Category: Rock (Page 100 of 241)

Southern Boys Put A Country Spin On Rock ‘N Roll

March 28, 2009 /

Cage The Elephant, Relentless Records
One sunny afternoon just north of Nashville, TN, the grit of southern rock fell in love with the energy of funk and the very essence of rock n’ roll. Their love grew and multiplied and a short time later, out of Bowling Green, Kentucky, was born Cage The Elephant.

Brothers Matt and Brad Schultz joined up with a high school friend Jared Champion, and family friend Danielle Tichenor. A few months later Lincoln Parish, an eager young musician, e-mailed the group several times asking to join. Subsequent jam sessions proved successful and Parish joined the group at the ripe old age of fifteen. Cage The Elephant began to conquer the local tour circuit, and after word spread of their high-energy, high-chaos live shows, they signed with Relentless Records. Since then, they’ve been working hard to release their debut album “Cage The Elephant” which dropped in the US June 23, 2008

Since 2007 Cage The Elephant has been touring and living in the UK where their first single, “In One Ear” debuted at number 26 on the Top 40 charts, and their intense live shows have earned them opening spots on tour with Kings of Leon and Queens of The Stone Age.

Now, that their self-titled LP has finally been released in the States, Cage is poised to take control of the American rock scene. The band’s organic melodies channel the likes of The Chili Peppers and outspoken lyrics mock their critics with a raw poignancy reminiscent of Dylan himself. On the opening track “In One Ear” the band claims, “They say that we ain’t got the style/we ain’t got the class/we ain’t got the tunes that’s gonna’ put us on the map” but subsequent tracks like “James Brown” and “Lotus” dispel any such rumors.

BBC reviewed the new record saying, “’In One Ear’ is a definite two fingers up at the music industry (”I’m an antisocial anarchist who sounds like so and so… Rock ‘n roll is dead I should have stayed at school”).” The story behind the lyric is, no doubt, one of the many things that draw fans to Cage’s live shows and helps to make the track so phenomenal.

Cage The Elephant continues the record with tracks like the fan-favorite “Tiny Little Robots” which channels “the kind of guitar playing that The Hives would appreciate,” (Contactmusic.com)and finishes everything off with the distinct, “Soil To The Sun,” a track that proves Cage is in it to win it with their haphazard enthusiastic rock.

While DrownedInSound.com called Cage The Elephant, “Kings of Leon 2.0.” nothing could be farther from the truth. While it’s true Cage shares geographical origins with Kings, the overall intensity and passion found in Cage songs such as “Back Stabbin’ Betty” and “Back Against The Wall” put the two bands in completely different categories; Cage is pure rock, while Kings have a distinct indie-edge.

Opinions aside, Cage The Elephant have made it clear that they are here to rock, and with their debut record, courtesy of Relentless, they’re not about to let anyone forget the fact. Online music source, Mirror.Co.UK described Cage’s magic perfectly saying, “[Cage] moves in demented unison, hits you with the force of a hurricane and doesn’t forget to drop killer riffs and top tunes.” Their energy smacks the listener in the face from the very first beat and keeps him coming back for more track after track.
Check out Cage The Elephant on iTunes, or sample some tunes for free on the band’s MySpace here.

Alternative, Artists, CD Reviews, Funk, Get to Know, Indie Labels, Punk, Rock, Soul

Let the Right Ones In: Ten bands that should be in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame

March 27, 2009 /

The 23rd annual induction ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is coming up, and with it comes the annual bitchfest by music fans and critics as to which bands deserve to get in and which do not. The general public has no say in the nomination or induction process; instead, an anonymous committee chooses the nominations, which are then voted on by an equally anonymous group of 500 “rock experts.” Bands are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Usually there’s little controversy when it comes to the artists chosen for induction, with the real debates circling around those artists who have yet to be recognized by the Hall of Fame.

The Hall has its prejudices when it comes to selecting those worthy enough for induction. Heavy metal, punk and prog rock have a hard time getting in, while anyone with an obvious blues or country influence seems to be a shoe-in. It also helps to be American or British; no artists from mainland Europe, Africa, South America or Asia have been inducted yet.

With that in mind, Bullz-Eye has selected 10 artists, listed in chronological order of their eligibility, that we feel have been given the shaft by the Hall. These are by no means the 10 “best” artists who have failed to be inducted; just 10 “of the best” who have not yet gotten their due.

The Stooges
Eligible since: 1994

The Stooges self-titled debut came out in 1969 and it’s hard to imagine just how abrasive and loud the Stooges must have sounded to audiences at the time. Try putting them in context: the biggest albums of that year were Abbey Road, Blood, Sweat & Tears’ self-titled record that had the hit “Spinning Wheel” and the original cast recording of “Hair.” One of the biggest singles was “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies. Contrast that with “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” and a sense of just how far ahead of the times they were begins to develop.

Rush
Eligible since: 1999

We are loath to use album sales as a measure of a band’s true worth, but it’s worth noting that Rush’s first 16 studio albums, spanning 22 years, have sold a minimum of 500,000 copies each. The only band with a longer gold-or-better sales streak is the Stones. Aerosmith is just behind Rush, with 14 straight gold-or-better albums, and U2 will probably get there if the band doesn’t kill Bono first. Fittingly, Aerosmith, U2 and the Stones are all in the Hall; Rush, however, are not, and their exclusion can be boiled down to three words: critics hate prog.

