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Reviews of Attainable Hi-Fi & Home-Theater Equipment

Most Popular Featured Releases

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Featured Releases; Created: 15 August 2014

Stockholm Caroline 2537786688
Format: CD

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Chrissie Hynde has kept the Pretenders going for more than 30 years, but she and drummer Martin Chambers have been the band’s only consistent members. Stockholm is billed as Hynde’s first solo album, but at least three Pretenders albums -- Get Close (1986), Packed! (1990), and Break Up the Concrete (2008) -- have her as the only constant, with other musicians providing support. For Stockholm, Hynde brought in Björn Yttling, of the Swedish pop band Peter Björn and John, to produce, and he co-wrote nine of the disc’s 11 tracks.

Read more: Chrissie Hynde: "Stockholm"

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Featured Releases; Created: 01 August 2014

Common Ground Yep Roc YEP-2384
Format: CD

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After the Blasters split up in 1986, guitarist and co-leader Dave Alvin went on to a successful, critically acclaimed solo career; he now has 15 albums to his credit. His brother Phil recorded two solo albums, Un “Sung Stories” (1986) and County Fair 2000 (1994), and earned a master’s degree in mathematics and artificial intelligence. He’s kept the Blasters going, off and on, since Dave left, and as recently as 2012 the band released a CD, Fun on Saturday Night.

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Featured Releases; Created: 15 July 2014

Fountain of Youth Peak/Entertainment One EOM-CD-9374
Format: CD

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In the liner notes to Fountain of Youth, guitarist Russ Freeman calls the album “the Rippingtons’ Guitar Heaven CD. My main goals here were to feature as many guitars from my collection as possible, to introduce dynamics into the songs by changing the density of instrumentation, and to feature solo instruments whenever possible.” Guitarists will get a charge out of the illustrations of the guitars and other stringed instruments Freeman used, especially a rosewood-finished Fender Telecaster.

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Featured Releases; Created: 01 July 2014

Super Duper Alice Cooper Eagle Vision EV306599
Format: DVD

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It’s easy to forget just how shocking Alice Cooper was to parents and church leaders 40 years ago, but even now, the concert footage in Super Duper Alice Cooper is a reminder of how outrageously offensive the band was to polite society. They brought rock theatrics to a new level of sophistication and influenced other performers, especially Marilyn Manson. The glam rock of the 1970s that brought Mott the Hoople and David Bowie to prominence is hard to imagine without Cooper’s androgynous attire and makeup.

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Featured Releases; Created: 15 June 2014

Turn Blue Nonesuch 542300-2
Format: CD

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If the pink-and-blue Day-Glo patterns on the Digipak of the Black Keys’ Turn Blue don’t bring back the psychedelic era for you, you probably weren’t there the first time around. But if you know the music of the time, Dan Auerbach’s jagged, fuzz-driven guitar solo in “Weight of Love” should remind you of the Jefferson Airplane or Quicksilver Messenger Service. Turn Blue is another step away from the DIY garage-band sound that characterized the Keys’ early discs, and it’s even more polished and musically varied than their last outing, El Camino.

Read more: The Black Keys: "Turn Blue"

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Featured Releases; Created: 01 June 2014

In My Soul Provogue PRD 7436 2
Format: CD

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As soon as guitarist Robert Cray strikes the low note and two-chord vamp that introduces his driving version of Otis Redding’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” you know you’re hearing a musician who’s back in the game. Cray has made a lot of great albums in the more than 30 years he’s been recording, but some of his releases of the early 2000s had a workmanlike quality: solid, but sounding like the work of an artist who’d settled into the comforts of an established career. In My Soul has the creative drive and freshness of his best work.

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Featured Releases; Created: 15 May 2014

Gord Downie, the Sadies, and the Conquering Sun Arts & Crafts AC090
Format: CD

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When I read the title of Gord Downie, the Sadies, and the Conquering Sun, I thought maybe Downie had decided to collaborate with two bands -- but it’s just him and the Sadies here, perhaps joining forces with the sun. Wordplay and, on occasion, misdirection are not unusual for Downie, whose lyrics, both in his solo projects and in his work with the Tragically Hip, are unusually allusive and literate. The lyrics on this album are as smart as any Downie has written, and the music has as much electricity as the Hip’s best records do.

Details: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Regular Reviews; Created: 01 May 2014

Dizzy Heights Lester LRNF0011CD
Format: CD

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In the 12 years since Neil Finn released his last solo disc, One Nil (US title: One All), he’s done a recording with his brother Tim, Everyone Is Here (2004), and two with Crowded House: Time on Earth (2007) and Intriguer (2010). In 2012 he cowrote and performed “Song of the Lonely Mountain,” the end-titles song for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and in 2013 he found time to collaborate with the great Australian songwriter Paul Kelly on Goin’ Your Way. Finn is a pop craftsman, a gifted melodist, and an expressive singer who handles ballads and rockers with equal skill. Longtime fans will hear those qualities in Dizzy Heights, but the disc contains quite a few surprises.