Herman Martinez - Solopsi Radio review

Year : 2015
Genre : Post Rock with Massively Dark Psychedelia and Sludge/Doom affections
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site: > - here - <

Herman Martinez's Solopsi Radio is the doubtless undeniable result of a creative process that has spawned throughout 18 months, all aimed at the production of a bulk of material that convey the hallmarks of Martinez's musical vision along the combined criterias of precision and authenticity.

Solopsi Radio is a super-thorough medley of sonic stares into the nietzsche-ian abyss, as carefully arranged auditory discord-, and the constant challenge declared towards the riskless conventions of harmony and emotional comfort, are all on relentless and resourceful display herein.

Seldom are the times when the cover of an album AND the sounds arranged into said spin are in a perfect symbiosis of reiforcement with each other, and such is the case herein. Once you witness a deliberately AND convincingly sociopathic facial expression on an album cover, you are free to assume that you are either in for a treat you won't likely want to forget OR remember. The album cover photo is an irrefutable invitation: "Come find out, if you think you have balls."

Luckily enough, Martinez's music is both rich and meticulously sculpted enough to convince one on spot that the facial expression on the cover is not "just" an efficient method of invitation, but, in fact, you will get exactly what is promised, only more of it AND more colorful of it than you have hoped for.

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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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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.

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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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Blacky Kev & QweEzY & Mason Way - Invasion review

Year : 2013
Genre : Hip Hop
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Invasion is fueled by a one time (?) supergroup collaboration between the three hip hop performers noted on the cover of the release. The disc sports a length most suitable to lay out a decent EP flow on, and such is the case, indeed : Invasion outlines heavily - and tastily - arpeggiated harmonic structures that reveal the musical moods of the coin op beat 'em up games of the '80s - a brilliant vibe, doubtless - delivering an almost polite-, friendly type of rapping by the contributors. The disc is pretty much free of subterfuge and intimidation, while the main base of operation the flow -ha, ha. - inspects, is sex, and the 'hoes to have it with. When sexism is portrayed through the lens of cartoon comic vibes, your only legitimate fear can not be anything else than that you might end up getting left out of it - from the cartoon sexism, not out of fear. Fear not, or do nothing else, then read on to know more about this disc.

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Keenan bros - Blood. Sweat. Tears. EP review

Year : 2013
Genre : Lounge Hip Hop with Soul and Pop affections
Label : Independent
Official site : > - here - <
Rating : 9.2 / 10

The Keenan bros are into the niche of music that was ultra-prominent in the early and mid '90s, popularized mainly by such boygroups as Take That! or Boyz 2 Men. There IS an optimum extra-, a beneficial deviation added to the top, and quite literally so. The Keenan bros are full fledged lounge rappers - no swearing or subterfuge-tendencies - and they spice up these otherwise stone-traditional pop/soul tracks with fluent rapping that renders a continuous, exigently developed layer to catch your attention with. Read on to know more about this.

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Mason Way - The Full Thing mixtape review

Year : 2013
Genre : Hip Hop, mixtape
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

The Full Thing aims to be an immaculate compilation of the most ripe moments of none less than 7 mixtapes Mason Way came out with in this very year alone. The FUNNY thing about the Full Thing is that Mason Way has developed a full fledged hip hop identity without even realizing it : apart from certain sonic extremes revealed on the disc - some rare cases where a lower volume level of drums would definitely benefit the flow more - the mixtape delivers a ripe, and playful variant of hip hop on the surface level, while the majority of the narration revolves around the most cosmological, the most beneficial man can desire : lamentations about instant pussy vicinity! FINALLY! You will have quite a few declarations fixated on this key subject in an optimal manner - no tastelessness, just the truth. This truth is the following : women are the BEST, but it takes a man to recognize it. Read on to know more about The Full Thing mixtape.

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Thomas J - Money Sex Religion Mixtape review

Year : 2013
Genre : Hip Hop
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

The talent pool of the upcoming hip hop artists seems and sounds to be especially deep, and Thomas J is one of the dudes whose feet touch the floor of said pool while his head popping out at sky levels, yo. (Makes you wonder how come I see it, yes?)

