[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/29352012″]
experimental
Korn – The Path Of Totality (2011)
They previous venture – and first album delivered to Roadrunner Records – issued friendly, achieved unsatisfactory results. Korn became a brand and it seems they get lost rediscovering their past by recycling it more or less inspired. After selling 63,000 copies during its first week in the US, and landing at number two on the Billboard 200, “Korn III: Remember Who You Are” has sold over all only 170,000 units in the US.
Guitarist James “Munky” Shaffer declared that they’re “definitely moving forward” and mentioned something about a song which reminds him Soundgarden. Than Jonathan Davis released a 14-second sample on SoundCloud in late March, of a new song entitled “Get Up!”, featuring dubstep/electro house artist Skrillex. Dubfuckingwhat?! 😀 Gee! Good that I had wrote about dubstep just a few days back. Still, if you want some quality dubstep, dig out the Brit Subsource – they are just murderous!
But honestly and seriously I doubt it that rockers/metalers will appreciate the latest trend riding from Korn. Read more Korn – The Path Of Totality (2011)
Black John Wayne – Serenade Of The Black And Blues (2011)
This might become my favorite metal album of this year. It’s a hell of an album out of the blue. Black John Wayne? Are you kidding me, don’t you? And the answer is, well, no. This is absolutely serious shit. And brilliant. They delivering a killer combination of metal, hardcore and eventually sludge (and even sometimes blues) which sounds like a brutal collision between Slayer, Sick Of It All and Down. This is absolutely deadly! Trust me on this one. It’s been a while since I was excited that much by a metal release, altrough I had listen a lot of interesting products, some of them were quite heavy while others were gloomy and experimental. But this is different: quite groove oriented, full of hardcore energy and armed with cutting edge metal riffs, but also introducing some southern spirit and black musical ingredients (with roots back to blues and gospel), Black John Wayne are both groove and harmony oriented, managed to combine brutality and traditional taste-like musical elements resulting a quite original post-hardcore conglomerate. Read more Black John Wayne – Serenade Of The Black And Blues (2011)
Waltari – Covers All! 25th Anniversary Album (2011)
Known as the crazy metal rockers from Finland, Waltari celebrate 25 years of existence and 20 years from the release of their first album. Frequently combining quite diverse music styles as alternative metal, progressive metal, death metal, hard rock, heavy metal, hip hop, industrial, pop, punk, rap, symphonic metal, techno and thrash metal, most of the band’s music is written by bass player Kärtsy Hatakka, while they lyrics are dealing mainly with personal feelings of anxiety, loneliness and the cruelty of the world, often with heavy irony and sarcasm. They crafted totally new combinations, sounds and approaches, pioneering and assimilating everything that is currently new and becoming a melting pot of musical genres.
Released 11 studio albums and 3 compilations, “Covers All!” deliver a nice collection of covers from diverse artists such as System Of A Down, Midnight Oil, Anthrax, Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, Madonna, David Bowie, The Cure, etc Read more Waltari – Covers All! 25th Anniversary Album (2011)
Comity – The Journey Is Over Now (2011)
This is a hell of a noisy and contorted release, but a quite brilliant, terrifying and hypnotizing one. And once again, Throatruiner Records give away the digital version for free, “name your price” and download/eventually buy the album or use the direct link from Mediafire – everything is there on the label’s Bandcamp page. We all love the free stuffs, but still, artists are also humans and have to fill up their refrigerators, have to pay their debts, rents and utilities, isn’t it? Not to mention the costs of playing music. And well, never thought about, don’t you? – running a record label, helping bands to go on and eventually break through might be done with love and passion, but still, it’s also a quite honorable job and it must be paid too. As I said before and I will keep on telling this: if we do not support the underground it will disappear eventually and we will be left exclusively with the so-called mainstream s*it delivered by the global corporations.
