Happy Tuesday release day everyone! My, my, my... there are a good selection of tunes hitting shelves today. I have personally got the chance to preview a few of these albums already (such as Project 86, The Darkness and Dispatch) and I am thoroughly pleased with some of the tracks on the albums. Other bands I have yet to listen to, but scrolling through the reviews, I can see that almost every album on this article has come back positive. We also see a few comeback albums from from notable bands such as Project 86, Dispatch, The Darkness and of course Lynard Skynard. Other LP's such as Yeasayer and the Bloc Party come as no surprise that they are some of the top pre-ordered albums of the online world. So head over to the local record store or an online retailer (Amazon, HMV, etc.) to grab yourself some of these awesome CD's coming your way today!
Now, I’ll put this on the table: Project 86 are and always have been a Christian band. There are prominent Christian themes throughout Wait For the Siren, and although this may steer some people away from checking out this band, you would be dong yourself a huge disfavor. Project 86 deliver some of the most compelling hard rock around today, and as an added bonus, the lyrical themes are intelligent and uplifting. Christian or not, Andrew Schwab’s insights are honest and easy to relate to, and even though we may not all share similar beliefs, we are all human. As a thematic concept relevant to life, 'the fight' is a theme which is prominent throughout Wait For the Siren, whether it be through the music or lyrics, and I know because we are all human, we are all fighting 'the fight' in some way. Maybe Wait For the Siren can be the call to arms you’ve been missing out on. I’m certain that’s what it was intended to be. -The New Review
Defiance runs deep in Lynyrd Skynyrd's DNA but 2012's Last of a Dyin' Breed finds the veteran Southern rockers hunkering down, emphasizing their old-fashioned outlaw ways. All the recognizable redneck rebel sentiments are here -- it's all god, guns, Southern girls and sweet tea -- but Skynyrd's signature sound is absent. In this, their third act, the kings of Southern rock have cut out the country and boogie, leaving behind a heavy-booted blues grind and churning hard rock -- sounds that signify the modern south even if they're not classically Southern rock. And that fits for this incarnation of Lynyrd Skynyrd. They may flirt with fleeting references to their past -- the first verse of 'Good Teacher' recalling 'The Ballad of Curtis Loew,' the soaring soul-speckled ballad 'Ready to Fly' a distant cousin of 'Freebird' -- but Johnny Van Zant, Gary Rossington, and Rickey Medlocke aren't in this game just to revive past glories, they're engaging with the modern world, co-opting the leaden stripper rock of Nickelback for 'Homegrown,' once again bringing back former Marilyn Manson guitarist John 5 for a cameo and writing a Tea Party anthem in 'Nothing Comes Easy.' Certainly, Skynyrd is making sturdy, old-time rock & roll for an audience that's likely peppered with Tea Partiers, the kind of middle American worried that the world they knew is slipping away, and Last of a Dyin' Breed provides a bit of a rallying point for them: it's true to their roots but living in the moment. If the band sound a little less nimble than they used to, chalk it up not to age but to the conscious decision to play everything heavier than before; without elements of the backwoods, they're dogged rockers, happy to carry the torch they lit nearly four decades ago even if it doesn't burn as bright as it once did. -All Music
The animal sanctuaries of Suffolk were spared his ministrations. But the Darkness's second album faltered. They dismissed the louche bassist. Hawkins and his guitar-playing brother fell out; one landed in rehab. Two failed side projects and one doomed attempt to enter Eurovision later, the Darkness reformed last year, having grovelled to the bassist and placed their boots gingerly back on the monitor with a tune called Nothing's Gonna Stop Us. You would know what it sounded like without having heard it.
The current single, whose video features a lap-dancing economist bear, is a track called Everybody Have a Good Time that restates the carpe diem appeal of big, dumb rock'n'roll. 'Take off your thinking cap and listen to your heart,' enjoins the now teetotal Hawkins. Currently the Darkness find themselves in eastern Europe, opening for Lady Gaga, a pairing that makes as good sense as their pivotal support slot at Robbie Williams's legendary Knebworth date in 2003.
Some of the good feelings feel pretty good. Living Each Day Blind starts with a guitar solo and swiftly becomes a 'leave-it-all-behind' song with legs. With a Woman sounds like AC/DC with the massed harmonies of an American 70s rock outfit. The bad feelings are, perhaps, more interesting though. Much of Hot Cakes is lyrically downcast, but not so you'd mind. Punk was credited with sneering at the most often recurring theme in pop, but the mustachioed Hawkins combines a nice bit of nihilism with his atavist soft-rock balladry. 'Love is not the answer,' trills Hawkins on the final track, 'love is not your friend.' -The Guardian (UK)
Most everything else on Four falls into place from there. '3×3' is a dark, driving slab of guitar rock featuring several cryptic non sequiturs from frontman Kele Okereke ('No one loves you', 'No means no'), while 'Kettling', perhaps the record’s heaviest track, calls to mind 'Adrenaline'-era Deftones, complete with Russell Lissack’s crunching guitar lines and Matt Tong’s ample, well-defined drumming. Both tracks find the band firing on all cylinders, which only makes their missteps all the more confounding.
