Review: Converge - Axe to Fall

First of all, let's get through the obvious: Sorry I abandoned the blogosphere (sp?) for almost an entire month. But I'm back now with a vengeance. Literally. And what better way to return than with a band that for my money (little as that may be) sets the curve for all contemporary metalcore: Converge. Almost every band talks about trying to push themselves from album to album but I don't think any band accomplishes it like Converge. Every album they put out is the most brutal and out there album I've ever heard, until their next album. Axe to Fall fits right into this pattern, a little harder and different than 2006's No Heroes.

Which isn't to say that there isn't plenty for the old-school Converge fan to love. The title track especially should take anyone back to the halcyon days of Jane Doe and You Fail Me. 'Dead Beat' is another throwback especially vocally. Other tracks vary widely from the more straight-ahead metal of 'Reap What You Sow' to the driving thrashy riffs in 'Cutter.' A more sludge-y side of the band reveals itself on 'Damages' as well as the delightfully named 'Worms will Feed/ Rats will Feast.' The album opens with furious guitar riffs that, to me, sound like nothing so much as Horse the Band synths.

Speaking of other hardcore bands, this album saw a great deal of collaboration between Converge and various other bands and artists especially Cave In. Two of the songs on the album, 'Effigy' and 'Cruel Bloom' were adapted from a shared project Converge had done with Cave In. While 'Effigy' fits fairly seamlessly into the album, 'Bloom' is going to out to most listeners with its piano intro and sung vocals (courtesy of Steve von Till of Neurosis). It's a good warm up for the closing cut 'Wretched World' though, with its long plodding build and heavily layered instruments and vocals. It's overall effect could best be termed unnerving.

Converge - Dark Horse

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Converge

Review: Cheap Girls - My Roaring 20s

My Roaring 20s, the sophomore release from Lansing, MI's Cheap Girls was at first a little hard for me to pin down. It was Punknews that first brought them to my attention but they certainly aren't a punk band. They also don't really fit in the current (twee-ish) indie rock scene. Instead they're kind of throw-back indie rockers combining plaintively voiced songs of liquid excess and despair with musical grit and bombast borrowed from heavier genres. To me this echoes indie stalwarts the Weakerthans or even more impressive godfathers of the genre like Superchunk or The Replacements.

These guys could be on the brink some well deserved success with this album. They have that universal appeal to a broader audience that you can see (certainly in a much larger degree) in the currently skyrocketing Gaslight Anthem. Every song on the album is head-nod and toe-tap inducing in the extreme. More than that they sound as if they'd be just as at home playing to a few bar-flies at a corner dive as headlining at an SXSW or a Bamboozle. I'm just saying that if these guys get a toe hold, don't be surprised to see them climb and climb quickly.

Every song on this album is catchy and you'll have the choruses to most down by the second listen. The themes are pretty easy to get into as well. These are tales of languishing in your small town, ('Modern Faces') with big dreams ('Ft. Lauderdale') watching your friends leave you behind ('All My Clean Friends') while you sit around and drink heavily (pretty much all of them). Even the last song on the album, 'One & Four,' is insanely catchy and could probably be a hit on commercial radio RIGHT NOW. 'Ft. Lauderdale' however, is the one I think they'll ride out of here. They think so too I'm assuming which is why they made it the single. Now often I think the single is literally the worst song on a given album (Senses Fail I'm looking at you. 'Buried a Lie' was terrible. Just terrible, but I digress) , but on this one they got it just right. This song is one tenacious sumbitch. Hear it once and you should probably just go buy the album because you're not going to stop singing it to yourself until you do. And on that note, the video:

Cheap Girls - "Ft. Lauderdale" from TCSG on Vimeo.

Cheap Girls - Ft. Lauderdale

Cheap Girls - All My Clean Friends

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Cheap Girls

Review: Owen - New Leaves

Musically, Mike Kinsella doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. His roster of former bands reads like a Pitchfork list of the best experimental emo bands: Joan of Arc, Cap'n Jazz and American Football. His solo project, Owen sounds like he knows that. There's no reinventing the wheel here, just a guy and his guitar, with some light orchestration, playing guy-with-a-guitar songs. And doing it well I might add.

