Blast From The Past - Pink Floyd's Animals

Well this is the first of hopefully many "Blast From The Past" editions of this blog, let me know what you think of the idea in the comments section.

The album for today is Pink Floyd's Animals a wonderful 5-track epic based on Orwell's Animal Farm. This album marks the end of an era where the band would perform songs live, and develop them from there, as the next album The Wall was worked out in basic by Roger Waters and then finished in the studio with David Gilmour.
The entire album is filled with Pink Floyd's signature space rock sound, and every track, including the two short songs that bookend the album, are epic in every sense of that word. The end solo in "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" as well as the use of a talk box closer to the middle of the song. But I could go on forever about David Gilmour, or I could give light to another member of the band, Richard Wright, their keyboardist.
I've always loved the way he filled in the gaps in the music that Gilmour and Waters left for him to fill, even though he didn't have much clout in writing on this album, his playing is nothing less than spectacular, as I always find it to be.
I feel this album is essential for Pink Floyd fans, it's a very easy listen, although if you tire of long songs...you should give it a miss.

That's all for now, hope you enjoy.

-Jawn Dee

Modest Mouse - No One's First and You're Next review

A new EP about by Modest Mouse, No One's First and You're Next is a collection of b-sides and unreleased tracks from their last two albums. As a casual listener of this band, I can confidently say that I enjoyed this album quite a bit.

Sure, MM may have broken into the mainstream with "Float On" but their sound has pretty much stayed spacey and indie, and this record proves that fact. Songs like "The Whale Song" have beautiful, lush backgrounds, with a squacking guitar imitating the call of...well a whale, cresending into a more agressive, but still lush blend of loud guitar and frantic drumming.
Then there's the drunken cabaret sound of "Perpetual Motion Machine" that makes this band as fun as it is.
As a b-side and demo and etc junkie, I consider this record a must have for any audiophile interested in good quality non-album tracks.

Album Review: Cold Megan's Katzengesang

Cold Megan kicks ass. the brain child of Kitten Skullfuck, Cold Megan is a high energy punk rock outfit, bent on taking over the world and posting Kittens and goatse all over the place. Their roots lie in classic punk outfits like the Dead Boys, and horror punks the Misifts. What you end up with, is a giant wall of guitar, and the frantic drumming of percussionist, Bareback Stiv Wallace. Now, Mr Skulf's vocal delivery is othing short of unique, I've never heard so much snarling on one track in my entire life. I love it,
Now that you knwo a bit about the band, let's go on to the album. It kicks off with the masterpiece Riot In Toyland,after a somewhat slow intro, the guitars kick back in and the snarling commences. The album motors along at full pace, with songs such as Skullworms, Oi! Ruling Man and Ploughing the Dead.
Around the halfway mark, my favourite track kicks in, Kitten Without A Home, a song influenced by Oliver and Company, it's just so catchy and makes you want to pogo and bounce around with the crowd.
The album officially ends with cold Megan's magnum opus, More Tea, Gloria? With an almost indeciferable "One, Two, Three, Four!" to kick off, this is just the epitome of the energy and twisted vocal and guitar delivery that is Cold Megan, there could never be a better closing song.
But the CD doesn't end there, there are a bonus 5 tracks, all covers. They start off with a cover of Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen". with an elongated intro guitar solo, the song already starts off well, it's a faithful cover, but it's most definitely CM.
There's a change of pace with a cover of Eleanor Ribgy, by the Beatles. This one is most definitely a CM song, it's a punked up, high energy song, no frills.
Next there are covers of the Dead Boys, Johnny Thunders, and Lower Class Brats, but hell, I'm not gonna listen to the album for you!

Go to www.myspace.com/coldmegan and check out the tracks on the myspace, or buy a CD, they'll send it anywhere in the world, within understandable means.

Deathmøle

Some may call this a lazy post but I don't care.

Deathmøle are a virtual-post-metal-indie-something-or-other band created by Jeph Jacques, a web comic artist who honestly, if you don't know, you really should. His webcomic QuestionableContent is "the shit" and you should really effing check it out.

Deathmøle is comprised of characters from the webcomic, and has

actual music recorded by Jeph, and it's really good.

It's very dense, instrumental art-metal type music, but with a very

lighthearted approach, becase really, most indie-art bands sometimes need to loosen up.

I promise I'll have a better post coming up soon, I'm currently waiting

for my CD to arrive in the mail from the homeland of my overlords,

England.

