Artist Spotlight - Binary Heart

Album Rating: B+

After many years as the defiantly pragmatic drummer for (now defunct) Bomb the Music Industry! (and formally for Long Island's The Arrogant Sons of Bitches), Mike Costa finally set out to make a (sort of) solo record.  I can't help but recall my last (and, let's be real, my only) conversation with the heroically unsung percussionist following a sweltering living room show that gave Flagstaff in mid-July a run for its money.  That "conversation" involved Costa casually dragging on a cigarette while I rambled incessantly about how Scrambles was the sixth best record of all time, oozing fanboy vibes harder than a late 90's preteen with Ricky Martin backstage passes.  His response - a sidearmed comment about how Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba is so intensely underrated - has been brought to new light in the wake of Quote Unquote Records' and Mike Costa's very own, Binary Heart.

Album Review: Ape Up! - Kemosabe

Album Rating: Listen to it.

Moderation is by no means a virtue that the boys of Ape Up! possess.  Indeed, the sonic shitstorm that is Kemosabe, their first official release as members of the Count Your Lucky Stars label, showcases four dudes with dwindling concern for the consequences of tomorrow.  Hyperbolic ultimata aside, Ape Up! make an awful lot of noise on Kemosabe, channeling the vim and vigor of adolescent angst into nine ear-blasting tracks, and giving us a sure contender for 2012's finest punk record.

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.

Artist of the Day: Titus Andronicus

At this point in modern punk rock's brief history, what's really left to be said about Patrick Stickles and his support from New Jersey's Titus Andronicus?  Surely, plenty of sharp-tongued critics have long since had their go at properly articulating just what makes the weathered Americana foursome so alarmingly appealing, but another nail in the coffin can truly do no harm.  What Titus Andronicus have unfailingly injected into each and every track of their two LP's to date is more than just bitter angst, uncouth musicianship and an aptness for significant literature of the past several centuries - it's the haunting relevance of coming up short, again and again and again, and fighting an interminable losing battle in the homeland of the not-so free; the turf of the questionably brave.  2008 offering The Airing of Grievances chugs onward and inward with battle hymns of an innocence lost, drowning beneath the sonic weight of John C. Everyman's insurmountable existential crisis.  2011-dominating The Monitor likewise plays itself headlong into the cracked dry earth, repeatedly ascending from its ashes only to gloriously burn up again, finally culminating in a 14-minute closer capable of shaking the earth between the mighty Bruce Springsteen's own feet.  Now, with plans for LP number three to be released later this year, Stickles and co. have carved out some mighty big footprints for themselves to fill.  Yet regardless of outcome or critical response, Titus Andronicus and their fans know that the fight is not up until the dog is in the dirt, a hopeful sign that the ardent song-crafting of these Jersey natives will live on until "us" and "them" become We.

Listen to Titus Andronicus, you teat-suckling pansy-ass.

Artist of the Day: Dads

John Bradley and Scotty Scharinger, collectively comprising New Jersey punk-something act Dads, create a rather impressive two-man ruckus.  Donning the unassuming looks of your neighborhood coffee shop denizens - stained teeth, patched flannel, and bristly beards included - one wouldn't expect either of the two youngsters to raise their voices past ordering another beer or emitting a hearty chuckle.  Yet, looks are deceptively disjointed from reality (a fact to which I might owe all the sex I've ever had), and it so happens that Mssrs. Bradley and Scharinger have, in fact, been raising quite a stink since the 2010 genesis of Dads.  Through online releases of intermittent singles and various EP's, the most recent being 2011's Brush Your Teeth, Again ;), Dads have found themselves a pretty comfortable niche amongst fellow basement nocturnalists.  Employing their fair share of East Coast emo twang with the off-kilter drums to back it, Dads prove that it only takes two to twinkle, favoring spastic vocals and chronic tinnitus to the sad loneliness of silence.  Don't just take my word for it - check out all the FREE Dads jams you could ever hope for on Bandcamp now, then go post on their Facebook wall so you can know that they now know you think they rule! Do it! Now!

Artist of the Day: I Can See Mountains

As personal experience will foretell, namely an evening about two weeks back that involved far too much Canadian whiskey and a particularly dank local basement, I Can See Mountains find their niche in the betwixt and between of a backpack full of beer and the "nobody will notice that I'm leaning against this wall as to not fall over," moment at your favorite local punk show.  Hope You Never Get It, their seven track release from earlier this year, preserves the magic of that time and place, best friends and ample booze included.  Making the most out of explosive singalongs ('Hey Man', 'Tournesol') and the obligatory angst-laden pop-punk ballads to accompany them ('I'm Really Going To Miss This Place'), I Can See Mountains bottle that uproarious basement show cacophony and stale beer smell into sonic form with every pulse-pounding track.  Hope You Never Get It stands as yet another reminder to make the most of the fact that you're only young once, doing so with songs that ring true of those endless college nights rather than a particularly obnoxious four-letter acronym.  Live loud and regret not what you won't remember - in the meantime, listen to I Can See Mountains.

