The style of music that Scott Law comes up with during “Find Something Good” mixes swing, nineties R&B, gospel and funk to create something that has a palatable earlier influence. Without the 2005 tag on the disc, one could easily confuse this for something over fifteen years older. The production on “Deliver” seems unnecessarily muted; the jazz horns present on “Find Something Good” are really more anemic than they should…
In the last year, there have been a number of noisy bands that have had the honor of blowing me out of my seat. This included, but was not limited to The Locust and Some Girls. Both of those bands showed me that there were some salvageable aspects to noisy types of rock. Saying that, Schoolyard Heroes has the equivalent to a little yipper dog in Ryann’s vocals during “Body…
Most individuals that are into punk music have heard The Scarred’s title track to “No Solution” either on their Myspace or through another place. The track is not quite as out there and streetpunk as some of Punk Core’s other bands, but the catchiness present in acts like The Unseen is present as well in The Scarred. During songs like “battlefield”, The Scarred mix together acts like Bad Religion with…
Steve Jablonsky has done a tremendous job in creating the perfect environment for those that have picked up Gears of War 3. The different compositions here all feed into one another while maintaining some semblance of different stages or levels. Where the soundtrack differs from the scores that are typically created for different video games is that Jablonsky’s compositions all could conceivably exist on their own. While a proper understanding…
The Scared Stiffs start out their “Autopsy Turvy” in a pretty weak set of straits. There is a heavy amount of rockabilly influence, but there is virtually no energy beyond “When Monsters Fall In Love”. The guitar work sounds put together without any audience in mind; there is skill in playing this but nothing really that hits the primal chords of someone’s heart. Each of the track continues this overly-done…
NeuFutur does not get much in the way of folk music. Thus, whenever Tompkins Square records sends us anything, we have to be really on our toes. Whether it is due to re-releasing decades old album or finding some of the newest folk virtuosos (such as is the case with this album), Tompkins Square is always one of the stronger genre-specific labels out there. This disc is essentially a three…
Starting out their EP with “Scale Model”, Megan’s vocals really give off a Yeah Yeah Yeahs feel, and the backing instruments really give the disc an earlier nineties feel. For a slipcase and CDr type of disc, the recording on this demo is astounding – each individual element of Scale Model comes through as clear as day. This really benefits the thick, sinewy bass lines of Joe’s as much as…
There sheer amount of time that Amberfern gives the different tracks on Quiescence is intriguing; with a number of the album’s cuts clocking in at the six or seven minute mark, one wonders before the CD begins whether listeners’ interests can be sated. It may take a few minutes of the album’s first track, “Misty Harbor”, but listeners will rapidly understand the unique and mature compositions as they truly are.…
Enlightened Love can be enjoyed if an individual is doing housework or meditating, but I believe that to truly get the essence of the album, listeners have to provide total focus to the strains and compositions that are provided here. There is just so much nuance and complexity present to a track like the opening Eastern Sun that would simply be missed if listeners were not solely focused on the…
Mike Howe is a veteran in the music business, but I feel that ey has continually kept eir ear to the ground. This means that there is a vibrancy to each of the tracks on Island of Anywhere that simply is not present on a release at another musician’s similar part of career. After the strains of Beyond the Mountains wrap up, listeners are provided with an emotionally affecting track…
After doing the magazine for a number of years, I have started to receive second and third discs put out by the same bands. Oftentimes it takes a year or two to create the disc, but it always feels as if the band just sent me their last EP or LP a short time ago. This is the case with Scale Model, who garnered a very respectable rating for their…
While my last studio experience with S.B.C./The Freedom Fries was with 2000’s “The Dicktad EP”, this somewhat later release really shows a band that is much more polished. Starting off the disc with “Dictator”, SBC mixes their own brand of punk from a list of influences that are in themselves legendary : The Clash, Rancid, The Dead Kennedys. More garagey than The Charlestons, SBC still has the hooks that make…
The fullness of Say Anything during their “Is A Real boy” is something that other emo bands should strive to achieve. There are three or four things happening at any one time, and individuals will marvel at the multiple harmonies that little the soundscape during tracks like “Belt”. Let individuals get one thing straight; this is not the emo of acts like Bright Eyes but of acts like early Jimmy…
For some reason, I was under the assumption that Saxon was a lot harder band than they turn out to be on “Dogs Of War”. “Don’t Worry” has much more to do with bands like Cinderella and Every Mother’s Nightmare than Venom or Vader or any of the other five-letter metal bands. “Big Twin Rolling” shifts the band sound a little bit to a Hagar (Can’t Drive 55) or Lizzy…
Hey, its Purple-Rain era Prince meets any track from a John Hughes soundtrack and reconstituted into what is Saturn. The bad thing is that the recording of this album actually sounds as if it was on equipment from the eighties – the droning of emptiness is present throughout the disc, a sterility pervades the disc. As well as the aforementioned sterility, there is a repetition to the instrumentation on the…
I reviewed Saturn nearly a year ago, and lets just say I wasn’t too much of a fan. However, opening eir disc with “Wild”, Saturn has nearly recuperated some of the weaknesses of the previous disc. The entire effort is much more solid than eir previous work – the backing instrumentation actually coddles and cuddles Saturn’s vocals, accentuating them in all the right place. For “Wild”, the track is transformed…
There is a conscious decision by Joe Satriani to come up with a guitar line to open up eir “Super Colossal” that is indistinguishable from Billy Squier’s “Stroke Me”. After this riff goes the way of the dinosaur, something that resembles Nelson’s “Love and Affection” and Winger’s “In The Heart of the Young” dominates the rest of the track. Joe Satriani has definite guitar skills that is true, but with…
In 1956, a 21-year-old Elvis Aaron Presley was on the verge of becoming a phenomenally influential music icon. Recently signed to RCA, 1956 was the year his debut came out and more importantly the year his (big gasp) lewd hip movements on The Ed Sullivan Show created massive amounts of controversy and cemented his legacy as the first real badass of rock and roll, a legacy that even bloating and…
I remember seeing Rachael Lampa back in 2000, opening with Stacie Orrico and Plus One. Even back then, ey was able to tie together a tremendous amount of passion and love for the Lord that was absolutely infection. I believe that the production of All We Need provides listeners with a fresh and vibrant look into Lampa’s sound. Lampa’s voice is bolstered especially well during tracks like My One and…
The reggae that Satori plays starts off from the first kick of the drums. “Celebration” is a slow-tempo track that really hides a barely-masked intensity, created most by the bass and horns on the track. The slower tempo of the disc allows the technicality of the band to shine through properly, but there is no driving beat in the first section of the disc that really makes people want to…