Plague Vendor - 'Free to Eat'

Despite considering myself one of those people who doesn't really like the direction that Epitaph has been going in the last decade or so, I actually like a lot of their current roster. The Menzingers, Off With Their Heads, Alkaline Trio, Bad Religion, The Lawrence Arms, Social Distortion, Motion City Soundtrack, and even Weezer to an extent. And now I can add Plague Vendor to that list. 

I don't even really know how I ended up at Epitaph's webstore, but somehow I found myself browsing their site and I saw the Plague Vendor LP/shirt bundle and it made me angry. Leaving vowels out of a band name as a trend already kind of annoys me, but it annoys me even more when a band regularly spells their name with vowels intact but leaves out the vowels on their merch. Plague Vendor's shirt did just that. Yet it still compelled me to check them out. 

I'm glad I did.

Remember in the early 2000's when all those garage rock bands like The Strokes, and The White Stripes were gaining prominence? Plague Vendor sounds kind of like that, if there was a more surf/garage feel to the music. I guess in a way, they're more like The Hives than the Strokes or White Stripes, if The Hives had more of an American proto-punk swagger. Free to Eat, the band's debut album, has ten tracks and only runs for about 18 minutes. There are surfy guitars, a thumping bass and pounding drums, but the real star of the album is probably the howling vocals of front-man Brandon Blaine. Even on a studio recording, he carries an intense energy that comes off like it's a live performance. Too bad the only time the band is coming near me soon is on the Warped Tour. I'm sure it'll be great exposure for the band, but I'll wait until they do their own tour to catch them. 

You can stream the whole album via YouTube below, or buy it through Amazon here.

Antarctigo Vespucci - 'Soulmate Stuff'

My initial reaction to Antarctigo Vespucci was "Holy crap. This is exactly the collaboration between artists that I never knew I needed." Given that Antarctigo Vespucci is made up of dear friends / punk celebrities Chris Farren and Jeff Rosenstock, I'm sure plenty of people had that exact same thought.

Soulmate Stuff, the debut mini-LP (or is it just an EP? I can never tell), bridges the gap between the indie melodies of Fake Problems' Real Ghosts Caught on Tape and the summery fuzz of Bomb the Music Industry!'s Vacation. Not that the gap between those two albums was really that large, and if you think that there's a whole lot of difference between those records you really should listen to Soulmate Stuff and hear how wrong you are for yourself.

"100 Years" is a nice, slow opener. Given that it's just an acoustic guitar and Farren, it could easily be mistaken for a new Fake Problems song (or at least a demo). "Sometimes" has more of a kick to it, and it also has that "Fake Problems" feel to it- not a complaint at all, seeing as how it's been far too long since Fakey P has put out a new album, but upon first listen it was kind of confusing as to why this wasn't just marketed as a new Fake Problems album produced by Rosenstock. Maybe that's how it originally came to be. Or maybe I'm just dumb. It's still an amazing song though.

The sequence of "I'm Giving Up on U2", "Guest List Spots", and "Don't Die in Yr Hometown" make up the real meat of Soulmate Stuff. "I'm Giving Up on U2" is huge, turning the fun to 11, and demands to be shouted loudly from a car with the windows down. Or at least I imagine that would be the ideal way to listen to the song... I don't drive. "Guest List Spots" finds the perfect balance of a Fake Problems chord progression and a Bomb the Music Industry! vocal melody and even tosses Laura Stevenson on backing vocals for good measure. It's also notable for being the only song here that really features Jeff singing lead (for half a verse). Meanwhile, "Don't Die in Yr Hometown" could have easily fit on Vacation. In fact, if it wasn't for Farren's vocals, I'd say that it was pulled directly from that album.

The momentum built up during those three songs takes a brief break during "100 Years 2: 200 Years", a variation of the opening track as the title suggests, before coming back for one final banger. Soulmate Stuff ends on the high note that is "Bang!", featuring guest guitars from former Fake Problems guitarist Casey Lee, and a chorus so big that lives up to its title.

If there are any downsides to Soulmate Stuff, it would be that these seven songs barely fill up 20 minutes. It doesn't seem like Farren and Rosenstock's friendship is going to end any time soon, so I'm sure that there will be more material by Antarctigo Vespucci in the future, but for now it just feels like there's not enough. Even if it was just like three or four more songs. I'm greedy.

In summation: This album rules and it arrived just in time for the changing of the seasons. Stop wasting your time and just download it already.

http://quoteunquoterecords.com/qur072.htm

Top 5 Side One, Track Ones

Keeping it simple tonight, mostly due to my creativity being dead thanks to some massive writer's block. But also because it's been way too long since I've watched High Fidelity and this kind of thing has been on my mind lately.

Here are five of my favorite opening tracks.

05. The Dopamines - "You'd Make a Good Horsecop" - Expext the Worst
The only thing keeping me from ranking this song higher is because I love the entire album just as much as this one song.

