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PIX
the best of the mid-atlantic
new invisible joy • pale blue day
spitshine • spitshine
rotoglow • rotoglow
smartbomb • yeah. well, anyway...
Bands! Think your disc is pretty hot? Maybe we will, too — Directions for submitting your release to the Pix follow the column.
Never a bad month here at the Pix...
NEW INVISIBLE JOY
pale blue day
[ goldwish ]
>> NIJ brought to you by....
engineered & produced: Peter Beckerman & Mike Speranzo
mixed: Peter Beckman
@: Mr. Small’s Funhouse, Pittsburgh
mastered: Fred Kevorkian @ Absolute Audio, NY
goldwish records: mike@goldwishrecords.com
management: Rory Handyside, 412.531.4348, rory@newinvisiblejoy.com
band: band@newinvisiblejoy.com
web: www.newinvisiblejoy.com
Dreams of living, dying and loving, the disc a blue dawn emerging from dark oblivion one twinkling note at a time. Guitarist Mike Gaydos and drummer Brian Coletti’s powerful, edgy play offset singer John Schisler and bassist Evan Handyside’s hypnotizing ambience in a sound that’ll suck you in but not put you to sleep. Schisler’s skills are on full display in “Figure Study” and “Something of a Cat & Mouse,” ranging from falsetto to a midrange scream that’ll make your hair stand up. In all likelihood the Pittsburgh outfit’s first and last independent release, Pale Blue Day will attract a label-producer combo that will send them straight to the top, but that lucky label would do well to re-release the CD as it is first.
SPITSHINE
spitshine EP
[ spitshine music ]
>> team spitshine:
engineered & produced & recorded: Larry Werner
mastered: DRT Mastering
hotline: 610.799.5422
web: http://community-2.webtv.net/Spitshine1/WELCOMETOTHE/
Great bar music survives the translation to CD intact. Quoth the press kit: “A new breed of refreshing pop/rock.” I’d add “feel-good” in there. This is the sound of coming down from the long week, the perfect soundtrack to having a beer with friends, the sound of everything that makes you feel alive, translated into a sound that’ll make you feel even more alive, a feedback loop of love. Eastern-PA songwriters Bryan Harmony (the name fits, wear it) and Larry Warner have been playing together since 1992, cutting their teeth in Jolly Roger, setting a high standard for high-energy rock. The Spitshine EP set the bar a little higher, but my favorite’s the hidden-track ballad “Smile.”
ROTOGLOW
rotoglow EP
[ rotoglow ]
>> rotoglow brought to you by...
produced: Tony Alany & Rotoglow
record & mixed: Tony Alany
@: Jammin’ Java Studios, Vienna VA
mastered: Bill Wolf, Wolf Productions, Alexandria VA
cooking: Ken Offidan, 703.915.9208
management: Ed Enterprises, 703.883.1300
web & downloads: www.rotoglow.com
Virginia’s Rotoglow say it so well themselves: It’s getting into my brain. I don’t mind. You can’t get much better. You can’t deny. Super-evocative guitar-heavy new rock reminiscent of the stronger new wave bands that went on to have long and fruitful multi-album careers. Guitarist John Kenney floats notes and twists chords around Andrew Hellier’s steady trebling. Hellier, bassist Conrado Edkoles and drummer Dave Cannon also sing, and “quintessential man” Donald Krzesniak rounds out the lullabye with some keyboards. Kenney gets raw and Hellier slips closer to a growl on disc closer “Newee,” four minutes of hook that’ll echo in your head for at least two days.
SMARTBOMB
yeah. well, anyway...
