New County review

What's going on? My second review for alter the press! is up. New county is a pop-rock band from Pennsylvania. You can read the review here:

http://www.alterthepress.com/2010/10/album-review-new-county-lives-we-lead.html

Another review will be up in about a week!

LP

News Incoming

EDIT: The Review is up. Everyone go check it out at http://www.alterthepress.com/2010/10/album-review-tumbledown-empty-bottle.html#more

I'm starting a new album review gig this week with Alter the press!, and just thought that I'd post that here. I will edit this post when my article gets put up. Enjoy!

September update/TDS & Sherwood show

Hello all!

For the time being, I will not be writing for the Dixie Press. Rather than do that, I will just post things here and see how that goes. Since we had such an excellent show this past week, I decided to do a small review and post a couple of pictures.

I had the pleasure of attending and working security at The Electric Theater for the Sherwood/The Dangerous Summer show this past Thursday. I could not have been more pleased with the show, other than the fact that so few people showed up. We need to get out and support these awesome acts that The Electric brings in, St. George!

The show started off with a bang with pop-rock act Summit Grove. These guys are out of Las Vegas, and are catchy as hell. They're probably the best local act I've seen in quite some time. I was blown away by the energy they had as they played to about 20 people as things got started. Summit had a fun filled, sing along set of about 5 songs. Summit Grove finished up, and then Soletta took the stage.

For as much as I wanted to like these guys, they just seemed like they weren't having any fun. This may have been due to the fact that the whole town was either at the rodeo

or at DocUtah, but you can't expect to follow an act like Summit Grove with no energy or charisma. On any other day I would have liked Soletta's set, but after having my expectations raised by the fantastic openers, these guys didn't quite meet my expectations. That's okay by me, though, because it checked my expectations for my favorite part of the night--The Dangerous Summer.

To say that Soletta checked my expectations really didn't mean much, considering this was my first time seeing the band that put out my favorite record of 2009 (I still play Reach For The Sun regularly). The Dangerous Summer exploded with opener 'Surfaced' and transitioned perfectly into 'Symmetry'. I only know this because I snagged a set list. I had the opportunity to meet the guys and they signed it for my wife. Picture!

These guys absolutely killed their whole set (which included my personal favorites from Reach For The Sun), and were absolutely awesome both on stage and off. I had the opportunity to hang out with AJ and crew for a few minutes after their set. They were super nice and humble about everything. They seemed really surprised that they had anyone who was so into their music in the area. They also called my friend and I the coolest security ever at a venue. Hopefully that was true.

After TDS finished up, Sherwood took the stage. Sherwood is an awesome band from San Luis Obispo, CA. Every time I've seen these guys (this was my 3rd time) they are as tight as a live band could possibly be, and Thursday was no exception. Sherwood whipped through 12-14 tracks in about 75 minutes. They played favorites such as Song in my head, I'm asking her to stay, and Never ready to leave, as well as tracks from QU such as You are, Ground beneath my feet, and others. Sherwood is a group of really great guys, and just like

TDS, they signed a poster for me this time. They're so much fun and I really enjoyed them. Picture number two!

To sum up, the show was awesome, especially for St. George. The Electric cannot be thanked enough for bringing in such great bands. A big thanks to all of the bands as well. I had too much fun at this show because the bands were all so awesome. If you haven't checked out any of these bands, do yourself a favor and get to it!

Arcade Fire review

EDIT: Dixie press has moved, and the link is broken. Posting the review here.

Put down the neon bible, exit the funeral, and head to the suburbs

While the music industry struggles to come up with a reason why other artists are selling 10 albums per week, Canadian indie rock septet Arcade Fire stick to what works: making great music. This extraordinary entry into their catalog is entitled The Suburbs. Fans are bound to be delighted, but new listeners may want to pack a lunch; this album runs 64 minutes across 16 tracks.

Arcade Fire became the poster children of indie rock a couple of years ago, so naturally this listener dismissed them as a band with little substance and a lot of hype. After a cursory listen to their previous albums Funeral and Neon Bible, Suburbs went into the player. What this listener found was plenty of substance and a new band to put into the daily rotation.

Suburbs can be characterized many ways, and some of the words to describe the album are as follows: intricate, subtle, surprising, complex, moody, catchy and straightforward. These traits are mixed into the album in perfect proportion and topped off with themes of emptiness, love, insecurity, and movement from youth to maturity. The end product is an album that is fine tuned, sprawling, and anthemic without becoming pretentious.

