@ jerk


David Lee Roth - Perfect Timing

I am not a big hard rock fan; have never been and probably never will. Yes, it is a nice, charming, well crafted, well balanced, well written, well arranged, well mixed, well produced kind of track. Easy into the ear and leaves it at a similar pace ... if not faster. I always have the feeling that hard rock is generally too streamlined, without edges and the sort. AOR with a bit more bite.

Some strange music from Norway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IyJknKkN2k

Karl Seglem - Femstein

Strange, indeed. This seems to be in the vein of traditional folk music, with heavy influence from (middle) Eastern cultures. Smooth, exotic and otherworldly, this is quite a trip. Although certainly not the same, this reminds me of Portland instrumental outfit Grails, with even more emphasis on the ethnic influences, which can become quite prominent with Grails. "Femstein" brings back images of past eras. Karl Seglem is an artist I think I will look into.

edit - On second thought, I think this reminds me more of Wardruna then Grails. Wardruna is from Norway too, so maybe Norwegian folk music sounds kind of similar to the traditional Middle Eastern stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO9fIko079w

downloaded this after listening to that one song and thrashed the hell out of it for a week. Went out and picked up the LP yesterday!

Murder by Death - devil in Mexico

After the fake record-static saturated intro, we get what sounds a lot like slightly emo AOR. I'm sorry, but I really cant find anything cool about this. The singers voice makes me want to kick him every time I imagine the kind of faces and puppy-dog eyes he would be making if they were to make a proper video for this. It's bad, but its not even so bad that I can have any sort of emotional reaction to it at all. Maybe I'm getting all old and shit, but all I hear is college age pseudo angst - the kind of shit that thesedays makes me want to grap the offending party by the throat and forcefully convey the implications of the lesson in pain life will give them by the time they reach their mid 30's haha.

So, here we have the opposite - some proper old man music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZqq-zAkGy4

@Scorntyrant:



Leonard Cohen - "Master Song"

I've never particularly been a fan of Cohen's voice, but I think it got better as it deepened with age - this is a bit higher than what I'm used to from him, so I'm guessing it's from one of his earlier albums. Man, he really couldn't stay on tune back then. Anyway, this is pretty nice, despite my personal dislike for Cohen's voice. It's got a cool acoustic guitar riff repeating throughout with some nice string accents occasionally and Cohen's on top form lyrically. Very depressing and dark, and a lot more complex storytelling than what you find in a lot of pop songwriting. This should get monotonous for me quickly, due to Cohen's monotone singing and the fact that it never really changes, but it doesn't. Better than the horridly overplayed "Hallelujah", anyway.

Right, I'll just go and slit my wrists to that, and you can all have something a bit happier, OK? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaWj1mhx35Y

@ dystopia4



Clock Opera - Man Made

It is not really a happy song video, but it has a nice beat and sound. In some way it sounds modern, but the actual style is quite retro and more in vein of the 80s/90s. Some strange Monty Pythonesque gender mess up in the video and a homage to Freddy Mercury? "Freddie Forever" written on a table. The story itself is rather sad or controversial; it opens a lot of questions at least. some nice music, stuff that will certainly hit the airwaves at some point ... maybe not on the larger channels though.

Summer is not too far away:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3wqTDt0nRE

Millionaire Blonde - Se Ne Va

hehe, maybe its because I live on the other side of the world and its late Autumn and cold as hell here, but this little eurotrash fantasy isnt really doing it for me. It looks a lot like the whole Private:tropical line of porn vids as far as the video goes- I kept expecting some sort of DP ambush at any second. Sounds like a soft-drink advertisment, maybe dishwashing detergent, who knows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ12XZqC1iU

Death In June - 13 Years of Carrion

Classic band. This is pretty much a relaxing song. Nice strummed chords with an occasional other instrument accenting (a trumpet?) and some xylophone towards the end. It's pretty simple and repetitive, and the vocals remain calm and subdued throughout, repeating lines. But it builds some atmosphere, though I must admit the other things I've heard from this band sounded much darker.

