MEAT LOAF  Telling big stories, going for broke and having a hell of a time “I think dramatically,” declares Meat Loaf. “My albums are big, complicated stories.” Indeed, nearly every project Meat Loaf undertakes is bigger than life, starting with 1977’s smash rock opera Bat Out of Hell. Produced by Todd Rundgren and composed by classically trained songwriter Jim Steinman, the album has sold more than 14 million copies in the U.S. alone. Meat... 

KAISER CHIEFS One new album in a seemingly infinite number of variations     For its fourth album, the English group Kaiser Chiefs posted 22 new songs on its website and let fans assemble and purchase their own 10-track “bespoke” versions. The band, best known for the songs “I Predict a Riot” and “Ruby,” assembled its own iteration last year for release overseas under the title The Future Is Medieval. Yet another version is out now... 

REBELUTION The sky’s the limit for this sunny California quartet’s brand of uplifting reggae rock  It’s no wonder that Santa Barbara, Calif., is often referred to as the American Riviera. The sun seems to shine incessantly and the beach always beckons. No wonder, then, that reggae-rock band Rebelution found its sound in the small seaside town of Isla Vista, one of Santa Barbara’s more carefree enclaves, making music teeming with spectacularly... 

NNXT HOMETOWN: Atlanta INFLUENCES: Peter Gabriel, Imogen Heap, New Kids on the Block ALBUM: Shut Your Trapper Keeper, out now WEBSITE: nnxtmusic.com  From age 4, Jessica Gore was a piano prodigy who spent much of her childhood playing in classical competitions. But her musical direction changed entirely a few years ago, when she got her hands on a four-track digital recorder. “It totally blew my mind that more than one instrument or voice could... 

SUGAR + THE HI-LOWS HOMETOWN: Nashville MEMBERS: Trent Dabbs (guitar, vocals), Amy Stroup (vocals) ALBUM: Sugar + the Hi-Lows, out now WEBSITE: sugarandthehilows.com The old-school sound of Sugar + the Hi-Lows was born three years ago, when Trent Dabbs and Amy Stroup got together to write songs in Nashville. Dabbs brought along a vintage amplifier, which turned the conversation toward their favorite music from the 1950s and ’60s. Before long they’d... 

BEN HOWARD HOMETOWN: Totnes, Devon, England influences: Nick Drake, John Martyn, Van Morrison ALBUM: Every Kingdom, due out in April WEBSITE: benhowardmusic.co.uk Howard picked up his mother’s guitar when he was 8, inspired by his parents’ love for folky singer-songwriters of the 1960s and ’70s. “That’s what we’d listen to in the house and in the car,” he says. His debut album was recorded in cellist India Bourne’s barn in the English... 

MICHAEL WILLIAMS Neither Hendrix nor his heritage keeps this guitar hero from reaching beyond the blues     Michael Williams is well aware that he seems unusually cheery for a man who claims the blues as a birthright. “At first, I just wanted to be a guitar player,” he explains. “I never wanted to be a singer or a songwriter. But I found myself being pigeonholed and strictly defined as a blues player. That wasn’t intriguing to me. I wanted... 

MARTIN AMBASSADOR LP TV DEBUT WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25TH  Read More →

Guitar legend Adrian Belew workshop spotlighting Parker Fly Guitars Guitar legend Adrian Belew (right, pictured with Sweetwater's Editorial Director Mitch Gallagher) visited Sweetwater recently for a free concert and workshop spotlighting his two signature model Parker Fly guitars. Belew also gave a concert for, and spent the day discussing music and audio technology with, Sweetwater's Sales Engineers.  Read More →

WILSON PHILLIPS   Three members of classic pop royalty dedicate an album to the ones they love    The members of Wilson Phillips first drew worldwide attention for their quintuple-platinum 1990 self-titled debut—and for their status as rock royalty. Sisters Wendy and Carnie Wilson were the daughters of Beach Boy Brian Wilson, while Chynna Phillips’ parents were John and Michelle Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas. The group has always... 

