- Aqualaygualry in arcade fire - black wave/bad vibrations Today i watching overlay from here. this is wondeful film. Who are watching this?
- cattartiste in arcade fire - black wave/bad vibrations SplitVideo is a freeware virtual video clone and split video nick driver in behalf of connecting disparate applications to a single video...
- Peggus-interruptus in The Temper Trap Lovin’ The Temper Trap!
It’s pretty cool when a friend lends you a CD. It’s even cooler when said friend knows what kind of music you’re in to. Cool takes an even bigger leap when the band being traded is good. I was so happy to have a friend lend me a copy of a metal album recently. It was a band I hadn’t heard of before, but I was sold when he said that they were Swedish, considering my favorite stuff hails from many of the long-hairs from the cold country. Hello In Flames?
Have you ever been in the mood to listen to music that just makes you want to bang your whole body around so hard that you’re sore and bruised for the next 4 days? No? Perhaps you’re like me and you are just in the mood for face-ripping metal on your way to work at 6 in the morning. Either way, if face ripping is what you want, face ripping is what you’ll get with Bloodbath’s Nightmares Made Flesh.
I’m pretty sure I’d buy anything that Micheal Akerfeld is a part of. The frontman of the megaband Opeth was the original frontman of Bloodbath, which, I’m sure, was a good part of getting them noticed. That’s not to say that the musicians didn’t have a hand in it, but have you ever listened to Akerfeld? Yeah. Versatility isn’t quite the word. My point exactly.
So, Bloodbath officially formed in 2000, a zombie of a band formed from bloody remnants of the likes of other Swedish death-metallers Opeth, Katatonia, Edge of Sanity, Nightingale, and others, and released a 3-song EP called Breeding Death. Catchy. Listeners loved the mayhem so much, the guys decided to do a full album, Resurrection Through Carnage. This, however, was Akerfeld’s last scream with the band. He left to devote more time to Opeth, which I can’t say I blame him for, considering the fact that Opeth is BRILLIANT. So, now vocalist-less, Bloodbath brought on Peter Tagtgren from Hypocrisy. It is Tagtgren that you hear roaring his throat bloody on Nightmares Made Flesh.
To get things to a nice, feel-good start, Cancer of the Soul hits the ears first. I can’t say is surprises you, really. Rather it smacks you across the face and then knees you in the groin, then picks you up and pats you on the back and apologizes…then slaps you in the back of the head just for good measure. Tagtgren’s vocals are fierce, rivaling Akerfeld’s guttural chantings very…um…elegantly.
The album is full of utter explosions of sound. Between the gut-punching riffs and the scattering-yet-controlled drumming, little flits of melody manage to fight their way out, brightly giving away the fact that Bloodbath are, indeed, Swedish. These melodies are the most apparent in Cancer of the Soul, Outnumbering The Day, Year Of The Cadaver Race, and Draped In Disease.
One thing I really like about this album is the fact that even though it is so devoid of light-hearted-ness, so full of distortion, so packed with multi-layered riffs and slow sludge breakdowns; the musical patterns and progressions of the songs are still recognizable. Unlike black metal bands like Deicide, where it sounds like a 4 year old got a hold of some cocaine and a drum set and invited the rest of his friends over to play around with guitars and let Satan scream into a mic; Bloodbath actually controls their mayhem. To an untrained ear, sure, it sounds like a bunch of fucked up idiots making a bunch of noise. To me, though, these guys know what they are doing when it comes to song construction.
Alright, so the band is comedic. You can’t listen to songs like Eaten and actually take them seriously. In Eaten, Tagtgren drones on about how his one desire is to be EATOOOOONNN! “To see my flesh devoured before my eyes, only for you I volunteer as a human sacrifice, carve me up, slash me apart, suck my cock say it my love, Eaten, my one desire is to be eaten.” Come on. It’s funny! Alright, maybe it isn’t (it is), but my point here is to say that in order to actively listen to this catastrophe of melody and actually enjoy it, you have to just take it as is. Bloodbath isn’t looking for a Grammy.
So, Scott, thanks to you, I now have another band I plan on checking out further. Hopefully many of you metal-heads out there will check this band out. It’s worth at least a listen, but I’m telling you, the more you play this thing, the more you’ll love it.
