The roughness of the rock that Loudlife comes up with for the opening of their CD is something that follows from 38 Special and leads through Every Mother’s Nightmare and Cinderella into something that is new but with a lot of history behind it. The vocals of Lorraine Ferro during this disc are at least as strong as furious as the guitar work that screams in the background, which makes…
The sunny punk-pop of “Feels Like Drowning” shows Dennis to be more influenced by Dick Dale and The Ramones than by Husker Du and The Replacements. This is not to say that the music has a dated or otherwise backwards sound it, but to expect more of the same music that brought Refused to the forefront is to invite disappointment. This brand of punk is almost the most simplistic and…
Keeping true to their status as at least a partially-California band, Los Kung-Fu Monkeys uses a number of styles to provide a fresh and groovy album for their listeners. Working off a base of Ska, Punk, and Surf, the Monkeys use a very positive-sounding music to promote a better world; specifically asking individuals to “justify your actions”, “take a look at the city tonight”, and “to stop all this war”.…
Losing All Pride plays a brand of punk that is tremendously tied into hardcore. The style is something that is comparable to an act like Sum 41, but there seems to be a much more genuine thrash influence. This is probably due to the fact that the band is coming fro a California that is rife with thrash history. This means that the disc is well less than thirty minutes,…
Los Deadbeats is a band from the Kent area. I actually have only seen them live once, but had a chance to hear this disc at the kids’ old house. Putting this disc in my player for a serious second listen allows me to hear more of the nuance that makes “Probably Drunk” much more of a solid album. During songs like “Legend of the Fohamma”, Los Deadbeats take on…
The hard crunch that starts out “Snake” is something that I completely did not expect from a band called Los Burbanks. The track throws in some punk bass into something that eventually makes itself into a style that seems closer to what a band called Los Burbanks would sound like. This means that “Snake” is a blend of 311 and Incubus and early Offspring. Los Burbanks are a bipolar band…
In what is probably the shortest LP of all time the ten-song, sub-15 minute disc put out by this Louisville band is hard hitting but suffers from awkward splits in the track. The entire disc feels as if it was just broken up from one extended track, and the screaming, noise-punk of Lords feels as if the band focused on one specific moment and went with it. The sizzling guitars…
Lordi – The Arockalypse Lordi was the act that won the 2006 Eurovision song contest, and for good reason. The field was very weak, and Lordi was one of the few acts that actually played any version of rock on the show. This album is an expanded version of “The Arockalypse”, with a few extra tracks present on the American versions. The style of music that Lordi plays, for those…
Why exactly Lorene Drive didn’t put “Let It Go” as the lead-off track for “Romantic Wealth” is beyond me. The first track, “God Knows I Love You Kid” is a track that is essentially a non-starter for the band, as it is even cut in a style that makes it feel as if it was culled from a different set of tracks than the rest of the disc. As it…
Pretty solid rap coming out of a more laid-back outlook, Lordroc’s first track on “E2 To Bass”, “Who Is It U Love?”. Everything comes together convincingly, whether it is the early-nineties backbeat or the female vocals that work as a bridge on the track. Using a host of different producers for every track, Lordroc runs the risk of making an album that shifts in overall sound every few minutes. Luckily,…
One thing that immediately stands out about Looks Like Rain is vocalist Amy Court, who begins this EP with a very Susanne Vega meets Dolores O’Riordan set of vocals. The music may not be the most intricate of nests in which to lay the sweet vocals of Amy, but really functions well as a background. Imagine the light-rock stylings of Sixpence None the Richer and one will get the general…
The guitar-heavy opening to “He Bit Me” opens up into a fuller instrumental track which is comparable to the post-Fugazi pre-emo acts, bands like The Appleseed Cast and Desert City Soundtrack. The track is only ninety seconds long but the arrangements are complicated and fulfilling; individuals would be fools to not be fans of Look Mexico after this first track. This same type of rich instrumentation continues with “I Can’t…
Longwave is a band that has been inculcated to Automatic for the People-era R.E.M., as well as most the bands from that era. This is not to say that they are necessarily dated or cliché, but to the contrary they start off “There’s A Fire” with a hard-hitting earworm of a track, replete with hard-hitting drums and snaky synth lines. The move towards and away from an intense sound during…
I must admit, that I sometimes become confused with all the different bands that are coming forth with a newer rock type of sound. A few years back, there was some semblance of differentiation between them – one could understand what songs were Disturbed, which were Godsmack’s, and which ones Papa Roach cut. However, I’m seeing (or hearing) a little more collusion of these different styles in current rock music.
In the last few years, there have been a number of different iterations of metal that really freshen up the genre. I recall a few years back, for example, reviewing a collection of metal songs for kids. This time around, metal tracks are given the flamenco treatment. Where fans lightly into metal will know a few tracks on “Heavy Mellow” (such as Megadeth’s “In My Darkest Hour”, Ozzy’s “Bark At…
It takes about a half-minute to get into the groove, but Lonely H starts off “Kick Upstairs” with a track that frankly recalls Rivers Cuomo’s vocals with a style of rock that seems more fitting for the seventies than the current period. In a sense, there seems to be a concerted effort to recall the retro type sound of nineties alternative rock with songs like “Marmalade Sky”, as the track…
I have a Locust poster sitting in my room as we speak. I really thought when I first heard about them I would have no desire to listen to it, but I downloaded a copy of “Plague Landscapes” and was hooked. This is something different from The Locust, as some semblance of easily-discernible structure (I’m sure their previous material had some high-faluting, difficult structure that I couldn’t begin to dissect)…
Starting off their disc with “Alchemy”, Lock and Key come forth with the energy that begat their first CD on Deep Elm, “No Fate”. The fuzziness that ends this track just adds a dark feeling to the opening of the follow-up track, “Process of Molting”. One thing that must be said about Lock and Key is that they are virtuosos with each facet of their being – whether it is…
A one-hit wonder for many individuals who only listen to popular music, Local H has been releasing albums constantly since their largest commercial success, “As Good As Dead”, hit stores in April of 1996. Much has changed for the band since “Bound For the Floor”, though, and “Whatever Happened to P.J. Soles” is an album that shows a band in transition, moving from a Offspring-but-more-rock sound in “California Songs” to…
The odd echo that starts off “Without Your Song” makes the vocals all the more interesting. The instrumentation is so bare as to be non-existent; “Albatross” changes things due to its instrumental opening (a minute and a half worth) but ultimately sticks with a very creepy type of sound. The echoing present in this track mixes in with an electronic sound to change things up, but one knows that the…