Arcade Fire proves with this release that they’re no one trick pony, and that’s apparent from the diversity in the tracks presented on Suburbs. From simple, relaxed acoustic guitar tracks “The Suburbs”, “Wasted Hours”, to tracks with strings or synthesizers at the forefront “Empty Room”, “Half Light II”, to straightforward indie rock “Month of May”, Suburbs is varied enough to never get boring.

Husband and wife duo Win Butler and Regine Chassagne share vocal duties throughout the album. Butler seems confident with his parts, but Chassagne is excellent. Sadly, she is underutilized throughout, giving mostly backing vocals except on “Empty Room” and “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”.

String arrangements and synthesizers/keys are represented on most tracks, but are so well placed in the background on some tracks that listeners may not even realize that they’re hearing these parts until they listen to the album multiple times.

The production by Markus Dravs (Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, Bjork’s Homogenic) is great, and not a note seems out of place. Standout tracks are: “Ready to Start”, “Modern Man”, “Suburban War”, “Month of May”, “We Used to Wait”, and “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”. While the whole album is grand, new listeners may want to start with the suggested tracks first before listening to the album as a whole.

Last, but certainly not least, is the album art. This listener is a total CD nerd, having to buy a physical copy of everything, and was impressed with the art. The album cover, interior and lyric sheet have snapshots of suburban homes that coincide well with the themes and imagery of the lyrics.

To say that this listener was impressed with the album would be an understatement. Fans of the band and new listeners alike should purchase this record. Rest assured, The Suburbs will be visited often.

LP

Music Review

EDIT: After the Dixie press' website crashed my review disappeared. I'll be running it here until they put it back up. Here we go....

When it comes to fun summer jams listeners might want to go with something familiar.

Rufio has been a staple of the pop-punk genre since 2001, but how does their latest release, “anybody out there?” rate against the rest of their catalog?

The answer is pretty well, as long as listeners aren’t expecting any form of evolution from the band. Rufio’s brand of pop punk follows the fast guitars and catchy-as-can -be route and doesn’t stray much from it. This has been the case since their 2001 debut “perhaps, I suppose…” and is by no means a bad thing. That is not to say that the band hasn’t improved some elements of this tried and true formula with this release, because they have.

After the departure of two of the founding members of the band and a lengthy hiatus, a significant portion of Rufio’s fanbase may be slightly anxious to see where the band would go with this release, and listeners should not be entirely disappointed. The band has returned with a solid album that any fan of pop-punk should enjoy.

Scott Sellers’ vocals have also improved abundantly on this album. This should prove to listeners that musically and vocally, Rufio have come back to the scene in top form.

This is glaringly evident on such standout tracks like “Under 18,” “Gold and silver” and “What you wanna here.” These tracks are the epitome of great summer music, but that’s not to say that the album doesn’t have its weaknesses as well.

While the pop-punk genre has evolved over the course of the last decade, Rufio’s style has largely stayed the same. This can be viewed as a detriment to the band, just because so many great alternatives exist now.

After a couple of listens to the album, there was a lingering feeling that the band should have switched things up and taken some risks with this release. Also, the band is still hurting in the lyrical department. Some lyrical missteps can be overlooked, but with choruses like: “get out of my little world/you’ve got no right to stay” Rufio don’t seem to be at the height of the lyrical game here. After nine years of being in the scene, listeners may be wondering why these guys wouldn’t have something a little more eloquent to say.

These are the major complaints that the record, but in all honesty; this album wasn’t meant to be some artistic band’s swansong, it was meant to be fun.

This album comes recommended to anyone looking for a fun, summer listen, but don’t be surprised if the fun doesn’t last until winter.

Hope you enjoy. There will be another review up soon.

LP

Introduction

With the inaugural post, I thought that it would be appropriate to set out the purpose of my blog. Beside being an outlet for whatever strange things happen to me throughout the week, I also intend to review albums, gush about my favorite bands, and generally talk about the things that I like the most: music, movies, video games, and family. So, as far as good music is concerned, The Dangerous Summer is it as far as I'm concerned. Reach for the sun is my favorite album from 2009, and it has a permanent spot in my music rotation. It combines themes anyone can relate to with unbelievably catchy alt-rock and top notch production. I love this album, and think that everyone should check it out. Needless to say, I am out-of-my-mind excited to see these guys in September. St. George is lucky to have The Electric Theater to get some quality bands in this town from time to time. With Circa Survive at the end of this month, Sherwood & The Dangerous Summer in September, and Mae in November, it's going to be a good few months. These shows can't come soon enough. Watch out for reviews of the ones that I can attend.