Fin – Anberlin
11 AM – Incubus
The Good Fight – Dashboard Confessional
Rain King – Counting Crows
The War – Brett Pearson
I’ve decided to start posting b-side Friday posts on Thursday nights so once you wake up Friday you have 5 new songs. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this but You can listen to these songs easily on playlist.com by searching the song and artist name. 
If you head over to purevolume.com you can get Weatherbox’s debut album American Art for free! http://www.purevolume.com/weatherbox/albums/American+Art
It is a pretty good album. I might review it once it really sinks in. You can’t say no to free music, maybe after that you’ll want THe Cosmic Drama, their second album also. You can stream a abunch of their mp3s there as well such as ‘Broken Glowsticks’ and ‘The Bullets’.
Call them punk, post-hardcore, screamo, whatever you want. Either way, the band Thursday was a definitive punk rock band of the 2000s. They released their debut album in 1999. Today I’ll be reviewing their 4th full length, released in 2006 called A city By The Light Divided.
This album takes a much softer turn as opposed to many of the band’s other albums. It opens with ‘the Other Side of the Crash/Over and Out of Control’ and if you had to pick one song to describe the album. this is the song. Melodically the progressions work out perfectly. The next track ‘Counting 5-4-2-2-1′ comes out strong in the lyrics department, and has some nice quiet to loud progressions.
The third track, ‘Sugar In The Sacrament’ is melodically depressing. Not that it is bad melodically, it just has a very sad melody as many of the other songs on this album do. Lyrically, though this song is one where I don’t know which line to post because there are so many good ones. “Tie these sins between your teeth, Make hollow promises we’ll never keep” is just one. ‘At this Velocity’ is the more screamo song on the album.
‘We Will Overcome’ is one of the highlights of the album. Great guitar riffs and hopeful lyrics like “Follow the path that’s straight and narrow, hand in hand, Our roads are paved with broken arrows, We will overcome”. The album only gets better when it reaches the halfway point. Melodically ‘Running From the Rain’ is a great song, and it’s followed by the incredibly catchy ‘Telegraph Avenue Kiss’*.
Melodically, the third o last track and the last track are amazing. ‘The Lovesong Writer’ can get slightly depressing, but it is still an incredible song with decent lyrics such as “So he stumbles through syllables, cut from their sentences. Lost letters call to him, deep in the alphabet “Please give us meaning”". The final track on the album is also the best. Amazing quiet to loud progressions, and some of my favorite acoustic guitar riffs ever. ‘Autumn Leaves Revisited’ is a song you must get whether you get the whole album or not.
In conclusion this album is one of the must haves if you like softer post-hardcore stuff. If you don’t this album is still a must get and one of my 20 favorite albums of all time.
Best Song: Autumn Leaves Revisited
Overall Rating: 4 Stars
*Little sidenote, at the time I was obsessed with this album, in particular the song Telegraph Avenue Kiss I was in Oakland Ca where a main street is called Telegraph Avenue.
Well like hey. It’s me Alex_N Your lovable Guitar playing nerd. For those of you who know me and are like, “OMMFFGQURZLOLAPPLEPIE WERE DID YOU GO?!?!?!?” I will answer you. I’ve been to a fabulous new place called. Wait for it….. Reality! It’s so fun! It has some hot chicks to. But yeah. Iv been mostly playing guitar for the past 2 or 3 months and so yeah. Here’s a list of new albums I got
The valleys of Neptune- Jimi Hendrix
Elephant- The White stripes
Get Behind me Satan- The White stripes
Icky thump- The White stripes
Demon Days- Gorrillaz
I want to review all those and The slip by Nine inch nails, Animals and The Wall both by Pink Floyd.
-From the Basement of Alex_N
I haven’t done this in awhile. So here are five songs to keep your new music fix occupied for a bit.
Drop the Mike – Weatherbox
Lost! – Coldplay
What Gets You Through the Night – The Audition
The Ballad of Sal Villanueva – Taking Back Sunday
Vicious – The Kooks
What is music? Music is whatever you want it to be. The difference between being a musician and making music is a vast one. If you’re a musician there is a right and wrong way to play a chord on guitar. But if you are making music there is no right or wrong way to do something. As a musician you can play some songs for people, maybe you’ll sing along with them also. Once you begin to create original music you are free. you can do whatever you want with it. No one can tell you you are playing your music wrong.
Whether you’re making music for yourself as a hobby or for the world to hear is up to you. Whether you make a song that is different in some way, or sounds like songs A B or C is up to your creative drive. Whether you’re different or not some people will hate your music. Some might love it. Country, rock, hip hop, techno, blues, anything, many are bound to dislike you music for whatever reason. The bottom line is, no one can tell you that you’re doing music wrong.
