NEVERMORE has landed on several ‘Best of 2010’ lists this month but that seems to be an obvious conclusion from releasing what many view as the best NEVERMORE album yet, ‘The Obsidian Conspiracy’. The band has also seen a huge response from fans after completing their tremendous headlining tour this summer. Now the band is gearing up for 2011 and that means one thing, more touring! NEVERMORE is excited to…
“Maple” may just be one of the most annoying openings for a CD; the repletion and brash arrangements that are such a hallmark for the track do maintain some semblance of a melody, but it is lost in much of the track’s chaos. Continuing with the incredible amount of repetition for “It’s The Wine”, Pattern Is Movement seem to be expressing themselves in a seventies vein, almost as the Kinks…
Knoxville, TN’s WHITECHAPEL has selected Rocketown in Nashville, TN as the location for the new music video for the track Breeding Violence, off the band’s latest release A New Era of Corruption. The video is being shot on Saturday, January 8th with director Scott Hansen (Ill Nino, Willie Nelson, A Day to Remember, DWP, Bless the Fall, We Came As Romans). WHITECHAPEL will play a full set for their fans…
Moving into their first track “Non Servium” with a generous helping of Radiohead and a brooding style of indie rock, Pattern is Movement start out their disc with a solid-sounding but weak-experimenting first track. The inclusion of strings to counteract the snarky tone of the guitar is a welcome change from banality, but the track still leaves some longing in the hearts of true musical swingers. Lacking a definite bass…
The white vinyl 7-inch with a custom printed sleeve is now available via the Theory 8 website and a download card for MP3s of the two tracks is included with each copy. A digital download version is also available at all major digital retailers and includes the bonus track “Shut Your Eyes”, a demo of “Reluctance,” and a radio edit of “Two Hearts.” AOL Music’s Spinner blog has a full…
“Strength” shows Patten’s appreciation of bands like Creed and Nickelback, and while Patten’s instrumental approach does not touch much in the way of rock (the track blends together piano and keyboards), the intensity of Patten’s vocals cannot be denied. There is more than a fair share of blues in the aforementioned set of vocals, perhaps giving the tracks on this album a more timeless sound. “Remember When” is a much…
Midwest thrashers LAZARUS A.D. have released their first single, The Ultimate Sacrifice, via myspace and youtube after having premiered exclusively this past week on SiriusXM’s Liquid Metal. The highly anticipated album, Black Rivers Flow, was recorded in July and August 2010 at Belle City Sound with Chris Djuricic and was mixed and mastered by James Murphy at Safehouse Production. The Ultimate Sacrifice can be heard now on metalblade.com/lazarusad with pre-order…
Steep Canyon Rangers have played in front of more people than any other bluegrass band this year. When iconic comedian – and accomplished banjo player – Steve Martin handpicked SCR to tour with him across the country, they jumped at the chance. Yet, Martin shifts the spotlight: “I need them,” Martin says. “They don’t need me.” In a year jam-packed with tour dates, including Carnegie Hall, along with Steve Martin…
Detroit-based musicians Joshua and Daniel are two men making up a band named after one man – Dale Earnhardt Jr. However their moniker, Dale Earnhardt JR JR, is a fictional addition to the Earnhardt Nascar dynasty, and this habit of blending of fantastical imagination with a firm grasp on mundane and real-world events is a prominent theme for the band. They are infinitely playful and earnest, which is enough for…
“Screaming Man” mixes together Rise Against and Against Me! to come up with a style of punk music that is heavily grounded in the “true” emo genre. Couple that sound with a guitar line that seems most proper in Queens of the Stonie Age tracks, and “Screaming Man” is a track that is dense to an almost-Rush degree. Partisan is not a band that is happy continuing the existing order…
January 5 New York, NY Presentation (Insights Series: “Kindertotenlieder: Mahler’s Requiem?”) Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse January 6-8 New York, NY Mahler concert (Kindertotenlieder) New York Philharmonic / Alan Gilbert January 10, 7pm New York, NY Special performance and interview with WQXR host Jeff Spurgeon Live broadcast and video webcast from the Greene Space at WQXR January 14 Vienna, Austria Mahler concert (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen) Vienna Philharmonic / Mariss Jansons…
The vocal-heavy style of Paths of Possession during their “Darklands” is a marked departure from a lot of the death metal bands currently out; one can actually understand what the hell that George is singing, and for that thanks need to go out. In much the same way, the guitar work done by Jay and Jack is clear enough to make this a brutally honest brand of metal; they do…
Following the release of his free “+” EP in the Summer of 2010, Pittburgh’s Wise Blood (aka Christopher Laufman) splashed hard and quickly gained the attention of the online music community with stealth and ease. His weirdo party jams came out of nowhere introducing his warped, screwed collages full of finely detailed compositions backed by tremendous soul. The free EP made impact with Pitchfork who labeled him as a “Rising”…
Why has Patent Pending been under the radar for so long that I’ve never heard of them? The first track on “Save The Children”, “Los Angeles” is a tremendously sped-up pop-punk track that does everything that the band wants to do in three a half minutes. If the album was just this single individuals would be happy, but Patent Pending through their infinite kindness has decided to cut another fourteen…
Seminal electronic band MEAT BEAT MANIFESTO (MBM) is gearing up for their U.S. tour supporting the the release of Answers Come in Dreams via Metropolis Records (released October 12, 2010). Widely hailed for their groundbreaking live performances, MBM propels their electronic music into both a mesmerizing aural and visual dimension. “The live performance has become an integral component of my sound and production,” sound sculptor and music innovator Jack Dangers…
Zach Doney, frontman for Bang Bang Eche, has surprised the world with a solo album under the moniker Teen Fortress just as the quartet is entering the studio to record its full-length debut. The Teen Fortress album, called Learning (Everything Has To End For Some Reason I Don’t Believe It), is available as a free download at http://teenfortress.bandcamp.com. Says Zach: For about one year, for some reason, I couldn’t write…
Many critics have opined that Lloyd’s “New Quartet”, with Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers and Eric Harland may be the best of all his groups. The quartet’s previous release in this line-up, the live-recorded Rabo de Nube, met with across-the-board approval and was voted #1 album of the year in both the Critics and Readers Polls of JazzTimes. The Quartet has toured extensively since the September release of Mirror both in…
AS I LAY DYING announce 2011 headlining tour! Winds of Plague and After the Burial confirmed as supporting acts San Diego, CA’s AS I LAY DYING will hit the ground running in 2011 with a full US tour. The dates start on February 12th at the Aggie Theater in Ft. Collins, CO and wrap up March 18th in Sacramento, CA. The tour will hit cities that the band hasn’t been…
The energy in which Partyline starts off their “Zombie Terrorist” reminds one of early California punk rock, all the way through “Ignition”-era Offspring. The tracks on “Zombie Terrorist” are able to add to each other by working all in the same level. The guitar in “Party-N-Animal” is nearly the same as it is during “Zombie Terrorist”, but the lyrics and the overall approach of the band vary slightly with each…
Andrew Bird is set to play in select west coast cities this winter in addition to a rare performance at Mexico City’s Teatro de la Ciudad in March. On the heels of a successful run of intimate “Gezelligheid” performances (appropriating a Dutch term that loosely translates to “cozy”) that cap off with three sold-out nights at Chicago’s Fourth Presbyterian Church, the west coast shows will all feature Andrew Bird performing…