Alright, as promised, here is the review of the new album and the single released just before the album. I was excited to get the new single from TPOBPAH for the song Belong. This single is in support of the album of the same name. I got the package and opened it right away. I was shocked to find that the new single was shrink wrapped instead of in the plastic sleeve bag that I had gotten from the record company. It was not that big of a deal I guess. When I opened the shrink wrap I was also surprised to find that there was not an inner sleeve. This was also not a big deal. I was excited to find that the record inside was a bright pink. The record was still pressed at 45 rpm, I was also happy with that. The record is also a very clean sounding record. I haven’t had a problem with any record that came from Slumberland yet. The single is a great song, incredibly catchy as well. The B-side is I Wanna Go All The Way. I have the demo version of this song on the CD single for Say No To Love. The demo was an OK version but the final studio cut on this 7” is a lot better. The music is a little more subdued and the vocals stand up a bit more. There is also a more distorted sound on the final cut of this B-side. It is a different mix and I like it.
I got this album from Insound. I thought that the record was supposed to be colored. I guess that I was wrong. The record also came shrink wrapped. The record came in a rice paper sleeve with an additional graphic sleeve. The record also came with a download card. As it turns out the downloaded files are at 320 kbps. The album, Belong, starts off with the track Belong. There is some really cool distorted sounds and clean sounds that contrast each other very well. The album is, over all, a slight change from what the first album is. I am not sure if the change is strictly in the producers of if the group has actually gone in a slightly different direction. I like the album but it doesn’t seem like enough of a change to hook me further in with the group. It is good but it could have been better. The couple singles off this album jump out at me when I listen but I don’t hear the hook that draws me in on the other tracks. It may be that I am not hearing them because they are all lined up with the other songs or it could be that there just are not any more singles off this album but the two that have already been released. This remains to be seen I guess.
Talking Heads – Speaking in Tongues
I remember the first single, Burning Down The House, off this album. Actually, I remember seeing the video for the song. It was for sure an interesting watch. This song was the first song that made it to the top ten for the band. This is the fifth album for the group so it took a while for them to make something that the public thought was great. The album was released in 1983. The album was liked so well that the group also put out a live album supported by a video. Both were called Stop Making Sense. I will try to get to this at a later date. The other song that I remember hearing is Girlfriend Is Better. This song contains the lyric “Stop Making Sense” which is where the title for the live album/movie comes from. It is a good fun song. The last song, This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody), on the album was the second single from the album. David Byrne has said that this was a love song, just a straight up love song. He has also said that the Naïve Melody in the in the title of the song refers to the fact that the bass and guitar parts are playing the same thing. I recall seeing the video to this one also. In it he is dancing with a lamp similar to Fred Astaire’s dance with a coat rack in the movie Royal Wedding. This is a great new wave album from the early 80s. There are some great tracks on this album and the rest of the album if very good too.
Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
This album was released in early 2007. This was about the time that I had a musical epiphany. I found a new kind of music. I had been stuck on the late 90s alternative rock for so long. I started looking for new music. What I found was a new radio station, 89.3 The Current. It is a public radio station that plays everything and then some. I learned of so many new bands that I liked from this radio station. I think that I spent about 600 bucks on music that spring. I loved it, everything was new. It was a completely new world of music that I didn’t know existed. I guess sometimes that it is difficult to keep your hand on the pulse of music. Especially of you turn a blind eye to it. I wanted the hard rock to continue but it some how faded away to unimportance and other genres popped up in its place. This album was on a much more grand scale. It was recorded in a defunct church giving it that grand sound that very few albums actually have.
The first single was Black Mirror. This is the first song I remember hearing on the radio and the reason that I bought the album. The song starts with a rolling thunder sound that leads into the bass and lower end piano sounds, encompassing the grand sound of the album to start off with.
The next song, Keep The Car Running, is also the second single. This is my favorite song on the album. The bass guitar has that rubber band sound that I have talked about in the past and the bass line is a fun bouncy riff that I may have come up with myself if I wrote music more often. As it is now I may just have to rework the riff to use it later.
Intervention is the third single off this album. It starts off with a grand organ. It is probably the one that was left in the church that the album was recorded in. It is a good song but it seems to drag. This may actually be due to the organ that is used.
The last single from this album is No Cars Go. This is more of a rock song. It is also my second favorite from the album. There is an orchestra that is used that seems to keep pace to the rock and roll parts of the song. The orchestral parts also have their place in the song. It is not present throughout the whole song. This is a good thing and adds to the general tension of the song.
This is a good introduction to the group and a good start to the new indie music that is out there now starting from the mid 00s. There are many bands that are out there now that I would/could say this about and I will try to get some more of these out there for you readers.
PurelyHim
I did about eight hours of work this weekend on my own music. I did some mixing and cutting and even a little recording. I still need to do some recording for one last song before I will consider this project finished. I started work on this project in 2007. It has taken an extra long time to get through this project. I had a few life changes that happened and my recording process had also changed. I was recording using only a piece of software called Reason for the 2 years prior. It only allowed me to record using synth and sampled sounds. At that same time I also purchased an M-box 2. This came with a copy of ProTools but I was trying to learn one software at a time. I made two albums with Reason, one a year. I then decided to start to learn ProTools. It took 4 years to get through recording and editing that third album. I am now going to start using a new piece of software. It is called Record and is made by the same company that put out Reason. The two pieces of software work together. Record can also use the M-box 2 to record analog sources like ProTools did. This should be an easier way to record music for me but I have yet to use it. I just need to finish up this last track so I can start creating new music.
That's all for now.
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