AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Long-Road-Coming-Home-Alexander/dp/B07B12HXM4

You don’t have to be a music journalist to be able to know a good song when you hear one. Great music touches all of us exactly the same, no matter who we are, where we’re from or what we do for a living, and when a new artist is a genuine hit, everyone collectively knows it at the same time. I had never heard of Rob Alexander before listening to “All That’s Mine is Yours,” the third single from his debut album Long Road Coming Home, but the moment that I heard his voice embrace the warmth of a beautiful piano bit in the opening bars of the song, I knew I was listening to a legend in the making.

MP3 HIT: https://mp3hit.us/video/O2ghN53a_wQ/conceptz-ft-benny-blanco-splash

It’s a late night out on the town. The vibe won’t die and neither will the brightness of the stars lighting up the sky above us. The boys are going out to get some girls, and on this ride, it really pays to be a part of Conceptz’ posse. Highrowglyphfix and Short Fuze, the two brothers who comprise the Conceptz brand, are taking us out for a night that we’ll never forget and making big waves doing it in their new single “Splash,” which has got everyone in the hip-hop world abuzz with talk of their stylish, ultra-cool vocal attacks that create fireworks in any listener’s soul.

URL: https://www.avsupersunshine.com/

Pop music is changing and being shaped right now by a generation that refuses to limit itself to the archaic ways and means of its predecessors. Technology has provided a clear path for even the most modestly appointed artist to create kaleidoscopic melodies and sonic earthquakes that even as little as thirty years ago would have been completely impossible without a six figure recording budget. True, this is a renaissance for the DIY artist, but don’t be so quick to assume that this era isn’t rife with the same industrial politics that plagued the punk rock-inspired DIY revolution of the 1980s. There’s still a lot of games to play to get to the top of the heap in this business, and while some are willing to play along with the corruption, others are a little more fearless and devoted to their craft. AV Super Sunshine has made a career out of never adhering to the inauthentic standards of A&R reps and major labels. In the club remix of his song “Time Bomb,” he wages all-out war on the rules and restrictions keeping his scene from breaking, and we the listeners reap the spoils.

BANDCAMP: https://naurea1.bandcamp.com/album/new-zombie-generation

Naurea’s New Zombie Generation, the latest release from Abel Oliva Menendez’s ongoing metal/industrial rock project, is a bottom of the barrel failure of epic proportions. The album’s first spate of tracks, ending with the third number “Welcome to Monsterland”, amply illustrates why. Over the course of the album’s first quarter, Menendez has plenty of chances to establish his project’s distinctive musical identity but, instead, wearies potential listeners with a dull and sparkless rehash of the same basic elements cravenly stolen from genuine artists. The aforementioned song and opener “Sugar Sun” are the worst offenders in this regard. Unfortunately, things don’t improve the deeper we go into New Zombie Generation. Instead, the album’s fourth track, “Mama Cadaver”, rates as one of the worst mass-released “musical” tracks you’ll hear in recent memory thanks to its utter inability to focus on a single element for much longer than a few eye blinks.

URL: https://www.sisterspeakmusic.com/

The magic of a record like The Stand, the new EP by pop juggernaut Sister Speak, isn’t necessarily that it is amazingly catchy – although it definitely is – but perhaps that it unabashedly digs so deep emotionally; unrelentingly touching on sounds, themes and song stylizations that no other group in their scene dares to experiment with. There is a lot of willingness to explore previously uncharted sonic territories within the realm of pop music itself right now, but few exhibit the total lack of hesitance or self-righteousness than Sister Speak and their charming mastermind Sherri Anne do. The Stand is an excellent introduction to their sound for any new fans of the band.

URL: https://crackofdawnband.com/music

As I listened to the transition between the first, and self-titled, track of Spotlight, the stellar new album from the hard funk collective Crack of Dawn, and its sizzling follow up “Somebody’s Watching,” it occurred to me how important making a record that flows evenly really is. As a music critic, I’ve had the misfortune of having to cover a lot of artists who simply don’t know how to make a cohesive full length album. They’ve got the songwriting chops to make a single, sometimes even enough material to put together a decent extended play, but when it comes to getting into the studio and grinding out a complete album without employing previously used formulas, adding filler and glossing over the cheaper corners can be a next to impossible task for them. Why? It really comes down to songwriting maturity, depth of artistry, and where an artist puts their own aesthetical limits. “Somebody’s Watching” sneaks up on us as “Crack of Dawn” comes to a winding close, and while its explosive entrance is jarring, it doesn’t feel out of place or choppy next to what we’ve just listened to. We aren’t in a hurry, but at the same time we aren’t dragging from one theme to the next. Everything feels like it’s maintaining the same prose, the same emotional tempo that the opening track laid out for us, even if it is a completely different set of harmonies that are being distributed to us.