Category Archives: cd review

Album Review: Stonefield – Stonefield (Debut Album)

Review by Natalie Salvo
Ever since they won Triple J’s Unearthed High in 2010 the four gorgeous Findlay sisters known as Stonefield (and previously Iotah) have had to face their fair share of criticism over their image and being discounted as a “teenage gimmick”. The quartet was surrounded by lots of hype as the band is made up of four sisters who range in age from being teenagers to in their early twenties. They also got to play Glastonbury festival quite early but they do have the talent to back it all up. On their eponymous, debut record they continue to thumb their noses at their detractors as they offer one solid and promising effort.
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EP Review: Born Lion – “Born Lion”

Review by JOSE EDUARDO CRUZ
Although the individual members of this outfit have previous experience in the music scene, Born Lion have a short history as a musical project. The first three tracks of this release are punchy, punk, danceable and aggressive. The last two tracks contrast with the first three to the extent that a question of musical direction needs to be asked. What is Born Lion trying to achieve through this self-titled release? If it is a matter of getting their material out and listened to, then this is a great release. The EP is raw and filled with incredible talent that simply needs to be refined. This EP is a demonstration of what Born Lion will become and what they have to offer as an outfit.
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Album Review: Punk Goes Pop 5

Review by Sibel Kutlucan
Whilst many have argued about labels and band choices for the covers, Fearless Records has delivered another popular album in their Punk Goes Pop series. Released this month, Punk Goes Pop has delivered more interesting covers of hit songs such as Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe” and Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend”.

Punk Goes Pop is a fun, light-hearted listen that promises some infectious beats, that whilst isn’t for everyone, still delivers some unique covers. This is one of those albums that will have varying views and opinions, some wondering whether the bands and artists are typically ‘punk’ or ‘pop’, however personally I thought some songs were better than others.
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Album Review: The Delta Riggs – Talupo Mountain Music Vol.II

By Meghan Player
After the success of their break through track, ‘Counter Revolution’, The Delta Riggs bring their contagious and energetic take on rock & roll to their new EP, ‘Talupo Mountain Music Vol. II’.

Self-produced and cut in a single live session, the band blast through your speakers – from opener, [the aforementioned, ‘Counter Revolution’], to the downright funky, swinging sounds of ‘Used To Be My Baby’.

‘Money’ draws from the mid 60s, early 70s rock and roll that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Led Zeppelin album. The infectious chorus and relatively simple tempo of the track would make any listener feel the need to get up and dance.

Following track ‘Mary’ blends a smoother, mellow and sexier sound than the previous offerings – demonstrating not only the bands unique style and personality, but their ability to transition and move between amazing sounds and melodies.
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Album Review | Breathe Carolina – Hell Is What You Make It

Review – Sibel Kutlucan
Breathe Carolina’s third full length album, Hell Is What You Make It is great for when you want to dance, but can’t quite bring yourself to listen to full on pop or dance anthem tracks…and you still require that bit of ‘rock’ in your music.

Breathe Carolina is an assemblage of power duo Kyle Even and David Schmitt hailing from Denver, and their styles and choices definitely create a bipolar sound. Combining an electro pop sound with synthesizers and screamo/crunk-core, mixed with ‘traditional’ rock guitars and drums, Breathe Carolina certainly is interesting to listen to. Personally, I think it’s fantastic!
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Album Review | The Bloodpoets – ‘Wings’

Review: Sibel Kutlucan

The Bloodpoets, indie rockers hailing from Brisbane have continued their infectious streak with their new EP ‘Wings’.
Wings teases the listener with 6 tracks, each as unique as the other, broadcasting the diversity of the Bloodpoets style. It is great to hear real instruments amongst so much of the heavily synthesised and edited muck that is disguising itself as music nowadays. The Bloodpoets aren’t afraid to showcase their talents and diverse tastes; from trombones, trumpets and saxophones on “Sunny Day”-an amazing jazzy number, to violin and the melodic combination of male and female vocals with band’s Tom Murphy and Bec Plath complimenting one another on “She Feels It” –the definite favourite for me.
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Thursday – ‘No Devolución’ – Album Review

By Helen Brown


No Devolucion - ThursdayNo Devolucion – Thursday
  Nowadays, the word ‘genre’ can be the kiss of death for a band. Unless they do something phenomenal and memorable with their music, they run the risk of falling into a certain category and being lost among the throngs of other musicians doing the exact same thing. Case in point: Thursday’s sixth release, No Devolucion. This New Jersey-based outfit have
created an album loaded with screamo American rock and impressive lead vocals, projecting a dark and broody atmosphere. Unfortunately, this effort is not ground-breaking and we have heard it all before. Licks of fuzzed-out guitar with sporadic psychedelic notes on No Devolución offer something else to the typical screamo mould, but it is not quite different enough to redeem the album. The tracks are

primarily average with hardly any substance, in some cases comparable to an emo church choir if such a thing existed.

