Tuesday, January 24th Releases

This week we have a lot of new releases - including some good ones! Sadly, I haven't been available due to some complication of life to flesh these out as well, so I'm posting the abridged versions for now.

Cloud Nothings – Attack on Memory

Finally, something more unique! This is a mixture of Sonic Youth and Bad Religion. Good, raw production and just good music that's rarely generic.

Verdict? Buy it, unless you hate music.

Craig Finn – Clear Heart Full Eyes

Pretty cool effort along the lines of Iggy Pop crossed with Counting Crows and a bit of Thin Lizzy. Vocals are a bit Bob Dylanesq, unfortunately.

Verdict? Check it out.

Chairlift – Something

Modern, mellow, New Wave, with primarily female vocals.

Verdict? Good for a passing listen, but not much more.

Bhi Bhiman – Bhiman

Decent singer/songwriter right between Iron and Wine and John Mayer.

Verdict? Worth a listen.

Foxy Shazam – The Church of Rock and Roll

Good attempt at a more rocking version of Queen - not as good, obviously (in fact, I hate to ever draw parallels with Queen at all), but mix in some Jethro Tull and the dirt of all the modern White Stripes clone bands and it's actually pretty cool.

Verdict? Probably even cool enough for the hipsters.

Gonjasufi – Mu.Zz.Le

Noisy electronic meets modern hipster.

Verdict? Does nothing special, but doesn't hurt my ears.

Ingrid Michaelson – Human Again

Surprisingly well orchestrated moody, pop/rock/folk with female vocals. Some nods to Tori Amos.

Verdict? If the above description sounds good to you, this is your album.

Joe Cocker – Hard Knocks

Pretty good modern album with some nice, epic tracks. Strong overall.

Verdict? If you're a fan, you've already bought it.

Nada Surf – The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy

Great band with another great effort.

Verdict? Buy it!

Lacuna Coil – Dark Adrenaline

More of what we've come to expect from this melodic metal band. Still plenty of super generic riffs, but some nice, catchy melodies.

Verdict? Buy if you're a fan, consider if you like the genre.

Lamb of God – Dark Adrenaline

LOG is a solid metal band - almost exactly what I like in modern metal. I'm not a fan of the super generic vocal style, but musically, it's there. More Pantera-like vocals and breakdowns than I remember on their previous albums. That's a bonus.

Verdict? Metalheads must buy it without thinking about it.

Tuesday, January 17th Releases

Placeholder post for this week as I'm heading out of town. Reviews will follow.

Tuesday, January 10th Releases

This week we have several new releases - including some that many have been looking forward to.

Snow Patrol – Fallen Empires

I love the classic 70's cover art this album brings to the table. Turns out the album content doesn't match the cover. Ranging from the mind bogglingly boring droners of "This Isn't Everything You Are" and "The Garden Rules", to the nothingness of the title track, and finally to the highlight of the Kings of Leon-esq "Called Out in the Dark", this album falls short, and not being a Snow Patrol fan, I didn't have any expectations to begin with. Very few catchy melodies or decent lyrical content fill this filler of an album. Instead it's full of corny, fluffy, predictable lyrics, "progressions" that go nowhere, and I also think it's fair to point out that five of the songs start with the word "The", first three in a row, then two more in a row. How clever they are. The album version I experienced also contains an even more mellow version of the already dull "This Isn't Everything You Are".

Objectively, it's a very, very mellow album, but has distortion throughout due to trying to push the album above what it was capable of level-wise.

Verdict? Buy the single of "Called Out in the Dark". The rest of the album is a sleeper in the worst possible sense.

Billy Rider-Jones – If

Let me say that I have a hard time normally with hyphenated names, but in this case, I think it's fitting. This album is instrumental, for the most part, with some nice ambient vocals thrown in during a few of the numbers. The instrumentation is a nice, neo-classical take with tasteful piano on some of the primarily non-vocal pieces. On the other side of the hyphen is some minimal piano or guitar music with full vocals. The male vocals are pleasant, slightly out of tune at times, but natural and intimate. However, on "Give Me a Name", there's some awkward synthstrumentation and an interesting, but clumsy beat that come in and remove all the intimacy from the track. The standard version of the album has ten tracks, while there's also a deluxe edition with four bonus tracks.

Verdict? If you're into some nice relaxing, but moody music, this may be worth a go.

