Live albums aren't always something we jump on here at Nine Bullets but exceptions can always happen. The new live album from The Devil Makes Three deserves the exception. This thing is badass and Essential Listening (editor's note: I totally agree) and let me tell you why. Their most recent album, Do Wrong Right , was released in 2009 so it's been a few years since we've seen anything from them. Chances are you're not familiar with them. I only discovered them a few months ago thanks to that [...]
They say music soothes the savage beast, but I'd beg to differ when it comes to one Col. J.D. Wilkes. And I'd venture a guess that anyone who's been to a Legendary Shackshakers show and seen him go from pre-show cordial, mild-mannered J.D. to snot launchin', pube tossin' J.D. once the music starts is likely to agree. So, what do you do when it's the music that feeds your inner beast? Go lo-fi, young man. Go lo-fi . The Dirt Daubers are Col. J.D. Wilkes, wife Jessica Wilkes and LSS bassist Mark Robinson. Their [...]
Outlaw country is all about doing the best you can with what you were dealt in life. No excuses. No regrets. In that way Hellbound Glory and their self-described "scumbag country" are the archetype of the modern (upper-case) Outlaw movement. Compared to the current crop of Nashville (lower-case) "outlaws", Hellbound Glory has a look and sound that makes you believe that, even if they may have not personally lived the life in their songs, they very likely have been close to someone who has. They describe the life of those on the lower end of the economic spectrum with intimate [...]
If an Americana band forms in Portland will it get mentioned on ninebullets.net? If past performances are indicative of future results then I'd say they have a better chance than most. I'm not sure what it is about that city but it has found my sonic pleasure vein and keeps tapping it with new bands. Introduce Sassparilla. Sassparilla gets filed under Americana but it's a lot more New Orleans than West Kentucky, and the bulk of its 8 tracks are better fitted for a Wes Anderson film than the latest episode of Justified. "Same Old Blues" [...]
I'm not sure how it took me this long to hear about Will Hoge and I'm even less sure why, in all this time, not a single one of you bastards emailed me a note telling me to check him out. Well, I may be late to the party, but with his seventh release I finally stumbled upon Mr. Will Hoge and I'm loving it. I can't speak for any of Will's other albums as I've not listened to any of them (yet), but while Number Seven may be lucky in theory, for the bulk [...]
The Damn Quails are possibly the most talked about pairing to come out of Oklahoma since the union of Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert. Singer/songwriters Gabriel Marshall and Bryon White have had a standing gig Monday nights at The Deli in Norman with shows backed by a rotating group of musicians simply referred to as the Quail Philharmonic. The result has been songs never being played quite the same each time. That experimentation has resulted in possibly the most solid 14 songs of the year in their debut release, Down the Hatch , an album that [...]
In the annals of music journalism, blogging and general status posting, one of those terrible abused terms repeatedly used would have to be "__________ is one of the best bands you've never heard of!!!!!111!!11!1!11." Fifty percent of the time they're referring to a band that's in constant rotation on one of the Clear Channel monogenre channels, 25% of the time it's some obscure garage band that has 1 single self-recorded off an 80's era boombox and uploaded to soundcloud, 15% of the time it's in a band's one-sheet, but the other 10% of the time, it very well [...]
Rock and roll. Really, its a simple concept. Guitar. Bass. Drums. Honesty. Yet it is constantly fucked up. It gets overproduced. People try to fancy it up by adding (gasp) keyboards. And then, they try to make the vocals sound pretty. Pretty has absolutely NOTHING to do with rock and roll. Rock and roll is raw emotion. Rock and roll is the pain of real life laid bare and exposed. John Moreland plays that kind of rock and roll. Look up "prolific" in the dictionary. There is a good chance John's picture [...]
You wouldn't think that groovy would ever be a proper way to describe a record by a folk group but after dozens and dozens of listens to Brown Bird's Salt For Salt I can't think of a better one word description. Lately I've been listening to a shit ton of these type bands and the biggest progression folk groups have made over the years is the implementation of percussion. Brown Bird does it very simply, you can check out the bass drum work in this video . Brown Bird is a Rhode Island based duo [...]
I picked up Joe Pugs debut album Messenger after reading about it here on Ninebullets , where it was called "infuriatingly good" and compared to John Prine and Bob Dylan. And what an album it turned out to be. He actually was (and is) infuriatingly good, and sounded like an inspired cross of Prine and Dylan. A correct review if there ever was one...Pug has built his audience one by one by actually giving his music away for free, by sending cd-samplers far and wide. After releasing the EP Nation of Heat his first full [...]
