From americansongwriter.com on Blue With Lou:

Little Steven Van Zandt isn’t the only E Street Band guitarist taking advantage of Springsteen’s sabbatical from the road. Longtime Bruce guitarist Nils Lofgren returns to his days as a guitar toting/trampoline jumping frontman (maybe he’s too old for the mid-solo flips now) to tour and promote this new release. It’s his first solo studio band set in eight years although you wouldn’t know it from the confidence projected on these dozen rockers and ballads, perhaps due to the basic tracks recorded live in Nils’ home studio.

As the disc’s title implies, and the press notes explain in detail, about half these tunes are leftovers from lyrics that Lou Reed gave to Lofgren as part of their short but relatively fruitful late 70’s collaboration. A trio of songs from this somewhat unusual partnership ended up on Lofgren’s 1979 Nils album, another three made it to Reed’s generally underwhelming The Bells set from the same year and a few more found their way to later Lofgren albums.

Regardless of Lou’s input, this sounds like another solid Lofgren set. Opener Reed co-write “Attitude City” is a tough rocker with dated nods to Saturday Night Fever as the only indication of the original year the words were composed. Co-write “Cut You Up” is another mid-tempo corker — a dark, urban tale about a serial killer (“Cut him up/ You got a madness says I can’t be free”) with eerie backing vocals, a shadowy swampy groove from Nils who also contributes some of his distinctive hot-wired guitar. Lofgren’s graceful reggae version of “City Lights,” including male Persuasions-styled backing vocals and Branford Marsalis’ sax, is more organic and natural than Reed’s stiffer recording.

The album’s highlights are two new Lofgren tunes, both tributes to fallen musicians. The seven-minute title track, “Blue With Lou”— the disc’s longest selection and its centerpiece — works a walking bass groove as Nils sings “King of that street corner/ his words slash and lick the pain” and blasts out trembling sheets of stinging guitar that could only come from his hands. The lightly funky “Dear Heartbreaker,” a duet with singer Cindy Mizelle, uses Tom Petty’s passing as a metaphor for all artists whose work outlives their time on earth, over an appropriately gospel vibe. Pet lovers should note the closing “Remember You,” a melancholy homage to Lofgren’s deceased dog that anyone familiar with this wrenching experience will relate to.

Since the total playing time is less than an hour, adding the previously recorded Reed co-written songs as extras would have been a nice touch. Despite the passage of more than four decades from Lofgren’s prime as a medium venue headliner though, little has changed with his youthful sounding voice, sizzling guitar playing, melodic songwriting or overall boyish enthusiasm. That makes this comeback of sorts particularly sweet, irrespective of Reed’s beyond-the-grave involvement.

From irishtimes.com on In The End:

Thirty years ago in Limerick city, brothers Noel and Mike Hogan, and drummer Fergal Lawlor, auditioned a young singer from Ballybricken called Dolores O’Riordan. She went away with a tape of a song called Linger, that the boys had written. What O’Riordan brought back made their jaws drop. The rest is history; 40 million album sales and, of course, tragedy.

The Cranberries will split up after the release of In the End, which is their eighth album. Musical history is littered with posthumous albums, from the good to the bad to the outright ugly. We live in an era where holograms of Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison are billed to play the 3Arena to entice people to pay their hard-earned cash as if they were still alive.

With the very honourable exception of the sepulchral second Joy Division album, Closer, raking over the coals of the dead is not a good look, or seldom unearths anything by the way of truly great music.

For grim examples, look how the back catalogues of The Beatles and Nirvana have been elongated beyond all proportion and reason. Rest assured there is plenty more in the vaults where those came from.

Excited

In the End is an unexpected late career high and a remarkable swan song for O’Riordan that should ensure the band are remembered for their singular music rather than any celebrity soap opera. Before O’Riordan’s death, she was reportedly very excited about this project. Little wonder, as these songs are among some of the best they’ve done.

The opening track, All Over Now, crystallises the classic Cranberries guitar sound with a strong whiff of The Cure. It features an opening lyric that is poignant for all the wrong reasons, as O’Riordan sings, “Do you remember the night? In a hotel in London they started to fight”. With song titles such as Wake Me When It’s Over, The Pressure, or In the End, there is a slight compulsion to dissect the lyrics and songs through the lens of dying young.

