Back in 1991 “Nevermind” was an unpredicted revolution. Sold over 30 million copies worldwide, “Nevermind” was responsible for bringing alternative rock to a large mainstream audience, and critics subsequently regarded it as one of the best rock albums of all time. Kurt Cobain on April 5, 1994 decided to join “27 Club” (Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and more recently Amy Winehouse) and this was the premature end of Nirvana.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote: following the release of “Nevermind” “nothing was ever quite the same, for better and for worse” – and this is in few words exactly the essence of Nirvana.
SPIN Magazine pays tribute to the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s “Nevermind”, and as part of their package, tapped some of their favorite contemporary artists to cover the influential album’s 13 songs, in their original order and the tribute album is a gift – free download – at their web page.
From Meat Puppets to Titus Andronicus and from Amanda Palmer to The Vaselines this is an exciting and colourful trip to take. Read more SPIN Presents Newermind A Tribute Album (Free Release!)
Yearly Archives: 2011
O.A.R. – King (2011)
Of a Revolution (O.A.R.) due to massive online distribution over campus networks, become a hit among college students. The band is also well known for its live performances, they often creates variations to songs at each concert, making it rare to hear a song played exactly the same way twice. The band incorporates jam elements in their concerts, resulting in many of their live songs running anywhere between 5 and 18 minutes each.
Founded in 1996 by Marc Roberge and Chris Culos, recruited Richard On and Benj Gershman and one year later recorded their debut album “The Wanderer” at Gizmo Recording Company in Silver Spring, Maryland.
They graduated from Wootton High School in Rockville, Maryland, then moved to Columbus, Ohio to attend Ohio State University where they met Jerry DePizzo. In 2000 they returned to Gizmo Recording to record “Soul’s Aflame”, their second album. Read more O.A.R. – King (2011)
Dead Letter Circus – This Is The Warning, Deluxe Edition (2011)
Althrough “This Is the Warning”, the debut full-length album by Dead Letter Circus was released in May 2010 and distributed by Warner Music Australia, debuted at #2 on the Australian album charts and at #1 on the iTunes chart. Only in May 2011, one year later, they signed a deal with Sumerian Records to release it also in North America and the band supported Animals As Leaders in a 24-city national tour from July to August.
Formed in 2005 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, their self-titled debut EP released in 2007 made some waves and building an ever-growing army of DLC disciples. Completely independently, the band shifted well over 13,000 units of the debut EP and subsequent double A side single ‘Next in Line / Reaction’. Triple J radio placed everything that the band released on high rotation and live, the band becomes festival favorite. Read more Dead Letter Circus – This Is The Warning, Deluxe Edition (2011)
Krakatau – Krakatau (2011)
If you’re familiar – and in love – with tumultuous, turbulent musical project such as Fantômas, Tomahawk, Moonchild Trio and Mr. Bungle, generally speaking, if you like the mainly twisted and contorted avant-garde experiments of Mr. Mike Patton, Krakatau might just fit your taste and extremely important: this self-titled full-length debut album is available for FREE DOWNLOAD at the band’s official web site.
This is metal only if you’re not committed to Iron Maiden or Metallica, don’t think that “progressive metal” means exclusively Dream Theater. Say (vocals/guitar), Muz! (bass/vocals), Max (lead guitar) and Mark (drums) expands the horizons and sometimes construct music by demolition. Sometimes hypnotic, other times quite schizophrenic, Krakatau is actually an explosive music volcano, this might not be a safe trip, but eventually an exciting one.
Read more Krakatau – Krakatau (2011)
Bomb The Music Industry! – Vacation (2011)
Bomb the Music Industry!’s sixth full-length sounds just like a fun summer album and I swear, I could kill for a vacation!
BTMI! probably have the most devoted fan base in the US. They do everything with enthusiasm and electrifying energy, while the “secret” of their success is the fun, intimate, and personal approach. From fun ska-punk to pop punk there’s maybe not a far way, BTMI! managed to stay between and delivered 13 new tracks of conscious feel good. And I’m envious for this while I’m admiring them for this. This is love/hate. Some people love them for their disregard for conventions, for their stupid lyrics, their shouted, silly gang vocals and sloppy riffs, others hate them for all of this. I’m caught between. Read more Bomb The Music Industry! – Vacation (2011)
Arhythmia – Awake (2011)
An arrhythmia is a disturbance of the normal electrical rhythm of the heart.
Second installment from this twisted groove/nu metal band from Alghero, Sardinia (Italy), “Awake” consist of ten, strong, breathing, modern metal songs with roots back both to classic and groove/nu metal.
