The Oh Hellos are coming back to my home town. Tickets are
cheap so I may be going.
You can pre-order the new Linkin Park
album at Best
Buy.
As I mentioned in my last post, the new Family Force 5 album
is up for pre-sale
on their web page and digitally at your favorite etailer.
Here we go...
This is My Chemical Romance (MCR) second album. It was
released in 2004 and repressed on limited red vinyl in 2008. The vinyl also
came with a few extra goodies such as a sticker insert and the dueling guns
logo as a stencil. The group signed with Reprise Records before releasing this
record. The group had been dubbed Screamo at this point based on their first
albums offerings but was much more than that in terms of genre. They used
elements of emo but also used elements from metal, pop and punk music. This is
an album that helped me through a tough time in my life with its dark themes
and somewhat self help styling’s.
There were four singles released from this album. The first
is the song I’m Not Okay (I Promise). The songs lyrics appear to be about a boy
that is in love with a girl who already has a boyfriend. He is trying his best
to be friends at the very lease with her but still trying to get her to be his
girl. This issue is causing him to fall into a sever depression and is causing
her to have great concern for him. In the chorus he continually tells her that
he is OK but it slips out every once in a while that he is not OK. The music is
high intensity to match the intense depression that is going on in the story.
This is my favorite song on the album and marks a major depressive state in my
adulthood that I went through. This is why it is my favorite song.
The second single from the album is called Thank You For TheVenom. This release was for Europe only. I had
no idea that this was even released as a single until I did this research. The
song has a cool sounding crispy distorted lead guitar sound. The vocals are
very smooth with the exception of the accent points where they are pushed to
distortion. The song appears to be about someone that continually does bad
things. The person that loves him even though he does these bad things wants
him to stop. He knows that he is doing bad things but can’t stop. He is willing
to let her kill him because he is conflicted to a degree. The story is left
open and we never actually know what the result is though.
The third single is called Helena. The song describes the lead singer’s
feelings toward his late grandmother. The group considers this song as their
root sound and as such was typically played as the last song of a concert. It
also helped that a big part of the chorus the lyrics were sang, “So long and
good night.” The song is good and has the sound style of loud soft loud,
appealing to fans of post-punk of the 90s.
The last single from the album is called The Ghost of You.
The song deals with the idea of fear of loss. The video for the song hit home
for me more than anything else. The video is of an army scene that resembles
the beaches on D-Day. There are also scenes that hearken back to the time
before the invasion at a USO dance to blow off some steam. The song is good but
is made even better with the video. I am not sure that the song would have taken
off as well as it did with out the video.
This is a great album filled with hard emotion. It is the
perfect album for someone who is dealing with loss or is in a depressed state
and can’t seem to get out of it. It is a great album overall but not one that I
want to listen to if I am not in either of those moods.
This is the new single from the new album called Upside Out
or Hungry Ghosts from OK Go. The info on the track digitally for the album name
is Upside Out. The band has called the album Hungry Ghosts on the internet. The
album name could still change apparently. The band put this out to early
pledgers on their Pledgemusic page. It appears to be track two on the album but
since it is not finished yet this could change. The song smacks of early 80s
sounds from Joy Division/New Order (Yes, I know that Joy Division never really
made it past the 70s but posthumous tracks were released in the 80s). The song is bass guitar lead with the guitars
and synth adding to the songs background. The vocals are almost on the same
level as the bass, just a little bit above the bass. This is a really great
track that pays homage to a couple of my favorite bands. I can’t wait to get my
hands on this album.
This is a split 7” record that I got in my craze to get all
things Eternal Summers. I thought that it was out of print. Well, I guess that
you could say that it is out of print but the record company, Funny/Not Funny
Records, still has copies. I ordered directly from them to get a copy. I was
confused when I started looking for this because Kanine Records has the graphic
up on their page. I had to find the accurate information about what company put
out the record on Discogs. I also found that there were 300 pressed on black 7”
vinyl and that it was released way back in 2011.
There are four tracks and two bands on this record. The
first side has two tracks from a band called The Super Vacations and the second
side has two tracks from Eternal Summers. The first song on the A side is
called Picnic. I get the feeling that this song sounds like The Rolling Stones
back in their early days. That is the music is supposed to sound like that, the
vocals just sound off. I am not sure if that is their thing or what. The music
is great but the vocals don’t match the music tonality.
The second track is called Beer League. This song has the
exact same problems and bright spots as the first track. The music is brilliant
but the vocals are just wrong. The music has that cool garage rock sound but
the vocals are just not in tune with the music. If this is what they were going
for and they always sound like this I won’t be pursuing them.
On the B side, the Eternal Summers side, the fist track is a
soft rocker called On My Honor. This harkens back to the sounds of any year
really. There have always been slow soft rock songs being released by female
lead groups. I really like that this song could have been released at any point
in the past rock years. My first thought was that of the 70s and then as I
listened to it I heard drops of the 90s and even the 00s when I didn’t really
listen to female groups. The song crosses all those boundaries and sounds great
doing it too.
The last track on this record is called Half The Time (Stripped
Down Version). The funny thing is that I can’t seem to find a studio version of
this track. That means that this is the only version of this track, stripped
down or no. I thought it was kind of a funny but curious way to title a song.
Anyway, the song is dreamy and sleepy but very sweet. It is one of those songs
that belongs in a sleeping playlist. I like it a lot.
This is a 7” record that was released earlier this year on
Steady Sounds Records. It is a 45 RPM Mono record. Not many records are
released in mono any more. This record was pressed to 300 copies and early
copies have a “Prmotional Copy Not For Sale” stamp on the label. For what ever
reason I bought one copy and got two. I am not complaining. It is always nice
to have two.
Both of the tracks on this record can be found on the demo
cassette that I got directly from the band. The A side track is Make It Mine.
The vocals are just a smidge distorted on the high end giving the vocals that
bite. The guitar is classic with a sound that reminds me of the cheap guitars
that The Rolling Stones used. The drums are super simple but do a fantastic job
of elevating the music. I can’t bring my self to focus on the vocals because the
music is so fantastic.
The B side track is called Movin’ On. This track can also be
found on the demo cassette. This song is a bit smoother than the A side. I also
think that the chorus is catchier than Make It Mine. I could see this track as
a radio single over the A side. The super viby sound on the guitar part makes
this song smack of the 70s flower power sound. I like what this track sounds
like mainly because of that guitar sound.
This one is a 7” record released earlier this year on Hidden
Volume Records. This one is a 45 RPM record in stereo. The sleeve for this
record was specially screen printed and the record was only pressed to 300
copies. The music on this record has been called blistering. I call it
fantastic and maybe over the top but fun 60s styled garage rock for sure. Both
tracks can also be found on the demo cassette.
The A side of this record is called Sick and Tired. The song
is just slightly distorted all around. It just gives the song that crispy fried
sound, like they pushed all of the levels just past where they should have
been. It is not that the song doesn’t have dynamics, it does, it is that sound
where nearly everything is almost too loud though. It is good and has a great
hook.
The B side, Cut Me Down, is my least favorite song from the
group. It is slow and that is hard to listen to when every other song is
whirlwind fast. I guess this allows me to focus on the lyrics a bit more. The
song appears to be about a rough neck boy who likes a clean cut girl but all
the clean cut boys want to date her. This makes him sick and as much as he
likes her he can’t even approach her. It is a good song but a drag that it is
the only slow song on the cassette.
If you're interested in what The Ar-Kaics have to offer, check out their Bandcamp page.
I can’t wait for Windian Records to put out this LP record.
It is taking them so long to get it out.
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