Allan’s World Music

I first picked up Gregor Samsa’s music when listening to a split EP with Red Sparowes back in 2006. They had also just released their debut full-length album, 55:12, that very same year. Gregor Samsa became one of my favourite bands since then. I was pretty hyped up about the recently released Rest (2008). This album has been getting mixed reviews, and I suppose I can see why. For those who are familiar with Gregor Samsa, Rest seems too different from what pre-Rest fans are used to, and those who are listening to them for the first time through Rest may find this album has lots of potential, especially in the post-rock genre.

I can only describe Rest as ambient and experimental, as Gregor Samsa seems to widen their instrumentation uses with this album. There are a lot of different instruments and sounds I didn’t hear on their previous albums, like the use of chimes or other miscellaneous sounds, such as subtle buzzing and whirring. The main idea of Gregor Samsa is the same, though: all music is slow music (their “Sounds like” description on MySpace used to be something along the lines of, “sometimes sad, sometimes angry, never fast, always slow”). And so it seems that the title of this album has some appropriateness to it. I found this album to be a lot more creepier than anything Gregor Samsa have ever made, probably due to them taking a step away from the post-rock indie pop sound. Lyrical focus is conveyed in a manner of gentle whispers rather than singing, as I was used to with previous albums. Each instrument seems to be intricately weaved together to form an overall soft and endearing sound.

For me personally, I found this album way out of the Gregor Samsa context. It’s hard to accept that they are trying to find a new sound in what many say is an overdone and dead genre. I think I need to accept the fact that they are still relatively new, with only two full-length albums and a couple of EPs released thus far, and that a band needs to develop their own sound to really set them aside from other artists/bands, which is pretty hard to do in post-rock. Like the band states on their website, they didn’t think they’d take a literal meaning of Gregor Samsa (Kafka’s The Metamorphosis), but they sure done it!

That being said, I did like this album. It has many elements that I like (I heard a lot of mum elements), and still holds onto the Gregor Samsa disposition of nice and steady wins the race. There’s no real reason to hate on it unless you’re a stubborn old fan. I would recommend those who’ve been introduced to Gregor Samsa through Rest to check out their older stuff, too, because it’s quite different but very delectable.

Gregor Samsa - The Adolescent

Gregor Samsa - Du Meine Leise

Get Rest through:
CD Universe, Insound, or just go to sleep.

We Shot The Moon is a four piece band from San Diego, California, that has strong ties
to a little known band called Sherwood (which I’ve reviewed before). Their music can be considered mellow compared to their upbeat dance rock counterparts but still they show glimpses of that hopeful cheer.

The first track, Water’s Edge, starts off with warm vocals over an array of clean addicting guitar riffs. The use of a piano sheds light on that cherry style one might expect from a movie soundtrack. Combined with positive lyrics, it’s a song that’s not musically upbeat but more so hopeful and thought provoking, which has me smitten by the end. We Shot The Moon provides the kind of music that can bring cheer to a rainy day, and is overall a smooth and relaxing listen. Opting to keep a rather clean and simple sound, listeners will find the music to be lively but not action packed.

The second track aptly named Sway Your Head, with a carefully placed piano lead-in that tantalizes you with lyrics that are inspiring. The catchy chorus and accompanying vocals, combine to create another excellent hit. Continuing the role of giving hope through music, Sway Your Head provides just that. We Shot The Moon speaks volumes through the lyrics and general nature of their music. Sway Your Head is definitely my favourite track because it offers timeless lyrics, over an excellent musical backbone.

Songs such as LTFP and Perfect Time play a different role. They are more serious but still provide a positive outlook. Lacking the upbeat melody of other songs on the album, We Shot The Moon explores a different aspect of their style of pop-rock. Lightly touching the alternative feel you might expect from radio jams, We Shot The Moon still provides that movie-soundtrack feel. Using very soft vocal tones, and soft muted guitars, Perfect Time starts off with a slow verse that leads in to a dramatic chorus which brings that musical beauty along with it. A very inspiring piece, it sounds very mainstream-lined, but the emotions feel very real and appropriate. Overall this more solemn half of the album is a very soothing listen for those times of relaxation.

We Shot The Moon bring an infectious brand of rock that is sure to hit the spot. With consistent vocals, catchy riffs and melodic piano mixed together, the music is a can’t miss. While they don’t rock your socks off with aggressive energy, they bring the feel-good out of mellow rock while making you grasp your chest. For fans of Sherwood, this is more of what I love in a soft package that will accompany you nicely on a lonely bus ride.

