Post Tagged with: "Reviews"
Geoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury – Drokk: Music Inspired by Mega-City One album review
Imagine yourself in a chaotic, overcrowded futuristic mega-city filled with criminals and ruled over by lawmaking judges who charge, convict, sentence, and sometimes put criminals to death on the spot. This is the world of popular British comic character Judge Dredd, and it’s the inspiration for the Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury collaboration found on Drokk: Music Inspired by Mega-City One. The title “Drokk” might seem a bit obscure to those unfamiliar with the comic, but it’s actually a pretty [...]
The Beautiful Ones – Birth of Desire EP review
The newest release by Arizona band The Beautiful Ones is an example of how a genre evolves from its roots; though labeling themselves a hardcore band, there are elements of alternative rock and metalcore to be found. While the songwriting is fairly interesting, it isn’t necessarily the most original. Riffage of the past couple of decades is prevalent, along with a love of half time vs. four-on-the-floor hardcore feel stylization. A perfect example is the first track, ‘Can’t Stand the [...]
OFF! – OFF! album review
OFF!’s self-titled LP was released this May, and contains a disgusting vitality usually reserved for a sea of pissed off teenagers. Former Black Flag and Cirkle Jerks front man Keith Morris is almost 60, and needs to get it out of his system before he keels over and dies. Dmitri Coat’s blistering guitar riffs cut through each song like a rusty serrated knife, attacking the spasmodic explosive drums provided by Mario Rubalcaba with sickening syncopation. The sardonic white-noise screeches of [...]
Keane – Strangeland album review
Sixteen tracks to this fourth release by UK artist Keane, most of them echoes of what’s gone on before in some form. Generally, reviewers of this album complain that the group has not continued to experiment with edgier stuff, as if any self-respecting artist has only a newer, more evolving sound in mind. But Keane gathered quite a fan base doing what they do and you can’t argue with numbers. That being said, this is a formulaic production, but that [...]
PS I love You – Death Dreams album review
Sometimes, for no discernible reason, I will decide that I do not like a band before I even hear a note of their music. When asked to review the newest album by the Kingston Ontario duo, PS I Love You, I was completely unaware of their music and had no idea of their sound. I was prepared to hate every second of it though. So, when I started listening to their album Death Dreams I found myself more than a [...]
Masha Qrella – Analogies album review
With today’s music media, it is difficult to escape the booming bass, the ear popping synth waves, and party fever. Today’s music has little to no meaning, feeling, or soul. As technology advances, so do we; and even more often we forget the simplicities of a minimalistic vs. materialistic life. I felt a great respect for Masha Qrella upon hearing her new album, Analogies, because of her simplistic lyrics that just radiated with positive energy. Her lyrics plunge you into [...]
CFCF – Exercises EP review
Not enough people use the EP format effectively. A lot of bands just take it as a song dump, putting on random tunes from their catalogue that just don’t fit anywhere else, or using it as a mere teaser for a full album. This is fine enough I suppose, but few musicians realize the potential of the concise runtime of an EP – it’s really the short story to a full-length’s novel, a place to explore an idea in-depth without [...]
La Sera – Sees the Light album review
Sees the Light is the second solo album from La Sera a.k.a. Katy Goodman of the all female psychedelic-punk-surf group, the Vivian Girls. Goodman brings her sweet, soft-spoken vocals to a variety of genres on the album, never quite settling on just one. While musically the second song, Please Be My Third Eye, is solid, the song as a whole is worth skipping over. It sounds like a garage band with a little sister who desperately wanted to be part [...]
Lower Dens – Nootropics album review
“And now for something completely different.” These words, immortalized by Monty Python, would be the best way to introduce the strange and unique sounds of the relentlessly touring five-piece outfit known as Lower Dens. Originally the brainchild of Baltimore based noise rocker Jana Hunter, the group has released their second full-length album on Ribbon Music: Nootropics. A nootropic, also known as smart drugs or neuro enhancers, is a kind of chemical used to enhance cognitive functions like memory and intelligence. [...]
Ane Brun – It All Starts With One album review
Maybe it’s only the Dexedrine listening, but as soon as I put on Ane Brun’s album It All Starts With One, I felt like I was home. Brun’s a vocalist from Norway who’s been releasing albums for nearly ten years (and has collaborated with an assortment of talented characters like Ron Sexsmith and Peter Gabriel along the way) but I never heard of her before my overlords and overladies at MVRemix tossed her CD in my lap last week. I [...]