04. Daytrader - "Kill My Compass" - Last Days of Rome EP
Whenever I hear this song, I want to start shouting along even though I can't sing very well (and I especially can't sing like Tym). Out of all the songs I've ever set as an alarm, this is the only one that I've used for longer than a month.

03. Against Me! - "T.S.R." - As the Eternal Cowboy
"T.S.R." lays down the groundwork for what Against Me! had become in the short period in between Reinventing Axl Rose and As the Eternal Cowboy, both lyrically and musically. It's also fun as hell at their shows to go crazy when the song explodes.

02. Off With Their Heads - "I Am You" - From the Bottom
"I Am You" kind of encapsulates everything I love about Off With Their Heads' ability to write songs about being miserable while also wanting a catchy chorus to sing. A wonderful introduction to what the band is all about.

01. Rise Against - "State of the Union" - Siren Song of the Counter Culture
I spent the first half of my senior year of high school listening to almost nothing but Siren Song of the Counter-Culture, and every morning as I started my half hour commute on the train this was the song that would wake me up and help me get through the day. Even now I can listen to this song and it'll put me right back into my 17 year old mindset.

XX. The Offspring - "Disclaimer"
This isn't really a song, but it is a hilarious way to begin an album.

The Ataris - So Long, Astoria 10th Anniversary Tour at Irving Plaza, NYC (March 30, 2014)

Despite being billed as a '10 year anniversary' tour, The Ataris So Long, Astoria 10th Anniversary tour actually marks eleven years since the album's release. To make up for that, Kris Roe was able to recruit former members guitarist John Collura, bassist Mike Davenport, and drummer Chris Knapp (aka, the band's lineup when the album was recorded) to join him in celebrating So Long, Astoria on the road. On March 30 the band stopped at Irving Plaza in NYC for the final night of the tour with Authority Zero, Drag the River, Gasoline Heart, and Donald Spence providing opening support.

Donald Spence is probably best known as the vocalist of Versus the World (the current project of Mike Davenport) opened things up with a solo set. I wish I could tell you how lovely his soulful singing voice was, but I missed out on his performance (thanks, MTA). Luckily for me, Spence made several other appearances throughout the night. I happened to enter the venue not too long after Brooklyn's Gasoline Heart had started. The punk 'n' roll (that's the commonly accepted term, right?) act had a nice energy throughout the half hour that I caught, with a Replacement-influence swagger and presence not unlike similar minded bands like AM Taxi and Architects.

Alt-country act Drag the River came out next and set a very different tone. Composed of Jon Snodgrass and Chad Price (aka, the only two constant members of the band), the duo had a very different energy from that of Gasoline Heart. Authority Zero's rhythm section backed the twosome up during their set to give a more "full" feeling, while still keeping their laid-back vibes. A majority of the crowd didn't seem too impressed, with lots of chatter filling the room during the songs, but not enough to distract from the performance once you got close enough to the stage. To balance out Drag the River's mellow set, Authority Zero came out swinging hard. Without much of a warning, the band immediately launched into a very heavy set list, favoring short and fast songs with plenty of opportunities for the crowd to sing "woah".

By the time Authority Zero finished up, it was already 10:20, and the stage looked nowhere near ready for The Ataris to come out. Generally this wouldn't be a problem, but it's not a particularly ideal situation to be in on a Sunday night when you work a 9-5 Monday to Friday job, as was the case for most in attendance. But all that restlessness meant nothing once the houselights went down at 10:45 and the Ataris transported an entire room full of people back to 2003. It may have been years since this lineup of the band has played together, but they played as if they had never dissolved.

As with most full album shows, the setlist stuck to the order of the songs on So Long, Astoria, only slightly deviating by switching "All You Can Ever Learn Is What You Already Know" and "The Boys of Summer". Roe, Davenport, and even Donald Spence (who was playing third guitar on stage with the band) would occasionally make remarks or tell anecdotes in between songs to the audience- such as how "My Reply" was intended to be the album's second single until out of nowhere radio stations started playing "The Boys of Summer", kind of forcing the band to just go with it- but for the most part the night was dedicated to the songs of So Long, Astoria and nothing more.

By the time the band finished their set, it was 11:35, which didn't leave the band much time to let the audience build up much of a chant for the encore. Roe returned to the stage within a matter of minutes, said he'd play a couple of old songs, and launched into a solo, electric performance of fan-favorite "San Dimas High School Football Rules". Roe then introduced current Ataris bassist Bryan Nelson to the stage, followed by former drummer Rob Felicetti, and the trio launched into a faithful cover of the Misfits' "Skulls". Roe and Felicetti joked about being on TMZ together (in case you forgot, they had a bit of a public feud not too long ago) and it looked as if they've made amends since the last time they shared the stage together.

Once the So Long, Astoria line up regrouped on stage, John Collura had some parting words for the crowd: "We ARE The Ataris". Whether he meant that perhaps there was a future with this lineup or that he was just caught up in the moment of the tour wasn't clear (although the latter was more likely), it was a great sentiment to end the night on, and the band finished with "I Won't Spend Another Night Alone", a fitting closer considering a re-recorded version appeared as a hidden track on So Long, Astoria.

