Once upon a time, Roger Klug was one of the kings of Cincinnati power pop. His brief stints with the Willies and the Tritones, among others, paved the way for the Detroit native/Cincinnati resident’s stellar solo career. This solo career started with 1995’s home-recorded Mama, Mama, Ich bin dem La La Land, then the full-blown splendor of 1997’s Toxic and 15 Other Love Songs, followed by the Guided-By-Pollard brilliance of 1999’s Where Has the Music Gone?: The Lost Recordings of Clem Comstock, where Klug and a smattering of friends crafted a compilation of fictional bands across a disparate range of musical genres, all under the auspices of the album’s titular and completely mythological producer/songwriter.

“That’s the most fun I’ve ever had making an album,” says Klug over omelets at Café Alma. “There was a little of the alter ego thing going on with that. My memory of that was sitting on my side porch, no guitar in hand, just a big notebook, hearing the record in my head, grabbing lyrics out of the air. That was a really great feeling. I never felt so prolific.”

Although the gigging never stopped, it would be a decade before Klug dropped his fourth studio album, 2009’s superb More Help For Your Nerves. (It’s worth noting that Klug created his own label, Mental Giant, and self-released his entire catalog.) Klug and his self-proclaimed Power Trio, featuring bassist Greg Tudor and drummer Mike Tittel, supported Nerves into the following year, to a certain extent.

“We were performing as the trio at that point, but we didn’t have it together enough,” says Klug. “I remember thinking we could play almost all of those songs live, but it didn’t have as much piano as Toxic, and it certainly didn’t have the horns and strings like Clem Comstock.”

At a certain juncture in 2010, Klug’s profile in local music became virtually non-existent. So what occupied Klug’s time and attention when he stepped away from music?

“Raising a family, earning a living, teaching at CCM,” says Klug. “It takes up a lot of time, I won’t lie. And sometimes when you’re doing other musical stuff, it does take away your own musical energy. That is a pitfall. At one point, I’d quit the music business and I was going back to school to be an accountant. So while I was reading intriguing accounting books, I was like, ‘I’m going to record this now.’ COVID did kind of deflate my live situation, but I was still able to do stuff with the Cincinnati Symphony because we were all masked up and socially distanced.”

Klug was also drawn back into music by way of Tittel’s own project, New Sincerity Works. It was a satisfyingly easy gig for him for one simple reason.

“It was a segment of my life working on other people’s projects,” says Klug. “The pressure is almost off. I’m not worried about the vocal or the song. You don’t think, ‘I want to play something good,’ because that’s a given. You just kind of respond to it: ‘This will make it sound better,’ or ‘Where is the space I can occupy where the mixing engineer will turn me up?’ Mike wasn’t like, ‘Hey, I want this,’ he was like, ‘Just play.’ Mike’s very much an art director in his professional and creative life, but he’s also smart enough to let people do what they do.”

The wheel began to turn back in a familiar direction earlier this year when Klug accepted an invitation to play a benefit for the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. The concert’s theme was Bob Dylan, an artist near and dear to Klug, so he was determined to make the most of it.

“It was one of those deals where people were picking songs from Facebook or whatever, so I nabbed ‘Simple Twist of Fate,’ because that’s one of my all-time faves,” Klug says. “We did that one pretty faithfully, kind of like Jason Isbell or Wilco would do it. Then I noticed that no one had taken ‘Lay Lady Lay,’ so we did this whacked version of it, as if the Cure were performing, then we mashed it up with ‘Bob Dylan’s Blues’ as Greta Van Fleet-doing-Led Zeppelin would have done it. And it went over really well; we had the crowd, and it was really gratifying. That was the catalyst.”

The next occurrence was a bit of technological serendipity. Klug was rummaging through an old hard drive and he stumbled upon an off-the-board recording he had made of a Power Trio show at the Northside Tavern a decade ago. It was a document of a time when the band was playing every three or four months at the Tavern, and they had gotten fairly tight after their layoff.

“I had kind of dismissed the recording,” says Klug. “It was just a snapshot of the band. And off-the-board tapes are very isolated; there’s a certain claustrophobic sound. If I could turn back time, (he channels Cher at this point), I would have put up a couple of ambient mics to catch the sound of the room. But instead of listening to the micro of it — ‘Oh, missed that guitar lick’ or ‘That vocal take was a little short’ — I listened to the macro of it. And I thought, ‘This is pretty cool.'”

Realizing that this recording represented a period just after the Trio had reconvened, and that there were few surviving audio artifacts from that time, Klug made the decision that this show should be the Power Trio’s first live album.

“It was like when you get a weird idea,” recalls Klug. “I thought, ‘I want people to hear this.’ Then you immediately self-doubt it. Then you run it by your mates, like ‘I’m thinking about putting this out,’ and they don’t say anything at first, and you’re like, ‘What’s their deal?'”

Eventually, everyone was on board with the release, and thus was born the Roger Klug Power Trio’s first live album, the two-disc triumph, Live! Off the Board. (“The working title was Naked and Unashamed (Without No Clothes)…”) There were several considerations that sealed the decision.

“Mike and I have talked a lot about recording an album being boring, because everyone does it the same way and has the same plug-ins, and everything is so scrubbed and perfect,” says Klug. “How do you fight AI? How do you fight perfection? What better way than to put out a live thing that wasn’t even meant to be a release? Was it an A+ performance? No. But there’s weird stuff in there, like a couple of songs we only played that one time. And we played the Kinks song, ‘Johnny Thunder.’ I have no memory of whose idea that was. If we were going to play something from Village Green, I’d have wanted to play ‘Big Sky.’ Plus that was the only RKPT gig where I dragged a piano to it. We had a Wurlitzer onstage, and that’s the only time we ever did that.”

With the Jan. 10 show at the Northside Tavern and the Feb. 28 gig at MOTR Pub, the Roger Klug Power Trio has officially ended its hiatus. Klug makes no bones about the path forward for the band.

“There’s too much stuff that I’m sitting on that’s half finished,” he says. “The live unit is playing again, so there’s a compelling reason for it all. We don’t really have a sound because I’ve always been here, there and everywhere. I recorded a yacht rock song, and Mike and Greg play on it, and I’m toying with the idea of releasing it as our first return release, just to thoroughly confuse everyone. ‘This is our new sound. We went away to work on our mental health.’ Anyway, we shan’t be going away again for a while.”

