Blogcritics Author: Holly Hughes

Music Review: The Baskervilles - Twilight

Holly Hughes — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:19:20 EDT

This New-York-based indie band's third album breaks out an effervescent pop energy that's better than champagne
Something about this CD just makes me happy. It’s not only the tripping melodies and head-bopping beats, or even the snappy horns that this New-York-based indie band has added since its last album. No, there’s something else, an effervescent glee that seems to come fizzing right out of the speakers. If that sounds saccharine, I promise...

Music Review: Judith Owen - Mopping Up Karma

Holly Hughes — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:46:06 EDT

Judith Owen is the sort of artist that makes you want to throw labels out the window.
Judith Owen is the sort of artist that makes you want to throw labels out the window. So what if she’s generally listed under jazz? There’s nothing on her albums that wouldn’t play well on an intelligent FM rock station -- that is, if you can find one these days. I suppose the jazz tag has stuck to Owen because of her...

Music Review: Fred Eaglesmith - Tinderbox

Holly Hughes — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:59:01 EDT

Fred Eaglesmith's gritty bluegrass-roots CD parses the difference between piety and faith in America today
You don’t name an album Tinderbox unless you want to light a few fires. Fred Eaglesmith’s newest album has a barnstorming fervor, a fire-and-brimstone vision of what’s going wrong with America. And even if he couches it in Grapes of Wrath-ish folk blues, don’t you be fooled for one minute – this is topical stuff. That...

Music Review: The Wood Brothers - Loaded

Holly Hughes — Mon, 5 May 2008 01:44:07 EDT

What do you get when you mix a down-home instrumental sound with an indie mindset? The Wood Brothers.
The Wood Brothers’ Loaded comes off like a shot of old-time religion, and the more I listen, the more I'm ready to testify. It's a tasty stew of bluegrass, folk, gospel, and Southern rock, and the kind of unclassifiable Americana that unfortunately often slips between the cracks -- there's plenty of picking and strumming going on...

Music Review: Richard Hawley - Lady's Bridge

Holly Hughes — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:30:17 EDT

Mellow Brit singer-songwriter strums his way through a disappointing solo effort.
I had such high hopes for Richard Hawley. British singer-songwriter, Jarvis Cocker's guitarist from Pulp, known in his solo work for folky acoustic numbers about love and loss, nominated for the 2006 Mercury Prize (Britain’s annual new music award) for his previous CD Coles Corner — it sounded like he’d be right up my...

Music Review: Joe Jackson -- Rain

Holly Hughes — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 21:28:43 EDT

With his superb new album, Joe Jackson continues to defy stereotypes and confound expectations
There’s a price to pay for being a Joe Jackson fan. You fall in love with a masterpiece like 1982’s Night and Day – and then you have to maintain your allegiance through Body and Soul (1984) and Big World (1986) as Joe wanders further and further from the very idea of rock music. He moves out on you completely in the 1990s to...

Music Review: Nat King Cole -- This Is Nat "King" Cole, The Very Thought Of You

Holly Hughes — Tue, 4 Mar 2008 20:24:17 EST

Brushing off a few cobwebs to find the gifted artist inside this mid-century crooner.
My Nat King Cole habit could get very expensive.There’s this massive Collector’s Choice reissue project, you see, and I’m only beginning to realize that my greatest hits CD The World of Nat King Cole just doesn’t do it for me any more. After all, those tracks were tailored to the commercial sound of the 1950s and 1960s when...

Music Review: Fred Eaglesmith - Milly's Cafe

Holly Hughes — Fri, 8 Feb 2008 01:29:40 EST

American original Fred J. Eaglesmith treats his Fredhead fans to the blue-plate special at Milly's Cafe.
“Americana” is such a slippery music label. Half the time, it really just means “country music for people who don’t want to admit they like country music.” And I’ll admit it: I fall into that trap myself sometimes. But Americana seems the only way to classify Fred Eaglesmith’s stripped-down,...

Music Review: Nat King Cole - Penthouse Serenade/The Piano Style of Nat King Cole and Welcome To the Club / Tell Me All About Yourself

Holly Hughes — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:16:40 EST

A massive re-issue of Nat King Cole's Capitol albums reveals the neglected jazz artist inside the 50s pop crooner.
Reaching back into dim childhood memories, I realize I was programmed to believe in Nat King Cole – the lanky black man who looked so suave, cigarette in hand, hosting his weekly TV show; the pop crooner who hit AM radio with commercial numbers like “Ramblin’ Rose” and “Hazy Crazy Lazy Days of Summer.” My parents...

Theater Review (NYC): The Screwtape Letters

Holly Hughes — Tue, 6 Nov 2007 18:08:18 EST

C. S. Lewis' comic Satan, still setting his wily snares for humankind, sets up shop in an Off-Broadway church.
Back in the Middle Ages, theologians had nothing but Sin on their minds - they saw Satan lurking around every corner, tempting us to fall. Nowadays, though, it’s mainly Disbelief that God’s got to worry about. Oxford don C. S. Lewis spotted that trend back in 1941, when The Screwtape Letters appeared serially in The Guardian newspaper....