CD Odyssey Disc 1895: Caroline Rose

It’s been seven and a half years since I reviewed this next artist. I haven’t been avoiding her, it’s just the result of having a large music collection and going through it in random order.

Disc 1895 is… I Will Not Be Afraid

Artist: Caroline Rose

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover? Looks like someone’s been playing with those odd shapes in the Spirograph kit.

When I was a kid the “odd shaped” Spirograph pieces were part of the new and improved modernized Spirograph. No longer just circles, you got a football shape, a curvy triangle and an “X” as well as an “extra arm”. Yeah, Spirograph…plus!

If you know what I’m talking about you are probably of a certain age (or you clicked on that link). If you don’t know what I’m talking about you would probably prefer I talk about this record. OK, fine.

How I Came To Know It: I first heard about Caroline Rose through this record and I’ve been a fan ever since. Problem is, I don’t remember how I discovered this record. In my defence, that was twelve years – and a lot of records – in my past. I have a recollection of a stop-motion animation video for “Blood on Your Bootheels” but you think I could find it on Youtube? Reader, I could not.

A deeper Google search suggested the video was made with stop-motion Skittles so maybe it was a copyright thing. Too bad – it was a cool video…but the music’s what matters, and I’ve got that.

How It Stacks Up: I have four of Caroline Rose’s six studio albums (I still haven’t found 2012’s “America Religious” and I haven’t gotten around to buying 2025’s “Year of the Slug”). Of the four I do have, I put “I Will Not Be Afraid” in at #2. I originally had reserved top spot for it, but looking back I think 2018’s “Loner” (reviewed at Disc 1181) is top dog.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

As an artist Caroline Rose does what she wants how she wants. This creates a lot of different albums, and some may appeal to you more than others. I expect she is fine with that. “I Will Not Be Afraid” is relatively early in her career, and that “do what I want” vibe is in full flight. It is mostly welcome, generating a lot of different styles and approaches to her music. There are occasions where it gets a bit unfocused as a result, but I don’t mind, and Rose wouldn’t care if I did.

You’ll find pop, country, rockabilly and folk elements all mixed in on “I Will Not Be Afraid”, as Rose tries on different ways to deliver her message with the thoughtful artistry of a veteran shopper in a vintage store.

The record opens with “Blood On Your Bootheels”. This was the song that introduced me to Rose, and over a decade later it holds up well. It features a heavy and infectious bass line, mixing rockabilly beat with a Vaudeville vibe and a rapid-fire spoken-word delivery. The song has a lot of social commentary, but you may miss it on the first go around. First, because Rose’s delivery is lightning-fast, and second because the song is so catchy you as just as likely to dance around with the energy of it all, rather than playing the critic. I enjoy it both ways.

She follows this up with one of the more country songs on the record, “Tightrope Walker”. Here she sings in a stye reminiscent of Lone Justice’s Maria McKee, with a bit less twang and a bit more soul. Never content with a single genre, you’ll get a circus-style organ mixed in just in case the song might get too country.

And on you’ll go in this way through this delightful record, as Rose stretches her creative wings. It sometimes feels like she has so many ideas and images to express that she’s rushing herself, but it is planned.

Sometimes the style is very evocative of something else you heard (“Red Bikini Waltz” is a straight line to sixties Dylan) but she does it with love - not theft - in mind, and besides, it isn’t like Bob isn’t the only artist to ever sing lines like “But it don’t matter none” in a folksy and wise kind of way. Also, Rose’s exploration of an image and consumer obsessed society would’ve made young Bob proud.

There are times when Rose leads me to a place I don’t love. “At Midnight” is her running her spoken word wisdom through a heavy treatment of the blues. This one didn’t land for me, as I found her singing style a poor match for the approach. I expect each listener to this record will find a song that won’t be “their thing”. This was the one for me.

There aren’t many of those moments though, and I mostly sat in awe of Rose’s ability to navigate a lot of words and never lose emotional connection to the song.

The record ends with the title track. Ironically, this is the most “straight up” country sounding tune on the record, but by this point Rose has unflinchingly established she isn’t afraid to experiment. If anything the straight up approach to this song, full twang ‘n’ jump, is more of a victory lap on a record that stretches to its full length; no regrets, no backsies.

Best tracks: Blood On Your Bootheels, Tightrope Walker, Red Bikini Waltz, Time Spent Money Grow!, I Will Not Be Afraid

CD Odyssey Disc 1894: Hole

While I admire the nineties Seattle music scene (and have plenty of music from it) I never fell as hard for it as some of my peers. That’s the only excuse – a thin one at best – on why it took me so damned long to come around to Hole’s masterpiece, “Live Through This”. Glad to be catching up now.

Disc 1893 is… Live Through This

Artist: Hole

Year of Release: 1994

What’s up with the Cover? A now iconic image capturing the intersection of savagery and beauty that is a pageant.

How I Came To Know It: This album is kind of a Big Deal, so I knew about it for years, but never thought to buy it. This was foolish.

Fortunately, I belong to a club of music enthusiasts where we share our discoveries, and last year someone brought a song off of “Live Through This”. This caused me to investigate, recognize my previous oversight, and correct it on my next visit to the local record store.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Hole album, so it doesn’t stack up.