Hear tracks from Hope You Never Get It on their Bandcamp.

Artist Spotlight: The Lopez

If there's one thing that's for sure about music from The Lopez, it's the fact that your kindergarten teacher would absolutely loathe it.  Frontwoman Stephenwolf and everything-else-guy Jesse, collectively The Lopez, have failed to retain any notion of "inside voices" from their elementary school days, a move that seems to have worked out in everyone but Mrs. D'Amato's favor.  While "loud" alone can't adequately describe the noisy duo's blend of fuzz-laden garage pop and synth-punk, it's tough not to become immediately engrossed in the high volume ferocity of their craft.  Combining the acid-drowned noisiness of an act like Wavves with some true blue shoegaze a la No Age, The Lopez bring California's lazy blue waves to Rust Belt Way, USA.  Stick it to grandma's eardrums with head-spinner 'Obedience', or get lost in the unrelenting drum machine cacophony of 'Dougie' (minus the silly dance) - either way, be sure to check out the Pittsburgh duo's self-titled EP before Ma and Pa make it home from work. 

Stream and download The Lopez on BandCamp, or like them over on Facebook.

Artist of the Day: Brightside

Through the many highly anticipated but otherwise disappointing releases of the past few years, I'm always reminded of the importance of supporting a local scene.  A decent local scene, if nothing else, restores the faith in music that a handful of recent albums has challenged.  Enter a band like Brightside.  Comprised of four impassioned Pittsburgh kids, Brightside is exactly the sort of band that makes a local show a magical place to be.  With two releases under their belt so far, full-length Good Enough and more recent EP Can I Pet Your Dog? Cause I'm Gonna, Brightside conjoin the accessibility of pop-punk and the heartthrob of 90's emo to create a truly memorable sound.  Basically, you're a damn fool if you aren't yelling along to 'Coffee and Pie, oh my!' by the second listen.  Check out Brightside, grab some deucers, text your pals, and head on down to wherever the live music is playing - if your ears aren't still ringing in the morning, you need to consider living more loudly. 

Stream all of Brightside's jams over on their Bandcamp, and toss 'em a like on Facebook.

Album Review: Joyce Manor - Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired

Album Rating: B-

Joyce Manor really found themselves a sound with Constant Headache and their 2011 self-titled.  Both records bled with the raw embitterment of their local Southern California punk scene yet somehow grasped onto an impossible level of catchiness, affording them multiple U.S. tours and leaving a slew of hoarse-throated basement punks in their wake.  Frontman Barry Johnson summed it up pretty effectively when questioned about his tendency for sub-two minute power-tracks in an interview: "You're taking the time to listen to my band … so I'm not going to have the audacity to bore the shit out of you."  It was exactly on this compendiousness that a band like Joyce Manor is founded, this same urgency and succinct song structure being the crux of a record like Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired.  All of this said, 2012 Joyce Manor is a band coasting not only on brevity, but also on tradeoffs.

Artist Spotlight: Danielle Fricke

It could be that I'm a complete sucker for all that is gentle on the ears and musically adorable, but there really is nothing to dislike about the musical side of Danielle Fricke.  Borne on wavelengths a la Laura Stevenson or Molly Erin Sarle of folk-trio Mountain Man fame, Fricke's music speaks true to the individual soul.  Hello Little World, with its delicate and subtle intricacies, fuses the loneliness of a Walden Pond winter with the heartfelt innocence of the most gentle of creatures.  Unabashedly simplistic and bare-boned, Fricke's songwriting rings true of simpler times and pure humanity.  Allow yourself to get lost in the deep echoes of 'Your Ghost (Part II)', or let your mind swim blithely along with the warming do-do-do's of 'Springtime' - Hello Little World is a record worth enjoying on the rainiest of afternoons or the most pristine of mornings.  Spend a half an hour with Danielle and her guitar, and afford yourself the chance to truly appreciate the simpler things.

Hear all of Hello Little World on Danielle's Bandcamp.

