Saturday, June 4, 2016

Vol. 7 Episode 2



Star Wars score fans should be excited for the new hologram vinyl for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It is a double vinyl set with a tie-fighter on one and the Melinum Falcon on the other. As it spins it is supposed to give a 3D holographic 360 degree look at each ship. It can be preordered and you can watch a video on the concept at the Disney soundtrack page.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are going to be a part of a new project called Sounds Delicious from Turntable Kitchen. The project is a subscription service where a band or artist covers an entire album. The project is trying to get funding through Kickstarter right now with 26 days still to go. The goal is $20,000 and they are at $14,833 right now. It has not been clear what the order the releases are going to be but I am taking a chance that The Pains will be the first release.

Here we go...


It has only been a couple of years since this groups first album came out. It was a great fuzzed out shoegaze sound that for the most part was very slow and beautiful. On their second outing, the band has not really changed directions. The music is just as mesmerizing but I think that the difference on this album is that they have upped the tempo on about a third of the songs. This gives me the desire to tap my feet/making me feel good while listening to this album. Maybe I just really like what is on this album. There have been multiple different vinyl color pressings put out for this album. All of the colors that I know about are as follows: Black, Baby Pink / Bone White, Electric Blue, Olive Green, Blue Inside Milky Clear, Baby Blue / Bone White Merge, Blood Red, Grey, Orange Krush, Clear.

The album starts off with the track Fever Queen. It is a faster paced track that instantly locks you into what will be happening on the record. When the verse finally kicks in the music doesn’t slow down as much as the vocals instantly drag, slowing the song down. It makes a faster paced song become something warm and lovely. This is defiantly a favorite on the album.

The single from the album is called ACD (Abcessive Compulsive Dissorder). It is a classic styled male vocal shoegaze song. It is a song that you can lose yourself in and listen to over and over again and just mellow out to. I could listen to this album and easily fall asleep to it. It doesn’t need to be loud to get what is going on sonically on the album let alone this single.

I was very surprised to hear the song Everyone Is Happy. What really surprised me about this song is that the rhythm guitar is an acoustic. It gives a different flavor to the standard shoegaze music. I think that it enhances the genre. It is not that I haven’t heard shoegaze groups use an acoustic guitar but that it doesn’t happen very often and when it does it always seems to be something special.

Shoegaze music has always been associated with the wall of sound idea and full of noise. I think that this album proves the opposite is true. There is noise but it doesn’t need to be loud to be shoegaze. This is a wonderfully beautiful album.


This is a limited, 300 units pressed, 7” released on Night School records. This is the solo effort put out by Roxanne Clifford, guitarist/vocalist for one of my favorite bands; Veronica Falls (VF). I like VF so much that I have been trying to follow each of the members’ side projects. I was excited to hear that Roxanne had been working on something new.

The A side is called The Church. This song has a serious early 90s/late 80s feel to it. This is kind of a thing that has been happening I guess, the 90s revival thing that is. I really wanted to like the track but it just isn’t working for me. I think it could have been a great song if it had been arranged differently. I am not going to say that I could have done it better because what I come up with could be complete garbage but I do think that it could have been done differently and been something really single worthy.

The B side is done in the same style but with no drums and stripped back a bit more, for me just not all that interesting. I get what she was going for but it did not work for me on either tracks.


This is a new band on Slumberland Records. Slumberland actually turned me on to them before this release and I was able to get a live/demo cassette of the music that would be coming out from them in the future. I have to say I am expecting some great things from this group in the future.

The A side, Ariana, is a great song that has lovely chorus sound on the guitars and beautiful female vocals that flow so perfectly together. This is a song that I had already heard on the cassette. This is a song that I like and it becomes even better with this studio version. It is fuller than the live version and this is why I am expecting great things from this group. A live version is great but moving a song to the studio will do amazing things for a song and a group as a whole.

The B side, All That Heaven Allows, is a new song for me. I expected something great though with how Ariana sounded. I was not let down at all. This song sounded like a track that Bleached could have done if they were from the UK. It was fun, blissfull and above all else a great rock song.

I like this group a lot and want to hear more from them, very excited about this group!


This is the new single from Beck, digital only at this point. This is an interesting R&B/rap track from an upcoming album. The album still doesn’t have a title or an official release date but Beck is thinking it will be released this fall. This is a lot of time between the release of this single and an upcoming album with a vague release of the fall. This is not a strong track too. The rhythm part of this song is a sliding synth flute sound that sounds so lame and sickly. I really hope there will be a stronger single released to keep fans interested. This is nothing like last summers big hit from beck called Dreams. 





This is all I have for now...

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