New music release: Normal Isn’t Normal Anymore by Rod Abernethy

Normal Isn’t Normal is Rod Abernethy’s new album. Photo: google

Rod Abernethy is the 2019 Winner of American Songwriter’s Bob Dylan Song Contest for his riveting performance of “Oxford Town.” His last album The Man I’m Supposed To Be—produced by the legendary Don Dixon (REM, Marti Jones, The Smithereens, Marshall Crenshaw)—reached the top 10 in 2018 on the Folk DJ Chart. As a composer, he has scored and produced music for over 80 video games including the Electronic Art’s blockbuster hit “Dead Space” which won a BAFTA Award in 2009 for Best Original Score, and Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” for Vivendi Universal which won Video Game Soundtrack Of The Year in 2003.  Now, Abernethy is proud to add his new full-length album Normal Isn’t Normal Anymore to his vast catalog of works and is available for purchase here. (IVPR, 2021)

Normal Isn’t Normal Anymore is a mixture of guitar virtuosity and world-class songwriting, most of which happened on Abernethy’s last year of touring. The album has received praise from fans and critics alike, including The Wall Street Journal, who complimented his “impressive guitar-picking.” According to American Songwriter, the lead single Another Year, is “a message as poignant as it is heartwarming…this idea of unity, so valuable and necessary in these times of polarization and strife, is so beautifully done.”

Abernethy’s knack for songcraft spans from finding excitement in the mundane day-to-day to making sense of the heavier bits of life; the latter being apparent in “My Father Was A Quiet Man” and the former in the rollicking “Birds In The Chimney.” The album also features two of Abernethy’s lively, intricate guitar instrumentals like “Over The Fence,” a rollicking six-string instrumental adventure about the family coonhound who jumps the fence and roams the downtown area for hours. With star performances from some of Nashville’s finest including Will Kimbrough on guitar, it should be noted that Normal Isn’t Normal Anymore is just as much about musicianship as it is songwriting, and neither take the back seat to the other.

Normal Isn’t Normal Anymore Track Listing:
1. Just Around The Corner
2. It’s Always Something
3. Whiskey & Pie
4. My Father Was A Quiet Man
5. Birds In The Chimney
6. When Tobacco Was King
7. Normal Isn’t Normal Anymore
8. Changing
9. Just Get In The Car
10. Another Year
11. Over The Fence
12. Oxford Town

New music release: Bullseye by The Shootouts

The Shootout’s sophomore album Bullseye will be released on April 30. Photo: google

The Shootouts are known for their energetic blend of honky-tonk, Americana, and traditional country. After releasing their acclaimed 2019 debut Quick Draw, the band charted Top 50 on Americana radio and in 2020, were nominated for an Ameripolitan Music Award for “Best Honky-Tonk Group.” They have shared the stage with luminaries Marty Stuart, Jim Lauderdale, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Radney Foster, Sheryl Crow, and many more. Produced by Grammy-nominee and BR549 founder Chuck Mead, their new album Bullseye ranges from catchy pedal steel-filled numbers (“Everything I Know”) to two-step worthy tunes (“Here Come The Blues”) to never recorded fan live favorites (“Rattlesnake Whiskey” and “Saturday Night Town”). (IVPR, 2021)

On Friday April 30, The Shootouts will release their sophomore album Bullseye via Soundly Music, but Wide Open Country just premiered a video for the album’s first track, “Rattlesnake Whiskey,” a live staple and fan favorite from the band’s catalog that is finally being immortalized on record. Fans can watch the video for “Rattlesnake Whiskey” at this link, pre-order or pre-save Bullseye here, and get a glimpse of the album’s eleven other songs via The Shootouts’ album preview video.

Equal parts vintage Nashville, Texas swing, and Bakersfield bravado, the new album draws heavily from the music on which the band’s members were brought up, packaging all of country music’s classic subgenres in their modern, signature sound. Produced by former BR459 lead singer Chuck Mead, Bullseye has The Shootouts mining their roots and expanding the territory they explored with their debut album, Quick Draw. The songs invoke a wide array of country music’s most important contributors, lassoing the band’s classic influences and bringing them straight into the present. The Shootouts’ mission with Bullseye was simply to create an album that puts a smile on listeners’ faces—music that helps them escape from the difficult times they have recently faced.