Throatruiner Records and other indie/DIY underground labels bring to the surface exciting and excellent bands as Comity are. Listen “The Journey Is Over Now” and buy the vinyl, nothing sounds like an authentic record spinning on your pick-up. Read more Comity – The Journey Is Over Now (2011)
Balanescu Quartet – This Is The Balanescu Quartet (2011)
Actually this is a kind of “Best Of” – to avoid the even further disagreeable term of “Greatest Hits” – while the music is absolutely valuable, and this is a proper opportunity to bring to the attention the Balanescu Quartet for those who do not know them yet.
Alexander Balanescu in 1979 became leader of the Mychael Nyman Ensemble and toured with the group for 15 years. During the same period he also was member of the Gavin Bryars Ensemble. After another 4 years of work left the Arditti Quartet in 1987 to form his own quartet – the Balanescu Quartet. Along the way collaborators have included Michael Nyman, Gavin Bryars, Ornette Coleman, Peter Greenaway, David Byrne, the Pet Shop Boys, Spiritualized, Kate Bush and Kraftwerk, and they has gone on to acquire a reputation as one of the world’s leading contemporary music groups.
The Balanescu Quartet rose to fame through the release of several complex re-interpretations of songs by Kraftwerk and collaborations with Michael Nyman, David Byrne and Goldfrapp amongs others. Well, the Balanescu Quartet are not an average string quartet as we get used to. But this is definitively 55 minutes of excitement and joy. Read more Balanescu Quartet – This Is The Balanescu Quartet (2011)
Chris Connelly – Artificial Madness (2011)
Above all, Chris Connelly is one of the few independent artists today who still believes in the power of songwriting as nothing short of divine narrative; the craft of music as the perfect vehicle for poetic expression. Connelly was an active member and contributor to Ministry and to The Revolting Cocks between 1987 and 1993, but he was involved in several other projects and bands such as: PTP, Acid Horse, Killing Joke, Pigface, The Bells, Catherine, Chainsuck, The Damage Manual, Die Warzau, Everyoned, Finitribe, The High Confessions, KMFDM, Thanatos, The Love Interest, The Final Cut, Murder, Inc. and he developed his own solo career.
The Scottish-born, Chicago-based musician established himself as a talented alternative singer and songwriter, and his vocal style is often compared to that of Scott Walker and David Bowie. Read more Chris Connelly – Artificial Madness (2011)
Cosmonauts Day – Paths of The Restless (2011)
I closed my review about their debut live-demo EP saying that I’m looking forward to listen to their whole album and it seems this is one of the very few wishes that actually comes true.
Cosmonaut Day delivering a quite unique mixture of post-rock, stoner/sludge metal and space/progressive rock with some exotic aromas, original structures and harmonies and exciting rhythmic and grooves. “Name your price” means that you can download their album even for free from Bandcamp page, but I believe all these underground bands from all over the world who delivering quite exciting alternatives for the boring and predictable mainstream products deserves our full support and eventually every penny counts. Read more Cosmonauts Day – Paths of The Restless (2011)
Sick Mindz V – 5 Noiembrie 2011
Pentru cei cu poftă de o bubuială electro-urbană, evenimentul Sick Mindz aflată la a cincea ediție este ocazia ideală pentru o bâțâială și destrăbălare pe cinste. Acces liber, volum maxim și o listă substanțială de prestatori de zgomote contorsionateȘ SOSK, CAI VERZI, CNER, AKM, SIBERIA, QISHTA (DJ SET), RAZVANEL și CuI?.
Ostilitățile încep la ora 21, locul de desfășurare fiind clubul Underworld din București, Coltei, nr 48.
Și de făcut poftă și încălzirea, ceva-ceva muzică de la artiștii de serviciu din această seară: Read more Sick Mindz V – 5 Noiembrie 2011
April – Ten Stones (2009)
April seems to be a very popular name among artist: a couple of bands running using this simple name which make pretty hard to identify one of them, make the difference. After some hard digging I find on MySpace the profile of this French duo, from there I’ve get to their official site and Facebook profile. I thought “Ten Stones” is their actual album, but I was wrong, it was released back in 2009. Merging classic music elements with electronic layers and samplers, combining pop, rock, indie and trip hop elements, JiBé (music, voice) and Flora (voice) delivered their own flavored music. Read more April – Ten Stones (2009)
