If It's Too Loud...

Artist : Bull Album : Discover Effortless Living Quick Thoughts : This is some solid, standard alt/indie stuff from top to bottom. It's sometimes fun, it's sometimes quirky (like with "Love Goo"), but it's really just the sort of springtime effort I'm happy to have heard. Just a lot of good stuff here from a new (to me) band that I'll definitely be keeping my eye on. Songs of Note : "Love Goo," "Bedroom Floor," "Eugene" Artist : Sunny War Album : Simple Syrup Quick Thoughts : We adore Sunny War around these parts, and Simple Syrup is yet another entry in her superbly consistent catalog. This shows continued growth while still providing some good songs along the way. Loved every moment of this in what is a pretty busy week. Songs of Note : "Kiss a Loser" Artist : Antonioni Album : Antonioni Quick Thoughts : My favorite album last year was Cartalk's effort, and there's a lot of acts right no...

Queen Esther is one of those artists that makes me feel guilty for just discovering them now. And I mean artist in a very expansive way. She's a vocalist, lyricist, songwriter, actor/solo performer, and playwright/librettist. She's played and recorded with a long and diverse collection of performers, and recently did a TED Talk about the origins of country music and bluegrass. She's currently based in New York City but started out in Atlanta, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. She has a new album coming out, and we can currently check out "The Whiskey Wouldn't Let Me Pray." It's an acoustic version of a song on the album (the acoustic version is also the album's closer), and it's rare that a song featuring just vocals and acoustic accompaniment can be this captivating. Queen Esther has this intensity to her voice that is rarely matched. Once she starts singing, it's going to be beyond your capabilities to not drop everything and listen. It...