Label: Side One Dummy Release Date: August 21, 2007 Punk and reggae have a long history together. The commonality of what was the people’s music in their respective cultures was evident almost from the very birth of punk and that shared vision has been explored right up through today. Certainly some have used both genres for ill, but every time… Read more »
Label: OCI Records Released: May 1, 2007 Sometimes, it’s good to hear a really tight band, but not always. The Sammus Theory is certainly a tight band, they even play with passion, but they fail to excite. That’s not to say that See (It) Through is without promise though. The Phoenix-based band’s previous effort, Man Without Eyes, was primarily a… Read more »
Label: Locomotive Records Released: July 17, 2007 For a genre that has produced some of rock’s most creative movements, punk has also produced more than its fair share of covers. From cover albums to cover bands, it seems that every time I turn around, there’s another punk cover out there. While some of these have been very clever, most of… Read more »
Label: Polyvinyl Records Released: September 11, 2007 Some albums are great, because you always want to listen to them and others are great, because sometimes you want to listen to nothing else. Picastro’s third album, Whore Luck, is the latter. It’s a questionable state of mind that would want a steady diet of this album, yet there are likely times… Read more »
Here’s another piece of cool vinyl from my collection. This one is from Montreal punk rockers, Fifth Hour Hero. It’s hard to tell in the first picture, but you can see that it’s clear with bits of color when I hold it in the sun. The record was released by No Idea Records who always puts their best foot forward… Read more »
Label: Australian Cattle God Released: September 6, 2005 First and foremost, Tia Carrera is a stoner rock band. This is not the long-dreaded release of Sweet covers by the largely forgotten Wayne’s World star. It’s a bad name, but that’s where the bad stops. The stoner rock field has gotten fairly crowded over the last ten years and it gets… Read more »
Label: self-released (available at CD Baby Released: 2006 Defying the Stereotype is a bit of a misnomer for this album. Perhaps Confused About the Stereotype or Lost in the Stereotype would be more appropriate. It’s certainly not “stereotype” that I object to, but “defying,” because this record defies nothing. From the opening track, Landonband spends their time genre-hopping. True, there… Read more »
Label: No Idea Records Released: September 2006 – June 2007 For those expecting to hear the next generation of Hot Water Music, go buy the Draft’s In a Million Pieces. Chuck Ragan’s The Blueprint Sessions only shares his former band’s emotional appeal, but the music itself is far closer to the raw folk/punk that he did with Rumbleseat. This is… Read more »
After my review of the Explicits, their fellow Jacksonville band Baker Act contacted me about doing the same. After a brief listen, I agreed. It’s always nice to hear a new punk band without a trace of emo and Baker Act has the emotion without the whining. The four songs on their page all show influences from the artier side… Read more »
Label: Polyvinyl Records Released: March 6, 2007 Often a great album is one where everything comes together in ways unimagined with hooks that make one wonder how anyone could write something that instantly likable. Other times, great albums take effort. The Days and Nights of Everything Anywhere, 31Knots’ fourth full-length release, is like that. A consistently unsettling work, it achieves… Read more »