Album Reviews

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Album Reviews
Best Digital Release Ever? Analogue Productions Reissues “Axis: Bold As Love” on SACD
Malachi Lui  |  Oct 31, 2018
“Why another Axis: Bold As Love?” That’s what I asked myself before buying this SACD. After all, mono and stereo AAA LPs have been in print for several years, and were obviously made for audiophiles. For digital listeners, the most recent CD edition mastered by the late George Marino at Sterling Sound isn’t bad. How much better can this album sound?

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Album Reviews
Best Ever Face to Face ?
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 16, 2015
The fourth Kinks album was the first on which Ray Davies removes his hard rock shell. It’s clear in retrospect that many artists from the ‘60s rock era were rocking only because that’s what the times demanded.

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Album Reviews
Best Sounding Shoot Out The Lights!
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2006

Issued in 1982 as the couple were going through a painful divorce, Richard and Linda Thompson’s Shoot Out The Lights became an immediate critic’s “must have” album. Despite the wildly enthusiastic world-wide press and the couple’s brave decision to tour in support of the album despite their personal acrimony, it was never a big seller.

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Album Reviews
Big Bill Broonzy Sings Folk Songs From Vinyl Me, Please
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2016
The Boulder, Colorado-based vinyl curating service Vinyl Me, Please aims its releases more at new vinyl collectors looking for some guidance and order than at established vinyl aficionados and audiophiles interest in provenance purity.

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Album Reviews
Big Star Reissue is Great News For Power Pop Fanatics (and everyone else)!
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2009

Careening between sweet Beatlesque pop delivered via three part harmonies and dexterous rhythms and edgy blues-boogie that channels Alex Chilton’s inner Marc Bolan via Memphis country/soul, Big Star’s second album is even more thrilling and satisfying now, 35 after it’s 1974 release. The album hasn’t lost a step.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Big Star's #1 Record  Gets Five Stars From Our Newest Contributor
Nathan Zeller  |  Oct 11, 2020
We find ourselves during the ongoing pandemic abstaining from pleasurable activities like hanging out on the street. Listening to the 1970’s power pop group Big Star will one day help ease the way back to that once taken for granted lifestyle.

Discovering older musical acts like Big Star is for a child of the 21st century like me mostly a matter of pure luck. I happened upon Big Star’s song “Thirteen” on an episode of “That ‘70’s Show” airing on Netflix. That tune, a captivating piece of tender musical perfection, led me to discover Big Star the group and boy, am I thankful for that!

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Album Reviews
Big Thief's U.F.O.F. Steals a Page From '60s era Psych-Folk Rockers
Jeff Flaim  |  Mar 31, 2020
Brooklyn- based quartet Big Thief formed after all four of its members— Adrianne Lenker (guitar, vocals), Buck Meek (guitar, backing vocals), Max Oleartchik (bass), and James Krivchenia (drums)— had graduated from the Berklee College Of Music.

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Album Reviews
Bill Evans 1968 Backed By Gomez and DeJohnette
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 01, 2010

You could argue the advisability of naming a sophomore effort Everybody Digs Bill Evans but today it’s clear that everybody in fact does, or still does depending on your feelings about that second album’s title.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Bill Evans Trio '64  Brought A Light Touch to a Dark Time
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 01, 2021
The gentle, introspective Bill Evans Trio of The Village Vanguard sessions that produced Sunday At the Village Vanguard and Waltz For Debby yielded two years later to the somewhat more rhythmically assertive trio heard on this December 18th, 1963 Webster Hall recording released early in 1964.

The late bassist Scott LaFaro’s friend Gary Peacock replaced him in the trio with Paul Motian continuing on drums. Though no less cerebral and harmonically tuned in than was LaFaro, Peacock brought to the group a faster, more aggressive rhythmic style punctuated with nimble staccato runs. More tapping of the toes and less tugging at the heart.

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Album Reviews
Bill Evans Jim Hall "Undercurrent" Equals Sublime Music Making
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 17, 2013
Sublime music making of the highest order despite the "shock value" cover, the collaboration between pianist Bill Evans and guitarist Jim Hall, who at 82 is still performing produced two albums of enduring beauty and quiet grace
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Album Reviews
Bill Evans Live Set Issued For First Time
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 14, 2012
Over the past few years, jazz fans have been treated to some astonishing, heretofore unreleased treasures. Unlike in the rock world, where such finds, along with “bonus tracks” usually tell you why they weren’t released in the first place (with Bob Dylan being a notable exception), these jazz releases have felt like un-mined diamonds, only occasionally in the rough.

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Album Reviews
Bill Evans The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 09, 2014
If you already own Sunday at The Village Vanguard and Waltz For Debby you have two album's worth of material from that magical afternoon and evening of June 25, 1961 that the producer Orrin Keepnews deemed worthy of releasing.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Bill Evans Trio’s Masterful Final Studio Recording, 1961’s Explorations, Receives a Most Excellent AAA 180g 1LP Small Batch Treatment
Mark Smotroff  |  May 09, 2025

Explorations, the 1961 second and final studio release by the classic first Bill Evans Trio featuring piano maestro Bill Evans, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Paul Motian, is remarkable on many levels. Craft Recordings’ recent, late-2024-released Small Batch AAA 180g 1LP edition of this influential, highly sought after jazz classic is sure to be appreciated by jazz aficionados and audiophiles alike who have been searching for as definitive a pressing as possible. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see why this Small Batch Explorations LP is well worth your time and money. . .

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Bill Evans Trio’s Seminal 1961 Live Album Sunday at the Village Vanguard Shines on New 180g All-Analog Cohearent Audio-Mastered, RTI-Pressed 1LP Edition From Craft Recordings
Mark Smotroff  |  Dec 08, 2023

It’s almost an impossible task trying to “review” an iconic album like Bill Evans Trio’s October 1961 live masterpiece, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, but a new 180g 1LP edition under Craft Recordings’ revival of the Original Jazz Classics series umbrella is most definitely worth a closer look — and listen. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see why this AAA edition of an all-time jazz classic belongs in your collection. . .

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Album Reviews
Bill Frisell's Valentine  Gets to the Heart of the Musical and Sonic Matter
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 25, 2020
Last year, producer Lee Townsend brought guitar-great Bill Frisell’s trio, fresh off the road and shortly after concluding two weeks at The Village Vanguard where almost 60 years ago another famous trio made an indelible record or two, into Tucker Martine’s Portland, Oregon studio for three days of recording.

The result is a first for Frisell—a trio recording with long time accompanists, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston that is simultaneously densely packed with musical ideas and yet throughout, window wide open to the spaces between the notes.

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