You own the VHS, and you’ve watched it to such wear that you would hesitate to put it on with guests around - grainy, pleasantly defective, personalized. Then the Criterion Collection comes out and tempts you with deleted scenes, commentary and interviews… you ask, “Do these little differences justify the expenditure?” And then your Favorite Album is re-released and remastered with bonus tracks, outtakes, remixes… but you’ve heard the core songs tens of times, and wonder if the extras are worth it.
Dick Prall’s Weightless will sell on the little bonuses it has over the myriad of other singer-songwriters whose melodies are all familiar, appearances fashionably disheveled and autobiographical lyrics sung in universal tones. Whether or not it’s enough to put away your Ryan Adams or Elvis Perkins depends on how important are the tiny variations and bits you haven’t seen, because it’s far from a new material.
Bonus features: Prall does good work with simple motifs by emphasizing the basic, and keeping light on filler noise. His cadence also atones for the intentionally ambiguous lyrics by delivering them in a conversational tone that helps you forget that lines like, “Suitably praised, for checking out this way; ingest and engage in happy roundelay,” are forcedly vague. And he’s a likeable, buy-this-dude-a-beer kind of guy - you may have heard the story before, but never with quite the flair that Prall imparts on the tale (that’s a metaphor for his songs, people).
What’s not a surprise: Every song is immediately accessible and carefully doctored, so much so that he’s realized the dream of every young lion artist: to be featured in a Volkswagen commercial. The hooks are effective for their clarity, but they’re not all his… I give credit to a media-addicted friend of mine (I mean that kindly) for noticing that the violin outro riff on ‘Long Play’ is identical to the main guitar line in ‘Leave’ on New Adventures in Hi-Fi (and it also shows up on ‘You’ll Be in the Air’ by the Microphones). It would be foolish to accuse Prall of vamping on obscure lines from paltry mid-90’s REM albums, but it goes to show that Weightless is not new ground.
For someone touted as such a capable songsmith it’s disappointing that Weightless isn’t more engaging, but it is so goddamn comfortable to the point of Easy Listening. Songs and albums with such a grand countenance should at least be gripping or loathsome - Weightless is neither. Prall has a nice voice and compositional potential, but he must begin to casually cover new ground before boisterously staking claim on well-tread territory.
Authentic Records
September 22, 2007
*/10
* I will no longer be giving grades to any album I review. More on this later.
Ladies and gents, we all know ABBA: the Swedish pop sensations of the Seventies. And we all know the reputation that they have. Everything comes back around in hipness one of these days, but ABBA’s not even close. Me, I make no secret of my deep appreciation for their music. No, really. This isn’t some sort of hipster irony; I love ABBA. Ask anyone. But most people I mention this to can’t seem to understand. I told a friend tonight of my love for them, and she cringed. And then she told me that I share this love with a well-respected presidential hopeful:
During a campaign bus swing through South Carolina today, Sen. John McCain demonstrated his love of hot dogs and declared his love of ABBA. The comments about the Swedish group came up on the bus as he talked about what’s on his iPod.
“Dare I say ABBA. Everybody says, ‘Ehhh, ABBA.’ Why is that? ABBA was the largest selling (recording act ever). Nobody likes them but they sold more records than anybody in the history of the world, including the Beatles. But everybody hates them. (But) you’re a no-class guy if you like ABBA. Why does everybody go see ‘Mamma Mia?’ Hypocrisy! Rank hypocrisy! I’m not embarassed to say I like ABBA, ‘Dancing Queen.’”
More from McCain. If elected, “the background music would be ABBA in the elevators all over the White House.”
And even more.
“‘Take a Chance on Me.’ Maybe that’s what we should have as our (campaign) theme song. That would be good.”
And this, fellow Superstarcastians, may be what it takes to bring ABBA back to where they belong! So let’s do this, America! Embrace the pop genius! It’s okay! In fact, it feels damn good!
I mean, I’m not voting Mccain. But at least the fella’s got taste.
I have this bad habit when it comes to following a band’s musical output. Typically, when a given ensemble kicks off their career with a couple face-melting, rollicking releases, only to stumble at some point with a record that falls off, quality-wise, i tend to check out and not give future releases a chance. It’s shitty, i know, but let’s get real: there are too many bands out there putting out too much quality stuff for me to waste my time with a band that’s already peaked. Plus, i think i have indie-band ADD, so there’s that.
