Category — Albums

The band Portishead isn’t usually synonymous with the word “Guitar” but the band is pretty cool in my opinion. Also, the fact that Portishead hasn’t released an album in 10 years is a pretty signifcant reason to cover them now that they’ve released the album “Third”.

I have given the album a preview listen, but I could not even begin to do a proper review at this time as I haven’t listened to it enough. From my first listen, I noticed that it is not much of a trip-hop album. I think this is a good thing, as that style was cool, but has kind of faded from relevance and now sounds a little dated. The album features distorted bass guitar in several places, which could very well be the result of the “OM influence” the band cited in a Billboard.com article (in that article, billboard, obviously not knowing who OM even is, wrote their band name as “ohm”).

I’m interested in giving this album a few more listens, as I think its the type of album that deserves that before fully analyzing it.

-Positive Pitchfork media review of “Third”

-Billboard.com article referenced in this post

Nine Inch Nails have released a new single/track online called “Discipline”. As far as I can tell this wasn’t announced or anything and it appears this may be a track from a new NIN album. As Trent Reznor has done in the past, the multi-tracks for this song are also available via the bands website, www.nin.com. The song is already getting airplay on Kroq here in Los Angeles.

The band is playing a slew of dates and festivals in the US this summer so it would make sense if they were preparing for a new album release. The last NIN record “Ghosts” was more of an experimental project, so I’m curious to see if their new material is a more “proper” NIN album.

I assume the release of any new NIN record would also be handled in the same way as Ghosts, (with special edition CD/LP versions and other versions to be downloaded from the band’s website). Either way, its exciting to see what NIN will do next as they aren’t on a label and have the financial freedom to do pretty much whatever they want.

NIN Official Site

A new documentary called “I Need That Record” is going to premiere May 3rd in Amherst, MA. The film basically chronicles the fall of the record store in America.

“The movie, directed by Brendan Toller, explores the reasons why independently owned record shops are getting scarcer through interviews with Ian MacKaye, Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Mike Watt (Minutemen), Patrick Carney (The Black Keys), Patterson Hood (Drive-By Truckers), Glenn Branca, Chris Frantz (Talking Heads), Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), Bryan Poole (Of Montreal), writer Legs McNeil, Noam Chomsky, and plenty of music business folk across the U.S.”

The films release on DVD has not been announced yet. This film seems like an interesting look at the troubles facing record store owners and the people who frequent them. I know they need “star power” with somewhat big names being interviewed for the film. Personally though, I am more interested in what the record store owners have to say than musicians. If the film ends up relying more on that kind of first-hand experience/stories it could end up being really cool.

Source.

I’m sure most rock fans out there have heard of the band A Perfect Circle. The guitarist, Billy Howerdel currently has a new project out called ASHES dIVIDE. Their debut album, “Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright” was released 2 days ago on April 8th.

I’ve since acquired the album and gave it a few listens. The guitar work, which is great, is very reminiscent of A Perfect Circle, it is heavy yet subtle as well as ethereal and moody. It is definitely alternative rock, but I don’t know if people call anything that anymore.

The album was played almost entirely by Howerdel; guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals. Drum duties were handled by prolific session drummer and also former A Perfect Circle drummer Josh Freese. So as a whole, I like the album so far, my only minor problems with it are that the vocals seem too produced and have too many effects on them. The other problem in my opnion is the drum sound. You can’t really hear much of what Freese is playing, and the bass drum level seems to be turned down really low.  A Perfect Circle’s debut album, “Mer De Noms” also featured Josh Freese’s drumming, but you could hear everything that was going on with it there…nuances, ghost notes and every part of each fill.

Overall, “Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright” is a good record, I just don’t know if its something I will personally keep listening to for a long time. Time will tell I guess.

As a fan of Nirvana, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and many other prominent musical artists, I often wonder what their music would sound like if it was played with different instruments. These bands are so classic that I’ve listened to their records so many times because they are just that good, but sometimes its nice to get a fresh perspective on the music.

One thing that I’m sure fans of these bands have seen when you’re shopping for CDs is these String Quartet Tributes. I’ve recently been listening to a few, particularly Nirvana’s Nevermind album reworked by the Section String Quartet. I must say, some of the songs sound really cool with all strings. You can hear, even more so, a lot of the genius in the melodies. It’s definitely something thats given me a fresh perspective on a lot of the songs, all of which I’ve been listening to since I was 10 or 11 years old.

I’ve looked into it further, and a label called Vitamin Records releases these. They have a pretty large number of different bands and albums…

Vitamin Records

I’ve been listening to the band Spirit Caravan for a while now, they were my first introduction into the “stoner rock” genre. I got their “Jug Fulla Sun” album which was released on Fugazi bassist - Joe Lally’s Dischord Records imprint label, Tolotta Records.

The album pretty much has a typical stoner rock sound, very Black Sabbath of course. Something about it though makes it endearing, it has a sincerity to it that you hear in most of lead singer Wino’s other work as well. This album was the first I heard though to make me aware of a lot of other bands within this genre as well as Wino’s previous band the legendary Obsessed, who with a handful of others arguably created the template for the stoner rock genre. Anyway, it is something worth checking out…

The Obsessed

Spirit Caravan

As many people probably know by now…Nine Inch Nails has self-released, (via the internet) a new 36 track instrumental album. In a fashion similar to Radiohead’s pioneering approach, whereby the band’s website offered users a choice of paying any amount they want for the album, or nothing at all. Nine Inch Nails however, offered the entire album as a $5 download through file-sharing program bit torrent, a $10 2 CD set, 9 free songs from the album or various special edition packages ranging from $75 to $300 for an ultra-deluxe limited edition package.

According to Nine Inch Nails official website, the idea for the album was to just go about an organic writing process. The process was to sort of improvise with a variety of musical instruments, including guitar effects, bass synths, etc…The result isn’t one you’d usually expect from Nine Inch Nails. I’d say it runs the gamut of really cool textures and sounds to something you’d never really want to listen to on a regular basis. Although it should be noted that this sort of thing would’ve never been possible under a major label. So it’s cool to see Trent Reznor branching out and really doing some more weird and unique things musically.

The album also reportedly went on to pull in $1.6 million in the first week alone, as the sales go to direct to the band/Trent Reznor.

Source

So I had a chance to listen to Monotonix’ Body Language EP all the way through. The first song “Summers & Autumns” is the best on the record. It starts with a kind of Black Sabbath-esque 70’s style riff and and then continues on to a stop/start chorus and just grooves. The absence of a bass guitar makes the fact that the songs groove solidly impressive, also showcasing how tight the drummer is.

The EP holds true to the rock sound of the band all the way through. There aren’t any ballads or weird electronic tracks or anything like that. The title track, “Body Language” which is also the final song starts with seemingly random piano playing before descending into a kind of dance-y led zeppelin riff, this is a good thing. It also has a catchy chorus, and a guitar part near the end of the song that for some reason reminds me of the music in the Mega Man games you played as a kid on Nintendo.

After seeing them live I kind of figured their EP would be weak, just because their live show is so intense. In a way the EP is weak, but not in a bad way. It doesn’t capture the insanity and ridiculousness of their live shows, but its pleasing to listen to and that is usually the mark of any decent record.

Been busy lately. The Monotonix - “Body Language” EP review will be up tomorrow as promised.

After seeing Monotnix live I decided to get their “Body Language” EP. I just got it and I haven’t listened to the whole thing all the way through yet, but I am going to give it a couple listens tonight and I will post a review here tomorrow.