Coerce was formed in late 1999 in Deal, Kent, UK by Adam Smart – Vocals, James Wells – Guitars, Chris Williams – Bass and Liam Foy – drums and hey registered the name Coerce with The Worldwide Band Name Registry, still, there’s a band using the same name from Australia… a band split between Adelaide and Melbourne formed in 2008 by Mike Deslandes, Matt Adey, Karl Roberts and Justin Bond. The Brits declare on their MySpace page that they are playing Alternative / Hardcore / Metal while the Australians defined them self playing Big Beat/German pop/Tropical…
While there’s quite much confusion – an lack of information – on both bands pages and once again, somebody chosen a name before checking out if the name is available, I take no responsibilities for any further misunderstanding.
“Ethereal Surrogate Saviour” it’s quite off of Tropical/Big Beat, actually its bring to the surface a contorted, crushy and sometimes quite chaotic and gloomy post/experimental metal with roots back to hardcore but flavored with psychedelic and progressive spices being inspired by different bands from King Crimson to Tool and Pantera. find an unique path between progressive rock and metal and the noisy, stoner/doom infiltrated post-hardcore and merging these different styles into one they came up with something quite special and exciting.
It’s not an easy listening, but life it ain’t easy and in times when almost everybody is nothing but “a copy of an imitation”, Coerce sounds absolutely refreshing, they comes like a salvation against monotony and uniformity. Read more Coerce – Ethereal Surrogate Saviour (2011)
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Omega Lithium – Kinetik (2011)
“Kinetik” is the second full length album by this four piece Croatian band and they melt down dark, epic metal into the Rammstain masterd, so-called Neue Deutsche Härte industrial metal while the band is fronted by female singer Mya Mortensen. Her band-mates are Malice Rime – Guitars and Synthesizers, Zoltan Harpax – Bass and Torsten Nihill – Drums, Percussion. The band was formed in 2007 in Umag, and is signed to Drakkar Entertainment, a part of Sony BMG.
The band’s debut album, “Dreams in Formaline”, was released in 2009 and its first single, “Stigmata”, was played on the MTV rock chart and peaked to the 4 place on the MTV Adria Rock chart, receiving a constant airplay for more than 2 months. The video also appeared on other European and worldwide TV stations in their daily charts. On YouTube Stigmata received more than a quarter of a million views, which is the highest viewing number for a debut song in this genre. Read more Omega Lithium – Kinetik (2011)
August Burns Red – Leveler (2011)
Being quite skeptical ’bout everything labeled lately “metalcore”, songs such as “Internal Cannon”, “Cutting the Ties”, “Carpe Diem” and “Salt & Light” from the fourth studio album by American band August Burns Red, convinced me to give them another chance. State that they have been inspired and influenced by bands such as Between the Buried and Me, Misery Signals and Hopesfall, their powerful, technical, filled with heavy breakdowns and groovy riffs and not at least some nice, acoustic or slow passages which offering release and an exotic flavor, is quite the essence of what actually metalcore means now days. Merging some almost traditional heavy metal riffings with intense modern metal with roots back to death metal and adding raw, extreme vocals, August Burns Red comes crushing and this combination of melodious themes with blowing brutality, I had to admit, it’s quite efficient and have some charm. Still, when a million plus one bands are begun doing the same kind of thing, using the same schemes and cliches, don’t really matter how intense they doing it, all the excitement is gone and the thing becomes pretty boring. Some Pantera lyrics came back haunting: “be yourself, by yourself…” Read more August Burns Red – Leveler (2011)
8in8 – Nighty Night (2011)
This is an ambitious project gathering together Amanda Palmer – performer, she was the lead singer, pianist, and lyricist/composer of the duo The Dresden Dolls, Neil Gaiman – author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, etc, Ben Folds – singer, songwriter, musician and Damian Kulash – vocalist and guitarist of OK Go, for an exciting experiment. Monday, on April 25th, the four musicians joins in Boston at the Rethink Music conference to explore/re-conceptualize the entire notion of artistic creation and its mechanical dissemination and human reception in these topsy-turvy modern times of ours. The original goal was to write and record eight songs in eight hours, after then play a concert and forther release the album. The effort resulting in 6 songs in 12 hours, entitled “Nighty Night”. In addition, the entire process was streamed live on Youtube, lasting from 4 pm on April 22nd to 4 am on April 23rd. Read more 8in8 – Nighty Night (2011)
Ok Go – 180/365 (2011)
In my list of “10 best albums of 2010” one was “Of the Blue Colour of the Sky” by OK Go. These guys rocks. They wrote some great songs, they are funny and full of life. Made a few killer videos. Not too many bands have now days their energy and ability to deliver quality stuffs. Actually OK Go were the exception, as I said, I’m pretty sick lately of anything labeled “indie” or “alternative”. Damian Kulash (lead vocals and guitar), Tim Nordwind (bass guitar and vocals), Dan Konopka (drums and percussion) and Andy Ross (guitar, keyboards and vocals) delivered a new package consist of the album and a volume of gorgeous OK Go tour photos taken by Nathaniel Wood. 180 gigs in one year, resumed in 15 great songs. Read more Ok Go – 180/365 (2011)