Good afternoon and thank you for reading. You have many choices to make for your web reading and I'm thankful that you chose to spend these next few minutes with me. Blah, blah, blah... I'm as big a fan of three guitar and a life of crime or the old sad songs as anyone around nine bullets but sometimes I need something a little different. Maybe it's a Sunday morning where I just don't want to get out of bed or a Tuesday evening when work has been too much and I'm exhausted and want [...]
When we have expectations, and we all do, we sort of expect to be let down eventually. When you have an artist like Scott Hiram Biram, a 9B favorite, those expectations can be pretty high. Every album has a chance to disappoint. When you have written as many words about an artist as we have about guys like this you know that if they don't live up to their past work you can't pull any punches. We have seen it here on 9B with other bands that I won't mention here. I went in to this album, after snaking the [...]
I've been trying to decide if I should review this album for months. I love it but I wasn't sure how it would mesh with some of the other stuff on Nine Bullets. Then I saw them live and decided I didn't give a damn if Smart Flesh was too artsy, experimental, or abstract. The Low Anthem has more talent than any band I've ever seen. The melodies on Smart Flesh and Ben's vocal delivery are so infectious and unique I have no idea who to compare it too. Then [...]
As a matter of disclosure, though I don't think it's a secret, I am much closer Have Gun Will Travel than I am with most of the bands that get featured here on ninebullets. That said, I wanted to be the one who wrote about this cd. Not because I like the band but because I believe in the band . It also helps that I just so happen to love the album. When I wrote about HGWT's last album , Postcards From The Friendly City , I wrote; " HGWT is a very full [...]
The first mournful strains of "Baby's Got A Dream," the opening cut from Sweet Nothings , the fourth album by Girls Guns and Glory, set the tone. Ward Hayden croons like a lovelorn Chris Issak, drunk from defeat, his heart broken and bleeding in his hand. The window is open, your hand is out Searching for something, you want it now There's only so much to go around And while I'm treading water, the ship is going down [...]
" The thing would suddenly stand before him, strange and terrifying, demanding that he name it and name it justly and be judged for the name he gave it ." ~ Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear It Away Louisville's State Champion are out to name some shit on their second official release, Deep Shit . And they did that shit fucking justice. (Be aware that I'm going to continue cursing because this is some badass fucking rock-roll garage-barn hacksaw-kickback shit, and good rock and roll turns "cursing" [...]
Dale Watson, at least to me, is known as someone who can take me back in time with music. Forsaking the modern trappings of even the Red Dirt scene he puts out music with the Lonestars that is pure honky tonk and completely timeless. It is perfect music in that it would sound at home at a dance hall in Gruene or a biker bar in Baytown. I would easily call him the king of honky tonk and never bat an eye. So what does he have in store for us on his latest release? A completely different sound of [...]
Somewhere on the rock and roll highway there is a bar. This bar is like a scene out of a Quentin Tarantino-meets-Wes Anderson film. In this bar they only drink flavored martinis, the women wear elbow length gloves and pointy glasses, and everyone smokes their cigarettes with cigarette holders. This bar has a jukebox that plays hits that crackle across the bar's speakers. The hip kids bob their heads while the irreverent one's dance like nobody is watching. Over time this jukebox has seen many hits from the likes of Eilen Jewell , Carolyn Mark [...]
Country music has fractured over the years, so much so that it now falls into several categories. There's the old standards, what kids today probably call Classic County, sung with passion by guys named Cash, Jones, Jennings and Shaver. There's the folkier side, which I like to lovingly refer to as Protest Country, which features songs like "For What It's Worth" or "Ohio." There's Alternative Country, which is dirtier and edgier than Classic Country, but it mines similar territory. And then there's New Country, which is to say, mostly a big old [...]
This album has been kicking around my "to review" folder for a damned coon's age. I've decided I wasn't gonna write about the album countless times, only to listen to it again and add it back to the list. Lots of people who like the album a whole lot more than I do have reviewed it, as well as a slew of folks who like it less, and yet I feel compelled to make sure it's represented here on ninebullets. I believe that some of my initial hesitation towards writing about this album is how well-polished it is. [...]
Nine Bullets
Jack White – Love Interruption (MP3, Video)
Ed Sheeran & Yelawolf - The Slumdon Bridge EP
Chiddy Bang - By Your Side (Ft. CocoRosie)
Usher - Climax (Produced by Diplo)
