Ohhhh – Christmas CDs! The inevitable deluge has begun to the delight of some, and to the chagrin of others. A cornucopia of artists have been readying blogs to go up on their MySpace pages all across cyberspace: “You know, we’ve been wanting to do a Christmas project for a long time, and since so [...]

For the uninitiated, This Glorious Christmas is a fitting introduction to the amazing family of musicians known as The Annie Moses Band. The group is named after the great-grandmother of the five siblings that form the core of the group: Annie (lead vocals, violin), Alex (viola, Background vocals), Benjamin (cello), Gretchen (violin, mandolin) and Camille [...]

On Lifeline we get an amalgam of everything near and dear to a progressive rock fan’s heart. Neal Morse is a sophisticated writer and arranger, with influences as diverse as Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes, The Moody Blues, Kansas, Styx, and maybe even a bit of Zappa, tempered with a healthy respect for such classic [...]

Sometimes you do some heavy reading and other times all you want is a Hallmark greeting card. Earlier this year we got the re-issue of Amy Grant’s Lead Me On. That was the heavy reading. Now Amy gives us The Christmas Collection just in time for Christmas – a Hallmark greeting card of an album: [...]

First order of business: yes, they are now known simply as ‘newsboys,’ not ‘The’ newsboys - and no capital ‘N.’ Somebody at Inpop must hate grammar checkers. Grammatical awkwardness aside, newsboys have always been a band out to please their target audience, and their newest project is a bumper-crop of newsboys, to be sure. Newsboys [...]

It can reasonably be argued that, in the wake of their stunning 1988 debut, Take 6 was primarily responsible for the revival of interest in a cappella music that carried through into the nineties and beyond. Coming out of nowhere, these six young men not only created complex, soulful jazz vocalizations, but they put those [...]

All That We’ll Ever Need is an enjoyable near-half -hour musical detour to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, compliments of Jake Smith, Joe Causey, Josiah Bashta, and Darren Phipps. From the first notes plucked on Phipps’ acoustic bass, All That We’ll Ever Need has the ambiance of an intimate club where the audience and band members have [...]

Chances are, you’ve heard this man before. Brian “Head” Welch, founding member and former guitarist of KoRn, is no stranger to the heavier side of rock music and, as a member of that band, is partially responsible for the rise of what some have dubbed the New Metal movement. Welch was, however a stranger to [...]

When you’re looking for something bluesy, with a dose of funk on the side, one of the places you check out would be Texas. Well, here comes a blue-eyed soul man from Texas, by the name of Jimmy Needham. Not Without Love is a decidedly Christian album which has, for the most part, escaped the [...]

At The Living Room, NYC - August 4, 2008