Amy Millan

• ACL Music Fest Reviews

• Benevento/Russo Duo

  BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

• Guster

  BY GREG BEETS

• Amy Millan

  BY DARCIE STEVENS

• Gnarls Barkley

  BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY

• Gomez

  BY AUSTIN POWELL

• Ray Lamontagne

  BY ANDY LANGER

• Sparklehorse

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• Van Morrison

  BY MARGARET MOSER

• Murder By Death

  BY AUDRA SCHROEDER

• TV on the Radio

  BY AUDRA SCHROEDER

• Charlie Sexton & Shannon McNally

  BY MARGARET MOSER

• Los Lobos

  BY JIM CALIGIURI

• The Long Winters

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• Guy Clark

  BY JIM CALIGIURI

• The Stills

  BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

• KT Tunstall

  BY MELANIE HAUPT

• Randy Rogers Band

  BY JIM CALIGIURI

• Los Amigos Invisibles

  BY ROBERT GABRIEL

• Muse

  BY AUSTIN POWELL

• G. Love

  BY AUSTIN POWELL

• Tom Petty

  BY DARCIE STEVENS

Amy Millan

Honey From the Tombs (Arts & Crafts)

Amy Millan, the elfish voice behind Montreal sonic pop band Stars and a Broken Social Scene collaborator, worked three years on her debut solo album, but Honey From the Tombs doesn't drip indie rock. Millan has leapt out of her comfort zone with a bluegrass folk album, a mix of Edie Brickell and Allison Krauss. With the exception of "Skinny Boy," a beautifully nostalgic love song, Honey soars from dirt roads to moss-strewn trees. As the album progresses from country ballad (opener "Losin You") to acoustic twang ("He Brings Out the Whiskey in Me"), Millan morphs from a skinny-jeans hipster to a linen-wearing chanteuse. Double-tracked vocals and the perfect yin to Millan's yang – Jenny Whiteley's backing vox – turn "Baby I" into authentic porch music. When "Hardhearted (Ode to Thoreau)" hints at overplaying, Dan Whiteley's mandolin and Stars cohort Evan Cranley's Dobro pass the bottle and save it. The long stretches somehow become calm space under the weight of Millan's ghostly presence. It might take a hard swallow to understand the mighty genre-jump of an indie princess, but it takes determination to go through with it. It ain't perfect, but Millan just might find herself a hearty welcome down South. (Friday, Stars: 3:30pm, Heineken stage)