If It's Too Loud...

We're huge fans of just about anything Bloodshot Records puts out, so we're thrilled that they recently released a digital only label b-sides, alternate versions, and covers compilation. Pandemophenia is a seventeen song compilation featuring all of our favorites from Bloodshot Records. "I'm Not There Yet" is as good as anything on Jason Hawk Harris's 2019 album Love & the Dark. William Elliott Whitmore has a new wonderfully rough sounding folk tune called "New Skateboard." Barrence Whitfield and the Savages share Soul Flowers of Titan bonus track "Dream of June." ROOKIE adds an acoustic, old-timey version of last year's "Hold on Tight." And then there's the covers. Ruby Boots does a version of Tom Petty's "Keeping Me Alive," which may only exist as an outtake from the posthumous An American Treasure box set. Laura Jane Grace & The Devouring Mothers bring us a version of "This Land is Your La...

Photo via Facebook Hailing from Boston, Barrence Whitfield is the rare type of soul singer that can play with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and fit right in. With songs like his newest single, "Let's Go to Mars," Whitfield brings rock and roll and way back to it's origins in the 1950's. It's a reckless, filthy sound that is just about perfect. There's also a touch of a punk menace in there, but there was plenty of menace in 1950's rock and roll, too. I may be making it sound like it's a bit of a noisy trainwreck, which it's not, at all. "Let's Go to Mars" is catchy, with an infectious groove throughout. Plus, his new album, Soul Flowers of Titan , was inspired by Sun Ra's cosmic outlook. According to Barrence Whitfield's website: Titan is the largest moon orbiting Saturn, a planet which astrologically symbolizes pain, struggle and hard knocks on the human path to wholeness and liberation among many other things. So...