Curiously uplifting

Noel Hogan recently credited long-term producer Stephen Street as the fifth member of the band. This close relationship also corresponds to Street’s career trajectory with Blur and The Smiths, as neither worked with anyone else after producing some magic in the studio together (except when William Orbit produced Blur’s 13). Street always worked with the lads during the day, while Dolores recorded her vocals by night.

It is sad that O’Riordan isn’t around to see this album reach fruition and to tour some of the best songs they’ve done in years. There is, however, a curiously uplifting spirit to In the End; a sense of properly finished business and a smart and stylish farewell.

We’ll never see the likes of O’Riordan and The Cranberries again, but at least In the End is another time capsule of immortality in a world where life is fragile and painfully transient. Theirs is a light that never goes out.

From loudersound.com on The Secret:

Even with a crystal ball you might not have seen The Secret coming. Alan Parsons’ last studio album, the electronica experiment A Valid Path, was released back in 2004 and, by his own admission, didn’t exactly set the world alight. But by then he didn’t need to be making records at all. His legacy and reputation had already been long assured, through his work with The Beatles and on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, and his pioneering raft of hit albums with Eric Woolfson as The Alan Parsons Project. His remains a marquee name, synonymous with immaculate production and high-end, hit concept albums.

The Alan Parsons Live Project has been his bread and butter gig for the past two decades, and another album wasn’t on the cards until Frontiers Records founder and Parsons fan Serafino Perugino approached him last year. The songs on The Secret were pulled out of the hat over 2018, but Parsons is a lifelong fan of magic, and the theme for his fifth solo album is one he has harboured for years. The Secret draws on magic and mystery in allegorical, poetical ways, and marks a return to the recording and songwriting approach of the Project’s halcyon days. It’s not just an anachronous rehash of past glories, rather a modern album with echoes of classic times.

Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice might trigger nightmares for those of us who were freaked out by armies of walking brooms in Disney’s Fantasia, but here it sets the album’s grand mystical tone. Parsons’ beautifully realised orchestration features Steve Hackett’s classy harmonised guitars and percussion from Zappa drum great Vinnie Colaiuta.

Elsewhere the core musicians are trusted members of Parsons’ touring band, including Tom Brooks (keys), Guy Erez (bass), Jeff Kollman (guitar) and Danny Thompson (drums), and as usual Parsons has recruited a diverse roster of guest vocalists. Pop artist Jason Mraz wrings real sweetness from lead single Miracle, seemingly a song about the magic of human existence and self-knowledge. With its clear, neatly articulated guitar arpeggios, the riff is the most on-the-nose lift from the Project’s Eye In The Sky past, and works well. Foreigner’s Lou Gramm brings fist-punching gravitas to the 80s-style power ballad Sometimes. Long-term Project fans will get a knowing frisson at the line ‘The older grow wiser and fall in love sometimes,’ while the song’s tasteful piano and sober strings are conventional but strong.

Parsons’ own trademark vocals emerge on As Lights Fall, where he assumes the role of an ageing magician bowing out after a happy career doing his tricks. His cut-glass English tones rest nicely on the song’s elegant, mid-tempo chug, as vintage electric pianos burble and celesta-like chimes add colour. He also supplies the counter-melodies to Soirée Fantastique, another Project throwback which transports us to a Montmartre back street for ‘A trick that’s done with mirrors, to exist and not to be alive.’ Powered by vocalist/saxophonist Todd Cooper, this one’s dramatic, with a big, classic-era chorus freighted with gorgeous harmonies and a none-more-80s middle-eight.

Cooper emerges as a bit of a star. The jazzy Requiem sees him wailing on sax and bemoaning ‘the day that the magic died’, with distinctive, Floyd-like ‘oohs’ behind him, a Gilmour-esque solo, and some big bold brass taking the song out. This is probably
as close as things get to Project regular Lenny Zakatek’s forceful delivery. On current Live Project show opener One Note Symphony Cooper holds down the song’s literal one-note vocal as the guitars and strings swirl around him providing the tune. Astronauts talk over radios, Quindar Tones bleep, and a Vocoded voice chants over a celestial choir before the entire song blasts off into space on roaring engines. ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,’ Parsons intones, quoting not Asimov this time, but that other science fiction giant, Arthur C Clarke.

