Darren Lumbroso

Fruit Bats “Baby Man”

September 5, 2025 Darren Lumbroso 0

A stripped-down, soul-baring indie folk journey, minimalist in sound, maximal in emotion. Nobody could accuse Eric D Johnson (aka Fruit Bats) of resting on his laurels or being lazy. This is his fourth album using the […]

Live Review: Wesley Stace + Emanuel Ayvas, The Betsey Trotwood, Clerkenwell, London – 31st August 2025

September 4, 2025 Darren Lumbroso 0

The UK Met Office designates the 31st August as the end of the meteorological summer, and on a sunny Sunday afternoon I’d usually be out on my mountain bike in the Chilterns, not in a pub […]

Ron Sexsmith “Hangover Terrace”

September 1, 2025 Darren Lumbroso 0

An album filled with melancholic pop-folk and baroque elegance, ranging from warm acoustic nostalgia to articulate social commentary. The title for Ron Sexsmith’s 18th album is based on jokes his drummer, Don Kerr, made as they […]

Essentials: The Top 10 Iris DeMent Songs

August 14, 2025 Darren Lumbroso 8

Iris Luella DeMent was born in Arkansas in 1961, the youngest of 14 children in a Pentecostal family. Her cotton farming parents were both musical. Her father, Pat, was a fiddle player who performed at dances, […]

Classic Clips: Pete Gow “Leonard’s Bar” – Playground Theatre, London, 10th April 2022

August 1, 2025 Darren Lumbroso 1

‘Leonard’s Bar’ is the centrepiece of Pete Gow’s 2022 album ‘Leo’, which took shape during the first lockdown of the 2020 pandemic. This resulted in Gow being unable to collaborate with his band in the studio, […]

Stamping on the passion: Why AI written PR is a bad thing for music

September 21, 2026 2

If a music writer opens ten press releases this month, they’ll spot something odd. They all sound like the same person wrote them. Not because the artists share a publicist, or because there’s a house style […]

Carla Gover and Friends “Williams Branch is Hard to Find”

September 21, 2026 0

A cycle of Appalachian folk songs from writer and activist Si Kahn, subtitled Songs for Strong Kentucky Women The subtitle for this album is “Si Kahn’s Songs for Strong Kentucky Women”. Si Kahn is one of […]

Ad for American Beauty album 5th December 1970

For the Sake of the Song: Grateful Dead “High Time”