LOVE IT: ALO - Man Of The World.

Animal Liberation Orchestra (ALO) needs to get famous already. It’s frustrating to see a band with this much potential sucked under the industry rug by underexposure. Hopefully, the third release of the self-acknowledged funkateers, 2010’s Man of the World, will find ALO reaping the rewards they deserve.


The opening and closing tracks of Man of the World are a rip-roarin’ good time – full of playful harmonies and sing-a-longs that often come off as a sort of Wilco-Wallflowers-Moody Blues jam party. But somewhere in the middle, the songs take a introspective turn, as if the guys were having a grand old time until someone got hurt and made them briefly re-evaluate their songwriting priorities. These four lush tracks will likely land on your “Meditative Road Trip Playlist.”

ALO is signed to Jack Johnson’s Hawaii-based Brushfire Records, so ample doses of indie sunshine are a given. All four members take turns on lead vocals, and they genre-jump from one multi-layered song to the next, touching on piano pop, reggae-blues-funk, down-home folk and more. This dexterity speaks volumes about their musical range without ever becoming distracting. And Johnson’s subtle co-production influence can be heard, especially as when makes a guest appearance the intimately sparse “Gardener’s Grave.”

While more structured than previous ALO albums, Man of the World is still essentially the fruit of a jam band, a spontaneous musical birth that must must be jaw-droppingly incredible to experience live.

ALO has a spark of uniqueness missing in so much of today’s music, and Man of the World is a must-have. As they’re about to riff-off on an instrumental jam in “The Champ,” they all yell, “Listen to my band!” And you’ll want to.

LOVE IT: Ian Axel - This Is The New Year.

There is no such thing as a perfect album. But Ian Axel’s debut, This is the New Year, comes pretty doggone close. I haven’t loved an entire album this much since I discovered Harry Nilsson’s 1971 life-changer, Nilsson Schmilsson. Along the same notes as that legendary whiz, Axel tinkers and pounds on his piano keys, and sings about waltzing ghosts and life’s simple pleasures.


Axel’s astonishing talent has been too long hidden in the underground of NYC’s Lower East Side, too long hoarded by those lucky enough to frequent his intimate, Ben Folds-esque performances around the city. This man needs some national love, pronto!

Like the power poppers who paved the way before him, most of Axel’s New Year is predominately piano-driven. What sets Axel apart is his constant experimentation with pop-rooted melodies. Track by track, he fluctuates from sassiness to sincerity with foot-stomping porch-party jigs, touching instrumental waltzes that will shred your heart into confetti, and sweeping sing-a-longs akin to the Dresden Doll’s self-described “Brechtian punk cabaret” (minus the masochistic lyrics and screaming).

When the album’s titular single was released as a free download on iTunes, I replayed it over and over again until I knew it by heart and was belting out the lyrics louder than my car stereo. Axel’s call to “say everything you’ve always wanted, be not afraid of who you really are…live for now” is so full of earnest optimism that you can’t help but get pumped up by the clean-slate possibilities of New Year’s Resolutions.

If it makes you gag to think of the sunny side of life, or of one man’s love of PB&J that’s so strong the sandwich makes it onto two tracks, steer clear of Axel’s music. But if you are a fan of witty and memorable power pop, your life will have been meaningless until you experience This Is the New Year. (Self-released January 5, 2010).

LOVE IT: Jason Derülo - Self-Titled.

Artists radiowide have re-embraced the time-honored boy band tradition of mixing catchy pop melodies with high-quality R&B vocal abilities. Apparently, someone out there has finally reached the shocking realization that holding the same note for three minutes isn’t talent. It’s boring. Singers who can’t sing are being thrust out of the spotlight (does anyone really miss Sean Paul?), and those award-worthy talents who might have a chance at winning are now taking their place on the charts.


Enter Jason Derülo. You may recognize him as the artist behind the Billboard-topping single, “Whatcha Say.” Read this review again in six months, and you and the whole world will know exactly why Derülo is going to be huge.

First, he collaborated with the great Imogen Heap to record the aforementioned song, which samples heavily from Heap’s own “Hide and Seek.” It’s a beautiful pop-meets-R&B synergistic experience and more than 2 million digital copies of the song have already been sold. Dare I predict stardom for Derülo and too-long-in-the-shadows Heap?

Second, his songs are instantly addictive, melodically rich and unforgettable in every way. No wonder 93.3 FLZ plays “In My Head” every 15 minutes.

Third, he convinces us that all those boy bands we grew up shamefully listening to with our Girl Scout friends actually had something, and that we shouldn’t be embarrassed about belting out a Backstreet Boys chorus or two even if we’re in our mid-20s. Maybe an actual melody, a legitimate set of pipes, an unapologetically glossy background track, and hip-shakin’ choreography are the way to go.

So next time you cringe about your time as an *NSYNC devotee, flip on the radio and you’ll see just how many people are loving pop/R&B hybrids. Emerging artists like Jason Derülo are the jumper cables to the battery of pop music. (Jason Derülo is due out March 2 via Beluga Heights)

LOVE IT: Matt Hires - Take Us To The Start.

