Nest - Woodsmoke.

This is a band I discovered by accident, whilst putting my entire music collection onto my new laptop.

Ages ago I had downloaded a few Agalloch CDs. Agalloch and Nest had recorded a split together at some stage, which I wasn't aware of then. In my downloading, I apparently acquired this Nest album without realising it. I'd never checked the folder until now, and I'm glad that I did, yet wish I had done so earlier.

Nest are a two piece Finnish outfit who create beautiful ambient/folk music, mostly featuring the kantele, a traditional Finnish instrument. The songs are truly beautiful, with sounds of nature and a spaced out feel. The musicianship is brilliant and simple, creating a relaxing, mellowed out musical style that is very easily comparable to Agalloch.

Woodsmoke is their first full length, full of themes and imagery of the wilderness. The Silvershade Lynx is a gentle start to the album, with flutes playing throughout, creating a soft haunting feel to the music. Each song seems to have a distinctive sound; The Call Of The Wild has a soft earthy drone that runs throughout the song, changing pitch on the odd occasion and By The Healing Waters living up to the name by including the calming sound of running streams.

Each song seems to fit its title perfectly. Summer Storm is about as erratic as this CD gets, as if it is reflecting an actual storm. Calmly Passing Monument features music that could easily be mistaken as a lost Enya track, with the exception of the male vocals that overlap. Courting is an airy, romantic track. Dainty little tunes from each instrument included in the song give the illusion that perhaps you are courting, or being courted, and engaging in a lovely dinner via candlelight on a balcony just after sundown.

It is not surprising if in listening to this CD, you feel like you are currently situated in the forest, perhaps roaming the woodland or foraging for food; setting up camp or merely exploring. This is one of the most beautiful albums I've ever heard; the Finnish can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. I highly recommend this CD if you're looking for something different, or just wanting to relax and wind down.

DOWNLOAD:
Mediafire

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! [2009]

I am going to sum this cd up with one word. One impolite, 'vulgar' word: Fuck.

This cd is so goddamn good that I wish to fornicate with it. I'm going to keep this really simple today.

While the last album release from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Show Your Bones) showed a relatively soft, laid back, simplistic indie feel, It's Blitz! has come along, which may as well read a sticker urging you to forget the past releases, and be prepared to be smacked with a cat that barks. If the cat can have a new sound, so can the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

It starts with the first single Zero, which has a noticable electro vibe running throughout it, which would make it feel quite at home in a dingly club full of indie hipsters who are standing around tall tables, sipping their fancy drinks and daring to not move a muscle to the beat of the music around them for fear of ruining their image. Hardly pretentious, even if the people in said fictional club are.

Don't be put off, in the offchance that you are, because it only gets better from there. Continuing with the sexy new electro feel, Heads Will Roll, which is so ridiculously catchy that there must be something wrong with your brain if it doesn't build a nest in the confines of your cranium and refuse to fuck the hell off. It's about then when you should be asking yourself, 'can this cd get any better?'

And the answer is a big fat yes. It really can. Track after track is juicy Yeah Yeah Yeahs goodness, with a delicious sprinkling of synths scattered throughout. Karen O remains as vocally distinctive as ever. No matter how big or little the change in their music, there is no doubting a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song. Ever.

Seriously, listen to this cd if given the opportunity. You won't regret it, and if you do, then it's your loss!

Lacuna Coil - Shallow Life [2009]

The only people who will listen to this and thoroughly enjoy it are people who worship Cristina and would happily eat her shit, have only heard/know about Karmacode and think it's the gospel, or those who will probably one day hear them on mainstream radio and walk around thinking they're gods because they have such genius lyrics like 'I like it, like it'.

Perhaps I'm just a bitter fan who's shitty that they're straying far from the sounds of Unleashed Memories and Comalies and the EPs, I freely admit that, but I know I'm not the only person in the world who thinks these things.

I have no hope for this band anymore. None whatsoever.

Autolux - Future Perfect [2004]

Just so you all know, it has been at least a month since I first heard this band, and I am utterly appalled that it has taken me this long to post about them. The shame.

Autolux are the most perfect thing to ever associate with shoegaze; ever. Admittedly, it took me about a week to realize the main vocalist is, in fact, male. With such an allure as that, who wouldn't wanna listen to them?!

