B+ Ben Richman
American Deadbeat
Self released
Little Rock's Ben Richman follows up 2016's Slow Burn Panic Attack with 15 tracks of self-produced power pop on American Deadbeat.
As with his first record, the former Revolutioners member plays all the instruments and has put together a nice, if slightly overlong, collection of melodic jams that mixes in a little Oasis, '90s-inspired alt-rock and classic rock.
"Dust," with its whispery, buried vocals among the verses, could, with a little more fuzz, be a shoegaze throwback; "Thoughtful" is an acoustic tale about a post-show encounter; "Another Year of Death and Destruction" gives a markedly side-eyed look at the coming year; "American Deadbeat Blues" works through a sad country shuffle.
"A Giant in Outer Space" is the album's most adventurous track. Starting like soaring British pop, Richman takes a detour and emerges with a wah-wah drenched guitar solo that conjures a strange and wonderful marriage of David Gilmore and J. Mascis.
Recorded in a buddy's apartment, American Deadbeat again highlights Richman's gift for melody and songcraft. We'd love to hear what he could do with a month or two in a proper studio.
If you're a fan of scrappy, guitar-based pop then track down the digital-only American Deadbeat on iTunes, Spotify and other services.
Hot tracks: "Another Year of Death and Destruction," "Dust," "Thoughtful"
-- SEAN CLANCY,
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
B+ Guy Clark
The Best of the Dualtone Years
Dualtone Music
Oftentimes, a greatest hits collection seems like nothing more than a money grab (usually for the record label), but for less-popular artists, a greatest hits album is a fine introduction to an artist's music. Such it is with this two-disc, 19-track album out Friday that draws from Texas singer-songwriter Guy Clark's last three studio albums -- Workbench Songs (2006), Somedays the Song Writes You (2009) and My Favorite Picture of You (2013), which won a Grammy for Best Folk Album -- before his death in May. (Joining Clark on all three albums was Perryville's Shawn Camp, who added guitar, fiddle, mandolin and vocals.)
Of course, if Clark is a "less-popular" artist to you, perhaps you should listen to him more, because the man wrote some of the greatest Texas country and folk tunes ever, including "L.A. Freeway," which finds its way on this collection via the live album Songs and Stories (2011).
For Clark newbies, the songs here are a good starting point for exploring his music, and fans will be reminded that Clark's knack for songwriting and singing never faded, a truth especially evident on the lovely "My Favorite Picture of You," the rich storytelling involved in "Rain in Durango" and Clark's sublime interpretation of Townes Van Zandt's "If I Needed You," a tune written by Van Zandt in Clark's Nashville, Tenn., home in the 1970s.
Hot tracks: The songs mentioned, along with "Hemingway's Whiskey," "Maybe I Can Paint Over That" and a live version of Clark's classic "Dublin Blues"
-- SHEA STEWART,
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
A Joan
"Take Me On"
20xx
Brothers + Company member Steven Rutherford and Alan Thomas of Canopy Climbers have teamed up to form the Little Rock-based Joan, and this slice of synth-pop goodness is the duo's first single. A bouncy confection sweeter than a tub of cotton candy, the song -- co-produced with Los Angeles-based Tom Pagnotta -- is a paean to young love and one of those perfect nights you'd wish would last forever. Word from Rutherford is that the pair will have a few more singles on the way and eventually an EP, which makes us quite happy.
Find "Take Me On" at the usual digital services and start dancing like you're the only one in the room.
-- SEAN CLANCY,
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
A Reade Mitchell
"I Tell U Sumthin'!"
Self-released
A garage-rock/no-wave raging slab of defiance and sarcasm aimed squarely at the new president. Little Rock's Reade Mitchell takes those campaign promises and flips them over, revealing nothing but lunacy and emptiness. "Looks good on Twitter/but it don't work like that," he wails over a chugging, Stooges-Suicide-inspired cacophony, turning punk-rock protest into quivering, fist-shaking catharsis.
Track down your digital copy at cdbaby.com/cd/reademitchell4
-- SEAN CLANCY,
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
B Japandroids
Nearer to the Wild Heart of Life
Anti
Japandroids' 2012 truth-in-titling breakthrough was called Celebration Rock. On it, the Canadian duo of singer and lyricist Brian King and drummer David Prowse executed a formula to near-perfection: Hard-driving heart-on-sleeve songs gathered intensity as they built toward roughly shouted choruses that exploded in seize-the-day (and chug-a-beer) catharsis.
After a long break, the highly anticipated Nearer to the Wild Heart of Life is back at it, hurtling down the highway and thinking about what has been left behind, on the title track, "North South East West," and "Midnight to Morning." King and Prowse tend to perform as though everything is at stake all the time, an approach that can wear on the listener, and on the eight-minute "Arc of Bar," the duo sound pretty tired themselves. But when they hit the sweet spot on the noisy and mercifully slowed-down "I'm Sorry (For Not Finding You Sooner)" and ecstatic "No Known Drink or Drug," they're as close to the wild heart of the matter as they want to be.
Hot tracks: "I'm Sorry (For Not Finding You Sooner)," "No Known Drink or Drug"
-- DAN DELUCA,
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Style on 02/28/2017