Robert Ham

Castevet The Echo & The Light   Chicago's Castevet are one of a bevy of young bands who quite obviously grew up in venues like the Fireside Bowl, taking in sets by halfway-forgotten Midwestern emo icons like Braid, Blake and Ethel Meserve. The sound of that mid-'90s era permeates this quartet's work, from the herky-jerky […]

The Word Alive Deceiver The Word Alive have certainly taken a hard road to get to the point of releasing their debut album, Deceiver. The metalcore group were started back in 2006 as a side project by then-Blessthefall singer Craig Mabbitt. The group soldiered on until, frustrated at not being able to tour and record […]

Various Artists Acoustic Transitions Volume One   The title of this compilation is something of a misnomer. Yes, there are acoustic tracks on Acoustic Transitions Volume One, but they only comprise a third of the disc. The other nine songs are fully electric efforts by the groups in question. (And let's not get into the […]

Children 18:3 Rain’s A Comin’ The second full-length by this all-sibling pop-punk trio from Minnesota feels like the fulfilling of a promise. After a pair of decent self-released EPs and a debut album that showed signs of marked improvement, along comes Rain's A Comin', an intense, melodic and powerful collection of songs that sees the […]

Picture Me Broken Wide Awake   A band comprised of teenagers is nothing new anymore. The music world has seen its share of incredible and paltry young adult performers shake or rock their way into either massive success or head-shaking infamy. Trouble is that when your press information and bio trumpet this fact incessantly, it […]

The Summer Set …In Color EP It's easy to forgive the more immature aspects of the Summer Set's first EP after signing with the Militia Group when you take into account the simple fact that many of these songs were written soon after the band formed in 2007. The majority of the five tracks are, […]

Life, Scar, Apologies The third album–and second for venerable Christian-rock label Tooth & Nail–by Since October is the sound of four young men swinging for the fences. The Florida-based outfit started their career as a decent enough hard-rock band with Korn-style leanings (glassy guitar noise, intense and melodic vocals). But with fewer and fewer chances […]

Young Giant If it didn't state so boldly in the band's press material that frontman Dan Eaton and drummer Jake Ryan logged time in noisecore act the Chariot, you would likely never put those two bands together from the sound of Queens Club's full-length debut. It has a similar energy and drive, sure, but of […]

Total Life Forever In the two years since this Oxford, England, outfit recorded their razor-sharp debut Antidotes, it would appear that they've collectively seen a ghost. Or they exhausted themselves in the flurry of touring and hype that followed the 2008 release of LP1. Either way, something has to account for the haunted, desiccated sound of […]