rescuing musical virtue in distress.
It is safe to say that Gabrielle’s Fire is a confusing prospect when you first stumble into its sonic clutches. But that’s a good thing, right? Confusing implies that it is not predictable or that it conforms to expectations. That it doesn’t merely follow fad or fashion, that it twists and turns, challenges and confounds.... Continue Reading →
Rock is good. Dark brooding rock is better. Throw a violin in there and I'll will hand the money over without a second thought. Okay, Lock and Key might be better described as metal, or tumulus rock, although someone is bound to tell me that it's actually post-sub-anti-gothic-progressive metal-core or any one of those distracting... Continue Reading →
Metal, especially the more technical end of that particular spectrum, and classical music have always made slightly odd but perfectly compatible travelling companions. But require high levels of skill, dedication and dexterity, both revel in florid and intricate soundscapes, byzantine sonic structures and whatever the opposite of the “less is more” approach is. Both also... Continue Reading →
As we enter the post-genre world, as generic divides are wilfully hopped, razed or ignored altogether, it might appear that it is the world of rock and metal that has benefited most from such a new and open attitude. It has always been a sector of the music community which thrived on sub-genres and strict... Continue Reading →
Rock music, perhaps more than any other genre, has kept the idea of labels, demarkations and sub-genres alive even as the rest of the musical world has embraced a more post-genre attitude towards such things. But, as always, where you chose to place any band on the musical map really depends on your own individual... Continue Reading →
What separates metal from plain, old, work-a-day rock music is often less to do with the technicalities of what is being played and more to do with the scope of the vision the band employs. Whereas rock has always revelled in industrial strength riffs, thunderous back beat, soaring vocals and coiled and claustrophobic textures, metal... Continue Reading →
Theatrics and high drama have always had their place in rock music, both in performance and in the songs themselves. Its a genre it has always been about escapism and whilst some choose to seek that by writing songs about fast women and faster cars, others wander into far more mystical places. Mono Inc have... Continue Reading →
There was a time, not so long ago, when music labelled progressive was seen as being decidedly uncool. Though what is uncool about playing with broad musical visions, weaving technically dexterous musical threads together and actually having something to say through your music, I will never know. But then things began to change. Bands such... Continue Reading →
Many moons ago, in what feels like another life, I used to listen to a lot of heavier music but somewhere along the way, as the classic sounds of my youth gave way to a fairly impenetrable screamo replacement and bands seemingly favouring musical muscle over melody, technicality over groove and sheer weight over dexterity,... Continue Reading →
Some albums are best reviewed from the inside. By unpicking the component parts, by lifting the lid and seeing what lies within, by studying the blueprints to understand how the mechanics work. There are others that are best viewed from a distance, where you have to stand back and look at the overall picture, that... Continue Reading →
You have to love a song that sends you right back down the sonic rabbit hole, back into the body of that wide-eyed teenager that you used to be staring up at some long forgotten punk band in a now bulldozed venue in a town that you can’t remember going to. The first wave of... Continue Reading →
As much as it is good to talk about how music moves on, evolves, finds new pastures to wander, there are times when you just want something familiar. After all, exploring exciting new fusion cuisine can be a lot of fun but sometimes you just can’t beat mom’s pot roast with all the trimmings. Honest,... Continue Reading →
Honesty is the best policy so I’m gonna come right out and address the elephant in the room that is the stumbling block of Noise Therapy’s sound right away. There is a major discrepancy in terms of delivery and production between the quality of the vocals and the instruments playing behind it. Okay, this is... Continue Reading →
Well, that certainly rocks. Breathe is a weave of groove and grunt, interesting dynamic changes and relentless power seemingly forged as much from programming as playing. Not that there is anything wrong with that, after all what’s a boy to do if he would rather keep control of his music by remaining a solo concern?... Continue Reading →
You turn your back for a few months and bands go and change their whole sound. Okay, that’s a bit dramatic but whilst there is a radical shift from the crazed alt-disco, warped synth-wave, vibe towards a much more rock driven sound, Siblings of Us approach towards music remains the same. For this is rock... Continue Reading →
