Micah Dalton - Pawn Shop

I love this guy's voice! Somehow, someway, it's a mix of Amos Lee, Keb Mo, and Ray Lamontagne - Absolutely perfect for Dalton's unique down-home style of folk/blues/soul/pop.

This album feels well-produced: enough effort went into it to make it sound "complete", but not so much that it sounds like too much. Yeah, I don't really know what I just said either.

The bottom line with Micah Dalton is that I think he sounds good, writes good songs, and wears suspenders which just puts him over the top for cool points.

Pawn Shop is the kind of album I can load in my player and listen to in my backyard hammock while swaying in the wind, an experience reserved only for special albums. Check it out!

Listen to this album:

Jeremy Casella - RCVRY

I constantly discover new music through a Kevin Bacon-like, six degrees of separation method. For the past few months I've been listening to a great artist named Andrew Osenga, and through his blog (which is hilarious) I found out about Andy Gullahorn (who is also great and whose blog is also hilarious) and while reading a review for AG's new album they mentioned his music is similar to Jeremy Casella. So I checked out Jeremy Casella and absolutely love his latest album, RCVRY (recovery).

The instrumentation on this one is absolutely fresh and "ear-appealing." I love Casella's songs and his voice is great too. His guitar work on this album is incredible. Yeah, it's pretty much the whole package. If I had to pick similar artists, I'd name the previously mentioned Andys, and some of the instrumentation reminds me of David Gray, especially DG's newer stuff with the use of strings.

I tend to gravitate towards Christian artists that are outside the box a bit; those that have a do-it-yourself type attitude and are a lot less "uptight" than typical CCM artists. I would classify Casella in this category. I feel his lyrics are incredibly honest and real.

Oh yeah, and back to the blogs. Casella's ALSO cracks me up. Check out this list of the 25 things he learned in 2007. The bit about the iPod and fuel economy is right on. I guess the moral of the story is if you've got great music and a great blog, you're going to make it far...at least in my opinion.