Aside from ending way too late for a Sunday night show, the final night of the So Long, Astoria 10th Anniversary tour was a very satisfying experience for everyone in attendance. The album may be over a decade old at this point, but seeing the band play these old songs still made them seem fresh. No one knows for sure when The Graveyard of the Atlantic will be released, but at least The Ataris will always have the legacy of So Long, Astoria.

I've gotten lazy.

I've been in a funk lately and I think a lot of it has to do with not writing about music as much as I once did. I've gotten so wrapped up in working and writing for DyingScene that I've just ignored this blog for almost a year.

I'm going to change that. I think writing album reviews on my own terms could be good for me.

Stay tuned for at least one update a week for now.

Journey into the Cloud

So a few weeks back, my computer just stopped working one night. I can't really explain how it happened- it was beginning to move really slowly, so I decided to restart it before I ran out to grab a quick dinner at McDonald's. When I came back home, I was greeting by a computer that was simply turned off. I thought that maybe I had accidentally hit "shut down" instead of "restart", so I pressed the power button and sat down to enjoy my incredibly greasy meal. To my surprise, the computer did not respond to the power being turned on. That's when I thought that maybe I just hadn't pushed the button hard enough, so I tried again. Still nothing. This was when I started to get concerned. I tried a different power source, as well as trying a different plug to see if anything would work but to no avail.

I hopped on to the family desktop to see if I could look up any possible solutions to my problem. Not being a very technical person outside of knowing out to hook up a multitude of USB ports and cleaning dust out of the fan, I didn't understand a single thing that I read. I went back to my room, tried it once more, and decided that I would just have to deal with the fact that my computer was not going to turn on anymore. From my understanding of what I had read it was possible to recover the stuff on my hard drive... I would just need the assistance of someone smarter than me. But I kept calm because most of my files (college papers I was proud of, album reviews, photos, etc) were either backed up online or on my external hard drive, and all of my music was still on my iPod. The computer was four years old and I had been looking for a replacement anyhow- so I thought that in the long run this could be a blessing in disguise.

So I went on with my life- I bought an iPod dock, busted out my old DVD player to watch things (rewatching the first season of The Simpsons reminded me of how much I love that show) while I browsed on my tiny little netbook that would freeze up if I had more than two tabs open. Things seemed like they would be looking up.

Then tragedy struck two days later. I got home from work, and threw my hoodie onto the floor because that's the sort of thing I do sometimes. A few hours later I went to work out, and I looked for my iPod so I could blast something heavy to get me pumped. That's when I discovered that my iPod, which was in my hoodie pocket, was not working. Over the last five years I've dropped my iPod on the concrete and the damage was minimal except for a few scratches, but when I toss it on the carpeted floor while blanketed in a cotton hoodie, that's when the serious damage occurs. Awesome.

Needless to say, I was devastated. I've spent the last few years building up a nice collection of music ranging from stuff I would listen to consistently, to rare b-sides that were fun to show off to other collectors, to bootlegs of shows that I had attended (or wish I had attended). I could deal with all that stuff not being backed up on my external because I had it on my iPod, but now my iPod was broken and all that stuff was gone (unless, you know, I figure out how to recover stuff from my computer's hard drive without breaking anything). I didn't know what else to do, so I just laid down and tried not to touch anything else so that I wouldn't break it. Luckily I still had a decent amount of music saved on my phone (all the stuff that I listened to on a regular basis, and maybe one or two things that I needed to review for DyingScene), and my girlfriend was nice enough to lend me her iPod. Hope was not all lost.

Flashforward to last weekend. I spent a good deal considering my options for a new computer and I finally decided that I would go with a Chromebook. I had considered it before when my desktop was still alive, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to make the jump into cloud computing when I still had 70-80GB of music. However, with my iPod no longer working I had nothing tying me down to something with a lot of storage space. I decided that it would be a fun experiment to try out a paid Spotify account and see if it would ever be necessary for me to go back to needing another 160GB iPod. Then I remembered Google Play Music- the app on my phone has been telling me to sign up for the last few weeks before June 30 and now that I'm using a Google-powered computer it only makes sense to go with their services.

I still haven't signed up because I want to sign up as close to June 30th as I can so that I can get the $8 a month deal that they're offering, but also be able to milk my free 30-day trial for as long as I can. I'll probably sign up tomorrow though, because I've got the next few days off and I've been hankering to listen to some Fucked Up and Lucero (two artists that, sadly, did not get saved on my phone when everything of mine died). I'm going to document my experiences jumping directly into streaming based services after spending so much time avoiding them. Right now I'm feeling slightly optimistic. I can't wait to see how I feel at the end of the month!

