A Snake of June 2002

Bernard Allison was born to play and sing the blues, as well as born to play and sing funk, rock, R&B and more. The son of blues legend Luther Allison and a guitarist with a stunning and broad command of his instrument, he leads the movement that is creating blues music for a new generation. Already a major star in Europe following a decade of living and touring on the Continent, Allison recently returned to his homeland to rapidly establish himself as both a thrilling player and a musical stylist who seamlessly fuses tradition with contemporary sounds.
Allison's blues for a new century are indelibly stamped onto Storms of Life, his second release with Tone-Cool Records. As he works his way through material by fellow guitar talents like Mark Knopfler, Johnny Winter, Billy Gibbons, Anders Osborne, and his father Luther…

Sultry Texas vocals lead the listener through rockin', swingin', bluesy slices of life that everyone can relate to.

This opera concerns Perseus, his love for Andromeda, and his killing of the snake-headed gorgon Medusa. Jean-Baptiste Lully clearly meant the heroic Perseus to stand for Louis XIV, who commissioned the work. Indeed, while Persee is not on stage all the time, he is the central character of this lengthy, ceremonial, beautifully scored work. Those who love the peculiar formalities of French Baroque opera will need no coaxing.

Playing a melodious synthesis of symphonic hard rock that has occcasionally been compared to Pink Floyd, Hanover Krautrockers Jane can trace their origins back to the late sixties psychedelic band Justice Of Peace. Releasing a single Save Me/War, the band featured future Jane members Peter Panka on vocals, Klaus Hess on bass and Werner Nadolny on saxophone…

A mixture of utterly trad folk and country tunes with some hipsterish indie touches, The Black Dove is uneven, but it works more often than it doesn't. The songs sung by Sharron Kraus, a British folksinger whose voice bears comparison both to U.K. folk icons like June Tabor and American country singers like Gillian Welch, fit uneasily against those featuring Christian Kiefer's hushed bedroom-rock murmur. Imagine Norma Waterson collaborating with Elliott Smith and the parameters of the project's influences will become clear, as well as its flaws. However, the songs featuring Kraus are uniformly excellent, as are the atmospheric instrumental interludes between songs, which occasionally recall Dolly Collins' fantasias for harmonium on her albums with sister Shirley. Kiefer's whispery material, which works better on his solo records, simply sounds out of place in these surroundings.