Ready for a cold one this season? We thought so! Enjoy, as Christopher Long reflects on his favorite VINYL releases of 2023 — an intoxicating (and satisfying) “six-pack,” to be sure.

Raving Ghost (Third Man). Review by Christopher Long.

Bill Callahan has been wandering the halls of music for quite some time now, his deep voice and aimless arrangements a constant hypnotic presence.

Billy Martin’s drumming makes me think of oxymorons like “precisely sloppy” and “intensely casual” and “red hot chill out”.

Jade Hairpins don’t care about your repetitive song structures, man. That’s not how you cram five albums’ worth of material into less than forty minutes.

If you’re wondering if Acid Tongue is about having a particularly caustic wit, or about some sort of psychedelic dosage, the answer is yes.

If a mermaid learned to play surf guitar, she could give Olivia Jean some exciting competition, at least for a little while.

M. Ward could get by on his smoky velvet voice alone, but he also happens to be a supreme connoisseur of what alert musicians call songcraft.

The Woolly Bushmen may look young, but they sound like a rusted IROC Camaro with a busted manifold roaring out of the 7-11 parking lot.

The Kills lay waste to Atlanta and Nashville, and superfan Jen Cray was there!

Jenny Lewis never fails to make Orlando, and Jen Cray, feel like giddy little school kids… especially when she brings Speedy Ortiz along for the ride.