Cider. The ten songs on this album focus, in different ways and focuses, on character and Moreland demonstrates a nearly matchless talent for getting under the skin of her subject matter without ever giving short shrift to the track’s potential. She has secured the services of some amazing accompaniment for these performances, among them Gene Parsons, former pedal steel guitarist with seminal California country-influenced rockers The Flying Burrito Brothers and The Byrds. Her singing and songwriting, however, are the album’s primary attraction. She lives every line of these songs and shows a consistent willingness to throw herself into the moments and experiences depicted within. Producer David Hayes did a fantastic job of giving these songs the best of all possible platforms to get over with her audience. Cider is a memorable moment in the history of modern folk music.

Spayyzee - Work for It URL: https://spayyzee.com/ The latest release from Spayyzee, otherwise known by his birth name Michael Plotkin, is the second single from his soon to be delivered debut album. “Work for It” is a hard-hitting testimony to the sacrifices required for a performer to end up something more than a flash in the pan sensation and still contains enough entertainment value to show great allure for many listeners. DC Steez is prominently featured in the track as well and his more rugged, swaggering style makes for an interesting contrast with Spayyzee’s take on the material. The production has a stripped down, spartan approach emphasizing the two voices, but the vocals and music alike strike a perfect balance that keeps everything lean and muscular. The song runs just a bit over four minutes and remains entertaining throughout. If this track is any indication of the quality listeners will encounter on the debut, Spayyzee’s forthcoming release heralds the beginning of a fantastically successful career. 

Brielle Von Hugel - “Stronger” FT B.o.B, (Exodus and Sweet & Sour Remix) URL: https://www.briellevonhugel.com/ Brielle Von Hugel’s ascent towards greater mainstream recognition gets a significant boost from her latest single “Stronger”. It’s a collaboration with hip hop artist B.o.B. and House DJ’s Sweet & Sour and Exodus, but Von Hugel is the focal point and she sets the song on fire with an all-encompassing approach that bristles with passion and inspiration. The song has a four minute duration and Hugel keeps it hopping with a variety of approaches that never sound incongruous or strike a false note throughout the proceedings. It’s the latest peak in a career that has seen Hugel take her appearance on Season 11 of American Idol and expand on it with numerous press and television spots as well as teaming with Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox to memorable effect. Music runs in this singer’s DNA and she was likely destined from an early age for entertaining a vast audience of eager listeners.

Roadcase Royale - Get Loud YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7Yl_On_lo Nancy Wilson describes Roadcase Royale as a side project, never devaluing the primacy of her main band Hall of Famers Heart, but this new six piece sounds like anything but a side project. Roadcase Royale’s debut single “Get Loud” hits all the right buttons for both rock and R&B fans thanks to its clever mingling of the two forms and the vibrant sound the musicians conjure has both substance and commercial appeal. Wilson is joined by Liv Warfield on vocals and her lead guitarist Ryan Waters as well as Heart’s rhythm section and keyboard player. While Wilson is naturally quite familiar with the work of her fellow Heart band mates, she has equally combustible chemistry with Warfield and, particularly, Waters. The six member band has created something quite indelible with “Get Loud” – while it certainly speaks about our current lives with great relevance, the song’s message has a timeless quality.

Angie and the Deserters - 17 Days URL: https://www.angieandthedeserters.com/ Angie and the Deserters are an unlikely alliance, but it works better than any novice can imagine. Angie Bruyere’s journey from Potsdam, New York to a musical and modeling career in Southern California is the lynchpin for this unlikely chemistry and it makes them an especially exciting, combustible unit. The latest single from her album You, a song entitled “17 Days”, upturns some of the genre’s songwriting conventions on its head. It has a relatively laid back pace, especially when compared to some of Bruyere’s other songs, but it still bristles with the same uncompromising attitude fueling some of the other cuts from the album. “17 Days” makes no apologies for what it is or about. Instead, it pushes gently against the listener from the outset without ever getting strident and makes sure to give its listeners a first class exhibition on what it means to be an entertaining musician. The arrangement crackles and pops.

The Spider Accomplice - Los Angeles: The Abduction BANDCAMP: https://thespideraccomplice.bandcamp.com/album/los-angeles-the-abduction Los Angeles: The Abduction is the latest release from The Spider Accomplice. It’s the second entry in their Los Angeles Trilogy and carries on the highly imaginative work heard on the earlier album Los Angeles: The Trap while still building it with an even more inspired approach to their trademark melodic hard rock style. It isn’t all guitar bashing and percussion histrionics though. The band incorporates an assortment of soundscapes and alternative textures into many of the EP’s six songs without ever diverting themselves from their core sound. The lyrical content has an idiosyncratic slant, but it is remarkably poetic at times and vocalist VK Lynne delivers the lyrics in a variety of inventive ways while maintaining a consistent approach across the board. Her fellow musicians Justin Lee Dixon on drums and Arno Nurmisto on guitar and backing vocals provide all the needed after punch to make this a knockout effort from its first track to its last. 

