The Jai-Alai Savant’s “Thunderstatement” gives listeners the same general feeling as if they happened on a seventies rock band’s album that has been lost for the last thirty or so years. During tracks like “Scarlett Johansson, Why Don’t You Love Me”, the band’s music really comes forth as if it was born directly from the arena rock era. The band moves up a few years to the Police-sounding title-track. Where…
Aug 5 Clarkston, MI DTE Energy Center w/ Owl City & Maroon 5 Aug 6 Noblesville, IN Verizon Wireless w/ Owl City & Maroon 5 Aug 7 Canandaigua, NY Constellation Perf. Arts Center w/Owl City & Maroon 5 Aug 10 Mansfield, MA Comcast Center w/ Owl City & Maroon 5 Aug 11 Wantagh, NY Jones Beach w/ Owl City & Maroon 5 Aug 13 Bristow, VA (DC) Jiffy Lube Live…
This summer, Chromeo, the virtuosic New York and Montreal-based synth-funk duo will hit the road with the like-minded disco outfit Holy Ghost! for the Business Casual Tour presented by Green Label Sound. Leading up to the release of their long-awaited third studio album Business Casual (out August 17th on Atlantic Records), the 23-date tour kicks off Monday July 26th in Washington, DC, following their special joint performance with Daryl Hall…
In the spring of 2009, 21C Media Group launched a new image- and awareness-building program called 21C Artists To Watch for classical musicians on the brink of major careers. Through this initiative, 21C provides regular information about the artists’ activities directly to classical music tastemakers in both the industry and the media. Since its inception only a year ago, the program has developed a selective roster of some of the…
I thought when “Banned In America” started that Jade would be creating something that was an Avril clone. Don’t get me wrong, the vocal style of Jade is still something that is pop-based, but the backing instrumentation is something that is much more heavy and rock-based. This puts Jade in the position of being another Amy lee. The vocal style gives me more of a Celine Dion feel, so the…
“Triangle Folds,” taken from his sprawling DJ-Kicks mix, is the first Holden offering for over four years. Naturally it displays all of the trademark Holden musical perversions: loose, live-feeling rhythms, quirky time signatures and the bare minimum of pandering to the dictates of the conservative DJ. The track is the edited-down result of heady late night analogue jam sessions improvising on an electronic theme using his enviable modular synthesizer collection:…
“I Am The Light” starts off in a much different vein than the following tracks would indicate. This is because “Jaxbac” is a purely vocal track that rivals (but does not emulate) throat-singing, while both “Blood Doesn’t Lie” and “Nowhere To Land” approach the industrial, early-nineties goth sound without abandon. The music on tracks like “I Am The Light” seem to be drawn from the Middle Eastern tradition of music,…
The full lineup for the 11th annual installment of ProgPower USA — the largest alignment of progressive, classic and power metal bands on American soil — has been finalized for this September’s festivities. As always, the massive event, held in Atlanta, Georgia, will include a plethora of both stateside and European acts, including headlining acts Kamelot, Accept and Hammerfall, along with Turisas, Nocturnal Rites and more. This year’s festival will…
Aside from the wonderful new-plastic smell of the CD booklet, Ivy’s Butterfly strikes me at the beginning of their CD for another reason : the rich layering of vocals and the guitars unafraid to be both explorative and to rock out. Ivy’s Butterfly also provides me with a slight problem, as with Go Rimbaud, the sheer work they do on each track renders it virtually impossible to assign a generally-acceptable…
Before Derek Nicoletto started his new band, the electro/rock/pop outfit DEREK AND THE DARLING, he wrote a song called “Hustler with a Rescue Plan,” detailing where he was mentally and emotionally after the breakup of his former band, Telling on Trixie. And now, Derek and the Darling will be taking its debut EP on the road on their inaugural BALD AMBITION TOUR that kicks off this week in PIttsburgh, PA…
After 20 plus years, UK classic rock legends Wishbone Ash have released a new single, “Reason To Believe”, which is creating a huge buzz amongst the music press and fans of the band worldwide. The single is part of an EP that also features an album edit from the forthcoming CD and two superb remixes which stand out on their own. It is now available for download on iTunes. “Reason…
Throughout their 37-year career, KISS (www.KISSonline.com) has sold 80 million albums, played in front of millions of people and become an integral part of American culture. Now, rock’s most iconic band is unleashing another assault on North America with The Hottest Show on Earth tour starting on July 23. KISS will perform such classics as “Detroit Rock City” and “Rock and Roll All Nite” as well as hits that they…
The dreamy pop of Ivy is cultured, having been refined for the last decade over four albums. The music that starts off the disc, especially “Nothing But The Sky”, does not cut as deep as it could. Everything seems to traverse the same narrow swath during the 5:12 of the track, ultimately leaving a certain hollowness and lack of depth that plagues the band throughout the disc. “Thinking About You”…
9th Annual Reggae In The Desert June 12 In Downtown Las Vegas, NV Lineup Features: Barrington Levy, Sly & Robbie, Marcia Griffiths, Yellowman, Mystic Roots and Haleamano Clark County Parks and Recreation and Frederic Apcar Productions present the ninth annual Reggae in the Desert concert, which returns to the Clark County Government Center Amphitheater with a collection of acts including Barrington Levy, Sly and Robbie, Marcia Griffiths, Yellowman, Mystic Roots…
Okay, so I went into It Dies Today’s “Sirens” pretty negatively. The first verse of the first song had me making my “Eww, all yelling metal crap.” But, you guys won me back over. The growls and yelling were used tastefully, backed by vocals I actually quite enjoy. And the yelling is pretty unique; I can still make out all the lyrics. “A Port in Any Storm” actually had some…
The K Singles Zip-Pak, a new subscription series of electronic singles, will begin July 1 with an advance preview of Mirah’s “Gone Are all the Days” 12” single [KLP222]. Include are all four versions of “Gone Are all the Days” from the 12” release plus a bonus dance re-mix by Shawn Parke and a rhythm mix by Christopher Doulgeris available only through the K Mail Order Dept. This debut week…
Ism – Monkey Underneath I had started writing my review of “Monkey Underneath”, but after writing about half of it I realized that the music that was playing from my speakers was in reality not Ism but Him or Avenged Sevenfold, coming out of one of my friends’ Myspace. Oh well, Ism sounds quite different from either band, so I can’t salvage much besides “and” and “the”. The style of…
Clap, Slap, Step and Sing: The International Body Music Festival Concert Lincoln Center, New York City August 12, 2010 From the tundra to the tropics, people can’t resist the urge to snap, clap, step, holler, and sing artful music. This universal resonator-our bodies-and its myriad global sounds ignite audiences of the International Body Music Festival in Concert at Lincoln Center, August 12, 2010. Body music old and new will be…
Country/pop crossover band Sons of Sylvia just premiered the music video for their first single, “Love Left to Lose,” off of their successful debut album Revelation. The day after the release Sons of Sylvia performed the song on American Idol – after the performance, Revelation immediately made its way to the top 10 on the iTunes download chart, where it stayed for over two weeks! Check out “Love Left to…
I loved The Unicorns a great deal when I heard their “Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone”, and to hear that some of the members of that band are in the Islands, I began to get excited about “Return to the Sea”. The album breaks away from the traditional pop act sound by incorporating a number of vocalists as the focal point of the band. In this sense,…