Ratings: 5 stars

Alternating between a sultry croon and a full-throated growls, “Live Through This” is consistent in one thing: it’s visceral rage. It’s the good kind of rage; targeted and thought-provoking. The kind that makes the listener confront society and all its ills and reconcile their place in that mess.

Grounded in the Seattle grunge sound, “Live Through This” sits at the nexus of punk and rock, with an undercurrent of pop-music hooks to help the medicine (which is often bitter) go down easier.

Like the album’s cover, this is a record about beauty with its mascara messy and running. Appearance and image – and the twisted way society can weaponize it – feature heavily throughout. On “Miss World” we see the inner turmoil and trauma of a pretty girl, and on “Asking For It” we have perhaps the greatest rebuke to that tired and petty sexual assault defence ever codified in music.

Courtney Love isn’t a multi-octave crooner, but she makes no claims to be. If anything, I think history has unfairly judged her vocals. She has a slightly-flat tone that matches well with her punk-style delivery. The slight disconnect, one half step away from pop, is a big part of what puts the sharp edges on these songs. When she’s singing quiet, she makes it sound dangerous. When she opens up into full metal growl she lifts the song up into the roiling angry storm that the lyrics call for.

The rest of the players are equally exceptional, with their skillful playing providing the platform from which Love can explore the space in the song without anything ever going off the rails- or going off the rails just enough.

Guitarist (and principle co-writer) Erik Erlandson is particularly notable, delivering rock grooves and metal crunch with equal skill. His guitar has a foreboding tone that matches the themes of the record well. On “Credit in the Straight World” there is even a hint of Buddy Holly lurking in there, under all that reverb.

On a tragic note, this record was the last for bassist Kristen Pfaff who would die of a heroin overdose shortly after recording at the young age of – you guess it – 27. Damn you once again, heroin. Damn you.

An unexpected discovery for me is “Jennifer’s Body” a song that is simultaneously about the attack on a woman’s body, and also her own inner disconnect from it. Is it a song of murder and mayhem, or just crippling self-doubt? Yes. It fits well with the 2009 movie of the same name. Not the same plot, but clearly with themes that (I think) are partially inspired by the song 15 years earlier.

There aren’t many records that can be this angry but still retain focus, but this record accomplishes it. It is a record that, like its title, isn’t just for listening, it’s for living through. You’ll be confronted with the inner demons of its creators but reflected back through the harsh lens of society that is one of the reasons they were possessed by those demons in the first place.

This is a winner of a record that took a while to find a home in my collection but will be getting a lot of playing time in the years to come.

Best tracks: all tracks

CD Odyssey Disc 1893: Okkervil River

With this review, it’ll be three 4-star albums in a row, opening me up to calls of “going soft”. I would remind you that I don’t review random albums, I review albums I’ve decided to buy. This tends to favourably skew the data.

Disc 1892 is… The Stage Names

Artist: Okkervil River

Year of Release: 2007

What’s up with the Cover? A stylized hand emerges from a lake or pond in front of a stylized sunset (sunrise?). Up close, this cover looks like it is coloured thread stitched artfully together to create a picture, which is pretty cool.

Not as cool as some random giant hand reaching out of a magic pond, though.

How I Came To Know It: I had literally forgotten and had to go back to my first Okkervil River review twelve years ago at Disc 575 for a refresher. Turns out, this band was featured in a folk magazine advert. I recall now it was for “I Am Very Far” (released in 2011) and which – strangely – I have still not reviewed.

Random is as random does, friend.

How It Stacks Up: Well, this is a fine pickle. I figured this one would land #2 or #3, but looking back I see I’ve left a place for it at #1. I gave #2 to “The Stand Ins” back at that Disc 575 review. I admit, it was close between them.

I am correcting that now, putting “Stand Ins” at #1, and “Stage Names” at #2. Damn it, maybe I have gone soft…

Ratings: 4 Stars

As you might expect from a record I saved the #1 spot for, “The Stage Names” is a great Okkervil record, and the fact that it had one or two merely “okay” songs than I remembered does not diminish that. Sure it’s #2, but it is a burnished, filigree collection of silver, ornate and complex in its beauty.

If you’re just coming to Okkervil River, they are an indie rock band that features unlikely but seductive melodies that tend to take one or two more turns than you expect but always leave you in the right place.

This musical approach is highly compatible with the lead singer/songwriter Wil Sheff’s and phrasing. Sheff can take freeform poetry and twist it into lyrics that pirouette their way through the song. It feels a bit breathless at times, and is akin to taking one or two in-time dance steps after the music ends. A little awkward, but fully commit to it and…its art.

“The Stage Names” has some of the Sheff’s finest songwriting, starting with the awkwardly titled “Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe”. The imagery in “Our Life…” matches Sheff’s vocal delivery, slightly manic, and jumping from image to another. Best stanza:

“Where the lock that you locked in the suite
Says there's no prying
When the breath that you breathed in the street
Screams there's no science
When you look how you looked then to me
Then I cease lying and fall into silence”

Like most Okkervil River songs, these seemingly disparate images are stitched together like the cover art into something grander, in this case various allusions to film making and how they are like the editing process in a movie. A lot of scenes along the way that we later infuse meaning and purpose into.

