Thomas Brunkard - The Never Ending Album review

Year : 2014
Genre : classical, spaghetti, noir, cinematic, blues, experimental
Label : Independent
Origin : Ireland
Where to check it out : > - here - <

This review starts out with an informational snippet describing the shared dynamics of thought and creative ambition behind the reviewed project.

The Never Ending Album is a Soundcloud stream that will be continually expanded for as long I can make music. It's a dynamic album - traditional albums are now largely made redundant by the internet. This aims to marry the curatorship of a traditional album with the internet audience’s need for continual content.

These are my favourite tracks from my own works that I'll keep adding to as I deem something worthy.

If you enjoy the work here and would like to help me make more you can purchase my music from a range of online retailers as listed on my website:
brunkard.com/where-to-buy-a-never-ending-album/

You're support be it by liking, commenting or buying is heartfelt and appreciated.

Read on to know more about the tracks that so far are the components of the project.

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Charming Timur - A Brief Moment of Existence review

Year : 2014
Genre : Experimental, Metal
Label : Independent
Origin : Finland
Official site : > - here - <

This review starts out with a brief, introductory quotation snippet taken from the official BandCamp site of the reviewed contribution.

"Charming Timur is a one man musical planecrash not limiting to any genres in particular, but mostly revolving around Modern Metal, Nu Metal and various genres with the word "Post-" in front. Located in Helsinki."

The name of the game indeed is massively guitar centered silence massacre, coming to you focused and fine tuned along the rather brave-, nevertheless rigorously controlled variety. While the given musical space is molested with scientific grit, the production values reflect a constant awareness of how to prevent bleedthrough between the sonic elements, so each and every component is displayed in their respective anatomy in fully exhibited fashion.

Charming Timur is correct in saying how his personal taste of metal encompasses multiple fascinating extremities of it, since, interestingly enough, metal - as a main genre - itself incorporates a myriad variants of musical rhetorics and modal characteristics. As such, while the album starts out with a gritty/hefty mid-tempo opening that surely gets you in the mood to get through a door without ever touching a door knob, the second track is an immediate-, both risky and ballsy tour of trepidation into such a relentless brand of heavily sludge infected black metal that brings to mind immediate and rather pleasant Lord Mantis connotations. As you subject yourself to the full value experience, Charming Timur's definite and eloquently channeled black metal fascination is rendered rampant/evident in front of your curious ears and pineal gland. Read more to know about this album.

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In The Whale - Self Titled EP review

Year : 2014
Genre : Glam Rock with a Sludge affection
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - < and > - here - <

This review starts out with a verbatim quotation of the band biography snippet that has came with this review order.

In the Whale is a high energy, two piece rock band hailing from Denver, CO. Members Nate Valdez (vocals and guitar) and Eric Riley (drums and backing vocals) have been making no nonsense, balls-to-the-wall rock songs since they formed the band in 2011.
 
Since then, the two have stayed busy exploring the seedier sides of Denver that ¬inspires their music. In 2012 they released their first EP, ‘Cake’, and followed it up with the EP, ‘Eric’, in late fall 2013. In between releases the band has been featured in national commercials for Victory Motorcycles and have played with a stupid number of artists you'd happily phone home about. In addition to sharing stages with bands like Murder by Death,¬ Local H, Reverend Horton Heat and Electric Six, the band has hit the road and played alongside The Airborne Toxic Event, Agent Orange, Bob Log III, The Pack A.D. and Slash.

Read on to know more about the disc.

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The Steermen - High Tech Low Lifes review

Year : 2014
Genre : Soft Rock, Shoegaze
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : - > here - <

Chicago's Steermen bring you the ever-so-pertinent timelessness of a - logically - urbanistic sunset gloom, witnessed and addressed through inventively/creatively tormented sounds that are apt at revealing the almost obligatorily relentless morosity felt by a sentience who would desire true and relevant intimacy, but a city gets in a way, concealing the very next sentience feeling the same way, maybe, from 3 meters away from you - the presence is unbeknownst to your physical body, yet paradoxically you feel it 24/7, as you too, are it. Such is the design AND the ethos of the City and the album, - it does not have to be Chicago, either, though Chicago, I'd imagine, is the picture perfect candidate to crush your soul with a casual sunset in case you are in the receptive enough mood - as the LP reflects the urban isolation that secretly is felt by everyone at some time in their - haha - lifes. Read on to know more about the music.

