Released at a point when emo, screamo and pop punk were having an inexplicable revival in the early aughts, upstate New York’s Coheed and Cambria managed to sneak into the party when no one was watching the door, playing an impressive mix of prog rock and metal with a subtle inclusion of pop.
In just seven brief minutes, spread out over two songs, Durham, NC’s Skylar Gudasz has offered a glimpse at quite possibly the most starkly beautiful vocals to come along since The Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins turned in her Trinity Sessions performance.
Fake Soldier, Fallen Soldier has a very street savvy sound to the effort, with some absolute fire that is spat by Tru; there is a quickness and natural feeling to this track that ensures that listeners will be able to keep focused on the rest of the album.
With just 10 songs, the duo Kool Stuff Katie has managed to sneak in the best debut of the year. Unfortunate band name aside, Portland-based musicians Shane Blem and Saren Oliver have crammed together garage rock, new wave, punk and a liberal mix of hooky pop music for an instantly-infectious sound that brings to mind everyone from The Cars and The Kinks to The Breeders and The Ramones.
Titan Slayer has just released their latest single Desolated Heroes on Venator Music. There is a nice load-up period that starts things off, drawing listeners in as the arrangements gradually begin to pick up steam. The epic stylings of this single mean that listeners will be absolutely engrossed in the composition by the time that the last minute finishes and will be on the edges of their seats by the…
Freedom’s Alluring Call is a trance-infused instrumental composition that deftly links together natural and artificial elements into something that is brooding, expressive, and carries a narrative richer than any vocal effort.
The Joy of Quiet Rain Mix is an absolutely epic effort, with a number of different movements that elicit different emotions and mindstates. There are a number of environmental sounds that are interspersed during this effort (rain following, thunder) that approximate a storm that washes everything away. One can meditate and create a positive state in this nearly ten-minute offering The Soft Focus Ocean Mix does a stellar job in…
Much like their first four efforts, Horse Feathers’ latest, So It Is With Us, is a collection of quiet, indie music that straddles the line between folk and Americana. And that is far from being a bad thing.
When people dismissively ask “You still listen to punk music?,” they are actually thinking of bands like the four-piece Bad Luck. This group from Long Island and Daytona Beach, represent all that made the genre such a muddled mess of mediocrity in the early aughts. Pop music and seventh grade poetry masquerading as “Emo” all got mislabeled with the Punk tag, perverting a genre that was doing just fine without…
Hipsters and Baby Boomers rejoice! The latest, vinyl-only singles collection from The Turtles is a brilliant throw back and hopefully the start of a new trend.
