Times

Songs Of Loss and Separation, the sprawling second album from TIMES OF GRACE is insistent in its bluesiness, bleeding distortion and emotion, weaving effortlessly between pensive, heavy, midtempo rock riffs and atmosphere.

When Bob Dylan dropped Time Out of Mind in 1997, it was a rollicking rockabilly and blues record, full of sad songs about mortality, disappointment, and dissolution. 2001 brought Love and Theft, which was also steeped in stomping blues and other folk forms. It was funny, celebratory in places and biting in others. Dylan has been busy since then: he did a Victoria's Secret commercial, toured almost nonstop, was in a couple films – Larry Charles' Masked and Anonymous and Martin Scorsese's documentary No Direction Home – and published the first of a purported three volumes of his cagey, rambling autobiography, Chronicles. Lately, he's been thinking about Alicia Keys.

The Danish five-piece group operating under the moniker Freddy and the Phantoms is being compared to the many bands following in the wake of groups like Rival Sons. It’s easy to welcome a comparison like this while overlooking some of what it implies. While Freddy and the Phantoms absolutely are a solid act, and while their third offering, Times of Division, is rightly being praised as an accomplishment of modern blues, it suffers the risk of being forgotten amidst the mass of music that it’s being compared to.