One example is the track ‘Open Quotes,’ consisting of a mellow introduction with acoustic guitar and soft piano notes. This is but a brief reprieve from the hardcore onslaught of the rest of the song, with strong drumming and an ever-changing tempo that comes to a sudden halt at the end. The track is about someone sorting through their emotions, and trying to survive and find their place in a dark world, once again very similar to what we have all heard before.
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CD Review: Gay Paris – The Skeleton’s Problematic Granddaughter

The Skeleton’s Problematic Granddaughter is the debut LP release from Sydney four piece GAY PARIS and from all accounts, it’s a damn good one.

  Gay Paris list themselves as Swamp Stomp/ Shack Funk/ Bastard Rock, and that’s exactly what this album delivers. The growling, gritty vocals of WH Monks complemented by dirty guitar driven rock riffs and killer drumming. There is an underlying 80’s stadium rock vibe throughout and with songs like “My First Wife? She Was A Fox Queen!” setting the stadium rock anthmatic standard.

One noteable variation came in at track 8 “Soliloquy From Either Station”. Slow chant stomp with Elvis styled vocal and haunting violin hovering above. An unexpected highlight.

Rating: 7.5
The Skeleton's Problematic Granddaughter - Gay ParisThe Skeleton’s Problematic Granddaughter – Gay Paris
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Status Quo “In The Army Now 2010” [LP Review]

Review: Natalie Salvo
Status Quo are a group of Englishmen known for their brand of boogie rock and have gotten a lot of mileage over the years from power chords and the furious sounds of fighting. Now it seems the band are giving a little something back by releasing a charity single titled “In The Army Now”. This release serves as part teaser to their forthcoming studio album, “Quid Pro Quo” and support for the British Armed Forces with profits from its sale going to the British Forces Foundation and Help For Heroes charities.

The Quo covered this track back in 1986 and scored a hit on the UK singles chart.

The 2010 version sees the lyrics get a revamp (to be more pro-army) plus an update to the music. But rest assured, there are still power chords aplenty and a chorus of angry young men (as the band are assisted by The Corps of Army Music). But strangely there are also hints of the atmospheric and in particular (and I kid you not) Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight”.

This mini-LP comes with the two 2010 versions of the title track including full length and radio edits. There are also two studio rarities “I Ain’t Wasting My Time” and “One By One” and five live Quo numbers taken from shows performed in England in 2008 and 2009. These include their classics “Caroline,” “Whatever You Want” and “Down Down”. There are also videos for the title song and “Beginning Of The End”.

Quo fans won’t be disappointed with this collection of music as it showcases more of their boogie rock with big beefy guitar riffs that hint at AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, but all while having an added rock and roll bent – almost like what would happen if Little Richard did his musical thing but replaced his piano with an arsenal of guitars. With the speed of a freight train, energy of a battalion and the heavy firepower of modern artillery, Status Quo prove they’ve still got the chops to go into battle and take a stand for what they believe in. Basically it’s three power chords and the rock uncouth.

Title: In The Army Now 2010
Artist: Status Quo
Status QuoStatus Quo

Review by: Natalie Salvo


Related:
More article by Natalie Salvo:
* Smoke on the Water – The Metropolis Sessions [CD/DVD Review]
* Cloud Control, Seekae and Deep Sea Arcade @ The Metro, Sydney 15 October 2010 – Live Review & Photos
* Amanda Palmer Performs the Popular Hits of Radiohead on Her Magical Ukulele – EP Review
* The Magic Numbers “The Runaway” – [Album Review]
* The Drums “The Drums” – [EP Review]
* All articles by Natalie Salvo…


Related:

Status Quo: Just Doin' it Live – 40 Years of Quo

Buy It Now!
  40 Years of Quo Classics filmed Live at Birmingham NEC, England, May 21st 2006.Album DetailsRelease Date: 2007-01-12Genre: MusicRating: MAudio: Dolby Digital 2.0 StereoContents: 1 disc

My Own Pet Radio – Unidentified Flying Collection of Songs [Album Review]

Review by: Lauren Sherritt

Unidentified Flying Collection of Songs is the first album released by My Own Pet Radio, the name under which Brisbane artist Sam Cromack works solo. The bedroom recorded, experimental album is a solid example of decent, hard worked music created by a passionate and hard working musician.