There’s a hint of John Lennon to Mark Mikel’s voice on Fly To Me. With its plangent chords, Harrison-style solo and harmonies, this is the album’s Beatles moment, its sweet lyrics evoking crystal balls and the magic of love. PJ Olsson sings Beyond The Years Of Glory, another clever tune with lovely strings, Dark Side-style harmonies and a lyrical guitar solo from Alan Parsons favourite, Ian Bairnson.

If each song is a pleasing sleight of hand, it’s only at the end of closing ballad I Can’t Get There From Here that you feel the true pull of The Secret’s gentle spell. Once you’ve sat through the entire performance you’ll want to go back to the beginning, to try to see how the trick is done. This studio wizard is back in familiar garb, every card in his deck a friendly one this time. The Secret is a smooth, beautifully produced entertainment, and a worthy late addition to Parsons’ act.

From melodicrock.com on Winds Of Change:

“Winds Of Change” is the long-awaited follow-up to Jim Peterik’s now legendary “Jim Peterik’s World Stage” album. Set for release on April 26, 2019, “Winds of Change”, is another musical masterpiece featuring brand new Peterik songs in collaboration with a who’s who of melodic rock’s greatest superstars, including Kevin Chalfant (ex-The Storm), Dennis DeYoung (ex-Styx), Matthew and Gunnar Nelson Band, Kelly Keagy (Night Ranger), Lars Safsund and Robert Sall (Work of Art), Toby Hitchcock (Pride Of Lions), Danny Vaughn (Tyketto), Mike Reno (Loverboy), Kevin Cronin (REO Speedwagon), Jason Scheff (ex-Chicago), and a very special previously unreleased track by the late, great Jimi Jamison.

“Since the success of my first World Stage album back in 2001 and countless shows since, I have wanted to create a new musical legacy with this format,” says Jim. “Listening to voices blending as one has always inspired me, going back to the Beatles and other great vocal groups. I have always considered myself as much a fan of great bands and artists as I am an artist myself, so a project like World Stage is a dream come true since I get to pay homage to those whose music I love, by writing and performing with them. With “Winds Of Change” I was honored to work with some of the best, adapting my writing and production styles to fit a particular act. Many of the songs were actually co- written with the artists appearing too.”

Jim Peterik and World Stage arose from the initial idea that the musical and spiritual collaboration of great artists and friends could be something truly special. The resulting album clearly displays the many talents of Jim Peterik, enhanced and embellished by a cast of noted singers and musicians.

“Mike Reno: I would always watch from the wings back in the 80’s when Survivor played dates with Loverboy. I’d see the crowd go nuts when they hit “Working For The Weekend”, so that’s the vibe Mike and I tried to recreate with “Without A Bullet Being Fired”, say Peterik.

He continues, “I am still pinching myself that I am now writing songs with Dennis DeYoung for his new album. “Proof of Heaven” is one of my proudest moments. Same inspiration was behind the title track “Winds Of Change” with Don Barnes and Danny Chauncey (.38 Special). Kelly Keagy and Kevin Chalfant and I had a blast capturing the energy of Night Ranger and The Storm’s hits with “I Will What I Want” and “Sometimes You Just Want More” respectively. And of course “Just For You” with the great Kevin Cronin is a very special moment for me. When I watched Danny Vaughn perform at Frontiers Festival a few years back, I immediately started planning to make him a part of World Stage. “The Hand I Was Dealt” is the result, which we co-wrote. “Home Fires” with the incredible Toby Hitchcock is a song I think any fan of Pride Of Lions will take to heart. And I have created new friendships with Work Of Art and Jason Scheff because of this record.”

“I am a rabid fan of every artist on the album and it was such a thrill to try and bring out their best essence, but for me the most touching moment of this record is reviving an amazing lost track by the late great Jimi Jamison. As I mixed the new version, it was again like having Jimi in the studio with me as his stunning voice came through the monitors. There was not a dry eye in the room. With “Love You All Over The World”, his spirit is still with us all,” adds Peterik.

In conclusion, Peterik says, “World Stage, which I created soon after I parted ways with Survivor back in 1996, was my way of bringing together the melodic rock community. Setting aside any competition between us to create great melodic rock for the audience that craves it. Since then, every World Stage show has been a total love fest with each show featuring an ever changing array of great artists.”

