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Review Thursday: Comeback Kid / BXI / Run With The Hunted
Run With the Hunted
Destroy All Calendars
Panic Records
Phoenix, Arizona’s Run With The Hunted is a band to watch out for in so many ways. Upon first listening to this four-track album you can quickly hear a difference to all the other bands out there. The technical prowess of the band is a ridiculous amalgamation of heavy and beautiful. The change-ups are confounding and can sometimes switch into math-core effortlessly before the unified anthems resume. The vocalist lends a poignancy to the band to create a new but familiar form of hardcore that will soon devour the world. The sheer desperation, contempt and emotion of his voice is something that few people have mastered in any musical genre, and he seems to accomplish it all while screaming his guts out. Run With The Hunted have signed to Panic Records and will be releasing their full length debut album in the near future, your job is to love them now, before they blow the roof off of the music business.
BXI
BXI EP
Southern Lord
Rock music makes for some strange bedfellows. Case in point: The new BXI EP, a collaboration in-between The Cult's Ian Astbury and Japanese noiserock maestros Boris. A mutual admiration in-between the two acts led to the creation of this disc, an uneven collection of four by-the-numbers rock tunes, complete with a cover of The Cult's "Rain".
The consensus after repeated listens is that it's kind of like checking out a series of strange mash-ups. The vocals don't quite match the music, and even at its best (EP closer "Magickal Child") the music and the vocals don't quite mesh in the way that they're supposed to with this format of rather traditional tunes.
Perhaps the band and Astbury were aiming for this very effect when recording the EP, which wouldn't be surprising considering Boris' rather interesting discography. Still, such a strange pair-up is bound to be worth checking out for marquee value alone, although this is geared more towards Boris purists, and not necessarily to the casual Cult fan.
Comeback Kid
Symptoms and Cures
Distort Entertainment
Testicular fortitude, that’s what Comeback Kid have an over abundance of. Hailing from Winnipeg, Manitoba this five-piece hardcore act has broken into markets all over the world with their sing-along style. Since the departure of original vocalist Scott Wade, former guitarist Andrew Neufeld took the mic with an unimagined outcome. Neufeld had a voice that surpasses Wade in every way possible. The intensity, frustration, and call for unity coalesced to create this new CBK and fans everywhere collectively sighed. While most hardcore bands continue practicing and refining their abilities until they switch over to playing a more metal hybrid version of hardcore, CBK has gone another direction with the newest album Symptoms and Cures. The new incarnation has all the hardcore you could want with a return to the punk sounds that captivated and unified generations. This is such a perfectly balanced record, the heaviness, melodies, and pure artistry of CBK is one that every Canuck should support. You should buy this album because CBK chose not to sell out and give you the metal tinged HC that is so common lately, and that, kids, takes balls.
CJLO News September 8th 2010
News Read and Produced by Drew Pascoe
Stories written by Samah Fadil, Jonathan Moore, and Gareth Sloan
Quick Hitter
Hello there and hope you all had a brilliant summer and don't mind my sporadic posting of news stories here. For more regular post you can check out the New Media and Politics blog (it's a lot more opinionated -- these are news stories you shouldn't miss regardless of how busy school and life get).
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study has found that Canada spends more and more on higher education, an increasing percentage of the cost is borne by students and their families. In financial terms, the benefits of a postsecondary education to individuals and Canadian society at large far outweigh the costs -- the OECD estimates that the average Canadian man with a college or university education makes more than three times what he put into getting such an education, both in terms of direct costs and lost wages. For the average woman, the gain is more than double the cost.
Findings contained in Education Indicators in Canada, a wide-ranging collection of data released by the Council of Education Ministers, that looks at education levels found Canadians are better educated than they were a decade ago and have some of the highest rates of post-secondary attendance in the developed world.
Sadly and incomprehensibly the report also shows that women are graduating from both high school and post-secondary in much higher numbers than men, but continued to earn far less in the workforce.
A message from Program Director Brian Joseph
Hello CJLO Listeners,
I’m in Zurich, Switzerland right now with Head Music Director Omar Husain, representing CJLO and Canada at the first International Radio Festival. As much as I love this opportunity I must admit that it is a little sad that I will not be in Montreal for the launch of the CJLO Fall 2010 Schedule. If you haven’t already taken a look at the new schedule, click on the ON AIR tab for a look at what's new. Since our launch on the AM band in 2008, every year has been one of growth and this schedule is another example of how much we’ve grown. From station staples like our morning show; New Media & Politics to new shows like Amsterdam; the programming is sure to entice you and keep you coming back for more.
So take a few minutes to check out the schedule, click on your favorite shows and maybe a few shows you have never heard before. Explore the site, comment on blog posts and have fun on CJLO.com. If you don’t find anything that interests you, become a volunteer at CJLO and be a voice for the music you love. My logic is that there are always more people out there that have similar interests, and it just takes one person to represent them.
I hope you enjoy the schedule and I’ll see you all at CJLO’s DisOrientation events later this month.
