Our Last Night- The Ghosts Among Us

I kind of have some weird prideful issue with listening to bands that are really young, let alone a band with a 14 year old singer, it's just difficult. However, luckily for this band, they have a recipe in which I absolutely salivate over.
I have been a huge fan of melodic hardcore bands for a long time, and while it's easy for someone to categorize this band as a "screamo band" they need to be a bit more open minded about it. Yes, the band screams, yes the band sings, but then again so do bands like Life in Your Way, and numerous other bands that aren't "screamo". Nonetheless, this record hit on all cylinders for me. It's catchy when it needs to be catchy, NOT overly heavy, which is, and should never be the focus for a melodic hardcore band, and it's SO honest. I think the best part of this band is the fact that they're as young as they are, and their pears are trying to rip off bands like the Devil Wears Prada, and Underoath, however, this band takes pages from bands like Strongarm, Life in Your Way, and other great melodic hardcore bands.
This CD should definitely be given a chance if you are fans of the latter bands. Don't write it off right away, give it a few listens.

FINAL GRADE: A

Century- Black Ocean

Former Arms Bend Back guitar player, turned producer Carson Slovak showcases his new band Century. The album plays like an homage to old school metalcore in vein of bands like Deadguy, Cave In, Coalesce, and Seven Angels Seven Plagues, in which it succeeds very well and acts as quite the breathe of fresh air.
Right off the bat the record shines a light on the biggest negative, in which comes as the downfall of this record, the recording. The record is so over saturated with compression, it almost is unbearable to listen to for too long. The bass is extremely over powering, the compression muddies up the guitars and vocals, and it causes the record to run together.One positive to the recording however is that the drums sound great, but that alone obviously can't save it.
The record is heavy as hell and stands as mosh friendly, without being disgustingly moshtastic. Melodies on the record are quite beautiful when you press your ear to the speaker to decipher between what you think is the ringing of you going def, when you realize it's the crunchy computer digitization.
Basically I really don't listening to my records, even one with the potential to be as great as this one, through a cardboard toilet paper tube, it sucks when such good bands have recordings ruin their records.

FINAL GRADE: B-

Misery Signals Post New Video

This video is pretty cool. It's a live montage for their song "Anchor"
I love the song, and check out their singer throwing some sick moves on the skateboard, haha.

[link]

News and Notes 1-24-2008

Thrice Does Acoustic Set (buzzgrinder/spinner)
It's always a pleasure when Thrice does this. They have posted a handful of songs off their latest, The Alchemy Index Vol. I & II, as well as a new one. [link]

If you haven't picked some of their B-Side releases up, they are phenomenal, and include what I think are some of their finest arrangements.

If they Could Only See Us Now (comes with a DVD)
The Red Sky E.P. (on iTunes)

This is Hell Post New Track
New record comes out in February, excited anyone? I am. [link]

Death Cab For Cutie Notes
Death Cab for Cutie will be playing this year's Coachella Festival, and are gearing up for their next record to be released sometime in March.
A short trailer can be seen on their website

News and Notes 1-23-08

New Found Glory and Bridge Nine Records (lambgoat)

Pop-Punk reigning kings New Found Glory are releasing a new E.P. through hardcore record label Bridge Nine Records. While some may think this is strange...
It simply isn't, NFG are more involved in the legitimate hardcore music scene than your camo shorts.

Another NEW Spitfire Track

This one's a couple days old, but Spitfire has put up another song of their next record Cult Classic check it out here.

Norma Jean get NEW Drummer

Upon the departure of original drummer Daniel Davidson quite some time ago, Norma Jean have enlisted Spitfire drummer Chris Raines as their full-time drummer.
What does this mean for Spitfire? No clue, they have been shrouded in mystery over the last year and a half, but a few things are for sure. Their new record is slated to drop in March, and ironically, the band started out as a 3 piece, there last record they were 6, and now back to 3, with their original singer/founder playing guitar after leaving.
Yeah we know... it's complicated...
At least they aren't ZAO.

Protest the Hero- Fortress

It's only January, and already one of my two most anticipated records of the year (the other being Spitfire's Cult Classic) is already in my hands.

Protest the Heroe's Sophomore label release is the follow up to their 2006 masterpiece Kezia, which I willingly awarded my number one album of the year,
Jokingly, the band has commented on the album as being "Kezia pt. II", however, the record is anything but.
Yes it is still technical, yes there are more guitar harmonies than the Trans Siberian Orchestra, and yes... it is still metal. The album however has a more progressive feel if one can believe it, and ultimately seems like the album Between the Buried and Me was trying to create.
Without seeming like they were showing off, Protest the Hero has composed ten masterful songs, all of which fall under one umbrella, supporting each other.

