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Sunday, April 17, 2011

Week Ending 4/16 - Rock, Industrial, Goth, Blues, Indian

Smattering of everything this week. The two New Releases I picked up were a single from Tim Skold and Caustic's full album. Both digitally, Metropolis Records nicely provide a PDF booklet of the liner notes, not just the cover art. Which I highly appreciate and may switch all my Metropolis purchases to digital format. If only more labels followed in their footsteps.

Caustic - The Golden Vagina Of Fame And Profit
Label: Metropolis Records
Released: 4/12 2011
Genre: Industrial
His first release on Metropolis, the album is a very old-school industrial release. No squealing guitars, just thumping beats and crunchy noise. A couple tracks are mostly instrumental and are, in the context of the album, a bit annoying. I'd throw them into a mix and let them get happily lost in the background of a long day. The stand outs are Hiroshima Burn (a massive beat and lyrics that make me want to throw down in a mosh pit), Orchid (Unwoman lends her vocals to a great anti-rock cut), Chum The Waters (not as pure awesome as the remix on the single off the album, but still awesome and full of drums), and White Knuckle Head Fuck (just beautifully angry). Good old Industrial club cuts.

SKOLD - Suck
Label: Metropolis Records
Released: 4/12 2011
Genre: Industrial
The single off the upcoming Skold album. Tim Skold has been in the business a long time, and after 15 years is finally putting out another solo album. The first five tracks are the Title and four remixes. It's a great industrial-rock song, an ode to wanting to be the Rock Star - very fight club. The last three tracks are all non-album tracks. It's nice to see a single contain several non-album tracks instead of just one. If they're any indication of the upcoming album (out 5/10) then it will be an excellent and dark album.

Double Down - Polarity
Label: self released (purchase through CD Baby)
Released: 2008
Genre: Rock
Double Down is a Denver local band, rock and blues-rock. Polarity was released during a time when they were switching out bassists almost as fast as Spinal Tap went through drummers. It's a good solid rock offering, good for nights when you just need something blue collar with some blues thrown in. Bar Rock, really.

The Victim's Ball - The Victim's Ball
Label: self released (purchase through CD Baby)
Released: 2010
Genre: Gothic-Rock
I call it Gothic Rock, but there's no guitars. Though if there were it'd fit perfectly into the early/mid-80s Goth Rock scene. It's traditional instruments from the late 18th- early 19th century. The album focuses around the French Revolution and the supposed Victim's Balls (parties held by surviving nobility) afterwards. It's a dark and melodic album, good for late nights.

Rough Guides
World Music has a service where you subscribe to receive two new Rough Guide compilations a month, given mail from the UK takes a random about of time I never really know when I'm going to get these. . . My wife picks which two compilations she wants to listen to every month.

RG to Desert Blues:
Blues coming out of the North African region. Traditional music mixed with modern guitars, and some other modern elements. It does feel very blues, not in the classic American Delta sense, but in a more overall 12-bar feeling of the genre. Some of it is a bit rock, some of it is hard to find the blues under it. All of it is really good. This one comes with an extra CD from the group Etran Finatawa, which is just excellent.

RG to Indian Lounge
Hard to categorize this, it's not quite techno, not quite lounge, little bit night club, lots of traditional, and all kinds of things mixed in. One track strikes me as "Dub Bhangra" - the only words I have for it. Some of it's slow, some of it bouncy and fast. The Rough Guides are really eclectic selections normally, and if this is even a sampling of how an Indian night club moves they listen to just about anything and incorporate it into everything.

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