Album Review: Anti-Flag - The General Strike

Album Rating: C

 What I failed to learn from Anti-Flag:


Anti-Flag's biggest problem as a band today might just be fans like me.  Back in the day, being a fourteen year old white kid with good grades from a decent neighborhood that still felt a little out of place in high school meant the need for an outlet to the confusion and frustration.  Punk rock, or maybe "punk rock," happened to be that vent.  I can remember going to Anti-Flag shows with my friends Dave and Spaz and loving every second of dancing around to 'Spaz's House Destruction Party' and 'Davey Destroyed the Punk Scene' (it's true) and feeling like I really belonged to something.  I can recall looking around the pit of sweaty, vest-clad punks and picking out the ones without green mohawks that looked to be a lot like me - that is, relatively normal, happy kids with typical high school angst and a need for that same outlet.  Even if the shows were just a means to feeling better about typical freshman-year grievances and the government wasn't personally dicking us over, it felt pretty real as we shouted "Fuck the flag and, FUCK YOU!" together at the tops of our lungs.  Most of all, I remember wondering what it all meant, what it would all become, and when I would finally tell my well-meaning father to piss off. 

Artist Spotlight: Salad Days

When it comes to making music, you can trace the picture and color in the spaces or you can draw the lines.  Kyle Bogue, the force behind Philadelphia/Pittsburgh based act Salad Days, knows a thing or two about drawing those lines.  Quiet As Its Kept, the result of an extended period of intermittent recording bursts that happened to take place in the bedroom next to mine, is the start of a musically-inclined mind's plunge into the wonderful world of recording.  Swirling, fuzz-laden guitar lines and the most fatalistic of piano interludes all converge with Bogue's angst-fueled songwriting to form a truly refreshing listening experience.  Closer 'Another Decembered Saturday,' takes all the right cues from a track like Bomb the Music Industry!'s 'Future 86' while adding its own spice to the mix and salt to the wound.  I'd be remiss not to proclaim 'Let Down' as one of the most engaging and accessible boy/girl duet tracks since +44's 'Make You Smile'. Its youthful air calling to mind the quintessential jealousy-mired adolescent love story.  Despite falling victim to the quality troubles associated with bedroom-based recording, Quiet As Its Kept presents listeners with a glimpse into the eccentrically musical mind of Kyle Bogue, a mind that hopefully continues to find sonic outlets for its ideas in the future.


Hear Quiet As Its Kept and download it on a name-your-price basis on Salad Days' Bandcamp.

Artist Spotlight: Rambos

If there's one thing worth appreciating about a band like Rambos, it's their refusal to take themselves as a band - or anything at all - too seriously.  Considering the fact that the group's Facebook page "likes" include everything from Tom Waits and Stiff Little Fingers to The Daily Show and pseudo-news network The Onion, it becomes readily apparent that the Chicago-based quintet have their heads caught somewhere between bourbon-soaked ballads, classic punk jams, and the comical, self-absorbed tendencies of the human race.  Rock and Roll Monsters is a testament to all three of these things - tracks like 'Hiawatha' and 'Chuck Taylors' are as quick to critique humanity as they are to laugh at it, doing so with the airy and youthful disposition of a group of kids that are, if nothing else, enjoying the hell out of their time here.  Each song reverberates with the openness of an old abandoned foyer, lending an abundantly retro feel to the record, almost as if it was intentionally recorded a generation too late.  For Rambos, the time to shout it out loud is right now; Rock and Roll Monsters embodies this explosive attitude and delivers the funk-tinged, punk-fueled tracks to back it.

Hear tracks from Rock and Roll Monsters on Rambos' Facebook, or head over to their official website for more about the band and their new album.

Album Review: Good Old War - Come Back As Rain

Album Rating: B-

Come Back As Rain begins exactly as you'd expect a Good Old War record to begin - an ambient, folk-tinged guitar lick prances around for half a minute before giving way to the dulcet vocal melodies of Keith Goodwin, Tim Arnold and Dan Schwartzman.  Just like that and Philadelphia's heralded indie-folk trio are off to the races with their much-anticipated follow up to 2010's self-titled LP.  Sprawling and soaring vocal melodies, guitar lines worth getting hopelessly lost in and those classic three-way Goodwin/Arnold/Schwartzman warbles still populate the record, yet it's hard not to feel as if something more significant is missing.  Even though Good Old War have infused these songs with the same sunny disposition and tender crooning found on past efforts, Come Back As Rain often slips into purposeless song-writing and redundant track layouts.  Still, the obvious musical prowess with which the trio operate lends the record a good deal of bright moments and a yields a generally uplifting listening experience.

