Call me uncultured, but I don’t see where someone like Cher and Christina Aguilera can be so universally panned and the virtually same thing, exemplified down the years by Bessie Smith and Ella Fitzgerald, and Diamanda can be put into such high regard. Maybe the fact that Diamanda is so much harder to get into, the Thomas Pynchon to Christina’s JK Rowling. Perhaps it is also that I’m not cultured…
The wide-open compositions of Future of Forestry sound like a blend of current U2, Coldplay, and Delirious. The disc’s first track is “Open Wideâ€, and aside from the atmospheric guitar lines, one of the things that individuals can hear easier would have to be the active drums. While the track is not close to pop-rock forms, there are hints of the more United Kingdom-type approach to music that came up…
“News and Tributes†is one of the only tracks I’ve heard in the last few years that gives the bass such a major role in the create on of the overall sound of the track. The blend of futuristic styles like the New Romantic and the angular sounds of a prior time, The Futureheads at least fulfill half of their name. The band keeps with the older styles with a…
The first Furze track on “OTD†is a track that sounds as it is being sped up, instead of being played at its normal speed. This track, “A Life About My Sabbathâ€, is able to stick around for four and a half minutes. However, this track would normally be about five or six minutes if played normal. Inidivudals still have no clue where Furze is going to go with future…
The first act that Furthest From The Star reminds me of is A Static Lullaby. The guitars work at a level well above the rest of the track, while the vocals of the band seem to have more to do with acts like Nickelback than anything. Overcome has a much more nuanced sound than Glass Breaking but it does not even come near to the whining of acts liker Simple…
Indican has gotten the rights to distribute Only The Brave, a simply fantastic low-budget war flick that is simply surprising in terms of quality. Only The Brave goes into illuminating detail about the Japanese-American 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team, a volunteer organization that laid their lives on the line for a government that would much rather keep them behind bars. 1400 individuals suited up to combat a group of forces that…
While Lake Tahoe is a film that seems to exist at the very edge of believability, director Fernando Eimbcke does a hell of a job putting just enough realism into the film to convince viewers that the events of Lake Tahoe could happen to them. The film surrounds Juan attempting to find a way to fix eir family’s car after crashing it into a telephone pole. Along the way, Juan…
Semi Precious Weapons will release their new EP January 19th on iTunes, including the first three songs from their hotly anticipated Interscope debut You Love You, out this spring. Hear all three tracks NOW on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/semipreciousweapons All tracks were recorded in Los Angeles in November and December, produced by Jack Joseph Puig (Green Day, Beck) and Semi Precious Weapons, and executive produced by Lady Gaga. Semi Precious Weapons is…
The Crystal Bearers has been on my watch list since it was first discussed back at the 2006 E3 conference. In a sentence, the game does not disappoint. For those that are not familiar with the title, it operates in the Crystal Chronicles world, albeit much further in the time line (1,000 years) than the initial effort in the line. The title focuses on Layle, a Crystal Bearer, as first…
Um, okay… Full Scale is a mixture of Insane Clown Posse and Chevelle, more rap-rock than anything that has came out since Kid Rock. The guitar riffs that open up “Empty Texas†are iconic and deliberate; there is no room for finesse when the band lays down lines that will smash a listener over the head. Chances are that tracks like “Empty Texas†will be put on “annoying†rotation: you…
I was a little shy about wanting to review this disc when I first got it in, ad “Don’t Forget†does a lot to assuage any of the fears I might have had. The vocals on the track are immediately reminiscent of Warren Zevon, while the guitar work smacks of both Santana and Zevon’s studio guitars, making for a very-seventies sounding track to start out this disc. Full Moon Revue…
Singles are always the hardest thing to review, and it was with great trepidation that I actually put this disc into the player. Immediately noticeable is the fact that the masterful hand of Rick Chudacoff (Allison Kraus) has made this track into something that is something easily accessible regardless of musical outbringing. The track starts out with a country-twinge, but really moves into a sort of classic (but contemporary) rock…
The Sandestin Golf Beach Resort is one of the best known and expansive types of resorts out there. Whether it is through one of the club’s countless amenities or other frills, people that are lucky enough to put in some time there will have an experience that they never will forget. For those individuals that may not normally have the money to go forth and spend a week or so…
There are a number of different ways to get education to be a bartender. A great many of these schools teach just about the same subject material, but there are different styles of drinks, cultures, and efforts to be had. For those individuals that want to really expand their horizons and become a bartender at one of the better establishments in their city, there is a foreign barschool in Munich.…
The drumming that opens up “Breakthrough†gives the disc an awesome brand of chaos that is lessened by the inclusion of horns, but not completely removed from the track. What results is something that has a high amount of energy and will get individuals off of their duffs and onto the dance floor. The track may be over six minutes long, but the frantic energy that is present ensures that…
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’…
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…
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…