B-Side Friday #5

Viva La Gloria (Little Girl) – Green Day

Tongue Tied – Eve 6

Last of My Kind – Alice In Chains

Have Gun, Will Travel – The Audition

Running From the Rain – Thursday

Reviewed: Good Charlottes’ The Chronicles of Life and Death

Love them or hate them, there was a time when Good Charlotte made punk the coolest thing once again. That was back in 2002, with one of my top 20 pop punk albums of the decade ‘Young and Hopeless’. The follow up came in 2004, and it’s what I’ll be reviewing today.

‘The Chronicles of Life and Death’  is one of those albums you will probably either love or hate. Though, if you hate it, it is probably because you hate Good Charlotte for selling out. I don’t review personal lives, thats what I do when I gossip about music with my friends, not make serious reviews of it on my website.

The album is a rock opera of sorts about several things. One being not giving a f*ck what critics say, and the others being other typical punk and dare I say emo themes. It opens with the extremely catchy title track. Though some will say the songs that stick at first are barely worth listening to, this song has good lyrics, and is an easy listen, with a nice guitar solo.

Good Charlotte is all about easy listening pop punk. That is the reason so many people hate them. Sometimes, though, there is nothing better then a catchy song where the lyrics aren’t just lazily put together words about how your girlfriend left you.

Good Charlotte proves they will take a risk. Funky, violin, and chord progressions in “I Just Wanna Live” makes it worth many listens, plus, Justin Timberlake type vocals in part, an extremely catchy tune, and decent lyrics. It is one of those songs many people will want to hate but can’t bring themselves to stop listening.

Melodicity, though lacking on a few songs come up and kicks you in the ass on two tracks in particular, “Ghost of You”, and “Predictable”. Unfortunatley after those two tracks the album gets a bit dull. Songs like “The Truth” , which puts you to sleep with sappy lyrics and a lack of melodic risks we saw in the first half of the album. Or “Mountain” which is good instrumentally, but lacks anything worth more then one listen.

Lyrically, Good Charlotte isn’t the best, but I can’t call them bad. They have some sappy songs, but nothing that makes me want to vomit (other then maybe “The Truth”), at least on this album. The second half of the album does come out strong with “In This World (Murder)”, though. It expresses a great disgust in murder and pointless loss of life.

High Point: Predictable

Low Point: The Truth

Overall Rating: 6/10

B-Side Friday #4

Crawl – Kings of Leon

Noro – Brand New

Matchbox – Jonny Lang

Autumn Leaves Revisited – Thursday

Mary Pretends – Fuel

The Winter of Mixed Drinks

The Winter of Mixed Drinks is a Indie Rock album by the Scottish band Frightened Rabbits. While the album isn’t punk or metal or anything like that but more of a Coldplay kind of sound. Not saying they sound like Coldplay but it’s that

The Winter of Mixed drinks Cover.

kind of soft rock feel to it. All the songs are great on it. While some are more fun to listen to others there not like Major rock bands today were they put 2 good songs and another 3 or 4 that will get radio play. Instead there all good in their own way. Kinda like the Dark Side of the Moon. All the songs are good in there own way. In a time were all the songs all about Hate or breaking up with that girl you dated for 3 days, this album is about happy things. Or things that don’t make sense. Either or the music sounds happy. Most of the songs are 2 minutes to six and a half. But the overall album is 45 mintues. So if your on that boring 45 minute drive to aunt trisha or whoever is you can listen to this and fall asleep. There are some songs on here that you CAN fall asleep to. Although I can also say that about any Jimi hendrix song or any  The Who albums. Over all I give this a 9.5/10

Up sides: Great short songs and all the instruments practicably marry each other.

Down sides: Some songs sound the same at one point or another.

Site to buy from

http://fat-cat.co.uk/

If you live outside the US or UK you can enter in your country in the order form and the currency will change.

IN OTHER NEWS!

Justin bieber plays drums? Well he does, So im going to post a video of him, then a video of the drummer in the band  im in playing.

Justin Bieber.

Jarred Morrison(Drummer in Behavior and Evolution)

Btw Im not in the first (Duh) Or second video(I wasn’t in the band the time this was recorded.)

-From the basement of Alex_N

BTW Im going to review the last Nine inch nails album as my way of saying good bye to my favorite creepy swearing Alternative band.

