Staff Picks for March 2021
March 31, 2021
Guitar legend Allan Holdsworth stripped away the distracting banks of keyboards and allowed his soaring, gliding guitar to shine through here in a way it hadn't since the 1980s. Even the Synthaxe, Holdsworth's signature guitar synthesizer, sounds organic and immediate, not to mention far less prevalent than on previous albums. The album is full of fresh ideas and unadulterated improvisational brilliance, and arrived just when it was beginning to seem that Holdsworth's best work was behind him.
March 20, 2021
This legendary set from the French duo's final tour was one for the ages, a live mash-up extravaganza of their biggest hits and deepest cuts coming together like electronic music's most heroic Voltron. From start to finish, this is a masterclass in crowd pleasing and the fine art of the build-up and cathartic release. The best reminder of icons in their prime, Alive 2007 is a required experience for fans of electronic dance music.
March 29, 2021
The title track was one of those defining songs for Loretta Lynn, not only one of the best but one of the most likeable country & western artists. She bats one home run after another in these vocals, singing her brains out and coming across as totally convincing in each role she takes on. This here is stone-cold country, and it doesn't get much better.
March 28, 2021
While Puff Daddy and his followers continued to dictate the direction hip-hop would take into the millennium, Mos Def and Talib Kweli surfaced from the underground to pull the sounds in the opposite direction. Their 13 rhyme fests on this superior, self-titled debut as Black Star showed that old-school rap could still sound surprisingly fresh, with no slack evident in their tight wordplays as they twist and turn through sparse, jazz-rooted rhythms calling out for awareness and freedom of the mind.
March 27, 2021
While most bands on the budding garage revival scene were content to resurrect the sounds and styles of the past, the Fleshtones brought together past and present and turned it all into a wild party where everyone was invited. If Hexbreaker was light on instant classics compared to Roman Gods, there's nonetheless no shortage of good material here.
March 26, 2021
The first full-length from Santa Cruz death/grind act Cretin doesn't run out of steam at all from front to back -- the intensity remains in overdrive throughout, especially on such tracks as "Creepy Crawlies" and "Daddy's Little Girl." And for that alone, crusty death metal veterans should enjoy sinking their teeth into Freakery.
March 25, 2021
#1 Chicken is a no-nonsense, raw, female-fronted garage punk masterpiece that somehow made its way onto the Epitaph roster during the punk revival of the mid-90s. Though it has little in common with their label contemporaries, these 14 songs clocking in at around 23 minutes are peak Red Aunts.
March 24, 2021
No one, but no one, was hoping the Four Seasons would release an elaborately produced semi-psychedelic concept album in 1969, but they went and did it anyway with The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. In many ways it's more the work of producers and songwriters Jake Holmes and Bob Gaudio than Frankie Valli and Co., but they made excellent use of their vocal skills and it's an often brilliant example of glossy late-'60s pop.
March 23, 2021
Their first album to feature guitarist Julian Lynch in place of founding member Matt Mondanile, the band's fourth full-length seems to both fine-tune and expand an already identifiable sound, with engaging and often beautiful results. Textures like wah effects ("Serve the Song"), hazy distortion ("Two Arrows"), spacy timbres ("Holding Pattern"), and the harpsichord-like riffs that color the uptempo jangle of "Stained Glass" add muscle and glimmer to the album's magic hour-like grain.
March 22, 2021
An affable, versatile, and relatable blast of hook-laden folk-pop that evokes names like KT Tunstall, the Lumineers, and Courtney Barnett. Spraggan is a generous songwriter with a congenial way about her and a knack for finding shiny objects in dark places -- the whimsical love song "End of the World" actually concludes with the apocalypse.
March 21, 2021
Stereo Total's sound -- resplendent with zapping synths, twangy guitars, chunky beats, and the perfectly imperfect voices of Brezel Goring and Francoise Cactus -- was so distinctive that it was virtually timeless. Nearly a quarter-century after they formed, they sounded especially inspired on Les Hormones' vibrant mix of winsome pop, raucous garage-punk, and erotic kitsch.
March 19, 2021
Collected from home-recorded demos which appeared on several self-released CD-Rs throughout the 2000s, the Los Angeles-based performance artist's official debut remains a standout of the hypnagogic pop era. Drawing from the more theatrical side of new wave, her songs are filled with playful synth hooks and pitch-warped vocals, creating a mood that's both spooky and joyful.
March 18, 2021
Robyn Hitchcock doesn't really make bad albums, but he doesn't always make legitimately great ones; Propellor Time thankfully feels like one of the high-watermarks of his post-millennial body of work, and it's beautiful, essential listening
March 17, 2021
Magician is an album that deftly mixes originals with more standard fare. What makes this great is that Garner isn't swimming against the current of stodgy classics. To denote the changing times, some of the standards are from close to when the album was recorded. Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and "Watch What Happens'' get an effortless and warm treatment. Garner's playing is lively throughout, and he's obviously in good spirits (as his trademark grunts are the best indication).
March 16, 2021
Professor Longhair's final album was also one of his best. The New Orleans piano legend had simple, sympathetic production and a strong studio band for 1980's Crawfish Fiesta (including some help from Dr. John), and the set list included some well-chosen covers, fine remakes of some of his '50s classics, and plenty of numbers where his joyous, rollicking piano is shown to its best advantage. It's practically impossible to be sad while listening to this.
March 15, 2021
One of the best albums released by one of Palmieri's best bands, La Perfecta features 12 crisp, uptempo songs ranging from guajiras to pachangas to sones montuno -- with a cha-cha-cha thrown in for good measure. Palmieri sounds inspired on piano, vocalist Ismael Quintana leads the group well, and the stinging brass section includes Joao Donato on trombone and Willie Matos on trumpet.