“Winds Of Change” certainly carries on that tradition and shows are in the planning stages that will reflect the line-up of this record.

Jim Peterik, through the years, has written or co-written some of rock’s most memorable songs: “Vehicle” by the The Ides Of March (on which he was lead vocalist), “Eye Of The Tiger,” “The Search Is Over,” “High On You,” and “I Can’t Hold Back”, hits for .38 Special such as “Hold On Loosely,” “Caught Up In You,” “Fantasy Girl,” and “Rockin’ Into The Night”, “Heavy Metal” with Sammy Hagar, and many many more. Peterik, now a part of Pride of Lions with vocalist Toby Hitchcock, is one of the most esteemed and loved recording artists and songwriters, not only on the Frontiers label, but in the larger melodic rock community.

From folkradio.co.uk on Stay Around:

Six years on from his death at the age of 74, this first posthumous release of new material is J J Cale proving that, as the title suggests, his music will indeed stick around. His work is an integral thread in the weave that is 20th-century music. There aren’t many artists who’s after-life releases stand up alongside their premier work, as a rule, people want to get the essential music heard as quickly as they can. Jimi Hendrix is the first name to spring to mind when pondering acts who had an abundance of top-quality recordings left in the can after they passed. Occasionally an untimely death occurs immediately before a planned release, Otis Redding and Elliott Smith being good examples, but mostly a posthumous collection is nothing more than a mopping up of studio out-takes, rehearsals and unfinished works in progress. These are only ever really of interest to the die-hard fans and completists of an artist’s work, never essential. But this new album from J J Cale is far from second rate residue; it’s a new, complete, produced and compiled piece of work that stands proudly alongside other original releases. How does this come to be?

J J Cale didn’t approach studio work with the same marketing strategies as your average recording artist. He did not record twelve tracks for an album and leave it at that. His muse was solely song focused, rightly so for a writer whose main bread and butter was compositions recorded by other higher profile singers. Everyone from Eric Clapton, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Captain Beefheart to Bryan Ferry, John Mayer, Lucinda Williams, Beck and Iron & Wine have put J J Cale material down on record freeing the man himself to doggedly duck and dodge his way out of the spotlight. It just wasn’t where this former US Air Force electronics technicians’ interests lie. That late fifties grounding had planted a seed in his mind that would develop into a dexterity in mixing and sound recording. This later gave his recording a rather individualist, distinct grain. And so, by the time he was a fully formed recording artist in the early seventies, his approach to his craft drove unusual decisions such as a refusal to play Dick Clark’s American Bandstand (when enjoying his biggest success on the US singles charts with ‘Crazy Mama’) because they wouldn’t allow his band along and he would have to lip-sync. Despite any commercial payback, he would have received from such an endurance, J J Cale did not see the value in investing time and effort into something that benefitted his fame and not his craft. So, he simply didn’t do that. When he worked on his music, he really worked on his music. Inevitably, recording sessions would stack up unused, but generally completed songs. He had no qualms about having tracks ready to go but still on the shelf, and he would find a place on an album for them when a suitable place became available. For example, ‘Roll On’, the title track from Cale’s last studio album in 2009, was 34 years old.

‘Stay Around’ has been assembled from J J Cale recordings casting its net over a similarly long distance, four-decade span. Christine Lakeland Cale, his widow and long-time band member, has curated this incredibly cohesive collection. The evidence to his recording approach can be indisputably heard for all tracks are already produced to the Cale standard. He clearly didn’t casually put stuff down knowing it wouldn’t appear on the next scheduled release, it seems he knew every track would eventually have its moment. And Christine admits that she was able to stick with Johns mixes saying “you can make things so sterile that you take the human feel out. But John left a lot of that human feel in. He left so much room for interpretation”.

