Following the premiere stream of their new single ‘Let It Go’, Ghost Cult caught up over email with the artist known as From This World over email for a Q & A interview to learn more about this project and the motivation behind the music. Armed with an inventive, excellent new album Variations on a Dream our dialogue covers the artist’s self-described “New Classic Rock”, influences, the personal nature of the music and much more!Continue reading
Evolution is inevitable, resisting it is futile. I have witnessed oodles of bands that have resisted letting their music evolve, getting themselves trapped in a murky impenetrable bubble of monotony and dismal record sales. (Hed) P.E. is not one of those bands. If anything, (Hed) P.E. could be the official spokesmodel for bands who embrace the natural evolution of their music. The latest studio album from (Hed) P.E., Stampede (Pavement Entertainment) is a dynamic testament that the band is categorically fearless in their songwriting and continue to transcend any and all musical pre-conceived notions.Continue reading
Beastie Boys were on fo the biggest, most successful groups in the work in the early 1990s when they made Ill Communication (Capitol/Grand Royale), released twenty-five years ago today. Prolific, putting out a new album every 2-3 years, the band was focused on never repeating themselves, and constantly improving. It would have been very easy for them to just keep remaking Licensed To Ill (Def Jam) over and over and that would have been enough for many bands. But Ad-Rock, Mike D, and MCA (RIP Adam Yauch) kept on changing and evolving. As they had on the previous few albums, they played all the instruments, and played them incredibly well on every track, across multiple genes. They had genius guest stars and collaborators (Q-Tip, Biz Markie, Amery Smith of Suicidal Tendencies, Money Mark, Bobo from Cypress Hill) and put the music first, before everything. Even the production on Ill Communication is incredible, all respect due to the B-E-A-S-T-I-E’s and their frequent partner at this time, Mario Caldato (“Mario C”). Continue reading
The moment I received the press release for this album, I was über intrigued. I had heard the whisperings of a new project from Mr. Danny Worsnop, but nothing had come to fruition until now. I feel that I am a staunch Worsnop supporter and one who has followed his career from the start, and even I was taken by surprise by the tone of this album. I want to explain what I mean by that, so as to avoid any “bunching of undies” by his throng of fans. Danny first hit my radar in 2010 while he was still with Asking Alexandria, even from that first moment, I knew he was an enigma. I was hooked on Worsnop’s vocal style, as I am to this day.Continue reading
A histrionic chime of a small bell is the first noise that greets the listener. It seemingly summons spiritual moans and groans that echo in the proverbial temple of Zaum‘s oeuvre. ‘Relic’ begins placidly, slowly building its way up to the riff that forms the song’s centrepiece, and when that riff arrives it is a blissful moment. Continue reading
There’s somethin’ incestuous a-brewin’ in San Diego: a fluid drift from band to band and back again, like the returning wisps of smoke from that latest joint exhalation. This is Zach Oakley’s second journey through my cans in as many months, while more of his friends in Psych outfits JOY and Harsh Toke make yet another union in the form of the drenched riffage of Pharlee.Continue reading
Many words have been used to describe Devin Townsend over the years. Oddball. Eccentric. Quirky. Canadian. To name but a few. Since exploding into the confused consciousness of metal fans around the world on Steve Vai‘s ‘Down Deep Into the Pain’ video in 1993, Townsend has gone on to create a musical legacy so uniquely unconventional that his career almost defies description.Continue reading
With a name as cheesy as Almost Honest, I expected an uninspiring combo led by the progeny of some aging UK rock star trying hard to forge her / his own identity. This Pennsylvanian trio seems anything but: far from uninspiring, the madcap antics of sophomore album Seiches And Sirens (Electric Talon Records) is an example of Stoner’s potential to be versatile and fluid.Continue reading
Given the name, you’d expect Baltimore quintet Asthma Castle to deliver a wheezy form of Stoner/Sludge derived from the likes of Hollow Leg. Debut album Mount Crushmore (Hellmistress Records), the band’s first release for nine years, shows considerably more bounce and fun than any such misplaced assumptions, but flattens it all with unfathomable, cosmic weight.Continue reading
Solo projects are notoriously difficult. Sometimes they are born of internal conflict within a band leading to splintering factions looking to pave their own way. More often than not it proves that a part is not greater than the sum of the whole: who can honestly say they prefer Serj Tankian’s solo work to the output of System of a Down? They can also be the result of an ego attack, a misplaced sense of superiority with often disastrous results. Lamb Of God’s Mark Morton, however, seems to fall into neither category, so his debut solo release, Anesthetic (WPP/Spinefarm Records) can only be viewed as a long-awaited labour of love.Continue reading