The Des Moines Symphony offered classical music enthusiasts an ideal date night on Valentine’s weekend with Love–Romeo & Juliet, the aptly titled fourth installment of their Masterworks Series. The baton was wielded by guest conductor, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, who led a nuanced program of European masterpieces. Harth-Bedoya’s rapport with the ensemble was remarkable considering this is […]
Local Music Reviews
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Best of the CRANDIC Spotlight: Flat Black Studio
Flat Black Studio (Long Play Records) was voted Best Local Record Label or Recording Studio in Little Village’s 2020 Best of the CRANDIC awards. Flat Black founder Luke Tweedy and second-in-command Dana T have been cranking out phenomenal records from their Lone Tree oasis for years now. They lure in the best local and regional […]
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: The Host Country — The Host Country
The Host Country started as a Cedar Falls-based duo with Diana Weishaar and Ty Wistrand supplying tasteful piano and guitar settings to generous pop songs that they could really lay into hard in live settings. Since those early days the two have been vocal soul-mates with perfectly complementary timbres that make their songs ring.
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Ryne Doughty — Date Night
Des Moines-native singer-songwriter Ryne Doughty approached the production of his latest album, Date Night, with the desire to step away from the more stripped-down folk sound of his 2013 album, Under The Willow Tree. “I love that last album and the sound but I just wanted to do something different and really bring these songs to life,” he explained. “All of the songs are still songwriter based, but with more instrumentation and energy.”
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: House of Large Sizes — Idiots Out Wandering Around (Reissue)
It’s impossible to talk about the history of Iowa modern rock without talking about Cedar Falls band House of Large Sizes. During their 17-year run (1986-2003) they released eight albums, including a very brief stint on Columbia Records and a bunch of singles. Since 2003, HOLS has sporadically come out of retirement to play shows in the area to eager fans; this month HOLS put out its first release since 2003’s self-titled album — a gorgeous, expanded, two-LP color vinyl reissue of their 1999 live album.
Posted inAlbum Reviews
Album Review: Rust Belt Union — Impromptu Musicals for the Skeptic
Trust a joker like Matthew James to open Impromptu Musicals For the Skeptic, his album with the Rust Belt Union, with a song titled “Goodbye.” Like Groucho Marx’s song “Hello, I Must Be Going,” it’s ironic but shows a restlessness mirrored in the lyrics: “But it’s just like before I’m always heading out a door and I never quite get where I’m supposed to go.”
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Album Review: Crystal City — Bartenderly
Iowa City band Crystal City’s newest record Bartenderly molds midwestern milieu into 17 tracks of honest-to-goodness barroom rockers and ballads — the kind not heard from perhaps since the Replacements dragged their lager-soaked poetry to the masses. It’s clear that Dave Helmer and Sam Drella worship at the Temple of Westerberg with their loose and quick first-take don’t-look-back approach to chugging rock and roll.
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Album Review: Pants OFF! podcast — Mixtape Vol. 1
One of the joys of the podcast format is that it opens up the role of producer to anyone with a recording device and the internet, allowing for extremely specific interests to be explored in depth, episodically. A local gem in the ultra-special-interest category is the Pants OFF! podcast hosted by Brian Campos. The show features in-depth discussions with Iowa musicians about their art, interests and careers as well as samples of their music. Artists from a broad range of genres — from hip hop to folk to metal to pop — appear on the podcast, but what they all share in common is the meta-category of Iowa music.
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Album Review: The Dawn — Wooly
As we look on the landscape of music generally described as “jam band” 50 years after the Summer of Love, it is dotted with pretty much every musical subgenre one can think of—much wider than the folky, psychedelic rock and country music of genre progenitors the Grateful Dead. The term today describes bands that share a common spirit of approach to performing music—one part is the improvisation at the heart of it; the other part is the community of fans who embrace that improvisation.
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Album Review: Good Morning Midnight — Basket of Flowers
The ’90s, in its sentimentalities and aesthetics, holds a certain hankering for its glossy, bouncy pop music. From Oasis to Weezer, there’s an implicit innocence at odds with an ever-corrupting world. Recreating the sensibilities of this era, Iowa City singer-songwriter Charlie Cacciatore’s solo project Good Morning Midnight is releasing their debut album Basket of Flowers on July 21. CDs are available through Nova Labs, and the Iowa City release show will be September 15 at The Mill.
Posted inAlbum Reviews, Arts & Entertainment
Album Review: Druids — Cycles of Mobeum
Des Moines’ Druids has drastically brought their influences to the forefront on their latest album. ‘Cycles of Mobeum’ (2016) — a 43-minute odyssey charting the journey of the character Warpia on her planet Mobeum — warps and bends between unflinching highlights of aspects from influences such as Mastodon and Iron Maiden, Sleep and Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd.
Posted inAlbum Reviews, Arts & Entertainment
Album Review: The Fuss — The Fuss
The Fuss — a Des Moines-based rock band who have released a couple of EPs in recent years — make the kind of catchy pop rock music that reminds one of Tommy Tutone or The Replacements. Their self-titled debut album, which includes four tracks from an earlier EP, drops July 1.