Motorhead
Eligible since: 2002

They may have paved the way for Anthrax and their thrash metal ilk, but Motorhead’s influence can be heard in punk music of the ’80s and ’90s, alternative rock groups such as Queens of the Stone Age and even in electronic and new wave music (industrial music is basically thrash metal with keyboards). The Hall hates metal, for some reason – it even took them 11 years to get off their asses and induct Black Sabbath. And if Ozzy and company can barely squeak into the Hall of Fame, an underground act like Motorhead doesn’t have a prayer. Pity.

To read the rest of the bands that should be in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, click here

Alternative, Artists, Electronica, Lists, Metal, Pop, Power Pop, Punk, Rock

The Answer: Everyday Demons

March 27, 2009 /

Offering pure proof that good old-fashioned cock rock doesn’t need to sound as airbrushed as Nickelback (or as depressingly stupid as Hinder), AC/DC openers the Answer toss starving AOR fans a heavy bone with Everyday Demons. There isn’t a lick here you haven’t already heard a thousand times, but that’s sort of the point – each of these 11 tracks takes the most tried and true ingredients of your favorite classic rock records and regurgitates them with as much of that bad ‘n’ ballsy old-school spirit as you could reasonably expect in 2009. Don’t expect any Darkness-style camp, or any of the sour-faced defensive posturing you’ll hear from most other 21st-century rock revivalists, in these songs – the Answer, unlike most of their peers, remember that rockin’ is its own reward, and any given track on Everyday Demons would have sounded just fine being blasted out of a car stereo in the parking lot of your neighborhood liquor store on a Friday afternoon in 1990. It should go without saying that this is fairly awesome – but it should also be obvious that in sticking with screeched, fist-pumping choruses and double-tracked solos from low-slung guitars, the band essentially paints itself into a corner that it can only escape with the aid of songs that do more than evoke memories of every aging hesher’s misspent youth. Everyday Demons is unmistakably cut from “classic rock” cloth, but it isn’t a classic in its own right. Still, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. If you’ve been wondering which of the current crop of young rock bands has the balls to restore the genre’s faded glory, here’s your Answer. (The End 2009)

The Answer MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Rock

Max Morgan: Interrupting the Silence

March 27, 2009 /

His album artwork promises an artist with the velvety smoothness of a young, guitar-toting Kenny G, combined with the addle-brained exuberance of Richard Simmons on Oxycontin – but Max Morgan’s Interrupting the Silence delivers on neither promise, instead providing the listener with an idea of what it might sound like if Leo Sayer had replaced Kevin Cronin in REO Speedwagon. The answer to that question, in case you were wondering, is a lot of generic pop/rock grooves with plentiful falsetto and a few scoops of faux vocal grit, not to mention a load of embarrassing lyrical clichés (“Wait for Me,” in particular, would make Bryan Adams blush). Morgan is a technically sound vocalist, and when he manages to come up with the right material for his voice, he does a fine job of showing off his range, but often – as is the case with the groanworthy “Ya Better Believe” – he doesn’t know which dumb-ass lines to cut, or how not to beat a mildly pleasant groove until it’s dead. (“Believe” is only 3:14 long, but feels like a prog epic.) Morgan’s love for cheese is bottomless; he begins the closing track, “Prayer for No One,” with the line “Hello, Ground Control, I think we’ve got a problem,” channels Michael W. Smith on the weepy power ballad “Nobody’s Coming to My Rescue,” and generally tends to hit Disney Channel rock territory when he’s aiming for arena slayer status. The result is the CD equivalent of a tract home: The pieces are all assembled competently enough, but they’re made from such flimsy stuff, the effort was largely wasted. (Chime 2009)

Max Morgan MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop, Rock

Ian McGlynn: This Is the Sound

March 27, 2009 /

Every once in a while, an artist’s music has this way of striking us in our musical pleasure center. Singer/songwriter/pianist Ian McGlynn’s second full-length album, This Is the Sound, is likely going to have that effect on you if you are a fan of dreamy alt-pop. McGlynn’s tenor and some of his melodies will remind you a bit of John Lennon, but his songwriting leans more towards a cross between Ben Folds and Aqualung, and the production on this effort (it’s self-produced with help from songwriting partner John Mosloskie) bring the songs to life in powerful fashion. Much of McGlynn’s material has a cool underground vibe, but some of the tracks on This Is the Sound stand out. In particular, “Night Driving” paints a vivid picture with its dark yet melodic feel, and “Memorial Day Parade” is as close to straight-up pop as McGlynn gets. And he takes things up a notch on the opening track “Play Dead,” which is haunting, beautiful and able to stop you from whatever it is you were doing before you started listening. McGlynn’s music has been placed in both independent and major motion pictures, and whether or not you have heard him before or think you may have, he’s well worth seeking out. (LABEL: Bailey Park)

Ian McGlynn MySpace Page

Alternative, Ambient, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop, Rock

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