Music

Reprieve is the most intimate album that Ani DiFranco’s ever delivered. It’s also the most quiet, with a jazzy, late-night feel, enhanced by the impressive acoustic bass work of Todd Sickafoose and DiFranco’s understated acoustic picking. Standouts include “Subconscious,” a bouncy folk tune that explores the ambivalent feelings that are…

While he’s been circulating on the Austrian DJ circuit since ’97, Paul Nawrata has been tooling around with various projects, most notably alongside Thievery Corporation and DJ Chaoz. His throwback style pays homage to film noir à la Serge Gainsbourg and Ennio Morricone, wrapping light electronica around heavy jazz to…

Solo album number four from New York singer-songwriter Adam Green is pleasant Sunday afternoon pop in the vein of Roy Orbison or Leonard Cohen; clean string arrangements overlay acoustic guitar and warm electric piano while Green’s sonorous baritone swings with elegant panache through the lower registers. His delivery is reminiscent…

e(v)olocity’s done something smart with its debut CD that every band trying to get on the radio should do: packed its four best songs onto the front end of the album. Once the first two tracks — including the mediocre single “Too Far” — are out of the way, the…

AZ homeboy Dave Insley used to be a Nitpicker and a Trophy Husband. He was even in a Chaingang, but those days — and bands — are behind him. Insley went solo with Call Me Lonesome in 2005, distilling his years of honky-tonking around Arizona into pure country, which befits…

Although the band shields it with an expanse of black eye makeup and gothic imagery, the argument that AFI has become a pop band is rather irrefutable. With a new album, Decemberunderground, that has elevated the Los Angeles foursome to MTV stars, and more than a decade of touring under…

The Young Dubliners developed a reputation early on for high-energy gigs fueled by musicianship, pints o’ bitter, and the thrill of a good Celtic-rock mash-up. Drawing on obvious influences (Waterboys, Pogues, U2), the group began as a musicians’ “revolving door” in the early ’90s, but finally hit its stride with…

They look a little dirty, and after spending the summer on the road, they probably smell a little dirty, too. But they definitely don’t sound dirty. The Brooklyn four-man band Dirty on Purpose has a self-described “emotional space-rock” style. All four members are songwriters who seem to be trying to…

Annalee Fery has the perfect voice to get across the brooding indie pop she and her bandmates in Monsters Are Waiting traffic in for much of their album Fascination — just blasé enough to bring some much-appreciated Debbie Harry to the mix without suggesting that she doesn’t really mean it…

There’s plenty to love about female DJ Jen Lasher. The saucy 24-year-old spinstress siren and fashion plate is not only easy on the eyes, she’s also a classically trained pianist, a gifted singer-songwriter, a fan of the metaphysical realm, and a topnotch turntablist. For the past few years, she’s been…

This CD is like an old, crusty friend who jams safety pins through his nostril, shaves his pubic hair into an anarchy symbol, and makes coffee with the water from hot dog packages — it’s just so inane and fun. Let’s get something straight about Numbers on Napkins — this…

Tramps & Thieves’ first full-length release (with a whopping 16 tracks) is a lot more rockin’ than the band’s 2004 Mill Avenue Cowboys EP, with fewer acoustic moments and more straight-up shit-kickin’ songs that address issues like the Iraq war, outlaw hippies, and hallucinating in the desert. Songs like “Sidewinder”…

Bad Religion singer Greg Graffin gets old-timey on Cold As the Clay, an unplugged sophomore solo LP that mixes original songs with similar Deadwood-era tunes like the finger-picked murder-hoedown “Little Sadie.” Graffin plays traditional music as convincingly as he handles punk. He’s no Mike Ness, though the disc will probably…

“We ain’t no Harajuku Girls/We just straight-up rock ‘n’ roll,” Puffy AmiYumi sings on “Call Me What You Like,” the opening track from their eighth studio album. The song primarily expresses the female Japanese duo’s desire to be taken seriously as “rockers” — a tall order given the kiddy-fluff nature…

You could do a lot worse than to listen to this trio of DJ/producers from Holland all summer. After a string of sought-after 12-inch singles on London’s Jalapeno Records, Kraak & Smaak (the name is a Dutch saying, not a drug reference) makes its U.S. debut with a tasty full-length…

As a teenager, John Lee Hooker Jr. was a featured player in John Lee Sr.’s road show, and then spent the next 20 years fighting the demons of drugs, drink, divorce, and jail. Given his troubled past, you might expect Junior’s music to be even more dark and dangerous than…

India.Arie has always sounded a little too much like the musical equivalent of Oprah. The singer-songwriter’s music (best exemplified by her debut, Acoustic Soul) has always centered on overly positive, Afrocentric songs that embrace love, life and the challenges of womanhood. Her first two albums were innovative experiments with a…