Ian Rubbish and the Bizarros - The Best of Ian Rubbish EP

Ian Rubbish is a fictional British punk rocker portrayed by Fred Armisen. Created for a single, pre-recorded sketch for an episode of Saturday Night Live, the character takes a lot of influence from other British punk frontmen, notably Johnny Rotten and Joe Strummer. The skit was filmed in a faux-documentary style, exploring the "history of punk" and the Ian Rubbish segment specifically focused on Rubbish's fondness and adoration for the late Margaret Thatcher. Throughout the five minute sketch, there are clips of the fictional band playing some of their most "well known" songs, including the very Pistols-esque "C*nt in a Crown" (an obvious nod to "God Save the Queen"). And that's where this EP comes into play.

Featuring four cuts from the History of Punk sketch (the aforementioned "C*nt in a Crown" was cut from the final track list), The Best of Ian Rubbish consists of full versions of Armisen's take on the '77 Punk style. Tracks like "Hey Policeman!" and "Living in the Gutter" recall The Sex Pistols and The Clash almost perfectly. In fact, if you played them for someone who wasn't familiar with punk rock at all, you could probably convince them that Ian Rubbish and the Bizarros was a real band.

It's the other two tracks on The Best of Ian Rubbish where the humorous parts of the sketch come through in the music. Structurally speaking, "Maggie Thatcher" is still perfectly executed homage to the first wave of British punk rock, although the lyrical approach consist of praise for the former Prime Minister- something that was completely unheard of in the punk scene. The EP's final track, "Sweet Iron Lady", breaks the flow of the '77 punk feel by being a slow, but still electric, ballad. The lyrics point out some of Thatcher's controversial decisions, while still humorously praising her.

The Best of Ian Rubbish is a fantastic, albeit quite short, listen. Armisen really captured the feel of that early punk sound while also churning out some chuckle worthy songs (I'm sure if I had been alive to actually know a thing or two about Thatcher, instead of just reading about her on the Internet, I would have found it to be funnier). It's definitely still worth checking out, and it can be downloaded for free right here.

And in case you missed the History of Punk sketch that this evolved from, here it is:

Word is that Armisen performed as Rubbish opening for Vampire Weekend recently. Perhaps he's considering making a movie based on the character? (A movie in the vein of This Is Spinal Tap about a punk band would be very welcome).

Dan Webb and the Spiders / Irish Handcuffs - Split

Dan Webb and the Spiders are a punk band from Massachusetts that evolved out of a one man band. Irish Handcuffs are a punk band from Germany that formed out of a love for Jawbreaker and (presumably) Smoke or Fire. Despite hailing from different continents, the two bands have teamed up together to display their song-writing talents in the form of a split EP. The result is a four track rush of snotty, yet melodious, punk rock.

Dan Webb and the Spiders start the split with “Quiet Houses”, showing that the band hasn’t lost its touch when it comes to their brand of garage-y punk rock. Webb’s vocals are slightly reminiscent of a young Lars Frederiksen, but don’t let that comparison pigeon-hole the band in any way as a Rancid-wannabe. “Quiet Houses” is full of aggressive musicianship, and a chorus that begs to be shouted along with. The lead guitar screeches through the song’s final moments, but it never sounds jarring. “Last Straw”, the Spiders’ other contribution to the split, is a bit of a catchier number, with less in-your-face instrumentals, and more reserved vocals. Webb’s vocals adopt more of a Shevchuk scratch to them, and it suits the song’s melodic approach, not unlike how the actual Shevchuk’s vocals suited LaGrecia. Much like its companion, “Last Straw” is full of vocal harmonies and is sure to be a fun sing-along.

Irish Handcuffs don’t miss a beat to keep the energy flow up high. The young band contributes two gruff, yet melodic punk rock tunes that pick up right where they left off with 2012’s stubbs. EP. “Derail” is upbeat, and the guitar work sounds almost like it could have been a song that got lost during the stubbs. sessions. As catchy as the chorus is though, it’s “Sunday’s Ghosts” where Irish Handcuffs really shine, with the four piece outfit really bringing their A-game to the three and a half minute track. The instruments conjure up a dark and gloomy atmosphere, and the raw emotion in the vocals delivers the band’s best studio performance to date. It’s almost bizarre to think that this is only Irish Handcuffs’ second studio release, as it plays as if the band has been around for a few years.

The best kinds of splits are the ones that showcase the talents of all the bands involved without one stealing the thunder away from the other; everyone gives it their all to show what they’re made of but holding back just enough so that the listener wants more. Dan Webb and the Spiders and Irish Handcuffs have accomplished exactly that with this split. Melodic punk rock has seen a lot of faces come and go over the years, and this split helps to cement that both Dan Webb and the Spiders and Irish Handcuffs are here to stay. 

PS: Irish Handcuffs released a video for "Derail", which you can watch right here.

 

The Bronx - The Bronx IV

(This review was originally published on DyingScene)

Well… The Bronx is back. After they’ve spent the better part of the last five years parading around as Mariachi El Bronx, the LA-based punk band has released their fourth self-titled studio album (although it’s their sixth if you count the mariachi albums). Since the band never really went anywhere, it wouldn’t really be fair to consider The Bronx IV to be a “return-to-form” album, although after the five year absence that’s almost exactly what the album sounds like. On The Bronx IV, the band returns to their punk rock roots, delivering twelve songs bursting full of energy and heavy riffs.