Completely different from the past few posts now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2NETSIzFr8

@Scorntyrant

@Necro

Immortal Technique - "Rich Man's World (1%)"

A lot of my hip hop-listening friends seem to like Immortal Technique, but I've never bothered with him, becausee I've heard he is really, really political. Well, I was right - there's a 30-second speech sample at the beginning laying out the entire ideology of the song! Damn, the lyrics are already obvious enough. Plus, the entire backing is basically made of the keyboard line and vocal sample saying "It's a rich man's world" from ABBA's "Money, Money, Money" with hip-hop drums added. I'm not anti-sampling, but that's what I call "stealing". I do like Immortal Technique's flow in this, maintaining good enunciation even when he flows faster and with a nice tone to his voice. He's definitely passionate, but things this stridently political do tend to turn me off.

Sticking with some hip hop... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrIcd1YHBSM

Tech N9ne: "Worldwide Choppers"

Well, it happened. I got a hip-hop song. I'm sorry about this Jerk: We seem to have had a lot of luck with each other's music until now, but this, well, this really isn't for me. I might have been more tolerant if the song wasn't almost six minutes long. Six minutes (well, all right, 5:42) of pasted-together drum machine percussion clips (no funk samples here), faint instrumentation, a sung chorus that sounds like it could have come from a Linkin Park song, and a lot of really fast unintelligible babbling about who-the-fuck-knows-what. Every so often one of the rappers would make a cool mouth noise, and occasionally it was impressive just how fast they were gabblegabblegabbling, like some kind of hypperactive overexcited children or maybe a bunch of horny birds, but then I started wondering if the person producing this had used speech compression tools to get the flow to work with the rhythm as sometimes there was a clicky, almost sampled sound to the speech. I don't think I would really like this much more if I could understand what they were saying, but they may as well have been speaking Swahili for all I got out of that. Obviously they're excited about what they're doing, and, well, more power to them, I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU3xMTc_rC0

JAMES BROWN & THE FAMOUS FLAMES - Money Won't Change You

It might be bad form to make your first post outside of the newbie introduction thread in a non-metal thread but too bad. I haven't listened to James Brown in a while and have never been a heavy listener of '60s R&B. I typically prefer Brown's more soulful moments but this was fun. Brown is full of bravado but remains somewhat restrained for much of the track, which isn't a bad thing. I like the use of the organ throughout. It never does anything special but gives a nice almost psychedelic vibe to the whole song. My biggest complaints would be the (alto?) sax solo early in the song (it did nothing for me) and the fact that the song seems to drag a bit with all the repetition. That droning, three note bass line is a little much for me after a while. The whole band is really on repeat for much of the song. I expect it was much less of a problem live with Brown's antics on the stage adding something visually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdzDxDCcfCQ

@ FlaPack

@ Abominatrix

Archers of Loaf - "Step Into the Light"

Hmm... trying to think where I've heard of this band before. It starts off slow, with a single fuzz guitar riff, slow drums and droning harmonies, before adding more layers of fuzz and clean guitar melodies. Drums are kind of boring, but the staticky layers over the main clean melody are very interesting - almost shoegaze-y, in a way. There's a very nice bassline around 2:00 as well. The vocals don't come in until around 2:30, and they're very quiet and very low in the mix, so there's yet more shoegaze connections there. It works, though - he's got the kind of laid-back, everyman delivery that a lot of indie bands had around that time (early 90's?), which I quite like. Some spotty moments, and the guitars sound pretty flat because they're not produced very well, but a good piece of 90's indie rock overall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfmGajfyv5A

I have listened to this a number of times today trying to find the suitable words to describe this track - and I'm still falling short. The opening segment is really good, with plenty of space and an uplifting feeling to it. This is helped by the vocalist whose voice is light, yet containing a breathy power, helped along with some bright and sprightly minor key acoustic guitar with awakening distorted lines. This is indeed a good start for this piece - best part of the song. The bulk of this is pure radio friendly, indie "rock", though it's nothing I've ever herd on radio. There is skill in the song writing with this, as everything has it's place, and the musicianship is well above par (albeit extremely vanilla), with a standard verse/chorus/verse structure relying on major chords to flesh it out and carry the melody. But, after the initial build up, this delves into something, which for me, unfortunately resembles that abominable theme song from the equally abominable Friends sitcom. I'm not necessarily saying this song is bad, just...bland and very nice, and completely not my thing.

My go.