SPIRITUALIZED  Crossing continents in a quest to find the heart and see the light   Jason “J. Spaceman” Pierce, frontman and guiding light of English rock band Spiritualized, adamantly disagrees with those who think music must follow rules. After all, he’s been swirling rock, R&B, pop and more into richly textured sonic landscapes throughout his career. But there’s one rule in which he believes fiercely: There’s a delicate but real... 

JESSIE BAYLIN Putting a new spark into her career with unexpected help from her grandmother    “Three days before I was to start recording this album, the label cut my budget in half,” says Jessie Baylin. “Then the next day, they cut it another quarter.” The Nashville-based singer-songwriter took the hint. “They listened to the demos and didn’t think I had the songs,” she recalls with a sigh. “They wanted to put me with hit writers,... 

M. Ward The “Him” of She & Him takes a confident step back to center stage   After releasing 2009’s Hold Time, Portland-based singer and songwriter M. Ward largely put his solo career on hold. He toured and made albums with Monsters of Folk—an indie-rock supergroup also featuring My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis—and She & Him, the duo Ward founded with actress and singer Zooey Deschanel.... 

COWBOY JUNKIES  Bringing a nomadic journey to a close, while looking ahead to the next  After more than 25 years together, the members of Cowboy Junkies have but one goal: “Survival,” says guitarist and primary songwriter Michael Timmins with a laugh. Yet their recent activities suggest broader ambition than that. Over the last 18 months the Canadian band has released a quartet of separate but linked albums dubbed The Nomad Series. “We had... 

JOAN OSBORNE  Bringing it on home to the blues and soul of her early days  From the moment she lit into Sonny Boy Williamson II’s “Help Me” on her triple-platinum 1995 debut, Relish, it was clear that Kentucky-born Joan Osborne had a natural feel for gutbucket blues. She’s explored those roots regularly ever since, but never so directly as on her new album, the all-covers affair Bring It On Home. With the help from her co-producer and... 

JASON MRAZ A talk about the meaning of music, finding the right sound and his favorite four-letter word. Jason Mraz is in a noisy Los Angeles rehearsal hall, taking a break from doing something that doesn’t come easily to him: telling other people what to do. Mraz first emerged from the Southern California coffeehouse scene just over a decade ago armed only with a guitar, a sweetly melodious tenor voice and a rapidly growing stack of original... 

COUNTING CROWS Adam Duritz and company make an eclectic set of covers their own  Nearly two decades have passed since Counting Crows exploded onto the scene with their multiplatinum debut August and Everything After and its smash single, “Mr. Jones.” Even as the band has built on that foundation with one critically acclaimed album of originals after another, it has carved out a reputation for interpreting others’ material—from filling in... 

LYLE LOVETT  One of America’s great singer-songwriters marks the end of an era Twenty-six years into his recording career, Lyle Lovett is still amused by the attempts to categorize his music. “Even now, people who don’t really listen to country music still think of me as country, and people who listen to country don’t,” he says. “It’s an odd place to be.” Odd perhaps, but Lovett can thank his idiosyncratic nature for providing... 

DAYNA KURTZ American Standard daynakurtz.com American music comes from the church, so it’s fitting that American Standard—a sampling of homegrown sounds spanning hollerin’ blues to the Replacements’ “Here Comes a Regular”—opens with a prayer. “I’ll be a great sage or a fabulous liar,” Dayna Kurtz sings on “Invocation,” pleading with “mama”—maybe her mother, maybe the Virgin Mary—to “let me come home.” Kurtz will... 

UNICYCLE LOVES YOU Failure unicyclelovesyou.com Perhaps intended as film criticism, “Wow Wave Cinema,” the second track on the third album from this Chicago slacker-punk trio, also applies to rock ’n’ roll. “It’s nothing new,” frontman Jim Carroll sings. “It’s just called by a different name.” Twenty years ago, the band’s loveably skuzzy tunes would have been tagged “alt-rock.” Today, they’re “neo-” something-or-other,... 