But Enon and i…we have a history. A history that dates back to 1994 and involves guitarist/vocalist John Schmersal’s previous band, Brainiac (whom i’m sure bassist/vocalist Toko Yasuda and drummer Matt Schultz are tired of hearing about…sorry guys). Look, i’ll spare the details…if you’re a regular SSC reader, you know that i’m basically an unabashed Brainiac fanboy who considers them the greatest band that ever existed, period. So i won’t bore you with the rehash (if you’re unfamiliar, my review of their Bonsai Superstar record from 1994 is here). Just accept my strong pro-Enon bias for what it is, and roll with it.
Long story short, i owe John & the boys my musical identity, and thus, even though their most recent release of new material, 2003’s Hocus Pocus, was remarkably lackluster (bias notwithstanding, it was pretty boring), i swore that i’d listen to whatever they released next. And this promise has rewarded me with Grass Geysers…Carbon Clouds, possibly the best indie-dance record you will hear this year and easily the best Enon release since their mindfuck of a 2000 debut, Believo! (and since John’s the only member of the band left from that release, how much does that even count, really?).
While Hocus Pocus meandered through an uneven collection of mellow, midtempo nappytime tracks interrupted by the occasional burst of dance fever, Grass Geysers apparently benefits from the four-year layoff between new releases in that the band has come out of the gates as balls full of energy that have been waiting since ‘03 to go off. Thus, the record is nonstop high-impact driving rock from start to finish, demanding the listener to get the hell up off their ass and shake it.
All the trappings of an Enon release are still here; the band continues to mine the electro-influenced indie rock that has become their trademark. Synth sequences and effects pedals abound, anchored by rhythms that Matt and Toko establish with businesslike efficiency. All the while, Toko and John trade off lead vocal duties, making the most out of the complimentary textures of their accents (American midwest vs. Japanese).
It’s sort of difficult to pick a standout track or three on Grass Geysers, as there’s not a piece of filler in the whole disc. “Mirror on You” kicks things off with a minute-forty-six blast of atomic indie-funk and slams straight into “Colette” and the infectious, synth-bass-laden “Dr. Freeze.” Perhaps the catchiest track, though, is the majestic “Mr. Ratatatatat,” an epic fuzz-stomper that plays the trading vocals card expertly. I heard this song for the first time when Enon played the last day of Touch & Go’s 25 Anniversary Block Party at the Hideout in Chicago last September; that i recognized it immediately as a song i had heard once before during a live show a year prior should be sufficient evidence of its infectiousness.
If there’s any justice, Grass Geysers…Carbon Clouds will be at the fingertips of every hipster with a half-assed DJ night at every local dive in every artsy soon-to-be-gentrified neighborhood in America. The record is made to be played loud, in public, with many bottles of Blatz or Pabst being consumed with the prospect of random hook-uppery looming at the evening’s precipice. Look, simply put: this is party music–i can’t think of anyone i know who wouldn’t like this record, least of all a snotty music nerd douchebag with indie-band ADD who, were it not for an unspoken one-sided pact made years ago, would have foolishly given up on these guys already. Enon, you motherfuckers, are BACK.
Release Date: Oct. 9th, 2007
Label: Touch & Go Records
A verdict was reached Friday in the case of Jeanette Sliwinski, as Judge Garritt Howard ruled her guilty but mentally ill of the charge of reckless homicide, which was a lesser charge than the three counts of First Degree Murder the prosecution was seeking:
A young woman who rammed her car into another in a bid to commit suicide but instead killed three musicians was found guilty but mentally ill Friday in Cook County’s Skokie courthouse.
The prosecution had charged Jeanette Sliwinski, 25, with three counts of first-degree murder, but the judge convicted her of the lesser charge of reckless homicide. A conviction of guilty but mentally ill means she will receive treatment while serving her sentence.
Sliwinski could be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years. Had she been convicted of first-degree murder, she could have gotten a life sentence.
* * *
After the verdict was announced, Gemskie said prosecutors were disappointed.