The Roger Klug Power Trio plays MOTR Pub on Feb. 28 at 9 p.m. More info: motrpub.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Jan. 7 print edition.

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As Sylmar stands at the precipice of one milestone, the band is recovering from another one. The Cincinnati quintet has just returned from their first European tour, a rousing success by any measure.

“There were only ten shows,” says frontman Brian McCullough over coffee at Deeper Roots. “There were more, but the ones with really good guarantees were cancelled because we didn’t sell enough tickets. The other ones sold out and they were phenomenal. It was Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria, and they really enjoyed it. And they listened.”

Local, regional and national audiences have been listening to Sylmar’s brand of dynamic indie rock for nearly a decade, a period that will be officially celebrated in February 2026 with the band’s tenth anniversary. The more immediately laudable event is the October release of Sylmar’s third full-length album, the cryptically titled Matching Caskets.

“The title is from a song we haven’t put out yet,” says McCullough. “I like the image of two people who commit to the bitter end. That’s the line: ‘Though we are the same/No, we’re not the same/But we bought a pair of matching caskets.’”

While the song lending its title didn’t make the cut for Matching Caskets, a similar emotional theme bubbles up in the track “Vidalia’s Dementia (Onions),” pulled directly from McCullough’s life.

“It’s the story of this older couple where one is going through breast cancer and the other is developing dementia,” says McCullough. “My grandparents both had dementia and my father had breast cancer. It’s a love song but it’s also a ‘fuck it’ song, like, ‘Let’s have some fun while we’re old and above ground and above the law.’ When you’re old, you can do whatever the fuck you like. The song isn’t necessarily depressing, but in our music there’s always a range of emotions, like, ‘We’re dying but we’re going to party to celebrate that we only have a little bit left.’ There’s some depth to it.”

Matching Caskets is unquestionably Sylmar’s heaviest album to date, in terms of emotional impact and sheer volume. While there were moments of raucous fury on 2021’s Glass Ladders, there is an almost relentless feeling to the material on Matching Caskets. Even in its softer, more delicate tracks, the album bristles with undeniable power.

“Angular is what I call it,” says McCullough. “It can go from a heavy ephemeral moment to just me singing and it really is a beautiful thing live, especially in a small room. You’ll see a killer rock act that will move you dynamically. All the songs are that, basically. The first four or five songs are riffy, dynamic Queens of the Stone Age type stuff, and then the back end is really pretty. The front is more traditional Sylmar, where maybe there’s some political critiques or tongue-in-cheek stuff, and the back is sadder and quieter.”

McCullough readily admits that most of Sylmar’s songs find their true forms once they’ve been subjected to the band’s live process, where the material’s sonic identity is forged and solidified. Most of the songs were written during Covid lockdown and then fully realized in its aftermath.

“We got really lucky in 2022 and 2023 to go on some really long tours — we basically toured the whole country — and we played the shit out of these songs,” says McCullough. “They ended up developing into what they are, which I think are pretty interesting songs, with maybe more depth than some of our past stuff. It’s in the textures of different instrumentation and that just evolved from playing live a lot.”

McCullough is also fully aware that a certain percentage of Sylmar’s existing fanbase may be alienated by the density and volume of Matching Caskets, but he and the band are relying on their fans’ boundless devotion to accept the new album and its forceful direction.

“We started seeing more people coming to the shows with purple hair, because the songs went from straight ahead pop-focused to more art rock/progressive type stuff,” says McCullough. “At first, I was a little averse to it, but now I love it, because our fans are very loyal and they’ll travel forever to see us.”

Even with the crucible of the stage to reshape the songs’ structure, the foundation of Sylmar’s material begins with the band’s impressive egalitarian writing process. Without that sturdy base, there would be nothing to reinvent.

“With the way my mind works in creating a song, the volume and the shifts are just the way they come, every single time,” says McCullough. “Like ‘Babysitter’ on the new album, where you’re just skating the whole time, I’d love to write something like that but it always ends up being a roller coaster. That’s just how Sylmar is, that’s how we’ve developed our sound, and that’s why people like to see us live.”

From Sylmar’s launch in 2016, the band has maintained an inclusive writing stance when working up new material. Since the release of Glass Ladders, some changes have taken place that marginally impact that paradigm, namely the departures of guitarist Dan Sutter and bassist Dominic Franco.

“To be honest, I don’t think we were using Dan as the weapon he was,” says McCullough. “You can’t tell an amazing natural guitarist what parts to play when they can make a better part. Dan and Stephen Patota and (Sylmar drummer) Ethan Kimberly play at Anjou in Walnut Hills. It’s like watching Bill Frisell, he’s that good. And Dom was a great player and a great hang, but he’d be the first to tell you that music was not his priority. He’s a programmer, so he bought a trailer and he and his girlfriend travel around the country and he works remotely, and climbs. He’s a big climber.”

McCullough’s startling revelation that he nearly shuttered Sylmar after Sutter left the band is somewhat mollified by his realization that the band’s secret sauce was installed in the drum chair.

“Ethan is very much Sylmar, and without him, the band ain’t shit,” says McCullough bluntly but with a laugh. “Ethan has been taking the lead more. I love it when he writes songs. He’s in so many projects, and what he’s really talented at is he’s got his style. He’s able to foster his style with every group he plays with. And he writes great bass lines.”

The other leg of Sylmar’s current writing triumvirate is guitarist Luke Glaser, who McCullough claims does much of his writing for the band in relative stealth mode.

“Luke has always been the central guitar writer,” says McCullough. “He’s the type of guy who won’t get an idea for a couple of months, then suddenly your phone hits and you’ve got four new ideas, and it’s like, ‘Oooh, I’ve got things to work on.’ Songs just tend to happen when you’ve got great players.”

Just as Matching Caskets was largely worked out when Glass Ladders was released, Sylmar has another album waiting in the wings just as their new album is released. Given that their current modus operandi is to record in their practice space and perform all the adjacent business functions — art, promotion, finding distribution, etc. — without assistance, it’s amazing they find time to write and record.