BAHAMAS Barchords bahamasmusic.net If not for its twin indie-rock guitars—one glistening, the other grinding—the Bahamas standout “Never Again” might pass for a Lenny Kravitz ballad. And that would be just fine—having spent years playing with fellow Canadian singer Feist, Afie Jurvanen is no stranger to mainstream acclaim. But on his second disc under this tropical moniker, he paddles farther out from the pop mainland. Give him an acoustic... 

YVA LAS VEGASS I Was Born in a Place of Sunshine and the Smell of Ripe Mangoes myspace.com/lasvegass To say Yva Las Vegass has a unique point of view is putting it mildly, and there’s no room for mildness where she’s concerned. The native Venezuelan moved to Seattle as a teen and roughed it as a street musician, battling homelessness and addiction. After performing at a birthday party for Krist Novoselic, she played with the Nirvana bassist in... 

MOONLIGHT BRIDE Twin Lakes moonlightbridemusic.com On “Lemonade,” the big gulp of bittersweet, noisy pop that is this EP’s finest track, singer Justin Giles is simultaneously psyched up and disoriented—just like the music that envelops him. “Where did you take me?” he asks. “These kids are drunk and they don’t like guitars.” If he’s at a party where the kids don’t dig six-strings, he’s definitely in the wrong place. On their... 

ULRICH SCHNAUSS & MARK PETERS Underrated Silence myspace.com/ulrichschnauss Working primarily at night—which might explain the drowsy sound, were it not already his trademark—German electro hypnotist Ulrich Schnauss teamed with Mark Peters of the British band Engineers for this album of pure downy atmosphere. Schnauss’ aim, as always, is to re-create with keyboards the arrestingly beautiful guitar assault of Ride, Chapterhouse and My Bloody... 

SISTER SPARROW & THE DIRTY BIRDS Pound of Dirt sistersparrow.com Like a snazzy dance band that refuses to wear shoes, this nine-piece soul-rock crew does red-hot and brassy ’60s soul with a scraggly blues edge. The scruffiness is down to the sibling duo of Arleigh and Jackson Kincheloe—Catskills natives who use voice and harmonica, respectively, to dredge up all the sorrow, joy and sexiness of the vintage music they love. Arleigh aspires... 

RICKOLUS Coyote and Mule iamrickolus.tumblr.com “Where is everyone?” Richard Colado sings on “Candy Blood,” just before answering his own question: “I am everyone.” Sure enough, the 31-year-old Floridian is the sole force behind Rickolus; he recorded this album on a four-track recorder, working partially in the shed behind his parents’ house. There’s a handcrafted feel to these songs, and while the crud-pop nugget “Something in... 

SICK FRIEND The Draft Dodger sickfriend.bandcamp.com Since the emergence of the White Stripes and the Black Keys, the indie world has been deluged with guitar-and-drum duos. Sick Friend would seem to offer more of the same, but on their debut these thoughtful Canadians drop bittersweet synth lines and straitlaced rhythms. Singer and guitarist Michael O’Brien has a soul-baring falsetto informed by the Dears and Of Montreal, but on the excellent... 

NED EVETT Treehouse nedevett.com The story goes that Ned Evett smashed his Fender Stratocaster one New Year’s Eve and fashioned a fretless guitar from the pieces. His ingenuity and virtuosity are well documented, but there’s more to his story. For his sixth album, the journeyman picker moved to Nashville and recorded with King Crimson’s Adrian Belew. The goal: to write great songs about his recent financial and romantic hardships. By any measure,... 

COLIN SCHILLER & THE REACTIONS Endless Holiday colinschillerandthereactions.com  When groups do cheeseball ’80s revivalism they tend to focus on stiff, robotic New Wave or butt-wiggling hair metal. Credit Colin Schiller for trying something different. Following in the hallowed footsteps of Loverboy, the Romantics, “Glory Days”-era Springsteen and Huey Lewis and the News, Schiller and his Brooklyn crew make music for Friday at 5 p.m., when... 