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Mason Way & Blacky Kev - R.P.M. The Mixtape review

Year : 2014
Genre : Hip Hop 
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Relentlessly productive Mason Way and his prime collaborator Blacky Kev hardly bid farewell to two consecutive months without delivering a fresh mixtape in the process, as you surely must have noticed in case you frequent the hip hop segment of these pages. The duo is notorious of exhibiting an insatiable interest in all social dynamics that are relatable in some or all ways to the due courting of women: while this particular trademark theme-selection is still a fervent/virulent component on this freshest to date mixtape, a definite shift towards a more rigorously paced rapping similarly is observable. This fresh development reveals 12 entries delivered along a healthy EP length of 32 minutes. In the context of the mere backdrops, these contributions exhibit less movement and experimentive tendencies then you'd normally expect to hear from the duo and their current featurettes, yet a more orthodox display of laid back flow and word pacing showcases a surprising level of command the ensemble enjoys when it comes to standard 4/4 pulsations. Once the creative juices - pun might be very well intended - start flowing, it is hard to stop, and why would you. The exemplary productivity of the duo is something you want to keep an eye on - just make sure you'll have something to wipe the slime off with afterwards.

Check out "teh" new mixtape here.

GyZ at Bandcamp.

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Five Townz - Mama Told Me Not To Come track review

The track "Mama Told Me Not To Come" summons a tasteful narrative coalition of Timothy Leary-era soft rock psychedelia and golden era Beatles, although I can image that there are sentient beings AND Beatles aficionados fervent enough to question the implication that the Beatles had anything else than a prolonged golden era. Not too hard to have JUST that when you and Ringo are on so much LSD that you need to maneuver him off the ceiling using butterfly catchers. Five Townz's music is re-invigorated retroid viscera, realized with particularly efficient vocal performances and highly tolerable glam rock affectations. They never go "Elton, you are embarrASSing yourself", while the lead singer is capable to belt out so convincing and powerful - well - melodic jells that enjoy instant approval from mid range master shouters like "teh" Butch Balich or the Peter Steele. '70s playful psychedelic viscera, realized with recent production standards. An immediate recommendation for your listening pleasure. Check out the band at their official Facebook here.

GyZ at Bandcamp.

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YUCA - Maybe we'll riot (Official video)

Talented YUCA releases music video. If interested, you can read a review of their full length here.

This is the Official Music Video for YUCA's newest single "Maybe we'll riot" taken from their latest album "Rebuilding the fallen empire".

Rebuilding the fallen empire available to buy here: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/reb...
Or on bandcamp here: http://yuca.bandcamp.com/album/rebuil...
Band website: http://www.yuca.ca/

Copyright YUCA 2014
Rising Empire Records

GyZ at Bandcamp.

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USRE - This Is Texas EDM review

Year : 2014
Genre : Progressive House
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

This review starts out with a verbatim quotation chunk taken from a related promotional snippet.

USRE has set out to change the face of EDM with a Texas flair, celebrating his roots in the UNT Jazz Program. His big house melodic style embraces popular and hip hop music of the last decade, with a nod to the forerunners of the genre: Afrojack, Hardwell, Dyro, and Zedd. Bearing the famed Fort Worth "Molly" Longhorn resemblance in his logo, USRE has already found national and international air play with a few of his themed mixes for the summer, including "Special Reserve," "100% Agave," "Dark Horse," "Churchtastic," and "Smashed Summer."

Read on to know more about the music.

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Carry Illinois - Self-Titled EP review

Year : 2014
Genre : Southern Rock with a Doom Drone/Shoegaze fascination
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Though Texas-based Carry Illinois doubtless is Southern to the core, the ensemble is capable to instill more varied and intriguing colors into their compositions as "mere" southern rock conventions would require. The EP has an almost Funeral Doom - as in the extreme genre - feel to it, courtesy of the relentless and clever utilization of well handled analog instruments like tormented violin-sections and benjos. The Woods of Ypres meter demands at least a showoff! The singer almost always sings through a distortion device that conveys the effect as if he'd already been trapped in the static beyond the picture tube, - as Philip Anselmo would call it - and there is no chance to reconnect. There is no chance to connect to anything, because you are trapped in open space(s), and the only way out is through, so you might as well just pop this release in and submit to the outer space, and in it, into your so miserably lonely and - consequently - ego-driven inner space, indeed. Careful, this is just a game! Don't be SO serious, you might hurt yourself! Read on to know more about the disc.

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Juliane Jones - The Space Between The Telephone Lines review

Year : 2014
Genre : Folk
Origin : United States
Official site : > here - <

For extensive background information on Juliane Jones' identity and musical/artistic/linguistic background, please consult her site and read her biography. This text, on the other hand, will be a review of her latest work to date, "The Space Between The Telephone Lines".

