Baby Robot Media

Roses and Cigarettes Share “California Going Home” With The Bluegrass Situation

“This was the last song we wrote for the album. We were over at Jenny’s house, and we were talking about needing one more rockin’ song for the album. I sat on her couch and summoned Janis Joplin to help us out. The chords literally poured out from my hands. Jenny and I looked at each other and she immediately grabbed her phone, a pen, and we recorded the first draft. The song came together fairly quickly. Jenny created this beautiful scenery and imagery with her lyrics and I just love the story she tells in this song. We’ve all been there, and have felt those feelings before.” – Angela Petrilli

by Baby Robot Media

Kyle Daniel’s “Don’t Give Up On Me” Premieres on Wide Open Country

Trying to make it in the unforgiving music business is not for the weak. For every triumph there’s seemingly endless stops and starts, heartbreaks and disappointments. To succeed, you’ll need a rallying cry. Kyle Daniel’s “Don’t Give Up on Me,” which Wide Open Country is premiering today, is an anthem for anyone facing an uphill battle.

The song is the latest release from Daniel’s forthcoming sophomore album What’s There to Say? (out on March 15). Daniel says the tune is a mantra to stay on track in the face of adversity.

by Baby Robot Media

Brad Byrd Announces New Album and Shares Single with PopMatters

Set to release his fourth album on 3 May, Brad Byrd sees himself standing at a vantage point from which he can look back at the ebb and flow of the life he’s led thus far. Appropriately titled Phases, Byrd’s latest has the Los Angeles singer-songwriter blending indie rock and alt-country influences as he always has, but framed in the sense of each song focusing on a particular highlight in his own story. Taking a look back while propelling his ethereal sound forward, Byrd casts a wide sonic net to craft realms awash with spacey reverb, delay, and layers of rhythms and riffs laid out across electric guitar and keyboard-driven synth.

Gary Hayes Country Features Boo Ray’s New Album “Tennessee Alabama Fireworks”

Boo Ray is back with his first album since 2016’s Sea Of Lights. That album saw him stretching out his country fried rock and roll sound a bit while this new one sees him landing more firmly in honky tonk territory. There are plenty of rockin’ moments to be found here, but this album is in my opinion his most country leaning. Let’s take a deeper dive into this record.

by Baby Robot Media

Saving Country Music Raves Over Charles Wesley Godwin’s New Album “Seneca”

When you hear an artist like Charles Wesley Godwin sing, there is no need to power cycle your sense of disbelief. The sinewy roots of West Virginia’s hardscrabble existence seem to be intertwined with Godwin’s synapses and muscle tissue, almost as if he’s a construct of the land itself, like a scrub tree clinging to life on the ridge side of an especially steep holler.

Rearview Mirror Reviews Roses & Cigarettes’ “Echoes and Silence”

How we react in the face of adversity says a lot about us as people. Unfortunately, some people barely hold on, but those that do manage to reclaim some semblance of normality and themselves, inadvertently inspire those around them. This is why Rose & Cigarettes sophomore album Echoes and Silence is an extraordinary release that not only looks at the past but moves forward beyond lead singer Jenny Pagliaro’s battle with Stage IV cancer.

It’s fair to say that this new album has all the hallmarks of their classic Californian sound we heard on their self-titled debut album. But in a lot of ways it is sonically superior which is a testament, for instance, to Petrilli’s amazing ear for musicality and her ability to draw on her influence from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Led Zeppelin.