Michele Canu – voice, Matteo Lombardo – guitar voice, Riccardo Bevitori – guitar, Luca Moro – bass and Gabriele Angius – drums formed the band in 2004. Focusing on intense live performances, the band gained a devoted fan-base. In 2006 they won the “Sardinia Rock Contest”, a battle involved more than 50 bands from throughout the region. They release their self produced debut effort entitled “Noize Room” in 2008 and continue the intense live activity, opening concerts for various big groups of the Italian scene and not only.
Read more Arhythmia – Awake (2011)
The Book Of Knots – Garden Of Fainting Stars (2011)
Tony Maimone of Pere Ubu, They Might Be Giants, Bob Mould, Frank Black, Lucinda Williams, etc, Carla Kihlstedt of Tin Hat Trio, Tom Waits, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, 2 Foot Yard, and many many more, producer/engineer/guitarist Joel Hamilton (Elvis Costello,unsane,Frank Black,sparklehorse,Shiner, Players Club, etc) and Matthias Bossi of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Skeleton Key, Vic Thrill, etc) are the core members of this project.
Collaborators are including Tom Waits, Mike Patton, David Thomas, Blixa Bargeld, Jon Langford, Carla Bozulich, Norman Westberg(Swans), Dave Curren (Unsane), Megan Reilly, Cat Oberg, Zeena Parkins, etc. Already quite impressive, isn’t it?
And the result – the music – is similarly colourful, gloomy, shape-shifting, flowing and floating “something”. Something charming, hypnotizing or sweet like poison. Read more The Book Of Knots – Garden Of Fainting Stars (2011)
My TV is Dead – Freedomatic (2009)
One more exciting band from Belgium after Thot , I, the Phoenix , Black Spires , Nox etc. And well, all these bands – and few others – are interesting in different ways, they are all “digging” in different directions.
The duo consist of Amaury Massion – vocals and guitar, and Joel Grignard – guitar, bass and keyboards start the project at Berlin during a week of performances at the famous Tacheles and by this debut album entitled “Freedomatic” they taking the world one by one, country by country, front by front, releasing it till now in Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and France. Read more My TV is Dead – Freedomatic (2009)
Against Me! – Black Crosses (2011)
Punk Rock anybody?
“Total Clarity” is a collection of demos and unreleased songs from the 2005’s “Searching for a Former Clarity” recording sessions, released through Fat Wreck Chords, label which also released “The Original Cowboy”, an album of demos from the band’s 2003 album “Against Me! as the Eternal Cowboy”, in 2009.
Following the band’s decision to create their own record label, they decided to re-issue their fifth full-length album, “White Crosses”. The re-issue contains a second disc titled “Black Crosses”, a collection of demos from 2009 and acoustic sessions from 2010, serving as an inaugural release for their newly launched record label, Total Treble Music.
One one hand we’ve got a lot of releases and that’s nice, but it also smells like some record labels try to cash-in, don’t matter what. Zappa were joking about this – we’re only in it for the money – but too many jerks and dickheads are actually really don’t give a shit about music anymore…
On the other hand, I really enjoy listening demo collections, it shows sometimes a different face of the band, the sound mainly are not so polished, the edges are not rounded by (over) production and mainly on the demos we can actually hear what the band had in their mind and not what the record label, some producer and their manager expect from them. Read more Against Me! – Black Crosses (2011)
No Made Sense – New Season/New Blues (2011)
Before saying anything else: you can download this album for free and at top quality from the band’s Bandcamp page, “name your price” actually means that you can “give” even zero. It’s not fair, not even elegant, but… I still believe work and mainly creative ones should and must be rewarded substantially, but well, I’m a fucking weirdo.
Off-topics (and not so): I don’t know why nowadays people get together to make some noise, start a band. Lately, and more and more it seems everybody play, nobody listen and for worst, most of the bands are obsessed by the same (stupid) patterns, labels, boxes, genres, whatever. It’s fucking haunting me: “Punk’s not dead / It just deserves to die / When it becomes another stale cartoon / A close-minded, self-centered social club / Ideas don’t matter, it’s who you know / If the music’s gotten boring / It’s because of the people / Who want everyone to sound the same / Who drive bright people out / Of our so-called scene / ‘Til all that’s left Is just a meaningless fad / Hardcore formulas are dogshit / Change and caring are what’s real / Is this a state of mind / Or just another label / The joy and hope of an alternative / Have become its own cliche” (Dead Kennedys – Chickenshit Conformist). And if Jello Biafra saw this back in ’86, what can we say now? Looking back, the 80s smells like blooming creativity while today… shit. Really. If I have to listen just one more metalcore act, I kill myself!
Fortunately there’s always the exception that proves the rule. Read more No Made Sense – New Season/New Blues (2011)
