Most Anticipated Releases of May – #1: mewithoutYou

mewithoutYou: it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright


The transformation this band has gone through during their career is incredible. They started out as a completely overanxious yet more accessible and melodic version of Fugazi, tempered things a bit for the next full-length, then added an occasionally orchestral and folky feel to their third one while managing to keep an incredibly tense and beautifully sad atmosphere about things. Now they’re basically a less over-the-top version of the Decemberists, as far as it seems. However, the few songs on 2006′s Brother, Sister where that comparison was totally warranted (particularly the first track) were absolutely wonderful. They’ve improved with every album, so if they can nail that again, they’ll have, again, delivered one of the 5-10 best albums of 2009. Really stoked to hear this, and resisting downloading the leak until I receive my legitimate copy.

Most Anticipated Releases of May – #2: Gallows

Gallows: Grey Britain


Their first album, 2006/2007′s Orchestra of Wolves, was waaaaaay overhyped, but it was still a pretty good rock’n'roll hardcore-ish album that aptly filled anyone’s Bronx-void playlist. This one, Grey Britain‘s supposed to be way better, though — but I guess I shouldn’t trust hype. Still, I’m curious to see what a band that could still kinda be categorized as hardcore can come up with after they’ve far exceeded the normal standard of popularity such a genre-placed act would achieve.

Most Anticipated Releases of May – #3: Narrows

Narrows: New Distances


I actually heard this the other day for the first time and it’s just suffocating. I guess you would expect nothing less from ex-members of Botch, Unbroken, Some Girls and a million other bands. It’s just totally choking, metallic-tinged hardcore as delivered by some of the guys who’ve done it better than most. Some deep cuts are on their MySpace page.

Most Anticipated Releases of May – #4: End of a Year

End of a Year: End of a Year 7″


True — End of a Year have released a TON of 7″s in the last 2 years. Why should this be any different? Well, it’s the band’s debut for their new label, Deathwish, so one imagines there’s a hell of an effort put into these songs (not that the band didn’t do so with the other records); and it’s self-titled, which always seems to be something of a statement. Judging from the new song on their MySpace page, it’s got a pretty great recording, too. This should be a delectable, economical take on the Revolution Summer sound, and I’m definitely digging the interesting Neil Young-esque twang of that aforementioned song, “Walter Miller, Jr.”

Most Anticipated Releases of May – #5: The Chariot

With five blog posts to go, including this one, we’ll count down my five most anticipated releases of the current month.

The Chariot: Wars and Rumors of Wars

Okay. admittedly, I’ve already heard this album, but it’s definitely the band’s best yet. Can I just quote my own review in fear of not being able to say much else? “[It] hardly represents a marked musical departure for Douglasville, Georgia-based metalcore contortionists the Chariot, and it’s unlikely to receive a pardon from the always-wary Botch Police. But what the band’s newest album may lack in progression, it more than makes up for in improved songwriting and more complex music that people suffering from claustrophobia should avoid at all costs. Josh Scogin leads his musical merrymakers in more manically pounding, distortion-soaked exercises of catharsis that sound more fully realized than any of their past work… The only rumor that should be spread about this album is that it’s the Chariot’s best yet.” I think you can stream the whole album on their MySpace page.

I’M SEEING THE GET UP KIDS TONIGHT IN NYC!!!11

I somehow managed to score a guest list ticket to the Get Up Kids reunion show today. SO AWESOME. So stoked. I’ve seen a lot of bands who reunited after I never really got to see them, and this is one I’m definitely really excited for. Here’s a few sets I’ve seen from bands I never got to see before they actually broke up:

Lifetime

I saw them play the Cake Shop in lower Manhattan, which is basically a basement. So, this was basically a video shoot for “Airport Monday Morning” masquerading as a Lifetime basement show. Or vice versa. Either way, it was so cool. Here’s the video it resulted in:

Lifetime – Airport Monday Morning

Kid Dynamite

God, this show was awesome. Kid Dynamite, Grey Area, Take My Chances and someone else I can’t recall off the top of my head. I think they played just over an hour, but who cares — I got to see one of my favorite bands of all time, when I’d originally gotten into them two years after they broke up. Easily one of the best shows I’ve ever been to. I was fully choked against the stage, probably got kicked in the head by 40 errant stage-divers and I took the subway and subsequent train home in a soaking wet shirt that was just absolutely gross, but it was all way worth it and then some.

What I’m Listening To Vol. 2 4/30

Incendiary: Crusade

The debut full-length from one of Long Island’s most exciting up-and-comers. Heavy but smart mid-`90s hardcore, with an intelligent sociopolitical lyrical bend courtesy of a frontman who loves rugby and has his masters in anthropology — no kidding.