Shiv-R - Taste

So it starts off with an industrial drone, and the elements build up from there. It develops into a trance thing and shortly after the drums really take off. At this point I'm really liking it. Then a vocalist comes in who is either Trent Reznor or a carbon copy of Trent Reznor. Its not that I think the vocals are horrible or anything, I just don't think they work here. There's also some girl speaking in a foreign language which is a bit random. Instrumentally I think this is a really good electronic/trance song thats a bit on the dirty side. But in the end, the vocals ruin it for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqzvHoSdH18

Clams Casino - Gorilla

Now this I like! Kinda reminiscent of Boards of Canada, mid period Scorn, quieter tracks from Sabres of paradise or Meat beat manifesto perhaps. A fairly typical mid-90's sounding backbeat with some occasional glitches underpins some really nice swirly reverb effects. It dosent really go anywhere, but I think that's part of why I love this style so much - it doesn't have a "narrative" as such, but that makes it great to listen to while writing or whatnot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztUGEhM6a1U

In Slaughter Natives - Still Just Only Death

The band appears in my browser history, because I wanted to know whether they belong to the Nazi scene or not; I do not have a definite answer to this. The video could be interpreted in the way Zizek generally talks about the unnecessary mystification of native or rural societies and how they are perceived by the modern Western culture. A film in which this is also exposed in a somewhat drastic and disturbing kind of way is Madeinusa. The music is some kind of aggressive industrial and rather boring at that. It tries to be provocative, but it never reaches beyond of being a persiflage of modern civilization.

Back to somewhere different:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbIFzwN ... re=related

@oneyoudontknow - they/he has never been associated with politics at all. That track is from 1990, so its somewhat dated. I tend to think of ISN as Black Metal without guitars.

Giovanni Sgambati - Symphony No. 1 - Serenata

This composer is certainly a fan of using silence. The first couple of minutes of this piece develop the motifs and melodies that are used throughout the song in sporadic bursts, before a central part with multiple instruments. The piece sounds like it could pretty much be played entirely by a string orchestra, but other instruments come in at different points to give a nice texture to the sound. There's nothing too complex about the music, and you can quite easily hear every instrument at any time. But that is probably one of the strengths of the composition. It's a nice flowing piece that doesn't overstay its welcome.

Next song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcfwXUyudG8

The Butterfly Effect - A Slow Descent

While I doubt I'll remember this once I'm done writing this review, at least this song was a decent one. A catchy drum beat, guitar... tweedling, we'll call it, and somewhat monotone vocals make up an intro that lets me know from the word go that I'm in alternative rock land. Not my favorite place to be, but it could be a lot worse. It sounds like something I'd hear on the radio stations my dad used to play when I was a kid in the late '90s/early 2000's, along with countless other altrock songs I don't really feel like recalling. It's mostly inoffensive stuff, save for the outro, which was a smooth transition into a slow drum and bass bit that did a good job of calming things down. That was my favorite part of the song, to be honest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6JVpuUJA1s&feature=share

Teeth for Teeth - "Katherine Has a Heavy Heart"

Teeth for Teeth remind me very much of Indian Summer. In this song, in the intro and outro they have a sampled telephone conversation, which is quite like Indian Summer having Bessie Smith samples in the beginning and end of their songs. The music is Screamo, obviously, however i also hear a little bit of black metalish tremolo picking.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this song. I think it is definitely too short, as it consists of four different parts, two hard and two soft, but is only three minutes long. In my opinion there is enough "ambient" in Screamo so you cant through in completely new ideas every 30 seconds. Also, i must say that i like the first half much more than the second. In the second half, there is this weird kinda shuffeled riff, which takes all the flow out of the music and even sounds comical to me. What i really like is the sound of the basedrum, it sounds very natural, even when they do doublebase.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwYY5bKaOxI

Uochi Toki - La Bestia

Well this is certainly different. This song has two main sections. In the first section theres some guy doing what appears to be half singing and half rapping over this weird manipulated dirty electronic/industrial riff. What follows is really, really weird. The riffing gets slower, and the drums speed the fuck up. The programmed drums here are so fast that you can barely hear each individual beat; they almost come off like some batshit insane digitized blast beat. Theres some screaming in the background - this is almost like an electronic take on metal. In the end I'm not really digging this, though. The singer/rapper guy is kind of annoying and the uber fast drums are a bit irritating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlDxcLKDgNk

Dax Riggs - Say Goodnight to The World.

