Today Is Always Yesterday - For All Pearls, And No Swine

We are slowly approaching real time for All Pearls, No Swine, with only two more volumes in the can before we hit live compiling, but we also approach real time in this volume, our second look into the last decade and a half. As you can imagine, with my tastes, that we are far off the mainstream, though I do include a single nod to modern pop with the inclusion of LOKI's "Dreams" and I guess the shimmering indie elctronica of Phosphorents "Black Waves / Silver Moon" also count as a nod to modernity. But otherwie I resolutely stick tomy guns, with a healthy selection of artists you have already seen of thsese pages (powerpopper deluxe Jonathan Kuperslmith, recently featured pop songsmith Paul Dempsey) or are in genres I have more affinity for, including a healthy selection of Americana and indie snger-songwriter stuff.

Americana artists include veteran Jason Isbell and young Texan Bryan Hunt, both contemplating "The American Dream" (Hunt's song title), but Isbell's bitter account of a country boy lost in the city stays with you. Also vaguely linked to Americana are Jesse Aycock and Butch Walker, as well as Marlon Williams. All three never really broke through on a bog way, but are toiling away with cult audiences for a good long while now.

This edition of All Pearls, No Swine also features some crunchy rock guitars for afficionados: Clutch really put the pedal to the medal on opener "D.C. Sound Attack", while Dead Sara looked like they were going places in the early 2010s. "Weatherman" will blow your ears off, as it should. And the band's lead singer Emily Armstrong went off to bigger (if not necessarily better) things as the replacement of Chester Bennington for the lead vocals in Linkin Park. 

 Also here are two of my favorite covers of originally crunchy songs from a decae earlier: You And Me At Six cover Green Day's American Idiot album track "Are We The Waiting?" and Tobias Robertson completely reinvents Alien Ant Farm's "Movies", which still rocks hard, but could never convince you of the emotional weight of its lyrics. Robertson's acoustic voice-and-guitar version does exactly that. 

So, as usual lots of stuff to discover here, folks, including some beautiful faux-60s retro soul pop from Doris and a Bruce-circa Born To Run-inspired (soundwise, not lyrical, eh) foreign language surprise. Lots of fun on these modern day All Pearls, No Swine, so don't miss out...