Manchester Orchestra: Mean Everything to Nothing

Me and everyone else, I’m sure. The dynamic, cathartic moody outfit definitely becomes more realized and versatile on their new full-length release. Calling this alternative/indie rock doesn’t really do it justice or give an idea what this album sounds like and the emotion it manages to convey, but one supposes it’s a broadly accurate description.

As Cities Burn: Hell or High Water

Definitely a totally unexpected turn from a band who sounded sort of like Beloved with a few less heavy parts and a few more Saosin-esque melodic vocal yelps on their first two albums. Quasi-southern tinged indie rock in the Manchester / Colour Revolt realm. Can’t believe this sold almost 5K its first week out.

Playing make-up and wearing guitar.

I came across another typical promo photo just now where all the kids are looking spiffy and dressed to the nines in suits, and it got me thinking — did I ever fall this for this gimmicky bullshit when I was younger?

That’s actually one of five photos from Sing It Loud’s MySpace page — one for each band member, letting you know their AIM and their Twitter status*. AwEs0mE. I don’t really have anything against this band, as much as I don’t really care for their music (which might be at least listenable, if I remember correctly from the 11 seconds of the first song on their album I bothered listening to last year).

So, to answer that question, no, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I can think back when I first got into hardcore, and the bands (the Bled, Kid Dynamite — really) weren’t ever trying to be fashionable or put out some forced image. I mean, even the Bled. Those are just a bunch of dudes that, despite their reputation as far as kids who are genuinely into hardcore are concerned, really love heavy music (Coalesce, early Cave In, Converge). And they proved it with their first album back then, and maybe that’s what lured me in.

Even before that. Yeah, Alkaline Trio definitely started doing the dumb spooky Misfits thing back in 2001 when I first got into them, but I just thought it was weird. I was starting a huge pop-punk phase and it wasn’t that silly corpse/alien/whatever theme going on on the cover of From Here to Infirmary that got me to buy the album without having ever heard them play a note; it was the promise of interestingly dark pop-punk music (thanks to a review in Rolling Stone, actually), something I’d never really heard before. And it was their music’s that (mostly) kept me a fan to this day. Not their Hot Topic flying bats coffins and vampires fake macabre thing they’ve adopted.

I basically just wonder if this image crap actually works with people. Apparently. I guess it’s just what separates nerds like me from people who leave their teenage years behind and pass on genuinely talented musical acts for god knows whatever.

* – Even I have a Twitter page but couldn’t understand why anyone would care about your day-to-day redundancies, even if you’re my best friend. So my favorite bands? I couldn’t care less what they had for breakfast. If Jesse Lacey has a Twitter page and he’s posting updates about mixing stages and what certain bands influenced certain songs on their new record…alright. I’m following. Otherwise, Christ.

State-to-State: Pennsylvania

Man, I just realized the title of my post on Connecticut was really stupid and irrelevant. Why not just introduce yet another feature that will largely be neglected?

We’ll take a look at Pennsylvania melodic punk acts now, since they’re really impressing me in the last year or so. Here’s another three, all PA-based, up-and-coming and seriously promising.

Balance & Composure
from: Doylestown
playing: I Just Want to Be Pure EP

Balance & Composure play incredibly tender but otherwise gritty emo-rock, with heaping influences from the ’90s landscape. They can oscillate from heartfelt cooing to ragged aggression on a dime’s notice and it’s supremely impressive. Also dig the early Third Eye Blind guitar tones. They’ve got a new EP coming out in the summer, I think.

Daylight
from: Doylestown
playing: Demo EP

This demo is so fucking good. It’s more of the gruff, dynamic, Small Brown Bike-influenced post-hardcore we’ve heard plenty of the last few years (see Polar Bear Club, Make Do and Mend), but it’s done so well it’s hard to care. There’s plenty of Lifetime-styled double-time moments, too. Plus, their demo is available to download for free.

[No YouTube videos up. Sorry!]

Title Fight
from: Kingston
playing: Kingston 7″ EP

Definitely the biggest of these three bands, but still pretty unknown in the scope of things. Fast, emotional pop-punk with very subtle hints of more ragged post-hardcore and melodic hardcore. This band clearly loves old Saves the Day and Lifetime and I’m perfectly okay with that, because they’re getting better at it with each following release. A compilation of all their material plus some new stuff is due in a few months; should be awesome.

Make Do and Mend video project

This is a profile on CT punk band Make Do and Mend. They’re pretty awesome, and pretty unknown. It’s got some performance and interview footage from their show at Brooklyn’s Retox venue on April 4th, when they played with Transit, Hostage Calm, the Knockdown and some others.

They released their new EP, Bodies of Water, this month on Panic Records.

After you watch, go listen some more.