Month: August 2010

Posted on: August 21, 2010 Posted by: John B. Moore Comments: 0

Life After People – The Complete Season Two (DVD)

The concept behind the History Channel’s documentary series Life After People sounds a bit dry on the surface, but is anything but. Scientists and architects go into fascinating detail speculating on the fate of monuments and iconic buildings after all of mankind has disappeared. Without man to repair cracks, remove vegetation, and basically maintain these structures, weather, evasive plants and animals conspire to dismantle these once sacred monuments.

Posted on: August 21, 2010 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Make Believe – Shock of Being (CD)

Make Believe elicit a different spirit for each of their tracks on “Shock of Being”. They start off their tribute by emulating Nirvana heavily on “Amscaredica”, while “His Short Quip When Eddie’s Bothered” looks to the weird gait of acts like Primus. There is really no connection beyond the masters of oddness during “His Short Quip”, as there are so many things happening at any one given second during the…

Posted on: August 20, 2010 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

The Majestic Twelve – Schizophrenology (CD)

The Majestic Twelve had one of the more memorable albums of the last few years with their “Searching For The Elvis Knob”. This follow-up album works along most of the same lines as “Searching”, with tracks like “Condoleezza Check My Posse” mixing together Jello Biafra and the B-52s in some of the more eclectic music that individuals have heard. The production of tracks on this album are at a level…

Posted on: August 20, 2010 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

The Lot Six – Major Fables (CD)

Since the revival of rock music that was lorded over by Swedish bands like the Hellacopters and Gluecifer, and more famously in the States with The Strokes and The White Stripes, all sorts of bands have worked their way out of their lo-fi sound and tried to grab for the brass ring. The Lot Six is a band that tries to go for this down and dirty rock sound, and…

Posted on: August 20, 2010 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Majestic Twelve – Searching For The Elvis Knob (CD)

The Majestic Twelve are another band that are pretty acoustic-heavy, but are able to infuse their music with a style, talent, and humor that is all theirs. Spinning electronic threats into their first track, “Soylent Green”, which mesh well with the vocal timbre present on the track. Taking a one-eighty with their second track, “I Don’t Have A Job”, speeding through the lyrics in a way similar to Michael Stipe’s…

Posted on: August 20, 2010 Posted by: John B. Moore Comments: 0

Jersey Shore Uncensored – Season One (DVD)

If you have yet to hear about MTV’s Jersey Shore, let me start by congratulating you on waking up from your coma. For everyone else, the concept has already been ingrained in you thanks to pop culture. The realty show follows eight (yes, there’s more to the show than Snookie and The Situation) mostly Italian American housemates that live and (occasionally) work together at the Jersey Shore.

Posted on: August 20, 2010 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Mahi Mahi – (Re) Move Your Body (CD)

Mahi Mahi play a bizarre, fun band of herky-jerky dance music that has as much to do with The Locust as it does with Gigi D’Agostino. In fact, during tracks like “I Can’t Hear You”, the unnecessarily clunky drumbeats of the track even begin to recall the demo-led recordings of Wesley Willis and a Ritalin-fed Atom and His Package. The aforementioned “I Can’t Hear You” has a synth/drum dichotomy that…

Posted on: August 19, 2010 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Magnet – The Tourniquet (CD)

Aside from their magazine, Filter has to be doing something right . Magnet is the next act that will undoubtedly hit it big, and it is not because they are primped and primed for the big time. Rather, Magnet is a diverse sounding band that will infuriate the hearts of listeners to the point that they cannot stand it; “The Tourniquet” is the equivalent of the melting pot that is…

Posted on: August 19, 2010 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Magicicada – Everyone is Everyone (CD)

Magicicada elicits a Native American type of feel to the first track on “Everyone Is Everyone”, “Coso Joru”. There is not much else to this track besides a humming that is present throughout the song’s six minute runtime. In what can only be described as a noise approximating that of a human heart, the atmosphere created by Magicicada from the get-go is very organic, even if (I would venture) most…

Posted on: August 19, 2010 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Maeve Hughes Trio – Begin From Within (CD)

“Skipping Stones” starts off with an emotionally-full piano line that goes into some serious harmonies soon after. The great thing about this is that it opens up into a very reggae-infused sound, with horns to boot. There are no vocals present, but there is little need for them; the arrangements are that full and impressive that the inclusion of the vocal at the onset was not necessary. This is not…