Muse: Madness (Review)

Muse's new album, The 2nd Law is due to drop on October 2nd this year, but three songs have already been released/teased off the new album. "Survival" was the official song of the London 2012 Olympic Games, "Unsustainable," a brilliant dub-step like song created through traditional drum, bass, and guitar is visible and audible all over the web, and "Maddness," the album's latest single is now available through iTunes as part of the new album's pre-order. Like nearly everything that Muse does, it will perennially be compared to whatever Radiohead does, but at this point Muse is light years ahead of Radiohead sonically.

The Darkness: Hot Cakes (Review)

Several months since The Darkness won the Superbowl, we finally get their new album, and it's a good one. Is it Permission to Land? No. Is it just as good a rock album as Permission to Land? Yes. That's the thing that many people forget about The Darkness. They are some of the best note for note and riff for riff no frills straight up '70s inspired hard rocker song writers. Front man Justin Hawkins' Freddie Mercury meets Johnny Rotten voice, coupled with his brother Dan's guitar, Frankie Poullain's base and Ed Graham's drumming make for the best '70s arena rock that was never played in the '70s. Their more than that though. These cheeky English bastards have the best sense of humor in rock next to Dave Grohl's. Hot Cakes doesn't skimp on the humor, or the riffs.

Flea: Helen Burns (Review)

Red Hot Chili Peppers founding member and bassist, Flea, has put out an EP of music intended to help raise money for his Silverlake Conservatory of Music. At the Conservatory's website, Flea makes it very clear that the music contained herein is very much NOT like anything that the RHCP would make and release. He's definitely right on that account...in part. Helen Burns sounds like a mashup of progressive and, in some cases regressive, music that a music theory major would indulge in. (Flea attended music theory classes as USC over the past few years.) It's interesting, but nothing that you'll replay over and over like most RHCP songs.

The Beatles: Tomorrow Never Knows (Review)

Do we really need another Beatles compilation? Well, where The Beatles are concerned, I have to admit that the word on and sound of these original rock and rollers can’t be spread about too much. Even though The Beatles is a brand now, hence the need for ever recycled and repackaged compilations of their music, more than a fondly remembered and insanely influential group of four guys from England who changed the music world, the songs that they wrote are truly timeless. Recently though, there has been a great deal of Beatles music repackaging that touted them as the original “boy band” or pop stars whose most edgy music was the mass consumable “Love Me Do” and “Hold Your Hand.” While these songs are great little pop-rock ditties, other songs like “Helter Skelter,” “Revolution,” and “It’s All Too Much” are rock tour de forces that the likes of everyone from U2 to Pearl Jam to Metallica to Nirvana to The Flaming Lips have tried with varying success to emulate and build upon. So a collection that focuses on and compiles a powerful cross section of The Beatles most discernibly guitar rock/hard rock songs is welcome, if only for the fact that it helps point out that The Beatles could really, really rock when they wanted to. 

Fear Factory: The Industrialist (Review)

Way back in 1992 to 1995 Fear Factory were something to behold. Fast and hard metal riffs backed by some techno-industrial noise of the type that Trent Reznor would agree with, double bass throbbing drums, and alternatingly death and melody metal inspired vocals coalesced to give rise to some of the most harsh and at times frightening metal on the market. Now, Fear Factory, despite being all of those things still (in addition to once again being composed of its core members Burton C. Bell and Dino Cazares) is just a tad repetitious. That’s great if you are a Fear Factory purist, but for the average metal fan, repetition can be the touch of death…at least as far as sales are concerned. That being said, The Industrialist is probably the best Fear Factory album since Demanufacture, simply because this Fear Factory purist is quite happily reminded of Fear Factory’s glory days when listening to The Industrialist.

Orbit: Libido Speedway (Retro-Review)

The best thing about late ‘90s rock was that it all vaguely sounded like early ‘90s rock, mostly Nirvana. The worst thing about late ‘90s rock was that it all vaguely sounded like early ‘90s rock, again mostly Nirvana. There were a few bands out there that formed around the same time (or 5 years or so later), but ended up getting caught up in the backlash that most grunge/’90s alt-rock purists unleashed against these bands for “ripping off Nirvana” though. One of these bands, that was pretty much on the receiving end of my scorn, was Orbit. A three piece comprised of fuzzy, distorted and feedback drenched guitar, bass, and drums from Boston, MA (home of The Pixies-Orbit’s main influence-and the band that Nirvana ripped off), Orbit would actually win me over with their one and only major modern rock hit, “Medicine.” It was one of those rare songs that I could just listen to over and over again without getting tired of. It still is…

Bruce Springsteen: Wrecking Ball (Review)

Acoustic and electric guitars, live drums and drum machines, banjos and mandolins, violins and fiddles, rock and R&B, spirituals and gospel, Celtic rhythms and Irish jigs, choirs and choruses, samples and a rap (not by The Boss-Thank God), hushed vocals and loud exaltations, hope and despair, resilience and pride, the American Dream and Nightmare: all of these sounds, genres, and cultural cross samplings of American music combine, sometimes gloriously and sometimes not, to comprise Bruce Springsteen’s most populist album to date, both musically and thematically. Despite the highly slick production, which is a poor step in the wrong direction after Brendan O’Brien’s (Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam) stint with The Boss throughout the ‘00s, Wrecking Ball, with all of its mashed up diversity and, again, occasional stumbles is strangely Bruce Springsteen’s most consistent album since the jewel in the crown of the O’Brien years’ The Rising.