The warm, breezy pop of Tampa native Matt Hires isn’t just something to hum along to on your way to the beach. Hires’s debut album, Take Us To The Start (F-Stop/Atlantic), is cleverly-crafted and interesting, full of sincerity and catchy melodies highlighted by his enveloping, gravelly tenor.

The album’s single, “Honey, Let Me Sing You A Song,” begins quietly then bursts into the chorus as Hires begs his lady not to run away, to listen to his words (as they come out wrong). It’s sweeping and expressive, but — as cute as Hires is — watching the completely unrelated music video kinda warps the experience. (Check it out after the jump.)

Maybe more recognizable to TV fans is “Perfect Day” and “Turn The Page,” songs featured on ABC’s Private Practice and Grey’s Anatomy. Like several artists “discovered” by TV shows, the exposure was likely just the break Hires needed to get recognized by someone important in the industry.

“You In The End” is as shimmery and mellow as would be expected from a tune co-written by Sara Bareilles, and her sultry soprano is a nice compliment to Hires’ own unique tenor.

“You Are The One” sounds suspiciously like a Tristan Prettyman number, the tinny drum beat and slow, bouncing guitar pleasantly identical to Prettyman’s style, seeming to scream, “Let’s sit on this dock ’til we run out of s’mores!”

The whistled beginning of “Out Of The Dark” sounds like a gang of banditos riding over a hill, and lyrics like “Have I been a sinner/A lover or killer…In these violent days/I only want to be where you are” prove I’m right. Hopefully his homesick hombre got home to his señorita.

Hires appears in his hometownd and offers two performances this time around — this Sunday, August 30 at Vinyl Fever, and the following Friday, September 4 at The Orpheum in Ybor. Be sure to experience this man’s talent live.

LOVE IT: Little Dragon - Dream Machines.

Electronica, ’80s pop, hip-hop, traditional Japanese music, jazz, salsa — Sweden’s Little Dragon draws from this mishmash of influences to create their own uniquely individual sound.

The foursome’s self-titled debut garnered them much praise and attention, and their follow-up, Machine Dreams (Peacefrog Records), is sure to extend their reach even further. A Japanese lead singer from Sweden singing in English? Can’t get much more globe-spanning than that.

Machine Dreams is a great model of how an album should be put together: an equal blend of upbeat and chill numbers that spotlight the band’s most worthy assets. In Little Dragon’s case, those assets are strange but memorable melodies and singer Yukimi Nagano’s soft yet arresting voice. She never sings far above a whisper, but it forces you stop what you’re doing and devote some attention to her music.

Frustratingly subtle nods to their influences abound and make the aural experience all the more satisfying when you finally recognize where you’ve heard that sound before. “Looking Glass” brings to mind The Police and Men At Work, “Fortune” can be best described as a 2009 take on a 1989 ballad, and “Feather” is straight-up “West End Girls” by Pet Shop Boys. The chimes on “Thunder Love” embrace Nagano’s Japanese roots, while songs like “Never Never” and “Come Home” reveal modern, beat-heavy songwriting.

Little Dragon is an undefinable band with unbelievable originality and style. Check them out.

LEAVE IT: Our Lady Peace - Burn Burn.

Four years after Healthy in Paranoid Times, Our Lady Peace finally returns with its follow-up and seventh studio album, Burn Burn. While the songs are technically perfect — glossy, melodic, radio-worthy — compared to the band’s earlier albums, Burn Burn seems more concerned with marketability than with cleverness and originality, a surprise considering the album’s an entirely independent release with no labels execs to please.


The first single, “All You Did Was Save My Life,” is standard upbeat pop-rock fun — if you block out the lyrics. Baffling lines like “You looked at me as you walked in the room / Like the Red Sea, you split me open / Somehow I knew these wings were stolen / All you did was save my life” leave me wondering whether vocalist Raine Maida’s sarcasm is for real, or if he’s genuinely appreciative of being saved by his pseudo-angel. The music video for the song, which features 90210’s Shenae Grimes being chased by her apparent savior, is even more perplexing.

(Embedding of the video has been disabled by request, but if you’re interested, check it out here: “All You Did Was Save My Life” video.)

None of the songs on Burn Burn are life-alterningly memorable, but some are pretty great. “Refuge,” “Dreamland,” “Escape Artist,” and “Monkey Brains” have earned their spots on my iPod. The rest of the album unfortunately falls by the wayside.

LEAVE IT: Crosby Loggins - Time To Move.

Delilah called. She wants her "Brokenhearted Boyfriend" radio playlist back.

Crosby son-of-Kenny Loggins will not be making music history any time soon. His debut album, Time to Move, was slickly produced to blend in with the Top 40 mainstream. There are a few pretty tunes here and there, but overall his attempt is uninventive and stale.

Loggins seems to be straining to find his niche. Varying from pseudo-country to power pop to minor-key diary entries, he never comes across as genuine. While bebopping about having a "Radio Heart," he affects his voice like BSB alum Nick Carter. Not exactly a role model for vocal control. And apparently having John Mayer as a guitar soloist on the title track wasn't a good idea, because Loggins practically stole Mayer's whole persona when he wrote "Heaven Help Me."

