Artist of the Day: The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die

To the extent that their name tests the limits of one's tongue, Connecticut sextet The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die make music that gives the eardrums a lot to process.  Yet in a craft governed by subtleties and sonic nuances, with an error margin that shrinks proportionally as venue square-footage diminishes, over-saturation can be an otherwise impressive basement act's coup de grâce.  TWIABP manage to dodge the tinnitus-inducing deadfall that engulfs so many others, finding their niche somewhere between massive post-rock swells and the mesmerizing off-kilter croons of frontman Thomas Diaz, all the while managing to not pulverize listeners with an overdone mix.  With two EP's and a split 12'' with New Hampshire's Deer Leap already under their belt, and plans for a four-way split and upcoming full-length on the horizon, there's really no better time to get into TWIABP.  Spend not a single moment more of your life missing out on some truly captivating New England sad-jams - listen to The World Is A Beautiful Place, and realize that you probably are still at least a little bit afraid to die.

Hear everything from The World Is... on their bandcamp, here.

Album Review: The Composure - Stay The Course

Album Rating: A-

Making pop music is much harder than you think it is. While anyone can recycle melodies, you need to know how to recycle correctly to make a song that simply sticks in the back of a listener's head and never lets go. On that account, you need to give credit to (among others) Will.I.Am and the Black Eyed Peas, Katy Perry, and Britney Spears (and their songwriting teams) for being able to continuously knock out insanely catchy hit after hit. fun. and Gotye have recently brought pop music to a more alternative sound, but it's still the same concept; they needed to make a hook that simply dominates everyone that listens to it. The Composure, while a bit more rocking and far less popular, uses these same conventions in their latest EP, Stay The Course.

Album Review: Lemaitre - Relativity 2

Album Rating: B

It’s going to take me a few more minutes to fully process the fact that Daft Punk released Discovery, the album that single handedly sparked a bloodlust for catchy, feel-good dance music, over a decade ago. It’s comes as such a surprise because the album’s legacy is such that repeated playings have kept it in a perpetual state of “just-being-released.” People simply did not get bored with it; at all. After all, it took a good six years for Cross (Justice) to appear and claim a stake in Discovery’s undying reign, and even now the legacy of those two albums dares any would-be dance aficionados to match them. People have tried, of course, though I think it would be a stretch to suggest that releases by the likes of LMFAO will leave much of a lasting impact. Sadly, until the time comes where we’re once again swept off our feet in a wave of feverish, ecstatic dancing, we’re forced to keep searching. One of the more recent and promising duos to step up to the plate are Lemaitre, who recently released their third EP, Relativity 2. 

Artist Of The Day - The Elwins

The Elwins may be from Keswick, Ontario, but the cold weather seems to have not affected their music. There's nothing cold about their music, from the bright cartoons on the artwork for their debut full length And I Thank You, to the warm summery indie pop rock music that they play. Vocalist Matthew Sweeney sounds like a brother of Forrest Kline of Hellogoodbye fame, and the musical arrangements have the lush feeling of songs from Would It Kill You?. But the band also brings in the beachy feelings from the 60's, or if you're looking for a more modern comparison, Best Coast minus the massive reverb would do. And I Thank You is the perfect album for the upcoming summer, and with warm weather already here, it's worth purchasing right away. You can stream and purchase And I Thank You on the band's Bandcamp, right here.

Interview With Mansions, Round Two

We previously interviewed Christopher Browder of Mansions back in April of last year, and what a year it's been for him. Anyone who listened to his latest album Dig Up The Dead absolutely fell in love with it, just as I did, putting it at #5 on the list of my favorite albums of 2011. Mansions is now prepping to record a new album, and we talked to Chris about how the new album may sound, as well as touring with William Beckett, the reasons for making the acoustic version of Dig Up The Dead publicly available, news that the long rumored split with John Nolan may actually begin to surface in the next few weeks, and much much more which you can read below.