When the band is hitting, they are chock-full of these “a-ha” moments that make you feel clever, as though you came up with it. They always walk that line of “too clever by half” but on this record they are on the right side of it a good majority of the time.

My other favourite is “A Girl In Port” a stripped-down tune that is a blend of urban-Gothic and seafaring imagery fused together into a romance that will melt you into a puddle of yearning. Most romances are about a single girl, but this one features many, each filling and emptying our restless narrator’s soul on his travels. There is no ill-will here, and as the chorus makes clear between each encounter:

“Let fall your soft and swaying skirt
Let fall your shoes, let fall your shirt
I'm not the lady-killing sort
Enough to hurt a girl in port”

Where there are some lapses are in the musical experimentation. The music is built to be frantic and aggressive, and it works, but when they descend into sound effects, it could pull me out of the moment right when I was getting acclimated to the spin of it all.

“The Stage Names” is a record that can be beloved by young romantics and English Lit graduates alike (did I just repeat myself?). It also works for pretty much anyone who enjoys a little of the old yearn n’ pine, delivered poetically with a slightly tortured lilt.

Best tracks: Our Life Is Not a Movie Or Maybe, Savannah Smiles, Plus Ones, Girl In Port

CD Odyssey Disc 1892: Katie Gavin

This week my college football team, the University of Miami (aka “The U”) secured their spot in the National Championship game. The ‘Canes haven’t been in the big game since 2003 and haven’t won since 2001, so it is kind of a big deal.

But not for most people reading this, who came here for music not football. Apologies for this indulgence, Gentle Reader. We now return you to regularly scheduled programming.

Disc 1892 is… What a Relief

Artist: Katie Gavin

Year of Release: 2024

What’s up with the Cover? Katie in her bedroom. It is either laundry day or it should be, as the basket’s full, the bed littered with clothes, Katie is clearly out of clean pants at this point, and there’s a bra on the birdcage. That last item is not code or metaphor. There’s literally a bra on the birdcage.

Also…kitty! This cat is doing what every cat traditionally does on laundry day – sitting on the comforter so it is hard to get the sheets in the wash. Good job, kitty!

Less good is Katie’s decision to put the cat’s food dish right beside the aforementioned bird cage. In the NFL this would almost certainly be flagged for taunting. Then again, maybe by doing this Katie is letting the cat know, “hey, no need for budgi-cide, there’s a food source readily available right here that you don’t have to chase first.” Based on my extensive experience with cats, I do not believe this is a winning strategy.

How I Came To Know It: I am a fan of the band MUNA, where Gavin is the lead singer so when I heard she’d put out a solo record I decided to give it a shot.

How It Stacks Up: This is Katie Gavin’s only solo album, so it can’t stack up.

Ratings: 4 Stars

Welcome to another episode of Thoughtful Indie Pop on the CD Odyssey, as we unveil yet another example of an artist you likely won’t hear on the radio despite penning both pretty melodies and engaging and thought-provoking lyrics. Pop radio, you are stupid.

“What a Relief” sees a confident Katie Gavin emerge from her role in MUNA to show that she can go it alone and make music that is just as compelling, catchy and clever as her work in her band. The songs focus heavily on relationships, finding romance and in the daily routines of coupledom. Gavin blurs the line between sexy and domestic in a way you don’t often see (most songs veer one way or another).

“I Want it All” and “Aftertaste” lead off the record walking this line, the former a moody submerged piece, and the latter an upbeat and bouncy pop ditty. Both have lyrical depth, exploring complex emotions, and heaps of relationship history in equal measure. These songs get better with multiple listens, which is always the sign off a good song, and an essential element to pop music in particular.

While fundamentally pop in its structure, the album has a folk/country flavour in many places, often helped along by the addition of Sarah Watkins (Watkins Family) guesting in on fiddle.

A fine example of this - and one of the record’s standouts – is “The Baton”. This song is about mothers and daughters and while the theme is old and well established (the ‘handing of the baton’ through generations) this song does an exceptional job of it. Buoyed by tight harmonies and Watkins’ fiddle (hint: she is very good at the fiddle) this song will give you a tapestry of emotion, rolled together into something celebratory and uplifting.

Gavin’s influences are wide, and in addition to demonstrating strong literacy in country and folk movements, I heard a strong echo of Sarah McLachlan, particularly on moody love pieces like “As Good As It Gets”. I also heard a little Taylor Swift in the phrasing and structure of “Inconsolable”.

“Inconsolable” is one of the record’s best both musically and lyrically. Gavin’s vocals aren’t as rich as Swift’s but she has a breathy charm and a sneaky power similar to Samia (another artist you should be looking up, if you’ve read this far). The song is about two people learning to be vulnerable despite not being taught these skills growing up. The extended chorus says it all:

“We're from a long line of people we'd describe as inconsolable
We don't know how to be helped
Yeah, we're from a whole huddle of households
Full of beds where nobody cuddled
We don't know how to be held
But I've seen baby lizards running in the river when they open their eyes
Even though no one taught them how or why
So maybe when you kiss me, I can let you see me cry
And if we keep going by the feeling, we can get by”

Hey – if lizards can do it surely we can, right?

The record is not perfect. The jazzy elements on “Sanitized Girl” pulled me out of the moment just to be clever, which is a pop no-no. It’s a minor quibble though and is more about my personal biases than anything fundamentally wrong with the song.