I’ll be honest about it, this is music that is way out of my normal go to listening. I do pride myself on having fairly broad tastes but even I shy away from music made in the extreme fringes…be it bland pop at one end of the spectrum or, as in this case, the intense... Continue Reading →
Rock music has always had a fine sense of the theatrical, the dramatic, the epic and there is no shortage of such grandeur in Joey Niles sweeping and majestic Death Has No Friends. It is safe to say that the sonic concepts here are going to be fairly familiar to most. It combines that classic... Continue Reading →
Memorain appear to be on a mission to keep rock music, especially that infused by its classic halcyon past, relevant to modern audiences. Not always an easy thing to do with the fickle finger of fashion constantly causing scenes to evolve and move on at an alarming rate, when the short attention span of the... Continue Reading →
Music historians will tell you that Punk, in its original form, evolved from two separate sources. In America, the nucleus was a New York scene of garage rock bands, musical hustlers and street urchins, in the UK bored London art college kids re-appropriated glam imagery and invented their own high velocity pop. Their common ground... Continue Reading →
I have to be honest, when I saw the name and the geographic location of the band I did jump to some conclusions as to what to expect from this track. The last thing I need in my mind’s eye is a load of black clad Norwegians doing their best to look tough and demonic... Continue Reading →
Previous Song of Love music I have written about has, and the band admit this to be the case, suffered from poor production to the point that whilst you could see what they were trying to do, it was difficult to really appreciate the music fully. Well, what a difference a month or so makes... Continue Reading →
Having teased us with a couple of releases from this ep, Ravenscroft now unleash the full package, and as expected it just bristles with their trademark classic rock infused sound. Over six songs it is the perfect mission statement for a band that knows its place in music history, know where they are coming from... Continue Reading →
One of the great things about the advent of cheap studio technology is the fact that anyone can invest in studio software, record and send their music out into the world. You could argue that this is also its downside, in that often the enthusiasm of making the music isn’t checked or balanced by the... Continue Reading →
Song of Love make no bones about their mission to re-instate metal to its rightful place in a increasingly “bland and fake” musical world. So I guess that it is logical that their response to the three minute, throw away, day-glo pop song that rules the roost should be a meandering and technical metal instrumental... Continue Reading →
The wonderfully named Crow Eats Man wear their musical hearts very openly on their sonic sleeves, nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong at all with declaring a love for the music which sat at that point where the melodic end of grunge butted up against the formative years of the alt-rock sound that it paved... Continue Reading →
Whilst there has, in the modern age at least, been a real disconnect between the potential of the original goth scene with all its pomp and drama, knowing pretence and theatrical allure and the grit and integrity of the modern alt-rock and fractured, tribal metal community, Black Bluebirds feel like that missing link, that bridge... Continue Reading →
There was a time when music such as the cavernous and reverb laden sounds that Tombstones In Their Eyes made didn’t come on download, CD or even in the form of a live band. Instead it came in pill form, on blotter paper, in tabs, creating imagined music that hotwired straight into the back of... Continue Reading →
As opening salvo Satisfy starts chugging from the speakers, a vocal onslaught leaves you in no doubt as to exactly what Buried in Smoke’s mission is, they pretty much lay it out before you even place one foot in their musical world. The removal of what they see as inferior music from the airwaves and media... Continue Reading →
How can something so ominously cavernous still sound fragile and on the point of collapse? That is the wonderful juxtaposition that runs through Tombstones in Their Eyes, a strange blend of muscle and delicacy, like marvelling at the awesome grandeur of a glacier and realising that it is only so much water. Metallers take some... Continue Reading →
At a point where the weight and claustrophobia of the raw end of the grunge sound crashes into the more melodic end of the technical metal spectrum, you find Black Note Graffiti. Where the former tended to exult passion over prowess and the latter deliver deftness over emotion, this Ann Arborean quartet manage to circle... Continue Reading →