On his seventh studio album, Spirit Bird, Xavier Rudd’s gritty voice rises like dust from underneath the dancing feet along an ancestral Songline. In a modern world of industrial landscapes filled with neon signs, it’s hard to “imagine if the trees could tell us where to go.” Yet, Rudd introduces listeners to Australian Aboriginal mythology with songs such as “Creating a Dream”. Dreaming is the sacred era of ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings who formed The Creation.

As far as supergroup side projects are concerned, PHILM is a strange beast, and their debut album, Harmonic, follows its creators’ suit like a bipolar demon-child on acid. PHILM, consisting of Gerry Nestler (vocals/guitar, Civil Defiance), Dave Lombardo (drums, Slayer), and Pancho Tomaselli (bass, War) has a rawness to its sound that plays well with each musician’s individual style.

Let me begin with the disclaimer that I only consider myself a casual fan of The Expendables. It’s not that I don’t like their music; far from it, actually, but I’m not about to start referencing old B-sides off the top of my head or anything of the sort in this review.

Every now and again a little chuckle escapes. You don’t mean to, but you just can’t help it. And you don’t mean it in a bad way, it’s anything but that. But sometimes the lyrics are just funny, and surely Craig Elkins knows this. I Love You, the first solo album under the ex-Huffamoose frontman’s real name, is track after track of somewhat dark, bleak humor. That being said, Elkins does not necessarily write the happiest of songs.

The Congress’ Whatever You Want is a good-ass record, plain and simple. The album, a southern rock tribute to everyone from Molly Hatchet to The Grateful Dead, plays strong from start to finish with little let-up along the way.

Following upon the heels of last year’s highly regarded jam at the Lyons Folk Festival, Bob Weir, Chris Robinson and Jackie Greene cleared their schedules for a mini-tour that saw them headline the legendary Ryman Theater in Nashville and also get

On Friday, May 11 the Kansas based high octane bluegrass trio known as Split Lip Rayfield (SLR) took the stage behind the sliding barn doors of Denver’s Larimer Lounge.   Passionate bluegrass fans stirred in anticipation to watch the finely-aged, unique instrumentation that is Split Lip Rayfield.  This is no ordinary bluegrass jam band;

Inside everyone rests passion and desire; Break Science puts those feelings into motion, stirring them up on a journey of all-encompassing musical wonder. The path was anything but straight, complete with twists, turns, and the always welcome drop. Feeling the music was the only option; there was no escaping the wide reaching combination of sounds and styles cruising out of the speakers and into ready ears that reach down to the feet of listeners.

What is bluegrass? Is it the strictly dictated by the legacy of Bill Monroe? Is it constructed by the lead guitar flat-pick licks of Tony Rice, Norman Blake, or Charles Sawtelle? Is it held by the torch of the current up-and-up popularity that the genre is experiencing?

When Head for the Hills Fiddle-man Joe Lessard was asked in our recent interview what it is about Colorado that makes us Bluegrass Country, he replied “It must be something in the water, or a lack thereof.” The boys in the Fort Collins, Colorado born bluegrass band are at a pinnacle peak in their career.