The Purrs occupy an interesting spot in popular music. First off, their opening track to this album is “She’s Gone”, and the song is odd for the fact that the added vocals sound quite like girl groups from the early sixties, while the rest of the song sound like something that The Doors would cut to vinyl. The result is something odd and completely different from the rest of music…
I should have realized that Public Access was going to have some semblance of ska in their general formula after seeing that there were two saxophonists in the band, but I expected something different given the Thought Riot meets Strike Anywhere vocals of the band to start off “Hit Single”. The ska breakdowns are interesting to say the least, and tremendous kudos needs to be given to Public Access in…
”Robot Crazy” is a good start for “First Human Beings”, as it establishes The Psycho Nubs as fans of Fugazi, Husker Du, and The Pixies. The driving beat of the track has punk influences, but is something that is much more moderated than most of the punk acts out on the market. After this quick introduction, something quicker hits listeners during “Promenade”. This track is something that follows all the…
We receive a number of different reissues at NeuFutur. Many of them deal with the ephemera (pictures, lost tracks, live performers) from a particular era in the musician’s life. However, Audio Fidelity’s release of this slept-on Wonder classic has no additional tracks or other aural (or visual) goo-gahs. Rather, what the company has done here has provided listeners with the most clear and crisp recording of a Wonder album that…
“Lyon” starts off with The Psychic Paramount really taking individuals into a very industrial type of vein. In essence, the track sounds as if someone is rewinding a tape, as everything has a back-masked type of quality that really operates nicely in terms of opening up this disc. From the onset, “Paris pt. One” has a much more rock-based feel to it. Everything is blanketed with a heavy degree of…
The clarity in which Provoked start out their “Night of the Livid Punks” really seems to show a different sound than was present in their “Infant in the Womb of Warfare”. New vocalist Kerri has a different sound to eir vocals that really seem sedate in wake of Scaba’s work, which are bolstered well when a second or third vocalist joins in . In fact, the stylistic change in regards…
The clarity in which Provoked start out their “Night of the Livid Punks” really seems to show a different sound than was present in their “Infant in the Womb of Warfare”. New vocalist Kerri has a different sound to eir vocals that really seem sedate in wake of Scaba’s work, which are bolstered well when a second or third vocalist joins in . In fact, the stylistic change in regards…
I honestly thought that this disc was skipping when the drum line to “Dead Hopes” started out. This drum line (laid down by Joey) is the equivalent to those jokes on shows like the Family Guy that move beyond the comfort level of the Aristophanesian-influenced “trio” jokes (something is funny when it happens to an individual three times). The humor in Family Guy’s jokes (and why exactly Joey’s drum line…
Underground rap is always really hit or miss, and Proverb’s self-titled single, “Proverbs” exemplifies that to a t. With a loud synth line struggling to overtake Proverb’s flow. In fact, Proverb seems a little compressed in eir music, with the lush synth choking eir slowly. The hook is found on the earliest seconds of the disc and really amounts to a premature ejaculation on the tack. While Proverb tries to…
The back and forth of Propagandhi during “A Speculative Fiction” really shows a maturation of two distinct styles of music; an emotive type of rock and the straight-forward type of rock. These styles are deftly maneuvered into a cohesive sound by Glen’s voice, and “A Speculative Fiction” is a track that has a classic, Bad Religion type of sound while still showing some of the metal/punk fusion that catapulted Sum41…
Different blips forcing their way from the periphery to the mainline of things, The Prodigy are back with their “Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned”. The global flow of “Spitfire” comes through with the middle-Eastern sound of the female backing vocals, and the male presence in the track is reminiscent of Zach from Rage Against The Machine. Continuing the same general sound that as found in “Spitfire”, “Girls” doesn’t honestly contribute much…
Sam Sneed may just be one of the forces in rap music that has been slept on over the course of the last few decades. On “Street Scholars”, Sneed looks to come out from behind the curtain. Despite bringing out the big guns on “U Better Recognize”, Sneed’s goal with “Street Scholars” is to give some up and coming rappers, R&B artists, and other musicians a chance to shine. What…
Primal Scream always surprises me. When I last heard them, they were doing an electronic type of thing (and I think that was about 2000). This time, the band has gotten onto the retro rock bandwagon and ion “Country Girl”, have made a track that even The Rolling Stones would be proud of. This retro style presents itself again during “Nitty Gritty”, and Primal Scream seems to revel in this…
Spike has a definite nineties sound to start out “There’s No Sound In Flutes”. However, the disc starts off with “I Know Everything”, a track that has the arrangements struggling against the vocals for dominance. The instrumental interlude during the track is also something that seems out of lplace during the track, especially when Priggen’s vocals are so full of humanity where the interlude sounds forced or downright cold. Either…
The Prids start out “Until The World Is Beautiful” with a drum beat that would confuse anyone into believing that The Prids are a punk rock band. What ultimately comes from this drumming is a subtle set of vocals that make themselves quickly into something that feels like an early Joy Division track than anything else. “The Glow” is this opening track, and while the guitars do not do much…
It is always so hard to give band s a good review when all they send you is two or three songs. This is what Pretty Flowers does on this EP, so any gaps in my opinion on the band can only be corrected by a longer disc. Saying that, their self-titled EP starts out with “Riot”, a track that is led by a very distorted guitar line. There seems…
Giorgio Pretti is a more sincere brand of shrill guitar work in the vein of style like Santana. Why I say “more sincere” is the fact that Giorgio does the vocals and guitar most of the time, rather than the strictly narrow, guitar-only sound of Santana. Pretti is able to take changes in stride much more successfully than Santana; each track on “Cuidado Mano” does not need the same guitar…
Hey, Victory has a band that isn’t trying to cash in on the emo sound? And Premonitions of War sounds like the old Victory bands, what about that? Utterly brutal guitars mix in with break-neck drumming and cookie monster vocals to create a mishmash of metal, hardcore, and heavy metal. Each song starts and stops before one can actually realize whats happening. The crew in Premonitions of War blast through…
“Another’s World” is a pop track in the same vein as Kelly Clarkson and of the other singers (Sinead O’Connor, Natalie Merchant), and shows Preeta as completely capable of wowing audiences by the barrelful. Preeta really seems to have control of “In This Moment” as the first three tracks all have a runtime of one second of each other (two tracks at 3:42 and one at 3:43). The songs are…
Laura Roppe is a performer that defies convention. Where it is easy to provide broad comparisons to artists or other influences for many discs, I found myself sitting down and really focusing in to what she attempts to do on “I’m Still Here”. The album begins with “Bail Yourself Out” an effort that blends together country, gospel, rockabilly, and soul into a catchy and splashy introduction to Roppe. Continuing to…