Nightwish – Imaginaerum

Well, this was my first experience with Nightwish and I wasn't sure what to expect. Imaginaerum is a concept album with sky high aspirations and has been highly anticipated by fans of this melodic metal genre. Sometimes I have difficulty finding myself engaged by female vocalists, but I found Anette's voice to be adequately fitting most of the time, and rarely overly whiny or nasal sounding. Songwriting is typical of the genre and, while pretentious and predictable at times, the progressions are sometimes less expected, welcome changes. Production is exactly the same sounds used in all of this genre - it's almost to to the point of just plugging in male or female vocalist preset and typing the text the robot will sing. There are definitely clever melodies and catchy hooks here and there (be it guitar, vocal, or synth), but there are plenty of overly safe songs. Overall, Imaginaerum is well orchestrated, though. The highlights of the album are "I Want My Tears Back" and "Ghost River", with the latter being less good, but fairly entertaining; especially when the male vocal enters the fray. The title track is over-the-top video game soundtrack, in my opinion, and the album, overall, is average.

Verdict? If you love this genre without hesitation, then you should buy this album. If you're pickier about your metal, preview it on iTunes and decide for yourself.

Red Wanting Blue – From the Vanishing Point

Imagine if Lifehouse and Cracker got together and had twins - one hideous (probably like the face you just made from trying to picture Cracker and Lifehouse together) and the other with a hilarious cry. I believe that will help you imagine what Red Wanting Blue's new, and fifth, album sounds like. Remember Crash Test Dummies? You will, once you've given this album a spin. The first half of this album may as well have been the songs you didn't miss on the previous Lifehouse effort, though, and should be forgotten. The rest of the album is quite enjoyable. Besides the vocal tone in general (a more hickory version of Lifehouse's Bryce Soderberg), the only thing about the rest of this album I was offended by were the medieval hippie lyrics of "Ballad of Nobodies". I definitely appreciate the humour of the lyrics, overall. Surprisingly, there's some out of the blue profanity here and there, so depending on where you work, it may not be work safe, but it's pretty fun anyway - not to be taken seriously.

Verdict? A nice change, once you get past the terrible Lifehouse clone songs. Consider buying.

The Little Willies – For the Good Times

If you've been hankering for a hoedown, you may find your place being surrounded by The Little Willies. Lead by a strong female vocalist, they spout classic western (country) music along the lines of Tammy Wynette. Just for fun, they mix in some gold old blues and a hint of blue grass on some of the songs. The male backup vocalist is a little over powering at times, and isn't the perfect complement to Norah Jone's leads, but passable, nonetheless. Nothing new is really brought to the table for the band's second effort, but it's welcome as a nice throwback band that's not the dime-a-dozen White Stripes clone.

Verdict? A good listen if you haven't been spoiled by the real thing (Hank Williams, Tammy Wynette, et al). Consider buying.

The Melismatics – Mania!

This is what happens when you take a raw band like The Vines and make them more of a pop band. Catchy enough, modern, raw bubblegum pop. Most of the songs feature a pretty even mixture of male and female vocals with a lot of unison singing. The songs don't necessarily stick with you on the first listen, but they're not altogether unmemorable either, and by the second time through you'll be singing along with some of them. Now, they definitely have some cliche moments and songs like "Your Love is a Poison" feel like wannabe Cyndi Lauper songs. In fact, there are a lot parallels you can draw with Ms. Lauper's music. Overall a decent album. Fans of The Killers (what's with all these 'The' bands??) will probably feel right at home as well, as the other half of the album could have been easily manipulated into a Killers album - take the song "Divided Emotions", for example. Low point of the album is the aptly named "Theez Daze" - a completely bogus, forgettable attempt at something.

Verdict? Nothing special here, but nothing offensive. Pretty much a fully safe album. That's not necessarily a good thing, but at least it's not as bad as Cold Play.

Yo Gotti – Live From the Kitchen

Okay, this album caught me a little by surprise. I'm not really sure how to take it. If it's being serious, then this is one of the worst albums and most ridiculous rapping I've heard in years and this 30 year old from Memphis has absolutely no idea how big of a poser he is.

On the other hand, if this is (as I hope) satire, it's pure magic! Every cliche is amazingly over-the-top and and overused to the point that every word loses its meaning entirely. I think even his Cadillac has gold teeth and chains and gets more tail than most rock stars. If that's not enough, it's all perfectly accented by the fact that he sounds constipated the whole time. I really hope is all a painful stab at the current rap music scene, or I've lost my faith in the genre. Sadly, I feel the latter is correct, otherwise, those that do this for a living will be filled with uncontrollable anger at the dis that is this record.

Verdict? Very funny. Look it up on iTunes with your friends for a good chuckle. Maybe even buy a single for the comedy factor. Avoid if you really like the genre.

Young London – Young London

This the super generic modern pop radio crap. Nothing marginally original and they use the same presets on the synth and drum machine (okay, loops) as every other similar "band". Vocalists don't matter - you can release an album like this with anyone's name and anything on the cover and it will come out identical to this one and be equally successful. Mind numbing. This album has been release a hundred times in the last few years.

Verdict? Avoid!

See you next Tuesday.