Note that while I said this is Gavin’s solo effort (and it is) fellow MUNA member Josette Maskin appears on over half the songs, playing guitar, bouzouki and something called a ‘tamburica’ which the internet tells me is a form of lute originating in the Balkans. She does not play these at the same time, of course. That would be very hard.

When I started listening to this record, I had it pegged early for a 3-star review, but through the course of the week it just got better and better, as I took in the layers of what Gavin accomplishes here, and liked it more and more. This one’s a winner.

Best tracks: Aftertaste, The Baton, Casual Drug Use, Sketches, Inconsolable, Sparrow

CD Odyssey Disc 1891: Bat Fangs

Happy New Year! For our first review of 2026 we take you back in time to a classic era of rock and roll…2018! Any era of rock and roll can be a classic one if you find the right record.

Disc 1891 is… Self-Titled

Artist: Bat Fangs

Year of Release: 2018

What’s up with the Cover? A kick ass logo, that’s what. This is the kind of logo you should painstakingly draw on the front of your notebook while sitting through Algebra.

This is a good time to note that back in high school I did not do well in Algebra.

How I Came To Know It: I am a fan of Ex Hex (see my review of their 2014 album “Rips” back at Disc 1332) so when I discovered that Ex Hexer Betsy Wright was in another band, I had to check it out. Unsurprisingly, I loved it.

How It Stacks Up: I have both Bat Fangs albums and they are both awesome, but this section is where we avoid equivocation. I rank this eponymous record second, but there’s no shame in it.

Ratings: 4 Stars

Do you like crunchy guitar riffs? Because if you do, you will get your fill of them on Bat Fangs’ debut record. Halfway through you may even think you’ll have had your fill, but you will be wrong. Instead, you will embrace the doubling down of reverberating goodness that is this not-so-hidden treasure of this band.

Bat Fangs is only two people (guitarist/vocalist Betsy Wright and drummer Laura King) but they have a White Stripes-like ability to make a joyous racket worth twice as many rockers. There is a weight to the way this duo plays that coats every song in a thick rime of sound.

Earlier this week I was listening to some Joan Jett and the playing style of Wright reminded me favourably of Jett’s. Wright’s playing is controlled aggression, the hip-thrust groove of timeless (yet somehow brand new) riff structures paired up with bit-lip vocals that are playful in the same way a middle linebacker is playful when he puts his helmet in your chest.

While Bat Fangs is definitely hard-edged, there is a pop sensibility underneath that had me thinking of sixties vocal groups. They are often singing in close unison, and there is a vibrant bounce in the songs that is a little bit “My Boyfriend’s Back” but with a sharper edge. Like if the boyfriend is only back to fearfully collect all his belongings from where they’ve been strewn across the lawn and then clear out before he gets hit with a bottle.

On their second album, Bat Fangs mixes in some atmospheric sounds and other variations on their sound, but here on their debut they eschew any range in favour of power. From the opening notes of the aptly named “Turn It Up” the record launches you forward. It is banger after banger.

Right near the end there is one slightly slower (but still heavy) tune (“Mercury”) that sways just a little to start with, but it only lasts maybe 90 seconds before it starts to inexorably bare its fangs with a spiraling, ever-heavier resolution.

While the sensibility here has punk elements (the record is in, on, and over in 25 minutes), Bat Fangs finds their inspiration more directly in the hard rock of the seventies and eighties. There isn’t anything frantic about the way they play. Instead, the band sits right down in the middle of the pocket and gets comfortable there. If there’s any lean at all, it is slightly back in the saddle so the note can churn just a little longer.

On a lesser record, this single-minded focus might get tiresome, but the songs are consistently excellent, and that mid-range production doubles down in a way that lets every song bleed to the edges in just the right way. Besides, at 25 minutes long there just isn’t time to let your mind wander. It’s over before you know it and you just want to hear it again.

Bat Fangs is two women who clearly love rock and roll and know how to make the good kind. This is music for fast Camaros (the first-generation variety) that growl just for the joy of it. No frills, because no frills are needed. It is music for playing loud, with hair down and horns up.  

Best tracks: Turn it Up, Rock the Reaper, Bad Astrology, Wolfbite, Fangs Out

CD Odyssey Disc 1890: Dr. Hook

I hunted this next album out of the bargain bin of my local record store. One advantage of collecting music on what many consider to be an outdated format (CD) is that people are always shedding their old stuff.

Disc 1890 is… Sharing the Night Together and Other Favorites

Artist: Dr. Hook

Year of Release: 1989 but featuring songs from 1975 to 1979

What’s up with the Cover? A picture of the band, who either just moved into a recently renovated apartment, or are at a photography studio.

Either way, these guys do not look like they are about to share the night together, although some look like they didn’t go to bed.

How I Came To Know It: I grew up with a lot of these songs, and noting exactly zero crossovers with a different compilation already in my collection, decided it was worth the small investment.

How It Stacks Up: This is a compilation album, and so doesn’t stack up.

Ratings: Greatest Hits records don’t get rated, so if you want to know what I think about this one, you’ll have to read the article.