March 14, 2021
In case one has simply forgotten about or somehow managed to avoid this astonishing debut, let us (re)direct your attention to the Stone Roses' eponymous 1989 classic. Driving Ian Brown's languidly arrogant vocals is the powerhouse rhythm battery of Mani and Reni and above all, John Squire's effortlessly hooky guitar mastery, as cool today as it was 32 years ago.
March 13, 2021
Following 1996's "Virtual Insanity" breakthrough, the British outfit kicked their sound into overdrive with Synkronized. Delirious with disco fever ("Canned Heat"), the set keeps the energy high with horn-washed funk ("Black Capricorn Day," 'Where Do We Go From Here?") and electro-synth menace ("Destitute Illusions," "Deeper Underground"). Above all, didgeridoo highlight "Supersonic" (and its awesome music video) marks one of the band's finest, weirdest moments
March 12, 2021
Recorded with a who's who of fusion titans including trumpeter Eddie Henderson, bassist Stanley Clarke, and keyboardist Herbie Hancock, Dance of Magic channels the lessons drummer Norman Connors learned in the employ of Pharoah Sanders, Sam Rivers, and Sun Ra, marshaling Latin rhythms, electronic textures, and cosmic mysticism to create nondenominational yet deeply spiritual funk-jazz.
March 11, 2021
It's rare that a band will record a reunion album that stands tall with their previous work, and it's all but unheard of for that band to make a second album that's even better. Mission of Burma did just that with 2006's The Obliterati; it contained some of the most aggressive and muscular music they ever created without compromising their estimable intelligence, and upped the ante on their clear-eyed political and social commentary.
March 10, 2021
Recorded with Bowie in the producer's chair before work began on Low, Iggy Pop's first solo album is considered the unofficial prelude to Bowie's Berlin trilogy, and has early traces of the same dark experimentalism that would define Bowie's late '70s output. A far cry from the explosive protopunk of the Stooges, Iggy saunters, lurches, and swaggers his way through this hazy album, taking cues from the electronic ambience of Berlin's scene at the time, as well as dirgy funk and barely conscious readings of slowed down, late night downer rock.
March 9, 2021
Now firmly in studio-only mode, XTC's 1984 gem establishes the intensely detailed and creative approach that would come to represent the remainder of their incredible second half. The lesser known precursor to their landmark Skylarking, The Big Express deserves another look.
March 8, 2021
Without a doubt the definitive Bobby "Blue" Bland album. In fact, it's one of the key albums in modern blues, marking a turning point when juke joint blues were seamlessly blended with gospel and Southern soul, creating a distinctly Southern sound where all of these styles blended so thoroughly it was impossible to tell where one began and one ended.
March 7, 2021
Arguably the French avant-garde icon's best work, Une Éclipse Totale de Soleil is a typically unsettling yet fascinating collage of quasi-industrial rhythms, children's voices, and Tazartès' own multi-layered howls, whispers, and warbles, mainly delivered in a self-invented language. The CD reissue also includes a later piece called "Il Regale Della Befana," a truly unhinged, theatrical performance which memorably incorporates mangled Sex Pistols samples.
March 6, 2021
Urge Overkill's crash-and-burn was one of the saddest stories of the '90s alt-rock explosion, but 1993's Saturation was their great moment of flashy glory before things went sour. While their early albums made them sound like a canny parody of a '70s arena rock band, Saturation was where they gained the skills and production smarts to become the sort of band they pretended to be, and its roar and swagger made this album a masterpiece.
March 5, 2021
UK ambient rock project Flying Saucer Attack branished themselves "rural psychedelia" on their first full length. The album's glowing, pastoral drones and waves of deeply buried organic instrumentation make good on this description, stretching out expansively as the songs slowly evolve. The unexpectedly faithful Suede cover shakes up the otherwise tranquil proceedings, but is a nice diversion from the rest of the album's pleasantly drowsy shoegaze excursions.
![Newsies [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0000024798/front/400/nia6Fk_740C5svD5fUnOPwSijaXJlYnq0St31qpAJWo=.jpg)
March 4, 2021
Featuring 12 original songs by Alan Menkin and a score by J.A.C. Redford, this live-action film musical based on the 1899 New York newsboy strike appeared in the Disney canon between the animated smashes Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. With Howard Ashman too ill at the time to assist, it features lyrics by Jack Feldman and a cast led by a teenaged Christian Bale. Ann-Margret also gets her own song ("My Lovey-Dovey Baby"). Though the film flopped in 1992, Menken and Redford won a Tony for Best Original Score 20 years later thanks to a hit Broadway adaptation.
March 3, 2021
The death of Stereo Total's Françoise Cactus in February 2021 marked the end of one of indie pop's most enduring -- and endearing -- outfits. The duo's international pop postmodernism rarely sounded finer than it did on 1999's My Melody: Alongside clever covers of heroes such as Serge Gainsbourg and Pizzicato Five, Stereo Total's original songs pay homage to French pop, Neue Deutsche Welt, and other cult-favorite sounds with boundless charm and enthusiasm.
March 2, 2021
Once Game Theory's Scott Miller knew he wasn't going to get his well-deserved commercial breakthrough with the Loud Family, he doubled down on their angular melodies, noisy window dressing, and sharp dynamics on their third album, 1996's Interbabe Concern. It's sometimes hard to get through the surface of the music, yet the brilliance of "Don't Respond, She Can Tell," "I'm Not Really a Spring," and "Where They Walk Over Sainte Therese" make the effort worthwhile.
March 1, 2021
Having already revolutionized hip-hop, Eric B. & Rakim came up with a second straight classic in their sophomore album, which basically follows the same blueprint for greatness, albeit with subtle refinements. It may not have broken much new ground, but it captures one of the greatest pure hip-hop acts at the top of its form.