Reviews

This French cover band stretches the possibilities of genre bending by taking punk, post-punk, and New Wave songs by some of our favorite artists (like Talking Heads, Violent Femmes, and Echo and the Bunnymen), and turning them into jazzy, bossa nova, and even country-western tunes on their appropriately titled third album.

Brassy, tacky, flashy, and sassy, Dolly Parton is so notorious for her eye-popping assets, acting career, and amusement-park entrepreneurship that we sometimes forget the reason she’s a star in the first place: her voice—a clear and shining instrument that can bring you to tears or drag you out of a funk with just a few bars.

She donned the mile-high beehive ages before Amy Winehouse and flaunted her sex appeal years before Madonna.

It’s been more than five years since Joss Stone’s debut, The Soul Sessions, was nominated for the coveted Mercury Prize, so it’s easy to forget that the English songstress is only 22.

Quirky Canadian twins Tegan and Sara are back, this time abandoning the darker sound that penetrated The Con and returning, a bit, to their folk-rock roots.

Sweet-soul-music fans, rejoice! Daptone, the label that has kept the authentic sounds of R&B alive from its base in Brooklyn since 2001, has released a stellar compilation of hits, rarities, and previously unreleased material from their talented family of artists.

White Denim’s name may reference the acid-washed ’80s, but on Fits, the Austin, TX, trio’s third full-length, their sound mines the acid-testing ’60s, hard-rock ’70s, alt-rock ’90s, indie-rock ’00s, and everything in between.

So-Cal garage rockers the Willowz deploy classic blues-rock riffs, swaggering vocals, and freewheeling guitar melodies in a way that ignites a touch of nostalgia for the rock ‘n’ roll glory days, whenever those were.

The self-titled debut from the xx, marked with a very mysterious giant X on the cover, is full of classic R&B soul-tinged girl/guy vocals over throbbing bass, and/or dreamy synths, with tribal drums tossed in for good measure.

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