June 28, 2007

The Locust New Erection [4.5/5] Plague Soundscapes, the 2003 “full-length” by electro-grind snipers the Locust, sported 23 songs in 21 minutes. New Erections weighs in with 11 songs clocking in at a little over 23, with one going over four minutes. Synth op Joey Karam seems to have exerted a greater force on the quartet’s...

From Autumn To Ashes Holding A Wolf By The Ears [3.5/5] The marketing genius of bands like New York City’s From Autumn To Ashes comes in their ability to be everything to everyone at once. Scorched-earth screams and machine-gun bass-drum stabs anchor the sound in a hardcore chaos, climactic high-speed guitar heroics varnish the songs...

All Out War Assassins In The House Of God [3.5/5] All Out War are one of the few bands still showing respect for the time when bands first started merging metal and hardcore after years of animosity. Assassins In The House Of God continues in that vein by being as politically charged and thrashy as...

Haste The Day Pressure The Hinges [3/5] Pressure The Hinges contains a striking departure from Haste The Day’s metalcore template-“Janet’s Planet,” which combines swirling ebb-and-flow guitars and thunderous drums with the haunting repetition of the hazily intoned line “Walk me to the desert and leave me/I’ll dig my way home.” Located at the fulcrum of...

Various Artists Play (Note: This review coincides with a review of the Terrible Twos’ If You Ever See An Owl… Please click HERE to read the other article.) [2.5/5] Since this releases-Play being DeSoto Records’ first stab at a kids’ compilation-is purportedly aimed at children, it’s only fair to have children evaluate it....

The Terrible Twos If You Ever See An Owl… (Note: This review coincides with a review of the compilation Play Please click HERE to read the other article.) Since this release-If You Ever See An Owl…, the debut from Get Up Kids/New Amsterdams boss Matt Pryor’s new side project-is purportedly aimed at children,...

Low Drums And Guns [3.5/5] It shouldn’t be a surprise at this point that Low know how to write a spectacular album. What is, in fact, surprising is how over the course of the last two records, this Duluth, Minnesota, trio have demonstrated they can write several different types of spectacular records. Whereas the group...

Kings Of Leon Because Of The Times [4.5/5] All hail the Kings Of Leon. The Southern rockers can slow-cook a seven-minute soulful heartbreak of a song about a rebellious couple with a bun in the oven ("Knocked Up"), and then flip the script into three minutes of the kind of skuzzy garage punk you’d find...

Calvin Johnson & The Sons Of The Soil Calvin Johnson & The Sons Of The Soil [2.5/5] As the frontman behind seminal indie bands such as Beat Happening, the Halo Benders and Dub Narcotic Sound System, Calvin Johnson has accrued a portfolio of lo-fi, heart-on-sleeve hits in spite of trends in and outside of the...

Limbeck Limbeck [3.5/5] It only took three albums and almost a decade of touring, but Limbeck have finally grown up: With their new, self-titled disc, they deliver a bonafide huge record, full of itchy-toed hand-clappers that are as country as your fourth-cousin Cleetus from Texas, minus the toothless hick factor. Following alt-country-pop pioneers the Format,...