How do you like your Alejandro Escovedo? One of the reasons this talented Austin rocker has never escaped critical-favorite status is that he’s an encyclopedia of musical genres; it’s hard for fans to reconcile his confessional, string-laden ballads with his riff-heavy punk. Yet those two styles have always been
Can the Alejandro Escovedo who couched his earlier songs in a fog of romantic imagery be the same one spelling things out on the autobiographical Real Animal (Back Porch/Manhattan)? The San Antonio–born singer, an inveterate rocker who writes tender ballads like “Slow Down,” has always been a study
Hot CDsTexas honky-tonker Floyd Tillman is best known for heartbreak lyrics like “Slipping Around” and “It Makes No Difference Now.” But on Herb Remington Instrumentally Salutes Floyd Tillman (Glad), the chiming steel guitarist for Bob Wills’s post-war Texas Playboys demonstrates that Tillman’s poppish material is equally strong on melody and
Hot CDsDistancing themselves further still from their earlier banjo-punk novelties, Austin’s Bad Livers go with what they know on Industry and Thrift (Sugar Hill). There is too much attitude and eclecticism at work to call this traditional bluegrass, yet despite a couple of electric interludes, the musical leanings of composer-singer