The language used in the disc is a flamboyant mixture composed of constant interchange between English and Chinese Mandarin, while the stylistic/rhetoric/narrative demeanor and songwriting is hyperoptimally-ultra-naive and ultra-tender, primarily targeted for an awareness that I feel is yet-to-be-immersed into the ordeals and intriguing challenges of the casual physical realities - in other words, it sounds like kid's music to me, and I of course have zero problem with this. Read on to know why.

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Adam Gilbert - A Generation of Forgotten Kings review

Year : 2014
Genre : Glam Rock
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

With his latest to date LP "A Generation of Forgotten Kings", Adam Gilbert has constructed and soulfully realized a larger than life glam rock effort that remains faithful to the consensus meta-image of the genre as it was/is/will be portrayed by such pivotal notabilities of the style as prime Elton John, or prime Meat Loaf. The position of the music critic is equally pleasant and relatively uncomfortable in the present context, as this here immense bulk - 58 minutes - of exigent glam stimuli is doing everything in a manner as to politely and skillfully court the ethos of traditional glam narratives, - be prepared to be moved tremendously OR not at all - and the spin surely utilizes an ambitious and rich sound selection to pull this feat out with. The flow is relentless and more serious than death. Which is the proper way to play glam, and that is the frightening/laughable part. If you are into glam rock, then this exactly is what you want to hear, so the disc is a stable and solid effort. Read on to know more about it.

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diNMachine - Reason to Dance review

Year : 2014
Genre : Instrumental/Experimental Melodic Mindfuckery
Origin : United States
Official Site : > - here - <

Veteran silence assassin Michael Schumacher is the prime mastermind behind the relentless sonic machinations of the diNMachine project. The disc is doing a superb job at revealing the golden traditions of ancient era experimental synth pop directives in the sense that the musical fabric you are about to be subjected to, is absolutely crowded with scientifically researched and competently presented sounds. If you have seen the "Some Kind of Monster" documentary, then you had the chance to witness The Bob Rock resonate a primordial truth: sometimes it just takes a whooooooooooooooooooole lot of work to make an album, and Schumacher and his peers are definitely coming from the exact same productional ethos. The soundscape is meticulously detailed throughout, with an epic third installment that weighs in with 17 minutes of OH!, so luscious audio-infinity. Luckily, music only is happening in the "right here", in the "right now", as it essentially is being recreated upon each playing session, and the best synth pop/experimental albums are those that immediately demand 2342342 sit-throughs to form a competent opinion. Read on to know more about this.

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HoneyTrash - Suit & Tie review

Year : 2014
Genre : Indie Rock with a strong fascination of Doom and Sludge
Label : Independent
Origin: United States
Official site : > - here - <

HoneyTrash works best-, even bestest when its members are channeling the Black Sabbathian doom you can perceive the impervious silhouettes of in the background of pretty much all four songs on display herein. I don't even know of these men are aware of the quasi-fact that their music is supremely close to the timeless soul crushing charisma of sludge, but it might be so that their mere unawareness of it is the main attraction force of their strategies on how to defile silence with streamlined/hyper-optimized style and reckless abandon. The music on this EP always conveys the deceivingly calm sensation you feel before "teh" storm that is about to flatline the place you live in.

HoneyTrash, while misleadingly portraying itself as a stone-traditional indie blues rock affair upon surface inspection, is not reluctant nor incapable to instill superb sonic sensations of maddening decay into the fray, and a truly keen affection towards exotic, evil, aggressive chordal work also is observable: check out the chord being played in track number 2, at 3:20, for example: this is the type of harmony Cthulhu finds himself deeply affected of, pun not only intended, but willfully absorbed. Read on to know more about the disc.

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Mason Way & Blacky Kev - Elite Swag Part 2 review

Year : 2014
Genre : Hip Hop
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Where to check the album out : > - here - <

The ultra-productive Mason Way remains eager and relentless at creating then heftily propagating narrative expressions about skirt-chasing in urbanistic settings. The Elite Swag Part 2 mixtape is a richly detailed monster length, a rampant synthpop/hip hop collaboration highlighted by the sonic machinations of talented guest-notability Black Kev, whose spicy soundbeds and superb sense of rhythmic non-orthodoxies compliment the playful flow of Mason Way with the exact stylistic flamboyance both required and suitable to guarantee an eventful mid-tempo experience that assumes you to be a serious hip hop aficionado and not just a regular mancunt who is molested only by midgets while not even being videotaped. Read on to know more about this.