“We’ve got another record ready to go, but for the future, I think I’m writing a lot of the songs,” says McCullough. “I’ve got the energy for it. We’ll see what happens.”

The two latest musical masters to claim Sylmar membership are guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Dylan Etienne and bassist Lee Sullivan. Etienne, a recent graduate of CCM, has performed with a variety of local bands, including Goof Juice and Low Gap, and Sullivan is playing simultaneously with Kimberly in Touchdown Jesus. They originally signed on with Sylmar as touring members, but they seem to be taking hold as permanent replacements.

“Lee is a great guitarist but he’s playing bass with us, and Lee and Ethan have a really good connection, and Dylan is just an amazing guitarist and he takes us places that always surprise me,” says McCullough. “And even though they’re just players, they already feel like part of the band. They’re bringing new ideas to the table and they’ve recorded on the new songs.”

As McCullough looks back at the past decade and forward into Sylmar’s future, he tends to be realistic about the band’s place in the musical food chain, and yet hopeful about the infinite possibilities afforded by their talent and determination.

“My greatest fear is that we become a bunch of hacks and we’re just playing covers of old Sylmar songs. If it ever gets to the point where the players don’t mesh, it’s just got to end,” he says. “But right now, it sounds better than ever, and it’s crazy how that keeps happening. Every time we have a new group, it’s like, ‘Damn, it’s a different animal.’ We’re still gaining fans and people still appreciate it. What more can you ask for?”

Sylmar will join The Wonderlands and Saving Escape for a show at the Woodward Theater on Dec. 27 at 8 p.m. More info: woodwardtheater.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Dec. 24 print edition.

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Cincinnati artists delivered an unforgettable year of music, and this playlist captures some of the tracks that defined 2025. There’s no ranking here — just a curated flow of songs that showcase the range, creativity and spirit of the city’s ever-evolving music community.

These are the sounds you heard in local record stores, in venues across the city and in headphones everywhere. From our musicians to you: crank it up and carry these songs with you into 2026.

“Prince” by Maura Weaver

Maura Weaver’s second solo record was released in September, and like her solo debut, I Was Due for a Heartbreak from 2023, Strange Devotion features her striking songwriting and voice backed by a cast of talented friends forming a refreshingly varied and dynamic collection. “Prince” is as catchy as anything else you’ll hear this year with a chorus so sugar-sweet and infectious that you’ll keep going back for more pure pop bliss. The record is great all the way through, with touches of country and western, pop experimentation and the directness of some of the great singer-songwriters, all with a fearlessness and attitude of punk ethos. The album was also the first local release picked to explore for the inaugural CityBeat Music Club in November, where we discussed the record with Weaver before she gave an intimate performance of songs from the album.

“Afraid of Guns” by Motorbike

Local supergroup Motorbike released Kick It Over on Feel It Records this past March. The album continues where their 2023 debut left off, featuring driving and revved-up blasts of power that finds a perfect combination of classic guitar rock and in-your-face punk like this track that is pure, raw rock and roll, as potent as it should be.

“Over My Head” by Brianna Kelly

Local artist Brianna Kelly released a stellar collection of songs featuring beautiful and orchestrated arrangements entitled Cloud of Nothingness in November. The record features Kelly’s tender and compelling songs put together, often refreshingly, free of typical structure and featuring lush string parts and impressive instrumentation, making for a stunning piece of chamber pop.

“Hourglass” by Knotts

From Knotts’ SLAP (Silly Little Art Projects) Will Save the World EP released early in the summer, “Hourglass” is a piece of effervescent synth pop that creates an atmosphere of optimism. Another Knotts release from earlier this year, “Springtime,” was featured in CityBeat’s Summer Playlist in the Summer Guide issue in June, and KNOTTS, aka Adalia Powell-Boehne, also appeared on the cover for the Music Roundup issue later in July. If “Hourglass” is about a moment, Knotts seems to be having one and seizing it.

“Hallelujah 2026” by Turich Benjy

This unhinged track off hip-hop artist Turich Benjy’s May release from earlier this year, When Life is Divine, features a laidback groove acting as a foundation for Benjy’s singular, rapid-fire vocals featuring biblical references. The fearless and frenetic touches in the song, like much of his work, sets it apart.

“Dog” by Mol Sullivan

Released at the end of summer, “Dog” features all the hallmarks of what make local singer-songwriter Mol Sullivan stand out. Her lush arrangements, delicate but powerful voice and singular touch make this ode to finding a true friend and saving each other a thing of beauty.

“If You Say So” by Isabelle Helle and Hell’s Bells

This catchy, fuzzed-out garage pop nugget clocks in at just under 2 minutes, but does the job just fine. Isabelle Helle and Hell’s Bells released Black Cat Rodeo over the summer with a huge release show at Northside Tavern, featuring Motorbike and The Harlequins to celebrate the occasion. There are plenty more songs off the album that are as infectious and hard-hitting as “If You Say So.”

“The InFluencers” by Bootsy Collins (feat. Snoop Dogg, Fantaazma, Dave Stewart and Wiz Khalifa)

Funk legend and Cincinnati’s favorite son Bootsy Collins made a little extra noise this year, releasing his newest full-length record, Album of the Year #1 Funkateer, that encapsulates his aim of creating an atmosphere of fun and collaboration. This track is a perfect example of that exuberance. “The InFluencers” features Snoop Dogg throwing in a Cincinnati mention, a verse from Wiz Khalifa and contributions from the Eurhythmics’ Dave Stewart and dynamic vocalist Fantaazma — all helping Bootsy rev up the funk to 11 and bring it on home.

“Swans” by Billy Fortune

Billy Fortune is one of the newest (and youngest) artists on this list. Fortune also plays traditional bluegrass with his group the Billy Fortune Unit and continues some other fine traditions in his solo work as exemplified in this song, the title track from his album Swans released in October. “Swans” pulls from the traditions of folk music, classic singer-songwriters and lo-fi pop resulting in a melodic, sweeping ballad with a timeless touch.