Vacation post + The Album Leaf / Black Mountain

Phew. Sorry about the unannounced break. I took a "vacation" up to Pinery national park, camping. I have deduced I am most definitely a city boy, and proud. The outdoors is not my friend, I and covered in bug bites and sunburns and I'm allergic to the max. I went on the trip with C-rad, the other member of my burgeoning indie-spaz-electro band, Rainbow Vending Machines. (www.myspace.com/rainbowvend) He has a fairly good taste in indie rock, and introduced me to a couple bands which I shal talk about breifly, right about....now.

Firstly, the Album Leaf, they are nice and soft, mostly vocal-less, ambient indie goodness. The recordings are uncut, you can hear the producers and musician talking back and forth on some songs, which gives a feeling of an almost live performance. This is very incense-friendly music, it can play in the background while your doing almost anything, and it doesn't intrude into your head very much which is quite a blessing if you're trying to write a blog on time.

Secondly, and lastly, there is Black Mountain. Another indie-rock collective band, but this time with actual listenability. (I'm looking at you, Animal Collective). Black Mountain has a very retro-rock sound somewhere in the mix, which is awesome if you're getting bored of the other retro-rock bands popping up, reasling a hit single, and fading back into the mix. I can't tell you alot more about these bands other than I already have, other than to check them out! I will provide myspace links, and hope that this will satisfy your taste while i take another couple days to compose myself.

www.myspace.com/thealbumleaf


http://www.myspace.com/blackmountain

Against Me! - The Original Cowboy

A collection of demos recorded before As The Eternal Cowboy, The Original Cowboy caught my attention because I'm a geek for demos, I find them much more alluring, energetic and raw than the "real" versions of the song.

I've never been a big Against Me fan, I liked the raw acoustic solo recordings that were their early releases, but I lost interest when he brought in a full band, much in the vein of my losing interest in Dashboard Confessional. So I've never heard the album on which these songs were "originally" released on. But I do believe that this is a better version of those songs are on, as it is most definitely not "demo" sounding, these are polished recordings that have the energy and rawness of a band playing a live show. I wish AM! had this much energy live, alas, they don't.

With a somewhat short run time of just over 22 minutes, and 8 tracks, this could have made an amazing EP instead of being reduced to "demo" status.

I highly recommend this record to anyone who like high-energy punk rock, regardless of their opinions of Against Me! You may be suprised. I know I was.

Gallows - Grey Britain

I didn't see Gallows when they were at Warped Tour, but everyone there told me to. So I decided to check out their album, see if they were any good.

Long story short, yeah, they are. Energetic hardcore punk, with a modern tinge, but no energy whatsoever was lost.

They're not the band of the decade by far, but they do what they do very well, and that's more than a lot of modern bands, not naming any names.

My favourite song would probably be Black Eyes. It got me pumped up pretty well, and well, what's hardcore if it doesn't do that for you?

If you like heavy, fast punk, check these guys out, it won't hurt you at all.

http://www.myspace.com/gallows

- Jawn

Sorry!

Gahh, I've had a busy week. Drivers ed for four days, then went to Warped Tour on Friday.
I got to see the Bouncing Souls, Bad Religion, Aiden, Streetlight Manifesto, and Less than Jake.

If you don't know these bands, check them out, except for LTJ, I just don't like them, but thought I'd mention them regardless.

As it was in Detroit, I used my Canadian "identity" to score points with the ladies. And score I did, not just these lovely hug-givers, but a multitude of Michigan ladies came to get a peck on the cheek or a liplock with yours truly.




If you can't read it, the sign says "Kiss Me, I'm Canadian =) <3"

I didn't have as much luck with my first sign.


If you can't see it, it says "Looking 4 Loose Girls (I'm Canadian)"

But back to the music.
Bouncing Souls were pure Jersey punk goodness, the crowd loved them, and were going nuts all the while.
Bad Religion stole the show for me though, Hetson and Baker were just ON the entire show, and Graffin's vocals never faltered for a nanosecond. Here's where I'd complain about the crowd, and I shall. The crowd was huge and great fun, except for this little asshole with his girlfriend behind me, he kept his arms around her and his knuckles out so that if I got a foot near her (which was all the time as I was packed in, this is a Bad Religion crowd, buddy, I can't move) then his knuckles would dig into my back. So I'm still in pain from that, but I could've been alot worse.

I got a free Bhagavad Gita, got some Bad Religion stickers that the city of Detroit determined unsuitable to sell, and a bouncing souls and bad religion t-shirt.

Next week I promise I'll have some new band for ya'll to check out.

While you're waiting, I have a small favour to ask those who read this. My band needs a replacement drummer for a small amount of time while our usual drummer takes some personal time off. Just contact me through here or at johnd_34@hotmail.com if you know anything.

-Jawn Dee