Kelly McGrath - You and Me Today FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Kellymcgrathmusic Kelly McGrath is a Nashville based songwriter whose talents defy easy categorization. Many listeners and merchants will label her as a member of the Americana genre, but her latest single demonstrates a singer, lyricist, and songwriter whose range is much wider than a narrow genre classification. There are similarities. There is no doubt of that. However, McGrath’s material has a much more personal slant than the genre’s usual assortment of pastoral invocations to worlds long gone or paeans to the simpler life. Her first three albums show a songwriter concerned with the same troubles plaguing us all, but able to express them in an unique, highly individual fashion. Those efforts reach their zenith so far with her latest single “You and Me Today”, an impassioned and quite musical confrontation with grief. Kelly McGrath does not flinch. She faces presumably the biggest loss of her life with wisdom beyond her years and talent that transcends any tragedy. 

Christine Saadé - Get Together (Ft. Twisted Dee) FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Christine.Saade.FB Canadian born musician, vocalist and songwriter Christine Saadé has recorded and released a series of well-received singles illustrating her audaciousness and vitality in the electronic dance music scene. Her newest single “Get Together”, a cut from the forthcoming EP release HYSC? EP 1, ups the stylistic ante quite a bit. She delivers a dance pop anthem for the masses that doesn’t cut corners but, instead, gives listeners a pyrotechnic and fully-rounded musical experience. The song features the talents of DJ Twisted Dee, but even one hearing will convince anyone that Saadé maintains the largest presence in this song thanks to a showstopper vocal. The song runs a little under four minutes in length. This shouldn’t be confused for a bare bones approach to songwriting in this style. She packs the experience of three songs into this compact package and the result is explosive. 

Bunny Sigler - White Christmas URL: https://www.bunnysigler.net/bio Since his 1960’s debut, Bunny Sigler’s voice has been featured on an assortment of recordings, solo and otherwise, that stand today as classics of the R&B/soul genre. The Philadelphia native, nicknamed “Mr. Emotion” by admiring fans, exerts an influence that has extended deep into the 21st century long after many of his contemporaries have either died or disappeared into obscurity. His songwriting has been included on recent releases from Jay-Z while he’s continued to write new original solo material and record. His upcoming album When You’re In Love At Christmas Time is Sigler’s entry into a traditional sub-genre that he’s never turned his attention to until this point. “White Christmas” is the first single from this new release and, while Sigler pays due tribute to the song’s long history, he also takes the song for unique turns that many past interpreters have never felt compelled to pursue. This is a musical production fully realized – arrangement and vocalist alike are working in perfect accord towards an ultimate goal.

Project TO - The White Side, The Black Side MI2N: https://mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=193642 As conceptual efforts go, the debut release from Project-TO surely rates as one of the more all-encompassing examples of the form released in the last quarter century. The White Side, The Black Side is a twelve song opus with a grad over-arching design. The first six songs are intended to reflect the album’s “white” side and rely on the big beats and airy flair common to most techno and electronica while the “black” side are meant to be photographic negatives of those same songs, but cast in a distinctly different manner while sharing the same running time. Some might wonder if the second set of six songs are little more than remixes – nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, it is better to hear the second set of six songs as re-interpretations of the same material from a completely different mood. The “black” side, unsurprisingly, is darker and leaner than its white counterpart. The production is simply superb thanks to Project-TO member Riccardo Mazza’s judicious hand manning the boards. 

Sterling Witt – Satyagraha URL: https://www.sterlingwitt.com/ Sterling Witt’s already strong reputation as one of the most engaging guitar playing songwriters working today will likely only be further burnished by his latest full length release Satyagraha. This thirteen song opus, recorded and mixed by famed producer Steve Albini, bristles with an intelligent, questioning spirit that never simply accepts reality as it is given to him, but it also rampages and struts with undeniable rock and roll grit. Witt takes the album title from a word Indian spiritual and political leader Mahatma Gandhi used to describe the transformative power of objective truth in a world that rarely places any sort of premium on honesty. As before, however, this overarching thematic conceit never bogs the album down in wordiness – much like his guitar playing and arranging, Witt never uses two words when simply one will do and the result is an intense and highly focused affair that also spills over the rim with melody upon melody.