Awesome screamo band with dual vocals, abrasive yelling over high screams. I think they do a great justice to their genre. Listen to "With Horses In Her Eyes, She Spat Like A Wildcat" (in the video below) and tell me that isn't a perfect screamo song. I feel like the opening track, "We Only Fuck To Black Sabbath Vol. 4" sounds a little too rock sometimes, but don't let that get you down if you don't like it. Things only get better. Also, I like their song titles... "Get going cowboy... to those horses you think so much of."
1. We Only Fuck To Black Sabbath Vol. 4 2. Tips For Avoiding The Clap. 1. I Wouldn't Piss On A Scorpion If It Was On Fire 3. Das Plague (French For Germans) 4. With Horses In Her Eyes, She Spat Like A Wildcat 5. Hunger Like Numb Toes On An Oslo Sidewalk 6. The Tropics Of Cancer, Capricorn, And A Smashed Face 7. I May Have Cried A River For Him, But He's No Depardieu 8. This Charade Has Lasted Well Past The Curtain's Fall 9. We've Built Our Tombs And Now We're Sleeping In Them 10. The Graduate Walks With A Distance Gait
I saw this band at one of my earlier hardcore shows, at a house, when they were on a winter tour with Restrained. So-Cal powerviolence with a very metal vibe. I was really impressed with their set, so I bought this tape. Unfortunately, they didn't play the seven-minute jam song from the end of the 7-inch / tape at that house show, but a friend of mine saw them at Sound & Fury a few years back and said at the end of their set the vocalist just walked off stage while they played that song. I tend to think of this album in two parts, the short powerviolence songs at the start and the super metal jam at the end, and both parts are superb! I'm not a die hard fan of either genre really, but I love these recordings.
"Earth shall burn. Everything gone..."
1. Devoid Of Reality 2. Interlude 3. Investment In Knowledge 4. Ascension 5. Besiege 6. Earth's Charred Corpse 7. Banish The Cross 8. The 9th Circle 9. Untitled
I don't know quite where to place this guy's music. Everyone else says "obvious Smiths tribute" but I don't really see it. I mean, I see where they're coming from, but I'm sure there are better, more accurate comparisons (though, in the song "Sacred Heart" that comparison is quite accurate). Nonetheless, it's some sort of pop. When I put on Cass McCombs radio on Pandora, the only band I recognized was The Jesus And Mary Chain... I heard of Cass McCombs first when watching the Enjoi skate video, Bag Of Suck, where that song I mentioned, "Sacred Heart" was one of Jerry Hsu's songs along with Sonic Youth's Carpenters cover. I thought it was a good song so I got the album and wasn't as impressed with the rest, but after listening to it more, it grew on me. I feel like other people could appreciate this more at first impression than I did. I'm considering editing the last song on my iTunes though because the last seven minutes are a car alarm going off, so I want to cut that out. One time I left this on while I was sleeping, and that part woke me up the same way an alarm clock would!
"For all my alases, I cannot mend this massive slashing..."
1. Equinox 2. Subtraction 3. Multiple Suns 4. Tourist Woman 5. Sacred Heart 6. She's Still Suffering 7. Cuckoo 8. Bury Mary 9. City Of Brotherly Love 10. All Your Dreams May Come True
Check out "Sacred Heart" on Jerry Hsu's skate part from Bag Of Suck (such a great part).
The name of the album, a reference to the assassination of Malcolm X is very fitting, considering the content of the record is focused on politics, and specifically civil rights. There are even clips of Malcolm X's speech, "The Ballot Or The Bullet" during the title track of this album, as well as other clips on the subject of minority empowerment. I love the sound clip at the beginning of the whole thing. It's so energetic in a way I'm not used to. This is a great album that steps over the boundaries between punk, hardcore, and screamo so easily. Musically, it sounds a bit like Das Oath, while politically it gives me a Yaphet Kotto feel (it's an Ebullition release). This was world-famous DJ Steve Aoki's hardcore band and he was so frantic and energetic as a vocalist that it makes me want to describe them as sassy and out of control.
"Go eat some words and I'll bury in the sand."
1. Cracking The Mask 2. Bending The Erotic 3. Giving Testimony 4. Our Histories Have Burned Holes In Your Flag 5. Running With All These Names 6. Breakdown 7. Hearts And Minds 8. Death In The Audobon Ballroom 9. And The Weight Of That Silence Alone Will Choke Us
Great screamo album by one of the most well-known European screamo bands, Raein (pronounced like rain, a combination of both the words rain and rein) hailing from Forlì, Italy. If you're a fan of any form of emo (or punk in general even), and haven't heard this record yet, I suggest you get on that.
"This is my tigersuit!"
1. The Tree 2. The King Is Dead 3. From 3 To 1 In 2 And 4 4. Il N'y A Pas De Orchestre 5. Tetradycal Fluctuating Faster Than The Speed Of Light 6. Artmachine Observation Tower 7. Miss Kelly Dathe 8. Tigersuit 9. She Wears My Blood 10. I Was Fine Before You Came
This is my favorite Promise Ring material along with The Horse Latitudes. As you'd expect from their first records, it's a lot more gritty than stuff like Nothing Feels Good or Very Emergency; far less poppy, their early emo stylings are apparent, et cetera. This is exactly my style, but I think most people opt for Nothing Feels Good (which is great too!). Anyways, this is an impressive demo in my opinion. I hope you love it.
