Rejectionist Front - Evolve (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://rejectionistfront.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/RejectionistFront/

Written by Alonzo Evans, posted by blog admin

Rejectionist Front are chasing their rock dream down one of the few avenues where roaring hard rock guitar still seems to have some popularity – lodging, musically, some form of protest about injustice in the modern world. The twelve songs on Rejectionist Front’s second release Evolve aren’t overtly political, but there are definitely humanist in the sense that they loudly and proudly campaign for the rights of an individual in a world seeking to strip us of that individuality. The fact that performers and writers with the iconic status of David Crosby, Patti Smith, Joan Baez, and George Clinton have chosen to associate themselves with this act is an indication of the growing respect they command thanks to their commitment and talent. Their second album Evolve picks up the first album’s mantle and carries it even further than before while still maintaining fidelity to the band’s gripping base sound.

“Ride” is representative of a side to the band’s musical character, but never all encompassing. Michael Perlman’s vocal will definitely garner your attention, but the band’s full performance is very formidable, particularly from guitarist Lincoln Prout. Songs like this are comparatively rare; there’s a definite storm the ramparts, call to arms quality surrounding the first song and later track “Reclaim” and album single “Flush”. The bulk of the album’s material, however, can be a little more neatly divided between chorus-focused and hard charging rock songs like “All I Am”, “Savior”, “Sign”, and “Innocent” compared to more nuanced, layered efforts like “All Is The Same”, “Hold Or Break”, “One Life”, and the album closer “Inside of Me”. The straight forward rock on Evolve is always underpinned by intelligent lyrical content and a multi-faceted vocal approach that never fails the audience or band. The rhythm section of drummer Dave Dawson and bass player Tony Tino demonstrates unexpected but entertaining flair on those rock tracks and Prout’s varied guitar attack keep things fiery throughout. Perlman works in a lot of nuance into his full throated rock bray and the backing vocals from Prout and Tino come in at crucial moments.

The more thoughtful moments on Evolve are largely driven by Lincoln Prout’s guitar work that, instead of bulldozing listeners like he does on the predominantly rock material, achieves its effects through accumulation and manifests a variety of voices. “All Is The Same”, “One Life”, and “Inside of Me” are especially notable – the atmospherics invoked by three instrumentalists are quite impressive, particularly on the first and last of those tunes. “One Life” conjures some of the anthemic qualities we hear in the first track, “Reclaim”, and “Flush”, but the lyrics are rife with a level of imagery we don’t hear from that trio of tunes. Rejectionist Front’s Evolve is a wicked smart and musically astute journey with the track listing finessed in just the right way.

Slow Burning Car - Defection (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://www.slowburningcar.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/SlowBurningCar/

Written by Jay Snyder, posted by blog admin

Los Angeles’ based hard rockers Slow Burning Car are back with their 4^th release, Defection.  Featuring a thick, chunky sound with an emphasis on riffs and infectious choruses, the group draw influences from 90s guitar rock, pop punk and as a result end up with a tough grooving attack that’s somewhere in the ballpark of Nirvana, Chevelle, the Foo Fighters, Incubus and even a little bit of Helmet’s staccato crunch. 

Opener “Alpha Duplicor” strikes fast and fierce with locked-on snare fills, throbbing bass lines and the twin guitar assault of Jesse Damon and Tommy Marcel.  The explosive, granite thick riffs present driving grooves that whip into frenetic leads, harmonic counterpoints and wraparound solos that keep the hooky, fleet-footed aggression always in your face with little let up.  Lead vocalist/bassist Troy Spiropoulos has a voice that delicately balances anger with melody, resulting in a well-tempered delivery that’s a perfect match for the music.  Up-tempo and relishing a catchy 3-chord rush, “Soul Crimes” hovers between a pop-punk/grunge with huge melodic choruses and simplistic yet punchy and aggressive lead guitar trade-offs as both Damon and Marcel are credited with lead and rhythm guitar.  Adam Idell’s thudding, heavily syncopated tom/snare transitions lends “The Orb” a bruising intro that give way to a varied vocal performance meshing gruff, Mike Patton-esque stream of consciousness, glistening high-register melody and quirky, auto-tuned back up harmonies.  Influences can be felt from Faith no More, Incubus, Queens of the Stone Age’s robo-stoner rock and even Bad Religion as the wall of riffs launch into wailing punk rock solos. 

