Album Reviews

Krauss and company’s tuneful, crossover bluegrass-pop may not be pure enough for the dogmatic, but for the rest of us, the smooth-to-the-touch instrumentals and lilting, lockstep harmonies bring mountain-sense and countrified order to a chaotic world however far into the pop arena the group occasionally strays.

If you’re not familiar with Modest Mouse’s brand of jumpy/shouty, guitar driven music, if you’re a fan of XTC or The Talking Heads, you actually are.

Clearaudio couldn't have gone into the record business to provide software support for its line of turntables. There’s no shortage of new vinyl in 2006. Perhaps the album’s producer is a friend.

Never one to sit idle, even after a debilitating physical injury he sustained in late 1971, Frank Zappa pushed onward to make some of the most creative music of his entire career. The resultant two albums — July 1972’s Waka/Jawaka (official Zappa album No. 15) and November 1972’s The Grand Wazoo (official Zappa album No. 16) — are two sides of a coin now duly feted in a pair of new, 50th anniversary 180g 1LP editions sporting all-analog mastering by Bernie Grundman. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to find out why you need to get your hands, and ears, on both LPs. . .

Plangent Processes is again at the center of a pair of new Grateful Dead reissues that were released by Rhino back in January: a) July 1977’s Top 30 hit LP Terrapin Station and July 1987’s Top 10 smash In the Dark — and now we’re finally getting around to reviewing them here together. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see if either or both of these new LP editions of Terrapin Station and In the Dark — supervised and produced by noted Dead archivist David Lemieux, and mastered for vinyl by David Glasser — belong in your collection. . .

Chris Darrow may not be a name familiar to you, nor might Kaleidoscope, the ‘60s psych/folk band on Epic of which he was part. That band passed me by back then. Maybe I didn’t like the cover art, or thought Epic wasn’t in the same solid A&R league as was Elektra for instance, so I didn’t want to chance it. I never heard them on the radio and Epic probably did a crappy job promoting them.