Blue Touch Paper – Drawing Breath (2013)

Blue Touch Paper – Drawing Breath (2013)

Blue Touch Paper – Drawing Breath (2013) Featuring drummer Benny Greb, saxophonist Mark Lockheart, Stephan Maass on percussion & electronics, guitarist Chris Montague, Edward Maclean on bass and Colin Towns (from Ian Gillan Band and Gillan) on keyboards; Blue Touch Paper it’s a Brit-German jazz-rock fusion band while ‘Drawing Breath’ it’s their second album released on the 14th October 2013. Their music it’s a rainbow like colorful mixture of sounds, styles and genres, from Garbarek to Pink Floyd and from ethnic flavored jazz to chilled down and spacy breakdowns, ‘Drawing Breath’ got it all and surprisingly, all those moving parts are coming together nicely and everything make perfect sense. We’ve got 12 songs and over one hour of exciting, groovy music. Read more Blue Touch Paper – Drawing Breath (2013)

Panzanellas – Aggression, EP (2013)

Panzanellas Aggression EP 2013

Panzanellas Aggression EP 2013 Panzanella or panmolle is a Tuscan salad of bread and tomatoes popular in the summer. It includes chunks of soaked stale bread and tomatoes, sometimes also onions and basil, dressed with olive oil and vinegar. It is also popular in other parts of central Italy, but also around the world.
The concept behind Panzanellas is quite simple: just with an act of violence it is possible to conquer freedom, so they start to kill men and animals conquering their own freedom.
Two brand new tracks on the band’s second EP, the same sonic aggression, Panzanellas are grinding on the borderline between free jazz and avant-garde/experimental rock. Heavy beats, contorted and twisted out guitars with tumultuous, crazy saxophone solos throughout. They came in, kill’em all and leave. Pure madness or killer efficiency. No use to compare it with any other band, this is just Panzanellas. And it’s quite alright, we need this kind of out of the box trips and although some will probably label it as a slaughter, this is still much more exciting then most of the prefabricated, plastic and predictable “music” these days. Do yourself a favor, give it 5 minutes from your boring life and get yourself a fair share of aggression and eventually, a broken nose!! Read more Panzanellas – Aggression, EP (2013)

Mechina – Xenon (2014)

Mechina - Xenon (2014)

Mechina - Xenon (2014) Released on the first day of 2014, “Xenon” is the fifth and the brand new symphonic-cyber-metal album of this Chicago based experimental, futuristic metal horde. For Fear Factory fans and followers, Mechina might be just on spot and “Xenon” the perfect year starter.
Dave Holch – Vocals, Joe Tiberi – Guitar, Steve Amarantos – Bass, and Dan Anderson – Drums delivered five albums in five years, which is a pretty intense agenda for any band. “Xenon” pick up where “Phedra” left off last November and the melange of electronic layers, orchestral/symphonic layers and the contorted and furious metal riffings work perfectly. This is a very dynamic and technically flawless mixture of different elements and styles. Based on industrial fueled death metal, the symphonic pads and electronic layers create an unique vibe and tension while the intensity of the music reaches explosively high levels throughout the album. There is no dead moments, meaningless fills in “Xenon”, just pure intensity and grinding throughout. Read more Mechina – Xenon (2014)

Thot – Citizen Pain EP (2013)

Thot - Citizen Pain Ep

Thot - Citizen Pain Ep I can think of and go back to several different stories. First of all, reminds me of the story of Cain and Able, the two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain was the first human born and Abel was the first human to die while Cain committed the first murder by killing his brother. On the other hand, directed by Orson Welles release on 5 September 1941, “Citizen Kane” was a drama which explored the life and legacy of the publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles. Nothing of this are directly related to the latest Thot EP, but then again, everything in this world is somehow related and inter-connected. “Citizen Pain” is in particularly nobody, but he’s everybody and anybody, one of us and each one of us. Even the pain became meaningless nowadays. Or we became insensitive to the suffering of the others… and get comfortable with our own misery. Read more Thot – Citizen Pain EP (2013)

Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013)

Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013)

Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013) Maybe I’m an idiot, but I like “The Marshall Mathers LP 2”. It’s one of the best records of 2013. I can understand the fury and I can feel the pain, taste the irony. This is not a revolutionary record? Eminem did not reinvented the rapping, the rap and the hip-hop? If a bicycle do not need a third wheel – metaphorically speaking – and rap/hip-hop don’t need to be reinvented, I believe Eminem has to be invented. Rap needs Eminem. Simply and plain, just because. Because Eminem is both electric-shock therapy and vitamin. He’s probably not a God as he like to present himself (“Why be a king when you can be a god?” he sings in the song called “Rap God”), but he’s definitively a king. Behind all of his jokes, rhymes and irony I can see a very lonely, very sad, very furious human being. Don’t really give a shit about the over 220 million records he sold worldwide and that make him one of the best-selling music artists of the world, I don’t really consider him one of the greatest artists as the Rolling Stone magazine which ranked him 82nd on its list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, but for sure Eminem got style and know how to say things. And his the eighth studio album, “The Marshall Mathers LP 2” it’s a really solid release.
We’ve got a couple of huge songs (Bad Guy, Rhyme Or Reason, The Monster, Stronger Than I Was, Love Game), and having 15 tracks, it’s really something these days. Only at track 10 – “Brainless” – I had a feeling of saturation and I was tempted to skip that one. But maybe that’s just me again! Read more Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013)

Keith Jarrett – No End (2013)

Keith Jarrett – No End (2013)

Keith Jarrett – No End (2013) Everybody – at least in my shattered corner of the universe – knows that Keith Jarrett is one of the greatest jazz pianist. But what about a series of (almost home) recordings made in his small private studio back in 1986 where Keith Jarrett plays electric guitars, Fender bass, drums, percussion, table, some vocals and only rarely some piano. He also added an advice for the listener in the footnotes of the record: “Play this music LOUD, especially tracks 2 to 20, since many inner details will be lost at lower volumes.” Some critics, “musical experts” (whatever that may mean!) rushed to scream bloody murder and pointed out that this is not jazz. I’m not an expert, but I’m quite curious what they think jazz is? Listening track II I definitively felt like I was i the room where Miles Davis and his very honorable mates recorded “Bitches Brew”. But well, many (idiots) believe that what Miles did after ’68 was not jazz either, so, nothing’s shocking, this planet can bear much more then we can think of.
The other “argument” is that there are no developed melodies and no “real” song structures, only the same type of jamming throughout. It’s probably true, but not heaving rigid song structures and repetitive melodies it’s not something new, building and exploring out of the box was always a way to get further in jazz and avant-garde music, sometimes even in pop (culture). Seriously guys, did you expected that Jarrett will deliver a collection of standards played on guitar, bass and drums? Read more Keith Jarrett – No End (2013)

Secret Chiefs 3 – Book Of Souls Folio A (2013)

Secret Chiefs 3 - Book Of Souls Folio A (2013)

Secret Chiefs 3 - Book Of Souls Folio A (2013) Secret Chiefs 3 (also known as SC3) is the brain-child of guitarist/composer Trey Spruance, formerly known as member of Mr. Bungle and later he joined Faith No More for their 1995 “King for a Day… Fool for a Lifetime” replacing breathy long-time guitarist Jim Martin. He’s also contributed to bands and artists such as: Faxed Head (as “Neck Head”), Noddingturd Fan (also NT Fan), Weird Little Boy (a one-off studio project), Jonh Zorn, Korn, Everlast, The Cucko For Cacca, Lick it Up, The Bon Larvis Band, ASVA, Scourge, The Three Doctors Band, Plainfield and Mark Shafeild.
Secret Chiefs 3’s studio recordings and tours have featured different line-ups, as the group perform and blend a wide variety of musical styles including traditional Jewish, Persian, Arab and Indian music; electronic music, jazz, rock and extreme metal.
So, if you’re a Mr. Bungle consumer, you will definitively devour “Book Of Souls Folio A”. Read more Secret Chiefs 3 – Book Of Souls Folio A (2013)