Future Perfect; which is a very apt title for such an album; starts with the delightful drumwork of Carla Azar on the lazy Turnstile Blues. Probably one of the best female drummers I've heard in a good long while, she certainly makes this band worth listening to. Turnstile Blues builds gradually, all the while retaining it's feeling of making you want to fall asleep, up until the smooth Angry Candy. There is something sexy lurking in the depths of this song, and you won't know until you bother to let it invade your ear canals and slither its way into your heart. And possibly even your genitals.

Subzero Fun is loaded with cuteness; Sugarless is full of the substance the title claims to have none of thanks to Carla's backing vocals and simple guitarwork; Blanket has enough pep in it to make one want to dance around the house in their underwear, and maybe even in the backyard also, before finally coming back down to earth to make you feel like you wanna get stoned and lay about on bean bags to the calming Great Days For The Passenger Element.

The shortest song on the album, Robots In The Garden, strips the underwear-dancing pep from Blanket and replaces it with the desire to jump around in the front row of an outdoors concert at twilight, which carries through onto Here Comes Everybody, minus the jumping and shoving in some good wholesome, well, shoegazing.

The entire cd starts to calm down with Asleep At The Trigger, with such simple yet pretty drumming. Plantlife delivers the standard distortion that is familiar with most shoegaze artists, before ending on crescendo of sorts with Capital Kind Of Strain.

See this is rare; for me to document the little things about every song on an entire cd must mean it's worth a few spins, and even more if you enjoy it.
To those who are uneducated in the joys of shoegaze, I can see why you may find this cd bland. For everyone else, it's a fucking gem.

Silversun Pickups - Kissing Families [video].

You better have watched this video before reading the rest of this entry. At least have it playing in the background. As neat as the video is, it is here purely for aesthetics. I just want to focus mainly on the song itself. Maybe also the video a little bit..

Silversun Pickups fans may notice the drumbeat in this cute little ditty is pretty much the same as the one in Lazy Eye, but nobody should bother to focus on such a detail when you have a song this nice.

Perhaps the title sounds a little incestuous, I know I sure thought that, but that should not put anyone off; ever. Brian has a fairly distinctive voice; I've lost count of the amount of times I've heard people try to insist that it's actually a female singing. Newsflash! Last time I checked, Brian is a male's name, and pretty sure the person singing in the video is not a woman. Even so, would it really matter? There are men who can do falsetto damn well, as well as those who can ruin it horribly, so go pick on them for sounding feminine, okay?

The song itself is a relatively simple piece of shoegaze fluffcake, coming from someone who dislikes the phrase 'shoegaze'. Who the fuck is the wiseass who coined THAT lame term?! But really, it's the only way to describe it when you think about it, and most bands that fit into that genre like little jigsaw pieces have that effect to whatever extent, as well as often sounding pretty as well as upbeat. What a knack they must have! Off topic...

It is not overdone, and fans of super distortion and wailing, angst filled vocals urging people to rape them will get no satisfaction here, unless you're willing to stick it out until a few minutes in for the really brief distortion that appears and fades out. Now you know why I used fluffcake. It's the only way I can describe the song fairly accurately. It's delicate and pretty, and when it's gone you're left wanting more, like people who really fucking like eating cake.

Silversun Pickups know how to write an effective song, and this is certainly a great example of such. Nikki's vocals that are often scattered in their songs are soft and offer a more feminine contrast to Brian's almost as soft, slightly breathy vocals. The bassline is also simple, but that's not to say it's bad. Simple can often equal good, and in Silversun Pickups, this is more often than not.

I do not want to hear any comparison to Smashing Pumpkins. This is a completely different band, and while there may be some influences thrown in there, there is no major comparison. Not at all. Brian and Billy sound different. Pumpkins have more distortion. Right.
Just watch the video and enjoy them for who they are, not for who they're meant to sound like but actually don't. Thank you.

Dethklok.

This band is the most brutal, metal band ever. Blacker than the blackest black times infinity.


Seriously now, all jokes aside, this band is pretty rad for a band that technically doesn't exist. Real or not, they have good music. The lyrics are often kind of silly, but what can you expect from a fictional cartoon band designed for an [adult swim] program?

Consulting my copy of The Dethalbum, which iTunes informs me it is a deluxe edition or some crap, I will voice my opinions on them. Whilst listening. My thoughts shall be fresh then. Fresher than the Fresh Prince. WOAH!

Awaken is ace. There should be more songs that bring forth enormous high speed internet destroying trolls. Well, no, there shouldn't, because I wouldn't be able to write this if that happened. They don't even exist anyway. But hypothetically speaking, then there should be.