Musically speaking The Bronx IV plays similarly to the rest of the band’s punk rock-oriented catalogue- particularly the more modern hard rock sounds that the band has been developing since 2006’s The Bronx II. Whereas most bands like to experiment with their sounds and shift things up four albums in, it seems as if the members of The Bronx have gotten all of their experimental wants and needs out of their systems with Mariachi El Bronx, because The Bronx IV contains very little trace of new elements. Instead, The Bronx offers up a collection of fun and vicious songs that tighten up the loud and dirty rock and roll sounds of 2008’s The Bronx III. These are songs that sound equally amazing whether you’re speeding down a highway or taking shots of whiskey at your local dive bar.

Amidst the blaring guitars and pounding drums, lead vocalist Matt Caughthran lets out his most vicious screams in years. Caughthran roars his way through tracks like “The Unholy Hand” (in which he demands “Are you the Anti-Christ or The Holy Ghost? Do you wanna die or just go real close?”) and “Under the Rabbit” (Caughthran’s delivery of “This is the best life my money could buy!” sends shivers). The rest of the band rips furiously through the album perfectly, but with The Bronx it’s always Caughthran’s vocals that sell each song and the band keeps to the tradition with this album.

Even with all this power coursing through its veins, The Bronx IV takes the occasional moment to slow things down. “Torches” and “Life Less Ordinary” wind up being some of the slowest songs that the band has ever written, but even with the lack of the band’s usual in-your-face aggression, the band more than makes up for it with a sharp sense of melody (particularly the former, which isn’t even all that slow). Caughthran’s impressive vocal range is probably best showcased in these songs, as The Bronx is primarily an outlet for Caughthran to release his screams, so when softens to the level of singing entire songs, it’s something that the listener is going to pay attention to. Granted, there’s lots of singing on the band’s mariachi albums, but there’s a reason why those albums were released under the Mariachi El Bronx moniker.

If there are any faults with The Bronx IV, it’s that the album returns too much to form, and some songs just get buried into the album. Individually the songs are all great sounding, but it’s hard to remember a song like “Too Many Devils” when it’s sandwiched between the far superior “Youth Wasted” and “Pilot Light”. The same could be said for “Valley Heat”, which unfortunately finds itself wedged into the tight space between the heavy-hitting “Ribcage” and the aforementioned “Life Less Ordinary”. Not that these are bad songs, but they’re missing a certain something that gives them an edge to stick out among the rest.  A tad bit more diversification in tempo wouldn’t have hurt anything.

The Bronx IV is not necessarily a comeback album, because the band never actually went anywhere. But it’s been so long since this incarnation of the band has been heard from that The Bronx IV may as well be the first big comeback of the year. Five years is a pretty long time to make fans wait, but The Bronx IV was well worth it. That said; hopefully we won’t have to wait until 2018 before the release of The Bronx V.

Besides the A-Side: 7 Albums with a Better Second Half

We all know those albums that are really good from beginning to finish. Every single song is wonderful and that’s that. Then we have the albums where most of the best tracks are clumped together at the very beginning of an album, making it easier to listen to all of your favorite songs since they’re all strung together. But what about those times when a band puts all of the best songs on the second half? It might not happen as often, but I can assure you that it does. It took some time and consideration, but here are 7 albums in which the second half winds up being a stronger set of songs than what can be heard on the first half.

07. The Horrible Crowes – Elsie

I want to go on record and say that I actually enjoy pretty much the entirety of Elsie. With few exceptions, the entire album is a great example of how to do a side project right: rarely do the songs sound like they were leftover Gaslight Anthem demos, but there’s still enough familiarity in the feel of the album that fans wouldn’t be turned off by it. That said, Elsie’s second half (beginning with “Ladykiller”) is a lot more solid than its first half. Both “Behold the Hurricane” and “Go Tell Everybody” are great, but if there were any tracks on Elsie that sounded like Gaslight Anthem leftovers, it would be these two songs. And then there’s “Cherry Blossoms”, which is just boring (seriously, the two songs it’s sandwiched between are both longer, but it still managed to feel like the longest track on the album because of how slow it is). The second half is what truly makes The Horrible Crowes a worthwhile project. Sure the first half has its experimentation in “Sugar” and “I Witnessed a Crime”, but the six songs that make up back half of Elsie excel in trying out new instrumentation and compositions for Brian Fallon’s familiar rasp to sing over, playing with a range of tempos from the upbeat “Crush” to the aggressive “Mary Ann”, the laid-back “Black Betty and the Moon” and the slow “Blood Loss”. The whole album is gold, but the second half is really where it kicks into gear as far as being a side project. 