Tuesday, January 3rd Releases

Well, we’re starting the year off easy. You may not be aware, but the holidays are a really lean time for music releases. Only a handful this week and next, then it starts kicking it up much harder into February.

Iron Lamb – The Original Sin

Don’t ask me why this band has chosen to release a follow up to their 2011 album under the same title, with the same cover, and containing the same songs, for who am I to judge?

Much more punk rock than metal, The Original Sin still nods a bit to thrash on some tracks like the title track, and “Our Demise”. They’re honestly kind of a slowed collision of Corrosion of Conformity and Anthrax that slid to a stop in front of a Megadeth concert. Sometimes moving along the lines of classic Priest and even Suicidal Tendencies, the album features a solid, guitar driven anthems with the vocals plenty hot in the mix, making them easy to understand and fun to sing along with.

Verdict? Check it out if you like good sing-along punk and classic metal.

Archer Black – Forgiveness is a Weapon

Interestingly, this album was supposed to be released today, but, according to Amazon now, it’s delayed until February 7^th. Nevertheless, I’m leaving it here today.

This band from Los Angeles is part of a less overcrowded genre than many, and is somehow boring, yet interesting at the same time. The album is sort of a blend of occasional random bursts of timing and misc instrumentation over the top of a vocalist that's generically balanced between Thom Yorke and Rufus Wainwright. The songs are catchy enough to keep you entertained memorable enough, at least, to be familiar the second time through. Typical moody (some say whiny), big, open, ambient sounds.

Verdict? People what really dig Rufus will probably enjoy it quite a bit. It’s also decent for people what just want some music on in the background to be a bit calming after a long day. Don’t buy it unless you’re the former.

Yes, people what.

Morbus Chron – Sleepers in the Rift

Nine vile tracks. Okay, maybe not vile, but i felt like saying that anyway. Mildly entertaining would be more correct. Not what i expected from the Swedish metal super producer that handled this album. Very Henry Rollins-does-metal vocals that sometimes border on the typical Cookie Monster voice of these genres. For those thinking I have something against Metal, probably eight of my top twenty bands are metal - from Judas Priest to GWAR. I feel qualified to judge. What makes this album more interesting than expected is how it is so curiously NOT in-your-face because the entire album was processed through some kind of digital reverb on some kind of artificial hall setting and left there. The guitar licks are the same ones we’ve heard for years, but with a hint of endearingly comical character to them. I’d say it sounds a lot like Green Jello meets Kyuss.

Verdict? Download a single from iTunes. You will have then experienced the album.

Ce'cile – Jamaicanization

This album was released world-wide last August as a download-only format, so I’m not going to do a review. A little Reggae feel (considered to BE Reggae) with a vocal that shouldn’t, but does remind me of “Genie in A Bottle” era Aguilera (although with a bit of a Cuban flair).

Verdict? Buy if you’re a fan of her already somehow. Otherwise, don’t turn it off if it comes on your favorite radio station, but don’t buy it.

Prince Royce – Prince Royce

As far as I can tell, this is a rerelease of the grueling debut from 2010, but under his new label. I would have thought it was Enrique Ingelsias, if he didn’t sing so high.

Sounds to me like heavy use of auto-tune to keep him “on point” vocal-wise, with definite artificial correction used to fix what are probably bad performances. The rest is your typical, generic, soft, not unpleasant easy listening, but marketed as Bachata. Instrumentation is pretty solid, although somewhat canned. Based on his previous album sales and glowing reviews, this is not what I expected.

Verdict? Avoid.

See you next Tuesday.

And about me....

So, who am I?

I'm a thirty something and have been enjoying music since day one. I have my preferences for styles, but I can appreciate just about anything, as long as it's good.

I've also spent some time on the performing side of music, took a failed stab at the music business, and have had the pleasure of working with or learning from a plethora of outstanding musicians amongst most genres.

I have an uncanny ability to tell immediately the difference between good and bad when it comes to music, though my kids would argue with me, as they don't yet understand the difference between good and simply hearing something enough you forget it's bad.

I also am a recording engineer with a decade and a half behind the board. Sometimes, I may comment on things that aren't so much part of the music, but rather a reflection of lack of talent made to sound tolerable, or sometimes intolerable audio problems with outstanding works of art. This is what I do.

I don't mind starting every sentence with "I".

Introduction

Okay, it's no surprise that there have been what appears to be a shortage of truly good, and even moderately original music as of late. The purpose of this blog is to help you sift through the new releases and provide a comprehensive set of reviews each week.

Though I may fail from time to time, my goal is to review EVERY new release found in the popular release database from MetaCritic (http://www.metacritic.com/browse/albums/release-date/coming-soon/date?view=detailed).

I welcome comments and suggestions with the caveat that you realize my opinions are always correct.