The Money Sex Religion Mixtape makes superb and efficient use of classic-, timeless grooves and harmonic passages you will greet as significant friends you once had AND still have. Many of these nicely realized synth pop backdrops have their origins deeply seated in famous and relevant musical patterns established by different sub-genres and their respective eras, yet Thomas J always delivers a full blown take on the given idea, not relenting until dressing a separate identity around it with the same experience in it, so to say. Sounds convoluted? Good, because that is the agenda.

Thomas J has a beneficial tendency to rap his stuff out as if there would be no tomorrow, - and who's to say there IS, all right?? - conveying a sense of intensity that remains intact even in the more placid sonic declarations of urban city - which I know is a tautology, feel free to soak tongue in rectum in rhythmic fashion until further notice - experience point harvesting. A combination of exceptionally colorful backdrops and abundant amount of lyrical content showcased in the respective songs, Thomas J's Money Sex Religion reveals to me everything I have ever thought about rap so far, and then something more - which is the hallmark of a top tier hip hop record, to be perfectly frank. Read on to know more about this effort and about my overall sentiments towards the upcoming hip hop artists, in the context of this very album right here.

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Meroe - Suite 524 review

Year : 2013
Genre : Hard Rock with a Power Metal overtone
Label : Independent
Origin : Germany
Official Facebook site : > - here - <

Though this Munich based ensemble strictly refers to itself as hard rock, the veteran formation clearly has a keen and eloquent affection towards Iron Maidenesque power metal, even the ever-present tendency of vibrant/colorful instrumental passages that characterize the prestigious Brits, are equally ubiquitous throughout this Steel Balls of Eloquent Heft Straight Out-delivery.

The name of the primordial game is melody driven iron-smithing orchestrated to pretty much perfectly realized-, massively guitar centered production values. The sound is simultaneously beefy, yet skillfully restrained in its naturally rampant and whimsical volumetrics. Track number 5, "I am", gives you great opportunity to immerse in the naked sound - yesyespleaseplease - which doubtless radiates that famous German precision. This type/variant of uncompromisingly high standard is maintained on the spin with an iron fist, and now it really is the matter of the quality of the content itself, which necessarily draws and delivers the true identity of this outing. Read on to know more about it.

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a Project S.N.A.R.E. listening session

Year : 2009 to present day
Genre : Experimental with Psychedelic overtones
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Project S.N.A.R.E. is a collaborative effort between various artists, centered primarily around  the sonic gravitational pulls established by the overall musical direction of Scan Hopper - review here and here - yet more emphasis is devoted towards experimental tendencies.

Flamboyancy and a keen readiness to offer clear thoughts through well varied saturations are key ingredients on these unusually eloquent deliveries. The music still is psychedelic quasi-soft rock at heart - heft-rode insanity and gritty distortion power are not on the current invitee list - but the structural elements of the music are simultaneously less/more constrained, courtesy of the smart limitations regarding the mere sonic real estate they are occupying - seldom are the times that a given segment would entertain the fabric for more than a couple of minutes, and the listener's musical awareness is courted skillfully along gentle registers of constant variation.

A given musical space is traded for yet another on a relentless-, yet tame "basis-tunnel", while the element of interconnection between these environments equates with the overall tone of these collective contributions that never lose sight of a massively psychedelic, yet gently experimental agenda. They can live on their own, and they can be assembled to a monolith-experience for the enjoyment of the devoted soulseeka'. Read on to know more about the project.

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Taylen - Masque EP review

Year : 2013
Genre : Power Metal Progressive Metal
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Taylen's Masque EP brings to you pink teen pop with sugar and chocolate syrup on top, which equates with the most optimal sonic medley in case what you are looking for is nothing else or less than what this ultra-soft and idealistic lookout on life has to offer at immediate and intentionally superficial observation.

The disc, I feel, is primarily targeted for a younger and preferably female audience, since, though I condone no particular qualms or caveats at all towards the installment, - and sub-zero towards a female ethos - its relentless urge to conform to the teenager emotional disposition is rampant/evident throughout. There is nothing wrong with being a teenager. It is a state, and this is the very music that seeks to reflect on the intentionally positivistic aspects of said state. Read on to know more about this.

