I had no clue what Mt. Gigantic was going to sound like before I put the disc in the player, and I feel good that I did not read the promo sheet before listening in this instance. What follows is a truly unique style of music, similar to A Silver Mt. Zion in its ability to subsume all different styles of music and create something that is their own. Bloomington,…
Mt Gigantic – Gleanings and Gatherings / 2007 Harlan / 8 Tracks / http://www.mtgigantic.com / http://www.friendsandrelativesrecords.com / Reviewed 01 May 2007 “Get Well Cougher” is the first track on “Gleanings and Gathering”, and it is an interesting for all of the different tempos, loudnesses, and genres that Mt. Gigantic uses during the song. It is not enough that the and goes from quiet to heavy, but the track moves from…
Mr. T Experience – Yesterday Rules / 12 Tracks / 2004 Lookout Records / http://www.lookoutrecords.com / Released 13 January 2004 / Reviewed 21 January 2004 Somewhat lighter of a release than I would expect from the Mr. T Experience, a band that I thought would perfectly espouse the Lookout ideal of a pop-punk band. There are still some remnants of the punk roots of this band, but a lot of…
Mower – Not For You / 2006 Suburban Noize / 15 Tracks / http://www.mowermusic.com / http://www.suburbannoizerecords.com / Reviewed 01 June 2006 Mower plays a brand of hard rock that quite often goes into hardcore and metal veins. For those that did not know, they are intricately related to Kottonmouth Kings. Where KMK has put forth a very intense brand of rap down on their last few albums, Mower does nearly…
Movies With Heroes – Nothing Here is Perfect / 2006 CI Records / 10 Tracks / http://www.movieswithheroes.com / http://www.cirecords.com / Reviewed 25 March 2006 Movies With Heroes do not play the same style of music that most emo bands push upon their listener.s In fact, a track like “Wake Up” is emotional rock, done with a style of music that more approximately meshes with rock than anything close to “emo”.…
Movie Star Kiss – Starting Over / 2006 Self / 10 Tracks / http://www.moviestarkiss.com/ http://www.myspace.com/moviestarkiss / Reviewed 07 November 2006 The opening of “Starting Over” is slow, deliberate, and snowballs to give the opening set of vocals even more fury than it would have normally had. There is a high amount of repetition present during this track, but the band is smart enough to end the track before the band…
The Movies – In One Era Out the Other / 2002 Gern Blandsten Records / 10 Tracks / http://www.gernblandsten.com / http://www.skyscrapermedia.net / Reviewed 01 January 2004 Another lo-fi, ethereal sounding type of alternative music. Timothy’s lyric sound plucked out of an early eighties 4AD release. While the promo sheet would have you try to equate The Movies with “Pornography-era Cure”, I would have to point individuals in the way of…
Motion City Soundtrack – Commit This To Memory / 2005 Epitaph / 12 Tracks / http://www.motioncitysoundtrack.com / http://www.epitaph.com / Reviewed 06 April 2005 We have a winner for the most annoying method to ensure that one’s CD is not stolen. Epitaph has decided to split up the twelve tracks on “Commit This To Memory” into 99 different sections, and this means that I get into a groove with the great…
James Morrison – Undiscovered / 2007 Interscope / 11 Tracks / http://www.jamesmorrisonmusic.com / http://www.interscope.com / Reviewed 11 March 2007 James Morrison plays a style of feel-good pop-rock that has ties to artists such as John Maher and Jack Johnson; the title track derivates from that formula only when ey adds a very psychedelic meets Counting Crows type of organ to the mix. The large role that the bass has in…
Mouth Sewn Shut – Pandemic = Solution / 2006 Rodent Popsicle / 12 Tracks / http://www.myspace.com/mouthsewnshut / http://www.rodentpopsicle.com / Reviewed 07 July 2006 Obviously, Toxic Narcotic is one of the best crust bands out in the genre today. For those that do not know, Bill and Will from Toxic Narcotic are in this band. Mouth Sewn Shut seems to be a little heavier, more metal-based type of crust act. However…
The opening of “Royal Street Inn” sounds as if a blend of Adam Duritz and Coldplay were present with Moroux’s “Cincinnati”. There is the typical singer-songwriter in a coffee shop style, with a very tender bit of instrumentation backing up Moroux’s vocals. What results is a track that could easily be played on all of the pop and Top 40 radio stations. This does not mean that the track is…
Moros Eros is an act that has a lot of flavor to the tracks that they release, but struggles hard to find a sound for the entirety of “I Saw The Devil”. It seems as if each track on this album shows Moros Eros trying to do something different, whether it be the dance punk of a song like “Short of the Shore” or the grunge meets seventies rock of…
The opening to “Prelude: EP’s 1 & 2” is a mood-setter, an atmospheric track that really tells the story of the band even before any music is laid down on the disc. “Run For Our Lives” has the entire history of British rock behind it, from the less-hacky days of U2 back to The Who; there is even some crossing-over in the slightly Jim Morrison meets Rivers Cuomo vocals present…
The Street Dogs and I have a great history together. Never mind the fact that I have never met them or heard them live, but I played the shit out of “Savin Hill” when I still had my show on WGRE. Regardless, ever since we received that early title for review, the Street Dogs have had a special place in my heart. This self-titled release, their fifth, showcases more of…
The metal that is played by Mord on “Christendom Perished” is something that is not moderated by time or general mood of the track. There is little time for individuals to get ready as Mord throws their listeners headlong into their distinct music style. Actually providing ideas to listeners via vocals is not the goal of the band; the screaming acts more like another instrument here during songs like “Opus…
Moonspell still sounds as fresh and as intense as they did during “Wolfheart”, and the production during this album is solid enough that is allows every different sound that Moonspell places to the disc to be captured in its original glory. The band was one of the first acts to blend together styles of classical and metal, well before acts like Cradle of Filth even began to think of the…
The energy that is first exerted by Morello during their opening to “Twelve Ways To Breathe” is without comparison. During this first track “Fade Out”, the band is able to make a compelling guitar line work with a set of vocals that moves between energetic and introspective. While this approach is interesting t say the least, it is not something that is commonly used by acts. The sheer newness of…
About 10 seconds into Monty Are I’s “Wall of People, I fell in love. This disc is going to be in my stereo for months to come. Genius, only word for it really. But since I have to give you 400 words on it, allow me to try elaborating. It all started on track 1, “Between the Sheets”. This track comes right at you full force, an excellent opening. With…
Monsters Are Waiting play a brand of music on their “Fascination” that bounces through quite a few styles even as the music is fairly straight-forward and possessing of few styles. At some point, there is a girl group (from the sixties) like feel to songs like “Monsters”, but there is something new and fresh and pervades the sound of the band. However, during tracks like “Nobody”, Monsters Are Waiting take…
“Behm” is an electronic track that still sounds very natural and organic. The repetition seems to show more of a growing process rather than an act that does not know where to go with their next track. There is a snowball track present on this song that is foreboding. Individuals that have just started this disc have no idea where Monster Movie will go with the rest of the tracks…