Record Review: Waterdeep's Self-titled Double LP

If you blinked you probably missed it. Actually, chances are, even if your eyes were open the whole time, you had your ears to the ground, and you even read independent music blogs you most likely still missed one of the great albums to be released this past year: Waterdeep's self titled double album. It's Waterdeep's Waterdeep.

They quietly released the album back in December to the fans who supported their Kickstarter campaign. Since then, as far as I know, the album has gotten little attention, and that is more than a little too bad. Both discs contain some of the tightest and catchiest melodies you will hear all year. Compositionally the album has been meticulously pieced together, every part a well thought out, well placed necessary addition. These are the types of songs you would hope to hear playing at the end of some important serial TV show. This is contemporary songwriting at its best. 

Feeding My Kickstarter Habit: a spring music preview

I don't buy as much as I used to. This has mostly to do with having three kids, a house, and a long stretch of future to think about.  So, when I do make the choice to purchase music it is somewhat of a bold step in that I want to be sure my decision will be backed up with something high quality.  Well, over the past couple of months I have made a number of music purchases and looking back at those decisions I realized there was something pretty unique about all of them: they were all either promoted and funded on Kickstarter or released independently (the Kickstarters are also all independent releases). Adding to this, at the moment I have only received the actual music to one of these releases, meaning I "purchased" the music well in advance of the actual release and sometimes in advance of its actually being recorded.