NOT HOLDING BACK Kyle Roland (Little Village) ****
This raw and sensitive beauty is Roland’s first album for Little Village. The title rings true- the dude blows some mean harp on Not Holding Back over righteous grooves. He has sharpened his considerable skills on this truly soulful blues.
The songs on Not Holding Back range from country blues to raw southern soul and pop song craft. The lyrics are loaded with true bluesiness but on the main I’d call this more of a soul record than anything, although that righteous harp is most definitely blues, kind of like a cross between Bob Corritore and JJ Milteau. Still, the rolling and supple basslines by Randy Bermudes and Ronnie James Weber are like the gentle waves of a not quite calm ocean… makes me want to haul my own bass out of the closet to play again.
Equally important to the tunes on NHB is Kyle Roland’s voice soars effortlessly like Bill Withers or Marvin Gaye, no easy feat for a white guy. Based in Sacramento but having roots in rural Georgia, it’s clear that Kyle is a musical sponge and has absorbed the music he feels all around him. His songwriting is razor sharp and full of emotion with personal and relatable lyrics that make you feel like the songs are about you, or at the very least about situations in your own life.
“I first met Kyle Roland when he was 10 years old and his father brought him to my house for a harmonica lesson” says Rick Estrin. “Even way back then, his enormous sound and the utter ferocity of his attack were startling.” Estrin is one of the best in the business, so I’d take his word for it. Roland isn’t holding back so let the good times roll, baby!
https://littlevillagefoundation.com/kyle-rowland/
HOT TRACKS: I’ll Take You Back, Gamblin’ Blues, Kissing At Midnight
Shadows The Badrock Blues Band (independent) *****
I fell in love with this disc within the first couple of bars, that’s the magic of this debut from Germany’s Badrock Blues Band. You don’t usually start with a slow blues but that’s exactly what Shadows does and it opens your heart right away. This isn’t just good, it’s priceless.
The Badrock Blues Band was formed in ’92 by Gerald “Mercy” Schuldenzucker (guitar, vocals), Siegfried Horvath (bass, vocals) and Franz Hollman (guitar). They spent 3 decades shaping their blues/rock sound and building a fan base across Europe with non-stop live performances, and when they finally got around to thinking about doing an album BLAM!! The pandemic hit. “We suddenly found ourselves without gigs” says Horvath, “it was as if somebody hit a ‘reset’ button. We refocused and dove headfirst into songwriting. Pretty soon we realized we had enough really good material for an album; the time was right to get it done.”
They created the basic tracks in just under a week in 2024, then were hit with the sudden passing of Mercy. “It was a gut punch like no other” Horvath says. “It wasn’t until several months later that we began working on the record again, without making any major changes. We wanted the songs to sound the way Mercy had heard them.” After finishing the album in June 2025 they listened back to it together for the first time and were well pleased. “The spirit and unbridled joy of playing that’s defined the band since the very beginning are clearly audible” Horvath remembers. The mileage on this band, the hundreds of gigs they have played are evident in every groove on Shadows. It’s an incredibly rich album dripping with truth and heart, one of those records that fills you up. I don’t have the names of all the players involved, but drums and keys are potent ingredients here too. This is GREAT stuff!
https://badrock-blues-band.com/
HOT TRACKS: Nose In The Sand, Dying Delta Blues, Cheated Man Blues
FLOATING ON A DREAMLINE Alan Williams (Blue Gentian Records) *****
This, the 3rd solo album for this music professor/ former major label artist, is a genre-fluid masterpiece. Flitting from one style to another throughout- delicate folk, power pop, ethereal tone poem, to world music- Floating On A Dreamline manages to make sense; his feel of harmonic adventure and wonder at the fore.
The genre defying feel of this album is deliberate. “The difference this time was allowing the songs to just emerge without an agenda” Williams says. “This record was more like demos that I really didn’t intend anyone to hear… but after a few rounds of song ideas, I couldn’t deny that all signs pointed to an album. After a lifetime of second guessing and self-doubt, I’m coming around to saying yeah, it’s fine to just be.” The impeccable production doesn’t hurt either.
Floating On A Dreamline is not shy about nodding to Alan’s influences such as Joni Mitchell, solo Jack Bruce, The Beatles and Sade, and the musicianship is breathtaking and at times quite delicate. The album was engineered, produced and mixed by Alan himself. It features longtime collaborators drummer Ben Wittman (Sting, Paula Cole, Laurie Anderson) and bassist Greg Porter (Aimee Mann, Talking to Animals, plus former Natalie Merchant bassist Mike Rivard amongst others. Lyrically, Williams is described here as “mulling, often metaphorically life change, choices made and a sense of “what if?” laced with a wide-eyed savoring of future potential rather than backward looking remorse.”
There are times when Floating gets up and rocks but on the main I’d call the vibe here suave, maybe like Sting’s early solo stuff. The press info calls this ”unfettered by stylistic constraints or commercial expectations” and therein lies the charm of the album. After yet another unapologetic week on the hamster wheel, Floating On A Dreamline is just what I need to get my feet back under me and carry on. This is fine medicine, and a digital-only release.
https://www.facebook.com/AlanWilliamsEvidence#
HOT TRACKS: Somewhere There’s A Train (album version), Nobody Died, Just Like Water
(BlkIIBlk/ Frontiers) ****
Released January 23rd, Megadeth’s self-titled, 17th and latest, supposedly final album is a firestorm. To be honest I was on the fence… did I really want or need another Megadeth record? It turns out the answer is a resounding yes… plus I have the other 16 as well.
It may be treasonous to say out loud but I think Megadeth is a better band that Metallica and this new record makes my point. Great riffs abound, tight production, and even after having gone through treatment for throat cancer Dave is still in fine voice. Sure the number of personnel changes (32) in the band’s 43 year history is staggering, putting Whitesnake and 80’s Black Sabbath together to shame, but with relatively few missteps the music has been remarkably consistent. Mustaine says this is the end, but the current tour is expected to last a couple of years. He’ll be 65 this year and you can’t play music this complicated, this intense, forever.
The material on Megadeth reminds me of Motorhead’s later years as the disc includes a bunch of classic metal-style numbers like Puppet Parade alongside instant thrash classics-in-the-making like Let there Be Shred. Hell, I can’t do a lot of the things I used to do 40+ years ago- can you? Dave sure has the right band behind him on this last go-round; Teemu Mantysarri on guitar, bassist James Lomenzo and drummer Dirk Verbeuren, with Teemu being the only new addition since the last studio album, 2022’s The Sick, The Dying & The Dead.
Megadeth doesn’t match the classic years circa Rust In Peace and Countdown To Extinction, and as the review on www.pitchfork.com notes, “it’s missing the communal gravitas of a band’s last hurrah”. Having said that, this is a good record to go out on before advancing age and a condition in his hand called Dupuytren’s contracture claims his ability to play guitar like this.
Several fine tracks here but of course the one everyone talks about is the cover of Metallica’s Ride The Lightning. It’s a fitting nod to his former band- if they hadn’t fired him there would’ve never been a Megadeth. A great record? Maybe not- but a pretty damn good one.
HOT TRACKS: Puppet Parade, The Last Note, Let There Be Shred
