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Welcome back to our seventh year of Newport Folk Festival coverage – our first year taking torrential downpour for the Newport Mercury – we welcome and thank you back! If this is your first year taking in the blog, we’ll sum up the fest for you so far: it’s good. There. We said it. Our coverage, less so. We’re exhausted and need to get some output done. So we apologize that this post doesn’t full express our inspiration we felt today. Anyway, let’s start. The tall tall Tall Tall Trees. Okay, not super tall, but taller than us. We start the day with New-Yorker MikeRead More →

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In: _CD Reviews 2014, _Four or More 2014, Album Reviews, Recommended
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Sleeper Agent – About Last NightRCA-out now4 / 5 Sleeper Agent (with The ‘Mericans)Aug 1, 7pmWaterplace Park, Providence, RI(Free – all ages) There are few things we appreciate more than a burning beat that soothes our hungry dance-heart. And Sleeper Agent’s (hailing from Bowler Green, KY) pop-centricity pulls us right in, gets us singing through their sophomore. It’s not bass-heavy electronica (think *ahem* Chain Gang of 1974) or pure saccharine pop (a la Sondre Lerche), or lightning-storm-cloud electro-buzz (St. Vincent, we look at you) but it strikes a pleasant, palatable medium: easy to get into, easy to get through, and somehow, pure blissful joy. WeRead More →

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Simone Felice – StrangersDualtone Music Group -out now3.5 / 5 Make no mistake: we are very biased toward Simone Felice. If you caught us in 2009 with The Duke and the King’s Nothing Gold Can Stay, then you’d understand. Personally, we consider that album a classic. Already. So if we come off over-appreciative of Felice’s post-Duke output, well, there’s a good reason for it. But let us say that his latest solo album, Strangers, gets there, but not much else. Alas. There are fantastic songs. Notably, the anthemic “Our Lady of the Gun” and “Running Through My Head.” Felice is a master at two things:Read More →

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Glass Animals – ZabaHarvest-out June 103 / 5Contributed by Bera Dunau (@BeraDunau) ZABA, the debut album from alternative rock band Glass Animals, is a relentlessly smooth piece of work. Indeed, it is the perfect accompaniment for a peaceful a.m. drive on a deserted freeway, where the only company can be found in the streetlights passing overhead. Unfortunately, this very smoothness is also the album’s greatest weakness, as it is so consistent in tone that the tracks have a tendency to blur together. This makes it a bit of a one-note effort, although the one thing that ZABA does, it does well. Glass Animals’ sound isRead More →