Cromack, also known as the front man for indie rock/pop band Ball Park Music, really goes to town on the album cutting samples, employing effects and layering instruments, all played by himself, with intricate and distinct lyrics. The songs collectively move through various styles, bluesy influences sitting alongside poppy rock and folksy, lilting acoustic pieces. Carefully crafted to fit together as a whole album, the spectrum of styles in the songs speaks of the years of work gone into developing Cromack’s skill, and the album transcends the hyped world of sale figures and radio play stats to sit as a thought provoking piece of artwork.
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Smoke on the Water – The Metropolis Sessions [CD/DVD Review]

Review: Natalie Salvo
Title: Smoke on the Water – The Metropolis Sessions
Artists: Various
A devastating earthquake rips through the city leaving tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. No, I’m not writing about any one of the natural disasters to have plagued our planet over the last year or so. Sadly, history has a way of repeating itself and Mother Nature is one cruel bitch.

The year was 1988 and a 6.9 magnitude earthquake tore through Armenia. International charity campaigner, Jon Dee was there working at getting coverage of the devastation and he was so horrified by what he saw (particularly the images of people carrying child size coffins) that he felt compelled to do something and hence, “Smoke On The Water-The Metropolis Sessions” was born. It was to be a reworking of the Deep Purple classic, a song that is almost instilled into our brains at birth and certainly one that any aspiring guitarist worth his weight will work through at some point.
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Myles Mayo – Myles Mayo [Album Review]

Review by: Ben Connolly


Buy the CD here
  First albums can be tricky beasts to get right. For some they’re cringe-worthy telegraphs of earnest naivety best left uncovered, for others they signpost a highpoint never again attained. For most, however, they are a hotch-potch of eagerness and ideas, often with so much crammed into short hard-won studio time or crazy experiments trying to find their way around a myriad of home recording equipment.

Myles Mayo’s self-titled debut release falls into the latter “trying to cram everything in” category which, while certainly interesting and intriguing, often comes across as a curious iPod playlist at times, rather than a cohesive narrative.

Mayo is the front-man of Adelaide pop-rock band Special Patrol who’s found just enough internal artistic drive to branch out on his own.
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Femi Kuti – Africa For Africa [LP Review]

Review by: Ben Connolly


Buy the CD here
  I’ve always been fascinated by the anthropology of musical styles – the evolution of a distinctive style and sound based on many factors, but often described easiest by geographic boundaries. Take, for example, Memphis blues with its jug-band country feel, as opposed to the Detroit blues and it’s altogether grubby and gritty undertones. While both evolved from the same musical stirrings (and both served as underpinning styles of modern blues and rock n roll), their sounds are geographically distinct and unmistakable. You can hear the swamps and sandflies in Memphis blues, and you can almost sense the grease under the fingernails plucking the Detroit blues guitars.

Heck, there’s no musical style so underpinned by geography than slow, languid, feisty and hot reggae which, no matter where it’s played, evokes the Jamaican countryside to a tee.
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The Go! Team – Rolling Blackouts [Album Review]

Review By Helen Brown


Rolling Blackouts (Bonus Track Version) - The Go! TeamRolling Blackouts (Bonus Track Version)
  Rolling Blackouts, the third release from British band The Go! Team, can be best described as a breath of fresh, salty sea air. The tracks are energetic and empowering, the kind of album you would take with you on a short road trip adventure. The Go! Team exhibit undertones of Regurgitator’s electronica phase, circa 1997 to 1999.

Their first song, ‘T.O.R.N.A.D.O.,’ is a hip hop-laced number about moving your body to the beat. It is punchy right from the start with no soft introduction to ease you in. The tracks ‘Secretary Song’ and ‘Bust-Out-Brigade’, sound very much like theme songs from sitcoms and crime shows with the use of cheerful clap-along beats and synthesised siren sounds respectively.

The vibe throughout the album is generally to be happy within yourself, enjoy life and have fun with the people around you.
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Album Review | Ben Ottewell – Shapes and Shadows

Review by Bianca Martin
It has apparently been five years in the making, but Gomez frontman Ben Ottewell has finally released his debut solo album Shapes and Shadows. Gomez fans need not worry though, this release shouldn’t be seen as a departure from Ottewell’s main project but instead as an expansion on it. Easily the most recognizable vocalist from the English indie rockers, his unique voice remains the focus here. Ottewell’s vocals are perfect for this classic acoustic soft rock, bordering on folk at times, style. Distinctive and naturally emotional, his voice is a little gritty and rough around the edges but mournful and somber at just the right moments.
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