“We believe the evidence did support a finding of first-degree murder,” she said. “The families of the victims also … of course, they are disappointed. But nothing is ever going to bring their sons and brothers and friends back.”
Musicians remembered
Dahlquist played drums for Silkworm, a band that had played around the Midwest as well as in England, Italy and Japan. After he died the group stopped playing shows together. Glick played guitar and sang with the Returnables, which also disbanded after the crash. Meis played drums with Glick’s wife in The Dials, a group that continued performing.
Friends and family members have tried to keep the memory of the men alive, posting on Internet message boards and Web sites, recording tribute albums and organizing benefit shows.
“For many of us, the passing of a single day without one of these men was difficult to endure,” read a statement on the Web site for The Dials. “They will be longed for always.”
Sentencing is set for Nov. 26.
Everyone here at Superstarcastic sends their thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes to the family of these three friends.
Ah, the Christmas record. A long and sometimes glorious tradition for artists you might expect (Bing Crosby, Mariah Carey, Hilary Duff) as well as some you might not (Low? The Charlie Daniels Band? New Order?) and some artists who seem to exist solely to produce such releases (thank you, Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra). After all, enough music has to be supplied to satisfy all those radio stations that switch over to an all-holiday format on November 1st and keep going until January…
Anyway, for all of their punk-pop pretensions, Relient K are a Christian band at heart, and so the appearance of the painfully-titled Let it Snow Baby…Let it Reindeer is hardly a surprise. Especially since, don’t you know, it’s actually their second Christmas album. If you happened to miss last year’s Deck the Halls, Bruise Your Hand, however, never fear — Relient K have helpfully included that entire album within their new effort. If you did buy the other one…well, now you’ll have something to trade in the next time you go to FYE, eh?
Some of the material is about what you might perhaps expect — “Angels We Have Heard On High” is given a straight-up mallpunk arrangement, complete with the whininess that such bands all-too-commonly mistake for “attitude.” “12 Days of Christmas” starts out that way, but it gets gradually sillier and sillier, eventually including massive choirs, nu-metal screaming, and a whole lot of missing words. It’s kind of fun, actually, in the same way that, say, the better moments of Weird Al Yankovic are fun — good for one nice laugh, though I’d hate to have to listen to it repeatedly. (I can’t even say that much for “I’m Getting Nuttin’ For Christmas,” alas, though it tries the same formula.)
A fair amount of the material, however, tends toward the staid. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which is full of busy electric guitars that don’t actually do anything, is sort of like an attempt to update the sound of The Beach Boys’ Christmas album, a nod that’s even more obvious on the surprisingly good (with the exception of the smarmy spoken-word break) a capella rendition of Auld Lang Syne that closes the disc. Most of the original material — and there are six of those on the disc — is even blander; “I Celebrate the Day,” “In Like A Lion (Always Winter),” and especially the Fray-lite “I Hate Christmas Parties” sound like half-hearted attempts to get the band booked for a Very Special Holiday Episode of Grey’s Anatomy. If there’s anything worse than faux-snottiness, it’s faux-weepiness.
I love Christmas, believe it or not, and I’m always on the lookout for something new to add to my collection of seasonal music. But trust me, this isn’t a good choice. The interpretations of standards are subpar, and the originals aren’t going to be entering the holiday canon anytime soon. And beyond that, over half of this forty-eight minute album has been previously released, which means that they’ve padded out their EP with stuff fans probably already own so they can charge them for a full-length. Icky.
Release date: October 23, 2007
Label: Capitol
Rating: 3/10
Those ‘Freaks on a leash’ have been affected by Al Gore’s Go Green Machine and what better way to give back but by exploiting the most current fad, Bio-fuel! Today they announced they would be producing their own form of Korn branded bio-fuel. And what impossibly clever name are they giving this endeavor? Oh, nothing retarded like Korntastic. Wait. What? They are naming it Korntastic? Uh, whoops. Never mind. Limewire.com writes:
“Korntastic will be a domestically produced alternative fuel derived from plant based energy sources. The product will emit a significantly smaller amount of CO2 than regular fuel does. The band has arranged to have bio-fuel replace gasoline in the 16 touring vehicles on this year’s Family Values Tour. Lead singer Jonathan Davis says “We can’t save the planet overnight but this is our way of saying everyone has to start somewhere. As a touring band it’s our responsibility to start making a difference. We encourage all other bands touring this summer to do the same.””