I know most of the songs on “Sharing the Night Together” due to being strapped into the back seat of my mom’s early sixties pale blue Rambler as a kid. The car and the hit-making prowess of Dr. Hook had a similar run for me through the early and mid-seventies, before both faded into obscurity. The car, after it broke down and we couldn’t afford to fix it, and Dr. Hook for what I assume are similar reasons.

This particular compilation is a collection of later songs and comes after Dr. Hook dropped the “and the Medicine Show” part of their title. Both albums feature songs about sex, drugs and rock and roll, but this later compilation has less of the middle topic, making dropping the ‘medicine show’ understandable.

Whatever the topic, Dr. Hook is well-named, as these songs are soft rock gold, and there is no going gold in the world of soft rock without a hook. These tunes have the inoffensive easy flow of radio-friendly music, with only a safe hint of danger. Are they talking about sex and drugs…on the radio?!? Why yes, they are, but they’re doing it softly, so your parents won’t mind (also they’re the ones tuning it in on the drive to the grocery store).

Let’s start with the sex, which is referenced plenty on this record. The opening track is “Sexy Eyes” which is about meeting a woman at the local disco/dance hall/honky tonk with a certain look in her eyes crossing the room toward our narrator. Based on the groove of the song, I’d suggest disco is the most likely scenario. The song has a mid-tempo funky guitar and the high prancing of an organ filling in for a jazz flute that would have felt equally at home.

The song is built for dancing at all three speeds: 1. A thin bit of air between partners, with plenty of tease in the hips 2. Hands on hips or shoulders, replete with sway and meaningful glances, and 3. Legal in public because your pants are still on. Pick your contact level based on whatever is mutually agreed.

The mid-to-late seventies was the era of free love and fun times, minus the idealism of the sixties, and Dr. Hook has all of the outcomes covered. Maybe that dance number from “Sexy Eyes” turns into the playful “Sharing the Night Together,” with an invite home, complete with sexy whispers and promises of “we could bring in the morning, girl/if you want to go that far”.

Or maybe it turns sour, as on “When You’re In Love With a Beautiful Woman” which sees the world through the sad, jealous eyes of some mistrusting joker with low self-esteem, worried that ‘his’ girl’s previously sexy eyes have become prone to wandering. Counterpoint: maybe she’s just tired of dating a guy who is always asking what she’s looking at or who was just on the phone.

And it is here where the record has a bit of an “ick” factor (or “of its time” if you are feeling charitable), because for all the sexual liberation inherent in a Dr. Hook song, there are moments where these tunes show their age. Worst of all is “If Not You” where our singer, opens with:

“Who's gonna water my plants?
Who's gonna patch my pants?
And who's gonna give me
The chance to feel brand new?”

Um…yuck.

OK, on to the drugs and partying, and the album has a couple of fine entries in Dr. Hook’s previous party songs (think “Cover of the Rolling Stone”, “Freaking at the Freaker’s Ball”). On this compilation we have “The Millionaire” a song about a guy without a lot going for him other than the inheritance of a rich uncle, and my personal favourite, “I Got Stoned and I Missed It” - the original version of Afro-Man’s “Because I Got High” only funnier with a better hook.

Before I exit, I should note that Dr. Hook is not all sex and novelty songs, and there are genuine moments of emotional resonance. The best is “A Couple More Years”. This heartfelt tune is cowritten by lead singer Dennis Locorriere and long-time Dr. Hook contributor/writer Shel Silverstein.

This song is a world-weary expression of sadness, experience and comfort, all balled together. I first discussed this song back at Disc 1653 when I reviewed a cover of it on Waylon Jennings’ album, “Are You Ready for the Country”. It isn’t often you can out-vocal ole Waylon, but but there is something about the high quaver in Locorriere’s voice that takes this song to the next level.

This record is a good way to explore a little of the latter half of Dr. Hook’s heyday. You’ll find a little groove, a little sway, a few solid pop hooks and generally (but not always) inoffensive rock and roll.

Best tracks: Sexy Eyes, A Couple More Years, When You’re In Love With a Beautiful Woman, The Millionaire, I Got Stoned and I Missed It

CD Odyssey Disc 1889: Sleater-Kinney

Merry Christmas! I am writing this sitting in a pair of cream-coloured pajamas and a gold robe (both vintage), feeling quite decadent. I hope you are having an equally sumptuous and relaxed holiday. Perhaps as part of your routine you would like to enjoy a small dose of musical criticism. If so, consider this my Christmas gift to you.

Disc 1889 is… Dig Me Out

Artist: Sleater-Kinney

Year of Release: 1997

What’s up with the Cover? The band pays homage to the Kinks’ album, “The Kink Kontroversy” (thank you Internet, as I did not know this independently).

Rather than going on about that thing I learned without effort, let us reflect on the amateur photography of 1997. 1997 was relatively early for digital camera availability, so I suspect these were film photos that were developed.

The downside to film was that you only got about 20 photos, good or bad. As a result a lot of photos have the quality of the ones on this album cover, which look overexposed (no post-photo editing) and glary.

How I Came To Know It: I knew about Sleater-Kinney back in the day, but didn’t really dig into their music until later. I had a feeling I would like what I heard, and I was right. “Dig Me Out” was just one of a flurry of purchases I made in recent years to round out my collection of this awesome band.