This is a soothing album. Kinsella's voice and his finger picked guitar are like a blanket that surrounds you with warmth that smells vaguely of whiskey. The drums are sparse and low strings make up a good portion of the instrumentation. Lyrically the songs range from paeans to poetic intoxication to odes to his current love like the strangely beautiful 'Amnesia.' It seems to me though that the theme tying the ironically named New Leaves together is one of looking back. Missing your old friends, or who you were when you were younger or the place you used to live. Unless you've stayed in exactly the same your whole life, I defy you to listen to 'Good Friends, Bad Habits' without missing at least one person or place that you've left behind. Lest you think this album is a total sap-fest, I would like to direct your attention to the penultimate track "Ugly on the Inside." An acid bitter recrimination of someone we can only assume to be a former lover. If you like a little snarl to your haunting beauty then this is the song for you.

In all though, this is a lushly beautiful sounding album with lyrics that will help it stand up to plenty of repeat listens. Put it on in the background to set the mood on date night but when things go south, it's time to dig into the lyrics. Plus, if you've ever had a friend, the video for the single will make you want to spend more time with them.



Owen - Good Friend, Bad Habits

Owen - Ugly on the Inside

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Owen

Currently Listening To......

I won't write a review because it's a bit of a conflict of interest, but I wanted to make a post about Tom Hamill's new solo album Cosmic Consciousness. In addition to doing half the guitar work for Britney's Spear, Tom has quite an extensive catalogue of solo work (I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in a show review) . This album seems a lot different from his previous work to me. So far there's less emphasis on layered guitar work. In fact it seems the guitar has given away completely to synth, samples and atmospherics. What hasn't changed is the calming combination of ambient and instrumental music that would appeal to fans of bands like The Books. The album can be downloaded for free at Tom's website.

ed. note: Ok I jumped the gun a little bit, I just hit the first track with guitar. Feel a little foolish. This is another reason I didn't do a proper review. Haven't listened to the whole thing yet.

Review: Teenage Bottlerocket - They Came From The Shadows

If I had written a Top Ten Albums list for last year, this album would have battled Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts for the top space. Of the 14 songs on this album 12 are absolute home runs. Out-of-the-park, onto Landsdowne Street, home runs. I know that certain people think that Teenage Bottlerocket are too poppy and I won't deny that these guys certainly put the pop in pop punk. But it's that awesome kind of pop punk that takes it cues from the Ramones and lives in the great tradition of The Queers, Mr T Experience, and Cletus. Actually if you like the Ramones, there is no excuse for you not to own at least 3 albums by Teenage Bottlerocket and They Came From the Shadows is probably as great a place to start that collection as any.

I talked before about the song 'Skate or Die' and great I thought it was. Remember that? Well it's just the opener on this album. Some of them are more offbeat and goofy
like 'Bigger than Kiss' while other seem to tackle real issues like lead singer's body image problems in the amusingly named 'Fatso Goes Nutzoid.' That song also has the greatest departure from the pop-punk song of the record with the band lapsing into 80's hardcore style riffs on every chorus. Another thing TBR shares with bands like The Ramones and The Misfits is their obsession with horror and B movies. Both the title track and 'Forbidden Planet' typify this with their descriptions of extraterrestrial invasion. Seriously though, they're all fun and tongue in cheek as opposed to creepy (Jerry Only I'm looking at you).

But the real surprise on this album, and it is a pleasant, is how capable they are of poignancy. There are songs from both sides of a break up and a love song that are as good as anything a more serious band would write. I should say that when I say serious band, I mean in terms of lyrical content, not dedication to craft. Don't be offended guys from TBR, I feel like we would be awesome hang out buddies if we met. Anyway, if you just got dumped and you want to be angry about it, 'Not OK' is the song for you. If on the other hand, you want to wallow and be sad, then go with 'Without You' or the absolutely perfect 'Don't Want To Go.' For all the break-up angst though, the album wraps itself up with the closing track 'Todayo.' If the last song I recommended for all the punk rock couples out there didn't float you, then this one will. It also ends the album on a fun note with a false ending that then builds into a sing along outro.

When I first posted about these guys (for my smash hit STBYM series) I called them pitch perfect pop punk (I think, I'm too lazy to go back and check). I stand by that description as well as the stellar alliteration it contains. This is exactly what pop punk should be. Every song, every riff, every subject. So if you like your punk a bit pop-y then you need this album. If you don't (i.e. you aren't a fan of sunshine, happiness or fun) then you should still give this a shot and see if it can't brighten your day at least a little. And by brighten I mean make exponentially more awesome.



