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…
“Chasing Trains” is the first track on Dana and Lauren’s latest release, a 4-track EP that touches upon a number of distinct and unique styles, sounds, and approaches. This track will immediately touch listeners for a variety of reasons, key of which has to be the utterly compelling vocal harmonies present. Couple these harmonies with a bluegrass-heavy set of arrangements, and what results is the duo’s first single-worthy track. Where…
Daniel Powter plays a very free and open style of pop rock that will fit well alongside groups like Maroon 5 and John Maher. The first track, “Song 6” shows that Powter is immediately marketable for any type of pop radio play. All of the songs on this self-titled disc are within a minute of each other in length, meaning that Powter has found a formula to drive home during…
It has been a few years since we last heard from Powerman 5000, so it should not be that amazing that the band has adopted a slightly different sound for “Destroy What You Enjoy”. Where the first major album used more of a nu-metal sound to get over with the fans, when the band starts “Destroy What You Enjoy”, there is a much more timeless appreciation for hard rock and…
To be honest, the introduction to this record scared me. I thought I was getting into a stodgy jazz record, and then “Matching Luggage” kicks in with a rock meets punk type of hard-hitting sound. The inclusion of horns towards the ending of the track brings Power Lloyd back into the heyday of third-wave ska and puts them into a pantheon which includes bands like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and…
While familiarizing oneself with Heliocentric (from April, 2010) would be the best course of action, I am glad to report that the learning curve on Anthropocentric does not require familiarization with Heliocentric. Understanding the overall themes and genre approaches taken by the band on the earlier album would be great, but when the titular opening begins, listeners are brought to an entirely new space.
“Perfect” starts out Potty Mouth Society’s album, and the track really recalls both Screeching Weasel and The Pissants. The recording is not as perfect as the former, but there is no lack of intensity in each of Potty Mouth Society’s track. With tracks that average between one and two minutes, an individual cannot get bored with Potty Mouth Society, especially when tracks like “Day Late” look back to the earliest…
The aloof look of Potter on the cover of this disc does not allow for easy assumption of what exactly will hit listeners once this album start. This lack of information is only continued during the opening strains of “Walk Away”, a track that ultimately brings Potter’s style of pop and rock to listeners’ ears. This disc is three years old, and seems to show that age in each of…
I think that The Post Office Gals have a lot in common with The Men’s Recovery Project in that there are so many different things happening in each track on “Esbeohdes”. This means that eighties rock (Robert Palmer) mixes with noise, thrash, electro-punk and dance to make something that is completely new to virgin ears. The first real foray into this type of sound happens with “I Wanna See You…
The Positions – Bliss! / 2005 Self / 12 Tracks / http://www.the-positions.com / Reviewed 12 November 2006 “Bliss!” begins with a style of music that would be much more fitting in the easy listening early seventies. The present of horns and ample bass with a cute voice during “Someday” firmly ensconces The Positions into this brand of music. The first track is something that is very sedate, but has a…
Eliot Popkin looks like a slightly chubbier version of Michael Ian Black. I am unsure exactly why I thought it would make sense to mention that, but what Popkin does on “Endless Ride” is play a very non-offensive brand of pop rock that is similar to the type of music that individuals like John Maher come out with every few years. The disc’s first track is “I Don’t Wanna”, and…
There is a funkiness to “Killer Lifestyle” that cannot be stifled. Pong play the role of seventies rock act perfectly; much in the vein of Scissor Sisters or Aloha, they mix a clear production with catchy hooks to come up with a retro radio-friendly sound. The only thing that sinks Pong early is the extremely long runtime of “Killer Lifestyle”; there is not enough new material in the track’s five…
Forget the straight-forward nature of the Devo sound, this time the Polysics are morphing rock and roll with the insane noise punk of bands like Bolt Thrower, An Albatross, and the Locust. The repetitions and slight variations on a theme that the Polysics work on for three-minute bursts are the equivalent of a schizophrenic conductor rapidly spiraling out of control. Incorporating rock-revivalist bands like the White Stripes in some of…
Immediately, Polyphonic sounds like Kid Koala and The Avalanches. That is to say, that the band uses a heavy amount of samples and scratching to achieve their goals in the disc’s first track “Container Life #473”. The band has the ability to come forth with a quilt of different sounds and samples, in creating what is a Frankenstein’s monster that approximates humanity pretty damn well. “Moving On” is a track…
There are hints of Ani DiFranco and Tori Amos from the beginning of “Painkiller”. However, Polly Pani goes beyond the styles of those two individuals in the creation of a chaos that has not been heard in popular music since the days of Patti Smith. There is decidedly a much newer style to Polly Panic that is not present in the music of any of the other, previously-mentioned individuals. The…