Welcome to the Critics' Corner

Gail Worley

My personal tastes mostly fall in the rock and roll domain, branching out to various genres such as classic hard rock, heavy metal, melodic industrial, power pop and singer/songwriters. So I'll be looking for and listening to artists whose music excites me and about which I feel inspired to write. Any criticism will be constructive in nature; meant to shine a light on an area where the performance could be improved. I have never been one to review a song I didn't care for, just for the purpose of ripping on it, and I don't plan to start now. Hopefully, my reviews will be fun to read and will turn people on to some cool new bands. You can email me at Rezpect@earthlink.net.

Nick Kepics

Listen to: "Dee (Inst)"

Buy The CD

Strictly speaking, I am not a fan of jazz nor do I usually even attempt to write about music of that genre because, frankly, I don't know dick about jazz. But Nick Kepics was kind enough to send me his CD and I always promise to review anything that anyone sends me in the mail. Thus, here I am listening to a CD of instrumental trumpet-driven jazz that, honestly, really kicks ass. Coming from a total Rock background, I could say Nick Kepics' stuff reminds me of Steely Dan and you might get what I’m talking about: Bluesy Latin jazz that’s very, very easy on the head. When I was listening to “Dee,” for example, I got all sweetly nostalgic for the days when I was maybe 5 years old and my dad would take me and my brother for drives in this huge old Cadillac we owned. He’d play the “Beautiful Music” radio station that was based in Tijuana, Mexico and we’d listen to Herb Alpert and Henry Mancini and stuff like that. So, you know, this music made me miss my Dad, and I guess that means it’s powerful in some way. The two other Starpolish tracks, “Lac Fontome” and Native American-influenced “Piece Offering” are great too and very visual in a “movie score” sort of way. Even if you think you hate jazz, check this stuff out because it’s pretty cool. I’m really glad I got the chance to hear Nick’s music; a fine example of how music need neither be fast nor loud to rock out.