Dibs

[B]Horse The Band - Cutsman[/B]

A truly bizarre act since Horse the Band are the inspirers of a new genre, called Nintendo-core. Well, to be honest, it's not really a genre, since I doubt there is a scene of Nintendo-core bands but more or less this term could be used to describe Horse The Band's daring innovation: The keyboardist uses Korg MS2000 synthesizer which is programmed to sound like the 8-bit effects of old video games. What is more, the lyrics of three of their songs (including "Cutsman") refer to certain Nintendo characters.

Of course, I was a bit biased at first, thinking that they're a joke band but it seems that I was horribly mistaken. "Cutsman" (character from NES game Megaman) is a tight song where Erik Engstrom's synthesizer parts are incorporated into a hardcore (metalcore if I would dare) formula. There are quite a few changes, from hyper fast -in a punk way- sections, to heavy break downs and melodic passages. One special aspect are the rough and flexible vocals, which add a remotely dramatic touch, perfectly fitting the track. The surprising thing is that, the video game sounding synthesizer, not only doesn't sound ridiculous as my initial expectation was, but it actually creates a glorious, spacey -even in a progressive sense-, 80s electro atmosphere!

Smart concept and a pretty fun to listen to song, I will definitely check out the band futher!
9/10

[I]My picks[/I]
Madrugada - Sirens (indie/alternative)
Aphrodite's Child - The Four Horsemen (available on progarchives.com)
Genesis - The Knife (available on progarchives.com)
Black Heart Procession - We Always knew or A Cry for Love (indie)
Nirvana - Even in His Youth or Blandest or Ain't it a Shame

Bump

I'll dibble this now but I won't be back home until about 7 (UK time) so feel free to snatch it before then, or if I forget.

Aphrodite's Child - The Four Horsemen
 

I knew I'd get around to this eventually.

Song begins with lots of tinkly bells and some high pitched vocals. Nice voice though, backed by singular synth notes with delay. Very soothing at the moment.
An aggressive drum fill announces the drums' intentions and the song settles down to a steady rock groove for a bit. The song returns to the soothing part for a while before another agressive drum fill, again, injects some pace into the song. After the chorus we are treated to a tasteful guitar solo, and some backing vocals that bring to mind some material by The Verve. In true prog rock style, the solo goes on for many minutes, not that that's a bad thing mind. The song then continues on in a similar vein until it fades out. Nice changes of pace and good atmosphere. A pretty sparse review, but I don't know what else to say :-/

7/10 Enjoyable listen, though nothing particularly memorable.


[b]Recommendations:[/b]

Corrosion of Conformity - Drowning In A Daydream
Skunk Anansie - Skank Heads
The Wildhearts - OCD
Dälek - Speak Volumes
Pendulum - Girl In The Fire
Basement Jaxx - Hush Boy
The Distillers - Die On A Rope
Soulwax - Too Many DJ's
Prince - Computer Blue
The Pogues - Young Ned of The Hill
Canvas Solaris - Horizontal Radiant

Things that go [b]bump[/b] in the night

<_<

I'll give it a go provided that somebody can send me one of those above songs.

Just pick one; I'll listen to whatever.

frozeninshadows;gmail, or just leave me a message on MSN

EDIT: first post in Forced Listening?!

EDIT again: wait, I did the one in The Pit often. Whooops.

EDIT again and again: I got a song. Cheers, SOP and Ali :thumb:

I've got this covered. Yay.

