The opening of “The Hidden One” is something that would confuse listeners, as the track could also portend the opening of “Time Of Your Life (Good Riddance)” by Green Day. However, the country style of Cody Marks comes up heavily soon after this introduction, and “The Hidden One” assumes a style that is not quite unlike that of a blend of Joni Mitchell and Pete Seeger. The overall sound of…
Steven Mark comes through with a very poppy style that really looks more towards Sean Lennon than the (comparable) hard rock of the Foo Fighters. The style of “Aloneaphobe” really feels as if Mark walked out of the early seventies, specifically taking equal parts Jimmy Buffet and James Taylor to make a “third wave” of music. While tracks like “Weak” are not the most innovative in terms of arrangement or…
“Jekyll Walks” shows The Mark as an emo band that really lives up to their EP title; the song is construed quite like a sea, in which the music breaks over individuals incessantly, only pulling back with the desire to hit the listener harder with the next wave. This is not necessarily only the emo of bands like Senses Fail, but something that has a larger set of influences than…
I thought that the retro rock of bands like Jet and The Storkes was dead. I was praying and hoping that it was, and then a band like Mardo comes on the scene. Mind you, there have been a lot of bands that have looked back to their rock influences and have created amazing albums; Wolfmother and The Darkness (for their first album at least) are two that come to…
What do you get when you mix the political leanings and intelligence of Bad Religion with the super-dramatic vocals of System of a Down, and swaddle it with the vestments of Pennywise and Strike Anywhere? Marathon, of course – their first track “Painting By Numbers” immediately attacks the listener, the government, and anyone else that gets too close. Starting out their second track “I Don’t Have A Dancing Problem” with…
The opening strains of “Breakfast at Ikea” sound like Enigma, or like Tori Amos if ey plugged into an outlet. Soon after, a disaffected set of vocals attempt a blend of The Smiths and Depeche Mode before kicking into a very seventies arrangement. Overall, Map goes through a number of styles in their creation of a Map-specific sound. By crafting this sound at such an early point during “San Francisco…
“Six Demon Bag” starts with a very Western-sounding piano backing up a set of vocals that have to be linked to Frank Zappa. The overall sound of the track is very Spartan, but I would be damned if the band is not tremendously interesting throughout the track. “Six Demon Bag” is not necessarily an album of singles, but really acts as if Man Man had an idea on their mind…
To be honest, most individuals that are the driving force of the music scene – the all important 16-21 age grouping – will have no idea who Buffalo Tom, Dinosaur Jr, or the Lemonheads were. Hell, I’m 22 and I missed out on each of those bands by a good five years. However, the opening to this disc (which has Hilken Mancini from Fuzzy and Chris Colbourn from Buffalo Tom)…
The slow, simplistic and deliberate arrangements that open up “Open Surgery” are maybe a little slower than the band should really put forth at this early juncture. The effect that “Give Me A Sign” really has on listeners is one of wonder; is this track slowed down enough to be noticeable? “Say What You Want” continues this sound and really starts to show what is so innovative about this band;…
I wanted to say that what The Mall did on their “Emergency At The Everyday” was create yet another dance-punk act for all the scene kids to drool over. While there is still a lotr of dance-punk present in The Mall’s act, there are hints of both Men’s Recovery Project and even a little bit of Agoraphobic Nosebleed. The synthesizers that play such a major role during the band’s “Acrid”…
Make Believe elicit a different spirit for each of their tracks on “Shock of Being”. They start off their tribute by emulating Nirvana heavily on “Amscaredica”, while “His Short Quip When Eddie’s Bothered” looks to the weird gait of acts like Primus. There is really no connection beyond the masters of oddness during “His Short Quip”, as there are so many things happening at any one given second during the…
The Majestic Twelve had one of the more memorable albums of the last few years with their “Searching For The Elvis Knob”. This follow-up album works along most of the same lines as “Searching”, with tracks like “Condoleezza Check My Posse” mixing together Jello Biafra and the B-52s in some of the more eclectic music that individuals have heard. The production of tracks on this album are at a level…
Since the revival of rock music that was lorded over by Swedish bands like the Hellacopters and Gluecifer, and more famously in the States with The Strokes and The White Stripes, all sorts of bands have worked their way out of their lo-fi sound and tried to grab for the brass ring. The Lot Six is a band that tries to go for this down and dirty rock sound, and…
The Majestic Twelve are another band that are pretty acoustic-heavy, but are able to infuse their music with a style, talent, and humor that is all theirs. Spinning electronic threats into their first track, “Soylent Green”, which mesh well with the vocal timbre present on the track. Taking a one-eighty with their second track, “I Don’t Have A Job”, speeding through the lyrics in a way similar to Michael Stipe’s…
Mahi Mahi play a bizarre, fun band of herky-jerky dance music that has as much to do with The Locust as it does with Gigi D’Agostino. In fact, during tracks like “I Can’t Hear You”, the unnecessarily clunky drumbeats of the track even begin to recall the demo-led recordings of Wesley Willis and a Ritalin-fed Atom and His Package. The aforementioned “I Can’t Hear You” has a synth/drum dichotomy that…
Aside from their magazine, Filter has to be doing something right . Magnet is the next act that will undoubtedly hit it big, and it is not because they are primped and primed for the big time. Rather, Magnet is a diverse sounding band that will infuriate the hearts of listeners to the point that they cannot stand it; “The Tourniquet” is the equivalent of the melting pot that is…
Magicicada elicits a Native American type of feel to the first track on “Everyone Is Everyone”, “Coso Joru”. There is not much else to this track besides a humming that is present throughout the song’s six minute runtime. In what can only be described as a noise approximating that of a human heart, the atmosphere created by Magicicada from the get-go is very organic, even if (I would venture) most…
“Skipping Stones” starts off with an emotionally-full piano line that goes into some serious harmonies soon after. The great thing about this is that it opens up into a very reggae-infused sound, with horns to boot. There are no vocals present, but there is little need for them; the arrangements are that full and impressive that the inclusion of the vocal at the onset was not necessary. This is not…
There is a heavy sixties sound to the opening of Mad Tea Party’s album. This song is “62 Years”, and while it resides in a different style than what is popular today, there is a humbleness to this composition that will allow it to be appreciated by a larger audience. In a sense, Ami’s vocals sound like Suzanne Vega and Jill Sobule; this tie to the present will also make…
Alive in Stereo come forth on their self-titled release with a very intense and emotionally-driven rock style. The band immediately puts everything into the red, with equal intensity given to the vocals, drums, and guitars, giving “Change Things” the perfect amount of oomph. “Impossible” improves on this first salvo, with a clarity of composition and grit that will remind listeners of Skillet and even Stabbing Westward. While “Change Things” was…