Cyberpunkers – Whatta Mask, EP (2013)

Cyberpunkers Whatta Mask EP Merging power-pop and indie disco, techno-trance and chillstep, dance and rock grooves with high energy beats, banging electronics and contorted layers of noise and wobbling basses, the Milan, Italy based project, Cyberpunkers are back with three, hot, dance floor busting tracks: “Whatta Mask”, “Mad Armada” and “Ogre´s Ballad”. We’ve got 15 minutes of extreme dance session and you will loose some weight or you will sweat and bleed to death!
Who said that the dancing days are over?
The “Cyberpunkers” project is the child, born in 2006, of the passion for Cyberpunk culture of two young Italian DJ’s. The format aims at giving a fresh start to this style. In a nutshell, a transposition of the Cyberpunk world in modern clubbing Through several performances at famous clubs, “Cyberpunkers” drew lots of interest and ended up being much taked about for both their original look, Read more Cyberpunkers – Whatta Mask, EP (2013)

Joe Satriani – Unstoppable Momentum (2013)

Joe Satriani Unstoppable Momentum (2013) I’m not one of the unconditional fans of the modern guitar virtuosos. My guitar heroes were (and still are) Hendrix, Zappa, Page, Iommi, etc. More recently Buckethead and several more jazz oriented guitar players as Aram Bajakian or Marc Ribot. But I admit, I was quite into “Flying in a Blue Dream”, it was an album I loved and I still do. Although I had listen almost each and every album he played on, including the G3 project and the hard rocking Chickenfoot, I always find at least a couple of great songs, nice passages, interesting parts on his works.
Satriani came into focus when one of his first students, Steve Vai started mentioning his name quite often. His students included Kirk Hammett of Metallica, David Bryson of Counting Crows, Kevin Cadogan from Third Eye Blind, Larry LaLonde of Primus and Possessed, Alex Skolnick of Testament, Rick Hunolt (ex-Exodus), Phil Kettner of Lääz Rockit, Geoff Tyson of T-Ride, Charlie Hunter and David Turin. During the G3 tours, which he founded in 1996, he invited and collaborated with several famous guitarists such as Vai, LaLonde, Timmons, Steve Lukather, John Petrucci, Eric Johnson, Yngwie Malmsteen, Brian May, Patrick Rondat, Paul Gilbert, Adrian Legg, Steve Morse and Robert Fripp.
“Unstoppable Momentum” is the fourteenth studio solo album by Satriani and it’s scheduled to be released on May 7. He will tour the album with Marco Minnemann on drums and Bryan Beller on bass. The album was recorded by Joe Satriani – guitar, production, Mike Keneally – keyboard, Vinnie Colaiuta – drums, Chris Chaney – bass and engineered and co-produced by Mike Fraser. Read more Joe Satriani – Unstoppable Momentum (2013)

Deep Purple – Now What (2013)

Deep Purple Now What 2013 A band formed 45 years ago are getting to their 19th studio album and have sold over 100 million albums worldwide, including 7.5 million certified units in the US. If this isn’t a true hard rock legend, don’t know what it is.
Drummer Ian Paice was there from the beginnings in ’68, bass player Roger Glover and singer Ian Gillan joined the band for the first time in ’69, guitarist Steve Morse replaced Ritchie Blackmore in ’94 after the band was refused by the touring replacement of Blackmore, the legendary Joe Satriani. Don Airey joined in 2002, when founding member, keyboard player Jon Lord announced his amicable retirement from the band.
I heard the single “All The Time In The World” for the first time and as result, I almost skipped the album. It’s a quite tasteless, mediocre, forgettable single, pretty bad choice I think. Fortunately I was curious enough and I had the time and the patience to listen into the whole album and I was pleasantly surprised. Read more Deep Purple – Now What (2013)