Cementing The Seams

Remember in the last post when I talked about what made this all worth it?  Here is another shining example.  Town Portal are a math-rock band from Denmark with 2 members of Shelflife. The essence of Shelflife seeps through but Town Portal opens new doors.  The elements are pretty much all the same: dual guitars, thick basslines, shades of midwestern math-rock a la Shiner, Chavez, and Rodan, and precise mastering.  On Vacuum Horror though, the band significantly ups the heaviness quotient and basically rocks the fuck out.  Everything about this release is so good (the music, the art, the name) you have no excuse not to listen to it.

Stream and Download at Bandcamp

Completely awesome hardcore/punk/experimental stuff from Portland, OR.  I always try to write something significant that reflects how I feel about music I "review", or gives some reliable indication of what to expect from a release.  Mostly I completely miss this mark so I ask myself pretty much every time I think about writing something: why the hell do I do this?  Sloths is the answer.  I do it because occasionally somebody says 'listen to THIS' (see: Sleepies, Armada, Shat Shorts).

For Fans of: Self-Actualization

Stream and Download at Bandcamp

Giant Peach are an indie pop/rock band from Long Island who are currently on tour with For Serious This Time.  I've been listening to these guys for a while but I just noticed they put up some new tracks bound for a split tape with FSTT.  Anywho, Giant Peach play pop/rock in the vein of bands like Pavement and Helium (in a sort of broad, reductionist way) with dueling male/female vocals.  I think this will be extra great around September.

I don't feel the need to justify this to anybody.  Suffice to say that it is the perfect follow up to "Black Sun/Fake Gold" and Gasmask Terror are unfuckwithable.  Get on it!

FFO: Skitkids, Ripping, Wailing, Shredding

Buy it.

Man this is awesome.  No frills, just all around fantastic pop-punk from two little known-bands who have got their shit correct.  Lipstick Homicide is a female-fronted band from Iowa that offers up some feel-good bike riding jams for hot summer days. Pretty kitschy, straight forward jingles, but catchy as all hell.  Billy Raygun...  I don't even know, their side is so god damn good. Dillinger Who?

FFO: Bad Banana, Dillinger Four, Lemuria, Ambulars,

      I'm posting this for finality, for closure.  A while back (a year or more, I guess) I ran across french alt-rock group Daria because their most recent LP "Open Fire" had been mixed by J Robbins, who had posted one of the tracks on his studio's myspace page.  I couldn't find more than a couple other songs, nor the album to download, so this record became somewhat of an elusive snipe to me.  I could have bought the cd but paying the exchange rate on top of international shipping for a cd, well you get the picture.  Anyway, I would occasionally look for this on google, blogs, and make requests for people to upload it on torrent sites and the like.  My attempts were all for not and my feelers eventually retracted.  Today though, I decided to do what I was sure would be a fruitless search, but much to my surprise, Daria had built a bandcamp site, AND put the whole album up for free download!  So here I am, still listening to it for the first time and I'm pretty jazzed, but having a hard time staying excited about this.  It's good, but a bit more 90's post-metal than I expected.  It sounds like it was mixed by J Robbins (bonus) and really the songs are all pretty fucking catchy.  Mostly it reminds of riff heavy alt-rock bands like Clutch and Hundred Reasons.  Screw it this rules.  Today is awesome

FFO: Helmet, Clutch, Traindodge, Hundred Reasons

Stream and Download at Bandcamp

Sneeze are a relatively new band from Boston who play a poppy sort of grunge/pop-punk amalgam.  They are embarking on a nation wide summer tour with The Clippers in July so be on the lookout for that.  Sneeze comprises members of L'antietam and Ape Up and they sound nothing like either of those bands which is pretty awesome.  "Grandma In The Trenches" is 8 songs worth of excellent 90's riff rock with a heavy post-punk feel that totally reminds me of Slowride.  Albeit a little rougher around the edges.  This needs to be in your rotation this summer.

Stream and Download at Bandcamp

Buy it from Bear Records

FFO: Get Bent, Bridge & Tunnel, The Sidekicks

Stream and Buy (or get it free) at Bandcamp

So this finally came in the mail, which I suppose means it's about time to say a few words about it.  "Infrastructure" is the latest LP by California hardcore 3-piece Ghostlimb, and it is one of the stand-out records of the year.  Ferocious hardcore punk with an abundance of great riffs, subtle melody and a train load of pure energy, "Infrastructure" is far and away Ghostlimb's most realized, well-rounded effort to date.  Honestly this album caught me by surprise, as I suspected it to be merely good. A lot of hardcore bands that get way more attention are trying pretty hard to write a record like this.  Ghostlimb rip through 11 tracks and leave everything else in the dust with a final song aping hip folk punk bands like Against Me.  And they do that better too.

FFO: Graf Orlock, Punch, Unless, the bay area

Ghostlimb at Bandcamp

Buy it from Vitriol