Two people sent me stuff, so in the interest of fairness, here we go:

[b]Skunk Anansie - Skank Heads[/b]

The song opens with a nice guitar riff, before rollicking snare enters and kickstarts the song into a heavier section. The vocals come in near the mid-:20 mark and I kind of cringe because they're quite unexpected after such a cool intro. Is this a manly woman on vocals, or a really feminine man? It sounds like a cross between Joan Jett and Twisted Sister's vocalist. They take some getting used to, but the falsetto-like note held at :55 on is well done, with a chorus of "Get off, get off me!" (from what it sounds) being repeated. The guitar riff stays the same throughout for the most part - it's a nifty riff, and the percussion really moves the song. I hear a couple bass slides in the pre-chorus, and we're back to a chorus. The bridge at 2:08 is effect-laden and sounds outerspace-y, which is pretty cool because 1) there's no vocals, 2) the running bass line is pretty cool, and 3) the guitars are nice. The vocals, though, prevented me from thoroughly enjoying the song in its entirety, although they didn't completely turn me off the song. The reprised outro is a nice conclusion.

6.5/10; I'll probably keep the song, but the vocals were a bit of a turn-off seeing as how the track started off so excellently.

[b]The Wildhearts - OCD[/b]

This is going to be my first Wildhearts track, even though I've heard some of Ginger's solo efforts and was rather fond of them. Further, Bartender really likes these guys, so I'm pretty optimistic.

The song starts rockin' right away with some "Oh! Yeah! Oh! Yeah!" vocals and some terrific riffing. I really dig the intro, although I can't really comprehend the lyrics yet. The opening verse turns to palm-muted guitars, but a solid drum fill and "[Why don't you?] Check it out!" kicks back to the rockin' chorus. 1:20 might be the actual chorus, upon further listening, my mistake. There's a bit of a shift in the riffs and vocals, and the song seems to slow just a bit at the mid-1:40s, with a complete change in heavy palm-muted riffs and pounding toms. A blistering instrumental section follows, which makes me wonder if the song is called "OCD" for a reason, since I haven't heard it in the lyrics yet. The 2:30-ish section is a bit heavier, with liberal use of toms and cymbals. An undercurrent guitar riff then begins to play, along with a harmonized riff entering around the 3:00 mark. The song again seems to shift at the 3:20-ish mark with more rock-and-roll riffin' and pulsating toms. The track seems to build a crescendo and the rhythm is starting to make me bob my head a bit, and then the chorus returns at 4:14 with the "Oh! Yeah! Oh! Yeah!" chorus, which concludes the song.

8/10; an excellent introduction to the Wildhearts for me and I quite liked the different changes in riff patterns... hopefully I'll hear more later from somebody.

---

My tracks I'll post for convenience on LiveJournal:

[url]http://tony_robbins.livejournal.com/1272.html[/url]

All the songs are rock in nature, unless noted.

32 Leaves - All Is Numb
Edgewater - Eyes Wired Shut
Epidemic - Walk Away
The Red Paintings - It Is As It Was
Revis - Caught in the Rain

[b]Edgewater - Eyes Wide Shut[/b]

oh man I haven't done one of these in ages...

Edgewater.. I chose this because the name reminded me of Riverside and Everclear put together..

Powerful melodic rock intro, something of an older Foo Fighters sound. This is kind of what I was expecting from all of the bands listed (except for TRP which I already know). The melody is kind of sad. Man these drums and guitar are pretty heavy for melodic rock... this is reminding me of Fuel more than Foo Fighters now.

The verse is all chunky guitar notes, the drums are very prominent and the guy has a decent not-annoying voice.. 8 bars of verse, no more, no less. He has enough power to suit the powerful music. Not awake enough to try and hear the lyrics.

The chorus has very melodic singing harmonies, the guitar is playing deep chords that are sustaining.. soo melodic and catchy. I don't mind catchy, but this is too simple for my advanced brain... I mean for my liking :p

(verse,chorus) x 2
(you know what goes next)
The "middle section" is introduced by a flanged distorted guitar riff. The beat in here is a bit off time and more interesting... some singing in towards the second half

crappy transition back to the chorus.. which is done a few times before ending

This is the kind of thing SOP has recommended a lot, he would like this for sure. But I'm not him and I didn't find it at all fascinating. For me, the best bits of it is the power of the music.. it just seems incredibly heavy for catchy commercial rock. Apart from that... I was not impressed.
Far from bad
6.5/10

________________________
Katatonia - Evidence .. catchy depressing rock
Eluveitie - The Song Of Life .. celtic + metal
The Evpatoria Report - Optimal Region Selector .. post rock (9 mins)
The Album Leaf - Eastern Glow .. post rock/electronic
Clann Zú - Five Thousand More .. celtic/industrial
[url]http://www.g7welcomingcommittee.net/mp3/5000more.mp3[/url]

I might do the Eluveitie. I have it and I've heard it, but I didnt give it a dedicated listen.