THE CHROME CRANKS Ain’t No Lies in Blood myspace.com/chromecranks The Chrome Cranks spent three days recording this, their first new album in 15 years. That probably includes the time it took to load in, load out and sweep up whatever detritus—beer bottles, cigarette butts, voodoo remnants—they left behind in the studio. As per their reputation, the Cranks play bluesy punk with murderous glee, conjuring up the Dead Boys on “Living/Dead”... 

CAPSULA In the Land of Silver Souls capsula.us Forged under an Argentinean dictatorship and now based in Spain, this magnificently noisy trio traverses time and space, folding the finest rebel guitar sounds—rockabilly, garage, glam and art-school droning—into one shiny package. Imagine the Stooges on Mars with Spanish accents.  Read More →

I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. New Kind of Lonely iseehawks.com On their first acoustic album, these L.A. country-rockers muse on the Grateful Dead and mourn the literal dead. They also celebrate life—a parade of humor and sadness that, with its immigrant strivers, hopeless drug takers and doomed lovers, is especially colorful in their hometown.  Read More →

GEORGE SARAH Who Sleep the Sleep of Peace myspace.com/georgesarahmusic The year is young, so 2012 could see other electro-orchestral tropical dance records—but only Sarah’s is likely to feature members of the Pogues, Bauhaus and Save Ferris. No wonder this guy makes music for the Discovery Channel; his is a world of wonder and possibility.  Read More →

TONIGHT ALIVE What Are You So Scared of? tonightaliveofficial.com Bearing the unmistakable stamp of Mark Trombino—the producer whose high-gloss, hyper-precise pop-punk sound has become an industry standard—the debut from this Aussie quintet bristles with adolescent emotion. When singer Jenna McDougall’s feelings get messy, the music stays tidy and on target.  Read More →

MARSHALL CATCH Make Noise marshallcatch.com It’s hip to reference Pavement and Teenage Fanclub, but back in the ’90s the rock bands people actually listened to sounded more like Marshall Catch. These big-hearted Montana boys do Hootie hooks with Collective Soul punch. You forgot how much you missed this stuff.  Read More →

RISA BINDER Paper Heart risabinder.com On “You Made It Rain,” the song that opens her debut album, Risa Binder gets caught between cynicism and belief. As her crush leans in for a kiss, the skies open up—and while she wants to live in a world where such things magically happen, she’s suspicious. “It was so perfect, like the world was a movie set,” the Maryland native sings, perhaps revealing a bit of where she’s been. Before moving to... 

BAD WEATHER CALIFORNIA Sunkissed badweathercalifornia.com Bad Weather California packs several decades’ worth of good vibrations into a compact package. That goes for the sun—the thematic centerpiece of this aptly named album—and for the half-century of sounds these Denver dudes draw from. With its slippery bass and unlikely blend of wah-wah and chicken-scratch guitars, opener “I’ll Reach out My Hand” kicks things off in a funky fog. From... 

AMY RAY Lung of Love amy-ray.com A few songs after “From Haiti,” whose stabbing guitars evoke “London Calling,” Amy Ray makes an even more direct reference to that classic’s creators in the Clash. “There’s a little Joe Strummer in my DNA,” she sings on “Little Revolution,” an organ-driven pop nugget about embracing—and therefore overcoming—pain and suffering. Indeed, the longtime Indigo Girl shares much in common with Strummer—most... 

WALTER ROSE Cast Your Stone walterrosemusic.com As a teenager, this native Hawaiian underwent brain surgeries that left him with partial vision in one eye. Later, after he’d found work teaching special-needs kids, he lost a girlfriend to a motorcycle accident. So he’s entitled to sing songs like “Times Are Hard,” a nervous country-noir number about “dusty dreams.” Of course, if entitlement were enough, the world would be filled with country... 

JIOSA On the Edge dennyjiosa.com Even acclaimed smooth-jazz musicians must stand at the mirror and dream of rocking out. Here, Grammy-nominated guitarist Denny Jiosa gets his chance by positioning himself at the head of a mighty power trio. While the versatile virtuoso breaks up his shredding with ballads and even a Beatles cover, it’s the blustery, bluesy hard-rock tunes—the ones you could most imagine David Lee Roth high-kicking along to—that... 

