Hello Sputnik community,
As a staff writer I frequently get asked about “the right way to write a review” (as if there is a right way), and for tips and pointers by users that want to step up and provide new content to the site. While the creative process is different from person to person, there is one thing that, regardless of if it’s your first review or your 100th, should be a part of the writing process: proofreading. No matter how clearly you think you have laid out your ideas, little kinks have a nasty habit of popping up and sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes to catch them before you hit submit. To help out with catching grammatical errors, improving flow, and curbing wordiness you can visit the oft underused proofreading forum (here), where you can get a peer review from some of the more helpful community members and the staff. Even if you don’t want to write a review, you can still help out by offering advice and helping those who do. Please don’t let this beneficial feature go to waste.
Thank you for your time,
Adam Thomas (redskyformiles)
Remember the last time a couple of tracks rocked as hard as Broken Social Scene channeling Black Francis via Dinosaur Jr with a detour past the Japandroids? We do, and it was right about every time we spun the red hot singles from PS I Love You‘s upcoming debut Meet Me At The MusterStation (Paper Bag), set to drop on Oct 5th. Fuzzy, fun and wild eye’d, here’s a taste of some Facelove with a hint of 2012 thrown in just for kicks:
PS I Love You – Facelove:
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PS I Love You – 2012:
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On last night’s (Wednesday’s) edition of his Late Night show, Jimmy Fallon finally managed to combine his dual-interest in classic hip hop and wooden acting in a surprisingly good medley of classic rap songs with help from Justin Timberlake and house band the Roots.
I’ve had enough, these salty tears
I’ve caught a thousand of them, filled a hundred cups.
And bit by bit, they grew and grew
So I began to turn them into something new.
Every hour of every night
My little soldiers drew a breath and came to life.
One by one, they formed a line
And pledged allegiance to this salty heart of mine.
Filled the house in shallow waves
I fed them only on revenge and shallow rage.
And they grew up, angry and tall
Lo and behold I have the coldest sea of all.
I built a boat made out of ice
To sail the frozen ocean of my own device.
And there I float, and there I freeze
The commander of her fleet, queen of the sea.
Remember when all that crazy news about Justin Vernon working with Kanye broke? Remember how we didn’t know what to think? Had Vernon sold out, or was Kanye collaborating with people who could really bring his vision to fruition? Well, Yeezy released “Monster”, which was the first taste anyone got of the Vernon/West collaborations, but it was a sort of after-thought verse tagged at the end of a bloated song. Nicki Minaj had already turned in the best verse of her short career, and Vernon’s slow-burning melodicism was perhaps too much of a contrast.
Now, “Lost in the World” has leaked, and it’s a true monster. The song begins innocuously sampling Vernon’s auto-tune experiment “Woods”, but quickly, it becomes a dark, twisted dancefloor jam that samples Gil-Scott Heron and hardly even features aside from some sing-a-long and a concise but consistent verse. “Lost in the World” is easily the best track to come from Kanye’s lengthy, prodigious leak campaign to promote his latest album (wait, what is it called again?).
I’d attribute the source of the leak, but I think you can figure it out from the most annoying tags since Beggars. Someone forgot a “w”.
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This might be my favourite track to come out this year. It’s by Adam Haworth Stephens, who you might know from his work in Two Gallants, and it sounds like if Bob Dylan re-wrote “Another Brick in the Wall”. It’s off his first solo release, We Live On Cliffs, which is out today.
There’s almost nothing better than some funk in your folk.
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of September 28 , 2010. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
Abigail Williams – In the Absence of Light (Candlelight/Lumberjack)
August Burns Red – Home [Live CD/DVD] (Solid State Records)
Bad Religion – The Dissent Of Man (Epitaph Records)
Kenny Chesney – Hemingway’s Whiskey (Sony Nashville)
Eric Clapton – Clapton (Reprise)
Phil Collins – Going Back (Atlantic)
Combichrist – Making Monsters (Metropolis Records) Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest(4AD Records)
Dimmu Borgir – Abrahadabra {EU} (Nuclear Blast)
Doobie Brothers – World Gone Crazy (HOR Records)
Electric Six – Zodiac (Metropolis Records) Enslaved – Axioma Ethica Odini(Nuclear Blast) – Adam Thomas
Gin Blossoms – No Chocolate Cake (429 Records) Glasser – Ring(True Panther Sounds)– Kiran Soderqvist
Halford – Made of Metal (Metal God Ent)
Ingram Hill – Look Your Best (Rock Ridge Music)
InMe – Phoenix: The Very Best of InMe (Indie Europe)
Ice Cube – I Am The West (Lench Mob) Jimmy Eat World – Invented(David Geffen Company)
KMFDM – Greatest Sh*t (Metropolis Records)
James LaBrie – Static Impulse (Inside Out U.S.)