Check out their Myspace for official tour dates and album info.

We Shot The Moon - Sway Your Head

We Shot The Moon – Perfect Time

I was visiting The Constantines myspace recently because I know they’re from Toronto but I’ve never listened to them before. The first track they had was a track recorded with Feist covering “Islands In The Stream” a song by Kenny Rogers sung with Dolly Parton.

I’m totally in love with this cover…granted I’ve never heard the first version. I usually dig duets vastly especially of the male/female variety. It’s an awesome love song and it made me realize that Mya sings this part in Pras’ Ghetto Superstar (I didn’t even need wikipedia for it!).

You can buy the single here.

Anyway, I don’t normally like posting singles especially if its like “Violet Hill” or CSS’ new single unless I’ve got a great excuse. I don’t want to be a lame duck blogger either because everyone else is doing it. Not too many bloggers have discussed this track.

Just enjoy a great single, not original but it’s fucking lovely.

Islands in The Stream (cover) by The Constantines and Feist

Unicycle Loves You is a band out of Chicago, Illinois. They are said influenced by music from the 50s, the psychedelic 60s, and rock of the 80s but to be honest I think my experience with those times are limited so I can’t vouch for those comparisons.

On their myspace, they use “ghettotech” as a genre and because I don’t think I’m going to have much to say when reviewing this album…let’s talk about what “ghettotech” is. I’ve seen a few bands with this label on their myspace and I don’t use myspace genre labels as actual genres because half the time it’s supposed to be funny. Straight from wikipedia: “It combines elements of Chicago’s ghetto house with electro, hip hop, techno, and grafts the perceived raunch of Miami Bass as the vocal stamp of the music. It is usually faster than most other dance music genres, at roughly 145 to 170 bpm, and features often pornographic lyrics.”. Okay…

I think I went back and forth and ultimately decided to blog about Unicycle Loves You (I hand pick bands I like from e-mails and this was under what I liked but at times I was very unsure). What makes them good is that they do a good job of adding a variety of sounds and influences and instead of being mess they’ve made some great. It’s a mix of power pop and punk and some songs end up being very enjoyable. My favorite tracks are the ones with the good guitar intros like Kiki Bridges. The weaknesses on the albums lies on them slowing down the pace and going back and forth (which annoys me).

As much as they are pretty good as molding different styles, I can argue that everyone song on their release is pretty good…it doesn’t flow that well due to lack of continuity.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5.
A pretty decent album overall, not sure if other blogs/magazines will pick up this album and give it some press like it deserves. They have a lot of extra instruments which makes Unicycle Loves You stand out more then a typical band.

Kiki Bridges by Unicycle Loves You

Dollars + Cents by Unicycle Loves You

Woman Bait for Manfish by Unicycle Loves You

Buy the album at: Highwheel Records

As many of you know by now, probably from me blabbering on and on about it over the past couple of posts, that the event happened last Wednesday at Arrow Hall in Toronto and I would like to share with you my unique Gigantour experience. First of all, the venue was like a football field sized aircraft hanger. It was so big and dark that I lost my friend Roman as soon as we got there and I never found two buddies that I was suppose to meet there. The place is said to have a capacity of over 8,000 and frankly I’m really glad that the show didn’t get sold-out (I’ll explain why later).

Roman and I arrived at the show two hours late just in time for Children of Bodom to start. I made my way into the pit and slowly pushed my way into the front. I was at front and center for the rest of Children of Bodom and the first half of In Flames. If you ever played rugby before or know rugby terminology, the whole crowd at the front of the concert was in a continuous ruck. There were people pushing you in every direction and I was getting the living hell squeezed out of me. While there, I got elbowed in the eye, was disconnected from my shoe three times, and got kicked in the head several times by crowd surfers.

By the time In Flames came on, I was so tired and thirsty from all the pushing and shoving (yes there were pushing and shoving during the SET-UP!) that I decided it was best if I went to get a drink and take a break so I can come back for Megadeth all refreshed. Little did I know that the crowd at the front was so dense that the only way out was to crowd surf to the front where you can walk around to the back. For a good 10 minutes, I was stuck at the front, not being able to breath or move until the mosh behind us slowly engulfed some of the crowds at the front.