SUNNY TAYLOR Sunny Taylor sunnytaylormusic.com Just four songs and 20 minutes long, the latest from this Indiana singer-songwriter offers four distinct stories and asks one overarching question: “When do you get to getting over it?” That line comes from “Paper Tiger (Getting Over It),” a song whose narrator really ought to grab a coffee with the protagonist from “Trucker.” That one is about someone who drives all night, pondering regrets... 

LUTHEA SALOM Kick in the Head lutheasalom.com Somewhere between Canada and Spain (the countries in which she grew up) and New York City (where she now lives), Luthea Salom surely experienced some heartbreak. She loved, lost and learned, putting her in the same boat as 99.9 percent of the world’s population. So Kick in the Head, her third album, is the sound of an exceptional songwriter coming to terms with the unexceptional nature of her own “little... 

CORNFLOWER BLUE Run Down the Rails cornflowerbluemusic.com Just as the “country” in country music need not refer only to America, such instruments as mandolins, fiddles and twangy guitars aren’t just for hat-clad, boot-scooting genre purists. That’s the takeaway from Run Down the Rails, the sophomore effort from this Canadian duo. Theresa McInerney and Trevor May know their Hank, Johnny and Willie, but they come at Americana via ’90s R.E.M.... 

KOFFIN KATS Our Way & the Highway koffinkatsrock.com With a few notable exceptions—the grisly murder tale “A Terrible Way” and apocalyptic rager “The Devil Asked” among them—the Koffin Kats spend much of their sixth album singing about boozing and touring. If the songs are autobiographical, the Detroit psychobilly trio hasn’t let its lifestyle become a hindrance. The production is pomade-slick, and the playing is tighter than sopping-wet... 

KIRK WHALUM Romance Language kirkwhalum.com With Romance Language Kirk Whalum and his brother Kevin have created a musical mash note to one of their favorite albums, 1963’s mood-music landmark John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. Kirk, an acclaimed smooth-jazz saxophonist with nearly two dozen albums to his credit, handles Coltrane’s parts, blowing in his reed as he might his lady’s ear. Kevin, meanwhile, plays lover-man extraordinaire in the... 

WHITTON Rare Bird whittonmusic.com Much in the same way Amy Winehouse played on ’60s soul and girl-group sounds, Jaime Whitton draws on ’40s jazz, positioning herself as a kind of Billie Holiday—minus the tragic undertones of either Winehouse or Holiday—for modern pop audiences. Whitton keeps her retro references subtle, using just enough tinkling piano, warbled phrasing and quacking brass to glance backward without risking whiplash. The... 

ROBERT DEEBLE Heart Like Feathers robertdeeble.com In the six years since his last album, this Seattle singer-songwriter earned a master’s in psychology. That explains lines like, “I feel the guilt, I feel the shame of an existential rush of temporal things.” Deeble is obviously a keen observer of human behavior, but what’s remarkable about Heart Like Feathers is how conversational and easygoing he sounds. This is true even when he’s at... 

THE WEE TRIO Ashes to Ashes theweetrio.com Finally, David Bowie gets the vibraphone-driven free-jazz tribute he deserves. The Wees turn the classic “The Man Who Sold the World” into funky supermarket music and 2002’s “Sunday” into as somber a meditation as three zany jazz brainiacs are likely to come up with.  Read More →

MAC McANALLY Live in Muscle Shoals macmcanally.com Performing live at the University of North Alabama, this enduring country songwriter and Jimmy Buffet sideman shares the stories behind his best tunes. Better yet, he plays them, demonstrating how aw-shucks personality and serious musicianship can make for a swell evening—and an enviable career.  Read More →

AUDREY SPILLMAN Part of Me audreyspillmanmusic.com On the title track, this Nashville newcomer wonders whether the relationship she’s just ended might have been worth saving. It’s heartfelt and complex—and as with the other four country-soul tunes on this EP, she sings it with conviction and elegance.  Read More →