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Ain't No Other - Never Really Broke review

Year : 2014
Genre : Hip Hop with a '80s Darkpop Tint
Origin : United States

This review starts out with a verbatim quotation of the mini-biography this review order came with.

"A.N.O. is an underground artist from Virginia that released his first project in the winter of 1998. A.N.O. has always stuck to the creed of original music to compliment his light shallow voice bringing his style to life. His career followed a long collection of solo and group projects which from 2006 to recent have been published. He took a 4 year hiatus after his 2008 release titled "Yellow". Experimenting in various genres he released various projects under the stage name of Leon Coles. Returning to the scene again under Ain't No Other with his release "The Album I Threw Away" in 2012, A.N.O. spent the next couple of years touring with The Outer Circle until the 2014 release "Never Really Broke".

Read on to know more about the disc.

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a Big Hit Buda listening session

Year : 2014
Genre : Hip Hop
Label : Independent
Origin : United States

Hip hop prospect Big Hit Buda is about to be faithful to his name, and score one on your awareness. This review is based on his almost-complete upcoming full length.

"Freak Juice" is the most experimentive track on the release, and also is the perfect opening. The overall demeanor of the disc is prone to provoke nicely planned out collisions between melodic central hooks and supra-orthodox hip hop pulsations, and this particular track is a perfect example of this mandatory strategy. The lazy/hilarious 8-bit video game base reveals a structure that offers a whole set of fields in its anatomy to discover-, even cleverly exploit melodic and hip hop attractions on. I especially like the culmination of the hook, by which the originally simplistic sung line turns into a funk-flavored melodic statement Mike Patton would gladly give to you.

"Heart of a Champion" is a definite highlight that dares to come forth with one of the most fundamental - and therefore efficient - pop chord-progressions, and STILL manages to make it work superbly via the utilization of clever rhythmic patterns. The multiple saturations of the same idea is key herein. Featurette Vanessa Jordan is rendering a lush vocal hook with which she commands the whole build to gravitate around her voice, and it is no wonder that the rapping of Big Hit Buda submits willingly if and when home is Vanessa Jordan.

"Let the music play" summons early '90s charm power, as it really has "2 Unlimited" written all over it. The re-visitation of such roots might seem risky in a scene with expectations sprouting forwards without restraints. Although discarding those for the retroid 4/4 pummel power is a gesture that is capable to stand strong on its own merit, the rampant reliance on autotune might bestow an extreme effect on you. But not necessarily a bad effect, either: be prepared to '90s vibes.

"Stand Strong" once again establishes a particularly intact melodic background via the utilization of two nicely selected chords that intersect the living field between spirituale and house, spiced up by a decent vocal ingredient and a particularly beautiful high frequency synth-pattern. A fantastic moment! The rapping of Big Hit Buda compliments the flow from a very well researched place - mix-wise - , as his presence is relentless and unquestionable, and still, the dominant performance manages to emerge as gentle at the same time, being careful not to hurt its surroundings via peaking into territories it has no business at. A superbly constructed, ultra-orhodox hip hop track with real soul and thought.

"Who I Am" is another massively melody-driven piece, with Ashleigh Munn giving you the funk-spirited stoic declaration of will. Declarations of will are especially uplifting when given by women. You know why? Because women are complete already. That is why men want them. As with the previous track, Big Hit Buda compliments the pacing of the 4/4 pulsation with safe self-reinforcements that reek all the charms and charisma of a self help book, not as if I'd find anything wrong with that.

GyZ at Bandcamp.

If you want, check out my music

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Buy me beer. Read more!

Electrician - WET AND RIPPING THE LAKE IN TWO review

Year : 2014
Genre : Supersonic Egotrip
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

This review starts out with a verbatim quotation snippet taken from the official description of the perennial aim and driving intention behind this project. Here it goes: "Shadowy, intimate songs about death and destruction and friendship."

AND a healthy amount of  extremities mixed into/over the placid-, massively acoustic and super-introverted monologues that constitute half of this brief but rather eventful effort, also are thoroughly audible. The album has its own and cunningly arbitrary logic, and it does not necessarily care if you can reverse-engineer that logic. The disc, as an overall experience, triumphantly manages to instill the fascinating sense into you that you are quite welcome to fuck off anytime anywhere. Sometimes you'll be able to relate, sometimes you'd love to, but you are deliberately kept from doing it, as is the case in the context of the opening track, for instance - in which very nice but very radical symbolism is on instant audio display.