06. Bomb the Music Industry! – Scrambles

I love the first three Bomb the Music Industry! releases. There’s something about the chaotic nature of those albums that just got lost when the band recorded Get Warmer with a full band lineup. Scrambles, despite being another “full band” recording, contained more of those chaotic and messy elements that made me love the band in the first place. The first half of Scrambles is promising, combining elements of both the old frantic BTMI! and new piano-driven BTMI!. Then comes the 1-2-3-4-5 punch of “Gang of Four Meets the Stooges (But Boring)”, “9/11 Fever!!!”, “(Shut) Up the Punx!!!”, “Can I Pay My Rent In Fun?” and “Saddr Weirddr” and creates one of the best string of songs on any of the band’s albums. As soon as it begins, I’m on for the ride until “Sort of Like Being Pumped” starts (not that it’s a bad song, but I can survive if I don’t finish that track).

05. Against Me! – Reinventing Axl Rose

Okay, so the first half of this album contains “Pints of Guinness Help Make You Strong” and “We Laugh at Danger (And Break All the Rules)”, two of Against Me!’s best songs and staples in the band’s live set to this very day. But you know what it doesn’t have? “Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious…”, “Reinventing Axl Rose”, “Baby, I’m an Anarchist”, and “Walking Is Still Honest”. I have a tendency to give Reinventing Axl Rose less credit than the rest of the band’s discography for the fact that its back half is mostly made up of re-recorded songs from Crime As Forgiven By… and The Acoustic EP, but regardless of which versions of the songs you’re listening to, they’re still the cream of the crop from that era. And they’re all (mostly) on the second half of Reinventing Axl Rose.

04. The Replacements – Let It Be

Let It Be, like Elsie, is actually a pretty solid album throughout. But when it comes down to it, I much prefer the second half of the album. As soon as the first notes of “Unsatisfied” begin, Let It Be kicks off into not only some of the best songs that The ‘Mats ever wrote, but also some of the strongest vocal performances that front-man Paul Westerberg ever gave. There’s a real pain and sadness in his voice throughout “Unsatisfied” and “Answering Machine”, and even “Seen Your Video” (which is mostly instrumental) contains Westerberg’s rough shout. “Sixteen Blue” also marks one of the band’s first “ballad”-esque songs which they perfected on their next album, Tim. Now if only the band had swapped “Androgynous” and “Gary’s Got a Boner”, things would be perfect.

03. Weezer – Pinkerton

“Tired of Sex” is one of the best opening songs ever, and “Across the Sea” might be the perfect creepy love/lust song, but everything else that Weezer’s magnum opus has to offer in its first five songs pale in comparison to the next five songs. I don’t think I really have to say much because I don’t think there’s anyone who would disagree with me on that.

02. Descendents – I Don’t Want to Grow Up

Although there were hints of it on Milo Goes to College, the mature songwriting of the Descendents didn’t really blossom fully until their second album. The album starts with some fairly playful and immature songs like “Descendents”, and “I Don’t Want to Grow Up”, but as the album progresses the album begins to sober up and the songs get more serious. It’s not until the final third of the album when the band’s maturity hits its stride, but once it does it churns out five solid songs all in a row. “Silly Girl” and “In Love This Way” are still relatively light-hearted love songs, but it’s hard to believe that they’re on the same album as a track like “Pervert” from the first half. Then comes the heavy-hearted “Christmas Vacation”, “Good Good Things” and “Ace”, which are among some of the saddest songs in the band’s entire discography. For a band that didn’t want to grow up, they sure did with these songs.

01. Screeching Weasel – My Brain Hurts

Ben Weasel is a confusing man that I’m not sure I’ll ever understand, but I do understand that his lyricism on Screeching Weasel’s third album, My Brain Hurts, is some of the best that punk rock had to offer in the early 90’s. Although there are plenty of examples of strong lyrics throughout the album, the truly great songs don’t really start showing up until “Cindy’s on Methadone”, a tragic and sarcastic tale of trading one addiction for another.  Followed by introspective “The Science of Myth” (which was inspired by Dr. Frank of the Mr. T Experience turning his thesis paper into a song), the bitter “What We Hate”, and the tongue-in-cheek “Teenage Freakshow”, the rest of the album keeps going with great songs until it’s over. Technically, since this streak of songs begins with track 6, that makes this an album with the latter two-thirds being better than the first third, but that’s just a ridiculous idea for a list.  

Cheap Girls - My Roaring 20's (Acoustic)

A few weeks ago Cheap Girls and Quote Unquote Records released an acoustic version of Cheap Girls' second album, My Roaring 20's. Unlike the acoustic version of Find Me a Drink Home (the debut Cheap Girls album), which was essentially just singer Ian Graham singing with an acoustic guitar, My Roaring 20's has more of a full arrangement feel to it. There are multiple guitars layered throughout the song, and all the additional instruments that were in the original versions of the songs (like that accordion part in "Sunnyside") (at least I'm pretty sure it's an accordion) are still present.

