Hit...And A Miss
My cats are playing a game I call Laundrosplat. By virtue of its name, you can figure out how it’s played; said felines regurgitate, urinate and/or defecate in the laundry and talk about it in their arcane cat vernacular. Last night, after spending two hours of my life in the basement testing spray bottles...
Blog No. 1 (again)
It’s 2010, and I just received an e-mail with this subject line: New Release from Papa Roach. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Rap-rock bands from my high school years coming back to haunt me not withstanding, 2010’s been a year of a lot of change—a big one being the brand,...
Haste The Day - Attack Of The Wolf King
Haste The Day Attack Of The Wolf King For a band who seem to shed members with every release—bassist/vocalist Michael Murphy is now the only original one left—it's no mean feat to present a consistently solid aesthetic to fans over the course of nine years. Despite the virtual revolving door on the tour van, Haste...
Check the cup holders
It always begins the same. I'm aimlessly wandering the halls of my high school, frantically trying to remember my locker combination and, to a greater extent, where exactly my locker is located. But that's not all that bad. It's the day before graduation and all that I have in my locker is 14 flannel shirts...
The spirit of blog.
I've been a pretty big fan of the Gaslight Anthem ever since I heard their first album, 2007's Sink Or Swim, and found the band crashing on my living room floor numerous times over the next year or so. Yet somehow, in spite of my fervent fandom, the band's achieved a level of success I...
Carter Hulsey - A Note In Your Pocket
A Note In Your Pocket Based on gut reactions alone, Carter Hulsey appears to be riding the newest wave of post-Dashboard Confessional emo songsmiths spearheaded by Never Shout Never’s Christofer Drew. The skinny, swoop-haired artist released A Note In Your Pocket on Drew’s Loveway Records and shares a similar aesthetic with his label boss. But...
Rookie Of The Year - The Most Beautiful
The Most Beautiful Rookie Of The Year's fourth full-length harkens back to singer/songwriter Ryan Dunson's early days; back then, the North Carolina native operated ROTY as a solo project, favoring stripped-down, acoustic pop songs rather than the full-band styling of 2008's Sweet Attention. Solo once again, it seems Dunson is hoping to rekindle some of his...
Delphic - Acolyte
Acolyte Having won rapturous praise from much of the hard-to-please U.K. music press, Delphic bring the dance party stateside. The band boast key ingredients for success: a handful of potential hot singles, remix-ready club thumpers and palpable artistic heft. Their songs are meatier than, say, Klaxons and their scope spans wider than most of America's...
Automatic Loveletter - Truth Or Dare
Truth Or Dare Truth Or Dare's opener "Heart Song" is the biggest case of false advertising we've heard in a long time. A fist-pumping rock song that combines the riffs from Muse's "Resistance" and the classic song "Spirit In The Sky," it showcases a Joan Jett-meets-Alanis Morissette howl from Automatic Loveletter singer Juliet Simms. But Truth...