Metal Lungies

I was glancing over a Young Buck interview over at SOHH. There was something that caught my eye.. HE IS GOING TO HAVE LINKIN PARK’S LEAD SINGER ON HIS 3RD SINGLE. Sorry, that deserved caps for some reason. Now I know Linkin Park did the whole Jay-Z thing which was enjoyable to an extent but that was like a mash-up more then a callabo. I can’t wait to hear Chester’s screaming teamed up with Buck’s southern drawl. Guest choices like this just re-affirms that Young Buck is BY FAR G-Unit‘s best, and we haven’t even heard the song! But I’ll go out on a limb and say it will eons better than the Audioslave/DMX song, (you don’t even want to hear that!). The album drops March 20th.

out.

I’m the type of person who follows that old MC Ren philosophy. If it ain’t rough it ain’t me. So in late 2006 when I heard that some new hip-hop group was burning up MTV rock countdowns I decided to give them a listen. I turned on the video, got a Fall Out Boy cameo and turned that shit right back off.

Back to 2007, I’m sitting at my computer going over my collection of Pink Floyd Bootlegs when I hear a pretty good song coming out of the TV. I walk over to see its a band with the frontman rapping. The very same band from before. I get another Fall Out Boy cameo. But this time I don’t turn it off. I listen through the song and find out the name of the group. Gym Class Heroes.

After a little research I find out the group was signed by Fall Out Boy but has been recording independently for quite a while. So I buy the album, “As Cruel as School Children”. Heat Rock. I mean its really good. There is like a song or two that mght have the guy from FOB singing but shit is still really good. Go figure?

Heres a video. Probably seen it already if you watch MTV countdowns and shit.

Have Fun.

 Rage Against The Machine is one of my favorite bands of all time. I was ecstatic when I heard they are getting back together to headline coachella. Now I’m curious who approached who or if the coachella organizers made this happen. Because that could give us a hint to see if there is a chance of a new Rage album. If it happens, it would make me very happy, its been way too long since we have heard some guerilla radio. While I like Audioslave, it simply doesn’t have the same edge as Zach De La Rocha’s rapid and full of energy singing. It’s also not like Zach is doing anything, his solo project failed to take off, so I hope 7 years have healed any issues Zach and the rest of the band had, and they show themselves to a whole new generation.

out.

Haunting, inviting, indifferent, and unafraid, Elizabeth Powell and the Land Of Talk invade your headphones with their debut EP Applause Cheer Boo Hiss and leave you with melodies you won’t be able to shake off for days. The album is hardly a debut effort – Lizzie is no stranger to music, having played a handful of instruments and roles, including violin and bass guitar for other projects, and now vocals and guitar for the Montreal trio.

From where Land of Talk draws inspiration for their loosely composed lyrics is uncertain; perhaps from Lizzie’s childhood spent in a one-room schoolhouse in a small Canadian town, or from being the daughter of North America’s premiere female alligator wrestler (as advertised!), whatever that really entails.

And perhaps, it is no coincidence the band mirrors the Canadian city from which it emerges, whose paradoxical nicknames include la belle ville (the beautiful city) and the more hedonistic Sin City. In this sense, the duality is reflected in Lizzie’s wonderfully approachable vocals and the band’s lack of inhibition to put the Rock back into “Indie Rock”.

Applause is almost a telephone conversation amidst the pleasant static of warm and familiar chords, but one you will have to play over and over again to fully understand. Not that you’ll mind.

-JP

http://www.landoftalk.com/
http://myspace.com/landoftalkmtl

Recent and Upcoming Albums
April 2006 – Applause Cheer Boo Hiss [EP]

Gerard Way knows what the hell he’s doing. Leave your prejudices at the doorstep and make your way through the crowds to be awe in of The Black Parade, the latest album conjured up by the punk rock quintet from New Jersey known as My Chemical Romance.

This dark and telling album revolves around the idea that impending death manifests itself as a person’s strongest memory – in this case, a black parade. Ironically the first song of the album is entitled ‘The End’, cutting the suspense and setting the scene.

But what is this scene? Through the course of the album, at least once we are likely to realize we are marionettes tugged at the heart strings in several different directions. Thus, we see the true essence of the highly regarded concept album: the ability to portray a single idea through many perspectives and facets.

Let’s face it: an album chock full of depressing ballads and sob stories of death and despair is well within the bounds of MCR’s songwriting talent – but instead they deliver Queen timbre, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy drums and maybe just a hint of Brit-Pop favourite Oasis’s chorus repetition to write a true rock album.

This album rivals and probably surpasses this decade’s other concept great, Green Day’s American Idiot, which (surprise surprise) the famed Rob Cavallo also produced. And while it’s safe to say the production quality of Black Parade easily surpasses its predecessors, the songwriting and performance accompanied by the 72 pages of original artwork in the Limited Edition speak for themselves.

As for inspiration, Way has cited Pink Floyd, the Beatles and Queen, and while whole Behind The Musics could be devoted drawing lines from Black Parade to these legends, we’ll leave the heavy number-crunching to you out there.

-JP

http://www.mychemicalromance.com/

Recent and Upcoming:

October 24, 2006 – The Black Parade

Not as the name suggests, the Harlem Shakes hail from Brooklyn and probably don’t dance as expected. After opening up for bands like Arctic Monkeys (who are they?) and Deerhoof, they are gearing up to release their debut EP “Burning Birthdays”, an appropriately named five-song set powered by carefree, foot-tapping indie basement rock. The vintage texture of this eighteen-minute album goes down smooth with a young, hopeful and melodic voice orchestrated with a fine supporting cast of relaxed overdriven guitars. ‘Missing Our Loved Ones’ hints of Electric Light Orchestra, and comparisons have been made to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs – probably the closest geographical and musical well-known yardstick – but a full-length album will be more telling.

