It is very rare to see that a band has been together for such a long time. Barring the years that they were trying to get back together, Kill Van Kull has been a band since 1983. It is thus not surprising to hear such talent and ability come from each member of the band. The one thing that individuals might have worried about, the freshness of the style of…
Kill The Hippies are the first band to ever do a reverse chronology for their complete retrospective. Most the time, individuals have to suffer through the caterwaulings of a very green band that really had no clue before getting to the gold. On both of these discs, the newest tracks open up the disc before going back into the annals of the band’s history (Kill The Hippies started in 1993).…
6/30 @ The Triple – Richmond, VA – w/ MUTILATION RITES, PLAGUE THE SUFFERING 7/1 @ Slims – Raleigh, NC 7/2 @ 585 Wells St. – Atlanta, GA 7/3 @ The Junkyard – Gainesville, FL – w/ HOT GRAVES, MUTILATION RITES 7/4 @ The Brass Mug – Tampa, FL – w/ HOT GRAVES, FATAL 7/5 @ The Joint Collective – Sarasota, FL 7/6 @ Warehouse 8B – Jacksonville, FL –…
It is honestly hard to really assign Killjoy Confetti with a specific style of music. Comparison between them and other diverse and experimental bands may do better justice; the band during tracks like “Excuse The Blood” really mix Nico-era Velvet Underground with Patti, using progressive, Queens of the Stone Age-type of rock to fuel the track. The challenge that Killjoy Confetti really give their listeners during the opening two salvos…
Killing the Dream starts out their “In Place, Apart” with a fury that has not been heard since Strike Anywhere’s “Exit English” or “Siren Song of the Counter-Culture-era” Rise Against. In fact, lead vocalist Elijah has more than a passing similarity to Rise Against’s vocalist Tim, a comparison that only gets stronger as the disc continues to spin. What does provide a major problem at the onset of “In Place,…
The distortion that is present on the first tracks of “Songs For The Christmas Party”, specifically “A Memo for All Rock Journalists”, fights with the vocals to establish the dominant force during the disc. The distortion eventually wins out, but individuals can hear what is being played pretty clearly. The style of music that Killer Squirrel plays is something that is straight forward and punk as fuck at some point;…
The brand of hardcore that The Killer play is influenced by both earlier hardcore and metal acts. Thus, tracks like “Where Will You Go?” are tied to the eighties metal of acts like Megadeth, with repetitious guitars driving a rhythm far into listeners’ heads. The great thing about The Killer is that the music on “Better Judged By Twelve” was recorded over two years ago, and still sounds as fresh…
“Matryoshka” is the first track listeners will encounter during Elevator Art’s self-titled release, and it is integral for beginning to understand exactly what it is that the band will set out to do here. The frenetic energy that the band brings to the table will remind listeners of Interpol and The Anniversary just as a more current and vibrant sound comes to bear.
It is really hard for an act to successfully create a cover song. I understand that there are a tremendous amount of covers out there currently, but one has to admit that the vast majority of them are pretty garish. If they sound decent, chances are good that they do nothing to make the track their own, while even if they do try to traipse down another track, their effort…
“Indians and Clowns”, the self-titled track to Miriams Well’s newest album, is a hard-hitting bit of country rock that has just as much in common with Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks as it does with Bon Jovi and Every Mother’s Nightmare. Building a sound that transcends beyond both of these styles is hard, but is something that the band’s members does with each subsequent track. “More Than I” slows…
It sometimes can be difficult to understand what a band is all about when they provide a reviewer with an EP. However, I feel that Lithium Seven is an act that are able to squeeze in a proper introduction on the three tracks that comprise “Something Else Is Waiting”. The first song here is “Get To Montana”, a bit of pop-rock that rides the waves created by acts like John…
Brian Lee creates an incredibly interesting style of music on “Moth”. The type of sound that issues forth during “Love To Me” is beyond description. This eclectic bit of guitar and lightly-smattered drums, topped off with a male and female set of vocals, ranges the gamut of styles from Beatles-era pop, to indie, alt-country, and even Conor Oberst-types of emo. This means that there is a panoply of contexts that…
The guitar riffs that open up “Ol’ Blood N’ Guts” are absolutely intense, with hints of timeless acts like KISS placed alongside progressive metal shredders. When the vocals start up, a similarly-catchy side of Brown’s music is shown. Where production largely goes ignored now, it is the skilled production on this album that allows Brown’s solos and vocals to shine without either sounding too tinny or being forgotten in the…
Each of the compositions on “The Black Dove” are very pensive and stark in the overwhelming silence that they are couched in. There is no need for vocals in tracks like “Missing”, but Sharron’s vocals calling on masters like Allison Krauss and Stevie Nicks make the country and bluegrass stylings present into something that is compelling and catchy as all get out. In a sense, Kraus’ vocals even take on…
The opening composition of “Czar Nicholas is Dead” is “Yurovsky’s Lament”. Theme album, perhaps? I find it hard to really see or hear themes when the artist doing the theme is largely (if not completely) instrumental-based. I understand that there is a theme based on the track titles, but there does not seem to be a theme that immediately presents itself to me. How is one supposed to tell the…
To be honest, I really expected something more classical (Selena-like) when I first put on this disc, but when one starts to listen to a track like “Caterpillar Eyes” it becomes evident that Kiara is making a strong entrance into the land of pop-singers. The track does not seem to be oriented to the pop music genre in 2006, however; this is more Twila Paris and nineties pop than Kelly…
Khold is currently on hiatus, which sucks. However, the music that was recorded for “Krek” shows the band at a slightly happier time. The fury in which the band drenches their compositions on “Krek” is something new for most metal fans, as the band during tracks like “Blod Og Blek” uses a very sludgy sound to get their point across. Khold thus comes forward with a new hybrid of metal…
Khierstin used to be a teenage model, and this fact really makes sense when one hears the opening strains of the title track. What comes forth is an inoffensive, innocuous brand of pop music that is vocally-led, so much so that the instrumentation present is pushed to the background. Each of the tracks on “Lost In This” sounds similar to what has been common fare in popular music – that…
From Italy, Kharisma play a style of muted punk that has a definite eye towards the early nineties subset of punk rock. Starting out their demo disc with their theme song, “Kharisma” has compelling vocals laid down by GD, but a pretty weak electric guitar holds Kharisma back from really achieving their potential. This lack of guitar energy is endemic to the entire disc, and really is something to be…
I forget, is a two track album a proclamation to the world that the band feels that they can hang in with such storied acts as Klaus Schultze and Jethro Tull, or does it just say that the band is a bunch of pretentious assholes? One thing that can be said about bands that use such drawn out tracks (the shorter of the two tracks is still a shade over…