Face IN The Rain

Back in 1940, Keynote Recordings Inc. was a new, small and independent New York company with offices at 522 Fifth Ave., recently founded by Eric Bernay, the owner of a midtown Manhattan record store called The Music Room. Bernay was musically openminded and, looking for a place in the increasingly convulsed American record industry, he launched a catalog of varied music and performers.

Lucinda Williams is a daughter of the American South, born in Louisiana, who is proud of her heritage while also understanding the contradictions and the baggage that come with that. Tom Petty was a native Floridian who also loved the South without harboring illusions about it, and so it makes sense that Williams would be a Petty fan, and not simply as one gifted songwriter respecting another. As part of her Lu’s Jukebox series, designed to help independent music venues shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, Williams has cut a set of her favorite Tom Petty tunes, and Runnin’ Down a Dream: A Tribute to Tom Petty is long on songs about Southern life, including “Gainesville,” “Down South,” “Rebels,” “Southern Accents,” and “Louisiana Rain.”

Who would have thought that the lead singer for one of Sweden’s most beloved melodic death metal bands would be hiding such a talent for classic rock? Well, Bjorn ‘Speed’ Strid, the voice behind SOILWORK, has been leading a double life for over a decade now with both his main band and THE NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA, formed alongside then bandmate David Andersson in 2007 and also including former members of ARCH ENEMY and KING DIAMOND. Yesterday, their fourth album came out via Nuclear Blast Records, entitled Sometimes the World Ain’t Enough and it might just be the most bonkers record you hear this year…