“Bus” by BPA

The anticipated second edition of Cincinnati punk history compiled by writer and musician Peter Aaron, We Were Living In Cincinnati Vol. 2 (1982-1988), came out earlier this year and again featured a packed collection of Cincinnati artists who created innovative and freewheeling explorations of the fringes of rock and roll. Released as a joint effort between Chicago’s Hozac Records and local label/record store Shake It Records, the collection features standout tracks like SS-20’s “More Government Now” and “I.C.U. by The Reduced, alongside this wild art-punk mastery from 1983. We Were Living In Cincinnati Vol. 2 (1982-1988) also featuresother tracks from significant Cincinnati bands of the era, like The Auburnaires, Sluggo and The Wolverton Brothers, among over a dozen more that represent an important era of the city’s music history.

“Appendicitis” by Fruit LoOops

Experimental noise-punk band Fruit LoOops is as explosive and unhinged as ever on this track off their June release Everything is Clear to Me Now. The song is a frantic sound collage barely held together by compressed percussion, electronic squalls and effect-soaked vocals that all combine to help build the tension.

“Clown Car” by Lung

Off the duo’s fifth full-length album Swankeeper, released in May on local label Feel It Records, “Clown Car” kicks right into a frenetic pushing and pulling of rhythm and tension. Drummer Daisy Caplan and vocalist/cellist Kate Wakefield create a fun mix of dynamics with time changes, odd rhythms and altering sections that result in a layered, moody and atmospheric wall of sound.

“Static Vision” by Electric Citizen

Cincinnati’s hard-hitting psych rock favorite Electric Citizen released their latest album EC4 back in June on Italian label Heavy Psych Sounds. The band has performed all over the world, sharing stages with legends like Joan Jett & the Blackhearts and performing at major festivals. This track features soaring vocals from frontwoman Laura Dolan, alongside husband and co-band leader Ross Dolan’s fuzzed-out guitar driving the rhythm between leads that cut straight to the top of the layers of sound that includes what sounds like some nice electric organ work.

“Peace With Our Love (Queen City Sounds)” by Annie D

This huge-sounding and super catchy track is a special one from talented local multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Ann Driscoll, better known as Annie D, working in collaboration with a cast of artists and recording engineers across the city. Driscoll is backed by an all-star lineup of vocalists adding a wall of sound, including local luminaries Jess Lamb, Maya Banatwala, Sappha, Rae Fisher, Victoria Lekson, Freedom Nicole Moore, Tiffany Sullivan, Jessie Hicks, Sharon Leever, Kaitrin McCoy, Ash Roper and Hannah Simon Goldman. The track was recorded across multiple sessions with several engineers in different studios, underscoring its collaborative spirit. It includes work done at Cincinnati Public Radio’s new studio with Brian Niesz, additional recording with Aaron Madrigal at local studio The Tone Shoppe, and mixing by Mike Montgomery at Candyland — with celebrated saxophonist Zaire Trinidad Sherman engineering his own contribution.

“Patience, My Love” by Maria, etc.

Singer-songwriter Maria Keck, aka Maria, etc., released a collection of introspective and poignant songs titled Maybe Time’s Not in a Bottle Anymore in May, featuring laidback, jazzy arrangements with some of the delightfully unconventional subtleties that have made her work standout. This track features a lustre of slowly-syncopated ethereal instrumentation that feels like a cool breeze blowing over a pool of water reflecting the moon, with saxophonist Ziaire Trinidad Sherman guesting and a fadeout of a choir of children driving the song’s point home. The song’s mantra of being in the moment seems like a good way to end the playlist, not letting time go too fast, and as Keck sings, “slip into the past.”

Listen to the full playlist of songs here.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Dec. 24 print edition.

The post Cincinnati Wrapped 2025: Top 15 Songs Released by Cincinnati Artists this Year appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

How do you sum up a year in music at this late date in our fractured cultural history, an era in which AI slop is encroaching at a rapid pace and traditional media outlets — by which I mean those that dutifully edit and fact-check content — are going the way of the floppy disk? Consensus is useful to a point — that many people like the new Geese record that rabidly? But there is just too much music in the digital era to absorb even a tiny fraction of what’s currently flooding the interwebs. Attempting to create a definitive “best of” list is as futile as trying to limit the ways in which Vivek Ramaswamy is annoying.

But that’s not to say it isn’t fun and/or useful to seek out “favorite” album lists at a time when context and discerning taste are in short supply. On a personal level, it’s surreal that I’ve put together a list for publication every year since 2001 — initially for CityBeat, followed by several years for The Village Voice’s now-defunct Pazz & Jop critics poll and more recently for the also now-defunct Uproxx poll. With that in mind, here are my 10 favorite albums of 2025 (in alphabetical order), a few of which could drop out in favor of a dozen more (possibly even the new Geese record) depending on mood, day of the week or the latest Bengals debacle.

Alex G — Headlights

Alex Giannascoli is a tunesmith of the highest order. His Elliott Smith fetish is in full bloom on a set of intimate songs that revel in texture and mood. Some worried that his major-label debut might yield a compromise, but Headlights is as transportive as anything in the Philly native’s bountiful discography. Things crest early with the sweetly swaying “Real Thing,” the jaunty, mandolin-driven “Afterlife” and the slow-burning “Beam Me Up,” which finds Alex in rare autobiographical mode: “Some things I do for love/Some things I do for money/It ain’t like I don’t want it/It ain’t like I’m above it.”

The Beths — Straight Line Was a Lie

Straight Line Was a Lie contains wistful, hook-laden power pop driven by an ample rhythm section and crafty, intertwining guitars. New Zealand-based singer, guitarist and lyricist Elizabeth Stokes digs deep through introspective ruminations about a lack of joy, best laid plans and this heartfelt plea: “Mother, don’t cry for me/I have done enough injury/I wanted to hurt you for the hurt you made in me.”

Deafheaven — Lonely People with Power

Stanley Kubrick would love these guys — Deafheaven’s “blackgaze” offerings conjure epic cinematic vistas. I wrote this in 2018 about the San Francisco fivesome’s newly released Ordinary Corrupt Human Love: “Yet another immersive experience, more than an hour of dynamic soundscaping that deftly moves from corrosive guitar riffage and jackhammer drumming to pensive, piano-laced atmospherics, often within the same song.” Well, here we are again, complete with an album title that can’t help but nod to the sad creatures currently wielding power.