Structurally, My Roaring 20's (Acoustic) isn't a whole lot different than My Roaring 20's. The songs are played at a slightly slower speed to accommodate the fully fleshed out ring of the acoustic instruments, but they haven't gone under any huge compositional changes as some songs do when they make the shift from electric to acoustic. It might sound lazy, but Cheap Girls is the kind of band that writes songs that sound good when played with acoustic guitars. Graham's vocals have a quiet quality to them, and I've met people who feel that his singing style doesn't always mesh well with the band's more explosive sounding songs (not me, but when I saw the band open for The Gaslight Anthem back in November everyone in the group that I was with felt that way). But put that same singing voice over more laid-back versions of the same songs, and it's just perfection.

I suppose the true success of My Roaring 20's (Acoustic) really comes from whether or not fans like having the drums and electric guitars stripped away. To me, the songs on My Roaring 20's just sound like they were written to be played on an acoustic guitar: the soft tones of the guitars blended with Graham's vocals help to bring out their sadness. I'm curious to see if the band will ever release an acoustic version of Giant Orange. The songs on that one feel more structured for electric instruments (for the most part anyhow), and I think an acoustic take on those songs would be interesting.

But I digress. My Roaring 20's (Acoustic) is a solid release by fantastic band. You can "pick up" (download) a copy of it over at Quote Unquote Records. By the by, right as this album was released, bassist/vocalist Ian Graham went in for knee surgery and any and all donations or proceeds for the album go toward paying his medical bills. So if you've got a couple of bucks that you can afford to part with, I recommend helping him out.

Cheap Girls - My Roaring 20's (Acoustic)

Album Review: Lasorda - Lasorda

Lasorda is a supergroup that includes members of The Get Up Kids, The New Amsterdams, fun., The Honorary Title, and Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band. But instead of using their established names to create something that the kids will eat up, they take this opportunity to experiment with new sounds- winding up with something different than from what the band's members are typically known for.

Remember when Farewell Continental formed and some press releases and/or reviews of their sound claimed that they were a more shoegaze-y version of Motion City Soundtrack with dual male-female vocals? I never really understood that, mostly because Farewell Continental never really came off as shoegaze to me. I mean, I admit that I don't really listen to a whole lot of shoegaze- but Farewell Continental really just sounded like Motion City Soundtrack with more of a 90's indie feel and a female co-vocalist. Well, Lasorda is kind of like Farewell Continental- except that Lasorda actually fits into my idea of what shoegaze sounds like (though, again, I don't listen to shoegaze so there's a strong possibility that I am way off here).

The songs are mostly even-paced, and even the more energetic of the songs on their debut album are pretty mellow. The guitars and keys have a tendency to drone on for awhile, the drums are simple and provide a sturdy structure for each song. At times Lasorda's music sounds like really dark 80's pop music- the kind of dark-sounding pop music that could fit on the Drive soundtrack. Well, maybe not as electronically distorted as that, but almost.

Lead vocalist Suzannah Johannes has a voice that suits the low-key tone of the music perfectly, singing calmly throughout most of the tracks, although she can also pick up the pace alongside the music when it's required. Johannes also provides provides a pleasant surprise for anyone expecting Get Up Kids front-man Matt Pryor to do a majority of the singing- despite being the biggest name in the band (his involvement is the entire reason I had even discovered them), Pryor really only sings lead on a single song, while the rest of his vocals, when they do appear, are limited to backups and harmonies. Considering that the man already fronts three bands and has his own solo project, it's nice to know that he's humble enough to start yet another band and not want to take the spotlight. In fact, he probably only sings those handful of times so that the Get Up Kids fans aren't left wondering if he's really playing on the album or not.

In summary, Lasorda's album is weird, but that doesn't mean it's unlistenable. Quite the opposite actually. Don't go into it thinking you know what to expect just because you know who is in the band, because chances are pretty high that you'll be wrong. These guys achieve where Farewell Continental kind of fell flat.

Lasorda is available in both vinyl or digital formats.

Albums I'm Looking Forward to Hearing in 2013

Last year, for the first time ever, I made a list of albums that I was anticipating for the coming musical year. And wouldn't you know it, five of the items on my Anticipated of 2012 list happened to find their way onto  my Favorites of 2012 list. So I decided to do it again this year.

Here are eleven albums that I'm looking forward to hearing in 2013, and one that I'm unsure of:

11. Saves the Day – TBA
Details on Saves the Day’s eighth studio album are scarce right now (I don’t think they even have a working title yet) but last year’s Pledge Music Project revealed a demo of their song “Ain’t No Kinda Love”, proving that they are working toward something new. Daybreak only took a few years to come out, so the fact that they’re already working on new material is exciting.

10. Alkaline Trio – TBA
Alkaline Trio has been done recording their album since the end of last October, so it’s only a matter of time before it comes out. The as-of-now untitled album was produced by none other than Bill Stevenson (Descendents) and features Brendan Kelly (The Lawrence Arms) doing backing vocals on some tracks (or maybe all of them, I don’t know). No word on how it will sound, but if it continues at all in the same vein as This Addiction I’ll be a happy camper.