[ razor & tie ]
>> smartbombers::
engineered, produced & mixed: Lou Giordano; Paul David Hager
@: Bias Studios, Springfield VA; Actiondale Studios, Annadale VA; Castle Studios, Nashville TN; Sony Studios, NYC
mastered: Sterling Sound, NYC
management: Katlheen Cloutier, SGMANAGMNT@aol.com
web: www.smartbombonline.com, www.razorandtie.com
e-mail: smartbomb@mindspring.com
Can’t...stop...listening...to Smartbomb. The DC foursome’s addictive second full-length release adds a truly tasteful touch of pop to the strain of indie rock pioneered by the likes of Jawbox, Shudder to Think, and SR-71. Their punky, reverent cover of Faith Hill’s “Breathe” will send you, reeling, to rewind and press play. Former Emmet Swimming drummer Derrick Decker backs vox/guitarist Chuck Andrada, guitarist Steve Augustine and bassist/vox Scott Brotemarkle, and for forty-two minutes, not one of the players fades into the background. With plenty of energy and thoughtful, smart lyrics, this one could be equally big with teenagers and everyone with a dusty skateboard in the closet.
Bands! for best results, send CD/demo packages to all three Unsung Hero offices:
#1) UHero, c/o Pix, 116 Carlisle St., Gettysburg, PA 17325
#2) UHero, c/o pix, Beta Office,12416 El Segunda • Suite 2, Lusby, MD 20657
#3) UHero, c/o Pix, P.O. Box 4024, Crofton, MD, 21114
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FRONTLINES
COC • live volume
rollins band • nice
rustic overtones • viva nueva
sole • bottle of humans
superchunk • here's to shutting up
tight bro's from way back when • lend you a hand
IN BRIEF...
Adema • American Head Charge • Barry Harris • Love Selective • Ours • Robby Rivera
COC
live volume
[ sanctuary]
ROLLINS BAND
nice
[ sanctuary ]
Punk icons come full circle,
returning to their hard-rock roots
Even in his punk heyday as Black Flag’s definitive frontman, young Henry Rollins was a longhair. Rollins grew up taking notes on Led Zeppelin, and Sweaty Teddy begat sweaty Henry. Corrosion of Conformity’s early spiked-skull-scary-monster-Eye-for-an-Eye imagery was the direct evolutionary descendent of Black Sabbath, and that primal pre-metal is what informs both Rollins’ and COC’s new albums.
Henry Rollins wants a lot, none of the kind of thing you can buy. On his strongest release since 1992’s The End of Silence, Rollins revisits familiar themes — alienation, and self service (bad) vs. self improvement (good). What makes the difference on this effort from the Rollins Band is the band. After two albums, this lineup’s play gels, and the Hot Animal Machine returns. “We Walk Alone” and “Let That Devil Out” return to the heavy, jamming-blues influences that helped spawn Sabbath, and “Goin’ Out Strange” is monolithic, hand-of-doom riffing. Nice is punk-influenced stoner rock for the straight-edge.
COC’s “King of Rotten” could have been a cut from the Rollins disc, and if Rollins’ band do a little Sabbath riffing, COC do a lot. Their early punk riffs were Iommi at double speed, and years later, the band are slower but no less heavy, guitar rock in sound and form, their live-from-Detroit-Rock-City-77-minute gonzo 16 raw updates of the band’s best material since they successfully reinvented themselves. In the millennium ruled so far by new metal, COC play as heavy as younger bands, but with mature restraint that makes them that much more powerful.
If the next big thing in heavy music is the ability to play, COC and the Rollins Band are already there. When punk made its first big splash in America, young fans looked at the old guard as overblown dinosaurs. Sabbath never would have gigged with the Sex Pistols. Rollins in on the road with the Warped Tour. This time around, the veterans can hang.
RUSTIC OVERTONES
viva nueva
[ tommy boy ]
Post-ska eclectic & funky rock, a thoroughly contemporary mix of live jazz, hip-hop and soul with a touch of Latin, somewhere between the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Bowie’s Young Americans-period. Funkmaster Flex scratches on “Smoke,” and the band attracted not only longtime Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti to produce their major-label debut, but Bowie himself for “Sector Z.” After years of horns by high-school-marching-band kids turned punk, Jason Ward finally produces some legit sax play in “Love Underground.” Imagine Dave Matthews fronting a funk band, and you should get something like “Hit Man.” The six-piece dish up a consistently harmonious mix of brass, keyboards, strings and beats ultimately unlike anything else out there.
