The waiting – and unfortunately the resistance – it’s over, the upcoming sixth studio album by Muse it’s set to be released on 1st October 2012, respectively on 2nd October 2012 in the USA.
The expectations are pretty high, “The Resistance” was a brilliantly super album which also put one Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in their pocket, although they were nominated in three categories. Along the way, Muse have won several music awards including five MTV Europe Music Awards, five Q Awards, eight NME Awards, two Brit Awards—winning “Best British Live Act” twice, an MTV Video Music Award, four Kerrang! Awards and an American Music Award. In a digital era with serious piracy issues, they still managed to sold over 15 million albums worldwide.
The album title refers to the second law of thermodynamics. The music it’s a colorful mixture of old and new, merging sounds and genres from roots back to traditional Brit Rock, invoicing mainly Queen, up to contorted, so-called “Dubstep” influences from American producer Skrillex. Read more Muse – The 2nd Law (2012)
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Between the Buried and Me – The Parallax II, Future Sequence (2012)
This is definitively “Future Metal” with some very “alien” perfumed “Scifi” taste. These guys eventually are form out of space. Offspring s of some killer breed.
After five albums, for for Victory, the debut for Lifeforce, BTBAM singed in 2011 to Metal Blade and shortly after released an EP entitled ” The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues”. Set to release on October 9, 2012, originally planned to be another EP, “The Parallax II, Future Sequence” consist of 11 tracks, an extremely contorted, but colorful, spectacular journey over the edge, behind the explored territories of the conventional Metal and the “comfort zone” of most of the people. Think of a musical blender where you can throw in King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Rush and Yes with VoiVod, Pantera, Metallica and Earth Crisis, but came out with an extremely compact, consolidated musical result. Although, they have some extremely biting Metal riffs and intense, brutal grindings, they shifting quite smoothly from extreme, Death flavored Metal to Jazz, Progressive Rock or simple, quiet, acoustic moments. Read more Between the Buried and Me – The Parallax II, Future Sequence (2012)
Steve Harris – British Lion (2012)
“This is a big hearted and ferocious triumph” – declared Dom Lawson of Metal Hammer, while Nick Ruskell of Kerrang! go even further and proclaim: “British Lion is a brilliant album”. Well, it have its moments, but far not so brilliant as the media (and EMI) try to sell it to us. I can understand and generally I appreciate the British proud and the unconditional support for their own artists, and if not Steve Harris, the former and leader of one of the most famous and influential Heavy Metal bands of all time – talking about Iron Maiden, obviously – then don’t know who else might be called a “Rock icon”, but still, these 10 tracks are not so thundering and lightning Metal masterpieces as they are advertised. Actually singer Richard Taylor is another pale and weak copy of Ian Gillan mixed up with Bruce Dickinson, fortunately 100 better then poor Blaze Bayley, but not even close to the almighty Dickinson. This album with Dickinson, well, then, maybe, this could come closer to the praises. But Richard Taylor’s voice is smooth, but completely powerless.
On the other hand David Hawkins and Grahame Leslie delivered some excellent guitar parts while Steve Harris, surprisingly, managed to play his bass more colorful as he regularly does it in Maiden. Worth to highlight it, there are a couple of actually brilliant guitar solos on the album.
And strangely, the album here and there reminds me more of some Dickinson’s solo work from the 90’s, rather then sounding as a 2012 Metal album. And for God’s sake, the lyrics, who was interested in another song about Judas??! Read more Steve Harris – British Lion (2012)
Green Day – Uno (2012)
Green Day has sold over 65 million records worldwide with 25 million in the US alone. It’s almost 65 million reasons to hate Green Day. They also has won five Grammy Awards and two years ago (2010), a stage adaptation of “American Idiot” debuted on Broadway. This is “iPhone Punk”? Maybe. But I’m too old, to tired to hate, and Green Day are one of the very few bands around who are still capable to write songs, even further, from time to time, deliver great albums. “American Idiot” it’s a huge album. The follow-up “21st Century Breakdown” sounded more like leftovers, but it still won for second time the Grammy for “Best Rock Album”.
