Album Review: Phil Neal & the Wornalls- Lifeline

I'm accustomed to embarrassing myself on the radio.  My latest faux pas occurred while I was talking up the latest album by Phil Neal & the Wornalls.  I suggested that I'd just as soon catch the Kansas City band at the RecordBar as make an investment in a ticket for Tom Petty & the Heartbreaker's concert at Sprint Center.  A colleague quickly pointed out that Petty's concert had been canceled.  Even so, I stand by my sentiment.  The Wornalls may not be as accomplished as the Heartbreakers and Neal's vocal range is even more limited than Petty's.  Yet the songs on the new album Lifeline are raw, honest and entirely relevant to my life.


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I spent over eight happy hours at Warped Tour on Thursday.  Here's my review.

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Last week's Local Listen segment for KCUR's Up To Date featured Jason Vivone and the Billy Bats.  This week's feature focused on the People's Liberation Big Band. 

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Bent Edge Punk documents Kansas City's early punk and new wave scene.  (Via Tony's Kansas City.)

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Impossibly strange fact: fans attending a Kansas City Kings game in 1978 were given free copies of Ian Matthews' Stealin' Home.  The album is being reissued by Omnivore Recordings.

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Is Nicholas Payton trolling on his new project Numbers?  The twelve pleasant grooves are almost interchangeable.  RIYL: soulful background music, Decoy, high concept.

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Ex-Cult's Midnight Passenger is very good.  RIYL: Iceage, thinking about the Sex Pistols, Stooges.

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Nothing's Guilty of Everything is RIYL: Deafheaven, brooding, My Bloody Valentine.

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Raheem DeVaughn's graphic King of Loveland 2 is RIYL: Prince, you already know, the Isley Brothers.

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".38 Airweight", the solid new single from Doomtree, is RIYL: Minneapolis, Aesop Rock, smart rappers.

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I intended to briefly audition Trampled By Turtles' Wild Animals.  Before I knew it, I'd enjoyed the entire album.  Twice.  RIYL: American Beauty, mornings, Fleet Foxes.

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It seems like several lifetimes ago that I loved Scruffy the Cat.  I spend a few hazy nights catching the band at the Lone Star and Parody Hall.  Here's the trailer for a new compilation of the band's roots rock. 

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Bobby Womack, 1944-2004

I was late to Bobby Womack's party.  By the time I purchased the CD pictured above in the early '90s, I'd already become conversant with the works of most soul greats.  Hearing songs like "Lookin' For a Love," "That's the Way I Feel About Cha" and "Across 110th Street" for the first time was stunning.  I wondered how these gems weren't played alongside familiar radio hits by James Brown and Al Green.  After finally catching up with Womack, I was able to enjoy subsequent albums as new releases.  Womack died last week.  Here's Raphael Saadiq's new tribute song.

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I reviewed Saturday's concert by Tech N9ne, Freddie Gibbs, Jarren Benton and the Psych Ward Druggies.

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I reviewed Ray LaMontagne's concert at Starlight Theatre.

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I yakked about music on KCUR's Up To Date last week.  Here's the stream.

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Lee McBee has died.

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Tech N9ne made a video for "Fear."

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Here's the trailer for Arrows Into Infinity, a new documentary about Charles Lloyd.

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I'm a Led Zeppelin freak but I'm not an apologist.  Here's essential documentation of LedZep's transgressions.  The insidious ads are a small price to pay.  (Tip via There Stands the Glass reader Phil.)

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Har Mar Superstar stars in the excellent video for Trampled By Turtles' "Wild Animals."

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Jimmy Cobb's The Original Mob bores me to tears.  I suppose that makes me a bad person.

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It's not exactly funky, but Worry Later by the unapologetically geeky jazz trio of Ben Goldberg, Adam Levy and Smith Dobson is a sublime tribute to Monk. 

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Mastodon's latest release sounds exactly like another Mastodon album.  Here's the video for "High Road".  RIYL: size, The Mars Volta, volume.

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It takes 2 hours and 35 minutes to play the new compilation Role: New Sounds of Brazil.  Much of it is exemplary.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)