How It Stacks Up: I have six Sleater-Kinney albums. I originally ranked 2019’s “The Center Won’t Hold” (Disc 1294) as #1 and reserved the #2 slot for “Dig Me Out”. But the truth is that the two records are both perfect, and so different from one another it is impossible to compare them. They are both #1, but I don’t allow this, so I am going to give “Dig Me Out” precedence and move it up to top slot.

Ratings: 5 stars

“Dig Me Out’s” immediate impact is a visceral one. This record shrieks at you with a defiant call from the peaks of rock and roll. This is music for scaring your mom and make your dad harrumph in disapproval (n.b. dad was also scared but harrumphed to mask his discomfort).

The vocal style is pure punk and the brassy back-throat snarl of Corin Tucker rings out like a war cry across a roiling plain of battle. Brownstein’s vocals are a calmer counterpunch to this battery, but no less emotive. Together, the pair sonically slap you until they’re sure you’re paying attention. Then they slap you one extra time because…rock and roll.

While the vocals are the easy access point, there is a LOT going on with “Dig Me Out”. The individual instruments, if played in isolation, would feel stark and incomplete. It’s the artful way the trio play together that creates something special. A couple of simple guitar riffs that mixed together create a layer of syncopation and aggression that let you know there is a lot more going on here than the chord or two of your average punk song.

Now insert Janet Weiss on drums, pounding out a panoply of beats that are sneaky creative, and you end up with a record that can be enjoyed for its technical excellence, its creative songwriting, or just for thrashing your hair around angrily when life irritates you.

A timely disclaimer amidst the hyperbole here. Life will still irritate you after the experience but a listen to “Dig Me Out” will make you feel better, if for no other reason than providing a voice and outlet for the irritation.

Like the music, the lyrics lead with the visceral, and then dig down into something more profound after they settle. The title track is born of a frustration so deep the singer wants to tear themselves out of their own skin.

Other songs are grounded in the wellspring of desire, drama, or even dance, with each expressed in the key of measured rage. On “Words and Guitar” the emotion is so overpowering all that can be expressed is words and guitar, rendered down to their Platonic ideals. Words and guitar are just words and guitar, and the music and delivery will tell you everything you need to know of their importance beyond that.

On “Little Babies”, Sleater-Kinney even bend old sixties pop forms to their will, twisting radio friendly arrangements and images of domesticity into something gritty and powerful.

“Dig Me Out” is like being buried in a fine ash. It catches in your throat, hot and gritty, but look a little further and you’ll see the source – an erupting volcano in the distance, all beautiful fury in shades of yellow, orange and red.

Great stuff from a great band that has changed their sound over the years but never stopped climbing the mountain of awesome. “Dig Me Out” is them at the peak.

Best tracks: All tracks

CD Odyssey Disc 1888: Mean Mary

Welcome back to the CD Odyssey, where for the second review in a row we have a talented woman with a warble in her voice. A Creative Maelstrom – now with twice the warble!

Disc 1888 is… Portrait of a Woman (Part 1)

Artist: Mean Mary

Year of Release: 2022

What’s up with the Cover? A lovely portrait of Mary James (aka Mean Mary), courtesy of artist Roselin Estephania.

James appears happy in this photo, although she may not yet realize she is under a butterfly attack. Don’t concern yourself. Butterfly attacks are rarely lethal and besides the back cover of the album has a cat batting at the butterfly, so help is on the way...

How I Came To Know It: I learned about Mean Mary through her 2024 album, “Woman Creature (Portrait of a Woman Pt. 2)” (reviewed back at Disc 1796) and I have since dived deep into her collection. “Portrait of a Woman, Part 1” comes from that.

How It Stacks Up: I now have six Mean Mary albums (and I’m on the hunt for two more). Of the six I already have, I put “Portrait of a Woman, Pt. 1” in at #6, which promotes “Blazing: Hell is Naked” up to #5 in the process.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

Mean Mary is one of the greatest discoveries in my musical journey in many years, and I dove into “Portrait of a Woman, Part 1” with joy in my heart and anticipation of greatness. In the end, it falls short of greatness but still lands a solid record from an artist who doesn’t make bad ones.

If you are new to Mean Mary, she’s a singer-songwriter with a birdlike warble to her voice, and magic in her banjo-pickin’ fingers. While she sings about plenty of modern experiences, Mean Mary is an old soul, and thing will feel very ‘old timey’ throughout. If you don’t like folk music, and prefer things slathered in pop post-production trickery and a lot of instruments that require electricity to work, then this may not be for you. This is folk music for folksters, made without apology.

Things start with Mary’s talent on the banjo, which is considerable. Her playing is bright and sunny even by banjo standards. Expect these songs to put a jump in your step. Witness the delightfully merry instrumental “Merry Eyes”, a mid-tempo meander which will give your cockles a good warming.

Later in the record Mary will double down on the virtuosity, with a fiddle instrumental called “Butterfly Sky” where she channels her inner Scot with a heavy but precise action on the bow that summons up hints of Charlie McKerron and John Morris Rankin. As someone who can barely find 10 chords on a guitar, the idea that someone like Mean Mary can shift styles and instruments with such easy grace is even more impressive.

Every Mean Mary has at least one narrative gem, and on “Portrait…” that song is “Cranberry Gown”. It tells the story of a woman who purchases a beautiful dress but falls on hard times and has to sell it. Years later she finds a replacement dress in a thrift store that rekindles all the same magic. The dress lifts her spirits to the point that even on days when she goes casual (not every occasion calls for a cranberry gown).

