The Suburbs - Hey Muse! (2017)

OFFICIAL: www.TheSuburbsBand.com
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/thesuburbsband
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Written by Montey Zike, posted by blog admin

The Suburbs are a new discovery for me.  As a fan of New Wave and how punk twisted to a more melodic version for its formation, you’d think I’d know a band that had their heyday in the late 70s until the end of the 80s.  It’s always a pleasure discovering old music that I’ve missed and The Suburbs are no exception.  Their newest disc Hey Muse! feels at once fresh and classic in how it’s true to New Wave’s original vibe. 

The one-two punch of the opening title track and “Lost You on the Dance Floor” overflows with breathless walking bass lines, crunchy snare-centered drumming that provides precise time-keeping, melodic alternating lead and background vocals, splashy synthesizer throbs and well-composed, airtight songwriting make for edgy pop-tinged songs that are designed to get the entirety of nightclub patrons moving beneath the neon lights.  “Je Suis Strange” changes up the tempo to a fun, bright uptempo where classic Madness/The Specials styled, ska guitar grooves collide into a fiesta of Mexican sound where horns are high in the mix besides the keyboards.  The bass lines keep a steady, mid-paced foundation as rich background vocals immediately hook you in for the sing-a-long. 

“Lovers” relies on quirky tempos, feeling slightly more difficult to latch onto the melody.  It’s an experimental tune that shakes the floor with bursts of bass-y synths and a dense brass arrangement.  It’s a decent tune yet not quite up to the standard of some the album’s other rockers.  Speaking of rockers, “Can’t Take You Back” and its counterpart “Unified Force” are some of the record’s fieriest rockers; built on rollicking punk rock riffs filtered through new wave’s vocal/guitar melodies, organic rhythms and sugar sweet keys.  “Our Love” draws from the well of groovy reggae rhythms and the ska-punk horn elements, coming off as a cross between The English Beat and The Specials at the top of their respective games.  “Cupid” is cut from the same cloth, though it’s not quite as instantly memorable as its predecessor.  The gorgeous ballad “Butterfly” brings serenity and tranquility to the mind in the form of sultry keyboard hums, slow motion tempo drones and a hazy backbeat, leaving album finale “When We Were Young” to cap things off in full-on new wave n’ roll mode. 

Hey Muse! sounds like a new band doing a really fine job of updating an old sound but that’s the catch… these guys have been in the game for nearly 40 years and are still cranking out classics.  The majority of this record is top-notch and even the slightly filler moments are decently composed.  You can’t ask for more than that. 

Quantum Split - America (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://quantumsplit.com/

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

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/QuantumSplit

Written by Michael Saulman, posted by blog admin

Quantum Split’s two song EP America might be a brief recording, but contains enough power and musical inventiveness for a full length album. The four piece based out of the New York City area has established themselves as a memorable live act thanks to appearances in venues like Irving Plaza and the Gramercy Theatre, but they have branched out and are currently bringing their unique confluence of musical influences to the nation as a whole. Lead singer and songwriter Soleil Laurent is a star in the making whose voice can move from gentle delicacy into lung-busting passion within an eye blink and her band mates are clearly talented musicians with the ability to follow their songs wherever the Muse may take them. They are as equally at home with cerebral, patient musical passages as they are full on guitar workouts.

“America” begins things with some of the aforementioned patient, cerebral development. The melodies coming through during the opening of the title track are played with a great touch and one must commend Adrian Read, in particular, for his first class job of scene setting. Laurent’s voice, when it comes in, has the quality of a lone voice singing in the wilderness and her passion is unquestionable. Just as unquestionable is her skill set – she has ample power, but her phrasing is smart and makes the most of the lyrical content. The lyrics are conversational in tone, but it’s clear she wants to relate to her audience’s experience of living in Donald Trump’s America and the inspiring slant to her message is a welcome antidote to some poison pill in musical form where she blasts and rages, sound and fury signifying nothing, until we lose all interest. Read’s lead guitar work during the song’s raucous second half deserves mention, but it wouldn’t have near the impact it does if it wasn’t for the spot on rhythm section interplay between drummer Anthony Anderson and bassist Ivan Hardy.

“Runaway” has a more downcast air, but it gives Quantum Split a chance to show off a different side of their musical personality. This is a much more “orchestrated” affair than the title cut and the band do an exemplary job of shifting the musical demeanor while keeping it sounding utterly seamless throughout. Laurent emerges from this song as a surprisingly adept blues singer, but she also continues to prove her rock mettle with another invigorating and gripping rock vocal. Despite alternating musical moods, Read’s lead guitar steps much more to the fore here and he throws in a number of hot licks that never distract from the song, but add to it instead. Quantum Split is just the shot in the arm that big time rock and roll needs in 2017 and their socially and politically conscious message never subvert their musical mission.