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Souljunky - I Found Your Dream review

Year : 2012
Genre : Melodic Rock, Soft Rock, Disco
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Chigaco based Souljunky brings exceptionally smart and eloquently shaped melodic soft rock, radiating a vibe that has full throttle capacity to convey the emotional disposition of the highest peaks of a laid back, slick retroid character. Think of the tremendous Scarface soundtrack, and embed a bit - JUST a bit - of The Cure, the golden era of disco, a form of Bee-Gees without the high pitch head voice singing into it, and spice the resultant mix with a keen understanding of how to construct memorable choruses of dignity and harmonic elegance Aerosmith style. This isn't all yet : I personally am cosmically horrified by the music of U2 and I don't like it (that much [at all]), yet, this particular formation manages to convey the ethos of U2, too - SIC! - via their more mysterious and dainty contributions. Read on to know more about this Souljunky LP.

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Mercury Underground - debut EP review

Year : 2012
Genre : Modern Rock
Label : Independent
Origin : Scotland
Official site : > - here - <

Buy it now

Mercury Undergound is a Glasgow based modern rock group which sounds completely committed to bring you the classic era of said parent genre with recent production standards, pulling this stunt off without falling to the other side of the horse, where over-production is as pronounced of a danger as is volume-fetischism. The situation of the miserable music critic is pleasant now, as the debut LP of scrutinized ensemble comprises of three muscularly realized, straightforward modern rock tracks indeed, and the love for the genre-, the solid understanding of it is tight and convincing throughout. Read on to know more about this slick-, massively guitar centered EP.

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Andaone - Computer Love review

Year : 2010
Genre : Electronic, Hip Hop, Dance with a touch of Ambient
Label : New Move Records
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Andaone is both the person and the moniker behind the Computer Love project, a healthily sized quasi-EP that does a steady job of administering straight-to-the-dancefloor pop rhetorics on the surface, but it gets even better than the orthodox 4/4 pummeling. First and foremost, the backdrops are relentlessly chased by eloquently sculpted rap sequences, while the music has a reoccurring tendency to entertain the ears with pretty well developed instrumental sequences of a tamer approach from time to time. It is not an exaggeration to regard relevant parts of the flow as top of the heat hip hop warfare, either. The track called "360" is a competent, brisk rap installment with clever lyrics and a hook that grips the throat of an urbanistic contemporary inner experience you surely will be familiar with if and when you live in any civilized (hah.) city. Read on to know more about Computer Love.

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Vexxus - Binary Reflection review

Year : 2012
Genre : Groove Thrash Hybrid
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Rating : 8.8 / 10

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Vexxus is an independent groove/thrash hybrid hailing from Hell in the way of the United States of America, and, while their debut "Binary Reflection" is a release that comes to you with high octane garage-charisma production values, the notion I just told you makes said contribution one of the most likable pieces of the current year so far, in my opinion. The guitars are smartly limited in their mean intentions to occupy all that much sonic volumetrics, - a production strategy similar in character to that of Pharaoh's - focusing instead on rendering the guitar anatomy "just sufficiently enough" so you are able to make out the spiritual message no problem, IF you are serious about it. Yes, surprise, surprise : sometimes you need to look for the music, and this baby right here delivers it aptly, once you are serious about paying attention to it. Guys, let's talk about this record.

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John Harrison - None Like You EP review

Year : 2012
Genre : Christian Soft Rock Worship Music
Label : Independent
Origin : Australia
Official site : > - here - <

Your free will and its premiere thought patterns do not necessarily need to be constructed and operated through a Christian belief system to recognize that Australian John Harrison's worship contribution "None Like You" represents a tame and exigent shape in consensus when inspected through the lenses of what it wants to do.

It, of course is entirely up to the individual to see if she/he needs a belief system at the core that has a comforting plug and play answer to each and every issue, yet, the album undoubtedly reigns complete and "relatable to", regardless if you admire the fact that it is openly out there to embrace an anthropomorphic image of God or do not. Your opinion, this time, does not matter, and it does not have to. See? The agenda of the contribution is to administer finely constructed Christian worship music, and it satisfies this criteria trustily and steadily. Read on to find out more about this disc.