After In Flames had their gig, a lot of the crowd left (most of whom were 13 year-olds) and I was able to get back in front for Megadeth. Once they began playing though, the crowd became quite dense again and there were mosh pits forming and conjoining everywhere. Megadeth put on a really good show and overall, the concert was mind-blowing. I was able to find Roman at the end of the show, only to learn that he lost his glasses but found someone else’s which were all bent and scratched. While walking back through the parking lot, we learned that some guys got the gas siphoned out of their car and that two people got carried out in stretchers. LOL.

Children Of Bodom - Downfall

In Flames - Take This Life

Megadeth - Peace Sells

I had this album for a long as it leaked very early on. I can probably count on one hand how many times I’ve been able to go through it. I decided to check out Destroyer after liking Dan Bejar work with the New Pornographers.

There is just something weird about the style of this album…I don’t know much about the rest of the discography but are his other records similar? I mean I heard good things but Trouble in Dream is one random piece of work.

One way of being random is that it’s usually hit or miss with people. I think it’s a miss with me but I’ll do my best to examine it as it’s more of me just my own brain rejecting the sum to all the parts.

Boring is definitely not a word I could use to describe the album. There’s always something there that you can like whether it’s the intro, composition or guitar melody. On the other hand sometimes it just feels like there’s too much or the song doesn’t turn out the way you want to. Destroyer is barely pop….at least with my definition but I’ll slap it with the generic experimental rock tag. There’s a lot to like this album will probably be great for some or just average for some. I personally like it when it’s kept rather complex and really structured (though others would hate it).

I feel like stopping the review here. If I listen to it for another 100 hours I could probably end up saying this is the album of the year but my brain is finding it difficult for whatever reason. I would probably have nightmares if I continued listening to this album. The composition is extremely odd and while it’s none of that explicitly annoying stuff…it manages to strike a chord.

Lyrically/vocally it doesn’t do much for me and it’s really the musical composition that makes this album great. Bejar has a kind of talkative type vocals and lyrically it may be alright but after awhile my main focus is hearing all the different guitar variations, even if it gets to me…it stands out.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5. Take this with a grain of salt. You’ll have to decided for yourself on this album, pretty hit or miss and not much for me to discuss unfortunately. One of those, I can’t really explain why I don’t like it but just do kind of thing.

The State by Destroyer

Introducing Angels

Buy it from Insound/CD Universe/Amazon

I don’t normally like posting music videos, I guess it’s great as “filler” content but the fact remains is that almost any blogger can post a video…so I have to ask myself what I’m doing that is original.

I’m a big fan of these two music videos and while I normally hate music videos and would very much rather listen to the song itself…these two videos do have something to offer as it’s not the band simply playing the song.

The first music video is Justice’s Stress which involves a camera and a sound guy following youth gang in jackets with Justice’s album cover or the Cross (a controversial figure). They walk around the streets of France on a violent tear doing as many as illegal crimes from assault, sexual assault, aggravated assault, vandalism to grand theft auto. The action is set perfectly to the music and there’s more to this video that meets the eye. This is definitely a controversial music video with many hating it and citing racism and being offended due to the graphic violence. However, I must say there are a few things this video captures perfectly around the “youth gang culture”. First off, they are just putting on a show trying to be cool by smoking, walking the walk and overall doing anything that will piss someone off usually without reason. A lot of the time you see people not reacting at all and just standing there and taking it where once inawhile you find an individually standing up to challenge the gang to only be outnumbered and beat up. You see a lot of people standing around doing nothing and watching while this happens (this is EXACTLY what happens in real life…people just watch these people do a number of asshole things). I really like this video not because of my experience with “youth gangs” in Jane and Finch of Toronto but a lot of children do want to just do things without a purpose and painting them in a poor light seems like the exact purpose of the video. The ending where the youths turn on the camera man and the sound guy may be what they deserve as gangs are glorified these days.

A great great video for one of my favorite singles off Cross. In the end its just violence but there’s much more that meets the eye and I’m sure it would be a hot topic if this was a more “mainstream” artist.

Download: Stress by Justice

Speaking of violence. White William’s New Violence is more of a less controversial nature and just rounds up random clips of guns and other various things. It’s supposed to a shot at the USA for their fascination with guns but I just like looking at the random clips. Props for including my man Steven Segal (not really my man but I do like him for his horrible acting). Why no Arnold though?

Download: New Violence by White Williams