Alpha Rev has evolved their sound considerably since 2010’s New Morning, a fact that is immediately evident with the one-two punch of Lexington and Crystal Colorado. With an ample momentum created by these initial tracks, Sing Long resounds with a tenderness and intense allure. There is an epic sound that resounds through the entirety of this track, with instrumental and vocal elements uniting to create something decidedly greater than the…
Guided By Voices and Built to Spill may by the go-to bands when someone’s trying to sing the praises of lo-fi music, but the New York-by-way-of-Chicago band Kleenex Girl Wonder – just as prolific as Robert Pollard and his boys, by the way – deserve just as much credit for all that’s great about the genre. Centered around singer/bassist Graham Smith – the one constant in the group…
Coming off sounding like an alt-country band playing grunge music after gobbling a handful of mushrooms, it’s hard to find another band today that sounds like Augusta, GA’s Dead Confederate. And why bother, when this five-piece does it so well. Yes singer Hardy Morris sounds eerily like Kurt Cobain reincarnated, but the band can write one hell of a jam. In the Marrow, their sixth album, is easily their…
British singer/songwriter David Ford is one of those musicians you can’t help but scratch your head at and wonder why this guy is not huge? His songs as catchy as hell while still coming across as giftedly witty (give album opener “Pour a Little Poison” 30 seconds and if you aren’t humming along, check your pulse). He can even wear the fedora better than Bruno Mars and all those other…
Dime Te Deseo is a slinky single that ties together glitch and dubstep with the strong female feel of a Ke$ha or Blackout / Circus – era Britney Spears. Where much of pop music feels as if it has been polished to perfection, listeners can hear that Minor’s vocal track relies solely on her talents. What results is a mélange of organic and electronic, as easily at home in a…
On the Scene is the introductory track on this album, and it provides listeners with a very taut and alluring set of arrangements. The music ties together smooth jazz with a hint of funk to establish a timeless quality to Hagen’s music. Midnight Drive contains a tremendous amount of rhythm, crafting an interesting dynamic between the organic and electronic instrumentation. The narrative that is created during this self-titled release far…
Pontus Gunve (who performs as PHWG) has just released his latest album, The Observer. Gunve has had countless compositions utilized for art installations, performances, and commercials. The Observer is a title that will showcase the sheer multitude of styles, approaches, and overall feelings present in Gunve’s career. Aside from acting as a retrospective, what The Observer feels like is an evolutionary step forward. With each track on The Observer,…
For those individuals that have been living under a rock for the last five years, Ruben Studdard was one of the American Idol finalists. This is actually eir second album; eir first album, “Soulful” had the catchy song “Sorry 2004”. However, this album starts out very weakly. The first track on “The Return” is the title track, which has the unfortunate tag line of “Of The Velvet Teddy Bear”. I…
Usually, I would stay away from live recordings from smaller labels like TKO just for the fact that many of these bands really don’t have the equipment necessarily to make their live performance not sound like shit. Take for example the Leftover Crack live show from Reading, PA in which it is virtually impossible for an individual listening to the disc to actually figure out which lyrics are being sung,…
Give Me Everything is a smooth track that could easily be played on rock radio rotation, where it succeeds tying in late nineties rock (311, Saliva) with a more contemporary feel. Where Do We Go has an absolutely furious instrumental arrangement that highlights the soaring vocals on the track. Hints of Foo Fighters and Maroon 5 can be heard in the vocals, with the track’s production tying together the…
Cosmic Suckerpunch have just released their Breathe EP, a collection of five tracks that provide listeners with a sense of the band, their influences, and where they may ultimately go in the years to come. That Voice is a straight-forward rock track that succeeds because it blends hints of alt-rock and psychedelic into the overall Ramones / Cure / Strokes vibe that is established. The Breathe EP succeeds because…
Strike Fire Fall is an absolutely perfect emo-rock that hails from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The style of tracks like “Stay Awake” mixes acts like Amber Pacific with The Starting Line to create something that is emotionally deep but still holding of a musical intensity that can never be quenched. Each of the tracks on “Still Life” are just perfect for video games, music videos, or radio; another track that really…
“To Live in Discontent” is a collection of Strike Anywhere’s out of print EP and other 7 inch work – when the disc starts off with “Asleep”, one can hear the intense sounds of the band even if the mastering and recording is not necessarily up to “Exit English”-standards. Something that is immediately recognizable is the cohesion of sound that Strike Anywhere has created over the course of their post-Inquisition…
Mix the Blue Man Group with The Avalanches and Kid Koala, and one will have a good idea of what the Street Drum Corps sound like. The disc starts off with “Wrecks”, a track that really does not need to be three and a half minutes. The use of sampling during the track gets a little repetitive by the two-two and a half minute mark, and is only saved…
Stone Beads & Silver begins with Muskingum River, an effort that will immediately draw listeners in. Carroll’s inimitable style may be built on the folk and rock genres, but the tested and focused effort that issues forth is something utterly unique. The Fool Disguised In Beggar’s Clothes is full of outward pomp and inward reflection, allowing Carroll to place eir emotions on the table. You Can Never Go Home…
Forget the Dropkick Murphies, the Street Dogs are where it is at. The new band from the Dropkick Murphies ex-lead singer, Mike McColgan, plays working-class punk-rock with a polish that is sadly lacking from too many releases of the type. Each song comes roaring out of the gate, and provides the listening audience with a sing-able chorus like some of the most memorable Murphies tracks. The title track, along…
The Stranger’s Six play a brand of rock that is not very well defined during the opening track with “A Date With Daylight”. TI mean, the band uses hints of acts like Alkaline Trio and Rise Against to craft their own sound, but the track does not give listeners anything that they have not heard before. The act needs to create something new, something exciting, so that they might…
Heaven & Earth is a band that looks to continue creating classic rock in a period where many bands from the seventies and eighties merely recreate old hits and rest on their laurels. What Dig does is showcase that this rock form still lives and can thrive if the band playing it is talented enough. Heaven & Earth is an act that was born from the ashes of Sweet,…
Jessie Ware has made an album in Devotion that blends equal parts pop, EDM, and an intimate singer-songwriter approach. While the album was released late last year in Europe, Devtion’s US release contains additional tracks and represents one of the locations of the incredible Wildest Moments remix (featuring ASAP Rocky). Sweet Talk has a retro, early-eighties feel (imagine Bananarama’s I Heard a Rumour or early Yazoo) that…
It’s been nearly two decades since JD Pinkus left the Butthole Surfers, but he sure as hell hasn’t faded away. A fixture on the Austin music scene, Pinkus put in 10 years with the Daddy Longhead before putting that band out to pasture; He also played with Skinny Leonard and Areola 51, but his latest project Honky (why has there never been a band by this name yet?) is one of…