Bump, just in case.

If a couple days pass and there isn't a new one, I'll do it... but I'll need a couple of the songs sent to me (unless I pick that one you have already), haha.

[b]Brides Of Destruction - Shut The **** Up[/b]

natas natas natas, aka the intro is a reverse sample of drums and vocals

Then an evil sounding thick distorted bass note pounds out the beat while a quiet guitar plays some simple chords. It goes into double speed but with the same guitar chords. Shouty vocals come in and there are either 2 singers or a double track, but the harmonies sound good.. after a few short lines it goes to just one voice. It's fast paced and I'm liking it.

The chourus has some harmonized "wooah" and the same shouty vocals.. after 4 lines, I guess after the main chorus has been done, he says STFU.. really sounds out of place here, like they put it in just for the sake of doing it. Sure the lyrics are about some guy that's sick of someone, but I got the message without that line... maybe I'm just getting old.

Another verse but this time they do some arabic sounding harmonies which is cool. Followed by the same chorus, where STFU is repeated twice..

Then it gets into a guitar solo, it starts off sounding kind of dodgy but after a while gets pretty good, pretty fast. After this is the chorus once more, which is exteneded slightly. A really apparent STFU ends it.


I liked it. I don't know what it is that makes me like some songs, but not others that are similar.. This song was easy to listen to and the slight variations between sections were noticable and good. It's only 3 minutes long, but it was done right. Only that STFU bit sounded off.
8/10


_______________

Al Di Meola - Mercy Street .. jazzy/contemporary

The Album Leaf - Eastern Glow .. post rock/electronic

Eluveitie - The Song Of Life .. celtic + metal

Dead Letter Circus - Lines .. new wave of aussie melodic rock (NWAMR) [url]http://www.triplejunearthed.com/GetFile/94664/dlc-lines-128.mp3[/url]

Cloud Vegas - Sleep Train .. ambient trip-rock /// First link on [url]http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=cloud+vegas+sleep+train&btnG=Search&meta=[/url]

blimp

bzzp

Hey Bluey. :)
I think i'll dibs.

I haven't done any forced listening in ages, still hwen I did it, it was a good way to discover music, so here goes!

Cloud Vegas - Sleep Train

Starts of with soft accoustic guitar and a (young) girl singing over it.
At a certain part bass comes in, and kind of ruins the gentle atmosphere of the accoustics.
Some drums come in and go away after a few beats (:confused: )
The accoustic strumming and the girls voice are back. :-)
It reminds me a bit of Radiohead at times, just without Thom York.
It has a bit of a GY!BE vibe to it too.
Pretty relaxed music, but it doesn't really go anywhere from that.
Pretty nice and relaxed overall.

7/10

My Picks:
Bongzilla - Kash Under glass ( Stoner metal)
Nortt - Gudsforladt (blackened Funeral Doom)
Rosenberg Trio - Rhytme Futur (Gypsy guitar Jazz)
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp4K-DLv4oQ[/url]

dibs

Candy - Whatever Happened To Fun (3:44)
 

Well, I'm slowly being dragged into popdom by Davey anyway, so I figured I might as well check out "power pop".

My first impressions of the song overall is that Candy are a watered down version of The Wildhearts. This continued throughout, and although it might be unfair to compare the two, it did make me knock a few points off.

The song starts out with a very poppy (suprise suprise) tune, with the drums providing a strong bass beat, and then we're exposed to the singer, who is entirely forgettable. The lyrics are fairly mediocore too, but I'm enjoying the music so far.

