Jesse Payne: Nesting

Coming into a genre full of such established artists as Bright Eyes, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, and Andrew Bird, Jesse Payne certainly had his work cut out for him to make his mark.

And with his album Nesting, Payne definitely delivered. From start to finish, it’s is a solid record in every aspect.

First off, there’s Payne’s voice. It’s moody, sincere, and all-around pleasant to listen to. Payne doesn’t sing with a lot of force, but there’s a subtle power behind his voice that will capture the listener. It doesn’t demand the listener’s attention, but it gets it anyway....MORE

Shane Beales: Heavy Clouds

Liverpool based artist Shane Beales is quite the up and coming artist. Since 2006, he has released 2 albums, 4 EPs, and 52 singles—all independently.

Beales’s most recent effort, the EP Heavy Clouds, is an interesting set of four songs.

Heavy Clouds opens with “The Crunch,” which feels like a throwback to the early 90s grunge scene. Beales’s voice and the raw guitar rifts are both reminiscent of bands such as Alice in Chains or Pearl Jam.

“The Crunch” is a hard-hitting song, and leaves the listener wanting more. The strange thing is this: the next three songs on the EP, while good in their own right, are not what “The Crunch” sets the listener up to expect. Instead, the songs are about as stylistically different as putting Rob Zombie and Mozart on the same album.

The grittiness of “The Crunch” is followed next by “Across the Seas,” a very soft, mellow ballad. The song is absolutely beautiful, both instrumentally and lyrically. The piano that starts out and backs the entirety of the song has a delicate, dreamy feel to it, which perfectly fits Beales’s lyrics about committing to someone for life....MORE