As a record reviewer, sometimes I find it hard to review different works by the same artists. There comes a point when I just say “this sounds like that,” which doesn’t help anyone. So as much as I’m trying to avoid that angle here, I’m going to start out by …
I like to find new bands. One of the challenges as I get older is exactly that. I listen to a lot of music, but a lot of it follows a certain artistic lineage. I want to keep up with what old favorites are doing, but with new groups too. …
The Bootstrap Boys are a four piece outlaw country band from Grand Rapids, MI. I fucking hate country music with a passion that can't be put into words. I hate that somewhere around 2007, damn near every punk friend I had were listening to Johnny goddamn Cash and Waylon fuckhead …
In the world of hardcore punk there is nary a person so forward thinking as Dan Yemin. This thought applies to all aspects of his band Paint it Black: presentation, politics, and, as highlighted on New Lexicon, production. During an interview I held with Yemin, he pointed to hip-hop …
This record is so funny I almost shat my pants. Not ha-ha funny, mind you, but "fuck, this is so fucking old school" funny. Well, maybe not even that. Maybe more like "god, this is so old" funny. If you were hoping for innovative or experimental, you will not …
Let's face it, since the departure of Earth Crisis in 2001, there hasn't been a prevalent force in the vegan straightedge scene. I suppose Undying made an attempt at it, but with constant lineup problems and a lack of touring, they never quite got on track. xMaroonx also had a …
The Locust is an extremely polarizing group. On one hand, people take them as a complete joke. On the other, people take them extremely seriously. I fall somewhere in the middle and find them to be wholly entertaining with some substance hiding beneath the cacophony that they unleash on listeners. …
Elliott Smith's tragic death is seemingly unavoidable when talking about his music. It seems so interlinked with the subject matter of his songs that one must always connect the two; many of his lyrics seem to prophesize his untimely death, referencing his unhappiness and growing drug addiction, and it's this …
There have been a few instances that I've gotten pretty pissed off at bands. When Modern Life Is War told the audience that it was a privilege for our small college town to be able to see Converge, I was pretty pissed off, as in all actuality, it is always …
Where to begin, where to begin... For starters they're Swedish, which would normally be a plus, but in this case it is not because they opt to sound like every other 'Mercan scream-core band you've ever heard and that's really about it. Do you like Lamb of God? Do you …
Bad Religion may not need any introduction due to their notoriety in punk, hardcore, and various independent and even some mainstream circles, but there are several impressive facts that New Maps of Hell bring to light with its release to the public. One, Bad Religion is, minus a few break …
Yes, Hydra Head has been pumping out the reissues of late (look to Botch having American Nervoso and We are the Romans re-released in super updated formats just recently and yeah I know this review is late), but this reissue not only includes the entirety of the original release for …
Eleven years! It has been roughly eleven years since 108 last released a studio effort discounting last year's one-oh-eight demo. That is a long time between albums; the really scary aspect of that factoid for me is that I remember purchasing that last record when I was in high school. …
I figured I'd be in for some weird and different sounding metal with Zweizz when I first looked at the cover of The Yawn Of A New Age, which is just a black metal-looking logo .in pink. Zweizz, real name Svein Egil Hatlevik, was also a member of Dodheimsgard, a …
At the risk of sounding like a filthy hippie droning on about the sixties and how you had to be there to understand it, the same could pretty much be said for the early nineties. The eighties were discovered to be an insanely vacuous era that by the turn of …
Allow me to preface my review with the following disclaimer: I am an avid follower of Tomas Lindberg's projects; so, due to his being the band's original screaming vocalist, I have some exposure to Nightrage in their previous albums, 2005's Descent into Chaos and 2003's Sweet Vengeance. They play …
This summer my girlfriend and I… Sorry ladies, I’m taken. That’s one less music nerd on the market. Bummer, I know, right? Ah, where was I? Oh yeah… So, this summer my girlfriend and I have a little Saturday morning tradition, so to speak. We get up early, pack a …
Like weed? What about beer? Okay, here's the clincher: what about loud as shit cynicism rammed into your sloping skull at diarrhea speed? Yeah? Check out Each Birth a New Disaster, the first album by Population Reduction, a two man grind band from San Francisco that drills your eardrums …
Caestles is a six-person conglomeration of two bands that have fused together to form one entity. And when you listen to the band's self-released EP, We Have Built a New God, this makes perfect sense. The four songs that comprise this EP takes equal parts atmospheric and electronic-based indie/rock and …
Narrows return to the musical fold with their debut full-length and follow-up to last year's very impressive self-titled EP. Like many others, when news of this project was first announced, I was beyond excited and anticipated great things. Who wouldn't be when members of Botch, Unbroken, Some Girls, and These …