2. Dan Ferrari – Don’t Let it Fall - by A.L. Harper

Dan Ferrari is the saving grace of pop music. His fresh, upbeat, catchy sound, intimate heart-felt lyrics, faultless musicianship and emotive vocals are everything pop music should be. In these days of homogeneous, artistically void pop he is the fresh breeze you have been waiting for. Don’t Let it Fall is resplendent with harmonies and melodies, lustful, deeply personal lyrics, and passionate, engagingly honest vocals. Love songs filled with such fresh pain, longing, and sensual loss that you would be forgiven for thinking it was just yesterday she walked out. Even with his enviable vocal abilities, it’s Ferrari’s compellingly emotional lyrics that will keep you listening. Ferrari’s talent lies in painting a stirring and deeply personal portrait of his life – mostly his love life – that is all at once libidinous and winsome, passionate and friendly. You get a glimpse inside the painful heart of someone coming to terms with love lost and desire through his music.

1. Sons Of William – What Hides Inside - by A.L. Harper

Sons Of William make the kind of rock you want to hear when you’re slumming it in a saw-dust-on-the-floor bar in the deep South, sitting, feet-up on a table, drinking bourbon. As you watch, the band slowly enthrals the rancorous audience into awed silence with a rich tapestry of music that is bluesy, funky and incredibly horny. As the tempestuous, luscious vocals passionately caress the bar patrons, you can’t help thinking to yourself that those deep, ardent lyrics are intellectually above this bar’s usual crowd. What Hides Inside has a mix of radio-friendly indie rock and more edgy southern rock, great songs, fantastic musicianship, stirring vocals and plenty of energy and soul. This dirty, raw, mostly bluesy, sometimes funky sound is combined with dark, sensual, smoky vocals, intelligent, passionate lyrics sung in rich harmony by frontman Joe Stark and bassist Jen Janet. All of this combines to make What Hides Inside a triumph of talent, spirit and rock music.