Thunderhorse is fuckin' brilliant. For those of you who like songs to have a decent amount of lyrics, then you're far too picky. Thunderhorse doesn't NEED loads of lyrics to make it a very aurally pleasing song. The guitarwork more than makes up for it, despite it being great in most every song.

For all of you who are sick of singing the traditional birthday song, try Birthday Dethday on for size at your next celebration! Perfect for ages 1 to 100, this song shall perk up the normally bland and predictable birthday song selection. If singing it offends anybody, then you get bonus brownie points (from me, of course). Whether or not these points are redeemable for brownies (hash or otherwise) in any way depends, but most likely not.

Now, I know that none of you probably care, but Dethharmonic is probably my favourite Dethklok song. It may or may not be because of the wonderful Emilie Autumn on violins, and it may or may not be because said violins are beautiful, but either way, it's fucking excellent! It's lyrically straightforward; fuck taxes. I never thought a Dethklok song could be summed up as pretty, but this one is, thanks to Miss Autumn. I better stop, before this entry slowly morphs into an Emilie Autumn-centric entry. Eep.

There is also the most metal jingle you'll ever hear, which is fantastic. Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle is the new-wave of metal coffee jingles. Or it should be. It has a fantastic solo, which is something you don't hear often in jingles. You never do actually, but shut up! You know what I mean!

Fansong wouldn't surprise me if some actual musicians in the world feel the exact same way about their fans. If that's the case, then it might certainly prove that fans would do anything no matter what is thought of them. Hmm.

I want to see Dethklok live.

Grendel - Harsh Generation [2007].

Buy this cd, because it's something people must own. Really truly. Here goes.

Harsh Generation starts out with the very awesome intro which lasts about 23 seconds, but dammit, it really boosts the the title track, which comes on next, into the land of brilliant songs. Harsh Generation the song sounds like it belongs in a club, whether or not it's a goth club or a rave or some other variety of club where goths may or may not frequent. It has a great beat, and if you listen to it loud enough through headphones, it's like there's a rave in your brain and everyone is going mental. Headphones make it seem cooler. Ugh, it's just plain cool full stop. It makes me wanna fucking shuffle, and god I hate shuffling!

Void Malign has a cool intro, and just like the song before it, has a great beat that will make you want to dance, even if you're bad at it like I am. Even the name of the song is cool. Vooooid Maliiiign. It's fun to say. Can this band do anything wrong? The Judged Ones seems to have a deeper bass sound, unless my ears are misleading me, but either way, marvelous!

B.a.a.l (Deliver Me) is significantly slower. Well, not that much slower, but it's slower enough to be noticable. It has the same 'ahhh' voice in it that Void Malign has, it's kind of haunting actually.
Then there's the deliciously dirty Dirty. Come on, the sentence was just BEGGING to have a pun made out of it! No harsh whispery industrial vocals here, no sirree. Just a girl telling the listener how much she likes it dirty, and how often. Really. Even prudes will find this song danceable and just all round fun. Actually prudes will probably find something to complain about, so you know, steer clear so I won't get blamed for suggesting that you'd enjoy it. Wonderful. Not that anyone actually cares, but this is probably my favourite track on the cd. It has nothing to do with the girl, it's just fucking awesome.

For those of you who like a side of angry expletives with your industrial, then Hate This is the song for you. It should make people want to break shit, and if it doesn't then you're shut off to it's greatness and you need to play it louder. Sure, it doesn't swear as much as some songs, but who gives a shit? Hello children if you have stumbled upon this page. It's too late to tell you turn back now because, you've surely already seen my use of obsceneties, so you know. Too bad. It's your parents problem for not supervising you. Go swear at them, okay? Ohhh I digress..

Now, lucky little me has her hands on the copy of the cd with the bonus remixes. Oh yes, remixes. Let's see, the best tracks on the remix disc. Void Malign (Amduscia Remix), and it's not just because it's that song. It's because the remix is.. Almost possibly better! Hate This (X-Fusion Remix) is pretty dandy also. Hate This (Caustic Remix), because it sounds so jagged and messy and staticy. It's brilliant!

It seems that a good industrial song needs good sound effects and maybe even a smattering of quotes from action movies/tv shows, and Harsh Generation all in all has not too many or too little of the sound effects to make it a damn good album. Definitely worth spinning til it blows up.

*Although not on Harsh Generation, people interested should check into the song Pax Psychosis.