Hannah Frances — Nested in Tangles

Unpredictability runs through Nested in Tangles’ mixture of folk, jazz and progressive ambient music. Compositional U-turns appear out of nowhere, altering moods as if a sunny day has gone dark. Frances’ versatile voice (think a less grandiose version of Joanna Newsom) and guitar work shift from the highly technical to free form, resulting in an evocative, sometimes elusive set of songs from a performer who seems like she could go anywhere.

Momma — Welcome to My Blue Sky

Where have you heard this before?: Wistful, hook-laden power pop driven by an ample rhythm section and crafty, intertwining guitars. Brooklyn-based singers, guitarists, lyricists and best buds Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten dig deep through introspective ruminations about lust, broken relationships and this observation: “My dad is getting older/Got a lot on his cold shoulder/Their world is getting smaller/But they did it all for their younger daughter.”

Nourished by Time — The Passionate Ones

Marcus Elliot Brown (aka Nourished by Time) brings a refreshingly earth-bound approach to his lo-fi R&B and pop tunes. The Baltimore native’s sophomore LP exists on its own wavelength, as if early Prince and a scrappier version of Blue Nile collaborated on songs both lovelorn and politically astute. Choice, emblematic admission from “Idiot in the Park”: “Everybody’s out there protecting their heart/I need a love that leaves a scar.”

Stereolab — Instant Holograms on Metal Film

It’s as if they never went away. The Euro institution — led by onetime couple/songwriting duo Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier — returns with their first new album in 15 years, 13 songs in nearly an hour with nary a dud in tow. While not as adventurous as their 1990s peak, it’s reassuring to find the familiar ingredients — hypnotic, krautrockian grooves and oblique, politico lyrics sung with sweetness — are as tasty as ever. 

Jeff Tweedy — Twilight Override

Warm and inviting, this is the best thing Tweedy has been a part of since at least Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky. A world-building triple record consisting of 30 songs that range from the rip-roaring “Lou Reed Was My Babysitter” to “Parking Lot,” a desolate spoken-word tone poem that is somehow among the most affecting things this tireless artist has yet conjured. 

Wednesday — Bleeds

Creative head-honcho/singer Karly Hartzman continues to refine Wednesday’s ramshackle aesthetic over time, just as her personal relationship with bandmate MJ Lenderman took a turn — the duo’s romantic breakup couldn’t help but influence Bleeds. The North Carolina outfit’s sixth studio album is sleeker but no less visceral, carried by Hartzman’s vivid storytelling and unorthodox vocal delivery. Multiple tunes here recall early Pavement crossed with The Mekons, twang-injected gems that transcend that description.

Billy Woods — Golliwog

I saw Billy Woods at what ended up being the final Pitchfork Music Festival in 2024, a low-key but penetrating performance anchored by his winding wordplay and Kenny Segal’s slow-motion beats. Golliwog is even darker than usual — the sound of a 47-year-old man coming to terms with his country’s ongoing corruption and complicity. Cue the addictive, guest-aided “BLK XMAS,” which is simultaneously alarming and amusing, the aural equivalent of a fascinating nightmare.

The post 2025 in Music: One Critic’s Favorite Albums in a Year of Overload appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Chris Isaak’s obsession with Elvis, Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison has rarely been as obvious as it is on his two holiday albums, 2004’s simply titled Christmas and 2022’s Everybody Knows It’s Christmas. Isaak’s swoony croon is in full bloom on rockabilly-inspired covers of “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “Help Me Baby Jesus,” “Blue Christmas” and “Winter Wonderland.” Isaak also throws in some original tunes, including one celebrating his favorite animal — “Dogs Love Christmas Too” finds the now-69-year-old singer/songwriter/guitarist in a playful mood: “Dogs love Christmas too, just like me and you/No, they don’t go shopping or hang up a stocking/But there’s lots of things they do.”

It’s then no surprise that Isaak’s 2025 Holiday Tour is again partnering with the BISSELL Pet Foundation from Dec. 1-15 to draw attention to Empty the Shelters, an adoption program. The collaboration encourages fans in participating touring markets to adopt dogs that Isaak literally brings on stage with him.

“I’ve been working with musicians and actors most of my life, so getting to bring animals on stage was a natural step up,” Isaak said in a press release announcing the tour. “I knew that they could be counted on to steal the show, and they always do! Partnering with BISSELL Pet Foundation again this year feels like a great way to both celebrate the holidays and help get dogs and cats a home. It makes our Christmas show much more special — the pets get out of the shelter for the evening, and hopefully you will get to find a forever friend!”

If Isaak’s past holiday tours are any indication, expect some of his non-Christmas staples to find their way into the set list: “Two Hearts,” “San Francisco Days,” “Somebody’s Crying,” “Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing” and, of course, “Wicked Game.” Dogs, Christmas and love gone bad — three of Isaak’s favorite topics in one evening.

Chris Isaak plays Hard Rock Casino on Dec. 19 at 8 p.m. More info: casino.hardrock.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Dec. 10 print edition.

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The first thing one sees upon visiting Ricky Skaggs’ website is the headline “A Hall of Fame Career.” Below that is a list of the various halls of fame that have inducted Skaggs: Country Music, IBMA Bluegrass Music, The National Fiddler, Musicians, GMA Gospel Music Association and Kentucky. That’s an impressive list for those who care about such things. Even more impressive is that it’s impossible to argue against Skaggs’ inclusion if such institutions must exist — the 71-year-old singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is a pillar of bluegrass, country and whatever adjacent genres you can conjure, a man of multiple talents and an unceasing devotion to the music he loves. Then there is the fact that in January 2021 President Trump awarded Skaggs the National Medal of the Arts — a sign of the recipient’s enduring Christian faith, if questionable sense of optics and political acumen.

