When the world turns to shit it’s good to have the escape that is music, and sometimes you want the escape to be a bit more escapist than usual. It is in these times that we praise Jebus (or Hail Satan if you prefer) for over the top metal. Bombastic and soaring and if you buy in: totally badass. Jonathan Young steps up to save the day with “Wolf Within,” a symphonic metal banger that will have you putting your foot up on the office paper shredder like a monitor wedge and throwing horns while you give your voice a workout trying to sing along to the menacing lows and Dickinson-esque highs. Definitely in the wheelhouse of hook oriented metal like Ghost, but with a hint of 2000’s hard rock thrown in. Some music fans can’t get on board with this type of metal, saying that it’s a bit silly, but you know what else is silly? Bowie pretending to be from Mars, Dylan pretending he didn’t steal Woody Guthrie’s soul and Stevie Wonder pretending to be blind (jk – we’re not part of that internet conspiracy, which is an actual thing – google it). Our point is you will enjoy metal, and life in general, a lot more if you buy into things. Take the ride, have fun with it and start here with Jonathan Young.
Friday 5×5
Another Friday means another five word reviews of five tracks so good they don’t need more than that. The proof is in the pudding not in the pudding label y’know? Check out these creamy sweet treats by Moemaw Naedon & C. Scott, Tacono Gate, Katy Guillen & The Drive, Norman Lake and The Healthy People.
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Thursdays With J.R. – Little Killer Bears
Mr. Petty said it best. “The waiting is the hardest part”. This weeks track “Waiting” by Little Killer Bears wasn’t hard at all. The song is gentle though full of emotion within the lyrics. I really like how the song opens up with acoustic and electric guitars intertwining like they can in a beautiful, Americana style groove. The drums are simple but direct the song train down the track. The chorus makes you wait, and is over before it begins. This song also has a guitar solo, and a good one. I love guitar solos, they just rule when done right. This one is done right. I hear shades of older American rockers in the shadows but never fully copied. I hear Bruce, even Johnny Cougar influencing this song. What a great name as well, Little Killer Bears, yes! The song builds to said chorus and solo only to leave you Waiting and hanging on the last note. This one begs for a second listen or for the next song on the album. I think I’ll go listen to some more of the tiny savage teddys as this is something I can get into. Great work from a solid band.
Wordless Wednesdays
Today we have not one but two songs so good they don’t need something as feeble as language to convey the vibe. Check out the lates from Under The Reefs Orchestra and Morus after the jump.
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Tuesday Tip-Off: roman around
“Rhythm” by roman around is a study in simultaneous contrasts. A driving indie rock number that is also cloaked in hushed-ness, somehow both big and small, anthemic and intimate all at once. From the low breathy vocals to the ways the guitars and drums are recorded it envelopes you in a cocoon like feeling while also rocking out the entire time. We know this will be a strange sentence, but it’s almost as if an early Foo Fighters song was covered by a shoegaze band and it’s weird just how well that works.
Week Starter – dichotomi
After Friday’s news I think we could all use a positive note to start this week on and here comes Canadian rapper dichotomi to the rescue, or at least to the momentary distraction. “STF 17” is as perfectly light and breezy as you’d want from a summer jam, and while the lyrics reflect that vibe too they also never forget the struggles and ugliness of life in a post-capitalist decaying democracy. It’s the optimism in the darkness that reminds us that even if everything feels like shit right now, there are still small personal victories to acknowledge and beauty still there if you look for it. It’s also catchy as fuck.
The Week Ender – Nova Blast
This just in: Swedish duo channels all the best parts of Husker Du into a single song making editors of a small time music blog very very happy. “Indoor Song” by Nova Blast, Anti Zurowski (vocals, guitar) and Viktor Höber (drums), is fast and bombastic and melodic and noisy and messy and tight and is the type of song that we in the industry say “melts faces.” Did they slather noise upon a great hook or did they hookify the noise? Does it really matter? Turn this one up and go into your weekend with mucho amplitude.
Friday 5×5
Behold! Our 55th installment of the Friday 5×5! We’re five fiving it up today with new music from Twin River, East Mane, Vargen, The Dirigibles and Low For High. Check it out after the jump.
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The B-Side: Faux Naïf
It is important to know one’s self. To realize without pretense who you are and to be ok with it. Faux Naïf from Sweden certainly know thyself because when they submitted “Walking On The Moon” to us they said it “has a real Morcheeba vibe.” That it does. From the effortlessly groovy yet chill rhythms to dreamy vocals this is almost more cheeba than Morcheeba and we are on board. Oftentimes when a band sounds too much like another band it’s a turn off – sorry to the thousands of QOTSA clones we’ve said no to over the years – but sometimes a song is good enough to clear that hurdle and land in our hearts, and that rare treat is what Faux Naïf pulls off today.
Wordless Wednesdays – Yellow Sam
Ok, so there are words on “Early Ernest Humans” by Yellow Sam, but only a few and they’re in the form of samples that are cut up and re-contextualized so we’re going to let it slide. Otherwise you’d have to wait another day or two for this track to show up on the blog and frankly we don’t want to deprive you. From a starting repetitive, almost droning, synth keys pattern the song soon kicks into a subdued yet catchy euro funk stepper. The progression has a lo-fi charm to it and stays simple and steady, allowing different flavors and layers to pop in and out to give the song a sense of shape and movement. It takes confidence to trust the vibe without overdoing it with unnecessary change ups and big drops and Yellow Sam has that confidence.