The chorus is easily the weakest part of the song, since it actually manages to be insipid and weak instead of soft and catchy.

We have a short bridge which could be considered a solo if you sped it up, which isn't really all that bad either, then we go into the chorus again, before we have the outro. In both the chorus and outro, the vocalist is just awful, he seems like he's phoning in his vocals from home on a depressed day, rather than being passionate about his fun, or whatever the damn song is about.

So yeah, I was moderately unimpressed, considering if I'm in the mood for an artist like this, which I seem to be a lot more these days, I have Marvellous 3, The Wildhearts, Reel Big Fish or Andrew W.K. to sate me, rather than a decidedly second-rate outfit like Candy.

5/10.

My picks:

Pink Floyd - Careful With That Axe, Eugene (Psychadelic Rock)
The Radiators - Gimme Head (Aussie Rock)
Extreme - Get The Funk Out (Hair Metal)
Mithotyn - In The Sign Of The Ravens (Folk Metal)

[b]Mithotyn - In The Sign Of The Ravens[/b]

I've seen thios band high on Jasons last.fm and I always wondered what they were like.

Some guitar chords and snare drum intro, it has that military drumming feel. It's kind of fast and has an unusual rhythm.. 5/8 time. It suddenly drops into 6/8 and a lead guitar starts tremolo picking a melodic riff over the top of the chords and the vocalist starts rhowling.. it reminds me lots of these Falchion songs I have. Not bad at all.

An instrumental section breaks it up, I'm really noticing the keys here, how very folkish of them. That's ok, I like it. I guess this is a chorus now? The beat halves and there's a guy doing deep clean vocals, doubling the words of the harsh vocals guy.

After this, the rhythm changes again and some male and female voices are harmonizing "ohh-ohhhh-ohh". This is followed by a bit of basic lead guitar. Read this paragraph twice because the same thing happens in the song.

At this point, it seems everything that's happened from the beginning of the song starts to happen again in nearly the same order. After the harmonizing choir, the lead guitar goes for lots longer and it finishes abruptly, but properly, on this.


Packed full of nice folk-metal riffings, the guitar and the variety of sounds made it interesting enough to last for the 6 minutes. It was within my heaviness tolerance and not too fast, so that's even better for me. While there was some good stuff happening, it didn't really get me that interested.. the "wow" factor didn't happen. I certainly wouldn't mind to hear more of their songs, but this song didn't make me want to go looking for them actively.
8/10

___________________________________

Dead Letter Circus - Lines .. new wave of aussie melodic rock (NWAMR)
[url]http://www.triplejunearthed.com/GetFile/94664/dlc-lines-128.mp3[/url]

Íon - Learpholl .. ambient folk [url]http://www.equilibriummusic.com/samples/%CDon_(Madre)_-_Learpholl.mp3[/url]

Falchion - Cursed To Live .. folk metal

Salmonella Dub - Problems .. dub

The Album Leaf - Eastern Glow .. post rock/electronic

bump : added another song

c'mon cunce

Dude I'm Bringin-in Soon

Ion - Learpholl (6:20)
 

The song starts with a female vocalist singing a rather poignant verse, and after maybe a half minute, the instruments start. It's a rather subdued, almost background, accompaniment to the vocalist, just a bass, acoustic guitar and perhaps a drum, though I'm not quite sure.

For nearly a minute the vocalist is quiet, and we have the instruments playing the same 2 bars of notes whilst sampled waves are played.

Around 3:10, the vocalist comes back in, which is a relief, since her voice is the main drive to the song.

At 3:54 there's movement at the station! A swell of music and a vocal harmony between the vocalist and another female comes in, making a very nice, and much needed change to the monotony of the song previously.

This continues for much of the rest of the song, and at the very end, we have a fadeout and some actual change from the instruments.

Overall, I'm giving it a 6/10. It's something that I enjoyed, but not so much that I'm going to buy the album, or even listen to the song regularly. Just a bit too simplistic, I suppose.