So, yet again it's been a while since I've posted anything, and I'm going to stop saying that I'm gonna try to post more often, because that's probably not gonna happen. Not even gonna play...
This album is sweet. I feel like if you like The Smiths you can't dislike this, but that theory's already been disproven. Whatever. 80's "sophistapop" from Hull, England that I think is extremely catchy, and I'm probably going to end up overplaying it very soon. I was originally attracted to this band solely by their name, because it sounded like a name I might come up with, and luckily, upon buying this album, I liked it! Don't be stupid. Give it a shot.
"Did you come here to shoot me down, bury me in my own home ground?"
1. When All's Well 2. Ugly Little Dreams 3. Shoot Me Down 4. Are You Trying To Be Funny? 5. Sean 6. Ballad Of The Times 7. Anytown 8. This Love (Not For Sale) 9. Trouble And Strife 10. Angel
This is one of those bands whose name I had heard from a friend once, and that was it. It was definitely recommended to me, but I was never told what kind of music it was, and had no idea what to expect. I found this album at a book exchange for $2.00 so I said, "Why not?" and bought it, only to find out that it'd become one of my favorite albums. This band is just fun, and I love that about them. The first thing you hear is "Grace Kelly With Wings" and it's absolutely amazing. Caught me off guard and couldn't stop listening to it until I sort of overplayed it. Then I went ahead and gave the rest of the album a closer listen and found out that the rest is great, too! Hopefully you'll listen to it too, and like it, after this equally-to-mine vague recommendation.
"That's more than a dress. It's a Grace Kelly movie."
I actually watched every movie Grace Kelly starred in because of that song, to find out what a Grace Kelly movie is, and I still don't really know, haha. Those movies are good, by the way.
1. Grace Kelly With Wings 2. We Believe In Karma 3. Mess With The Bulls 4. Dirty Harry And The Thunderbolts 5. You Won't Be Seeing Me Again 6. Rules For Mules 7. Giddy Like A Schoolgirl 8. All You Need Is Drums To Start A Dance Party 9. If Marcus Garvey Dies, Then Marcus Garvey Lives 10. Still We Let It Choke Us 11. Mount Pleasant 12. Location Is Everything 13. Fat And Skinny Asses
I'm gonna start trying to be a bit more brief with my posts, because no one wants to or will read that shit. This is Andrew Jackson Jihad's sort of side project under the same name, aka The Electric Jihad (I think, haha) and it's soooo good. Every time I listen to this record it makes me want to see them play an electric set, though it's sort of a rare occasion. Partners In 818 are one of those bands that just thoroughly impressed me from the first time I saw them, and I actually ended up getting this record the first time I saw them, because I wanted something of their's and this is all they had, which is fine because I love it, and you will too.
"I hated everybody around me. I even hated myself, which I still do on my bad days."
Andrew Jackson Jihad: 1. Deep Dark Basement 2. Hate & Kill 3. S.O.S.* (Off With Their Heads)** Parnters In 818: 4. Dogless, Not Topless 5. Roop + Charlie 6. Red Shark V.S. Levinia
*Song recorded without permission from Off With Their Heads. **Fuck those guys.
The second show I ever went to was a grindcore house show with Apathetic Ronald McDonald, Mutilated Pig Guts, Snaggletooth, and then one band that felt out of place, called Young Lions. They pretty much played rock, and I remember hating it at the time, but my friend loved it and bought their "Demography." The next day we were listening to it, and I slowly started to realize how awesome they are over the next few weeks or months or whatever it was. This band was based out of Reno, NV by three kids who love Nirvana (ref: American Love) and who ran Spacement Records (ref: Operation Spacement). At one point the "Demography" my friend bought was lost, and we could no long listen to Young Lions, so I did some serious digging to try to find out how to get into contact with these guys, which was made hard by the fact that they're no long a band, and Spacement is defunct, but eventually I got in contact with Ty, and he was nice enough to send me three copies of the Young Lions "Demography" and a few copies of his new band, My Flag Is On Fire's demo. So I gave two of those to my friends who had liked Young Lions, too. Then we listened to it all the time... And there was much rejoicing.
I really love this band, but I'll admit that not every song on the collection is all that great. My favorites on the album are Stitch The Fabric, a softer song, and The First Day Of Summer Time, which I love listening to at the beginning of a road trip, haha... In my opinion, this album's full of gems, but maybe it's just me because it has some past with me. I say give it a shot!
1. Again & Again 2. American Love 3. Hideout 4. The Loneliest Night In The History Of Time 5. Broken Halos 6. Young Mothers 7. Die With Jacque Cousteau 8. New Gold 9. Swim Like Rats 10. Operation Spacement 11. Stitch The Fabric 12. The First Day Of Summer Time 13. Mellow Loud 14. Little Fists 15. Basement Lungs 16. Future Now