Teenage Bottlerocket - Don't Want To Go****removed by 'request'

Teenage Bottlerocket - Todayo ****
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Teenage Bottlerocket

Quick Poll (s)

I'm probably going to do a review later tonight, but I wanted to make this its own item. I need some feed back on a couple of changes I'm thinking of implementing.

The first is pretty minor, I was thinking of making the album art at the beginning of every review another link to where you can buy the album. Putting the buying links at the end makes them kind of possible to miss.

Another thought I'd had is that I want to get more adventurous in my culinary exploits, and I was thinking of documenting some of that progress here. Would all four of my readers be fine with finding food descriptions clogging up their mp3s and music rantings or should I thinking about expanding my brand into another blog which would be just about food? The lead singer of The Riot Before has a blog where he muses about life, and then a completely separate one where he mostly talks about food so I feel like I would be in good company in this venture. Please let me know in the comments your thoughts on these changes.

Thanks
Keegan

Review: Banner Pilot - Collapser

I feel like, without my noticing, Fat Wreck Chords has really upped their game. Back when their big rising-star-workhorse was a traction-gaining Against Me! it felt like a majority of their label-mates were kind of cookie cutter pop-punk bands. The Soviettes, Smoke or Fire (who have since elevated their game) etc were great for comps and you could definitely enjoy a song or two but you looked a little askance at people who seemed to be actual fans of these bands. But suddenly my cup runneth over with solid punk bands that can stand out from their peers like American Steel and Banner Pilot, and wouldn't you know it? They're all on Fat Wreck. Well played Fat Mike, but I still don't get Cokie the Clown.

That was my long-winded introduction to Collapser, Banner Pilot's Fat Wreck debut. My other planned intro was to talk about how I went to a certain frozen-rock ice cream parlor for the first time ever last night. I was not a big fan. I don't like having to say cutesy shit in order to get food. They had a flavor that was cake batter ice cream with cookie dough and heath bar. This hits most of my happy places so you might assume it was what I got yes? NO. Because the name of the flavor was "More lovin, less oven" or something similarly nauseating and I refused to say it (I also didn't tip cause I didn't want to hear them sing). So I got coffee ice cream instead. Adam has pointed out that this is similar to a certain southwestern grill's policy of naming dishes after Seinfeld references. He is 100% right. If you're out there mexican food place: you know who you are, now knock it off. A fajita is a fajita which is to say one of the greatest food stuff in the history of ever. At this point some of you are probably turning away from your computers saying "If I wanted to hear a random rant about food, there's a Jim Gaffigan special on tv that would be a better, funnier use of my time" and to you I say that this whole thing was actually on point because in my mind Collapser is like cookie dough ice cream.

By this I mean that the whole album is solid. Especially the bass sound, which is that awesome clanking metallic Latterman sound. God I love that. But yeah the vocals are gruff enough to suit you org-core punkers but still clear enough that you aren't missing out on the lyrics and the vocal melodies which are solid as hell. On top of that the album strikes a nice balance with all the songs hanging together nicely but at no point did I think 'these all kinda sound alike.'

So that's the ice cream. Ice cream in general is good and this album in general is good. The cookie dough is that sprinkled liberally throughout the album are really great songs that in addition to being great songs, elevate the rest of the album (like how raw cookie dough makes something transcendent out of what was previously basic vanilla). These include the opening track 'Central Standard' and suprisingly the closing track 'Write It Down.' There are some massively catchy choruses lurking in 'Starting at the Ending' and 'Farewell to Iron Bastards' both of which are also surprisingly sweet when you get into the lyrics. But if you and your punk rock girl (or boy) need a new song to be 'your song' then look no further than 'Skeleton Key.' Sitting almost dead center on the track list this was the first song on the record to grab a seat in my head and refuse to leave. There also something touchingly poignant about the line "It ends so soon, the night and the fading moon. / I put my hand inside yours. The city looks strange and significant." every time it makes me wish I had written it.

Bottom line, this is a good punk rock album with some great songs on it. In my head I've termed it 'hang-out punk.' It doesn't want you to go out and stir up revolution, it doesn't need to air out some grievances with an ex (not that there's anything wrong with either of those) it's just a record for being, like hanging out with a really old friend, nobody needs to try too hard, nobody needs to change just put this record on and enjoy it.

Banner Pilot - Skeleton Key

Banner Pilot - Write it Down

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Banner Pilot