Label: Astralwerks Released: August 19, 2008 From the opening seconds of Strawberry Weed, Caesars make it clear that they’re not afraid to make noise. Committed to the mod tradition of the Who, they are loud, abrasive and willing to run wild, yet they never lose their raw pop sense. They tap into that point in rock history when bands realized… Read more »
Label: A&M Released: 1988 In the liner notes of this album, Joe Jackson writes perhaps the best case for this album’s greatness: “I’ve always had two stubborn rules about playing live. Firstly, no matter how small the audience, how bad the acoustics, how smelly the dressing room, etc, every show is important. It’s possible to play to about a dozen… Read more »
Label: self-released Released: 2008 Ah, pop punk the way it was meant to be played. No sappy, whiny singer fronting a band with all the punch of Muzak. No songs by a band more interested in posing as “sensitive guys” than in expressing discontent. No boring, fake sentiments. No calculations to “make it.” Yeah, Canine 10 is the real deal…. Read more »
Label: SideOneDummy Records Released: August 19, 2008 Finally, someone has married punk with Springsteen. On one hand, it seems like a daunting task and on another like something that should have been done long ago. Springsteen is, after all, one of rock’s biggest artists, racking up bazillions in album sales and selling out arenas the world over. There’s not much… Read more »
Label: Sony BMG Released: May 27, 2008 Live at the Fillmore East was recorded only a little over a month before I saw the Dolls play in Baltimore, so I had a good idea of the potential this release had. Despite my feelings about One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This, I found the show to be… Read more »
Label: Loose Recs Released: 2008 The Monocles tap into punk circa 1977 or so. Their songs consist of a single driving layer of frenetic energy, each of the three musicians moving in a single and deliberate direction at the same quick pace. Hey, it worked for the Adverts, right? And it works for the Monocles too, 30 plus years later…. Read more »
Label: Crusher Records Released: May 5, 2008 For outsiders, prog rock really seems like a limited genre full of musicians whose musical narcisism takes center stage, relegating things like hooks, emotion and all things rock n roll to the background. That may be true to some extent, but prog has also expanded rock’s palette in many ways. A band like… Read more »
Label: Parks and Records Released: Spring/Summer 2008 About six or seven years ago, I bought a 7″ on whim. It was only a few bucks and on colored vinyl, so I couldn’t go wrong. Still nothing prepared me for what I was about to hear. That 7″ was Rum Diary’s Mileage EP and the title song so rejuvenated my interest… Read more »
Label: Facedown Records Released: May 27, 2008 The metallic hardcore that Means offer on To Keep Me From Sinking has had a lot of practitioners over the last two decades or so and as expected, some do it better than others. The better bands are either tighter, more intense or occasionally even more creative. Means can compete with the best… Read more »
Label: Facedown Records Released: June 24, 2008 Can’t Fight Robots, the debut album from Arkansas’ Take It Back, finds a good mix between crunch and melody. It draws heavily on bands that defined the punk rock of the 90s like Pennywise and (ironically) Bad Religion and thickens that sound up with more hardcore tendencies. The vocals have a gritty power… Read more »