In February, Billie Joe Armstrong announced that they are in the studio recording a new album. He also said: “We are at the most prolific and creative time in our lives… This is the best music we’ve ever written, and the songs just keep coming. Instead of making one album, we are making a three album trilogy. Every song has the power and energy that represents Green Day on all emotional levels. We just can’t help ourselves … We are going epic as fuck!” Armstrong suggested making a trilogy of albums like Van Halen’s Van Halen I, Van Halen II and Van Halen III. He stated in an interview that, “The songs just kept coming, kept coming. I’d go, Maybe a double album? No, that’s too much nowadays. Then more songs kept coming. And one day, I sprung it on the others: ‘Instead of Van Halen I, II and III, what if it’s Green Day I, II and III and we all have our faces on each cover?'”
And here we go, the ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré! trilogy, a series of studio albums will be released from September 2012 to January 2013. “¡Uno!” is set to be released on September 21, 2012 in Australia and Europe, September 24, 2012 in the United Kingdom and the next day in the United States through Reprise Records. “¡Dos!” comes out on November 13 and “¡Tré!” is due January 15, 2013. Read more Green Day – Uno (2012)
Amavo – Gracefool (2012)
Esmerelda, the singer and Tony Hotel, the drummer of the band called Noh Mercy were part of the Punk, New Wave movement of San Francisco and having the motto “No Boys On Guitars”, they delivered a quite unique sound and style of music back at the end of the 70s.
Nowadays fromSCRATCH Records, record label and a booking agency based in Firenze, Venezia, Italy bring to our attention a band called Amavo (which means LOVED in Italian) featuring also two girls, Lott Anna – electric guitar, synths and Silvia Lovo – drums, penny whistle, vocals; delivering their own flavored style of Experimental/Avant-Garde Post-Rock/Post-Punk, which reminded me of Noh Mercy, although the two bands are not directly related, musically, some similarities are still detectable.
In a “Man’s Man’s Man’s World”, a girl band on the Punk-Rock scene it’s always refreshing. And these girls have balls. Amavo merge some of the 70’s and 80’s Avant-garde/Progressive Rock and Psychedelia vibes with a healthy portion of Retro New Wave, and the energy of Punk and Rock. The result is a colorful, noisy, sometimes even contorted, but definitively edge cutting music. Prefer not to label it in any particular way. Sometimes they reminds me of a very exciting Hungarian band from the 80’s called Kontroll Csoport, a band also fronted by a female singer, Bárdos-Deák Ágnes who’s voice and style is similar to the performance of Silvia Lovo, but they also reminds me of White Stripes and The Dead Weather.
As teaser, can download the promo mp3 of “Jello” from the website of fromSCRATCH Records for free. Read more Amavo – Gracefool (2012)
Sinan Kaya – Punch and Bloom (2012)
It’s all about the perfume, the mysterious aromas, the veil of smoke, the vibe, the groove and the pulse of the life itself expressed by the magic of the sounds. “Smoke In The Streets”, the opening track of Sinan Kaya debut full-length album take us the universe of the untold stories of the “One Thousand and One Nights”, hypnotize you and rock you into it while you can almost touch the smoke floating around. Then Sinan Kaya lead us gently through his raw beats and smoothly dislocated, subtle and floating sounds, mixing up Oriental aromas with Jazz vibes, minimalist Techno beats with Deep House pulses and Dub fueled sounds. He merge the Magic of simple things hidden in Life with the pleasure of dancing through the night nice and easily.