When I saw that you posted a Dax song, I mentally gave you a high five and immediately turned it up to 11. This is definitely the most overtly BLUESY sounding thing on his latest album, the bass is pretty busy the whole way through, playing some really cool fills, the guitars actually taking the backseat and letting it do a lot of the talking, adding some tasteful leads every once in a while. The main riff is just pure awesome too when it comes in. I don't think it's the best song of that record, but it's a nice head nodding, mid-paced number. And that's all without mentioning Dax's vocals. It's been cool to see how his voice has evolved over the years, I particularly like the wordless melodies he does as the chorus. I can't wait for his new record.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMvOkUMPZ0g

Silent Hill - Room of Angel

My immediate thought is that this piece is more emotionally complex than one would expect from the soundtrack to a horror video game. Some dissonant drones wash over the introduction and lead into a somber piano melody supporting ethereal female vocals. The violent imagery of the video almost takes on a comic aspect, it so severely contrasts the music it accompanies. Some of the synths here remind me of VNV Nation, if they had the same enthusiasm for experiment with the nuances of noise as My Bloody Valentine. The instrumental aspect of the song can get a bit repetitive, although it does vary and change throughout. Sometimes the changes seem a bit contrived, like changing one or two notes in a melody without really altering it substantially, creating the same effect as unwarranted repetition. Other times they accompany a thematic/mood shift in the song--that is to say, they fit in and make sense. The harmonies that come in around 4:25 are very sweet. At this point the track reminds me of a despondent and impoverished Imogen Heap. The echoing drums that come in towards the end of the song are sweet, and during the last few moments the song takes on the threatening, ominous aspect that I was initially expected. I'm impressed by the depth on display here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkpIUOPKhRE

This...is, fucking awful. Musically this is a "ghetto" rap track (read: white rap ), against police stopping those who peddle drugs etc while simultaneously murdering the chorus from Madness's "Our House". The rhymes are annoying, and sounds VERY immature, and the same can be said for the music - acoustic, semi-ska guitar with some deadbeats wailing about killing cops. This is supposed to be humorous? Interesting? Satirical? Either way I think this fails hard, and might only appeal to teens sneaking out smoking a bowl while their parents are out to dinner, naughty things. Not much else to say. Pure shit.

Now to a real song about drugs...

Depeche Mode: "To Have and to Hold"

Ominous low synth tones, strange swirling sounds, and muttering voices reciting what might be news reports, possibly in Russian? The reverberating percussive sounds slowly creep in, and this is a very dreary, painful little tune, far away from some of the light mysterious pop numbers that everybody knows. Although, Depeche Mode have always had this quality about them; they're certainly not just another popular 80s band basing their songs around catchy synth doodles and memorable vocal lines. Yes, they've got all that, but there's also this tenebrous pain underlying much of their music, and they're also fantastic songwriters. I recall a friend once saying that the thing about Depeche Mode, and the reason so many people like them, is that they write templates; basically you could translate their tunes to any format, using any instruments, and they would always sound great. They just happen to use their own repertoire of synth soundscapes, which, admittedly, sometimes sound a little clunky, but it usually works out well for them. Now, this song is not one I'm familiar with, but it reminds me a little of stuff like "It Doesn't Matter" from Black Celebration or "Clean" from Violator. It's short, and leaves you wanting, or expecting, some kind of great buildup that doesn't come. This is the sort of thing you'd feel when you're lying in a strange bed, early in the morning, head pounding and feeling like crud, not quite sure where you are or what you're doing and wondering if you dare look at the person beside you. Wilder sounds so beaten and resigned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaVGNCguCG0

@Abom

The Tea Party - "Walk with me"

A bit of cursory internet research (putting the band's name into last.fm and seeing what comes up) reveals a 'progressive rock band with middle eastern influences'. While this is partially accurate, it sort of does them a disservice. While those influences definitely show, rather than forming the basis for a certain riff or phrase, they instead provide a sort of aesthetic for the music, which is grounded in hard rock. The instrumentation is competant if not the most virtuosistic (I'm going to go with that actually being a word) piece of music ever recorded, with the usual guitar/bass/drums tastefully (taste being something that really needs to go through the heads of people attempting to blend folk and contemporary music) accompanied by middle eastern instruments, as well as some electronic sampling in the intro. The song occasionally sounds like a mixture of classic rock blended with Powerslave era Iron Maiden riffing. Despite the middle eastern instruments, this album still has a definite 'american' atmosphere to it, and it's actually quite hard to imagine it being produced in any other continent. This goes beyond the heavily accented vocals of frontman Jeff Martin, which were initially a tad off putting, giving me horriffic images of late 90s 'alternative metal' but soon develop into a rather rousing performance towards the climax of the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QikFgmAv7xc