Skaggs grew up in Cordell, a tiny Kentucky town 150 miles southeast of Cincinnati. He started singing and playing mandolin at age 6, soon after performing onstage with Bill Monroe, the “Father of Bluegrass.” At 16, he joined Ralph Stanley’s backing band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, the beginning of a road-dog life that shows no signs of slowing. Skaggs has been touring since 1997 with his revolving backing band, dubbed the Kentucky Thunder, a crew more than willing to support their leader’s impeccable taste and technique. Then there is Skaggs’ mastery of genre, which critic Robert Christgau succinctly described back in 1983, the same year the Kentuckian won the first of his many Grammys: “Nothing if not an astute traditionalist, Skaggs understands that what makes country music go is the tension between heaven and hell.” 

That tension is there in Skaggs’ pair of Christmas albums, which include his takes on staples like “Joy to the World,” “White Christmas,” “Silent Night,” The First Noel” and more. In a world gone mad, there’s something reassuring about Skaggs’ straightforward, largely acoustic-based takes of these holiday classics. And, as consistent as the change in seasons, he and his band are back for a Christmas tour through the heartland.

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder play Memorial Hall on Dec. 12 at 8 p.m. More info: memorialhallotr.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Dec. 10 print edition.

The post Sound Advice: Ricky Skaggs Brings His Bluegrass Christmas Tour to Cincinnati’s Memorial Hall appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

A conversation with Jess Lamb is a hybridized combination of disparate and yet inextricably connected qualities. It’s a tarot reading, a palmist’s insights, an astrologer’s consultation, a musical treatise, a philosophical dissection, a sweat lodge journey to the soul’s center and a repudiation of the illusionist’s art in favor of true magic.

Case in point: Lamb wanted to conduct our interview at Iris Cafe in Over-the-Rhine, without knowing that the grandmother who helped raise me after my mother’s death was named Iris. When I note this coincidence, she responds with “That’s amazing!” The exclamation doesn’t hit like hipster chatter designed to fill empty space but is spoken with the wide-eyed wonder of a believer who finds miracles in the mundane and sees signs in the most random tea leaves.

“Follow the signs,” Lamb states categorically. “Once you notice one, you’ll notice three, then you notice five, and, like right now, you’re creating portals. I believe that with all the AI things happening that there’s going to be a resurgence of people going analog and wanting to live like they’re in the ’90s. I believe that could bring back the music industry where people are selling physical items and in control of that, making human-to-human connections.”

That belief in signs and hope for a future that successfully draws on a reliable past may well be the secret ingredient that makes Lamb’s music so compelling. She has steadfast faith in her path, the work she creates along the way, the people she collaborates with and the intersectional environment where it all takes place.

“I think that’s born into us, that force of ‘Got to be who I am,'” says Lamb. “I see it; I’m drawn to it and to working and collabing with others who are just the biggest local stars that I’ve been in front of. I want to speak life to Cincinnati. I’m always going to be here. I have property here; I started my label (City Queen Sounds) here. When people go looking for the soul, and the songs that take you there, it’s deep, it’s different and that’s Cincinnati. I think this is where we’re going to shine the brightest during these times.”

It speaks volumes to Lamb’s local commitment, and to the artists she wants to promote, that we’re well into our conversation before it turns toward her personal work, her latest releases and future plans and her upcoming gig at MOTR Pub featuring many of the players who have accompanied her on past residencies and jam session dates. It’s just as important for her to elucidate what she refers to as “shadow work,” the act of artistic creation that draws on the darkest aspects of inspiration and experience in order to inject that creation with the greatest level of authenticity and emotion.

“I admire artists who become the character of their creation,” says Lamb. “I think that’s what really anoints great actors, but that also comes with some torment because you have to get in it and have the deepest experience. There has to be pain. This is something I tried to avoid a lot in my life, but, of late, I’ve been really obsessed with being in the shadow work. The more shadow work we’re willing to do, the deeper our spirit is, the more our hearts radiate and shine. It’s like a recharge. Go dark, come out so light.”

Lamb’s latest singles are great examples of what she does best with her soul/R&B/indie rock heart and vocal cords, the first being Bootsy Collins’ stunning remix of “Beautiful,” the closing track on her exquisite 2020 album, You Are. The original featured a wealth of vocal talent, including Siri Amani, Krystal Peterson, Mol Sullivan, Anna Applegate, Kate Wakefield and many others who are present in Collins’ wildly imaginative remix that took Lamb and her co-writer/co-producer Warren Harrison by surprise.

“I sent Bootsy all of the hundreds of stems we had recorded. We had so many legendary voices on there,” says Lamb. “When he sent it back, there were totally different lyrics, and I was like, ‘I don’t even remember recording this,’ and Warren was like, ‘I don’t even know how he got those.’ Then we realized we didn’t clear out the logic folder where you can delete takes you’d done, which we forgot about. Bootsy created this beautiful new version five years later with stuff we would have deleted. And actually, the lyrics are even more relevant to now, so this is the timeline jumping. I find hidden prophecies all the time, things that didn’t mean anything to me five years ago and now they’re changing my path.”

The second single is the brand new track “Since You’ve Gone,” which initially feels like an anthemic break-up torch song that touches musically on soul, jazz, art pop and gospel. Lamb notes the song goes infinitely deeper than lamenting a failed relationship.

“I wrote that for my grandmother, Viola Lamb,” she recalls. “She was one of my many nurturing energies that really made me be salt-of-the-earth with the way I create and do what I do.”

As it happens, “Since You’ve Gone” is new only because it’s making its studio debut. If you’ve seen Lamb live over the past decade and a half, you’ve probably heard it.

“That may be the song that I’ve sat on the longest before putting out a recording I thought did it justice,” says Lamb with an ever-present smile. “And with a lot of the Thursday night bandmates: Chris Robinson (guitars), Warren Harrison (strings), Nate Trammell (drums), Amanda Eldridge (bass), Anna Applegate and Tiffany Sullivan (vocals) and me on keys and vocals.”

Oddly enough, Lamb’s piano part was re-recorded note for note by Shelby Lock, who mixed the track from her Silver Moon Sound studio in Santa Cruz, California; it was discovered that Lamb’s keys had been recorded in mono. Everything else was done in Aaron Madrigal’s Tone Shoppe studio in Northside, live on the studio floor, with engineering done by Madrigal and Eric Cronstein.

“We had the band in a circle and that’s live, minus the keys,” says Lamb. “That’s total live performance energy, how we’ve performed every Thursday night, jamming for years. I knew that song had to be huge, full band. It feels like a church choir. They have such deep soul.”