Uh yeah. Did I mention they also dropped a new album today? They named it Untitled. Yeah, like I said. CLEV-ER. To help them with their apparent drought of ingenuity I figured I’d give them a freebie name for their next album. “Korn presents; Songs of Korntastica or how Korn figured out how to market an environmental fad and capitalize as greedily as possible.” Little long? Naw. That’s Avant-garde. If Fiona can, Korn can. Can… can… oh, I GIVE UP! ITS KORNTASTIC Y’ALL!
Source - Limewire.com
Believe it or not, the Shins existed before Garden State. Despite how it may have seemed at the time, they did not spring fully formed from the womb of Natalie Portman. In fact, Oh Inverted World, the seminal Shins album that became the indie badge of identification after Zach Braff’s film, had been out for a few years before the movie ever hit theaters. In the resulting media saturation, many new fans emerged, but it seemed that the discerning music crowd started to turn away. Too many overnight fifteen year old fans with Samtastic pink hoodies was a lot to bear for people who had loved this band, and this album, since it’s release in 2001. It would be a few years then, after the hype of the Myspace generation’s answer to Say Anything had died down, that the Shins regained their regal place at the top of Mt. Indielympus.
And I’m here to tell you they deserve to be there. So what if you see Zach Braff in your mind’s eye when Caring is Creepy or New Slang begin. Those songs, along with the rest of this record, transcend their brief moment of blinding popularity. When you strip away the angst associated with this album because of the movie, you’re left with a gentle, passionate declaration of talent and influence.
The guitar work on Oh Inverted World draws from influences as varied as reggae and country/western music, and thus recalls the work of bands like the Clash, the Kinks, and most importantly, the Smiths. And the triumphant yet heartbreaking lyrics, powered by James Mercer’s powerful yet vulnerable voice, recall Morrissey at his best.
Oh Inverted World would have been fine without Garden State’s help. It was a declaration of things to come. And long after the dust of Zach Braff’s surprisingly resilient career has cleared, this album will remain a vanguard of a movement that has had a profound effect on rock and roll.
I actually came to Rilo Kiley sort of the reverse way from a lot of people, since the first I heard of them was through a side project, Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins’ Rabbit Fur Coat. I wasn’t particularly impressed with that effort, if the truth were to be told — it was pleasant enough, and the harmonies were nice, but it came out at nearly the same time as Neko Case’s Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, which set the bar for red-headed torch-Americana awfully high.
The upshot of all this is that before I listened to it, I didn’t have a good idea how much to expect from RK’s new album, Under the Blacklight. As it happens, the answer is: quite a bit indeed. Under the Blacklight isn’t just worlds better than Rabbit Fur Coat, it’s one of the better things I’ve heard this year (though by no means the best).
It’s hard to even describe what Under the Blacklight sounds like, precisely. It’s all of a piece, but the seamlessness between the tracks belies a degree of stylistic variation that’s quite high. “Silver Lining” is driven by alt-country slide guitars, “The Moneymaker” is a booming, spare rocker with a lead riff heavily influenced by ’70s classic rock, “Breakin’ Up,” with its wiggly one-finger synth line, could almost be a lost New Wave track — and that’s only three of the eleven cuts on display here. Some of the other songs, such as the title track, exist in a sort of dreamy netherworld between Big Star and Neil Young, but Lewis’s siren voice, which sounds much more confident amid RK’s relatively thicker textures than it did with the Watson Twins, gives them a sonic signature that’s all Rilo Kiley’s own.
The playing on Under the Blacklight is crisp, confident, and tight. Drummer Jason Boesel and bassist Pierre de Reeder in particular are meticulously precise, but never to the point that the music sounds stilted or mechanical. Rilo Kiley don’t like minor keys or slow tempos — perhaps the most unifying characteristic of the music is that it sounds deliberately, relentlessly upbeat.
