Tag: grunge
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Foo Fighters – s/t LP (reissue)
It feels strange to be discussing the twentieth anniversary of Foo Fighters‘ debut album now – just months after Universal Music Enterprises celebrated the same anniversary for the release of Nirvana’s In Utero album. It seems weird because, while the original releases of those albums were only twenty-two months apart, they feel as though they…
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Fight Amp – Constantly Off
I figure I’m somewhat familiar with Fight Amp at this juncture. They’ve found their way to the bottom of a coupla sludge-metal touring packages that have hit Toronto—albeit not in the past couple years. The Philly-area outfit is known for its Neurosis-inspired post-sludge and complete lack of stage lighting that makes them hard to see…
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Kinski – 7 (Or 8)
Without intending to sound condescending, things are really starting to get interesting for Kinski now – on their seventh full-length album. For the sake of context, Kinski willfully challenged themselves a couple of years ago when the (long thought to be) instrumental band released Cosy Moments, an album which defied convention because it featured lyric sheets…
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Palace in Thunderland – In the Afterglow of Unity
This on-again, off-again Boston band featuring former members of Black Pyramid and Blue Aside is back on with their second album in the past two years. Though not quite as extended as its predecessor, the nearly-90-minute Apostles of Silence, we still get a solid hour’s worth of spacey prog doom here from Palace in Thunderland.…
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Royal Thunder – Crooked Doors
Fair warning: Crooked Doors, the second full-length from Atlanta’s Royal Thunder, contains at least three songs that will burn into your unconsciousness with the ease of candy-coated crack to haunt your waking and un-waking hours. I wish someone would have warned me, but there’s little time – it happens almost instantly. The first song, “Time…
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Hunters – Hands on Fire
From the very first time I heard Hunters‘ debut full length album, I was in love. The grainy, gritty street-punk-meets-grunge mixture produced by the band touched every single pleasure center in my brain. Derek Watson’s guitar growled just the right way and Izzy Almeida’s vocals smoothed the hardened, angry burrs in my mind with a…
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The Julie Ruin: personal and artistic fulfillment
When you realize you can’t fake it At a certain point in their careers, many musicians discover that something about their art has to be a reflection of themselves, if they want to continue on. It might sound trite or self-absorbed, but taking over the world has to come second to personal and artistic fulfillment;…
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The Melvins – Tres Cabrones
By Bill Adams It might be a little late in the game to try and call what The Melvins have done on Tres Cabrones a mid-life crisis. The average age of the band’s members is around fifty – no one tries to call that mid-life with a straight face – but there’s no denying that…
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Melvins/ Totimoshi @ Rickshaw Theater, Vancouver BC, July 5, 2010
“Having seen the Melvins in previous three-piece variants over the years, this was my very-excited first time seeing this four-on-the-floor version that includes the Big Business guys, even though the band’s been touring in this incarnation since 2006. First, the stage set-up is key: Looking like one monstrous kit, the twin drumsets are dead center…