September 2025 - Rock Oracle

September 26, 2025 Jason Shrum

We Caught Those Fists in Nashville

This was the third cultivated show by Rolling Stone Magazine monikered as the Gather No Moss Tour. Fans knew exactly when to clap and clamor back with audio responses provoked by the group. It was as if we were watching a classic rock band we had seen for years, yet this is fresh and new and certainly exciting. If you are not listening to Wet Leg, then you are doing yourself a disservice. With just the two records out in only a few years as a collective the band has a ceiling that currently is way above the peer of human eyes.

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September 23, 2025 Jason Shrum

Whitney Phillips is Listening

Whitney Phillips is one of those people that sees an opportunity to get back to our roots and build, rather than tear down. Oh, who is Whitney Phillips? Lemme spin the record back for a minute. I met Whitney years ago when she was a singer/songwriter from Seattle and a good friend of my now ex-wife’s. I knew she was good and that she was starting to scratch her name into the ledgers of the industry, however, she has become more than just the background voice that she used to provide to mega-stars.

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September 8, 2025 Jason Shrum

NIN Peels It Back in Nashville

The setlist drew from The Downward Spiral more than any other album, although they played from various records. The group was now gaining momentum with rising fury and ripped one expeditious track after another; this included ‘March of the Pigs’, ‘Repitle’ and “Heresy” (all from The Downward Spiral); then ‘Copy of A’ (from 2013’s Hesitation Marks) and ‘Gave Up’ (also from Broken). They then began their rapid trek onto the more intimate setup where it got more electronic with Boys Noize joining in for all four of the songs. These were essentially remixes as Boys Noise shifted the tonality a bit with his additional soundscape. It was ‘Vessel’ (Year Zero), ‘Closer’ (The Downward Spiral), ‘As Alive as you Need Me To Be’ (from the new TRON:Ares soundtrack) and ‘Came Back Haunted’ (Hesitation Marks). I would love to hear a proper recording of the joint they prepared on ‘Closer’ (I’ll include that clip too).

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September 4, 2025 Matt Perkins

Muddy Roots takes All Kinds

If you’ve never heard of it, Muddy Roots takes place every year at the June Bug Ranch north of Cookeville. I’ll be the first to say that I wasn’t sure what to expect from a punk festival in somewhat rural Tennessee but it’s a safe, fun place where feral kids roam free, Nazis aren’t welcome, and people genuinely look out for each other. Sure they have used Narcan out there and people break bones, but I’ve seen over a hundred people throw cash into a PBR twelve pack box to help someone out. We pick up our people who have fallen in the circle pit of life.

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September 1, 2025 Jason Shrum

I Believe in a Thing Called The Darkness

My passion for the British rock group began back in 2003 when I first heard the single ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’, off their debut album Permission to Land. Now singer/guitarist Justin Hawkins, his brother guitarist Dan Hawkins, bassist Frankie Poullain, and drummer Rufus Taylor (son of Queen drummer Roger Taylor) are back with their eighth studio album. If you know anything about The Darkness, then you know about a high level of intensity when playing live gigs. As the band first emerged on the scene there was this inkling that they were some kind of joke band. That they were spoofing the 1970’s hard and glam rock scene, but those ribbings were quickly left by the side of musicality road. This band is absolutely enthralling. Listeners and critics alike fastly found themselves realizing the technical fortitude of this sonically reverent band.