Kurt Vile - Jesus Fever

Well, this is pretty typical singer/songwriter stuff. Its kind of upbeat, but has hints of melancholia, most present in the vocals. There are chords strummed in the background and nice jangly melodies in the foreground. I kind of found that the guy's voice was a bit underwhelming. Not bad, just not really all that notable. This definitely isn't bad, its quite pleasant, but nothing that I"d really feel the need to listen to again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3yw6897F_A

Re: The Tea Party

Grails - Reincarnation Blues

How this is some strange stuff ... odd how the intense opening -- I suspected it would turn to some metal hybrid -- fades out the longer the track plays. Noisy trumpets, post-rock elements, constant switches in tempo and arrangements ... hard to make something out of it, but this whole damn thing is fascinating somehow. But why only 4:26. Other bands would have played with the motives even more and this is what this track actually lacks: a convincing progression of the ideas. Everything sounds a bit too random.

next one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOBbPytdbns

Bai Shui- The Host of a Building Named Flower Terrace Temple

Truly some beautiful folk music. The oriental acoustic guitars that weave and entertwine throughout this piece give it an almost celestial feel, but once the vocals come into the song is where it really becomes moving. While I do not speak chinese, the way in which the vocalists passionately and almost spiritually recite the lyrics gives me the feeling that they are of the monastic tradition. The flute plays a complimentary counter melody that really completes the image in my head of a monk meditating on top of a massive cliff at high noon on a cloudless day, eyes closed and oblivious to the world around him and searching for enlightenment. Leaves fall and are blown by a light breeze but the monk does not notice. This is quite an incredible piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0Spl1cOf-o

Genesis: "Dancing in the Moonlit Night"

I was hoping someone less familiar would choose to do this song, but I can't see this thread pushed back anymore!

A beautiful opening that is oh so memorable. Gabriel sings wistful sad lines of an old jaded patriot. Hackett and Collins join the fold, but gently...taht guitar line is beautiful, and the accentuation on the cymbals is about perfect. Things gradually build up over the first two minutes, when a rather heavy riff comes in, and some of the early themes are restated in a more urgent way. The song then takes us on a trip that glides effortlessly between barely contained tension and moments of pastoral beauty. Strange and interesting synth sounds at around the halfway point, and some interesting use of the stereo separation model. This seems to be some kind of remaster and they've tinkered with the mix a bit, but surprisingly I ratehr like the results. I can hardly beleive that this song is over eight minutes long as it just seems to fly by. I really think this is one of the best album openers in all of contemporary music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuNmXb5odUw

@Abom

The Cult - Brother Wolf, Sister Moon

Never really listened to The Cult but I may check out some more after that. The song is fairly repetitive but not unpleasantly so for some reason. One guitar plays the same basic three chord arpeggio throughout all the verses. The bass just follows the root for the most part and never puts itself out there but it has a pleasant enough tone for the effects its running through. The song is obviously more about the somber atmosphere/mood than any technical theatrics. I really liked the lead guitar's tone. It was pretty restrained throughout but there were a couple moments that felt really gilmourish to my ear, especially in the intro. Drums were pretty minimal with little more than the kick for the first couple minutes but I liked the production. Nothing special but they worked for what it is. Pretty vocal centric production and I enjoyed his voice. It kept trying to remind me of someone but I couldn't place it. Keyboard comes in to add more atmosphere to the last third of the song. Done tastefully enough. All in all I liked it. I would like to see if any of their other stuff adds a little more progression.

Now for something different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igR-ypkIKnU

Supersuckers - Born with a tail

Nice video ... but it would have been more fun to see a crowd of fans following them on motorcycles; the whole thing reminds me on a hybrid between AC/DC and ZZ Top. The track has a nice beat and drowns in cliche. Straight-forward punk-rock with a good amount of bass in the background. Quite entertaining ... and charming. Could actually work well after a long day of work or while being on the road for a 'endlessly' long time.

new one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxud8HmPu10