“For everyone’s sake, this needed to be a fun record. We’re living through a time where people are suddenly out of work, have lost loved ones, and have been experiencing unimaginable stress on a daily basis. Even if it’s just for 30 minutes, we want them to take a break, crank it up, and enjoy themselves.” – Ryan Humbert, The Shootouts’ lead vocalist, guitarist

Bullseye Track Listing:
1. I Don’t Think About You Anymore
2. Rattlesnake Whiskey
3. Another Mother
4. Hurt Heartbroke
5. Bullseye
6. Here Come The Blues
7. Everything I Know
8. Waiting on You
9. Missing The Mark
10. I Still Care
11. Forgot to Forget
12. Saturday Night Town

Upcoming new album: The Fray by John Smith

John Smith’s The Fray will be out Friday, March 26, 2021. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

British folksinger John Smith was born in Essex and raised on the Devon seaside. Known for his intimate songwriting, his honey-on-gravel voice, and pioneering guitar playing, he has spent the last fifteen years touring internationally and has amassed over 40 million streams on Spotify. As a session musician, he has played guitar with artists as diverse as Joan Baez, David Gray, Joe Henry, Lianne La Havas, and Tom Jones. (IVPR, 2021)

The first song released from his new album is “Eye to Eye.” It embodies a thread of hopefulness in a blanket of bad news; a thread that runs throughout his new full-length album, The Fray. Out March 26, The Fray finds Smith writing his sixth album, grounded from his usually busy touring schedule, and reeling from a cascade of even worse news in his personal life; wading through it all with a defiant positivity. Last month, Fretboard Journal premiered “Eye to Eye,” describing it as, “A gorgeous new album…beautiful, introspective and loaded with great guitar tones.” A pulsing plea for understanding which was co-written with Americana mainstay Sarah Siskind and features Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Sarah Jarosz, “Eye to Eye” is a shining example of Smith’s ability to deliver a tough conversation wrapped in uplifting verse and melody. Fans can listen to “Eye to Eye” right now at this link and pre-order or pre-save The Fray ahead of its March 26.

Throughout The Fray, Smith touches on not just his own emotional turmoil experienced over the past year, but also his observance of the pain of those around him. But it is Smith’s stubborn optimism that shines through and differentiates his experiences and songs from his influences and contemporaries. His traits of holding onto hope, forgiving transgressions, and reckoning with his place in a world which does not always reciprocate are not only necessary for Smith to deal, but they are also contagious to anyone who finds themselves in similar situations, adrift in the wind. For those who echo that sentiment, from experience, Smith shares his message on The Fray; “If we don’t hold on, we’re lost.”

“It’s been a hell of a year, but I feel I’ve created my most honest work as a result—and as a necessity. A lot of these songs are about accepting that life is hard, but just holding on and trying to enjoy it anyway.”- John Smith

The Fray Track listing:
1. Friends
2. Hold On
3. Sanctuary
4. Deserving
5. The Best Of Me (feat. Bill Frisell)
6. Star-Crossed Lovers (feat Lisa Hannigan)
7. To The Shore
8. Eye To Eye (feat Sarah Jarosz)
9. Just As You Are
10. The Fray (feat. The Milk Carton Kids)
11. She’s Doing Fine
12. One Day At A Time

New album release: There Used To Be Horses Here by Amy Speace

Amy Speaces’ new deeply personal album with The Orphan Brigade will be out April 30 but the first single is out this week. Photo: google

Looking back on a twelve-month span between her son’s first birthday and the loss of her father, award-winning singer and songwriter Amy Speace created eleven new songs directly from her depth of personal experiences, childhood memories, coming of age in New York City, and losing a parent while learning to become one, to create her new full-length album, There Used to Be Horses Here, which will be out Friday, April 30th on Proper Records/Wind Bone Records. While many of the subjects on the album are heavy, There Used to Be Horses Here is not a sad record. Instead, it is a direct reflection of a year in Speace’s life, propelled by a playwright’s eye for detail, a performer’s gift of vocal delivery, a poet’s talent for concise writing, and the extraordinary musicianship of collaborators, The Orphan Brigade. The result is a sum much greater than its parts; a calling card for fans and critics alike to ask themselves whether Speace still fits only into the folksinger box she has long been placed in, or perhaps, with this new album, she deserves to be seen in a new light. (IVPR, 2021)

This week, Rolling Stone premiered a music video for the album’s first single and title track, “There Used to Be Horses Here,” calling it “melancholy but gorgeous,” and noting that the video’s vivid imagery of a picturesque farm and its beautiful occupants serve “as a metaphor for all that we lose to both progress and the passing of time.” Speace laments, “During the last week of my father’s life, I drove [the road on the way to her parent’s house, past a farm she had grown to love] and the farm had been sold, gutted for condos, and the horses were gone. I wrote this song very quickly after he died, the loss of both the horses, my childhood, my parents’ house, and most acutely, my father all tied to the images in this song.” SiriusXM’s The Village also debuted the single with an exclusive interview, available here. Fans can hear “There Used to Be Horses Here” and pre-order or pre-save the album.