The first song that Christine and John cut together as a four-piece combo was ‘My Baby Blues’. It was captured on tape at Bradley’s Barn studio in 1977 and is included here, one of the oldest selections and the only song not written by J J Cale himself. However, the remarkable thing about this Christine Lakeland Cale song is how neatly it beds in with all the other material and furthermore, it highlights the timelessness of that J J Cale vibe. Labelled at times as the originator of the ‘Tulsa’ sound, a vague configuration of influences from jazz, blues, country and rockabilly, what strikes you in this set is that he was simply the master of the J J Cale sound. There are echoes of 20th-century country, but it doesn’t sound old or traditional. There are touches of blues, but it is not stuck in that structure. There’s a free and easy looseness that occurs in jazz, but the songs never lose direction or overextend. This is far from tub-thumping rockabilly but a track like ‘Chasing You’ does swing its pants and carries the listener along with them! It’s a stand-out tune on ‘Stay Around’ and hints a touch at the Americana well Bob Dylan drank from on ‘Modern Times’.

It’s amazing how all the way this record has subtle diversions in each tune and yet it retains a sense that all this music is part of the same journey. ‘Tell Daddy’ has a gentle lolloping groove and bluesy piano. Shut your eyes during ‘Winter Snow’ and you’re staring out your window just like Cale, fighting off the cold chill and watching those white butterflies falling from the sky. Then on ‘Wish You Were Here’ we have a sunny, relaxed banjo lament that leaves us looking for our sun hat, rocking chair and porch. Everything is filtered through that delicate Cale light touch. You can appreciate why he fought off the mechanizations of the music industry so persistently. His music was a fine construct boiled up from natural elements and one man’s single-minded vision; too much heavy-handed outside interference would so easily have crushed the spell. J J Cale’s life work was focused on protecting that from happening. Even the gentle synths that appear on the backdrop of title track ‘Stay Around’ aren’t a jarring intrusion; they’re applied with restraint and prove that when a master craftsman is afforded the time and working conditions, they will never overcook their creation. J J Cale was a songsmith who served his muse with incredible care, attention and an individual magic flair that has ensured he will not be replicated or replaced. A true one-off and absolutely one of the greats. Whether this is a one-off archive trawl or the first of many is currently unclear, but it’s a valuable addition to the canon either way.

From allmusic.com on Stand Back 1981-2017:

Released to coincide with Stevie Nicks’ solo induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — she is the first woman to be inducted twice, once with a band, once as a solo act — the retrospective Stand Back: 1981-2017 is available in three distinct forms. First, there’s a deluxe edition with either three CDs or six LPs, divided by a disc of solo hits, a disc of collaborations, and a disc of live material buttressed by contributions to film soundtracks. Second, there’s a digital version containing 40 of the triple-disc’s 50 tracks, with a single-disc collection of hits bringing up the rear. Of the three, the latter is the most user friendly, containing all of her big hits along with live versions of Fleetwood Mac‘s “Dreams” and “Gold Dust Woman.” The expanded digital version follows similar contours but it’s the deluxe version that offers the richest portrait of Nicks, fleshing out the familiar ’80s staples and album rock hits with deep cuts. While it covers much of the same ground as 1998’s triple-disc box Enchanted, this has a greater percentage of original hit singles and interesting curios, making it the best comprehensive career overview of Nicks yet assembled.

From puregrainaudio.com on Honk:

Despite popular opinion, there’s a lot that hasn’t been written about The Rolling Stones. They are the definition of jukebox rock n’ roll, and the world always has a couple of quarters to keep the party going.

Ladies and gentlemen, here is a box set that brings you one of the greatest rock bands that span almost as many genres as they span decades. They created slang, they created hooks, and brought about too many defining moments to name. References like “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” or “partying like a rock star” didn’t have a life before this band.

Welcome to Honk. A greatest hits album like you’ve never heard before, from one of the bands that contributed to pop culture in so many unforgettable ways that can never be replaced; from movie soundtracks, TV episodes, sold-out international tours, charity benefit concerts, dozens of classic albums, and countless other personal moments in countless lives. People losing their virginity, drinking their first beer, smoking their first cigarette (for better and definitely for worse), and so many other things. Little things, big things and everything in between. The Rolling Stones were there through all of it, and this is the soundtrack to our lives for generations.

Honk brings a remastered three-disc set to fans returning to the fold, those laying in the cut, and those who may be hearing this legendary band for the first time. Whether you’re digging for hit singles or deep cuts: THIS IS IT!

From the glossy pop of “Start Me Up,” to the ragged “Tumbling Dice,” it doesn’t matter what your relationship with these tracks is, they still catch you off guard with how well the hooks have aged. Latter day singles like “Gloom and Doom” prove the band still has a lot of swagger to spare and can still create real rock with edge. The truth is, with this band, you’re playing with the house money, so everyone walks away with a couple of chips in their pocket. Pop music doesn’t have the same shelf life anymore, and here this band is, fifty years later – and counting – while the songs still kick.