Lazerbeak – Legend Recognize Legend (Doomtree)
Mark Ronson And The Business International – Record Collection (RCA)
Nellie McKay – Home Sweet Mobile Home (Verve Forecast)
MSWhite – Squares (Rise Records)
Mushroomhead – Beautiful Stories for…
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OK, this is pretty old (witness the 9.6 million plays), but it really needs to be seen to be believed. You’ll never listen to ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ the same way again, and if you’re anything like me it’s a life-altering event on the scale of losing the use of one’s legs. But in a good way.
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of September 21 , 2010. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson – Soundtrack (Ghostlight)
Cam’ron – The U.N. Gunz N’ Butta (E1 Entertainment)
Paula Cole – Ithaca (Decca)
Billy Currington – Enjoy Yourself (Mercury Nashville)
Delerium – Epiphany [DVD] (Nettwerk) Drudkh – Handful of Stars(Season of Mist)
Enslaved – Axioma Ethica Odini {EU} (Nuclear Blast)
Flying Lotus – Pattern + Grid World [EP] (Warp Records)
Frankie Rose And The Outs – Frankie Rose And The Outs (Slumberland Records)
Hilary Hahn – Higdon & Tchaikovsky Violin Concertos (Deutsche Grammophon)
Randy Houser – They Call Me Caddillac (Show Dog Universal)
J57 (Brown Bag Allstars) – Digital Society (Balanced Records)
John Legend and The Roots – Wake Up! (Columbia)
Kiske/Somerville – Kiske/Somerville {EU} (Frontiers Records S.R.l.) Manic Street Preachers – Postcards From A Young Man (Sony) Margot & The Nuclear So And So – Buzzard(+1 Records) — Channing Freeman
Maroon 5 – Hand All Over (A&M/Octone)
Johnny Mathis – Let It Be Me: Mathis in Nashville (Columbia)
Maximum Balloon [TV On The Radio’s Andrew Sitek project] – Maximum Balloon (Interscope Records) Metallica – Six Feet Down Under [EP] (Metallica.com)
Methods Of Mayhem – A Public Disservice Announcement (Roadrunner Records)
Michael Franti & Spearhead – The Sound of Sunshine (Capitol)
Liza Minnelli – Confessions (Decca U.S.)
Vincent Minor –…
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Blackened Eyes Staring
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Better Off Dead
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Take
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Flotsam and Jetsam have been around for nearly thirty years and have never truly received the attention that they deserve. Some of the blame could be placed on bad timing (Cuatro) or bad productions (When the Storm Comes Down and Dream of Death) – and their unwavering dedication to flying the thrash flag through the nineties probably had something to do with it too – but it doesn’t fully explain how this band has remained in the shadows all of these years. The real shame is that Flotsam and Jetsam seem to be…
International woman of mystery and self-appointed spokesperson for all gay people in the world ever Lady Gaga has recorded a message (not actually an “address” – shoot me) aimed at the United States Senate, appealing for the US military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to be abolished.
Stefani’s speaking voice makes her seem kind of slow, and there’s the most awkward phone ringing sequence ever in the middle, but it’s still worth watching whether you agree or disagree with the central premise.
Over the last decade metal has made a huge resurgence. This popularity has inspired a lot of bands to make a deliberate return to their roots (Metallica, Megadeth, etc). It has also prompted the reformation of quite a few long-defunct bands from the past (Believer, Anacrusis, etc). You can now add Connecticut’s Indestructible Noise Command (aka I.N.C.) to that list.
I.N.C. formed in 1985 and quickly recorded their first album, Razorback. The album was quirky but heavy with an underlying sense of humor that was missing from most thrash at the time. It was enough to allow them to play with bands such as Megadeth, Exodus and King Diamond. Their second album, The Visitors, built on everything that fans loved about Razorback and garnered even more attention for the band – Pantera, in their infancy, even opened for I.N.C. at one time. One of the more unique elements that I.N.C. had going for them was the vocals of Dennis Gergely. His voice provided a bit of a hardcore/metal crossover vibe at a time when only a few bands were doing it (most notably D.R.I.). Due to a lack of solid label support and funding, the band took an indefinite hiatus shortly after the release of their second album, and that was the end of the story – until now.
I.N.C. are back with a fresh set of songs that are heavier and darker than anything they did in…
