Music Bender

The Fray actually defied my expectations with their debut album “How to Save a Life”. From their singles “How to Save a Life” and “Over My Head” I thought their album would be a lot more laid back and centered explicitly around the piano. However, I was pleasantly surprised by a sound somewhat more upbeat and well rounded than either of their singles.

Don’t take my comments there as criticism, I loved the singles, but the CD is much better fleshed out like it is. The musicianship is superb throughout, with generally mellow piano and withdrawn drums complimented by melodic guitar. “Look After You” and “Dead Wrong” really show The Fray epitomized.

Vocals are undoubtedly what makes this band. The lead singer Isaac Slade, who also plays the piano, is, while not the best vocalist I’ve ever heard, most definitely unique in his style. The lyrics composed by the band compliment his voice (or vice versa) in a rather sublime way.

Over all the album is very well done. However, a little bit more variety would have been welcome. “Little House” and “She Is” had far too little company as standout pieces.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I picked up Light Grenades the other day. Well. It certainly wasn’t at all like any of their music that I’d heard up until that point.

Light Grenades is a departure from their “semi-mainstream” sound that Incubus has maintained over their past ventures. The spectrum of sound on this album is incredible.

I’m a gamer, so the intro to the song “Light Grenades” sounded very familiar, straight out of Halo 2. The rest of the song though, was different. Very different. The vocals that they experiment with compliment the rest of the off-beat song with quite a bit of flair.

The single, “Anna Molly” is very well done, the light guitar/ heavy guitar alternation makes for an effect that creates a memorable single unlike any other.

Then there are other songs that make me go WTF? “Quicksand” is merely okay, and “A Kiss to Send Us Off” sounds too clash-esque.

Mellow songs like “Love Hurts” and “Oil and Water” are my favorites on the album, although the next confirmed single “Dig” is also very high up there.

Incubus has certainly created something unique and individual with “Light Grenades”. They definitely deserve the spot on the charts that they currently hold. However, I wouldn’t mind if they did settle on a certain sound, if just to know what to expect. Regardless, “Light Grenades” is worth a listen or two by everyone, because if you can’t find anything on the album that appeals to you, well you shouldn’t be listening to music.

I had a ton of respect for Crossfade and their self-titled album released in 2004. Their sound was unique yet familiar enough that it drew a ridiculous amount of fans. This latest album falls far short of what I believe Crossfade is capable of.

“Falling Away” sounds like Crossfade has been listening to too much Nickelback. Rather than letting the truly unique sound of their first album carry through, they’ve streamlined their sound into what is popular today, a pretty terrible choice on their part. “Someday”, “Invincible”, and “Falling Away” all sound like something straight out of one of those country-rock bands’ line ups.

So, needless to say, I’m disappointed. Not that it’s a bad CD, it sounds fine for what it is. But there are very few traces of what I really liked about Crossfade in the beginning. One thing I will comment on is the presence of acoustic and semi-acoustic songs on this album. These are probably my favorite songs on the whole CD, “Already Gone” in particular.

Let’s hope that Crossfade doesn’t have too much success with this album. In the meantime, it’s been a while since I’ve listened to their old album “Crossfade”. So I’ll dust it off, put it on, and hope that originality finds its way back into Crossfade’s music.

Holy crap. This is the most amazing album ever. Okay, well perhaps not. But it boggles the mind at the sheer amount of energy that the band pours into the album. I get exhausted just air-guitaring and drumming along with the first song.

There is no way that a band with the name Dragon Force should be taken seriously. It sounds like some asian cartoon. However, you can’t help but enjoy the raw power of songs like “Through the Fire and Flames” and ” Revolution Deathsquad”. The anthems just soar with rock melodies that tug at the heart strings and that internal rockstar in all of us.

The lyrics blaze with power, reminiscent of the power ballads of yorn. Yeah, I just said yorn…

The solos are where the true soul of the album comes forth. In almost every song a guitar solo from hell is unleashed upon the virgin ears of the listener, ravaging the psyche and burning the mind.

It is so great.

A surprisingly mellow departure from standard BNL fare, Barenaked Ladies Are Me presents an interesting dilemma for a longtime fan like me. Roll with it, or resist? But wait! A second question arises; where are they going?

This latest album sounds very generic BNL. There are very few surprises among the songs, dissapointing in a BNL album. Now, none of it’s downright bad, I enjoyed the album for the greater part, but the days of ingenuitive pop and lyrics seem faded.

Maybe it’s because I loved “Everything to Everyone” so much. But the sprinkling of lackluster songs on this album make it hard to enjoy it completely without feeling a little let down at the end, a byproduct of songs like “Adrift” and “Home”.

There are a couple of shiny songs in there though. “Everything Had Changed” stands out as an interesting plunky tune, and “Sound of Your Voice” exemplifies some of the best traits of BNL’s sound.

“Wind It Up” finishes out the album with a sound… exactly like “Blue Rodeo”.

Overall, a good BNL album, but an unsure one, stuck in between where they’ve been and where they’re going.

This CD surprised the hell out of me. With the album art, the band name, and the album name, I had some incredibly wrong preconceptions about Teenage Graffiti. I figured that it would be an offbeat indie sound that I wouldn’t really like that much.

So, I was wrong.

First and foremost, The Pink Spiders are a punk pop group, with heavy alternative influences. Their sound is so diverse, with a song like ‘Modern Swinger’ sounding like a higher energy Bowling for Soup, and yet also a completely unique sound coming from songs like ‘Adalae’ and ‘Hollywood Fix’.

In general, the album is very upbeat, high-tempo, and happy, standing out as a feel-good record against the world of bands who insist upon sad lyrics written into sadder songs. Not to say that Teenage Graffiti doesn’t have it’s serious moments, but the overall feel of the album remains light-hearted for the most part, the notable exceptions to this style being ‘Hey Jane’ and ‘Secret Song’.

Favorite line of lyrics:
‘Secret Song’
“If you’re alone/
And I’m alone/
Let’s be alone together”

Released: 2006
Tracks: 13
Label: N/A (downloadable)

DerDer Paintball Productions has long been known for its intense paintball action DVDs packed with high-energy rock and rap to compliment the action on and off the field. This holiday season they’ve decided to give a little back to the huge community of viewers and make a music compilation downloadable for free.

Available on their website, www.derder.com, the 65mb file contains 13 tracks that epitomize what DerDer is. More than half is rap, which is a little weird, but it all sounds very familiar, and it is very easy to visualize this music being the backdrop for a paintball video. I’m planning on cuttting a paintball vid a little later this year, and I may look into using one of these songs in it.

Ant B drops the most impressive beats in the rap category, as the two songs within the compilation shine far more than The Album Leaf’s and Ceschi’s. Witness’s “Fishnets”, however, give Ant B a run for their money, though they are held back my me wanting so much more.

OneSideRed, a long time DerDer favorite, has two tracks in this compilation, though they don’t sound the greatest simply because of sound quality. Pretty disappointing, but it’s one of the very few complaints about the compilation that I have.

Kiss the Cop and Leading the Heroes round out the compilation with added fast punk rock songs, claiming dominance over OneSiceRed’s annoyingly bad sound quality.

Overall, it is a very good compilation, and a ton of kudos go to DerDer for making this free to download.

Released: 2006
Tracks: 13
Label: Dreamworks

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