Based on Loggins's lackluster performance as he tries to convince someone that she is "Everything," I just don't think he'd know true love if it bit him in the pants and gave him rabies.

I love a tinkering honky tonk piano, but the 21-second snipet of cleverness on "You Want To Be With Me" isn't enough to give the song a second listen. Like most of the songs on this album, Loggins seems to be obsessed with letting some girl know she is stupid not to be with him because he's better than other guys and is a mess without her.

Wait, what? He's not a mess? He's not waiting on "Nobody No More," so maybe....oh, nope, he still is a mess. A country/Bossa Nova miasma strums along as he twangs about not going to the same bars and not having polished silver anymore because his lady moved on. Very upsetting, both for him and for the listener who hoped for more from the son of the legendary man with loose feet.

Loggins could have promise. He has technical skill and a pleasant voice, but unless he can hone his talents and decide on a more distinctive sound, he doesn't deserve to make it in The Biz.

LOVE IT: Moby - Wait For Me.

Moby has a rare gift. He doesn't seem capable of sucking at anything. Whether he's creating pulse-pounding beats or lulling melodies, the man has got skills. He's never been a huge name, which makes his artistic statement more genuine and impressive. He makes music because he feels something and wants the person putting on their headphones to feel it too. With Wait For Me, his ninth studio album, Moby is experimenting again, to mostly great effect. He said he set out to make "a really emotional, beautiful record." And succeed he has. The album is one big instrumental cloud of ethereal where-am-I-ness, like how it must feel trying to sprint on the Moon.


The way-too-short album opener, "Division," seems like it'd be right at home on a war movie soundtrack. A mass of strings swell emotively as cellos drag the melody along in the mud towards that Bright Light. It's touching and epic - just the kind of thing I'd expect to hear during the slow motion climax of a gruesome battle.

As "Shot In The Back Of The Head" begins, it sounds like it was recorded in some messy teenager's basement, slapped onto vinyl, then crunched around in a washing machine and laid out in the sun for a couple days, but at about 40 seconds, we're back to the studio for more synth glossiness. But I guess we should expect that kind of bipolar recording from a Moby experiment inspired by David Lynch.

"Stock Radio" is a stream of vibrating and swishing monotone nothingness, 50 seconds of "recording an old broken bakelite radio and running it through some broken old effects pedals to see what it would sound like." It's sometimes fun to see what artists do for fun, but this track is random and oddly placed on an album of personal, emotional melodies.

"Study War's" pacifist message is super timely and meaningful, and the tune is upliftingish, but five minutes of spoken repetition is no one's friend.

I have never tried to imagine what elevator music and a cathedral choir would sound like together. Thanks to "A Seated Night," now I don't have to. Interesting.

Moby simultaneously draws us in and shoves us away during Wait For Me. This confusion is slightly uncomfortable, yet refreshing in today's verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus style of songwriting. Moby was right: this is different, beautiful, emo stuff. Encompassing the listener with soothing and lilting swarms of sound, he definitely develops a mood. As soothing as the mood is, however, an hour of this synthy warmth and I'm mental putty. Don't listen to this at work or while operating heavy machinery.

LEAVE IT: Pete Yorn - Back & Fourth.

This is hard to say, but.... I'm disappointed in Pete Yorn. In the past he has composed some of the most hauntingly perfect tunes I've ever heard (Nightcrawler's "Ice Age," for one), but with his latest album, Back & Fourth, he displays little artistic growth or melodic diversity. And that is not the Yorn I know and love.


As I was listening to the album all the way through for the first time, I had to keep checking back with my CD player to make sure the tracks were progressing and that the album wasn't just one long song. Although he has decided to add a full backing band, each song is strangely like the one preceding it. One could say it's like listening to polka. With that genre it's all polka all the time. With Back & Fourth it's pretty much all moderate band-Americana all the time.

"Don't Wanny Cry," "Paradise Cove," "Close," "Social Development Dance," "Thinking of You," "Country," "Four Years," "Long Time Nothing New." Same song. Annoying.

"Shotgun" and "Last Summer" don't change up the tempo; they just add more drums to make them seem bigger. The album closer, "Rooftop," is a little more mild and cozy, but even it doesn't come close to a true ballad.

Where is the range and variety he used to show? Where is the rebel who experimented with instruments and styles? Where are the quiet who-am-I ballads, mysteriously discomforting political pieces, heartwrenching climactic choruses, and creative life-is-good melodies? I know artists are often known for a certain sound, but come on. Next time, Pete, show me what you got.

LOVE IT: Zee Avi - Zee Avi.

After days and days of humming her music and trying to place her sound, it finally came to me - she's the Malaysian Ingrid Michaelson!!



Plucked from the bowels of YouTube and brought to Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records, this woman has done more to make the ukulele cool again that anyone I've listened to. Her debut self-titled album has all the intimate and sweet imperfectness of homemade ice cream on a Florida summer day.

My personal favorite is "Monty" but every tune is catchy, light, and clever. Her strumming and whisper-singing is gentle and lulling. Definitely experience this CD.