Merge some songs left over from David Bowie since the 70s with some experimental indie, dream pop like layers and perhaps the result will sound just like this third album by Eksi Ekso, the band from Boston, Massachusetts, US. For the good of the experiment, eventually try to do this in your living room and bring some neighbors as well. There’s no guarantee at all that you will sound like Tom Korkidis (vox, guitar, bass, keys, samples, woodwinds), Alex Mihm (drums, loops, percussion), Sean Will (keys, samples, trumpet), and their collaborators, but it worth to try. 😀 At their MySpace page at the paragraph “Sounds like” they wrote: “We play instruments in the same room, sometimes in ways that sound like we’re playing together.” Nice. And in their case it worked out absolutely perfectly. “Brown Shark Red Lion” is a strange, sometimes airy, sometimes scattered, waving, rolling album. Million shades and colors sparking around and sometimes you’re not really sure what actually you’re listening at, but still, it’s kind of warm, familiar and friendly. Read more Eksi Ekso – Brown Shark Red Lion (2011)
post rock
Caligula’s Horse – Moments From Ephemeral City (2011)
Caligula’s Horse started in early 2010 as a solo project for Quandray guitarist Sam Vallen to express the heavier and more guitar centric side of his musical personality. The music began to take a more modern form, incorporating influences as diverse as Frost*, Steely Dan, Meshugga, Devin Townsend and Porcupine Tree. At the begining the project was a primarily instrumental blank canvas, things changed by introducing vocalist Jim Grey from progressive metal band Arcane. Jim’s vocal created a musical invention much greater than it’s constituent components; highly melodic music of intense mood and depth, with strong, memorable hooks and intense, technical instrumental performance.
“Moments From Ephemeral City”, consist of 7 elaborated songs was release in April 2011 and it’s available for free-download (Download this entire album [in whatever format you like] for whatever price you think it’s worth, and please feel free to put in $0 if you see fit. All I ask is that you share it with a friend or two if you do!) at the band’s official site. Read more Caligula’s Horse – Moments From Ephemeral City (2011)
June DeVille – Swan Songs Of The Coyote (2011)
If the Google do not make a sucker out of me ( 😀 ), Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and from there are this three piece band called June DeVille, founded in December 2007 and as they say: “not split up yet.” 😀 And actually I didn’t stumbled into them, they found me. (Thanks Max!)
Their music is what we call post-metal and they flavor it with some grunge left-over spices, that kind of noisy and heavy grunge what once was the driving force behind Soundgarden. And well, June DeVille was a quite nice surprise. First at all, they have nerve. Sometimes it sounds like Zakk Wylde does it in his better days with Ozzy and Black Label Society. Secondly, but not at least, they wrote and recorded a couple of great songs. Read more June DeVille – Swan Songs Of The Coyote (2011)
Ocoai – The Electric Hand (2011)
Ocoai are an awesome surprise. Guitarist and engineer/producer Travis Kammeyer and drummer Tim Smith met in in the summer of 2006 and wanted to try something different, they wanted to be the loudest and heaviest band around. And the sound of Ocoai is kind of muddy, sludgy, spreading into multi-layered dimensions, imagine Moody Blues jamming around with Down or Sigur Rós playing some Mastodom songs. I hate labels and labeling music, but this is kind of cinematic Metal. Ambiental, spacy constructions, ingenious use of the cello, gentle guitar tunes or crushing riffs and noisy explosions completing and overlapping each other in a nice, natural flow. Without a vocalist they managed to fill up the wide spaces, but still, I believe a powerful throat can take them much further. In any case, not a James LaBrie copy I had in mind, but eventually someone with the qualities and abilities of John Bush (Armored Saint, Anthrax). Read more Ocoai – The Electric Hand (2011)
Snowman – Absence (2011)
Even after 2008 Snowman relocated to London from Perth, Western Australia, they still kept that ancient, mystic, native Australian perfume in their music and “Hyena” have that hypnotizing brightness which floating around in gentle circles and ties you down smoothly. It’s simply beautiful and have a discrete charm and powerful magnetism. Diving deeper into “Absence” we will discover a multi-dimensional world made of subtle synthesizer layers, tribal percussion and drums, discrete guitars and amplifier feedback, and mysterious vocals. Sometimes everything seems pretty strange or untouchable and distant, but it’s vibrating and addictive. It’s a mixture of World music, Psychedelic and Ambiental music, soundtrack like music for a movie eventually played backward, back to a forgotten, obscure or even vanished universe from the dawn of the times. Read more Snowman – Absence (2011)
