Album Reviews

In metal as in many other styles, retro reigns. Bands and labels are falling all over themselves to evoke the Heavy Metal Parking Lot golden age via studiously old-school production values and cover art that screams 1987, right down to the cheesy font choices. A lot of the results look the part …

The brooding country star returned to higher altitudes while making his ninth album, which was written and recorded in Telluride, Colorado’s lofty Studio in the Clouds. But The Mountain is no rehash of Bentley’s high-flying hit “Drunk On A Plane” – instead, it’s an introspective album that grapples with the …

It’s ironic that social media jerks tease Jermaine Cole with “J. Cole went platinum with no features.” Once seen as an understudy to generational talents like Kendrick Lamar and Drake, the North Carolina musician didn’t reach artistic fruition until 2014 Forest Hills Drive, when he abandoned the typical cameo-heavy big-budget …

Since forming in 2000, the Bad Plus have grown from upstart into institution, one of the few contemporary jazz acts to show up on the mainstream radar in the years before the To Pimp a Butterfly watershed. The trio’s early buzz centered on their sometimes radically reworked covers of rock …

Only 20, Camila Cabello is already a seasoned veteran of the pop-star wars. Born in Havana, raised in Miami, she blew up with the girl group Fifth Harmony, who formed on The X Factor before scoring superb hits like “Reflection” and “Work From Home.” Although Cabello was the most high-profile …

Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo fancied himself a modern-day Burroughs while working on Pacific Daydream, using a computer program to arrange musical fragments into songs. Ultimately, it led to a pretty straightforward Weezer album. “Mexican Fender” kicks off with a riff ripped directly from J. Geils Band’s “Love Stinks,” retrofitted with …

The final album by Gregg Allman, who died in May, is a moving farewell statement à la twilight masterworks by Leonard Cohen and David Bowie. “I know I’m not a young man, and it’s time to settle down,” Allman sings on the roadhouse blues “Love Like Kerosene,” his full-moon growl …