Art Bergman – Lost Art (Bearwood, 2010)
Sometimes called Canada’s Paul Westerberg (but as close to being Canada’s Lou Reed) Art Bergmann’s first album was massacred by John Cale back in 1988 and is now redeemed by these full-force demos, restored by, of all people, Bob Rock.
Peachfuzz – Everything Takes Forever (Bombed Out Records, 2010)
Heartfelt, scratchy-voiced indie-punk from the UK.
Johnny Cash – American VI Ain’t No Grave (American, 2010)
The Rubin-Cash partnership strained towards the end of the Man in Black’s life but the vaults still have some riches to behold.
Van Buren Boys – Six String Love (Banana Peel, 2010)
Methinks an Exploding Hearts revival is at hand.
TV Smith – Sparkle in the Mud (Boss Tuneage, 2010)
Even TV’s eighties cast-offs have a magnetic pull to them.
Bad Religion – New Maps of Hell (Epitaph 2009)
Sometimes it’s enough just to have new Bad Religion songs like the soaring “Fields of Mars” even if you can’t always articulate why they’re much different from the last set of soaring Bad Religion songs.
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Jesse Malin – Love it To Life (Side One Dummy, 2010)
Jesse’s a punk rock survivor who led Heart Attack in his teens, then D Generation in his twenties before finding an altogether different voice as a decidedly non-sucky singer/song-writer.
The Dopeamines – Expect the Worst (Paper and Plastik, 2010)
The pop-punk renaissance continues but who the hell is noticing?
The Gaslight Anthem – American Slang (Side One Dummy, 2010)
blah, blah, blah, blah, THE SONGS, DAMNIT!, blah, blah, blah, blah…
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (Simon & Schuster , 2008)