“Devil in the Room” turns its namesake into an instantly memorable chorus with the dueling vocal styles again making use of alien vocoder support vocals while incendiary power chord riffs and pulsing rhythms refuse to lay off the throttle.  Troy unleashes a buoyant, walking bass groove in “The Sunday Derby’s” brazen build-up that sees Idell laying into his kit with sheer reckless abandon.  Thanks to spitfire vocals (with a rousing segment of megaphone enhanced, auctioneer styled spoken word), a ferociously high-octane polyrhythmic percussive stomp and psychedelically-kissed hard rock guitar work this composition is an easy album standout that presents a metallic, unpredictable twist to traditional pop-punk structuring.  Grungy punk with big, bright uplifting guitar riff/lead shakedowns played out atop palm-muted rhythmic churns is the order of the day on the single-worthy “You Can’t Stay Here” gives early 90s Offspring a run for their money in the hook department. 

Taking the record for a left-turn “Bedtime” is a gorgeous acoustic strummer that nary rises above a whisper, flowing directly into the folky, similarly aligned “Chrysanthemum.”  An even stranger composition, the oddly titled “Polar Warden” is a psychedelic drone piece brimming with sampled dialogue, opaque bass grooves, decaying noise guitar, instrumental feedback and all sorts of warped keyboards and guitar pedal effects.  It’s unlike anything else on the album and is a deep, lushly constructed piece that touches on Pink Floyd’s oddball experiments.  Closer “Clouds” couldn’t have been a better choice for a finale; employing a progressive structure that alternates between gargantuan Sabbath riffs and tom-tom heavy, noodle-y guitar freakouts with heavy reverb laid over the vocals casting off some serious 70s prog-rock atmosphere. 

Defection is an excellent album with fine songwriting and some superb instrumental bits.  It’s the work of a well-seasoned band that knows the strength and value of each individual member’s contribution.  Slow Burning Car is simply a fantastic modern rock group that delivers the good all across their 4^th impressive release. 

Dust of Days - Analog Mind Bender (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://dustofdays.com/

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Written by Robert Elgin, posted by blog admin

A four piece hailing from the wilds of New Jersey, Dust of Days have already established a reputation both for their promising original material and live appearances throughout the United States and Canada alike. Their second studio album, Analog Mind Bender, is their first full length since 2012’s Thomas & Grace and their first overall release since 2013’s EP Ethers and Embers, but the band clearly hasn’t lost even a modicum of the momentum they established with those distant releases. In fact, the band has only picked up steam. The dozen songs on Analog Mind Bender, many inspired by monumental changes in drummer, singer, and songwriter Frank Lettieri’s personal life, are united by a penchant for risk taking and a confrontational style that, even in most muted moments, still gives listener’s precious little distance or room to breathe. This is an album focused on making you face its emotions head on, but the band never neglects to house their sometimes dark and despairing narratives within musically compelling structures.

The title song starts off the album with a kinetic blast of alternative rock tinged with some tasteful melodic flourishes. Lettieri acquits himself as a first class rock singer on this track, but those who assume this is the likely extent of his vocal range are in for many surprises on this album. He does an exceptionally good job with the chorus and his voice is a good fit for the arrangement. Dust of Days summons up sheets of six string fury with the song “Aurora” and further skewers your expectations for the band by teetering back and forth between conversational and conventional vocals. It’s apparent, even two songs in, that Lettieri is blessed with a particular sort of vocal yowl certain to capture attention and even, in some cases, tug at your heart strings. His first emotive showcase comes with the song “Mustang” and he touches Chris Cornell like heights with the cathartic wail coloring so much of the track. The two guitar tapestry provided courtesy of Mike Virok and Jim McGee tap into the song’s wasted bluesy elegance and provides excellent instrumental counterpoints to Lettieri’s vocals. Dust of Days returns to familiar guitar workout territory on the song “Heavy”, but it’s more of a riffer than what the listener will be accustomed to at this point in the album. The crushing quality of the guitars is underlined by the earth-splitting interplay between Lettieri’s drumming and bassist Scott Silvester.

“The Circus” is a raucous punk rock inspired onslaught that begins with a claustrophobically fast bass line. The guitars come careening in and sound on the verge of veering out of control throughout the entire track, but the vocal helps rein things in some by giving the song some sense of traditional shape. “Death Vibrations” is an especially jovial romp, but it has a lot of energy and traditional rock song strengths despite the light punk rock pose it seems to suggest. It’s one of Lettieri’s better vocals on the album. The album’s second to last track “The Shore” will shock many. The guitars fall away and Dust of Days, instead, builds this track around piano, vocals, and some contributions from strings. It might sound incongruous with the rest of the album, but even a single close listen will illustrate how it comes from the same sensibility, just geared in a different direction. Analog Mind Bender is an album brimming over with inventiveness and imagination – moreover, it’s indelible testament to the fact that there are many young musicians still out there hungry and able to write and record challenging work that still rocks the hell out.