Autumn Fires (And Green Shoots) - Django Bates

Advantages: Easy listening, nice to relax to
Disadvantages: Some may find the style of music very dated

...Say the name Django Reinhardt to someone and you'll most likely get one of two responses: either they'll smile at you and say "You've heard of him? Excellent!" or they'll simply stare blankly at you as if you're speaking a foreign language. For anyone who doesn't know, Django Reinhardt was a jazz guitarist popular through particularly the 1930's. Born to a family of Gypsies, he spent his early life travelling and was playing guitar from a very early age. The most impressive thing about Django's guitar playing is he actually lost the use of two of his fingers on his left hand (the hand most guitarists' uses to fret with, form chords, etc.) during a fire at the age of eighteen. With such a disability, many guitarists would have called it a day, but not so Django. Instead, he adapted his parts to suit his abilities and even pushed... Read review

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Advantages: a wonderful return of an american master
Disadvantages: lyrics

.... "Dream" is a sensory overload, Green emptying out all of his sexual energy moan by ecstatic moan until the 9-minute track becomes a post-coital blur. It is precisely the way "Dream" ended, that left fans waiting for him to make a comeback, waiting for 26 years, buying his erratic gospel records and seeing him in his breathtaking stage performances in order to be satiated. "I Cant Stop", the title track, returns to that same place, with a loss of his youthful power but not a scintilla less intensity. The voice might have lost its timber but it still has the immaculate technique of its owner. Here, with Willie Mitchell and The Memphis Horns in full swing, he basically admits that he's feening for a woman's touch. Like that, as if 26 years haven't passed, Green steps back into the emotional fire and reminds us the preciously thin line between... Read review

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Advantages: Good sound
Disadvantages: None

...Citing Radiohead, Incubus and Coldplay, within the booklet, as bands the listener should tune into, it becomes clear, even without listening to a note, where the band's influences will lie. These influences are indeed clear to be seen right from the very start in Charity Burns Green; using Incubus-styled vocals that sound as if they are reaching out to a distant object, attempting to draw it nearer. The result of this is a record that with the punkier guitaring sounds very much like emo, in the vein of Boy Sets Fire, but without the harder, screaming vocals, nor the foibles that we often find in that type of music. Yet, these influences do not define the album. It quite happily has its own sound and a good one at that. Coming together as friends at the local high school in Vineland, New Jersey, it is rare to find six musicians in one... Read review

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