SOLE
bottle of humans
[ anticon ]
The second cut of Sole’s Bottle of Humans,“I Don’t Rap in Bumper Stickers,” begins “I’ve been doing this too long to sing the same song.” And you’re not gonna hear the same lyrics or beat twice here. Bottle is an MC’s album, which in no way reflects on the music — a dozen producers including JEL, Sixtoo and Math team up for diverse tracks to match the verbal skills. Multistyling Sole gets serious from time to time, but avoids highbrow excess and has an active sense of humor— all the heads that the hilarious anti-skit “Very Important Message” goes over will find something to laugh at in “Sole Has Issues.” It might not be battle rap, but it is the sound of an MC sweating while he works the hell out of a heavy bag for over an hour.
SUPERCHUNK
here's to shutting up
[ merge ]
Normally, a band declaring their intention to pursue a new sound is cause for worry. For Superchunk, it’s a somewhat misleading disclaimer that gives them some artistic wiggling room. Signature Superchunk jamming indie rock, “Out on The Wing” captures the essence of their live show as well as any of their recordings has. Half the disc is less drums and guitar, more melody and keyboards. “Phone Sex” sounds like Morrissey experimenting with country. The strings come in and the guitars fade nearly completely on “The Animal Has Left Its Shell” before the drums return with a vengeance in “Act Surprised,” the disc’s emotional core. Here’s to Shutting Up sees the band apply dynamics to an entire album as well as they do in individual songs.
TIGHT BRO'S FROM WAY BACK WHEN
lend you a hand
[ kill rock stars ]
All the writers who used up their comparison to the MC5 on At the Drive In are gonna be pretty sorry when they hear Tight Bro’s From Way Back When’s Lend You a Hand. Indie all stars kick things off with the incendiary “Make It A Habit,” and the kamikaze five-piece outfit barrel through a relentless CD full of Stooge-y tunes (“Bless Me” in particular), mixing pre-punk vitality with the raw talent of the early Rolling Stones (“My Bad Luck” in particular). Minimum production, maximum playing. Listen close and you’ll hear a tambourine — evidence that Tight Bro’s are throwbacks to rock before it started taking wrong turns.
IN BRIEF...
If Jeff Buckley were alive and somebody started recording music like his, fans would be upset. Buckley’s no longer with us, and rather than getting bent at OURS, we can be glad that they recorded “Sometimes.” A full-band effort, the rest of Disorted Lullabyes (Dreamworks), shows that there’s more to Jimmy Gnecco’s voice than falsetto and much more to the band than alternating unplugged and anthemic electric guitars...
On ADEMA’s self-titled debut (Arista), if singer Marky Chavez sounds like Korn’s Jonathan Davis, he has a right to — he’s Davis’ half brother. And like Linkin Park and Drowning Pool, Adema took some lessons from Korn, before kicking it up a notch. The movement’s becoming pretty interesting as it evolves musically. Check out from “Giving In” for one end of Adema’s spectrum, and “Do What You Want to Do” for the other...
If you’re looking for less musical progression and more brutal scraping, six-man headbanger squad AMERICAN HEAD CHARGE turned heads at Ozzfest’s second stage this summer, and Rick Rubin (System of a Down, Slayer) produced their debut, The War of Art (American). AHC aren’t directly comparable to System of a Down or Slipknot, but you get the idea...
Hip hop and then some: Tommy Boy recently launched a dance imprint, Tommy Boy Silver. The label aims to provide DJs, club-goers and record buyers with the dance music from around the globe, and actively recruits producers, remixers, vocalists and DJs to produce singles and albums. Upcoming releases include megasingles from BARRY HARRIS and LOVE SELECTIVE, and ROBBIE RIVERA’s mix, Filtered: The Best of Filtered Dance, is available now...
Frontlines Disc Reviews
UHero, Beta Office
12416 El Segunda • Suite 2
Lusby, MD 20657
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