CD Reviews

The new full-length album by The Silent Comedy is Enemies Multiply, and the title says a lot about the content. The rockers have been together since 2007, with six recordings, and their success (SDMA awards, thousands of CD sales and millions of downloads, touring widely, TV and movie soundtrack appearances) seems to be the result […]

The Marcia Forman Band’s latest is called Generations. The new EP is a family affair for alto sax player Forman and her husband, violinist Floyd Fronius mark three decades together. For this seven-song set of jazz standards, the marvelous guitarist is Josh Vasquez, while Jeremy Eikham’s standup bass and Ray Conseur’s drums hold down the […]

On the local scene since before the turn of the century, Christopher Dale has racked up numerous nominations and awards, and as a solo artist he has released four recordings. A master of the full spectrum of musical genres from power pop to close-harmony folk rock, it’s no surprise that his newest release, Wood & […]

Julian’s Haywire made an impression with 2017’s Time Songs, as the songs of writers Jim Lydick and Kathleen Beck made good use of flute, violin, and other esoteric instruments—along with plenty of guitar and late ’60s vibes—to create an album saturated in the San Francisco Sound. They are back, with the same personnel (Lydick and […]

Trains Across the Sea got started in Columbus, Ohio in 2007 (nearest sea 530 miles) before relocating to San Diego and releasing Before It Ends. This is Andy Gallagher’s band, and a lot can be learned from logging on to their website, like a shot of him reading a book in front of stacked skulls […]

Doug Schmude (pronounced like moody) is from Irvine, a string whiz/singer/songwriter who when last heard on Ghosts of the Main Drag, was sketching pictures of small-town working class. It was a minor triumph, and he is back with more of the same on Burn These Pages. A veteran performer who has his own studio, Schmude […]

Lexington Field are San Diego originals, starting as a seven-person Celtic folk outfit to evolve into a group that brands itself a fiddle rock band–while having the ability to play punk, folk, Celtic rock, bluegrass, and politically charged anthems (like 2016’s “Fu_k Donald Trump”) and songs that fit comfortably only in the Lexington Field music […]

Tribute albums are often a mixed bag of unfocused and routine interpretations of the songs of great artists. Too often it’s not a gift worth giving and the songs are better left to the creator. Everybody’s Talking: A Tribute to Fred Neil manages to leap past any potential pitfalls common to these kinds of projects. […]

Local singer-songwriter hero, Dennis Roger Reed, has built a four-album series of American roots songs that covers the landscape of a varied genre that is hard to pin down in a way that is cohesive. Since 1998, he has taken us on a road trip through history, crossing the borders among folk, rock, jazz, country, […]