But the album is more than just a cranked-up return, as Four also excels in its quieter moments. 'Day Four' pulsates with dreamlike guitar timbre reminiscent of The Cure, its sweetness counterbalanced by Okereke’s dark lyrics ('I’ve felt death/ Rising from me/ From my fingers/ And out my mouth'). 'The Healing' is a similarly textured, New Wave-inspired track, and it is every bit as forceful and magnetic as the record’s more high-decibel fare.
But that said, Four is ultimately a loud, turbulent statement of re-purpose, and it doesn’t go out with a whimper. 'We Are Not Good People' closes by pushing back against the record’s more delicate tracks with buzzsaw energy, tapping into a fuzzed-out, low-register ethos that calls to mind Death From Above 1979.
The back-to-basics record is hardly a foreign concept. But while Bloc Party isn’t the first (and won’t be the last) band to retreat into their old sounds, they needed it, and Four wins by virtue of the band’s willingness to give in to the urge. The tendency for so many bands is to push forward and find new terrain, to avoid getting trapped in one place. But reaching too far outside of the band’s musical safe place would have put it in an equally tenuous position. If Bloc Party had to stray from what they know best on their most recent records in order to gain some perspective, the end results on Four prove that time worthwhile. -Consequence of Sound
There’s certainly a lot of care put into the sounds. It’s no surprise to find out the album is a self-produced affair, as every keyboard gurgle, whir and spring sounds labored over. As is often the case, the focus on specific sonic detail comes at the expense of fully realized songs. 'Demon Road' sounds like four minutes of background noises smushed together at random; 'No Bones' is a similar mess of squiggles. The straightforward approach of 'Blue Paper' is more rewarding, with a linear structure and cascading keyboards that complement singer Chris Keating’s best vocal melody of the album in the chorus.
Which doesn’t mean that Yeasayer should simply aim for electro-pop bliss. If 'Fragrant World' has any defining feature, it’s a shift from atmospheric landscapes to something more funky. The beats on 'Henrietta' have serious impact, and as the song drifts from sharp thumps into a dreamy outro, it feels, for a moment at least, as though the band has found an identity it’s been searching for. -Washington Post
Coming back together after going on hiatus in 2002, Dispatch return with their breezy and laid-back fifth album, Circles Around the Sun, their first album of new material since 2000's Who Are We Living For? Given the lengthy time they spent apart, the reunion finds that Dispatch have effortlessly updated their sound. Perhaps owing to the central theme of the album, which is a tribute to the legend of Larry Perry, a disabled man who was (allegedly) sent into space, the album has an expansive, drifting feeling. The songs seem to float around one another without any of the jammy bounce or more (relatively) aggressive moments found in their earlier work. This lends songs like 'Sign of the Times' and 'Come to Me' a sense of wistful plaintiveness, adding emotion without burdening the listener with a lot of unnecessary weight. This kind of shift is an interesting one, because while Dispatch haven't been making new music for over a decade, they have played the occasional show, so it would've been easy for them to just fall straight back into their old groove. Instead, it seems that they continued to grow as a band even when they weren't one, giving the feeling that, had they stayed together in the intervening years, there might've been an album or two showing the evolution to this more languid and mature version of the band. While fans of the band will no doubt be eager to get their hands on new material from these guys, they can rest assured that they'll be getting a solid album and that absence has not merely made the heart grow fonder. -All Music
The streamlined dance pop that fills his fifth album, 'The Midsummer Station' (Universal Republic), is so deceptively simple he even seems to reference it in his current irresistible smash with Carly Rae Jepsen, 'Good Time.' 'We don't even have to try,' they practically giggle in harmony. 'It's always a good time.'
Ah, but that straightforward and carefree feeling -- which also drove Owl City's breakthrough smash, 'Fireflies' -- takes work. Young is a master at stripping away unnecessary layers to make sure his catchy, lighter-than-air melodies take flight and stay aloft.
Sure, he uses big beats to drive parts of 'The Midsummer Station,' giving the gloriously glitchy 'Speed of Love' and the rock-leaning 'Dementia,' featuring blink-182's Mark Hoppus, some dynamic lift. He also keeps his sense of humor, making a fun police siren sound that becomes the focus of the swooping 'I'm Coming After You.'
However, Young really is at his best when he is quietest, delivering uncertain bedroom confessions in his most vulnerable voice. The way he softly delivers worries like 'There were days when each hour was a war that I fought to survive' in 'Embers' makes his rallying chorus feel even more powerful. And despite the trappings of its timely production, the lovely piano ballad 'Silhouette' feels timeless, perhaps as memorable in the long run as 'Good Time.'
Of course, for now, we'll all just enjoy the good time. -News Day
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