A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Flesh & Bone” 7” single by Dan Rico. On first play through Dan Rico’s “Flesh & Bone” 7” single, many listeners will likely be struck and dazzled by what they hear. They’ll be excited by the tone and tenor of both “Flesh & Bone” and its B-side, “Gold Volvo,” because both tracks sound tightly and classically composed, in the finest tradition of the best power pop records. That is indeed a...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Stuyedeyed/Birds split 7” single, released on Greenway Records. It’s always kind of incredible how great a gamble a split 7” single release can be for the artists involved. Over the years, lots of bands have made great ones, yes, but there have been an equal or greater number of weak or soft efforts which feel lopsided because either one band or one song is far superior to the other. It’s a...
Dead Cross – Self-titled You know, I’m big enough of a person to admit that it took me a while to realize what a cool dude Mike Patton is. I remember listening to the Irony is a Dead Scene EP years ago, appreciating the great music and vocals and not realizing that it was Patton’s contribution that really was making that release stand out. Fast forward more than a decade, and I’m absorbing Faith No More’s Sol Invictus and the...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Self-Contained LP by The Containers. Having grown up and come of age in the Eighties and Nineties (here to fore known as the golden age of tape trading and indie rock), I confess with a little embarrassment and chagrin that I had never heard of The Containers prior to Manufactured Recordings’ vinyl reissue of Self-Contained arriving on my desk, and I have to say that I have no idea how such...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Revolution Radio LP by Green Day. Some smart aleck is going to say that this review is a bit late in coming (yes, Revolution Radio was released fourteen months ago) but that’s part of the point here; Green Day’s twelfth album was touted as a much-needed return to the band’s roots after almost a decade spent releasing concept albums and enormous album trilogies (plus a fourth CD/DVD conglomerate for good measure)....
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the new Hellcat Records/Pirates Press reissue of the Viking LP by Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards. If the idea that a classic album is defined as one which holds personal meaning for a listener can be taken as factual, then I can say confidently that Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards’ sophomore album, Viking, is one of the most important albums of my life; for me, it is a personal classic. I remember,...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Hellcat Records/Pirates Press reissue of Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards’ self-titled debut album. Those who remember that time period when all the Southern California punk bands who broke through in the early Nineties got huge (like the Offspring, Green Day, NOFX and Rancid) remember what a big deal it was when Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards released their first album in 2001. Granted, they were not the first offshoot group to...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Aluminium LP by Vulture Whale. Sometimes there’s just no way to mistake where a band comes from. In any given case, it might be the singer’s accent or tonality that does it or sometimes it’s just a particular vale or sound inserted somewhere among the instrumental performances, but it’s unmistakably there and listeners know it as soon as they hear it – no matter how potentially intangible it might be. On...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Medicine Mountain LP by Chomper. Every once in a while, a band somehow manages to come along and throw a multitude of easily recognizable sounds into the generic melting pot and then pour out something which is recognizable for those traits as well as coming off as perfectly unique and all the band’s own. That’s precisely what happens on Medicine Mountain, Chomper’s debut album; in just eight tracks, the band (which...
The Bronx V I first saw the Bronx about ten years ago in San Diego opening for Lagwagon. Lead singer Matt Caughtran proudly announced before they came out, “We saw it was going to rain earlier, so we didn’t think the show was going to happen, so we all did a bunch of drugs.” I was intrigued. The Bronx then proceeded to blow me away as they played their set. After that show, of course I looked them up online,...