Russ Still and the Moonshiners - Still Cookin' (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://russstill.com

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

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/rbstill2

Written by Charles Hatton, posted by blog admin

Genre collisions either happen harmoniously or else devolve into disjointed reminders of how everything doesn’t go together. Guitar rock melded with country in the early 70s, thusly creating the stylistic shake-up “southern rock” or “country rock.”  Flagship bands kept it going through the 80s, but many of them gave in to the pressures of 80s pop; adding new-wave’s synths and Top 100 melodies.  It didn’t work and the genre has since gone underground with a few pockets still taking creative liberties in the early twenty first century.

Russ Still and the Moonshiners are one of those bands to keep the fire stoked.  Led by songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Russ Still, the band is happy to shake the notion that southern rock was just an increasingly smaller audience remembers in the current times.  The Internet keeps it alive, but attendance at these shows is still not what they used to be.  It reflects the fickleness of the marketplace and popular tastes rather than acting as a critical barometer for the style’s enduring value. Opening with the diesel-fueled, guitar lick packed “Promised Land,” the band’s second album Still Cookin’ immediately offers plenty to love for the genre’s purists.  It’s got groove to spare, kickin’ guitar riffs, a telepathic rhythm section and great vocals laying down sing-a-long melodies.  Russ Still and the gang quickly prove that they aren’t a one trick pony as the entire album is packed with songs of this caliber (finely played and produced ones to boot). 

You get the monstrous, winding ballads with acoustic/electric transitions and free-wheeling vocals (“Long Way from Home,” “I Can’t,” and “10,000 Ways.”)  These ballads are beautifully jammed with acoustics, keyboards, huge hooks and thrusts of electric guitar in all of the right places.  Then there are the rockers that follow in the fine tradition of “Promised Land” such as “Glorine’s,” “Goin’ Fishin’,” “Juanita,” the dirge-riff highlight “Workin’ Class Hunter” and high-octane closer “Run Away.”  The songwriting is polished but the tunes have the requisite rough edges to make them fine examples of the genre’s forefathers and hella catchy n’ cool too. 

Still Cookin’ does really nothing wrong and everything right from the first note to the last.  It’s gravelly enough to win over the hard rock crowd and soulful enough to please country fans, which is exactly what good southern rock should do in the first place. 

Donoma - Falling Forward (2017)

OFFICIAL: https://www.donomatribe.com/

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

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/donomatribe

Written by Alonzo Evans, posted by blog admin

Donoma is a crazed, experimental band from the American Midwest with a free-form poet as a singer.  One minute they can sooth the senses with blues and old classic heavy rock sounds, the next they are a whirling dervish of strange time-signatures and quirky punk rock, then just when you least expect it you get settled down by a complete soft number to be left adrift on a tranquil sea.  This Wisconsin quintet never treads the same ground for long.  Sometimes the overload of experimentation can make for some head-scratching but at the end of the day it’s cool to hear a band just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. 

There are no limits to just what boundaries Donoma will push.  Opening cut “Sick” could go over with either a rockabilly, country of classic rock crowd; guitars cranked to 11, vocalist Stephanie Vogt burying herself in a throat burning blues snarl, the drums and bass almost metallically aggressive and auxiliary instrumentation providing a dramatic bent.  “Jack in the Box” and “Splinter” have howling, distortion rattled vocals, twitchy off-kilter rhythm and deranged guitar figures in the key of The Jesus Lizard and Surgery which barely seem to fit on the album as a whole but somehow do, then you get a slice of cabaret in “He Loves Me Not’s” lounge jazz grooves and spicy piano or the way “Deep Beneath the Woods” melds those elements with synths and electronic ambience.  Donoma’s smashes through old blues riffs and brain-blasted 70s rock grandeur on outstanding showcases like “Memory,” “Unfortunate One” and “Otherside” where simplicity is embellished over intricacy.  Then there are the smoldering, lighter-in-the-air atmospherics of “Another Light” and “A New Shed of Colors.”  Literally, across Falling Forward’s twelve layered tracks you will find a song to please every type of rock fan as well as music fans outside of the genre who crave something unfiltered and untainted by digital coldness. 

Whether adhering to tradition or breaking it at the kneecaps, Donoma is a one of a kind band that truly don’t sound like anybody but themselves.  There are tracks I prefer to others but this is a record I can listen to from start to finish with modest hope of trying to point an exact bead on what they are doing.  Anybody who thinks that rock n’ roll has lost its will to try anything will be pleasantly surprised with what they find on Falling Down.