The song reminds us of the power of art and expression to lift us not just in the moment of creative discovery, but for months after. It is a song about a dress, and about so much more than a dress. It is one of the finest songs Mean Mary (and brother Frank) have ever written.

Unfortunately, it is followed immediately by “Bridge Out” which wants to be a whimsical road trip but feels more like an indulgent moment at the open mic. Brother Frank’s vocal additions are hokey and often include affectations a drunk uncle might think are funny but are actually just awkward. Mean Mary’s usually delightfully warbles get drawn into her sibling’s overacting and create…a mess. The banjo playing is as sublime as ever, but even that can’t rescue this one. It’s the exception that proves the rule of Mary’s excellence.

For a better road trip song on the record, Mary provides us “Big Tour Bus” a song about being a struggling artist dreaming of having a big tour bus, ideally with a driver so you can sleep between gigs. It has all the same whimsy and light-hearted observational intent of “Bridge Out” but unlike that song, this one works. A stripped-down version of this song appears on Mary’s 2020 album “Alone” and while the “full band version” here doesn’t add a lot, I like the song enough that I was happy to hear it two different ways.

“Old Banjo” is also a delightful song, one of several where Mean Mary revels in an instrument that she knows well. “Old Banjo” has the feel of an ancient adventure. It’s a song you can imagine a medieval bard playing as he walks from town to town. The lyrics are festooned with heroes and kings that serve as metaphors for the singer’s relationship to their instrument.

Like every Mean Mary record I’ve heard, “Portrait of a Woman (Part One)” is a celebration of Mary James’ deep and abiding love of music. Her voice is a joyous birdsong, and her fingers on the banjo are well-travelled country roads to the happier places in your heart. If you want an introduction to Mean Mary, I would go out of order and start with 2024’s “Woman Creature” (Portrait of a Woman, Part 2)” but there is still plenty to recommend the prequel. If we cancel out the brilliance of “Cranberry Gown” and the indulgence of “Bridge Out” we still find ourselves with a fine sampling of her work.

Best tracks: Cranberry Gown, Merry Eyes, Big Tour Bus, Old Banjo

CD Odyssey Disc 1887: Grace Cummings

Despite a very busy schedule at work, today I began some much-needed holidays. I’ll be doing a bit of shopping, and some chores I never get to because they require a free weekday. Before that, however, let’s give the people what they want. If you’ve come here, that would be a music review.

Disc 1887 is… Refuge Cove

Artist: Grace Cummings

Year of Release: 2019

What’s up with the Cover? Cummings looks like a starlet from Hollywood’s golden age as she smokes a cigarette and thinks about passion, the fleeting nature of mortality and just where in this Goddamn town you can get a passable Gin Rickey.

How I Came To Know It: I heard about Grace Cummings through her 2022 album “Storm Queen” which was also my #1 album of 2022 (for the full list click here).

“Refuge Cove” was impossible to find on CD so finally I broke down and downloaded it from Bandcamp.

How It Stacks Up: I have three Grace Cumming albums and they are all awesome. “Refuge Cove” comes in at #2. This being the final album in my collection (for now) here’s a full recap:

1. Storm Queen: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 1573)
2. Refuge Cove: 5 stars (reviewed right here)
3. Ramona: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1768)

Ratings: 5 stars

Every once in a while you encounter a voice that is so compelling, so majestic and otherworldly, that it pushes all other things away and demands your soul’s full attention. Grace Cummings has this voice. It helps that she’s also an exceptional songwriter meaning her songs also have something to say.

Cummings does folk music in the style of early Bob Dylan, when he’s at his most melodic. She paints pictures with her words that are grounded in unexpected imagery and big thoughts distilled down to simple truths. She has a bit more classical and jazz in the undercurrents of the writing than Dylan’s folk revival style, but the fact that you can mention her in the same sentence as a Nobel prize winner for literature should give you an idea of the talent.

As for the vocals, they are beautiful, but it won’t be what you expect. It is the vocal of a tortured ghost, a grieving angel, an open wound. It pours out off her in a way that feels almost involuntary, a low warble that coats each word it sings with a vibrant imminence. Once in a while she injects hurtful growl of a wounded beast, vulnerable and dangerous, but mostly it is just a deep emotional connection to every moment, every note.

I imagine some hearing Cummings approach to phrasing and melody might find it an acquired taste, something powerful and unexpected that might take a bit of listening to fall into. I would suggest that if you don’t fall into this stuff immediately then you need to lower your guard a little and let the feelings shine in. Do that with Cummings, and you’ll be immediately infused with the power of her testimony. If you’re driving when it happens, try to keep the car on the road.

The record starts with “The Look You Gave”. When I heard this song for the first time – having heard nothing else on the record – I knew I would fall hard for “Refuge Cove.” The power and majesty of Cummings’ vocals are a big part of it, but her ability to paint the devastation of a lover’s once warm glance turned cold - that shit hits hard all on its own.