Often times it's easy to get lost in this record because of the shear technicality in both musicianship and song composition, however it seems to have been there goal. At one point you listening to a keytar solo on track one, and then all the sudden you find yourself at the end of the record, forty minutes later, satisfied and ready for about 300 more listens.
Though this may seem bad, in so many ways it's not. By giving the listener a broad landscape to explore, there is something new upon each listen.

While I would say on this record the only negative is the less the stellar lyrical side of the record, especially when compared to Kezia, singer Rody Walker's diverse melodies drive the record home.

Bottom line is that this band has already created two phenomenal records, and they have figured out just the right recipe for succesful progression. Alot of bands go from one record from the other, "progressing" too much and either sounding un-honest, or just overcompensating. PTH however have made metal records at the very root, and minorly tweaking small things; things that solidify each record in their own monuments.
Though Protest the Hero are still young by many standards, they are quickly building their own ground to stand on. Something we just down see from modern day bands.

FINAL GRADE: A+

Extensive Cloverfield Analysis

NOTE: This blog goes very in depth, please ONLY read if you are extremely curious about this film, or have been intrigued by it. I don't claim to know ALL the facts, but I will go on record, and put my own self credibility on the line by saying I DO know what i'm talking about, and go into theories with a very delicate since of logic.

You can ask my girlfriend, Cloverfield has been an obsession of mine since July of 2007. The preview debuted before the summer Blocbuster Transformers, revealing no title , no plot details, just very strange digital camera footage of a party being interrupted by some kind of roar. What came next? the name J.J. Abrams (Lost creator/producer, Alias) and a date, 1-18-08.

Naturally I came to the only place where I figured I could find answers, the IMDB board for the film. Since them, it has been ground zero for Cloverfield development, and like many other J.J. Abrams projects (namely LOST), there was ALOT of viral online marketing, however, the marketing for this film, the diffrence in this case was the fact that these viral marketing site actually served as the source for the backstory on this film (in a sense).

Among these sites were fake MySpace profiles for all the charachters, as well as a few fake companies that had to do with the film that you might have not even known about without previously checking out the details on this flick.
(Ex. Slusho: Rob's brother was wearing a Slusho t-shirt).

I guess first things first...
Anyone expecting to get a back story, or was mad because it didnt explain the monster etc. is simply naive.
The film is based on someone picking up a digital camera and recording the events of the night... do you think it is likely thats ome dude would just magically know what was going on, where it was from etc.
No

Abrams said in his production notes for the film, the movie was not about a monster, it was about a group of people in a chaotic situation and how they dealt with it. The movie was to capture the essence of this chaotic situation/a chatoic situation,a nd the monster was a vessel for doing this.

The monster also was not an alien, also in Abrams production notes, he commented that the monster was a baby, and was new, and was verys cared and confused (hence his motives). And that he had also been dormant under the ocean for a long time.

NOW, for those of you who saw in the final scene in the movie when Beth and Rob are on the farris wheel overlooking the ocean, you noticed something fall into the ocean, and based on the previous information, we know it WAS NOT THE MONSTER.

What was it?
Well, weeks before the movie,a website called www.tagruato.jp (another tie in website, a fictional company that also makes a subtle cameo in the movie [the logo on the capsized oiltanker]) posted that a piece of their satelite had fallen into the ocean off the coast of New York. So with that info, we will assume that is what fell into the ocean at the end of the movie, and we will also assume that this is what awoke the monster.

So, in essence, in my opinion, the movie CLOVERFIELD, was mainly a sidestory to the overarching story itself. The story was established prior to the movie online.

So what's next?
Well here's the fun part...

Possibility of a sequel...
VERY VERY VERY HIGH.

If you stayed after the credits (which I pissed off a ton of people when I made them haha) you heard a noise of someone saying "help us"
However, when played backwards, it is EXTREMELY clear that the voice is saying "it's still alive"

Don't believe me...
judge for yourself





Anyone that knows Abrams knows that he poses alot of questions in his works... ALWAYS
And it is also rare that he would leave these questions unanswered.

My theory...
Alot of people say...
"how can you do a sequel with digital cameras again?"

Well, while I do think it would be cool to get a different perspective with a digital camera, I think it would be backtracking, or stagnating the storyline.
Then again, shooting the movie from an omnipatant perspective I think would not do the movie justice.
It's important to find some original way to do this.
One way I could see it being done is from post everything, in interview form.

If you've ever read the book World War Z, the story is told from 1st hand accounts via interviews, and flashbacks given after the cataclysmic event, I think this would be a very creative approach.