The live cuts focus on the Stones using their magic to bring other artists into the spotlight and bringing audiences to a place where they can see their range. They even have Dave Grohl ripping the spicy cut “Bitch” from the seminal Sticky Fingers album in an unforgettable way. The drums are tight, the basslines stick to it like honey, and the guitar licks melt into the vocals like a horizon giving way to twilight. It’s just meant to be, goddamnit!

To top it off, Honk also features tracks with esteemed artists like Florence Welch, Ed Sheeran, and Brad Paisley. The Rolling Stones have become a rite of passage for anyone who loves pop culture. Whether you only acknowledge their influence or embrace it wholeheartedly, the beauty of this group is that they’re a part of us all.

Take that to the bank and watch it grow because whether you’re being dragged away by “Wild Horses” or your feet are hurtin’ from being a “Beast of Burden,” cry through your tears and celebrate one of the greatest bands that ever stood on the cover of a magazine and inspired millions to wear some jeans, be themselves, and not care about what anyone thinks, because they’re too busy caring about the process.

From npr.org on Absolute Zero:

Ever since Bruce Hornsby hit the public consciousness with his 1986 hit single “The Way It Is,” he’s made plenty of music that’s just as organic and warm as that song, up to and including his body of work with The Grateful Dead. But the keyboardist also has a more technical and conceptual side — and that’s evident in every nook and cranny of Absolute Zero. Hornsby’s new album is as melodic as his past oeuvre, most of which is from more traditional, singer-songwriter cloth, but it’s also a fascinating and absorbing peek into the veteran musician’s love of avant-garde classical, jazz and progressive rock.

The song titles alone are hints that Hornsby is up to something. “Voyager One,” “Fractals,” “Echolocation,” “Absolute Zero”: They’re all names that could have appeared on one of the 1970s releases from the legendary jazz label ECM. And sure enough, one of ECM’s staple signees in the ’70s, the virtuoso jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette, makes a guest appearance on Absolute Zero‘s title track, a minimalist meditation on time and perception that evokes an uncanny illusion of weightlessness. “Voyager One,” on the other hand, is pleasantly frantic, propelled by a tight funk-fusion groove and Hornsby’s playfully spry vamping on the piano.

Hornsby has never been shy about inviting special guests to play on his albums, and in addition to Jack DeJohnette, Bon Iver‘s Justin Vernon makes an appearance on two of Absolute Zero‘s most compelling cuts. On “Cast-Off,” Hornsby and Vernon are joined by Bon Iver drummer Sean Carey, and together they forge a gentle, undulating excursion through rejection and isolation — but with enough emotional distance to render the song more dreamlike than anguished, all tied together with sumptuous vocal harmonies. And on “Meds,” the two welcome yMusic’s Rob Moose as well as the acclaimed guitarist and composer Blake Mills. It’s a heavy song, fractured and psychedelic, but with an underlying sweetness and vulnerability that counterbalances its jarring, avant-pop vibe.

One of the most moving collaborations on the album, though, is with Robert Hunter, longtime lyricist for The Grateful Dead. He contributes poetry to the track “Take You There (Misty),” which ends Absolute Zero on a note that seems, at first, to be a departure from the rest of the album’s sculpted abstraction. It’s not far from the sentimental, emotive songwriting of “That’s The Way It Is,” complete with Hornsby’s Hunter-penned admission that “If your heart says yes / I won’t say no.” It comes across almost corny at first — that is, until Hornsby shows his true hand and conducts the song into an extended bridge of deconstructed atonality.

It’s a breathtaking move, especially when he repeats “If your heart says yes / I won’t say no” while dangling over a disorienting chasm of shifting time signatures and chamber-orchestra pileups. It’s closer to The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway-era Genesis than anything The Grateful Dead ever did. Far from a conventional Hornsby album, Absolute Zero is the sound of an artist subverting expectations and pulling it off brilliantly. At this point in his career, Hornsby could easily coast on writing cozy songs and settling for that. Thankfully for us, he’s still up for an adventure.

Buy This Album Now