Album name: They Came from the Shadows Artist name: Teenage Bottlerocket Genre: Powerchords and bubblegum Released: September 15, 2009 Label: Fat Wreck ZME Rating: 7/10 Website: Official (Note: I’m going to challenge myself that I can make it through a review of Teenage Bottlerocket without including one mention of the Ramones. Besides that one). Pop-punkers Teenage Bottlerocket are probably the best band out of Wyoming right now. Granted, I can only name one other band…
Album name: Broken Artist name: Soulsavers Genre: A Confused Shrug Released: August 17 2009 Label: V2 ZME Rating: 9/10 Website: Myspace I clearly don’t know about you – and let’s face it, you probably prefer it that way – but I’m not a particularly splendid example of a human being. You can tell by the kind of accusations that have been slung in my poxy, four-eyed face. No one’s ever verbally accosted me for giving…
Album name: Live from Austin, TX Artist name: Drive-By Truckers Genre: Rock n’ Roll Released: July 7 2009 Label: New West ZME Rating: 9/10 Website: drivebytruckers.com In the spirit of full disclosure, I should probably inform you of two things: 1 – I’m a hard marker. In the time I’m writing for this website, you’ll likely never see me give an album 10/10. This is partly because I don’t think you could reasonably call any…
Oh yes it’s ladies night And the feeling’s right Oh yes it’s ladies night Oh what a night – Kool & The Gang Rock n’ roll is a wonderful, chaotic beast. Borne of a decadent tryst between blues and boogie, it’s grown from its simple, Chuck Berry beginnings into a many-tendriled monster, sprouting new bands and sub-genres from every possible pustular orifice. And while a lot of the descendent bands have grown up to be…
After all of Nick Cave’s success performing with The Bad Seeds, creating spellbinding soundtracks with Warren Ellis and composing screenplays, the Australian cult icon has now turned to the written word, and is being tipped to deliver yet another artistic triumph. Cave’s new novel, ‘The Death of Bunny Munro’, is a menacingly graphic account of a depraved and sex-crazed door-to-door salesman, who also happens to reside in the author’s current home of Brighton, England. Fans…
Album name: 421 Wythe Avenue Artist name: Alcoholic Faith Mission Genre: Indie Released: July 24, 2009 Label: PonyRec ZME Rating: N/A Website: myspace.com/alcoholicfaithmission Alcoholic Faith Mission are an indie pop/electronica alternative band from Copenhagen, Denmark. The band includes five members: Sune Sølund, Thorben Seierø Jensen, Kristine Permild, Laurids Smedegaard and Gustav Rasmussen. They’re only three years old as a band, yet have already released two albums, their music was used in a Canadian indie film…
Album name: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The Album Artist name: Various Genre: Soundtrack Released: July 13 2009 Label: Reprise ZME Rating: N/A Website: transformersmovie.com/ I would love to give this CD a horrible review. I’d really, genuinely enjoy ripping apart its poxy devotion to dated post-grunge sludge rock. Or better yet, going on a bloodthirsty, rampaging rant about how the Transformers franchise as a whole has gone from being a treasured reminder of…
My one presiding memory of visiting my granddad when I was knee high to a shepherd’s pie is, of all things, screwing around with the old man’s stair lift. Utterly lost on me and my brother was the importance of the machine for allowing my granddad easy ascent – all we saw was a hilarious toy that distracted us from the boring grown-up talk that was going on around us. I’m fairly certain we broke…
This name should ring a bell by now. They’re from the UK and have already released three 7″ singles and two albums – “The Best Party Ever” in 2005 and “The Law of the Playground” earlier this year (march 9th in the UK and april 14th in the USA). The band is actually just two members: Peter Hobbs and Jof Owen. Jof writes all of the lyrics and is the voice you hear in their…
Album title: Bitte orca Artist name: Dirty Projectors Genre: Experimental Rock/Indie Released: 9 June 2009 Label: Domino Records ZME Rating: 10/10 Website: http://www.westernvinyl.com/dirty_projectors What’s possibly one of the most weirdest, yet at the same time ridiculously catchy indie acts of the past couple of years, Dirty Projectors never ceases to amaze us. Be it Dave Longstreth’s uncanny attempt to recreate Black Flag’s iconic Damaged after not listening to it for over 15 years (see the…
Tyler Sonic
Al Byrne
Conor O' Brien
Alex Petrache
Tibi Puiu