Releases suit many musical tastes

Barroom rock ‘n’ roll and heart-on-the-sleeve pop top the latest roundup of Vegas music releases:

ALMOST NORMAL, “I Shot the Moon” (almostnormalmusic.com): Ashley Lampman is the kind of lady who spells her emotions out in all caps.

“My heart beats for you,” she sings on album opener “Escape.”

“Tasting you is just like heaven,” she adds on “Make Believe.”

“I really, really love you,” she summates on closer “Breakup Season.”

Lampman’s ardor is an unmovable object on “I Shot the Moon,” as outsize as that which is targeted in its title.

You hear it in her voice, as she sings in a breathy, ever-earnest rush of words freighted with longing.

Lampman humanizes Almost Normal’s alternately eager and bittersweet pop rock, which is equally polished and precocious.

“Let’s be kids forever,” she implores over ringing guitars on “Write Me A Letter,” and true to form, this disc does have a starry-eyed feel to it.

Some will find it all a bit too precious, but the band, rounded out by guitarist Shane Ouellette, drummer Andrew Zakher and bassist Cris Hanna, is as cutting as they are occasionally cutesy.

ZITO 77, “Live Vol. 1” (zito77.com): Over the years, John Zito has become as much a fixture in Vegas rock dives as bartenders who drink as heavily as the patrons and that thick layer of dust on all the top shelf hooch.

It’s a fitting setting: No matter what project he’s performing with, Zito’s equally bluesy and technically prodigious playing seems indivisible from neon beer signs and bathroom stalls checked with band stickers.

As might be expected then, this disc is packed full of songs that no credible corner bar jukebox would be without, recorded live at Count’s Vamp’d in April.

Trading leads with the equally formidable Stoney Curtis, Zito unleashes all kinds of hell on standards such as “Train Kept A Rollin’,” “Snortin’ Whiskey” and “Manic Depression.”

Frontman and reality TV fixture Danny “the Count” Koker, owner of Count’s Kustoms and the club where the album was recorded, sings from the bottom of his gut with soul and gusto, while bassist Barry Barnes and drummer Paul DiSibio anchor the bottom end.

All these tunes are as well-worn as the denim these dudes come clad in, but like a good pair of jeans, they’re almost better for all the wear and tear.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.