There Used to Be Horses Here Track listing:
Down the Trail
There Used to Be Horses Here
Hallelujah Train
Father’s Day
Grief is a Lonely Land
One Year
Give Me Love
River Rise
Shotgun Hearts
Mother is a Country
Don’t Let Us Get Sick

New album release: Fall Like Rain by Justin Moses

Releasing via Mountain Fever Records, Justin Moses’ Fall Like Rain will be out Friday January 22, 2021. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

In the world of bluegrass music, Bluegrass Music Association Award-winner Justin Moses has risen to his now prestigious status as one of the finest multi-instrumentalists in acoustic music. On January 22, Moses’s pickin’ prowess and songwriting skills will be on full display with his release of Fall Like Rain, a new self-produced full-length album on Mountain Fever Records. Featuring Moses on vocals and a slew of stringed instruments—from flat-top six-string and Weissenborn guitar to mandolin and banjo—Fall Like Rain not only sheds light on his many talents, but on the skill and perseverance it takes to piece them all together to create the final product. Fans can pre-order a signed copy of the album and pre-save or pre-order the album digitally. (IVPR, 2021)

Moses began his musical journey at the age of six after becoming interested in the mandolin. He first started to improve his skills playing in his family’s band as a child and since then, he has toured with bands such as Blue Moon Rising, The Dan Tyminski Band, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Blue Highway, and The Gibson Brothers. In his two-year stint with Tyminski, he realized an early dream of playing the Grand Ole Opry for the first time and recorded the 2009 IBMA Album of the Year and Grammy-nominated album, Wheels. In 2018 and 2020, Moses was the recipient of the IBMA’s Resophonic Guitar Player of the Year award.

Moses has performed on prominent national shows such as The Late Show, Conan, The Today Show, and Grand Ole Opry LIVE. He performed alongside Hall of Famer Ricky Skaggs on the CMA Awards in 2018 and appeared with an all-star cast of artists on the PBS special Country Music: Live at the Ryman in conjunction with Ken Burns’ Country Music documentary in 2019. That same year, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum honored Justin by featuring him as a part of the American Currents exhibit.

Fall Like Rain Track listing:

Fall Like Rain (4:24)
Taxland (3:28)
Between The Lightning and The Thunder (feat. Dan Tyminski) (3:17)
Walking To Lebanon (3:50)
Wise & Born (2:49)
My Baby’s Gone (feat. Del McCoury) (3:13)
Looking For A Place (feat. Shawn Lane) (3:19)
Watershed (3:00)
U.F.O. (3:09)
Locust Hill (2:44)

New release: ‘If It Bleeds’ by Stephen King

Stephen King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction and fantasy. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and many of them have been adapted into feature films, miniseries, television shows and comic books. He is best known for “Carrie,” “It,” “The Green Mile” and the Dark Tower series. His new book “If It Bleeds,” a collection of novellas, was released yesterday and is available everywhere books are sold. Watch him read the first chapter on his site.

According to Amazon, from #1 New York Times bestselling author, legendary storyteller, and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary collection of four new and compelling novellas: Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat and the title story If It Bleeds; each pulling you into intriguing and frightening places.

The novella is a form King has returned to over and over again in the course of his amazing career. Several have been adapted into iconic films, including “The Body” (Stand By Me) and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (Shawshank Redemption). Like “Four Past Midnight,” “Different Seasons,” and most recently “Full Dark, No Stars,” “If It Bleeds” is a uniquely satisfying collection of longer short fiction by an incomparably gifted writer.

Santiago Jiménez Jr. new album launch party at The Squeezebox

santiagojimenezflyer — Courtesy photo, used with permission.

This Sunday February 16 from 3p.m. to 7p.m, The Squeezebox will host Santiago Jiménez Jr.’s latest album release party. The puro conjunto album, El Chief, is a collection of songs recorded by producer Adam Ahrens at Magnolia Recording Studio for Bull Calf Records. It features authentic instrumentation of two row button accordion by maestro Jimenez, all recorded in live, real-time recording. Santiago features his father’s original compositions as well as a handful of Conjunto standards. This event is open to the public with $5 tickets at the door. (The Squeezebox, 2020)

The celebration will feature free Fideo Loco provided by The Cookhouse’s GM Matt Garcia while supplies last. Drinks specials will be available all day long as well as a Michelada Bar provided by Twang. Santiago Jiménez Jr. will perform music from his latest album El Chief with a set start time of 4p.m.