The best news accompanying “Since You’ve Gone” is that it announces the arrival of Lamb’s first full album since You Are five years ago. Lamb is naturally excited about the 2026 release of the nine-track set, recorded like its initial single.

“It will also feature Siri Amani and Victoria Lekson, my harpist and best friend on every track, although she wasn’t on ‘Since You’ve Gone,'” says Lamb. “You’re going to hear lots of choir, harp, sultry electric guitars, and I’m going back to my gospel roots. Everything I’m writing is in this gospelesque/traditional R&B vibe. The album is called Hymns For My Friends. These are the songs we wrote for each other.”

Lamb will be hyperactive in the new year as she’ll continue to teach songwriting at Xavier University and give private lessons, while vigilantly scouting for talent to feature on her City Queen Sounds label (“I’m trying to showcase the best female artists that I’ve gotten to work with. And I’m sure there are female artists out there that I haven’t met, and I’d love to meet them. If anyone wants to pop into a show and introduce themselves, I would love that.”) She’s also writing the curriculum for an imminent songwriting class at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, and preparing for another fantastic jam session at MOTR Pub on Dec. 18 with the usual crew and, as advertised, several friends. That vibe has always been consistent and constant.

“We’re unlocking things. The more I meditate, the more I create and it’s just for the sake of life,” Lamb says enthusiastically. “I have so much soul, I have to give some of it away. I think the souls of things are so thick to me, it makes me even more present in moments of performing, where the spirit can just take control. I feel like I don’t even know what happened in that set, and I wouldn’t be able to play it exactly that way again.” 

Jess Lamb plays MOTR Pub on Dec. 18 at 8:30 p.m. More info: motrpub.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Dec. 10 print edition.

The post Jess Lamb on Spiritual Creativity, Cincinnati Roots and Her Upcoming Album ‘Hymns For My Friends’ appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Soul Coughing broke up rather acrimoniously 25 years ago. Despite rumors that frontman Mike Doughty was open to reconnecting with his mates — keyboardist/sampler guru Mark Degli Antoni, drummer Yuval Gabay and stand-up bassist Sebastian Steinberg — over the last decade, a full-band reunion remained elusive … until 2024 when the original lineup announced a tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their debut album, Ruby Vroom.

For the uninitiated or those who have forgotten, the off-kilter New York City foursome used jazz-injected, polyrhythmic grooves and Doughty’s sing-speak/beat-poet vocal delivery and acerbic wit to gather a sizable following over the course of three stellar albums (1996’s Irresistible Bliss and 1998’s El Oso followed the debut) before flaming out in 2000. Yet the long layoff didn’t seem to faze them: The 2024 tour garnered a rapturous response, leading the band to release the simply titled LIVE 2024 earlier this year. The double album features 21 songs from across their genre-jumping discography, including fan favorites “Bus to Beelzebub,” “Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago,” “Casiotone Nation,” “Rolling,” “Screenwriter’s Blues” and “Super Bon Bon.”

Last fall’s successful tour led to another set of shows this past spring, and now they’re back on the road for what they’re calling a “Soul Coughing Still Loves You” tour of the Midwest. All of this is a surprise for longtime fans aware of the various internal dramas that led to their demise the first time around. Curiously, the band has done almost no press since reforming. But Antoni — whose mood-altering keyboard and avant sampling work remain one of Soul Coughing’s secret ingredients — briefly spoke with Medium back in September, revealing how they decided on a set list for the live shows: “We picked songs that were important to us, that we’d always played well. Wasn’t a lot of fussing.”

And how are the guys getting along these days? “We’re all being super professional, committed to our shared legacy, appreciating the love shown by our audiences.”

It’s hard to tell whether this vague assessment will lead to even more touring or new songs, but it’s easy to be pleased that Soul Coughing finally reconnected.

Soul Coughing plays Madison Theater on Dec. 7 at 8 p.m. More info: madisontheater.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Nov. 26 print edition.

The post Sound Advice: Soul Coughing Reunites for 30th Anniversary Tour of ‘Ruby Vroom’ appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

Stevie Nicks is still doing her thing. The 77-year-old singer and songwriter has survived a rollercoaster life, more than 50 years of it in the spotlight, becoming one of the most iconic musical figures of the 1970s and beyond in the process. She’s done so despite multifarious issues in her personal life, dramas no doubt exacerbated by her copious use of drugs and alcohol, of which she’s supposedly been free of since the late 1980s. The romanticized era of Fleetwood Mac’s creative and commercial zenith is the stuff of legend (tipping into mythos) — the kind of fame, fortune and indulgence that too often yields ruinous results. 

But Nicks and her voice endured, altered by time but still affecting. Then there is her visual aesthetic, which is as much a part of her creative aura as her vulnerable vocal emissions. How many artists have their own Barbie doll? Surreal and oddly appropriate, check this recent press release from Mattel: “From Fleetwood Mac frontwoman to massive solo star, Stevie Nicks is an icon of free-spirited talent and style. The second Barbie doll tribute to the queen of rock is an homage to her Bella Donna era, the album that launched her multiplatinum solo career.” The doll comes replete with a flowing white dress, top hat and high-heeled boots, which Mattel describes as a “hallmark of Stevie’s iconic bewitching boho style.”

Nicks’ current tour, which might be her last, covers her entire career — of course, heavy on Fleetwood Mac hits (“Rhiannon,” “Gold Dust Woman,” “Landslide” and “Dreams”) and her best-known solo work (“Edge of Seventeen,” “Stand Back” and “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”), as well as a couple of covers (most often Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’ ” and The Crickets’ “Not Fade Away”). The recent and upcoming shows were makeup dates after Nicks suffered a fractured shoulder in August 2025, which she describes as “a bad break in every way.” Bad breaks are nothing new for this flawed but resilient woman.

Stevie Nicks plays the Heritage Bank Center on Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. More info: heritagebankcenter.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Nov. 26 print edition.

The post Sound Advice: Stevie Nicks Brings Career-Spanning Tour to Cincinnati’s Heritage Bank Center appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.