Reviewed: Brand New’s The Devil and God Are raging Inside of Me

I admit it. Of all the bands I’ve ever been obsessed with the obsession with Brand New is one that if they were not so good I would call ridiculous. Luckily Brand New is that good. Back in 2001 Brand new was ready to be forgotten in the early 00′s mesh of poppy punk and emo bands. Then came their second album in 2003, Deja Entendu. Amazing melodicity, plus great lyrics and guitar riffs made this album an underground ‘emo’ (for lack of a better term) smash. The follow up was The Devil and God Are Raging Inside of Me (which is now over 3 years old, but I am reviewing it anyway). The album brought the band to a new height. Great lyrics, vocals, melodicity, and cleverly placed guitar riffs that sound amazing make this album not only Brand New’s best album, but the best ‘emo’ album I have ever heard. It is a friggan masterpiece. The album starts with the song “Sowing Season (yeah)”, which is 4 minutes and thirty-one seconds of majestic guitar riffs. The song which is one of the best on the album leaves you wanting more, and more is what you will get. “Millstone” Comes out as an anthem of low confidence, and to say this in an extremely clear way, feeling like sh*t. It may be a punk cliche to express questions, anger, or doubts about religion, but Brand New is possibly in a league of their own when it comes to this. The beautiful  ”Jesus Christ” does this well enough with lyrics like “Well, Jesus Christ, I’m not scared to die, I’m a little bit scared of what comes after Do I get the gold chariot? Do I float through the ceiling?” or “Well, Jesus Christ, I’m alone again So what did you do those three days you were dead? ’cause this problem’s gonna last more than the weekend.” On this track Brand New also proves they can take a risk by throwing a false ending in. The real religious doubts and anger though come in one of the album’s best songs, “Archers”. “a beating with a book everyone the book tells you to love”, and “Who do you carry the torch for, my young man? Do you believe in anything? Do you carry it around just to burn things down?”, are some of the best lines of the album, not just the song. Though brand New can be much more subtle with their references to doubts in religion, like with this line from “Millstone”, “I used to pray like God was listening.” Melodically this album is the best album I’ve heard, ever. Some of the best songs on it in melodically are “Limousine”, “Sowing Season (Yeah)”, and “Degausser”  in which Brand New masters their quiet to loud transitions. All three of those songs are accompanied by great vocals and kickass guitar riffs. Particularly at the end of “Limousine” (which is an amazing 7 minute epic, melodically) where had the guitar been distorted differently I could be fooled that I’m at a Radiohead concert in 1995. Lyrically this album is top notch and only occasionally overly bitter (“Handcuffs”) which manages to set it aside from most albums of its genre. Some of my favorite lyrics come from “Not the Sun”, lines like “Don’t feed me scraps from your bed. I won’t be the stray coming back just to be fed” and from “Degausser”, “Life is a test and I get bad marks. Now some saint got the job of writing down my sins. The storm is coming, the storm is coming in” are some of the best lines on the album. “Jesus Christ”, “You Won’t Know”, “Archers”, and “Sowing Season (Yeah)” all also come out especially strong in the lyrics department. The album also features two insturmental fills. One (“Welcome to Bangkok”) bridges the gap between the first and second half of the album. In conclusion, as I said earlier, this is brand New’s best album, and the best ‘emo’ (once again for lack of a better term) album I’ve ever heard. I hope you enjoy it.

High Point: “Degausser”, or “Sowing Season (Yeah)”

Low Point: “Handcuffs”

Melodicity Definition: Greatness in melody.

A New Face

Hey! I haven’t said anything here, but Keaton has convinced me that my voice should be heard. Well, I should rephrase that. I have convinced myself that my voice needs to be heard, and Keaton’s site is a great way to do so. So I’ll start off my first review with a fairly old album by Incubus.

Pictured: Your Brain On Drugs

S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was released in 1997 by Incubus. In case you haven’t heard of Incubus, please take the nearest object you can find and staple it to your eyeballs. Believe me when I say that Incubus has one of the greatest sets of musicians to ever live. Their singer’s phenomenal, and incredibly versatile voice is a wonder by itself, and in a normal sentence I would compare it to the fantastic drumming, or the beyond belief guitar playing. However, Incubus’s S.C.I.E.N.C.E. features absolutely stunning performances from all of the instruments. Displaying a wide style of metal from the funky to the freaky, S.C.I.E.N.C.E. features songs with more experimental, scientific, and science fiction based themes. “A Certain Shade of Green”, one of their hardest tracks, is about mankind simply waiting around for a huge sign to start caring about the world coming to an end. “Idiot Box” is about the influence of modern media on our minds. If there were one part of this album I would have to criticize, I would say that a few of the tracks are so fast paced (in other words, crazy) that you can’t even enjoy the full experience of the music. Most of the songs have heavy metal leanings, but my two favorite tracks, Deep Inside and Antigravity has much more funk/disco bases. Over all, it was one of the best albums I have ever heard, and I recommend anyone who can to go out and buy a copy.

High Point: Deep Inside

Low Point: Nebula

In summary:

Very Nice

- KC Phillips

B-Side Friday #3

Good Lives – Eve 6

Gap – The Kooks

No One’s There (I Don’t Care) – Manbox

Like A Knife – Secondhand Serenade

Emotionaless – Good Charlotte

Hairline Fracture – Rise Against

Enjoy, sorry for not posting lately. It’s been a busy week.

B-Side Friday #2

Catholic Knees – Taking Back Sunday

Rain When I Die – Alice In Chains

Entertainment – Rise Against

Not Coming Home – Maroon 5

Walk Away (Maybe) – Good Charlotte

Luca – Brand New

There you have it. From the long instrumental start to “Rain When I die” to being scared half to death when Luca gets loud. Enjoy!

Anberlin Begin Recording A Fifth Album

Recording kicked off today for Anberlin in Nashville TN. According to frontman Stephen Christian’s twitter (http://twitter.com/stephenanberlin) the new album is going to be “heavier, darker, and so much better” then the previous release New Surrender (2008). The group is aiming to get the album (which as of now does not have a name) out in late summer.

What do you want to hear on the new album? Let me know via a comment on this post.