Check the opening song as a conceptual statement: the actual melodic structure - vocals, harmonies, etc. - is situated in a larger-than-the-galaxy-grade white noise, and this methodology, according to my suspicions, aims to express the secretive/silent(ive), and seemingly - but falsely - quite heart wrenching assumption that you can't TRULY-, 100% tune in to a super-autonomous reality other than the "allegedly yours", not in the present human condition you have to evolve your consciousness through at the moment. I have just claimed that this illusion is not REALLY an illusion worth to lose one or a series of minds over, since, paradoxically enough, what prevents you from tuning to "another" reality, is the very bundle of the ego-burdens and ego-liabilities you want to release. There is no fundamental difference between the awareness that seeks to approach, appreciate and comprehend "another" awareness, because they are fundamentally one already. But this, of course, is not so, if you are separating yourself from everything else deliberately. THEN you can be a false you. You can do that, and this disc is fervent at doing so. Read on to know more about this.

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Mike Hill Management - Three Words: Welcome to Germany review

Year : 2014
Genre : Hip Hop
Label : Independent
Origin : Germany/United States
Official site : > - here - <

Mike Hill Management is a transatlantic sonic syndicate seeking to facilitate creatively lucrative collaborations between hip hop artists who, despite populating different continents of the planet, are still being fueled by similar urban dynamics in the context of their day to day lives. The album is massively mid tempo, laid back, kind, friendly, fun, thorough in its intentions, and features a deep scoop from the smartly targeted talent pool, oftentimes pairing up female and male rappers in successful attempts to convey additional vocal flavors and grit to the individual contributions. The disc has an element of interconnection, a consistency, which is none other than a fascination towards rich, reverberating '80s sounds that do not seek to intimidate, yet claim the right to come across with unquestionable rigor and ultra-steroid subwoofer volumetrics. Read on to know more.

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Chaser Eight - At the 426 EP review

Year : 2014
Genre : Soft Rock / Synth Pop Crossover
Label : Independent
Official site : > - here - <

Chaser Eight seems and sounds like a duo - at least - of autonomous individuals, and I'm 100% sure that it features minimum 1 lady and 1 gentleman. I like the fact that the record is misleading. Because no one is sitting on the stairs on the cover. Finally, some legitimate originality and much welcomed spiritual grit. I mean - you sitting on a step of a brief stairway, giving morose face to a crimson sky, and all this on your album cover? Seriously? Based on the first track, you'd assume that Chaser Eight's female lead singer is not yet comfortable with her mixed voice register, but tries to use it/to explore it anyway - this always is very admirable. Later on, when you are about to articulate a silent covert moan, you realize that she was only doing this rendition of an intentionally super-repressed mixed voice delivery, to be kind, so the male singer has a chance to exist on the right channel of the mix. In reality, - AND, "out" of it - she could obliterate the whole build with her singing power. AND luckily!! By the second verse, when she finally showcases full throat power, - which, let's be honest, the only thing you've been waiting for - she comes across as very powerful and efficient. But listen to that "me" in the line "you and me" at the chorus - no one believes that, not even her. This is the charm of it, the male on the right channel accepting that he is in a musical position in which the female is holding back, so he can exist, too. Spiritual, baby! Read on to know more.

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Thomas Schoenberger - Ghost Dance

Thomas Schoenberger is an American music composer who opens 2014 up with unleashing his "Ghost Dance" experience on mainstream public awareness. Since the interconnection between music and imagery is ultra-organic and of the uttermost narrative relevance, this time I will consciously refrain from offering my subjective "opinion", as mine is not anymore, nor any less relevant than the virtually infinite number of that of others, invoked by perfectly legitimate fellow intelligences. What seems to be quite evident, is the following : Thomas Schoenberger aims to summarize the perennial experiences of wo(man)kind, dating back to the plethoras of paradigmic inventions and calamities - the great tragedies of historic significance all included. I know from personal experience that German people are traumatized into hypnosis-grade guilt in the context of WW2, courtesy of the educational system, even though the current German gene bank hardly could held responsible for sins committed by a regime led by ambitions rabid enough to entertain the idea of planetary domination via occult resources. Yes, it is important to remember, but it equally is important to have the will to forgive. This is the most supreme spiritual act you could pull off, so why not take your chances at it? If you prove to be unable to forgive - then this tells quite much about you, too, doesn't it? 

Watch the video below and let it take you where it may.


GyZ at Bandcamp.

If you want, check out my music

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Buy me beer. Read more!