There is an entertaining book lurking in Ryan Malott’s memories. For two decades, he was the frontman and creative spark plug for the galloping Americana outfit 500 Miles to Memphis, and he’s always been quick to credit local legend David Rhodes Brown for being the catalyst of the band’s first major evolution, with his pedal steel prowess combined with his years of band and road experience.

In the same vein, Brown’s death from lung cancer in 2022 effectively put the final stamp on 500 Miles to Memphis. Brown had already been diagnosed when 500MTM released 2021’s Hard to Love, and Malott had the sense then that their self-described best album was likely their last.

“That is the loudest and most aggressive album that we’ve done and it’s my favorite,” says Malott over beers at the Northside Tavern. “I love that album. I’m most proud of the lyrical content of it. I really feel like I hit my stride with communication. And it’s loud. And fast.”

Three years ago, at a tribute concert for Brown organized by Malott, Kelly Thomas and Brown’s widow Bobbi Jean Kayser (who herself sadly passed away back in August after her own cancer battle) at the Southgate House Revival, Malott confessed that he was contemplating stepping away from music in order to concentrate on sifting through Brown’s tape archive to identify and release his work. He did just that, creating the Sad Cowboy label and releasing a trove of Brown’s recordings, making his catalog available digitally for the first time.

“I named the label after one of my favorites of David’s songs, ‘The Saddest of Cowboys,'” says Malott. “I created the label in the beginning as a platform to release old Warsaw Falcons albums because they’d never been released digitally. I went through tons of cassette tapes and stacks of CDs, and some of them were usable and I was able to extract the audio, clean it up and remaster it. I even had a lot of reel to reel masters that I was able to transfer digitally, remix and release. Everything held up pretty well. I was able to keep him alive through that. It was like he was always there. I was having conversations with him through the music, and I was appreciating him as an artist, which I had never done before. I got a bonus year of David.”

With the cessation of the process — save for one last album slated for release in the new year — Malott felt a natural emptiness, as Brown’s absence suddenly became more palpable. Although 500MTM played a couple of reunion shows, Malott realized that his passion for the band was inextricably intertwined with Brown, and that it was time to close the book on 500 Miles to Memphis.

“We did the reunion back in June, which was a benefit for Bobbi Jean, who passed just a few weeks after, and I reunited the Warsaw Falcons and played with them,” says Malott. “It was the first time I’d been onstage with 500 Miles to Memphis in two or three years. I’m up for reunion shows, but after the tour for Hard to Love, it just felt like the right time to stop.”

Perhaps the greater realization for Malott was the amount of time he now had to spend with his family, time that had previously been slated for writing, recording, local gigging and farther flung touring. He found full-time employment and reveled in returning to the home life he had precariously balanced with his band life for so many years.

“All that time investment I was putting into music is going to my children,” says Malott. “Now that limited resource of time is for my wife and kids, where it should be. I’m very lucky.”

Even as his ardor for his own work began to wane ever so gradually, he found that his love of music in general was gaining traction. With Sad Cowboy established as a viable label, Malott sought out artists who could benefit from his wide-ranging experience, in much the same way that he had absorbed similar lessons from Brown. In addition to the Warsaw Falcons material, Malott has subsequently released works by Bandages, Get Wrecked and Veronica Grim (who recorded Malott’s “Straight to Hell,” the last song he wrote for 500MTM that they never used). The rewards of those releases have been two-fold: exposing people to Brown’s incredible talents and to mirror the experiential wisdom that Brown bestowed upon him.

“I’ll have people message me and be like, ‘Holy shit, I didn’t realize David had these records out. I had never heard this stuff before and I didn’t realize how good David was,'” says Malott. “They’ll say, ‘Thanks for filling me in on this whole Dave thing. I’m going down this rabbit hole.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes! That’s what I did!”

“Then I started thinking about how I could keep the memory of David alive even more,” Malott continued. “David funded our second album, Sunshine in a Shot Glass; he introduced me to Erwin Musper, who produced it; he gave me a place to live. So I thought, how can I pay it forward? I’m not going to let anyone live in my house, but I’m going to continue this label and selectively record bands for free and help them pursue their careers. Sometimes that means helping them write or throwing on background harmonies or playing guitar; whatever I can do to help them make the best record possible. Then I give them like a kickstart to their career, like, ‘Here’s the contacts you need: You need a publicist; you need to play these festivals,’ and just share this knowledge that I’ve amassed over the years.”

Although Malott has largely set aside his own musical aspirations after a two-decade pursuit, he’s not averse to getting back on a stage for the right offer. Enter former 500MTM guitarist Stephen Kuffner, who called Malott and asked if he would be interested in playing with him at MOTR Pub. Always prepared to help a friend, Malott responded with a semi-rousing “Sure. Why not?”

“I didn’t ask for any details,” says Malott. “I was just like, ‘What’s the date? What time do you want me to be there?’ He didn’t tell me it’s with Owls of Ohio, his new band that he’s fronting. I found that out online. As far as material, I’ve got some new stuff I’ve been messing around with but haven’t recorded yet.”

An obvious question hangs in the air after Malott has discussed his love of family life and being satisfied with what he’s accomplished with 500MTM and the Sad Cowboy label. Given the right circumstances, would he ever return to music as a career, or was the title of 500MTM’s 2010 album, We’ve Built Up to Nothing, somehow prophetic?

“There are times that I’m like, ‘Nothing is great,'” says Malott with a laugh. “I don’t have any fucking projects on my calendar and I’m fine with that. I have zero responsibilities and stress as far as music goes. Children, day job, wife, home…that is about as much as I can handle anymore. As far as music goes, I’m not really thinking about it.” 

And yet, Ryan Malott has songs that he’s been messing around with, and a studio in which to record things he hasn’t recorded yet. And he admitted that he’s inspired by the Clash, and he could start another band, and he could have another project left in the tank. Maybe, just maybe, that kind of math does itself. 

Ryan Malott performs with Owls of Ohio at MOTR Pub on Dec. 4 at 9 p.m. More info: motrpub.com.

This story is featured in CityBeat’s Nov. 26 print edition.

The post Inside Ryan Malott’s Journey From 500 Miles to Memphis to Reviving David Rhodes Brown’s Catalog appeared first on Cincinnati CityBeat.