Deceptively upbeat, actually, given the almost noir-ish lyrics. People age and relationships disintegrate over a backdrop of drunkenness, illicit sex, and general cruelty in pretty much every song here. In the hands of a different band, most of the themes could easily match the music, but Rilo Kiley aren’t writing party songs; they’re interested in hollowness, in the way that things decay. Even the closing track, “Give a Little Love,” with its deliberately cliched verses that for the most part sound like a pep talk given by an overly excitable high schooler, comes eventually to the lines “I keep you close in my wildest dreams / my rearview mirror / and you’re waving to me our last goodbye.”
In places, though they aren’t particularly frequent, the lyrics do become the album’s most noticeable weakness. Clunky lines like “Funny thing about money for sex / You might get rich but you’ll die by it” (from “Close Call”) surface intermittently throughout the album; they’re less noticeable than they might otherwise be because Lewis’s vocals smooth them over well, but there are enough of them to make me dock the album a point or so. Lyrical subtlety isn’t Rilo Kiley’s forte, alas.
But despite the occasional flaws, the record comes off as a very real success. Although it’s their fourth full-length, Under the Blacklight is Rilo Kiley’s first effort on a major label, and here’s hoping it brings them some well-deserved attention from a wider audience. It’s an album that has earned it, whether or not the acclaim actually eventuates.
Release date: August 21, 2007
Label: Warner Brothers
Rating: 7.5/10
First and foremost: I love concept albums. I believe it makes the artist really think about an overall album and doesn’t allow them to just slop ten songs on a disc and go on their merry way (if you can call those things “songs” Ashlee Simpson). Yet unfortunately sometimes concept albums can overstep their boundaries and be pretentious. (see: prog rock in general).
The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come for Free is a concept album with a grasp on reality… or it could be the script to a pretty run-of-the-mill Hollywood romantic comedy, I’m not quite sure. The main plot laid out by Mike Skinner is boy loses money, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy loses money forever in a fight (or) boy finds money. That’s right! This album even allows the listener to decide which ending they would like better, but more on that later (that’s your spoiler alert). So take that main plot and add life’s little trinkets such as talking to girls in takeaway restaurants, getting lucky by not placing a bet that would have lost, and getting completely fucked up and you have A Grand Don’t Come for Free.
Mike Skinner really took a chance by following up his debut album with a concept, but he made the right choice by going with what he knows. Each song itself is a story you could picture him telling you in a pub the day after it happened over a pint of Fuller’s. His delivery isn’t what one would call smooth but the offbeat flow draws you in more to that feeling of familiarity since it isn’t so polished. The opener of “It Was Supposed to Be So Easy” isn’t what you would expect to hear as the jump-off track of a hip-hop album with a jerky monotone chorus and a fairly laid-back tone in Skinner’s voice, but it only grows from there.
In relationship-based songs like “Could Well Be In” and “Dry Your Eyes” the more down tempo beats are accompanied by a softer voiced Skinner who shows his feelings for the apple of his eye with honest lyrics and sincerity in his voice that conveys true feelings without the sap. The exact opposite comes out in songs like “Get Out of My House” and “Fit But You Know It” where exasperation is shown with a more jacked up Mike (with the help of some liquid courage) showing that he can run the gamut and is no one trick pony.
So the whole troubled relationship story can get old, but A Grand… offers much more. Another story arc of the disc deals with Mike losing £1000 of his savings and becoming paranoid wondering who could have taken it in “What Is He Thinking?” The production builds up the frantic paranoia that the inner-monologues of the characters in the song are obviously feeling on both sides. “Empty Cans” is the song that takes the choose-your-own-adventure approach to rounding out the album. The first choice has Mike’s broken TV hauled off by a TV repairman who later tells him that he found something in the back of the TV which Mike thinks is a ploy to get more money out of the repair and fisticuffs are thrown. The second choice, signaled by a rewind sound cue and then accompanied by a similar beat to the former option, has Mike’s buddy Scott coming to help fix the TV and then finding that the £1000 had slipped through a crack in the back.
So maybe A Grand… isn’t romantic comedy script as it a multiple storyline TV series where all the characters are intertwined somehow, but either way, all the stories and antics combined on the disc make for one hell of an adventure. If you want a hip-hop disc without the bling and rims and with something more relatable (like stealing a tub of ice cream when you’re drunk) then this one’s for you.
The Streets - A Grand Don’t Come for Free
Vice/Atlantic
8 of 10
