There’s a strong hint of Leonard Cohen in Darren Jessee’s songwriting on The Jane Room 217. You can hear it from the first tune “Anything You Need” and it never relents. He has a strong connection with the love song tradition, in some ways, but brings an uniquely well-written power to this type of song. The song has light keyboard work in the background and Jessee’s guitar up front, but…
On I Believe, Cowboy Mouth is able to blend together 1990s alternative and country-infused rock into a track that will get listeners singing along. Rich vocals and smart arrangements between the vocals / guitars and guitars/drums make a melody that will be tattooed deep into fans’ psyches. While I Believe only makes it to the three-minute mark, the band is able to make a massive track that is deep, engrossing,…
Michael Pinder’s “So Confused” is a perfectly polished piece of pop rock that brings together hints of Weezer, Mr. Mister, and Journey. The mastering of this single allows each element to shine on its own while contributing to a cohesive whole. We’re particular fans of Pinder’s vocals, the ropy bass lines, and the on-point drumming that fans will encounter during this effort. Keep focused on the two-minute-mark of So Confused,…
Pacific’s “Life In Short” is an engrossing, emotionally intense effort that builds off of the framework of Muse, mid-1990s Rush, and Coheed and Cambria. The guitar / vocals dynamic that is presented to fans during the single’s chorus ratchets up the momentum nicely. The band is taut as all get out, too – there is a complexity to Life In Short that ensures the song is fresh five or ten…
ash.ØK’s “Holding Sand”is an intricate and heady composition that blends together natural and electronic sections. With nods made to traditional / classical arrangements and more modern styles (e.g. drum and bass, trap), the resulting track stands out boldly. Holding Sand’s haunting strings do more than contribute to the overall melody of the song, but provide fans with a narrative as rich as any vocal-heavy effort. The song is like an…
Hard to believe it’s been five years since The Devil Makes Three last put out a record of all-original material (2016’s satisfying Redemption & Ruin was a creatively curated covers album that spoke to a general theme). And it takes just one or two songs into their new one, Chains Are Broken, for you realize just how much they were missed.
When Omnivore Recordings first announced their re-release of the Posies’ debut “Failure,” it was just a matter of time before they got around to the band’s two best efforts, 1990’s “Dear 23” and 1993’s “Frosting on the Beater.”
Every artist needs a swan song that essentially encompasses their entire aesthetic and compresses it into a single track that gives audiences an idea of who they really are as a performer. For Led Zeppelin it was “Stairway to Heaven.” For Madonna, “Like a Virgin.” For aspiring electronica sensation NIK:11 it may very well be her song “4Play,” which has been having one of the most accomplished years of any…
Hip-hop has officially reached an apex that can be distinguished both literally and figuratively from its first climactic creative peak in the early 1990’s. In this scenario, the most explosively popular subgenre to dominate the commercial side of pop music for the last quarter century is being divided into two subgroups; the stewards of the old school, and the innovators of tomorrow’s hip-hop who are bound by no rules, regulatory parameters or…
Kiss Me Like You Miss Me, the latest track from Closer to Zero, links together Strike Anywhere, Rise Against, and Alkaline Trio into a musically intricate effort with supersonic vocals. Hitting listeners over their heads with delightful guitar / vox dynamics, the many levels of this sample ensure that listeners will be playing the single over and over. A bit of fuzz is what unites these disparate elements, as Closer…
Although not always on the same page, every now and again country music flirts with rock n’ roll, and I’ve found that in these flirtations, it never sounds the same way twice. Sure, there have been hard pumping southern rock bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd or Molly Hatchet that have harnessed the sheer power and rumble of rock’s blistering guitars and thunderous basses, but there have also been more acoustically minded…
Picking the right time to release a record can be a challenging process even for the most experienced of artists. Winter albums are designed to warm us up during the coldest of months, summer albums are usually meant to get us excited about being out having fun in the sun. All of them are set up to fulfil the sonic needs of us, the consumers, but moreover they can artistically…
Abel Oliva Menendez has recorded and released music under the moniker Naurea and “stage name” Olimann since the early 2000’s and, nearly two decades on, sounds as witless and unconvincing as ever. His latest collection New Zombie Generation deserves the title Variations on a Theme as Menendez dazes listeners with twelve by the numbers cuts that often can pass as alternate takes on other songs. His understanding of what makes for collar-grabbing, hard-hitting metal/industrial…
Synthetic stripes of melody drift before our ears, and ticking of a clock reminds us that time is at hand. The pressure is on as the percussion starts to kick in on the club mix of AV Sunshine’s “Time Bomb,” and AV himself doesn’t even have to inform us that we’re going to have to act fast if we’re going to make it to our destination – dance ecstasy –…
Doom metal is usually a miss for me owing to a slew of bands devolving into a formulaic trudge through molasses of mediocrity. But ever so often, there comes a piece of music so gargantuan and animalistic that you cannot help but get excited. The fifth release To The Night Unknown by Boston doomsludgers Morne released on Armageddon Records and the first to be released on the band’s own eponymous…
Mika Means’ “Single Life” has a lush production that builds off the work of Sean Kingston, Nico & Vinz and Jason Derulo. Mika’s own vocals will bury themselves deep into the minds and hearts of listeners, while the bouncy beat provides the perfect counterpoint for these vox. The tempo ensures that listeners will make it out on the dance floor, while there is just enough in the way of differentiation…
Slothrust’s “Double Down” is a snarky bit of alternative rock that showcases a tremendous amount of instrumental skill with a bit of funkiness. The fuzzy guitar work that starts at about the 1:45 mark is a nice counterpoint for the smoothed-out beginnings of Double Down. As the guitar line continues, the bass and drums are able to add further depth to the composition. A bit of The White Stripes come…
The Aces’ “Last One” is a wonderful piece of 1980s power-pop that has just a hint of electro-funk contributed by the bass. The vocals and synths presented on this single weave in bits of Walk The Moon and Paramore. With seems as if with every subsequent single, The Aces are able to make a more engrossing and musically taut effort. Last One is light, airy, and contains enough twists and…
A lot of artists who are just starting out often wonder what it takes to create a solid Launchpad for their career, and it really boils down to several pretty basic qualities that can’t necessarily be taught. The first is having a good image for promoters to market, whether that be an image shrouded in mystery, vulnerability, happiness or depression. You’ve got to have some kind of identity. The second…
“Home” opens Brendan McMahon’s fourth release, About Joe, in slightly audacious fashion. The mass of backing vocals beginning the song with a choral arrangement is a bit of musical sleight of hand before the song shifts into a straight forward singer/acoustic guitar mold. This is brief, however; “Home” soon expands into a widescreen number with great melodic virtues and lyrical content that locks tightly into the musical mood. There’s some melodically…