Label: VH1 Classics Released: June 3, 2008 Bret Michaels’ stupid reality show (I guess it’s redundant to call reality tv stupid) takes its name from the shallow lyrics of Rock My World‘s opening track, “Go That Far.” Frankly, bad as it is, it’s still the best this album has to offer. From there, it’s all downhill into a series of… Read more »
Label: self-released Released: 2008 Dead Leaf Echo offers up layers of heavy reverb, subtle, fluid rhythms and ambling, mopey vocals in the true shoegazing tradition. At times, they find interesting ways to get the vocals to work in concert with the rhythms and it’s strikingly good. They don’t get there consistently, but when they do, they really shine. The fuzzy… Read more »
Label: Ex Libris Records Released: April 14, 2008 With a lot of bands, it’s fairly easy to discern their influences and use those influences to describe the band’s sound. I could try that with Shin Jin Rui. At times I hear Gang of Four and at others the Stooges. Sometimes the Fall, Syd-era Pink Floyd, the Velvet Underground, Ziggy-era Bowie…. Read more »
Label: Interscope Records Released: March 18, 2008 Lay Down the Law is a collection of songs that is perfectly good in the moment. Their catchy 80s power-pop (filtered through more recent times via the Strokes) is pleasant enough, but it can’t hold on to what it’s caught. Even after multiple listens, there isn’t a single melody here that sticks with… Read more »
Label: SideOneDummy Records Released: June 17, 2008 When British punk got into the hands of working class kids in the late 70s who married its anger to pub singalongs and soccer chants, Oi was born. It is a thoroughly British (okay, the Irish can pull it off also) phenomenon that American bands have had a hard time copying. Being able… Read more »
Label: Columbia Records Released: June 17, 2008 Punk rock made its way out of seedy clubs and into arenas over a decade ago, but that didn’t always mean that the bands who made it just turned on the commercial rock and abandoned their roots. Green Day, perhaps the genre’s biggest success story (unless you consider Nirvana punk), still really plays… Read more »
Label: Goodfellow Records Released: April 29, 2008 There are two kinds of anger: one based on love and one based on hate. I’ve always found myself more attracted to the former. New Model Army’s fury on “I Love the World” has always seemed both fuller and deeper than something along the lines of the Circle Jerks’ “World Up My Ass.”… Read more »
Label: Alive Naturalsound Released: January 8, 2008 “Billy Gibbons, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” That’s likely what goes through Left Lane Cruiser guitarist Freddy J IV’s head as he pines away for his guitar hero. Gibbons’ influence on Freddy’s playing is unmistakable and perhaps wearing his influences on his sleeve like that should count against… Read more »
Label: VH1 Classics Released: June 3, 2008 A few months back, I heard a few pre-release tracks of this project which reunites Def Leppard’s Phil Collen with former Girl bandmate Simon Laffy and brings in ex-Sex Pistol Paul Cook. The line-up certainly sounds like it could be flirting with disaster, but that preview raised my hopes that this would be… Read more »
Label: Flightplan Records Released: January 29, 2008 Some time in the 90s, pop punk generally began placing the pop over the punk in its approach to the point that it might be difficult to tell the difference between A New Found Glory and Avril Lavigne. That’s sad, because punk has a long pop tradition that dates back at least to… Read more »