Blog Archive for February 2025

Album Of The Day: Curioso by Wilder Woods

Album Art of Wilder Woods's Curioso album - A photo of a man sitting on a nice chair in front of a bookshelf, though there's no books here. The top shelf is dozens of liquor bottles and dozens of shot glasses. The middle shelf has an NBA basketball, a baseball in a bowl, and cigarette ad that says 'Wilder Woods!', plus a bust that looks like a dark-skinned woman with a head covering. On the last shelf, there's about 30 records, maybe. The man is leaning back in a chair, wearing a T-shirt, and has a cowboy hat over his face. The man has a number of large rings on, a golden armband, and a number of tattoos on his arms. In the middle, the word 'Curioso' is printed in bright yellow.

Bear Rinehart is a prolific songwriter and the lead singer of a band called Needtobreathe. But he also releases music under the artist name Wilder Woods, and his third album as Wilder Woods releases today. Curioso feels like Bear is trying lots of things that he can't do in his main band. These songs feel more personal and he's able to stretch himself more artistically, maybe. It's a bit more romantic and less spiritual than Needtobreathe songs overall, and it's a bit more straight indie rock than the southern rock/country vibe of the other band. I like Wilder Wood's music, but none of his albums have really become regular spins so far. Though maybe I should see these songs played live next month....

Release Year: 2025
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Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: Word Of Mouth by John Reuben

Album Art of John Reuben's Word Of Mouth album - A black and white photo of a man with a large kick drum slung over his shoulder on to his back is in a field and looking to the left. A microphone is hanging from the top of the frame to the left of him. A dog is sitting behind him and looking to the right, away from the man. To the left of the man on the top left is the artist's name in large orange type, and the album title in much smaller text in gray type.

John Reuben, the self-named "Cool The Underdog", delivered what I consider his best album on this day 18 years ago. "The thrill of proving the world wrong is finally gone / You should move on." It's a good 36 minutes of rap from this self-critical white man. John mixes his honest thoughts with some sarcastic remarks and talks about his insecurities as well his faults along with the normal rapper bravado. It's not a long album, but it is some of his best work in both music and rhymes. I love it and although his latest stuff hasn't been as good as this in my opinion, I enjoy his more recent independent releases too.

Release Year: 2007
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Album Of The Day
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Album Of The Day: Intimate Portrait by Caedmon's Call

Album Art of Caedmon's Call's Intimate Portrait EP - On a light blue background, a photo of the right half of a woman's face is shown with a red heart cutout next to it. Over the photo, a dotted arrow points to the text '(ip)' to the right. At the top, the band's name is printed in uppercase in a dark red, serif font. Below that in blue-green is the album title in lowercase.. At the bottom, it says '5 song enhanced CD'.

This is one in my collection that is not available on streaming, and you'll need to find a used CD copy to give this one a listen. This EP had a few B-sides and alternate recordings of songs from their 1997 self-titled album, plus the Enhanced CD provided low-quality digital videos of the band as well. (Everything from that era that could be played on a computer is terribly low-quality today.) It's a rare early item from the Christian folk-rock band, and it shows their great musicianship and songwriting even only a few years into their career. The band would go on to record many other releases, and even recently re-recorded their self-titled album and played a few reunion shows after a long hiatus.

Release Year: 1997

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Album Of The Day
Music

Album Of The Day: 2 Edged Sword by Faith Massive

Album Art of Faith Massive's 2 Edged Sword album - Most of the area is a dark green photo of a sword hilt that seems to be suspended in a green liquid, with bubbles around it. In the top right, a circular logo with a backwards 'F' and an 'M' is next to the text FM and the title '2edgedsword' without the spaces.

I'm trying to remember how I got into this artist. It was maybe mp3 dot com free downloads back in the day or a recommendation from a dance music fan on an e-mail list or something, but I can't remember. Faith Massive is an electronic, drum and bass artist. It's mostly all instrumental sounds mixed electronically with the occasional lyric, as much sampled as sung. It's an interesting vibe, sometimes pounding and sometimes more chill. It's not the pop dance hits you might hear at a club, I imagine, but more distilled beats for those that are really in the dance genre. It's definitely not what I listen to too often, but I enjoy mixing it up and listening to something different from time to time, as you've probably noticed.

Release Year: 2002
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Album Of The Day
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Album Of The Day: Crimson & Blue by Phil Keaggy

Album Art of Phil Keaggy's Crimson And Blue album - From above, a photo of a man looking up at the camera is the main focus. The person is also pointing the index finger of their left hand up at the camera, near his face. The background is colorful, mostly red and blue, but it not really distinct enough to make out. In the top write, the artist's name is painted in the middle of a circle with the album name circling around it in white color.

Phil Keaggy is known to many as an instrumental guitarist on electric or acoustic guitars, but he's also done many albums as a vocal solo artist. Crimson & Blue is maybe my favorite Phil Keaggy vocal album. The guitar work is stellar, and the backing band is firing on all cylinders as well. The end of the album really brings out the epic, extended jams, with his version of the Gospel/blues song "John The Revelator" and original song "Doin' Nothin'" clocking in over 8 minutes each. "Everywhere I Look" and "I Will Be There" are beautiful, laid-back pop/rock tunes where Keaggy's vocals really shine. Lyrically, Phil is focused on God's love and joy, though other topics like friendship and class disparities make appearances as well. Phil Keaggy's soaring guitar solos are a highlight, but I love every minute of this album.

Release Year: 1993
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Album Of The Day
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Album Of The Day: Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars

Album Art of The Civil Wars's Barton Hollow album - A black and white photo of two young white people, on the right a man with curly hair, a beard and mustache in a suit coat with a bowtie, and on the left, a woman with darker, long hair and a sleeveless dark top. They are sitting in a corner booth with a marble tabletop sitting in front of them and glasses of water on the table. The man is looking at the camera and has his right arm behind the woman and the woman is looking away from the man to the left. There is lots of light behind them as the area has many windows, it seems. It seems like they also may be photographed through a window, because there's a reflection of another window overlaid in front of the couple.

Released on this day 14 years ago, this album won "Best Folk Album" at that year's Grammy Awards. Joy Williams and John Paul White, both accomplished musicians, joined forces as folk/country/Americana duo The Civil Wars. This album is defined by the duo's powerful vocals, plus very sparse but effective, simple instrumentation. Lyrically, this album is mostly love songs, even though both in the duo are married to other people. It's a beautiful album and is top-notch music throughout, though definitely a bit darker in tone and less energizing than most other albums I listen to. For a moment The Civil Wars were thought to be the next big thing in music, but a year or two later they stopped performing together due to creative differences. They have individually released solo music since then, but have not reunited.

Release Year: 2011
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Album Of The Day
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