I don’t know a whole lot about Hop Along. I know that they’re on Saddle Creek—home of bands like Bright Eyes and Cursive—and I know that I’ve heard their name tossed around among emo circles.
With this information, I expected a lot of heart-tugging songwriting and emotive delivery.
I did not expect it to be so damn catchy. Continue reading
I arrived at college as a scene kid freshman with a swoopy haircut, girl jeans, and a CD wallet filled with metalcore and emo albums.
Living in a dorm beside so many diverse music fans was a quick relief for that.
In the first few months, I was inundated with wonderful music that expanded my own tastes outward—many of those CDs still have a place among my favorite records. Artists like Sigur Rós, the Mars Volta, Imogen Heap and Frou Frou, Bright Eyes…
And Damien Rice.
As a guitarist, I sometimes bemoan modern music’s shift away from the instrument. Even modern guitar legends like St. Vincent’s Annie Clark have pivoted away from a guitar-centric approach.
But then, you have Cloakroom (who apparently live pretty close to me).
Across their first four albums, Led Zeppelin had rocked harder and explored more than any band before them.
It was a double-edged sword. They had created some of the most indelible songs in rock and roll history. But how were they supposed to top “Stairway to Heaven”?
They wouldn’t, actually.
By their second album, Led Zeppelin had already revolutionized hard rock. By their third, they had injected traditional folk elements to round out their songwriting.
So where could they possibly go for their fourth? They had already subverted every expectation of their genre and broken every limitation of the recording process.
But they weren’t about to rest now. Continue reading
Having already asserted their dominance on their first two hard rocking, raunchy records, Led Zeppelin takes a step back on their third outing to flex their compositional chops.
And that means a surprising amount of ballads.
By the end of the 1960s, the peace and love of the decade had started to wear a little thin.
The Nixon Administration rose to power in the United States. The Troubles dominated headlines in the United Kingdom. The Vietnam War raged on.
And out of this chaos came a band whose sound was as fiery as the world around them.
Electronic music is often dismissed as cold and emotionless—a monotonous musical form that is too sleek to let any real humanity in. And it’s not like it requires any real skill to perform.
Those criticisms are rarely levied against LCD Soundsystem though.
The interesting thing about jazz is that the albums are just as much about the side players as the bandleaders. And if you listen to enough jazz, you start to notice who the major players are.
And while you might not readily recognize Larry Coryell’s name, you might recognize some of the people playing with him on Spaces.
Every once in a while, I’ll hear a record that ushers me into new revelations, that shift my musical center within the moments of the first song.
Albums like Sunbather, Panopticon, and Palms self-titled album.
Melting Sun as firmly among them.