Week Of 12/6 - Rock, Metal, Dubstep, Psychobilly

This week a new Black Keys album lifts off with a solid rock sound to it, Korn mixes it up with a Metal-Dubstep collaboration album, I find an odd Dubstep compilation, and add some Psychobilly to the holiday music scene that is usually mind numblingly bad.

New Releases:
The Black Keys - El Camino
Label: Nonesuch
Released: 12/6 2011
Genre: Rock, Blues
Teaming up with producer Danger Mouse for this release, The Black Keys take their drum + guitar show and rock it out a little bit. With a sound that reminds me a little bit of the production quality on Danger Mouse's side project Broken Bells, but giving it a little more bluesy feel. The whole deal is very stripped down, understated, but with a big loud sound. There's a lot of rock and roll fun behind this album, very upbeat in a lot of parts. But the crowning gem on this one goes to Little Black Submarines, which starts off acoustic, before blaring on some heavy guitar and rhythm. I'm not sure I can actually explain the emotional connection I had with this song, but it's sad, longing, uplifting, and majestic all at once. The whole album is a good listen, enough variety in the songs to prevent them from sounding too similar, without gettign too far away from each other either.

Korn - The Path Of Totality
Label: Roadrunner Records
Released: 12/6 2011
Genre: Metal, Dubstep
For their latest effort Korn has decided to take a step a little further from traditional rock/metal albums by finding and working with a whole series of dubstep producers. It works amazingly well. The fuzzier heavy dubstep fits in nearly perfectly with heavy metal guitars and speed. Like most Korn albums I don't find all of it particularly good all the way through, bits and pieces at a time. There's always a few standout tracks though, Narcissistic Cannibal and Get Up! are two awesome songs. Overall the back half the album is much better than the front half. The Special Edition of the release has two bonus tracks and a DVD with the video Encounter, which is a live-shoot done in a crop circle, a sort of video best of. Dubstep producers that worked with then are Downlink, Kill The Noise, Skrillex, Noisia, Dastik, Excision, 12th Planet, and Feed Me.

Adding To The Collection:
Dubstep Madness
Label: Hypnotic Records
Released: 2011
Genre: Dubstep
Not sure where to really begin with this one. It's a two-disc set, almost all of it falling inbetween the older lighter stuff and the new heavier style. It also has a bunch of weird covers and remixes on it. About a third of it are original productions, all of which are excellent. The rest are some really good and some really odd choices to dubstep. By far the more interesting are Riders On The Storm (which is also the best cover of the song I've ever heard, replacing Jim with female vocals), Pass The Dutchie (which doesn't get all that far from its roots), Ice Ice Baby, Don't Stop The Rock, and Ghost Town. Thirty two tracks of decent dubstep, but nothing is particularly experimental, this whole thing is middle of the road filler for the most part.

Psychobilly Christmas
Label: Cleopatra Records
Released: 2008
Genre: Psychobilly
This one opens with a nice instrumental rendition of We Three Kings by The Reverend Horton Heat. After that, it goes off in a whole bunch of directions, all of which touch on holiday themes, but are decidedly not "traditional" holiday or christmas music. No one would play this in a mall, unfortunately. All of it great Pyschobilly in its own right, now with a Christmas theme. I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus goes from silly little ditty to excellent song with the addition of an upright bass. You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch gets a needed rock infusion. Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer likewise transforms from holiday cheese to an actual rocker. On more original somes I'm Getting Pissed For Christmas and Gunslingin' Santa are just the right touch to take the edge off family gatherings. There are nineteen tracks on here, all of which are a switft kick in the backend, unlike most "rock'n christmas" style songs or albums these really pour on the rock, hard.

Bonus Track:
The Razor Skyline - The Longest Night
I don't know when this was first released by the band, but it's been arounda few years. It feels like it might be a traditional christmas song, with a darkwave/goth rendition, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. A good little number to have in the holiday rotation to keep it all from being dull ballads and 'classics'. Released free to the public via Vampire Freaks.

Next Week:
I finally get to the Lou Reed and Metallica collaboration, some future jazz, some heavy blues-rock, and more dubstep, and maybe a little Moombahton thrown in the mix... maybe. Listen Hard!