The Angelic Process - Weighing Souls With Sand (2007)

Overwhelming. That is what The Angelic Process is. Nothing more, nothing less. When popping the disc in the cd-player the first thing noticed was the comparison with Nadja. Those who are unfamiliar with Nadja, this is an 'Ambient Drone Doom' project of Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff that release multiple full-lengths each year. They sound quite similar as they both have a monstrous sound with crushing bass, followed by buzzing guitars and tribal drums.

This is the kind of album that you need to experience for yourself to have an inkling of what's going on. For me everything about this album blends together with raw emotion. The magnitude of power that the music exhibits is stunning. Combining the heaviness and, at times, brutality with utter splendor, this album spans genres and mindsets impressively and distinctly.

Download

Buy

Skultroll - Skultroll (2007)

More True Sheffield. Although one shouldn't expect the outlandish range of the Black Vomit I posted earlier, this group, a side-project from the mind behind Black Vomit (or perhaps the other way around), this is a particularly good example of the general sound that ties this scene together. Guitar shreiks with a "blender" of effects, spiking and droning from one second to the next, and the drums again making a thunderous presence. No heavy use of samples and classical instruments, no lengthy ambient passages, this is much more of a punk-ish interpretation of the True Sheffield sound.

buy

Download

Time To Burn - Is.Land (2007)

The first few moments of the album hint at an all of this like the prelude to an oncoming storm, with distant dissonant guitar lines that only give a glimpse of what is to come. Soon after, huge (and I mean really huge) riffs are introduced, distorting the noise around them (including the screams of the singer) and bringing everything to a breathtaking climax within the first two minutes. After this, ‘Nayeli’ simply continues the onslaught, as does every other song on the album. But Time To Burn don’t keep to one tempo or style, throughout the fourty minute playing time of Is.Land Time To Burn pace things, slowing it down at times with doom like riffs, or ambient post-metal build ups, either slow and powerful or quiet and menacing, never relenting on the paranoid and bitter ambience that surrounds the release.

Very unique blend of genres within this album is not unlike that of The Pax Cecillia, if you want an album that is pure aggression and devoid of happy thoughts this is a defiant go to album. Plus they're French.

Download

Buy

Amocoma - Go To Hell (2007)

Hand-sketched skulls and an abstract representation of their name, all surrounded with a black border. Amocoma's debut, Go To Hell, with all it's melancholy, presents us of a case example where judging a book by it's cover can provide fairly accurate results. It commands us to head to a destination and even gives us a path of skulls (or maybe it's a pyramid, I guess?). Regardless of the cover's true perspective, it's clear that this album is a menacing beast, and it spends no time lightening up it's image.

From start to finish in this album, there is only darkness. Don't take it from me, they tell us themselves naming one of their tracks "These Are Your Choices... Darkness". There is nothing of a bright glaze. Every sound, from the guitar to the vocals is drenched in a thick fuzz. It trudges along from one melancholy outburst to another, dragging along it's simplistic riffs, and similarly simplistic, pounding, maybe almost tribal drums. As the guitar and drums continue, mostly looping themselves, we're frequently interrupted with demonic screams, themselves struggling to sound out above the fuzz. Possibly some resemblance in this respect to (for a band posted here before) Circle of Ouroborus (the occasional shrieks from them), but while CoO occasionally spends time with a more hopeful, existentialist view of the bleakness and torment, there is none here. The music is haunting, the growls are haunting, again, with this, there is only one choice... darkness.

Buy

Download

Prizzy Prizzy Please- Prizzy Prizzy Please (2007)

I've tried writing this review several times but for some reason I've had a lot of trouble writing it so I'm going to keep this short. What I can say is that Prizzy Prizzy Please formed out of the same Indiana punk scene as Good Luck, the first band I posted. They take a far less serious approach lyrically than Good Luck but an even more intense approach musically. Whereas Good Luck sing about relationships and growing older, PPP sing about evil space monkeys attacking a captain named Bob. Good Luck like to cover Prince. PPP like to cover AC/DC. In fact, PPP are the only modern punk band I know of that openly embraces glam rock sounds, and they do it without a single guitarist in the band. Instead they opt for a heavily distorted keyboard. They also feature a saxophone in many of their songs, giving their glammed up punk a unique jazzy feel.

This review might be short but that's a fault of mine and not the music's. Prizzy Prizzy Please are one of my favorite bands going today. To sum them up, they're a fun, energetic band whose music sometimes makes you dance, sometimes makes you sing, but always makes you smile.

"Flea Bomb"

Try it.

Buy it.

Last.fm | MySpace

Musical Family Tree- You can stream their newest album, Chroma Cannon, here.

Let me know if this doesn't download right. I had some trouble uploading it.

The Gay Blades- Ghosts (2007)

The Gay Blades are a Trash pop duo from New York City. Now despite the odd name, this is a very solid band. They kind of remind me of Head Automatica. Ghosts starts off with O-Shot, it's very stripped down and vocally stellar. The oddly named Bob Dylan's 115th Nightmare follows O-Shot and uses the Gay Blades trash pop style to it's advantage. The brilliant Hey She Say is next up and it's opening riff gets you ready for the song. It's somewhat catchy on the same point. The chorus is the strong point of this track. The Gay Blades are an very interesting band with a formula. Catchy trash pop and great vocal arrangements. One of my favorite songs has to be Dog Day Afternoon, it's a stripped down guitar strummer that is so beautiful executed it's meant to be heard.

