Saturday, July 23, 2011

Anamanaguchi - Dawn Metropolis



8-bit rock music that is more rock than video game is exactly what many of this style are lacking. Utilizing live instrumentation always helps out any bands game especially here. This has been a favorite of my son's for awhile now and reason being is its just damn fun. The first half of this album is front loaded with some really great songs and as for the second half.....well lets just say they are lucky to have a few "continues" under their belt.  Problem being is when they try to act like they are writing music for a video game soundtrack they fell victim to copy cat-er-ing. This is rock music with a pumping 8-bit heart not the other way around. Chances are high though that people normally scared off by those classic bleeps and bloops.


Dawn Metropolis (2009)

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

US Maple - Long Hair In Three Stages (1995)

When your group is formed around the basis of reconstructing rock and roll music and keeping only essential elements id say you have some serious work ahead of you.  For US Maple’s 1995 first full length it was a chance to prove just that.

Recorded by Jim O’Rourke it can certainly be a slightly challenging outing if your not used to squigly guitars.  Not to mention Al Johnson’s crazy vocals that fluctuate between hauntingly soft, to odd moaning then to loud histronics. If that doesn’t sound very rock and roll your right it really doesn’t. After a couple songs though and you’ll really start to get the feeling that beneath everything theres a rock and roll heart pumping.  Even arguably the album’s best song  “Letter to ZZ Top” is an homage to classic rock.

As far as points of reference this certainly has the 90′s guitar rock feel to it however loose it might be.  The math rock term is of course thrown around with this group and is fairly applicable.  Although not as precise or fast as most math groups it certainly holds true.  Royal Trux put in a blender with Jesus Lizard and mixed at varying speeds might put you somewhere near their sound.  Releases that followed would slowly morph them toward more “conventional” structures but no less interesting.  This is one of the best.


Long Hair In Three Stages

Sunday, July 17, 2011

(Updation) Tangled Thoughts of Leaving - Deaden the Fields (2011)

Previously Posted Feb 7th

: Tangled Thoughts of Leaving have been a constant source of extremely unique Experimental Math/Jazz Rock. They are also singular in the fact that they feature out front the not so often used piano for Math influenced tunes. With their 2011 release "Deaden the Fields" the broken and technical style that they hold as their own has been sharpened to a razor point on this release. The rough edges of odd breaks and occasional technicality without purpose has been sanded down into an amazingly epic release. As such when the fat gets trimmed off the bone you usually run the risk of taking some meat with it too. "Deaden the Fields" loses any such semblance of grind that the band initially started with which is a shame. Don't let that deter you from the old snatch and grab. You wont find this to be a double jump into new territory for these Australian gentlemen but bet on the fact that this really is as good as it gets for this particular style. Enjoy.

Deaden The Fields (2011)