Snowing: A Brief Retrospective

When John Galm took the stage with his three bandmates on November 25, 2011, he found himself surrounded by hundreds of his best friends - most of whom, myself included, were complete strangers to him.  As the Lehigh Valley foursome played through nearly their entire discography to that point, the band often drowned out by the flannel-clad throng that sang along, everyone came to realize that this really was the end of Snowing and that it would be okay.  Snowing's final moments were exactly as anyone would have expected them to be, concluding with a gratefully intoxicated but hopelessly choked-up Galm hoisted atop the heads of his fans and friends, his consenting frame hovering gracefully around the basement of First Unitarian to the backdrop of Vera Lynn's 'We'll Meet Again'.  Even though it seemed as if Snowing had left every last bit of themselves in downtown Philadelphia that night, posthumously releasing one final 7-inch was the real nail in the coffin and their farewell gift to fans.

Album Review: Maker - Mirrors

Album Rating: B+

If there's one thing worth taking away from Mirrors, the first full-length from Springfield, MA locals Maker, it's the young band's already obvious mastery of their craft and sound.  Every track found here resonates with the confidence and purpose of a band that's found their niche in the modern pop-punk scene, with the album as a whole easily meeting and exceeding the present-day standard.  Taking cues from tour-buddies in Crucial Dudes and The Story So Far, as well as drawing some obvious influence from now-defunct Jawbreaker and even early Brand New, Maker combine the vitality of passion-driven songwriting with the accessibility of beefed-up choruses, driving their product home with the familiarity and modesty of your favorite local band.

Album Review: Cheap Girls - Giant Orange

Album Rating: A-

It seems as if there is nothing all that extraordinary about Ian Graham and he perfectly well knows it.  Even now in fronting the third full-length from Lansing's Cheap Girls, Graham still chooses to wail out his stories and discontentment from the far side of the trio's never-waning sonic wall, knowing that the syllables he shouts will be as lost in the hazy production as he is in his own mind.  He did so all throughout Find Me A Drink Home, steadily distancing himself from the world around him but failing to sever the ties for good.  My Roaring 20's was but a reiteration of the same graceless shortcomings, this time camouflaged behind sunnier track titles and beefier choruses that maintained the self-destructive disposition of their predecessors.  Though it could have easily picked up where album-ending confessional 'One & Four' left off, Giant Orange comes off as the optimistic counterpart to more jaded previous offerings.  And wouldn't you know it, sunny is a damn good color for Cheap Girls.

Album Review: Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves of Destiny - Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose

Album Rating: B+

At this point in the year, one might go so far as to say that Beth Jeans Houghton is a rather masterful tease artist.  The 2011 release of singles 'Dodecahedron' and 'Liliputt' catapulted Houghton and her ever-loyal backing from The Hooves of Destiny directly into the spotlight of British and American critics alike, with an indefinite release date allowing listeners plenty of time to immerse themselves in the tracks before offering them any more.  Alas, almost an entire year after the release of the record's front-running single, Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose arrives in full to sate the palates of eager listeners.  Worth the wait in every which way, YT,CN is an eccentric and elegant journey through the quirky musical mind of Beth Jeans Houghton herself.

Artist Spotlight: Hightide Hotel

2011 was a tough year for the emo scene.  Within a span of just months, Joie De Vivre, Grown Ups, and beloved twinkle-kings Snowing all bade their adieus to the community, prompting neck-bearded basement-dwellers all over America to be that much more bummed out.  But amongst the sadness and turmoil lurked a much-overlooked release from Philadelphia's Hightide Hotel, a collective that had established itself in the lower echelons of the emo community via Nothing Was Missing, Except Me, a stellar debut full length dropped back in 2010, with 2011 witnessing the release of follow-up Secret Somethings: Vol. 2.

Album Review: Big Deal - Lights Out

Album Rating: B+

It's been nearly thirty-five years since Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta graced listeners and viewers alike with their silver-screen performance of 'You're the One That I Want' on the 1978 film version of Grease; and while the overabundance of black spandex and flagrant expressions of desire seem more than a little cheesy in a modern viewing of the scene, the cutesy duet is wholly iconic in its own right.  This isn't to say that these tinsel-town lovebirds were the first to cash in on on the poppy pastiche afforded by the boy/girl combo; the jig is as old as pop music itself, they just so happened to make a statement of it.  Hence, it's pretty easy to see why so many couples have tried to follow in their wake since, ranging from Ross and Richie's 'Endless Love' to Jay-Z and Beyonce's relationship in general; and, on a lesser-known scale, manifest in such modern groups as Lemuria or appropriately-named She & Him.  Point is, if you're going to play the indie girl / melancholic boy card in 2012, you damn well better do it right.