The Witzard

"You could fit the contents of Tony's previous releases on Slumberland and Matador [Records] onto one side of a 90-minute cassette and still have room left over for the eight offerings on CONFRONT THE TRUTH , but would you want it any other way? When Tony sings about "trying to move on but I just don't know how," no extension of the time it takes for him to bring that feeling across is going to solve the problem at hand. You're immediately thrust into the orbit of these songs; you know how he feels, and now you can relate. Transference is complete. You've got plenty of time left over to dwell upon them. The eight offerings on CONFRONT THE TRUTH notch a significant advancement in his style and approach. Almost completely absent from these new songs are the over-loaded guitar crunch of DISSED AND DISMISSED , or his earlier work with OVENS; it's replaced by gentle acoustic balladry, tasteful Mellotron and piano backing, the kind of musicianship that o...

Aside from a series of pretty lackluster mismatched performances and Kanye 's attempted hi-jacking of Album of The Year winner Beck 's spotlight, the only legitimate stroke of "real artistry" at this year's GRAMMY Awards came from Ed Sheeran, John Mayer, Herbie Hancock, ?uestlove , and legendary bassist Adam Blackstone . Sheeran's GRAMMY -assembled super-group performed a spirited live rendition of his latest x single, "Thinking Out Loud;" making best use of recent Late Late Show hosts guitar playing-talents, The Roots drummer/bandleader's "chops," and the classically-trained Jazz pianist's gentle stroke of the ivory keys. It seems as though Ed Sheeran and John Mayer (both reported exes of Taylor Swift ) have put aside whatever differences they might have had, effectively becoming "the weirdest friends ever," to paraphrase Leslie Mann from The Other Woman . I, for one, would definitely not mind hearing a John Ma...