Live Review: Into It. Over It., The World Is A Beautiful Place, Local 506 (2/15/14)

Photo by: Jordan Ambrose

After being released early from work on Wednesday thanks to the approaching winter storm, and then finding myself completely snowed in until the weekend, a bouncy emo show was just what I needed Saturday night, even if half of the roads were still blanketed with ice.  When I first arrived at the Local 506, ten minutes after the doors had opened, I was expecting about half of the floor to be completely empty for my taking, blissfully unaware of this tour's relevance.  Really, I had no idea these bands were as popular as they are (though, as I would later learn, much of the crowd wasn't there for the headliner at all), and found myself confined to the short corridor next to the bar for the majority of the opening set.  Who would have thought that having feelings these days would be so popular?

Casey's EPs, Songs and Albums of 2013

After the relative mediocrity of 2012 following up the fantastic year of 2011, it's nice to see that 2013 let no one down. It makes sense based on the length of a typical album cycle that many of the bands that put out great albums in 2011 and 2010 would return for 2013, and we saw the return of Vampire Weekend, Kanye West, The National, The Wonder Years and far more atop many lists. However, debuts really made an impact on my list personally, as three of my top four favorite records of the year happened to be a band's first full length release. Owel, The World Is A Beautiful and The 1975 all showed that they are full of fantastic songwriters and are bands whose popularity should continue to skyrocket through 2014, and their followups will be sought after by far more people than these fantastic debuts. However, the best record of the year was one I was only slightly anticipating after a poor last release, but ended up being one of the biggest growers of the year. Below, you will be able to see my favorite 10 EPs, 25 songs and 25 albums of 2013, a year which had plenty for everyone. If you click on an album title, it will link to our coverage (if we had any) and if you click on a song title, it will bring you to YouTube or Soundcloud. Enjoy!

Max's Top 30: A Year of Metal, Pop Punk & Everything In-between

Brace yourself.

When making my list, I went back and forth over how to rank albums that I felt had an impact on me this past year. I considered the importance of each release and how it influenced or changed it's relative genre or scene. I judged the musicianship, songwriting and lyricism that each album was made of but ultimately, the albums that made my list are the ones that I've listened to the most – the ones with staying power. I've listened to this pile of songs an ungodly amount, and it's only fair that their playability is a testament to my enjoyment this year. I present to you my top 30 albums of the year.

Best Of The Year 2013: First Half Update

Welcome to MuzikDizcovery's quarterly article on our favorite releases of the year to date. Each of our staff members has posted a list of our five favorite albums of the year to date, with a little blurb showing why we love each one so much. Every album released in 2013 that we have heard was eligible, even if the album has not been released to the public just yet. As always, there's a wide variety of music on these lists, and every release on here is worth checking out. Owel, The World Is A Beautiful Place, Kanye West, Captain, We're Sinking, Rare Monk, Justin Timberlake, Sigur Ros, The Knife, Tegan And Sara, Youth Lagoon, The Wonder Years and Lights and Motion all take prominent spots in multiple lists, and represent some of the best that 2013 has to offer. Check out of all of our lists below, and click on any links in the album names for our reviews.

Artist Of The Day: The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die

Can you ever really beat jumping off a high rock into a lake on a really hot day? Sure, that game console you reserve special veneration for and that tablet which your eyes ignore even pretty girls for are both great, but once you slip outside the confines of the increasingly technological age and look outside your window, there is some serious excitement and beauty out there. Can a ‘like’ on a social networking site or a comment on your blog ever really provide the same lasting satisfaction that plunging head-first into a cool body of water from above can? No, you’re damn right it can’t.

Artist of the Day - The World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die

How's that for a band name?  Without looking too deeply into it, one could glean that The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die is either an emo band or a post-rock band simply by the beautiful and lofty name.  Well in this case, both aren't too far off.

The band is very much an emo group, rooted deeply into the mid-'90s scene.  Looping guitars and soft but high pitched vocals are the order of the day.  It feels a bit like American Football, A Bunny's Caravan, and Moving Mountains, which is quite the list of influences.  Yet The World Is A Beautiful Place... make the sound their own, with a big emphasis on atmosphere and instrumentation.  With 2010's EP, Formlessness, the band solidified themselves as an up and coming band well worth keeping an eye on.  It's not difficult to see why either, as the excellent--albeit short--EP was filled with personality and poise far beyond the band's years.  Since then, a number of releases and splits have surfaced each showing a maturation and refinement.  Hopefully this all culminates in one hell of a debut album from a band that has something to prove.

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Album Review: Sinforiano Diaz - The Moosup Sessions

Album Rating: A

Anybody who keeps themselves relatively informed with the modern post-hardcore/emo scene, mostly run by genre giants Run For Cover and Topshelf Records, is more than likely aware of The World Is A Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid To Die. Sinforiano Diaz is the moniker under which Thomas Diaz (lead vocalist and keyboard player of The World Is a Beautiful Place) releases brief, hauntingly beautiful tracks without the help of twinkle-daddy king Greg Horbal and company. The Moosup Sessions is a small collection of tracks that Diaz recorded in 2008, and is now seeing a proper cassette release on Broken World Media. 

Album Review: The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die - Josh Is Dead

Let's welcome Kyle to posting here. He used to run his own site, and will be generously donating his time here.

When thinking back on The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die's debut EP Formlessness, I cannot exactly recall what made the first release of the band so forgettable. The release was by no means uninteresting or a poor introduction to the band's sound, but as soon as Formlessness stopped spinning it was instantly forgotten by me. Regardless of first impressions, Josh Is Dead, the new 7" being released through Topshelf Records and cassette pushed by Ice Age Records, is a small gasp of The World Is A Beautiful Place's unique sound that will truly ingrain itself in your head if you give it the chance to.