Artist of the Day: Lavers

Lavers is a new indie band with a very old sound.  They released their EP The Street Is A Symphony earlier this year, and the band has a growing fanbase on the internet and on tour.  The Street Is A Symphony features five very good songs: it has the powerful acoustic song "Blue Rose," it has the ballady "Meet Me At The Merry Go Round," the very rocking "Old-Fashoned Girl," the epic "Cosmic Ambulance," and the folk sounding "Tangled Up In Dreams."  Every song on the album presents a different and unique sound, but is a sound that should still sound very familiar to the listener.

Lavers The Street Is A Symphony sounds like the perfect playlist for 1990's indie music: it combines the catchiness and youthfulness of Oasis What's The Story Morning Glory? the instrumentation and quirkiness of Radiohead's The Bends, and the in depth songwriting of Built To Spill's There's Nothing Wrong With Love.  

Listen to "Cosmic Ambulance" and be amazed.

Bandcamp

New Muzik Monday (5/28/12): Memorial Day Mosh Edition

With May coming to a close, I wanted to take the time to acknowledge a few of this month's standout hardcore releases from Expire, Old Wounds and Raindance, as well as one of my most anticipated 2012 EPs that is due to come out next month, The Out Crowd Blues, by Florida's Vices.

Expire - Pendulum Swings

Bridge 9 newcomers, Expire, just put out their debut full length, Pendulum Swings, as a follow up to their 2011 Suffer the Cycle EP that was released through Six Feet Under Records. Hailing from Milwaukee, Wisc., Expire play gimmick-free, bare bones, heavy hardcore much like that of contemporaries Backtrack and Trapped Under Ice.  From the immediately bitter vocals of "Just Fine" to the final chants in the title track's outro, the album pummels the listener with relentless guitar grooves, breakneck drumming, and memorable vocal breaks that hit even harder thanks to super-crisp and powerful production.  At just over 20 minutes, Pendulum Swings is a fun and direct take on hardcore that spares no aggression throughout its course.

Buy the record from B9!

Album Review: Kubrick's Cube - Odissey

Album Rating: A

Racking up 22 tracks and - if you enjoy your music in FLAC - over 900mb of disk space, the decision to title this release with such a grandiose name as Odissey comes as no surprise (bar the deliberate spelling mistake to avoid the rather inevitable search-engine clash with Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey). Kubrick’s Cube is a project born from one shared idea of 10 Moscow-based musicians: to erase the notion that music is something that can be categorised. For them, music has evolved beyond genres and styles, and with the dawn of electronics beyond even the studio/ live split. In their own words, they strive “to combine incompatible elements and go in search of new sonic territories.” It strikes me as quite ironic that this is now a fairly old-fashioned statement, but what can be heard on Odissey is anything but. For once, it seems, such bold claims are exceeded, as Kubrick’s Cube have crafted something that sounds like nothing to have come before, yet will likely be echoed in thousands to come after.

Artist Of The Day: Hammock

About a month back, Muzik Dizcovery writer Sean Milo featured Boards of Canada as the Artist of the Day. If you took a look at the article and checked out the band, then I hope you'll find something you like here: today's featured artist is Hammock, an ambient instrumental band that leans towards post-rock, rather than the experimental electric sounds you might hear from the former.

The music that comes from Hammock's Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson parallels some of Explosions in the Sky's more controlled and relaxed works. Much of what Hammock tries to create is soft, nostalgic and light, as though one is floating through a distant memory of childhood. It's smooth, and incredibly easy to listen to - I found myself finished with an album without really noticing it until the end, but I was so absorbed into the music that I'd felt like I had been listening to it for years, and it was just another play-through. The other thing about Hammock's music is that it's stunningly beautiful, without being overly complicated. There tends to be a fair amount of layering, but the blending of the electronic haze with the reverberating guitar tones creates a cloud of sound that the listener is gently coaxed into, and surrounded by delicate waves of sound for however long they please. It puts you in a wonderful, peaceful place, with space to think and room to breathe. I would absolutely recommend Hammock to anyone, to easily make their day calm, collected, and less stressful.