Limp Bizkit – Gold Cobra (2011)
Scheduled for release on June 28, 2011, Limp Bizkit finally made their way back. All along 2010 their official web site announced that it is “the year of the Cobra” and adding the fact it’s been six years since their last release, “The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1)”, the expectations were escalate pretty high. The downside of the delayed release might be that we set our expectations too high or some might lost their interest along the way. Last year, to maintain this interest high, Fred posted teasers to the songs “Shark Attack”, “90 to 10”, “Douchebag” and “Walking Away” and “leaked out” “Why Try” last April and “Walking Away” last August. On May 17, 2011 it was released “Shotgun” as a digital download, the lead single from “Gold Cobra”. On June 7, 2011, Fred leaked the second single, “Gold Cobra” and finally the standard edition album leaked out yesterday, on June 20 2011, four days before it’s earliest release date. Read more Limp Bizkit – Gold Cobra (2011)
Iggy Pop – Roadkill Rising, The Bootleg Collection 1977-2009 (2011)
While we’re all waiting for “Angle of the Dangle”, issuing four discs of live recordings and to summarize a career as Iggy Pop’s, it makes sense and we’re talking about a career for 40-plus years. “Préliminaires” was marked obviously by the death of Ron Asheton, Iggy took on a path down to blues with some jazz overtones and it was the less rock-oriented album he ever made, listening now into this raw sounding bootleg, reminds us of who Iggy actually is and why – most of us – love him since the 70s. And well, on the first CD features material from Pop’s legendary 1977 tour with Bowie on keyboards and the Thin White Duke, it is quite something even if the recordings are not surgically clean. And we also have the Stooges reunion gigs from 2003, the best proof that nobody else can play those songs like the guys who wrote them. Read more Iggy Pop – Roadkill Rising, The Bootleg Collection 1977-2009 (2011)
Dexessus – Punish me with Love (2011)
Generalizing, Dexessus might be the Russian answer for Rammstein. Metalic, heavy riffings, electrifying sampler layers, deep and strong male vocals mainly spoken and spiting the words and as a nice addition, some smoother female vocals, and this dialogue offering them a special sound, makes the difference. Marching tempos, aggressive guitars, colorful textures and the catchy themes full of adrenaline are the winning schemes of Dexessus. It reminds me – obviously – of the collaboration of Rammstein with t.A.T.u.. “Ðакажи Ð¼ÐµÐ½Ñ Ð»ÑŽÐ±Ð¾Ð²ÑŒÑŽ” (Punish Me with Love) is an absolutely correct industrial metal album from this band from Odessa. Read more Dexessus – Punish me with Love (2011)
Mr. Pan[k]sament – The Ghost of the Absent Father (2011)
Marcus Miller once said: “that one of the problems with making contemporary music is that you never know how it will be judged in the futureâ€. That’s true, but still, I believe it really doesn’t matter what anybody think about it, who and how judge it. I’m conscious that I disappointed most of my fans from the 90’s, but I always felt like I have to move on and I’m kind of pathologically scared not to repeat myself. Under the moniker “Mr.Pan[k]sament” I’m exploring extremely different areas of musical expressions from electronica to metal and from punk to jazz, it might be confusing, I’m aware of it, but this is who I am. Writing recently about Queensrÿche and reading some of the fans comments about their latest release I was thinking about one more aspect: a band should play what their fans demand or what they actually feel? Some great artists such as David Bowie with each release moved on in some other direction while bands like AC/DC played the same riff for decades but both are just great exactly for what they did. So, it’s no “right” or “wrong” answer. On the other hand, thinking about music exclusively in genres, I think it’s definitively wrong and leave us with a very narrow horizon… Read more Mr. Pan[k]sament – The Ghost of the Absent Father (2011)
Pat Metheny – What’s It All About (2011)
This is a beautiful, quite acoustic album. As it’s written on Metheny’s official web site: “The new acoustic solo guitar album from Pat Metheny called “What’s It All About” features classic tunes from songwriters like Paul Simon, Lennon & McCartney, Burt Bacharach, and Henry Mancini. Pat describes it like this: “I wanted to record some of the music that was on my radar before I ever wrote a note of my own, or in a few cases, even before I played an instrument. Every one of these tunes has something going on that is just hip on a musical level, no matter how you cut it. They have all stuck with me over the years.” While Matheny played with John Scofield, Charlie Haden, Jim Hall, Ornette Coleman, Brad Mehldau, Jaco Pastorius and Bob Moses, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins, Dave Holland and Roy Haynes, Joni Mitchell, Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Bill Stewart, Kenny Garrett,and his older brother, Mike Metheny, a talented jazz musician and a trumpet player, among many others, it’s almost strange that “What’s It All About” actually it’s his sixth solo album while his first, “New Chautauqua” was released by ECM back in 1979. Read more Pat Metheny – What’s It All About (2011)
