Everything I Was, Burning Slow by 24thankyou The bedrooms in old, rented houses from Fairchild to South Lucas are held together by paint — layers upon layers of beiges and grays that do the semester’s tenants the courtesy of covering up mold colonies and mysterious stains. If those bedroom walls could talk through those layers […]
Album Reviews
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Album Review: Elizabeth Moen — ‘For Arthur’
For Arthur by Elizabeth Moen The teenaged Arthur Russell left Oskaloosa in 1968. He was a musical prodigy (cello and piano), a hippie vagabond and a spiritual seeker. He moved to a Buddhist commune in San Francisco, passed his high school equivalency, then became Allen Ginsberg’s accompanist and perhaps lover. Five years later, he hopped […]
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Album Review: Sam Locke Ward — ‘Thrift Store Gtr Gold’
Thrift Store Gtr Gold by Samuel Locke Ward “Everything that they ever warned us about, all the sad things, all the bad things, all of those things, they are coming. They are all coming to pass.” So singeth Samuel Locke Ward, master of minimalism, grim jester and bard of Iowa in the unhinged 2020s. In […]
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Album Review: Miss Christine — ‘Bittersweet’
Bittersweet by Miss Christine Christine Moad, who records under the moniker Miss Christine, gave themself an unenviable task: to take the dumpster fire of the last three years and turn it into music. Their latest album Bittersweet released in June, and in both its construction and its resultant music, this is a pandemic album through […]
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Album Review: Widow7 — ‘Our New Doomsday’
There were a handful of years when I had a strange fixation on the post-grunge band Breaking Benjamin. Strange only because my general taste would grow to bend toward alternative and folk music, though a selection of Breaking Benjamin songs have never gone out of rotation for me. I’d never quite pinned down what drew […]
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Album Review: Chill Mac — ‘None Chiller’
None Chiller by Chill Mac The moment you press play on “Heart & Soul,” the first track of None Chiller, Dom Russell (performing as Chill Mac) establishes himself as more than just a rapper. “This is deeper than rap, I got a story to tell,” he says. Mac paints pictures of his past, and expresses […]
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Album Review: Jeff Stagg — ‘Basement Views’
Jeff Stagg · Quiet Day Within 10 seconds of hitting play on Jeff Stagg’s Basement Views I had to double check that I hadn’t hit play on a Todd Snider album. While Stagg is more lyrically agnostic than Snider, thematic overlaps make it clear they have at least some of the same thoughts in […]
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Album Review: Kelsie James — ‘Songs About Daisies’
Songs About Daisies by Kelsie James Not many teenagers can say they’ve already made a dent in their career bucket list. But since performing at a music festival for thousands of people and releasing her five-song EP, 16-year-old Urbandale musician Kelsie James has bagged two of her goals. James played Des Moines’ 80/35 last summer, […]
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Album Review: HomeBrewed — ‘Devil In My Soul’
If you are planning a fundraiser in the CRANDIC area and are thinking about just putting on a Spotify playlist and calling it a day, please don’t. Ask HomeBrewed to play instead. HomeBrewed describes themselves as a “fun filled, mixed generational group, playing bluesy rock and roll and rockabilly.” The band performs primarily at benefit […]
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Album Review: EleanorGrace — ‘Dream About A Cowboy’
On her debut album Dream About a Cowboy, there’s a quiet strength to EleanorGrace’s voice, like Reba McEntire and Billie Eilish had a baby that’s singing through Taylor Swift’s Fearless. At only 19 years old, EleanorGrace (EG) has created a work of art with influences spanning decades and genres. The album opener, “Daydreams,” is an […]
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Album Review: The Ruralists — ‘Trying’
Trying by The Ruralists “I pray to the saints,” begins the Ruralists’ “pandemic album,” Trying. Then, later, with the strained tension of drawn out tones and stretched-then-resolving chords, album opener “HereNow” continues, “And I wait/on the word/on the whisper never heard/though I listen with all my might.” The northwestern Iowa band includes several members who […]
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Album Review: Histo — ‘JGDC’
JGDC by histo A near-fatal lung infection gave multi-instrumentalist Donald Curtis a sense of urgency to follow his passions for music and form Histo, according to the band’s bio. The prefix “histo” medically refers to body tissue, but it also can mean “structure” or “set upright” (as in a histogram bar chart) — either of […]
