The Fugue is a band that moves between noise and drone with ease. The thing with “Mysterious Animals†is that the four tracks on this EP are really not in any sense distinct tracks from each other. Rather, they feel to be different movements of the same concert. Tracks like “Rumble Bee†and “Molasses The Animal†just enlighten listeners to different sections of The Fugue; each use very angular guitars…
Are Fucked Up some of the same art-punk jerkoffs that steered the revolutionary punk message away to something more diffuse and easier to swallow (look up acts like The Talking Heads and Blondie for that)? Their previous exploits on vinyl (creating liner notes that are purposefully illegible and using random symbols) seem to point toward that, but what is actually on disc is something that is great, to say the…
“Long and Hard†starts off “Diary of a Stone Romanticâ€, and paints Ferona Vei as a band that follows the emo song that has taken over the world in the last few years, but also paints the band as an act that does not always fall into the slow and morose songs of their predecessors (The Early November, for example). The high-energy opening of “Long and Hard†will get individuals’…
For the bulk of his career, Jason Yates spent most of his time hidden behind a Hammond B3 organ. But as his self-titled sophomore record shows, he actually belongs in front of the mic. Lying somewhere between jam band rocker and Americana singer songwriter, Yates writes heartfelt rock without skimping on the funk.
Very few artists try to do the double album in one package deal. The obvious comparison I can make is Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, but there is little in the way of rock musicians that have tried to do the same thing that are coming to mind right now. Matthew Friedberger is the indie wunderkind that is behind acts like The Fiery Furnaces, so one should expect that this album should…
There have been a slew of movies created this decade with the backdrop of the Iraq war, but most have failed miserably. It seems British director/writer Armando Iannucci may have finally found the right formula.
The two styles that are distinct to Freshkills’ sound on “Creeps and Lovers†hit listeners from the opening of the title track. This means that the styles that Freshkills brings to this disc clash and struggle for dominance from the opening bell; there is an early-eighties Talking Heads meets goth (The Cure, Joy Division) type of sound in the vocals and some of the guitars that goes toe to toe…
Moving into different influences and vocal styles, “Where We Live†sounds more like a Flogging Molly song than anything, as the lead singer sounds like a pirate (Arrrrr) and the guitar has that same sharp sound as some of the lines during the FM disc. By far, the band’s anthem is on this disc in “Free Chase Peterseimâ€. For those of you not in the know, Chase Peterseim is a…
(500) Days of Summer is a romantic comedy that seems to strip away many of the played-out features of the genre while still coming forth as eminently approachable for all audiences. The film itself may be a little challenging to get into at first due to the non-linear path it takes. This means that different scenes from Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer’s (Zooey Deschanel)’s relationship are shown. While there seems…
Starting off the disc with a slightly-hackneyed ska-punk guitar line, The Freedom Fries rapidly move beyond that roadblock to make a pop-punk gem in “SBCâ€, which owes more to the California 90’s punk school that anything. The arrangements during “SBC†are different enough too cause people to listen that much more intently to the disc, as they are drug in by the harmonica, the interesting drum beats, or the polished…