Santiago Jiménez Jr. is a San Antonio based folk musician and recipient of the National Heritage Fellowship in 2000 for lifetime achievement in traditional Tex-Mex/folk music. In 2016, he received the National Medal of Arts award for his contribution to American music. This three-time Grammy nominee comes from a family of musical pioneers with his father being Santiago “Flaco” Jiménez Sr. and his older brother, Leonardo “Flaco” Jiménez, who many consider the greatest and most famous Tejano accordionist ever. Santiago recorded his first album with his brother Flaco at age 17, and since then, he has recorded over 700 songs on numerous labels. In 2012, Santiago and Flaco reunited for a performance at the Tejano Conjunto Festival in San Antonio, the first time they were on the same stage since 1982. His latest album titled El Chief will be released in mid-February 2020.

The Squeezebox
2806 N St Mary’s St.
San Antonio, TX 78212

New release: ‘The Night Window’ by Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz is an American author whose works are billed as suspense thrillers but can also include horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery and satire. His first novel, “Star Quest” was published in 1968 and since then he has sold over 450 million copies of his books with many of them appearing on The New York Times’ Best Seller list. “The Night Window,” the final chapter in the Jane Hawk series, was released this week and finds the rogue FBI agent gambling everything against a terrifying conspiracy, for vengeance, for justice and for humanity’s freedom.

In “The Night Window,” Jane crosses paths with a visionary young filmmaker hunted for sport across a Colorado ranch by a billionaire who is the head of a cabal, a brilliant computer hacker who gathers facts to fight powerful perpetrators of mass murder, and, among others, a Vegas mob boss out to kidnap a boy to use as leverage against his fugitive mother. Filled with ingenious twists, spellbinding action and resonant themes, it follows the heroine to her long-sought objective, in stunning, unforgettable finale.

The other books in the series include:
“The Silent Corner”– It all begins when Jane’s husband, and others with seemingly happy lives, kills himself. In her search to find the truth, she becomes the most wanted fugitive in America.

“The Whispering Room” – Jane picks up the trail of a secret cabal of powerful players who think themselves above the law and beyond punishment. That trail intersects with Cora Gundersun, who kills herself and others in a shocking act of carnage and appears to have been insane, but Jane knows better.

“The Crooked Staircase” – Knowing she may be living on borrowed time, Jane refuses to stop her one-woman crusade against those who threaten everyone’s freedom and free will. This time she goes after a cunning man with connections in high places, including an army of professional killers on call.

“The Forbidden Door” – Jane may be all that stands between a free nation and its enslavement by a powerful secret society’s terrifying mind control technology. Now that the number of brain-altered victims is growing and spreading, the war between her and her enemies will become a fight for all their lives against the lethal terror unleashed from behind the forbidden door.

New release: ‘The Outsider’ by Stephen King

Outsider X RD5B — ‘The Outsider’ is the new best-selling novel by Stephen King.

Stephen King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction and fantasy. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and many of them have been adapted into feature films, miniseries, television shows and comic books. He is best known for “Carrie,” “It,” “The Green Mile” and the Dark Tower series. His latest best-seller, ‘The Outsider,’ about an unspeakable crime and a confounding investigation, is now available everywhere.

According to Amazon, ‘The Outsider’ centers around an eleven-year old boy’s murder. When his violated corpse is found in a town park, eyewitnesses and fingerprint evidence points to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. His name is Terry Maitland, and he is a Little League coach, an English teacher, husband and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a very quick and public arrest even though he has an alibi. Anderson and the district attorney add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and eyewitnesses and assume they have an ironclad case. Typical of King, this is not the ending, for as the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, the story kicks into high gear and brings along strong tension and unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he really?

New release: ‘The Escape Artist’ by Brad Meltzer

Brad Meltzer is The New York Times’ bestselling author of thrillers including ‘The Inner Circle’ and ‘The Book of Fate.’ He is also the host of Brad Meltzer’s Decoded on the History Channel and Brad Meltzer’s Lost History on H2. ‘The Escape Artist’ is his latest novel and it tells the story of Nola Brown, a woman whose body is found on a plane that mysteriously fell from the sky as it left a secret military base in the Alaskan wilderness.

According to Amazon, in ‘The Escape Artist,’ Jim “Zig” Zigarowski works at Dover Air Force Base helping to put to rest the bodies of those who die on top-secret missions. He has just discovered the truth about Nola Brown. Even though her commanding officer verifies that she is dead, and the US government confirms it, Jim knows she is still alive and on the run. She was a childhood friend of Zig’s daughter and once saved her life, so he is determined to find her no matter what. As he digs into Nola’s past, he discovers that trouble follows her everywhere she goes. On her last mission she saw something she was not supposed to see. Together, she and Zig try to uncover the US Army’s most mysterious secret, a conspiracy that goes back to Harry Houdini, the greatest escape artist of all time.

SA Examiner

Your Insider Source For Entertainment And Business Headlines

Category: new releases