Tom Barrett and CR Gennone at 503 Social Club

Tom Barrett lives a quiet life in East Nashville, Tennessee these days with his wife and two cats, but in a former life he was a prevalent figure in both the Jersey City and Hoboken music scenes for nearly two and a half decades, having played in more than a half-dozen bands (Overlake, American Watercolor Movement, etc.) before embarking on his own musical path in 2011. Three full-length records and a handful of EPs and singles later, he’s still developing his own style of carefully rendered acoustic indie-folk tunes, taking inspiration from greats like Nick Drake and Jeff Tweedy, along with so many others.

His fourth record, Everywhere We Live, is brighter and more polished than any of his previous full-length releases. Its eleven songs mostly reckon with the feelings of fear and loneliness that come with living in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. There’s also hope and resilience in there as well. And a lot of Mellotron. Everywhere We Live will be available on all streaming services October 4th via Mint 400 Records.

For Jersey City guitarist and songwriter CR Gennone, it’s been a long road to The Ghosts Are Coming Home, the second album from his five-piece outfit CR and the Nones. Ghosts, the Nones’ second record and first on Magic Door, is a culmination of the sound and aesthetic Gennone has been building across many years and multiple bands. Its combination of expansiveness and introspection recalls The War on Drugs or early My Morning Jacket, and the ten tracks here showcase sincerity and heart that are impossible to resist. - Zach Romano