“No Negotiation” reveals some smooth Jazz infusions, a discrete piano runs throughout the song gave it a special taste while the beat keeps you moving. From the same area is “One Fine Day” too, while the beats are pumping, the music is made up of sparkling sounds and slowly moving layers creating a nice, intimate contrast. Read more Sinan Kaya – Punch and Bloom (2012)
Skunk Anansie – Black Traffic (2012)
I loved Skunk Anansie for their intense Rock, their honest rage and unleashed energy. Skin, Cass, Ace and Mark Richardson formed Skunk Anansie in March 1994, disbanded in 2001 and reformed in 2009. In 2004, the band was named as one of the most successful UK chart acts between 1952 and 2003 by the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums, with a total of 141 weeks on both the singles and album charts ranking them at #491. I loved their murderous 95’s debut “Paranoid and Sunburnt” , and the following two albums, “Stoosh” and “Post Orgasmic Chill”, before their 2001 disbanding. Their come back album, the 2009’s “Smashes and Trashes” was a quite honorable return while their latest release, the 2010’s “Wonderlustre” was more of a Pop Rock album, then the furious Rock band we used to know.
“Black Traffic” is somewhere inbetween, Read more Skunk Anansie – Black Traffic (2012)
Minor Sounds – The Humming (2012)
While the opening “Different Kind” is a spacy, almost Shoegaze disguised pretty gloomy song, the following tracks are more likely a mixture of Simon & Garfunkel with The Beatles, half way between the Beat vibe and the oversea perfumed mixture of Country and Folk, here and there with gentle electronic layers, but mostly staying in the warm, acoustic area of the music, mainly a mixture of Pop, Folk and Country.
“The Humming”, just as its title suggest, it’s a quiet, intimate journey in mainly friendly and familiar places. It’s actually “nice”, maybe too nice throughout and a few dissonances, unexpected twists, beat changes would make this dream-walk more interesting, or, maybe it is just me, always restless and fever burned! “Hailstorm” try to break up a little bit this “lullaby” feels like groove of the album bringing a little bit tension in; “Behind The Scenes” have a mysterious, glowing electronic pulse and groove, but throughout Mirna Stanic and Martin Zietek hesitate to breakout, make small steps close to the edge, but finally they don’t jump into the wilderness of the unknown. One of their best moment is the Garbage flavored “Gravity” with a more nervous groove; while the closing title track will rock you to the sweetest sleep smoothly. Read more Minor Sounds – The Humming (2012)
Slunq – Spoiled Portion (2012)
The music of Slunq is so genreless and quite post-everything that it is impossible to stick a label on it; to force it into one of the “casual” drawers of the “music industry/business”. But, against the general trends, this is music and not just “food for our iPods”, not just background noise to fill up our ears – and brains – and cut off any possible contact with the people we may crash into on our way back and forth between home and job.
The much anticipated debut album, “Spoiled Portion”, is a post-modern journey into some gloomy music with very different flavours including Post-Grunge and Post-Industrial. Think of Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains) on a heavy Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails, How to Destroy Angels) diet, but adding an obvious, typical English flavour to it and although lots of influences are there, you can’t really pinpoint anything – the guys managed to twist everything into their own style and deliver genuine material for our listening pleasure.
The result of 2 years effort, the 11 tracks of “Spoiled Portion” paint not the present, but the future sound of Rock. Read more Slunq – Spoiled Portion (2012)
Marillion – Sounds That Can’t Be Made (2012)
Unbelievable, but this is the band’s 17th studio album! Most of their fans are totally and exclusively in love with their debut trilogy of “Script for a Jester’s Tear (1983)”, “Fugazi (1984)”, and “Misplaced Childhood (1985)”, and everything after Fish leaving and “Clutching at Straws (1987)” seems to did not really mattered. And yes, this is kind of unfair, but Marillion after 1988 and with Steve Hogarth as their new singer, was a totally different plate of food – food for spirit, obviously. And yes, as Hogarth fairly noticed in an interview in 2000: “If we had known when I joined Marillion what we know now, we’d have changed the name and been a new band. It was a mistake to keep the name, because what it represented in the mid-Eighties is a millstone we now carry. If we’d changed it, I think we would have been better off. We would have been judged for our music. It’s such a grave injustice that the media constantly calls us a “dinosaur prog band”…”
And Marillion had a few great moments and several good albums in the last two decades, but mainly the media refuse to notice them. Read more Marillion – Sounds That Can’t Be Made (2012)