Interview With The Sun And The Sea

The Graduate released one of my favorite albums of 2010, as well as some great b-side EPs in 2011, so when they broke up in July of 2011, I was heartbroken. However, all members but vocalist Corey Warning decided to keep making music as The Sun and The Sea, adding vocalist Chris Rhein to fill that void. Max Sauer took some time to answer some questions from us at MuzikDizcovery, such as how they decided as Chris Rhein to be their vocalist, the basis and themes for the Nightfalls EP, where the band sees The Sun And The Sea in comparison to The Graduate, physical copies, a new music video, and much more which you can read below.

Artist of the Day: Rabbit Troupe

I may be running out of fantastic local bands to write about, but I don't think I'll ever run out of things to say about such bands. Rabbit Troupe is a four piece punk outfit from somewhere in northern New Jersey. The band specializes in noisy and incredibly lo-fi catchy punk, citing artists such as Pavement, Beat Happening and Pixies amongst their influences. Just this year, they came out with their third EP, Treasures Are Miniscule, released on the band's own Beta Snake Records.

Over the past two years, Rabbit Troupe have released two EP's, two singles and a full length album, Cauldron Boy and The Nemesis, all of which contain some of the catchiest punk music I've ever heard. Rabbit Troupe is a great listen for any fan of DIY, lo-fi and overall gritty homemade rock.

Facebook
Bandcamp

Artist Of The Day: The Neat

In my experience, the best thing that a support band can hope for is to make an impression on its audience, even if it's not an overwhelmingly positive one. Obviously being good helps, but even if a band is utterly dreadful the likelihood is that their name will stick around due to such provocation - which surely beats turning up, playing and being forgotten in an instant. The Neat clearly understand this, and as such seemingly approach every one of their opening slots with the sole aim of leaving a dent. The first time I saw them, back in 2010, I honestly didn't know what to make of it all. Whilst waiting for my beloved Frightened Rabbit, I was confronted by a quartet of oddballs from Hull, hellbent on making an unintelligible repetitious racket which could hardly have been further removed from the night's headliners. Did I love it? Did I hate it? I really had no idea. All I knew was that I found it hilarious.

Album Review: State Lines - State Lines EP

Album Rating: B+

Over the past few years I have acquired a somewhat bleak outlook when it comes to new music. I have grown to never expect anything out of my favorite artists, because often times, I fear that the music they have already put out will simply never be topped. Without hoping for a band to improve upon a release that is already “perfect” in my mind, then will be no reason to be bitterly disappointed if the newer work does not meet my overinflated expectations. New York’s State Lines, for example, released the shockingly mature Hoffman Manor last year, which made it hard to imagine how such a unique debut could be topped. Upon hearing word of the band’s signing to Tiny Engines and their plans for an upcoming self-titled EP, I proceeded warily, trying to ignore the ever-building hype train inside my head. The new EP, however, makes it apparent that State Lines have no intentions of slowing down, and certainly will not be shackled by the success of their full length. Though the EP is not quite the event that the cohesive Hoffman Manor was, the four new tracks carry just as much replay value and emotion as anything off the full length, giving plenty of reasons to be excited for State Lines’ future.

Album Review: The Walkmen - Heaven

Album Rating: A

When we speak of bands operating within a comfort zone, we usually do so whilst implying negative connotations. The Walkmen, however, have on the whole been exempt from such rulings, and it must be said with good reason. The New Yorkers settled into a sweet spot pretty swiftly following their formation in 2000, and have since made only subtle amendments to a formula that's become both familiar and distinctive. Sticking to what they know has hardly been a hindrance though, and has earned them a reputation among the most consistently excellent bands that indie-rock has to offer. Indeed the only real criticism which could be levelled at them is that they've never managed to deliver a truly great record; the type that moves a band up a level and immortalises them at the expense of countless contemporaries. Commendable though their catalog is, The Walkmen have long seemed destined to be American indie's nearly men - always a pleasure, but never quite capable of pulling alongside The Nationals and Arcade Fires of this world.