Cummings poetry is clear, concise and rich with imagery. Sometimes it is an immediate thrill of discovery (“I need to swim in an ocean/as cold as the look you gave”) and other times it takes a bit of digging, like references to Paul Gachet. Turns out Gachet was Van Gogh’s physician assisting him during his struggles with madness. Cummings sees Gachet’s face in a spot on her ceiling. There’s a lot of layers to that onion, and they’re fun to discover.

On “The Other Side” Cummings muses about how to recover from a bad bout of musing. It is a song for all of us that have ever day-dreamed darkly, ever had visions of doubt and uncertainty, and a lesson in how to return. Midway through the song, Cummings encounters the assistance of ancient wisdom:

“Athena looks down and she
Begs you with reason
To hold your grief with you
In your hands for a while
There's no use for stillness
For the world keeps turning
It'll shake you and throw
Your feet off the wire

"To get you out of your slumber
Get you out and on the other side”

It's a stanza that pushes you off that tightrope dancing, and back to the crowd, but does it in a way that lets you know you’ll go back when you need to.

As for the music, the album is sparse with the arrangements, mostly just acoustic guitar strums and piano bits. Don’t expect a bunch of solos or post-production hijinks here. Cummings doesn’t need that stuff. She’s got everything she needs in her head and her lungs. It’s our job to open our hearts and bear witness as it bursts out of her.

Best tracks: all tracks

CD Odyssey Disc 1886: Ted Hawkins

For the second straight review we get an album released in 1982. How can this happen, you ask? In the case of the CD Odyssey…randomly.

Disc 1886 is… Watch Your Step

Artist: Ted Hawkins

Year of Release: 1982

What’s up with the Cover? Ted poses outside of what looks like a prison complex. Possibly this is inside such a complex, as Hawkins was in state custody when this record came out.

How I Came To Know It: One of my musically inclined buddies brought this to my attention one night while we were all listening to music. I wrote it down but forgot I had done so for about a year (I am still getting used to using Notes on my phone instead of scraps of paper).

A year later, I found the note, but not only could I not remember who of the half dozen folks who were over that night had brought it around, neither could they.  Whoever it was, thanks. Shortly after rediscovering my notes, I went out and bought this record at the local record store.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Ted Hawkins album so it can’t stack up.

Ratings: 4 stars

Ted Hawkins is not afraid to walk dark paths, whether they are dodgy late night back alleys, or the even darker paths of the human heart. His music frequently features stark topics, that is filled with a warmth that invites you in to share the comfort of human companionship amidst the devastation.

Hawkins’ style defies genres, sitting somewhere at the nexus of soul, blues and folk. Most songs are accompanied by basic guitar strumming that is played in time and with feeling, but that won’t amaze you with technical skill.

His voice is similarly unadorned, with a natural weariness to it that sounds like Otis Redding if Otis was tired and maybe a little hungry. It’s a bit pale and wan, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that Hawkins isn’t compelling. His high and airy quaver instantly draws you in and sits you down at the kitchen table of his soul.

Like any good kitchen table, Hawkins’ songs can fill you up when you’re empty, but they can also be the place where hard topics are explored and challenged late into the evening. It’s the place where every gathering begins and ends, and where the most down-to-earth honest conversations occur. That’s a Ted Hawkins song.

The record’s title track is a fine example of hard conversations, as a not terribly sensitive man warns his wayward woman to “watch her step”. If that sounds like it’s laden with uncomfortable threats, you’d be right. The way Hawkins navigates the space between a man’s jealous rage, helpless love and ill-placed bravado isn’t heroic, but it does create a compelling character study. The song has a restless energy that approaches frantic, leaving the listener to feel the narrator’s quickening desire, but also the discomfort of rising emotion that could turn despondent or violent on a dime.

“The Lost Ones” is a song of young children suffering in abject poverty, with one parent sick and the other absent or dead. Hawkins’ high plaintive tone is the perfect vehicle for the anguish of kids without hope. The song expands the failure of the individual family into a general comment about the breakdown of social order all around them:

“I'd call the neighbors but I don't even know their names
They've lived there ten years, oh, ain't that a shame?
Don't think they'd help us even if I asked them to
We are the lost ones seeking help from you”

In this moment we mentally pan out from the plight of the children to the greater environment. I’ve known some bad neighbourhoods, but never one so bad you couldn’t go next door to get some help when you really needed it.

My favourite song on the record is “Sorry You’re Sick”. You realize early on that this isn’t the kind of sick you can ward off with a flu shot. It’s next level sickness, maybe alcohol withdrawal, or more likely something stronger still.

Here, our narrator is out to help his girl who is dope sick with withdrawal. The song’s beat is jaunty and upbeat, but you get the quick impression that the cure proposed (something from the liquor store) is more of a stop-gap for a deeper need. “Sorry You’re Sick” is vintage Hawkins, romantic and tragic in equal measure. It also features the finest vocal performance on the record, showing off a high near-falsetto that ably captures the keening of a soul in need of feeding a bad habit.

It's a testament to Hawkins’ talent as both a singer and a songwriter that he can explore so many bad choices and still sound hopeful and romantic. He’s broken in a dozen places, but there’s light shining out of the cracks that leaves us all a little sadder and wiser.

Best tracks: Bring it Home Daddy, If You Love Me, Don’t Lose Your Cool, The Lost Ones, Sorry You’re Sick, Watch Your Step (band version), I Gave Up All I Had