In Elsie, the debut from Gaslight Anthem lead singer Brian Fallon’s side project The Horrible Crowes, Fallon shows off much more soulful and introspective songs than those found on his day job CDs. Showing off a clear Tom Waits, PJ Harvey and Afghan Whigs influence, Elsie relies more on Fallon’s voice, and some quiet guitar and organ tracks to set the tone of the record.
The first few times I listened to this CD I couldn’t help but think of the pop-punk emo bands that were so popular when I was in high school, especially Taking Back Sunday. The album is full of heartbreak, loneliness and growing up.
Flogging Molly is a band that knows exactly what their fans expect from them, and their latest release, Speed of Darkness, doesn’t fail to deliver their brand of fast, catchy, semi-traditional folk/punk music. Though there isn’t a lot of new ground covered on this album, songs about drinking, love, death, politics, and history are what this band does best, and the writing has yet to get stale.
Three years after the release of their debut album Make Your Mark, Vancouver’s Living With Lions are back, with a new bass player and singer, and new album Holy Shit. I’ve been looking forward to a new Living With Lions record since the first recording video diaries went up on YouTube over a year ago, and Holy Shit more than lives up to my expectations.
I’m just going to come right out and say it, I don’t like this new serious Sum 41 as much as I liked the snotty pop-punk Sum 41 from when I was in middle school.
Franz Nicolay, probably best known as the former keyboard player of The Hold Steady, has just released his second solo album Luck and Courage. I’ve had a really hard time trying to write this review and describe this album, because I really haven’t listened to anything else like it, so I don’t really have anything to relate it to.
Streaming now on the Epitaph website, “Machine Gun Blues” is the first single from Social Distortion’s upcoming Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes album.
Half call-to-arms, half celebration, “I Still Believe” is a song for anyone and everyone that loves music. The first single from Frank Turner’s up-coming Rock & Roll EP, this song blends folk and rock elements together in an incredibly unique way.
Dog’s Blood, Alexisonfire’s new four-song EP doesn’t see the band move into as much new territory as their last full-length Old Crows / Young Cardinals.
Live It Out’s debut EP, Little Bear. Big Forest, is appropriately named, for sure. They play a style of fast, aggressive punk that really reminds me of bands like In Bear Country, Living With Lions, early Polar Bear Club – and a shitload of other Hardcore inspired bands. Not to say that’s a bad thing.
Fake Problems released their third full length, Real Ghosts Caught On Tape, earlier this month, and the band has taken the eclectic sound from their last CD, the excellent It’s Great To Be Alive, and made it entirely their own, producing a CD full of songs that are catchy as all hell.
The thing with The Dissent of Man is that you should already know exactly what to expect of it. After 14 albums, Bad Religion has pretty much got their style perfected – it’s fast, it’s catchy, and it’s mad.
I’ve listened to this CD a few times trying to figure out what the best way to explain it is, and all I can really come up with is that it’s lots of fun. I don’t tend to listen to a lot of hardcore; I tend to find a lot of it sounds too much alike.