My picks:

Pink Floyd - Careful With That Axe, Eugene (Psychadelic Rock)
The Radiators - Gimme Head (Aussie Rock)
Extreme - Get The Funk Out (Hair Metal)

Yeah, it's an awesome song to get down and bump it.

I'll do THe Radiators if someone can send it to me over AIM or MSN. My university has blocked programs like limewire and Torrents.

AIM = rock15guitarist
MSN = [email]rock15guitarist@hotmail.com[/email]

Bump.

Can't download things at the moment, but if Riva feels like sending one to me, I'll get to it.

[b]Extreme - Get The Funk Out[/b]

Big manly drums and a bass line start the song. It's fairly bouncy. A really greasy sounding guitar starts up doing this lead/rhythm thing. The guy has a big rock voice. One of my friends was joking about "Manpower with guitars" once... and I can't help but picture anything but that for the guys playing this song.

The chorus is rifftastic and anthemic, but it's a bit cheesy with that sax. It sounds a bit like Collective Soul but with balls. I gather the lyrics are pretty much saying if you don't like something, stay away from it. Despite this guys big voice, he gets in a few whiny Mike Patton moments, kind of like his voice is on a wah pedal. Oh yeah, there are also backing vocals (Man vocals, of course)

It pretty much follows a verse, chorus, verse, chorus thing, with a few additions to pad it. In the middle, it gets a bit subdued... the sax is still going strong though, surely Manpower couldn't play a song like this without a guitar solo? Of course not. This guy is pretty fast on the guitar, I really wasn't expecting guitar soloing at such a speed. Lots of tapping and stuff, this sounds really quite cool.

After the solo, they do the chorus once more for good measure, then it ends on a rather proggy, stop-start rhythm, power outro with a big reverb laden drum hit finale. A huge wave of testosterone washes over the stage and onto the crowd (just like Creed's milk wave [see the [url]www.slowwave.com[/url] archives]).


Despite the slight cheese I detected, this was ok. The riffing was pretty good, it took a while to notice, but it is definitely clever, and that solo was on fire..
It's a good example of late 80s/early 90s hard rock. If I ever make another one of those "Man Music" compilation cds (already done it twice for jokes), this song is going on there for sure.

7/10

_______________________

Dead Letter Circus - Lines .. new wave of aussie melodic rock
[url]http://www.triplejunearthed.com/GetFile/94664/dlc-lines-128.mp3[/url]

Peccatum - Black Star .. chillout electronica/black metal, 8 minutes

The Album Leaf - Eastern Glow .. post rock/electronic

The National - Secret Meeting .. indie

DVDA - Now You're A Man .. man rock/humor

bumptation

I also love the beginning of He-Man Woman Hater with Dweezil Zappa's solo.

And dibs.

Dead Letter Circus - Lines (3:43)
 

The songs starts with a soft guitar line that builds up with drums and bass added in after a short time. The music puts me very much in mind of Dredg. Ah, the vocalists starts, a rather pleasant, typical male voice, but I'm happy that the tone isn't terrible (Aussie singers generally have awful or "distinctive" voices").

The song continues in much the same way, it seems to follow standard structure so far. The chorus is very catchy, and still reminds me very much of Dredg and Coheed & Cambria to a lesser extent.

There is much else to it, a nice bridge seperates the two choruses, but then again, this is a standard element in rock songs. The vocalist also didn't change much from his usual tone, but I was enjoying it nonetheless.

I quite liked the song, and it gains an extra point for being from an Aussie band. However, I would have liked to have heard a solo or a bit more of an extended instrumental section, although I know that such things aren't typical of the genre.

I'm giving it a 8.5/10

My picks:

Pink Floyd - Careful With That Axe, Eugene (Psychadelic Rock)
The Radiators - Gimme Head (Aussie Rock)
Richard Wright - Night Of A Thousand Furry Toys (Ambient/New Age Rock)