Dr. Clive Brooks is Amberfern, and AquaEssence is a collection of tracks that he has created to elicit the sounds and experiences that one has when they are on a beach. From Avon Beach to the disc’s final track, Calm Waters Home, Amberfern has deftly created a release that will elicit memories of days spent on the boardwalk, playing around a swimming hole, or bobbing around in the ocean. At…
The Enchanted Path is the introductory effort on Day of Life. At four and a quarter minutes, the track still seems to go by like a flash. Each note created by Koch fits perfectly and sets the stage for the rest of the album. While Flowers on the Mountain barely reaches the three minute mark, the track is able to dovetail nicely into Morning Silence. The hopeful feelings that are…
Downpour opens up Daytime Dreamer, and it provides listeners with a tremendously dynamic and uptempo feel. While there are not vocals present, the piano line that Akram lays down provides a considerable amount of narrative. The track taps out at a hair over four minutes and leads into Dancing With the Wind. Dancing With the Wind is a softer and more introspective effort, where Akram delves into the corpus…
Cowboys and Indians is an independent film that benefits considerably through the presence of a set of compositions by Henrik Åstrom (who also created the score for 2011’s Jake and Jasper). While the visual component to the film is stellar and will draw viewers in, Åstrom’s 26 compositions for the film do more than highlight what is being shown on the screen. Rather, Åstrom’s work shines brilliantly on its own.…
Via delle Grazie is the latest effort from the Netherlands’ Red to Violet. Waiting for the Sun is a carefully-crafted piece of indie rock. The band is able to open up into a post-modern type of rock that is influenced by 90s alternative rock (Sean Lennon, Hedley) and the more emotive acts of the 00s (Brand New, Dashboard Confessional). The band’s instrumentation is smart, while they maintain an intensity to…
Starting off the disc with an instrumental track, Surrounded moves into the second track, “Exit Serenade” with an almost Richard O’Brien-esque (think “Little Black Dress”) opening. Allowing their music to act as a second set of vocals during some tracks (“Exit Serenade, Diesel Palace”), Surrounded, specifically with Marten’s vocals, spoken out with the most care, act almost as Dylan-esque ornaments on an incredibly rich song. Moving onto an emo-jam type…
“Always Never Again” starts off with “Born Into The World” , a track that has the unique distinction of mixing Flood-era They Might Be Giants with Chromeo. This, coupled with a lush production and a lack of distorted fuzz, is probably what will hook the most individuals. The fact that organi and inorganic provide such a harmony is something that cannot be denigrated; acoustic guitar and bass work perfectly…
Supermodel Suicide is influenced by the geometrically-taken bands that have found their way to fame in the last few years (The Killers, Franz Ferdinand). In fact, the first track on “Might As Well Just Kill Us Now” “1996” has more than a passing similarity to the latter’s “This Fire”. The same general sound dominates during “The Unheard Testimony of Johnny Danger”, even if the audible comparison to other acts…
The flow is great on the first track on “Stand Up”, but the laid-back backing beat is pretty anemic. It may work well with the flow, but the retro sound is just not working for Superiority Complex. Something more intense and faster tempo would work much better for the act. The introduction for “Stand Up”: is just too much to contain; the layering is a good idea in theory…
Funky Bouriel has a funk meets New Jack Swing flair that immediately draws listeners in; Madame Freak’s vocals pull double duty in the furtherance of the narrative and in the creation of the overall flair of this track. Ow!!! brings Follow The Crack into a bold new direction; a small amount of scat-like singing opens up into an eclectic mélange of early-nineties dance and Chic-like pop. Ride It straddles…
Coup De Grace is straight-forward bludgeoning metal, with bold vocals, sizzling guitars, and a tremendous momentum that punctuates all points of the track. Lemmy’s vocals are as vibrant and on-point as they always have been, while the track provides listeners with the kick in the ass that they need to stick with the rest of the album. Lost Woman Blues showcases Motorhead at their artistic finest. While the band can…
There are always a few albums that I receive that are cut by a band that had their meteoric rise and later fall to and from stardom years before I seriously got into music. Spin Doctors was the first this mouth, Super Deluxe was the second. Without saying I know anything about Super Deluxe beyond the history on the promo sheet, I would have to say that the disc’s…
The high-energy of Supercreep is something that works well with the lavish production present throughout the disc. Different sections of the disc really show Jody’s diverse array of influences, something that makes the average tone of this disc – essentially a Weezer with instrumental intelligence – resonate throughout. Something that Supercreep has that most other acts in which one person is the main influence is this diversity, creating another…
Sunshine has been around for a decade, and the sound really is cultivated to the point that one knows that this band has been around for an eternity in band years. Taking equal parts Nine Inch Nails and The Strokes, the opening to “Moonshower and Razorblade”, “What You’rve Got” is an immediate hit for the band, using a distinctive set of vocals to confidently stride forward into new territory.…
One person bands usually suffer because of their lack of discussion – this is not the case witrh Spencer Krug’s Sunset Rubdown. A key member of Wolf Parade, this iteration of Spencer’s music really looks back to seventies-era David Bowie for inspiration. The experimental nature of tracks like “Hope You Don’t Stoop To Dirty Words II” show someone that really does not care for the conventions of time signatures…
I know I have said this before, but can Spencer sound more like David Bowie? I mean, seriously, it is a good thing but when I look up I am expecting a creature with red hair and what I’ll probably see at a Sunset Rubdown concert is some hyper-emotive person in a sweater and dark pants. Everything on “Shut Up I Am Dreaming” is ultimately radio-friendly while still challenging that…
There is an organic sound to Sunset Rubdown that really gives the entirety of this EP a sound that can not be pinned down to any specific period of time. Further tracks, such as “Jason Believes Me…” seems to take equal apart from 60s pop-rock and “Major Tom”-era David Bowie. The activist drums present on this track do not allow the song to be that easily categorized, and really…
One thing that the material on this disc is clear to say is that this is not a split album in any way. This is a combination of Sunn0))) and Boris creating all of the music on this album. None of the tracks on “Altar” are short in the least, so the minds behind two of the most off the cuff “heavy” music bands are able to ramble and…
Reaching the height of cheesiness with the opening sound of a typewriter, Sunday Driver only really starts gaining my admiration on “Saboteur”, a track that mixes driving hair-band guitars with Stabbing Westward vocals. The only comment about this opening track is the teasing that Sunday Driver does with the drums, putting them out so that all can hear, but not allowing the drummer to do the Black Sabbath drum…
It might just be the worst descriptor of any band that I’ve ever seen when Amazon says that The Sun is “neo-punk”. To give this Columbus act that label is to pigeonhole them into a wholly uninteresting genre and really denigrates their revolutionary accomplishments during “Blame It On The Youth”. This is not a plain album, nor is it a lightly-veiled advertisement masquerading as a movie (The Wall); it is…