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Rahat - A Seraph's Gift review

Year : 2012
Genre : Hip Hop
Label : Independent
Origin : United States in way of Bengali
Official site : >- here - <

Buy it at Bandcamp

This review starts out with a brief bio of Rahat, taken from the official site. Here it is : "Rahat is a Bengali Hip Hop artist from The Bronx New York. He has been rapping for fun since Middle School as a way to impress his girlfriends, but it quickly evolved into a way of life once he saw how effective it was as both a form of stress relief and a way to tell the stories of his life and situations growing up in The Bronx."

Rahat's full length hip hop declaration has a multitude of smartly limited ways of registering in you, and the way you accept the stimuli is largely - in fact, primarily - dependent on the nervous system you happen to approach it with. What I personally like about the delivery is the super-tame cyberpunk vibe it sounds to exhibit throughout all in the audio-spirit of the classic video game Killer Instinct. As prestigious as said title is, it needs to be mentioned that the music production standards have been tamely evolving since then, yet the Seraph's Gift CD emerges valiant enough to disregard this, embracing the '90s synthpop ethos like there is no tomorrow, nor yesterday. Read on to find out more about this.

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A.I.(d) - Disorder review

Year : 2012
Genre : Instrumental Djent with Electronic/Dubstep leanings
Label : Independent
Origin : France
Rating : 8.5 / 10

Check out the project at the :
Official Bandcamp site
Official Facebook site

A.I.(d) - Disorder is an instrumental djent project by one man band Lou Gregoire, colored and spiced up nicely by tints and shades of playful electronica and minimalistic dubstep elements. Do not commit the mistake of prejudice and dismiss the contribution as a probable hybrid of bloated-, yet coarsely realized aspirations, as the Disorder LP is uncompromising-, aggressive mid-tempo djenting first and foremost, and remains as such even on the second intense scrutiny session. The elements of electronica are more of a cleverly used ornamentic character, coming to you through elements that you are not likely to pick up on at the first go. Example : Lou Gregoire likes to employ extremely fragile but persistent high frequency details here and there, and I'm not talking about the evident high frequency liquid synths, - which similarly kick toxic sci-fi toad butt - but about the strange and efficient "8-bit gargles/beeps/squeels/parrot noises" he offers buried deep within the sonic mass. Like on track number 2, "Skyrush" : listen between 3:40 to 3:47, left channel to right channel : WTF!!? this is a parrot!

The disc, as noted, is delightfully yet soberly aggressive in temper, and consorts nicely at heart to traditional djent - sooner or later someone had to write such a term - warfare : the basic character of the music seeks to mime Meshuggah metal, yet the actual fabric is funnily/inventively schizophrenic in its anatomy, refraining from-, remaining incapacitated to deliver along an actual-, mathematical formula that Meshuggah is the premiere employer of. Your current host, Lou Gregoire, as other artists are, is similarly content with the trademark Meshuggah 4/4 cymbal, and, from then one, deviation from that 4/4 core is necessarily great fun, no matter how you arrange the djenting in the sequencer - and that is the story of this release, as well. Read on to find out more about this.

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Jerrod Harlan - Hello Ontario EP review

Year : 2012
Genre : Synthpop with Atmospheric Shoegaze character
Label : Independent
Origin : United States
Official site : > - here - <

Introductory information is taken from the artist's website :

"Hello Ontario is the music project of Pittsburgh’s Jerrod Harlan. Only 20 years old and Harlan’s already made a name for himself playing top venues throughout the Alleghenies, including Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Hello Ontario’s flavor of modern indie/electronic has been compared to the bands Of Montreal and The Postal Service.

Actually, you’ll hear a wide range of influences in Hello Ontario, including Foster The People, Breathe Electric, Tokyo Police Club, Death Cab For Cutie and even the legendary Buddy Holly. Quite a ride, considering Harlan first learned to play guitar when he broke his arm! What is a musician at heart to do, with an arm casted at 90 degrees? He also plays synthesizer, piano, bass, and does vocals. Harlan has a wanderlust for sharing his music far and wide and yet, he has an ace card of a solid musical education. He studied music theory and composition at the highly prestigious performance arts charter school, Lincoln Park Performing Arts. Hello Ontario has played to jam-packed audiences at coffee shops, festivals and charity concerts."

Read on to find out how the music sounds.

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