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…
I should have guessed when the first track on “Always Never The Same”, “Tree of Night” started up, that this band had been around for a few years as it contained some of the most solid instrumentation that I’ve ever heard from a ska band. Every part of this eight-piece is given equal time on this disc, and one can hear drums ,brass, bass, and guitars all kicking in behind…
Kate Kennedy plays a very guitar-heavy type of looking-back rock. The new-folk of a track like “The Blues Are Exhausted” has Kennedy singing in the vein of Suzanne Vega and other nineties alternative singers, as the acoustic guitars play a folk-style that screams 2006 looking back at 1936. The guitars play interesting harmonies during “The Blues Are Exhausted”, and this is only helped by the inclusion of percussion during the…
