Mark Suppanz News Today

The Arrow, he’s aided by famed R.E.M. producers, Let’s Active’s Mitch Easter, who both mixed. Though Foster’s expressive, robust voice still recalls Tom Petty, his earlier Americana leanings are abandoned. The EP’s uplifting, cinematic title track – presented in two equally striking mixes, it was written in response to the global Black Lives Matter protests last summer following George Floyd’s senseless and cruel murder – and the resonant, acoustic “When Was the Last Time,...

Peculiar Red, The Galaxy of Howling Dogs, and Spider Poets) since starting in 1976, but I first heard him on his “quirky, unpredictable” 17-song 2008 solo album, Death of the Avant Garde, which I reviewed in issue 63 (two mini-LPs, Believe and Zombification doesn’t include last year’s seven-minute, Donald Trump-decrying single “Cloud Paper Tree,” the song’s jittery, unnerving freak-folk, swamp-blues, and psych-rock vibe continues. Throughout, Oliver flails and massages his c...

Josh Rawson (AKA Christmas Clapton), former bassist of folk-rockers The Felice Brothers; this debut was recorded by him in his Philmont, NY bedroom over three years while working various odd jobs. Rawson’s shadowy, languid music can be described as gothic folk, with delicately massaged guitars combined with glacial and carnivalesque synths, while his tremulous, drowsy baritone summons Scott Walker, Rufus Wainwright, and Jeremy Enigk (and, on the acoustic, recorded live “Raptors,” a grog...

4 Ft. Ramona (he’s also been in The Buckets, Acme Band, and Lava), for something drastically more hushed. Brisbois’s bio compares his music to Wilco and R.E.M., and you can indeed detect traces of Jeff Tweedy in his bucolic, reassuring drawl, while the mandolin-flecked “A Better Animal” and gentle, twangy “Take Me to the Sun” evoke R.E.M.’s “The Wrong Child” and “E-Bow the Letter,” respectively. But you’ll also hear Neil Halstead and Grant McLennan on the Low/East Riv...

Nick DiPillo, these Brooklyn shoegazers are pared down to their core duo of Ian Carpenter (vocals/guitars) and Rachel Fischer (drums) for this debut full-length. Wilds’ four pre-LP singles demonstrate the group’s range: faster numbers like the bright, glistening “Anterograde” and coarser, punk-edged “Glower” blend Wild Nothing and DIIV with Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Black Tambourine, while the more leisurely “Billows” and “Depth Charge” combine the floating, ethere...

Voodoo Jets) released his 2012 solo debut Exhibitionist. But this sublime second studio LP more than justifies the long wait, even though three of its most enchanting and angelic tracks – “Love and Peace,” “The Simplest Things,” and “Favorite Son” – appeared on his captivating 2015 Live and On Fire at Firehouse 12, recorded in New Haven, CT. Behind his eloquent, amorous, Don McGlashan-like croon and resounding, jazz/classical-tinged piano, and smidgens of cello, horn, and prog...

Following up 2018’s Proper EP, this Philadelphia foursome (whose moniker was the original name of Ardmore, the Philly suburb where they first rehearsed) sound even more inspired and imposing on this debut LP. Past reviews have accurately noted singer Matthew Taglang’s uncanny vocal resemblance to R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe; coupled with the iridescent, soaring guitars of David Perry, uplifting songs like “No Decay,” “Terrible Cure,” and “The Mentalist” recall Document’s “F...