09. Junior Battles – TBA
A lot of these albums sure are speculation, aren’t they? Junior Battles is one of the best pop punk bands out there today, combining properties and elements of bands like Latterman, Green Day, and even Fall Out Boy. Right before Fest last year the band released a two song EP previewing what their new material would sound like. Here’s to hoping that the full length will sound just like the EP.

08. Night Birds – TBA
Much like how Junior Battles are one of the best pop punk bands out there today, Night Birds tear it up as one of the best modern punk bands. Armed with a sound that is accurately described as “Adolescents meets Dead Kennedys”, Night Birds sound like they would fit in perfectly in 1980’s LA. They’ve made several announcements via Facebook that they will be putting out both a full length and a 7-inch single in 2013, and even though it remains untitled for now, I can guarantee that the album will crack my Top 10 of 2013.

07. Direct Hit! – TBA
This one is more speculation than anything else, but it’s been a few years and Direct Hit! is rumored to start recording a new album this year. Last year saw them release at least three splits (with Hold Tight!, The Haverchucks, and Braver), all three of which saw the band heading in a new, more vicious direction. It’s become apparent that Nick Woods and company have been listening to a lot of Mean Jeans lately- not that it’s a bad thing. Anything that Direct Hit! puts out is guaranteed to be a high octane thrillride, and if they manage to capture that sound while combining it with the spacey pop punk attitude of Mean Jeans I’m all for it.

06. Coheed and Cambria – The Afterman: Descension
Finally something on my list with a title! Coheed and Cambria surprised me last year with The Afterman: Ascension. I had lost interest in the band at some point between the releases of No World for Tomorrow and Year of the Black Rainbow, but The Afterman toned things down a bit to where the songs weren’t getting high off their own story telling. The only thing that kept Ascension off my 2012 list was because it didn’t really feel like it was a “complete” album. I enjoyed it a lot, but it just felt like it was missing a crucial something. I’m hoping that this sense of being “incomplete” is just due to the fact that it Ascension is incomplete… and that the release of Descension will fix that.

05. Pure Love – Anthems
Pure Love is the new project from former Gallows front-man Frank Carter. The band’s goal is to sing about more positive things than Carter did with his previous band. They’re loud, not very punk, and incredibly anthemic (hence the album title, one would suppose). Anthems was supposed to come out last year but then for some reason it never did. However, it’s been rescheduled for a February release, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that it will be released for real this time.

04. Broadway Calls – Comfort / Distraction
I know I just gave all my pop punk praise to Junior Battles, but I honestly believe that Broadway Calls could be the next Green Day if they want to be. They’ve certainly got the song writing chops to write catchy songs about girls and they can do it without sounding like a boy band or by having stupid haircuts. They recently took a bit of a stumble when their line-up had to be shifted, and 2011’s Toxic Kids EP saw them trying to work back into their groove a little bit. Last year’s Vision Quest split with Mixtapes was a wonderful return-to-form and reignited my hope for them.

03. Bad Religion – True North
Have you heard “Fuck You” and “True North” yet? Despite that True North is going to be Bad Religion’s sixteenth album, it already sounds more like their third or fourth album. Bad Religion is one of the few bands that doesn’t get too much hate for recording albums that generally sound the same, but True North is gearing up to be one of those rare times when a band is praised for recording an album that sounds like something that’s already been done before.

02. Against Me! – Transgender Dysphoria Blues
It dawned on me recently that I’ve been an Against Me! fan for almost ten years now. It was summer 2003, I was away at camp, and my friend Sabina played “Baby, I’m An Anarchist” for me and I fell in love with it. Here we are in 2013 and I’ve stuck with the band through everything. With maybe one or two exceptions, all of the band’s new songs have been pretty solid, and I’d be pumped for this even if the album wasn't a concept album about Laura’s struggles with gender dysphoria and her experience transitioning- but knowing the extremely personal nature of the album does add to the excitement.

01. Streetlight Manifesto – The Hands That Thieve / Toh Kay – The Hand That Thieves
This album was going to top everyone’s Best of 2012 lists, but then at the last second (literally) it was announced that it wasn’t ready to come out because fuck the fans, right? Allegedly the band has finished recording the album, and the mastering process has begun, but until this album is in my hands I’m not sure what to believe. Should it come out this year though, I (along with many other fans) will be an extremely happy and satisfied customer. Additionally, I have included the solo version of the album in this spot because they were scheduled to come out at the same time and I assume that this is still the case.

SECRET ENTRY:
XX. The Ataris – The Graveyard of the Atlantic
This album has been in the works since at least 2008, while the release dates have been coming and going since at least 2009. Essentially, it has become the Chinese Democracy of pop punk. The songs that have been released so far sound pretty good (kind of like a more grand version of So Long, Astoria), but it’s taking so long that I’m not sure if we’ll ever get to hear the whole album. At the very least, there will always be the All Souls Day / The Graveyard of the Atlantic single that came out in 2010.