With an industry dominated by downloads whether legal or not, you are better off going somewhere else if you want to make a living off your music. Life is lived once, and if you aren’t living doing what you love, then you aren’t living life at all. So if making music is what you love, then no one can stop you. No one can tell you you’re living life wrong.
I begin a multiple part series where I look at bands that i own all of their albums and pick which one is best. Today I’ll be doing Eve 6, and Taking Back Sunday.
Eve 6
The trio from southern California released their first full length back in 1998. With it came hits such as ‘Leech’ and ‘Inside Out’. it’s a decent album. Many catchy songs with decent lyrics. Eve 6 is one of those bands that manages to make very emotional angry songs about some girl breaking your heart and not come across as an emo band.
In 2000 Eve 6 followed up their self titled album with ‘Horoscope’. Not much changed with the general sound from one album to the next. Infact it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the band basically made ‘Eve 6 Vol 2′. Catchy and fastpaced pop punk songs fill this album. Sadly, though, this album lacks much that will allow you to tell one song on it from another besides the lyrics.
Eve 6′s next release came in 2003. ‘It’s All In You Head’ is a much more melodic album. Here Eve 6 relies not on catchy fast paced pop songs, but much thicker musical melodies. the tone of this album sets it apart from the previous two.
Best Album: It’s All In Your Head
Taking Back Sunday
If you’re a twilight fan you’re either on team Edward or team Jacob. If you’re a TBS fan you’re probably either on team John Nolan, team Fred Mascherino, or maybe team Matt Fazzi. With TBS fans it is the battle of the backup singers. though the original backup singer is Jesse Lacey who is now the frontman for Brand New, he left after the band released their debut EP. All of that was before Adam Lazzara showed up.
If you’re a John Nolan fan then your favorite album is probably the debut LP, ‘Tell All Your Friends’. It is probably the most pop punky album of TBS’s career. TBS, however is one of the bands that manages to be pop punk but not sound exactly like Fall out Boy, or Green Day. Taking Back Sunday is a band that remains different from the rest. Songs like ‘Ghost Man On Third’, and ‘Cute Without the E (Cut From the Team)’ show what Taking Back Sunday does best, which is starting out somewhat typical but then blowing your mind by the time the song is over.
Then came Fred Mascherino. If you’re a Fred fan your favorite album is probably either 2004′s ‘Where You Want To Be’ or 2006′s ‘Louder Now’. Listening back to WYWTB after Louder Now fully sunk in, the tone of the albums is completely different. WYWTB is in many ways Tell All Your Friends 2.0. It has better guitar riffs and lyrics. melodically this album is also one of the best. Most of the songs on it are pointless to describe, they’re something that you just have to listen to.
Louder Now, tone wise could easily be a ’90s rock album. Lyrically this album falls short of the previous release. Filling almost an entire chorus with the word Miami could easily get annoying after just 10 listens. This album, however features one of my favorite songs of all time, ‘I’ll Let You Live’. Though none of the songs can be called bad, some are great and some are just ok.
If you’re a Matt Fazzi fan, it is probably just because you love saying his name. Though he’s a fine musician, most Taking Back Sunday fans discovered the band on one of the first three full lengths, and that’s the sound they fell in love with. The band’s fourth full length, ‘New Again’ sounds nothing like Louder Now. It is much more as if you took WYWTB changed the tone up a bit, got rid of many of TBS’s distinctive characteristics, but added an agressive bass and vocal spice. New Again is certainly not bad, it is just different from any of the other releases. There are several great songs on this album, and it doesn’t have the inconsistencies of Louder Now. All the songs are either good or great.
Best Album: Where You Want to Be
Reason: everything that is great about Taking Back Sunday is expressed in this album. If you stuffed Tell all Your Friends, Louder Now, and New Again in a blender, the result would be something somewhat resembling Where You Want To Be.
For the past few days Taking Back Sunday fans have been freaking out. It started a couple days ago when Matt Fazzi and Matt Rubano announced that they would be leaving the band. Then a video was released where it was just about revealed that John Nolan and Shaun Cooper would be returning.
If it’s true then i am happy and sad. I never liked John Nolan as much as Fred Mascherino. I am 90% sure that John Nolan and Shaun cooper are returning, but there is a part of me that wants this to be a giant April fools prank.
I am still waiting for answers as to why this is happening. The current theory is that due to low sales on the latest album ‘New Again’ compared to the 900,000 on ‘Louder Now’ Warner Brothers wanted Fred Mascherino back or they would drop TBS from their label. That wasn’t happening so WB settled for John Nolan, but he wouldn’t come back unless Shaun Cooper did also. So the Matts were forced out. I certainly hope this isn’t true and that the Matt’s left voluntaraly, but I aslo am still hoping this is a giant April fools joke.
