Album Reviews

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Album Reviews
On Ghost Song  Cécile McLorin Salvant Finds Reflective Pleasure In Pain
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 05, 2022
Surfacing on Nonesuch with Ghost Song, a personal, highly introspective album that intersperses covers and seven originals in service of a cautionary look at love and love lost, the always unpredictable Cécile McLorin Salvant dispenses for the most part with standard jazz backing, replacing it with imaginative instrumentation and ear-catching production techniques more reminiscent of a rock album, to deliver a series of fanciful mind flights sure to delight longtime fans and win her new ones.

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Album Reviews
On Medicine At Midnight Foo Fighters Embrace Disco & Funk Roots
Nathan Zeller  |  Feb 27, 2021
The music of Foo Fighters is never a far cry from the band’s influences. That’s true with their 2021 release, Medicine At Midnight: an album that throws into a melting pot their rock tendencies, disco roots, and funk fascinations. If this sounds interesting to you, that’s because it is.

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Album Reviews
On Ohms, Psych/Synth Duo Trees Speak Evokes '70's Era Minimalist Art/Punk Esthetic
Michael Fremer  |  May 23, 2020
Tucson Arizona-based minimalist synth, guitar and drum duo Trees Speak (with help from friends) released a limited to 100 edition white label 45 rpm single that quickly sold out. The story goes the action caught the attention of the U.K. based Soul Jazz Records label, which originally specialized in reggae, ska, dub and soul and later expanded its reach to include “world music”, mostly sourced from Africa and Brazil. More recently the label increased its reach to include electronica, which is probably how this duo’s full length album of minimalist, cinematic collages got a Soul Jazz release.

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Album Reviews
On Toy, David Bowie Energetically Revisits His Distant Past
Malachi Lui  |  Mar 16, 2022
Following a snooze-inducing headlining performance (based on the recording) at the 2000 Glastonbury Festival, David Bowie and his band (guitarist Earl Slick, bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, pianist Mike Garson, drummer Sterling Campbell, and musician/producer Mark Plati) entered New York’s Sear Sound to re-record his early, mostly pre-Space Oddity catalog highlights. Bowie intended the quickly recorded result, Toy, as a surprise release, though in 2001 the financially struggling Virgin/EMI balked at the idea and eventually rejected the album altogether. For the following year’s Heathen, Bowie signed to Columbia and left uncertain Toy’s future. Leaked in 2011 and recently officially released by his estate and Parlophone, Toy now has its proper place in his studio discography. Yet, is it worthy of its legendary—and in some circles, almost mythical—status?

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Album ReviewsBeatles
On the All Things Must Pass  Remix “The Quiet Beatle” Gets the Final Word (Revised lacquer cutting info)
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 09, 2021
When George Harrison, the youngest Beatle, passed away November 30th, 2001 at age 58, Allan Kozinn’s front page New York Times obituary referred to him as “the quiet Beatle”, which during the group’s touring years, is what the self-effacing youngest member of group was often called.

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Album Reviews
On The Insufferable What's It Gonna Take?, Van Morrison Declines Even Further
Malachi Lui  |  May 30, 2022
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
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Album ReviewsVinyl Reports
On the Road to Findout 4LP Box Set Finally Gives Yusuf / Cat Stevens the Full-Career Vinyl Retrospective He So Richly Deserves
Mark Smotroff  |  Oct 24, 2025

When we first learned there was a new, expansive retrospective focusing on singer, songwriter, and all-around music legend Yusuf / Cat Stevens, we also realized that there indeed was a need for an up-to-date overview of the artist, past to present. Read Mark Smotroff’s review of Yusuf / Cat Stevens’ new On the Road to Findout 4LP collection to see if it covers all the career bases the way we need to hear them on vinyl. . .

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Album Reviews
On the Way to A Love Supreme
Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2010

This very limited double 45rpm set should have sold out within weeks of its release but that probably didn’t happen.

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Album Reviews
Once a flop, always a flop?
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 29, 2003

Song Cycle dominates the Van Dyke Parks discography the way "Citizen Kane" overshadows Orson Welles' cinematic output. That simply cannot be denied, though Welles created other outstanding films- "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Touch Of Evil" for example.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
One of Bill Evans' Final Live Concerts Gets Double 45 ORG Treatment
Michael Fremer  |  May 03, 2017
While a great deal of attention rightly gets paid to Bill Evans' legendary Village Vanguard recordings early in his career, this superb set recorded in Paris, France shortly before his passing is equally worthy both musically and sonically.

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Album Reviews
One of Cisco's Final Releases Shines
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2008

Lovers of chamber music in general and Heifetz in particular, will find this “Living Stereo” oddity from 1961 a sonic and musical treasure. “Oddity” because it’s an album pieced together from two studio recordings made at either side of “the pond.”

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Album Reviews
One of Last Year's Finest Albums
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2007

Rosanne Cash’s moving, sometimes mysterious tribute to her late parents and step-mother June Carter Cash was, for me, last year’s most profound and affecting album. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t sat down to write about it until this year.

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Album Reviews
One of the Greatest Finally Reissued
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 01, 2008

It’s easy to understand why a cut-up rocker with one foot in metal and the other in Vaudeville like David Lee Roth would break out of Van Halen and go solo with a faithful cover of Louis Prima’s version of “Just a Gigolo”/”I’m So Lonely.”

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AAA VinylAlbum ReviewsVinyl Reports
One-Step DSS AAA Pressing of Chronic Town and Murmur, Two Truly Seminal Early R.E.M. Releases Featured Together in a 180g 2LP Set, Simply Astounds
Mark Smotroff, Mike Mettler  |  Apr 03, 2026

Athens, Georgia’s legendary indie rock band R.E.M.’s back-to-back initial releases on I.R.S. — August 1982’s five-song Chronic Town EP, and April 1983’s full-length album debut Murmur — are now featured together in a Definitive Sound Series (DSS) One-Step 180g 2LP set from Interscope/Capitol. Read Mark Smotroff’s review — and AP editor Mike Mettler’s extensive footnotes — to see if this double release is well worth the DSS investment. . .

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Album Reviews
Only a Musical Scrooge Won't Love Marley's Ghost's "Spooked"
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 01, 2006

“Roots” music specialist Marley’s Ghost gets a turbo boost from producer Van Dyke Parks, who turns what could have been just another musical “Antiques Roadshow” into a truly special recorded event.

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