-JP

http://www.harlemshakes.com
http://myspace.com/harlemshakes

Recent and Upcoming:

February 6, 2007 – Burning Birthdays (EP)

Saosin, the band whose name everyone thinks they know how to pronounce, has finally settled down to record a full-length LP whose anticipation rivals that for Brand New’s The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. Three years in the making, most of which was spent on the road rather than in the studio, Saosin’s self-titled debut full-length is a compelling, cohesive album that does not disappoint.

An epic rock band deserves an epic rock album. We’re not talking mascara, big hair and pyrotechnics; rather, this quintet (mostly, originally) from California has been thriving off 2½ EPs, touring incessantly, reaching out to fans, and never failing to kick out their and everyone else’s jams. Thus they grew an incredible fanbase, who took care of each other way before the MySpace era, swapping bootlegs of live shows, flooding messageboards with announcements of acoustic specials, and even leaking unreleased tracks.

Instrumentally superb and vocally satisifying, Saosin and Cove Reber – the band’s answer to original lead singer Anthony Green’s sudden departure in 2003 – solidify and secure their place in rock with this well thought-out album. They shy away from the screaming found on earlier material, and channel their technical skills into a more accessible, less aneurysm-inducing sound. (This is not to say some prefer the latter.) The band also has produced a relative rarity of an album, as attention to detail reveals subtle transitions between tracks, a nice gesture for the listener who sits down to listen to the album from track 1 to 12.

However, indies beware! The brilliant production by Howard Benson (Hoobastank, My Chemical Romance, All American Rejects) is a double-edged sword which cuts both as “masterfully produced” and “overly produced.” This skepticism of talent would probably be met with any other band starting off on Capitol Records with a talent like Benson in the recording studio, but vaporizes in the presence of a band such as Saosin who has, to say the least, “street cred.”

-JP

http://www.saosin.com/

Recent and Upcoming:

September 26, 2006 – Saosin
Summer 2005 – Saosin [EP]

While some may beg to differ, I personally believe Rock and Roll is a dying beast, but it feels good to look back on a time when that shit was still good. New movie coming out. Shows the early side of punk rock that grew into all that rebellious teen music I loved so well. Peep the trailer.

Also, next time your in Wheaton (like you go to wheaton) try out this Dusit Thai Cuisine place. Seriously, the best Thai food I’ve ever had, and cheap too!!! Shit was rated like the best bargain restaurant by Washingtonian for something like 7 years straight. 2 cute waitresses as well. *ML APPROVED DINING*
Yum…

Rumor Has It is the reason why anyone ever fell in love with punk rock in high school, saved up for that electric guitar and pitiful second-hand amp. They were the band that played for beer at Jason’s house when his parents went to the Cape for the long weekend. They are the band that plays every Battle of the Bands they can, rock out like it’s their last show, and will play in your basement no matter how small a party it is.

The keep-it-simple, keep-it-sweet trio from a sleepy town tucked away in the Northwest corner of Washington state dish out twelve minutes of honest punk rock on their eponymous EP. The no-frills four-song set keeps your foot tapping and the subject matter simple: “Slut” (perfect for mixtapes) and “Party Song” (the ultimate anthem for getting plastered and making choices you will regret in the morning).

This EP may not win a Grammy for songwriting but if you’ve been neglecting the punk in you, here’s your chance to make good again.

-JP

http://www.myspace.com/rumorhasitpunk

Recent And Upcoming:

July 1, 2006 – Rumor Has It (EP)

The now-defunct punk post-hardcore band known as All My Heroes shined briefly on their first and last album Magnolia Street, nearly two years ago on the fledgling Florida-based label Secondhand Records. Originally recording a four-song demo under the name Citizen Kane, AMH transitioned from demo to album and successfully refined their voice without changing it.

While Hawthorne Heights taught us what it was to be accessible faux-screamo, AMH seems to be a genuine punk band with a little throat-scratching edge to it. They love their guitar riffs as much as their bass lines or their cymbal intros, and while any band could set up the double bassdrums and belt out empty anthems in gutteral tones (I love that word), it takes a little more to coordinate.

Undoubtedly the layering of screaming over singing is a tried and true method, but timing is also important. They save it for the end of verses, for the chorus, for words they want you to remember, and use it often but wisely. While guitar solos following the melodies of songs tend to come out tacky and predicitably unimpressive (see Weezer’s Green Album), AMH knows how to combine both for emphasis, and in a flash of a sixth grade art class epiphany when Ms McKenzie introduced negative space, riffs or vocals in this duo which are purposely left out make even more of a statement.

Overanalysis aside, this album is enjoyable, especially if you too are reminded of Knight Rider in all of its Hasselhoff and talking car glory by the intro to one of the songs. It is certainly a pity that the band broke up due to artistic differences – which probably means the drummer slept with the lead guitarist’s sister – but in all seriousness, this is another band that could have been.

What are the bands’ members doing now? Apparently selling clothes and a hip-hop band. Oh Miami.

-JP

http://www.allmyheroesrock.com/

Recent and Upcoming:

November 16, 2004 – Magnolia Street