Photo from Fallon Cush’s MySpace page by Nick DeRiso Fallon Cush grows more confident with each passing song on their self-titled debut. Perhaps because singer Steve Smith put this together on the fly, enlivened by passion and not weighed down by heavy planning.

by Nick DeRiso Sounds of Saturn, a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based experimental trio, takes the road less travelled on Mars Via Parachute. In fact, often, they’re not on any road at all. Instead, the record employs every trick in the noodle-rock playbook, from psychedelia and stadium-shaking riffs to thrilling science-geek constructions that include math-based tempos. As spacy as it all is, [...]

Editor’s note: Here’s a repost of our review of 1978′s City to City by Gerry Rafferty, who died today in London from liver failure after a lengthy battle with alcoholism. Rafferty scored Top 10 hits first with Stealers Wheel (“Stuck in the Middle”) and then with his own “Baker Street” from this recording. City to City sold more than 5.5 [...]

by Nick DeRiso The Orb’s signature sound — gorgeous but not quite ambient, hypnotic but typically not much more rhythmic than a chill-out room — always seemed to cry out for the guitar stylings of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. The band copped to the underlying influence on its debut album, 1991′s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, the artwork of which prominently [...]

In a time of buttoned-down, procedural rock records, Alex Hirsch is still admirably working toward one of those old-school Grand Statements that defies category. Hirsch, whose dad is television and Broadway star Judd Hirsch of “Taxi” fame, brilliantly races through musical subgenres – and personas – on Naturally. That makes for an album that’s simultaneously brash and vulnerable. Hirsch lets [...]

Spend enough time around rock music — or, at least, rock critics — and you’ll be convinced that any number of Seminal Works, Forgotten Gems and Timeless Standards are must-have items for your record collection. Even if they turn out to be, you know, retreads dressed up as brilliant pop redux (Gene Clark’s post-Byrds catalogue, many of Syd Barrett‘s solo [...]

by Nick DeRiso All due respect to Nelson Riddle, but this didn’t seem like it would work. “Only the Lonely,” at first — even to Sinatra — felt temperamentally suited to Gordon Jenkins, the man most closely associated with much of Frank Sinatra‘s string-oriented, darker work. (See the very good CD “September of My Years,” featuring “It Was A Very [...]

by Nick DeRiso All apologies to Roger Waters, who’s dragging it back on the road for a series of 30th anniversary concert performances, but I was never all that into Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” Too much talking, not enough — you know — music. While working out issues in dealing with a meteoric rise to fame as an adult after [...]

by Nick DeRiso Peter Gabriel, always one for the theatrical, has begun a suitably elaborate two-part process with “Scratch My Back” — his first new work since 2002′s “Up.” This recording, featuring occasionally over-curated readings of work by others, will be followed by “I’ll Scratch Yours,” a return-the-favor CD that showcases these same artists tackling Gabriel’s catalogue. The guy who [...]

by Nick DeRiso There is, inside of Gerry Rafferty’s most famous album — and, as a solo artist, his most famous song — this sense of rebirth, of finding one’s way again. “When you wake up, it’s a new morning,” he sings on “Baker Street,” “the sun is shining, it’s a new morning … you’re going, you’re going home …” [...]