"... Recalling Johnny Cash's American Recordings series (not just in sound, either - look at that cover art), it's a solid offering from an accomplished songwriter and slide guitarist whose cohort of studio collaborators help to serve up a collection that oscillates between sizzling southern rock and reflective acoustic odes..."

"The distinctive and powerful tradition of shape note singing has seen something of a revival over the last decade or so - there are an increasing number of "sings" happening, but traces have shown up in a lot of other music, too... The songs' folk arrangements have a varying fidelity to the a cappella originals, but they're united by a stripped-down sensibility that's appropriate to the Lenten season."

"... Vancouver-based musician Sam Rocha's Late to Love was one of the most memorably unique records of 2014; billed as an "Augustinian soul" concept album, it interpreted the saint's Confessions with unusually cerebral, spiritual lyrics and a hybrid R&B/folk sound. Its follow-up, Fear and Loving, was released on January 1 and dials back the R&B influence, with a heavier focus on Rocha's acoustic guitar work while introducing a couple new elements, too..."

".. Indie rock has a special knack for inflating personal crises into general apocalypses, but this debut from Ohio six-piece Dear Other flips enough of those genre conventions on their head to work both as a promising foretaste of a talented band and a pleasure in its own right..."