And So I Watch You From Afar – Gangs (2011)
“Gang” is the second full-length studio album by instrumental rock band And So I Watch You From Afar, from Belfast, Northern Ireland. After releasing their self-titled debut album in 2009 the band had toured the UK as well as in support of High On Fire, Crippled Black Phoenix, 65daysofstatic and Yourcodenameis:milo, Clutch, Oceansize, Envy, Trash Talk and Them Crooked Vultures and getting noticed by UK and European media. Consists of Rory Friers and Tony Wright on guitars, Johnny Adger on bass and Chris Wee on drums, And So I Watch You From Afar plays a colorful and dynamic Rock, Celtic sounds like themes are blended with groovy Rock themes, pulsing riffs and melodious themes are shifting each other quickly, and rapid passages are followed by nice and quiet breaks. Read more And So I Watch You From Afar – Gangs (2011)
Charts And Maps – Dead Horse (2011)
Charts and Maps is an instrumental progressive rock project from Los Angeles, CA. consists of: Daniel Melancon – drums, John Taylor – guitar, Jasper Crane – bass, Jay Watford – guitar and Mike Allison – saxophone and they are involved in other bands as Danger Bees, Random Patterns, Semiconscious Gloria and Pride of Kenya. Nominated their influences in bands such as Battles, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Deerhoof, Tortoise, Yes and Danger Bees. Their music is a nice blending of Jazz and Progressive Rock, including a large variety of shades and colors in a nice, dynamic pulse. Actually it’s pretty hard to balancing on this thin line between Progressive Rock and Jazz, but Charts And Maps managed to keep a positive groove and the equation of their roots and influences are mixed perfectly and Charts and Maps create their own colorful universe. Read more Charts And Maps – Dead Horse (2011)
Incubus – If Not Now, When? (2011)
It was the longest gap between two albums – five years – for Incubus, but “If Not Now, When?” will be released on July 12, 2011 by Epic Records, although the full album leaked online on April 25. “If Not Now…” pick-up where they left in 2006 with “Light Grenades”. You can forget about their experiments of utilizing elements from a variety of genres and styles, there’s no even traces of Nu Metal, Rap Metal, Funk Metal, not even any sings of any kind of Metal at all, and no left-over shades of Jazz or Hip/Trip Hop inflections as well, Incubus maybe “grew up”, perhaps they lost their appetite for exploration and settled down to a clean, some may call adult, Rock sound. This is not that bad as it may sounds, but I have to admit it, this Incubus is not “that” Incubus I used to love. This is “something” much closer to the late Pearl Jam (“In the Companies of Wolves”) and even passages that reminds me of Kings Of Leon (“Thieves”) than to Faith No More. Read more Incubus – If Not Now, When? (2011)
Gavin Friday – Catholic (2011)
Gavin Friday spans around for more than four decades, not only as musician, but as painter as well or writing and MCing his own weekly cabaret “The Blue Jaysus”. He wrote the soundtrack to Jim Sheridan’s “In the Name of the Father”, which including Sinéad O’Connor’s hit, “You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart” and subsequent film scores have included the song “Angel” to the “Romeo + Juliet” soundtrack, the score for the Australian film “Angel Baby”, “The Boxer”, “Disco Pigs” and “In America”. He collaborate with artists such as The Fall, Coil, Dave Ball, U2, Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart, The Heads, Howie B. and Preacher’s Son. Gavin’s first solo album was released in 1989, “Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves” followed by “Adam ‘n’ Eve” in ’92 and “Shag Tobacco” in ’95. Gavin have a long collaboration with pianist Maurice Seezer. “Catholic” was released on April 22 and we’ve got 11 brand new tracks. Read more Gavin Friday – Catholic (2011)
Poisonblack – Drive (2011)
Poisonblack sounds just like James Hetfield & Co. disguised are playing in some Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy) tribute band. Well, some Gothic resonances are still vibrating mainly in their slower themes, but Poisonblack – just like many other bands – left behind their roots and strip down to the bones their sound and it results nothing but pure Rock. And above all this parallels, Poisonblack sounds mature, grinding powerful and those cracking guitar tone, catchy riffs, simple but colorful guitar solos and clean, powerful vocals are quite convincing. This Finnish band rocks literally.
After the departure of Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto in 2003 (currently in the bands Charon, Harmaja and Northern Kings), bringing of Ville Laihiala (ex-Sentenced) seems to be a winning card. Laihiala wrote very few songs for Sentenced whose main-songwriters were Miika Tenkula and Sami Lopakka, became the band’s principal songwriter, assumed vocal duties himself and has since led Poisonblack in a musical direction that closely mirrors that of his former band. Read more Poisonblack – Drive (2011)