Prologue to a Broken Heart almost sounds like a lounge song, it's just so cool and blues infused. NDHN is begging to be a sing along song with the oh oh oh's like most songs like that are. This band has no bass. Clark Westfield plays Guitar and Puppy Mills drums. It's an odd hipster like experiment but it works. We Wear Mittens is the duo's duet with repeated uses of "My heart is cold, my heart is warm. We follow this with You're a Garbage Barge, I'm a Dream Boat is almost a ballad without the star quality. Next we have the hilariously named Robots Can Fuck Your Shit up. There is no mention of Robots at all and the song is actually about a man trying to convince a woman she needs him. Why Can't I Grow a Beard? no not me, that's the song title. All of these songs names sound like they were drawn randomly from a hat. As for Why I Can't I Grow a Beard, it's another beauty. The second to last track Compliments Can Kill seems to be the gem of the album with infectious lyrics and a rocking beat. Whatever these guys are doing, it works. The closer of the album is the echoing Cellphone Song, a slow winding road of a song you need to hear from beginning to end. Overall, Ghosts was a nice album for me to try and listen to after reading about them way back when. If you like Indie rock or want something new. Give Ghosts a listen.

Try It

Buy It

Air Formation - Daylight Storms (2007)

Shoegaze is quickly becoming one of my favorite genres of music. The slow, gentle singing is not only relaxing, but in a way it's very absorbing, almost like its taking you into another world. Air Formation is no different. Their soothing lullaby grabs you in a way almost comparable to how Slowdive had stretched out on our couches drifting between sleep and consciousness back in 1993 with their sophomore effort. Air Formation is an English shoegaze and space rock band. The band's rich, vivid sound will literally leave you feeling "Adrift" which is the title of one of the better songs on the album. The opener "Cold Morning" is a slow lull that leaves you with that hungry feeling you get when you want to hear more. That hunger lasts all the way through to the final track, a bass ridden departure from the album that leaves you excited for the band's next LP.

Try It
Buy It
Last.fm | Official Site | Myspace

Gellers - Gellers (2007)

Maybe you've heard of Shugo Tokumaru. His unique, cutesy folk sound with atypical instruments and various toy sounds has been gaining attention since his debut in 2004, but most notably capturing listeners with 2007's Exit and more recently with his fantastic album from the present year, Port Entropy. Here, he performs with four others, including drummer Shingo Shinmachi, who creates a unique noise-pop sound under the moniker of Chanson Sigeru to make a very interesting sound, blending various style into a delicious pop/rock brew.

The album seems to be a bit split, however. The first two songs are these abrasive, thick sounds with only a slight resemblance of Shugo's folk leanings. Noise pop, shoegaze, math rock, folk rock, etc. etc. etc.; it's tough to get a perfect grasp when relegating to common music "genre"s. 9 Teeth Picahia starts us with these nice calm melodies, even with the distortion, with soothing male vocals floating above it, and then slams the drums and increases the feedback, keying to the vocalist that he should probably shout to be heard. He obliges. And it continues to flow between the two in the 7minute track, occasionally throwing some samples just to make sure we aren't settling into the sound. The next track, Buscape, starts with an oddly timed riff, a cowbell, and shouting far off into the distance before fading off only to come back to a much more dense form of the beginning riff, supported this time by drums and a synth composition with a sound somewhere between a car horn and the broken accordion. Intensity builds up and falls off until finally leading us into a cacophony of sound, stopping to reprise and then leading into the next.

And it's at this point that it seems that Shugo takes command. The album because much softer, those charming melodies that were there before become even more charming, but also a bit clearer (not necessarily cleaner, however) and I believe Shugo also handles more of the vocal work (not cited) . It really ends up becoming very reminiscent of 60's pop bands. A little Beach Boys here, a little The Zombies there, and then taking that sound on a tour through modern Tokyo.

Buy (this is about the only place I can find it, sorry)

Download

Official site (this is one of the coolest band pages I've seen in a long time. I can't really get past the language barrier, unfortunately)

myspace | last.fm

Animate Objects - Riding in Fast Cars With Your Momma (2007)

Similar to The Roots, Animate Objects is a rap band. The live instrumentation certainly makes a big difference throughout the record; the beats are organic and funky and provide the perfect foundation. They're able to make a four minute spoken word intro not boring in the slightest. They're pretty much what makes the album; their sound is so pleasant and welcoming throughout. Every beat is very good at the least, and this consistency is just one part of why this album is so great. The album doesn't get caught in that coherent/consistent-but-no-real-highlights jam either; there are a few noticeable standouts on the album.

The emcees aren't very memorable, but they sound right at home over the beats. They're not very technically advanced, but they can seamlessly transition between serious and fun, braggadocio and introspective. A perfect example of this: El Dorado, one of the best songs you could have in your arsenal during a road trip, followed by album closer The Story of Now, a dark story about hte corruption of a young girl. Fortunately, the band is just as competent, and can effortlessly switch between various sounds and provide the ideal backdrop for whatever subject matter is at hand.

Twelve songs of great production and competent emceeing; Riding in Fast Cars With Your Momma is one of the most overlooked albums of the last decade. Sadly the band hasn't put out anything but an EP and a mixtape since, but hopefully another serious effort is on the way.

Download
Buy
Wikipedia
Last.fm