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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Week Of 5/1 - Metal, Rock, Industrial, Pop

Bit of a mix this week, also, a number of singles instead of full albums added in, but pretty much the entire lot is new releases...

New Releases:
The Adventures Of
Adventures (Free Facebook Songs)
Label: Transmission Galactic
Released: 5/1 2012
Genre: Rock

The story here is Tori Amos started a new label to sign bands she likes and wants to expose to the world, and this is the first band she signed. The two tracks are free on Facebook, and the full album is available in the US right now. The two tracks are, well, different. It's definitely a flavor of rock, little blues, little punk, little everything else. I'm immediately reminded of the Dresden Dolls in style, thought not musical-style, but approach style. Very different kind of stuff here, and I think I'll be checking out the whole album in the near future.

Nora Jones
...Little Broken Hearts
Label: Blue Note
Released: 5/1 2012
Genre: Pop, Rock

Norah teamed up with Dangermouse on this album and came out with something very different, which is standard for her. Her voice is still the driving force behind it, a little jazzy, a little bluesy, a bit pop, all very smooth and seductive. Some of the songs sound a little bit like parts left over from Dangermouses Broken Bells effort, but only a little bit. The music itself is pretty stripped down, unintrusive to the vocal parts of the songs. It's a fantastic album all the way through, a kind of quiet subtle music that draws you in and makes you stop to just listen for a bit. A good album to sit back and relax to for a short while.

Sinsect
Broken Heroes Volume One
Label: Self-Released (  http://noise.sinsect.com/ )
Released: 5/1 2012
Genre: Industrial

The first in a series of singles leading up to the next album release, this is a three track EP to kick it off. All instrumentals with some voice samples from movies. While it's noisy, it's not as crunchy and thumpy (totally technical terms) as Buglife (his previous full length album), more of a slower paced kind of grind to it. It feels like a more deliberate pace, making it a little daker, and possibly a little heavier. Sinsect is excellent at creating heavy ambient soundscapes.

Skip The Foreplay
Nightlife
Label: Epitaph Records
Released: 5/1 2012
Genre: Hardcore, Death Metal

I picked this up slightly on a whim, because the cover said "Metal + Screamo + Dubstep" on it with a sticker - and sometimes I just can resist the utterly stupid advertising gimmicks of music. It's basically death metal, possibly just growling hardcore punk. They add a twist with a DJ sliding in mostly well placed dubstep drops and wobbly bass. It turns out that pretty much any kind of metal and dubstep are a pretty good fit for each other (see Korn's latest album for more examples). It's not a terribly exciting album, taken as a whole, but it has its moments and a few tracks tossed into a playlist to keep a party (or club) moving are doable. I doubt I'll ever listen to this straight through again, still a good enough addition I'll cherry pick the tracks as needed. It doesn't ever slow down, or lighten up, which makes as pure a hardcore album as you can really get.

Adding To The Collection:
Primal Rock Rebellion
No Place Like Home
Label: Spinefarm Records
Released: February 2012
Genre: Heavy Metal

This is a 10" Single I digitized. The A-Side is taken from the album (Awoken Broken), reviewed a few weeks ago. And strangely, taken out of the context of the full album manages to become a straight forward rock song. The vocals don't seem too over reaching, or experimental at that. The full albums lack of vocal cohesiveness is not here in these two tracks - granted it's only two songs. But still, both of them come of consistently hard-rock. It's with these two songs I hope that these two guys settle down a put out some more music in this vein.

Next Week:
Lots of House and pop-techno from David Guetta, some heavy industrial from Unter Null to balance that, and a little bit of modern folk from Sara Watkins so I don't drown in synthesizers.

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