Sincerely,
Brian “Döc Holidæ” Joseph
CJLO News September 3rd 2010
News Read By Erica Fisher and Produced by Drew Pascoe
Stories written by Chris Hanna, Alina Gotcherian, and Erica Fisher
Review Thursday: Ill Bill & DJ Muggs / Minus The Bear
Minus The Bear
Omni
Dangerbird Records
Minus The Bear is one of those bands that people tell me I should listen to, but I never really get around to doing. You know the bands. Your friend says, "Hey, you should listen to this you might like it," and you agree to listen, but you never get around to listening or you listen to one or two song on a Myspace profile and you never quite hear again. I listened to some Minus the Bear stuff and remembered liking it, but truth be told, I couldn't tell you anything about the couple of songs I heard, so when I was asked if I wanted to review their latest album, Onmi, I thought, "Well, I really should. People have been telling me about them for what seems like forever now; it's time to get this done."
This is the band’s fourth album, and having only heard a sparse amount of things from their previous work, I may not be qualified to say if Minus the Bear fans will like Omni. However, this isn’t going to stop me from reviewing this album. Maybe it makes me more qualified to review it since I’m less biased than everyone else. Or it really doesn’t matter at all and I should just get to the review.
I have to say that I really like this album. It’s a pleasant bunch of tunes that are upbeat and ultimately make me happy to listen to. (Now of course, since I am me, that is going to now be qualified by a bunch of different statements to make this sound like I‘m contradicting myself.) However, I do realize that this album has some faults within its happy confines. I can tell you that it doesn’t have nearly as many weird time signature changes that made previous songs that I’ve heard so interesting. This might not mean much though since I haven’t heard many songs, so I’m not going to go in depth into this point. I think the main problem with this album is that ultimately it’s kind of boring. Many of the songs sounds similar and there’s not too much variation. One songs bleeds into another into another. There’s undeniable catchiness to the album, but it’s a catchiness that is repeated over and over again.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that for this album the band played all their songs all the way through rather than piece them together in the studio afterwards like on previous efforts. [1] Maybe it has to do with the fact that they signed to Dangerbird and got a new producer. Maybe they just haven’t taken enough uppers… I don’t know. What I do know is that this album lacks a variety that makes you stand up and take notice, and is also kind of sparse on energy, not making a great album to keep you awake.
But, it’s still a good album. It managed to keep me entertained while I did other things on the computer, and it’s got kind of a, for lack of a better term, "brainless" quality to it, where you can listen and you don’t really have to think too much about it. In addition it really made me feel good in a happy way after listening to it, which most albums don’t really do.
To sum it up, this album is a good album if you want to add some background to your work day, or if you want to relax and listen to something that isn’t going to tax your brain. However, maybe, for everyone’s safety the album should have a warning on it that reads, "Caution: may cause drowsiness. Use caution when operating heavy machinery." Safety first after all.
Comments, critiques, good ideas for preparing steaks: gradeaexplosives@cjlo.com
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Ill Bill And DJ Muggs
Kill Devil Hills
Uncle Howie Records
The days of the rap albums with a singular vision are largely gone. The album-length collaboration in-between producer and rapper is one of a special nature: the marriage in-between words and music, between meaning and sonic space is one of very careful balance. The phenomenon rarely happens in this age of hit-fuelled, star-producer-requiring outings, trading in artistic value for commercial viability when a rapper teams up with a menagerie of hit producers of the minute. So it's a breath of fresh air to see a project as such Kill Devil Hills come about, with the edgy darkness of the beats created by DJ Muggs, balancing out rapper Ill Bill's politically-tinged bars.
Much like he did for the GZA in 2005 with their collaborative album Grandmasters, DJ Muggs returns to man the boards for almost all tracks (the lone stand-out is an interlude) on Kill Devil Hills, creating a murky sonic atmosphere for which Uncle Howie Records spitter Ill Bill can drop his conspiracy-laced rhymes.
Opener "Cult Assassin" sets the tone: dark synth lines and chopped-up drum sample that sounds like a funeral dirge play over Bill's rhymes, chock full of paranoia and conspiracy theories. He even references the track "Doomsday Was Written In An Alien Bible" from his 2008 record The Hour Of Reprisal as the song ends, adding a linking narrative element to his music.
Many of Bill's frequent collaborators appear on the record: La Coka Nostra bandmates Everlast and Slaine appear on the track "Skull And Guns" (which, coincidentally, is also the image that appears on La Coka Nostra's debut album), and Raekwon guests on one of the album's better songs, "Chase Manhattan", a two-minute bank-robbing tale that gives an apt play-by-play as Rae and Bill trade off. Jedi Mind Tricks mastermind Vinnie Paz as well as Sick Jacken, Sean Price and Cypress Hill member B-Real also make an appearance and add their own flavour to a number of tracks.
Muggs manages to keep the atmosphere heavy with grimy drum samples and a virtual army of nasty-sounding keyboards production that while in theory sound boring, does actually manage to differentiate itself enough from song to song to stay intriguing.
Although KDH is a largely satisfying record, the repetition of lyrical themes grates after a while, and the record, comprised of 13 songs and 3 interludes, is just long enough to get its message out before it overstays its welcome, a problem with other Ill Bill releases. We get that he wants everyone to know about The Illuminati and that society is brainwashed, we just don't need to be beaten over the head with the hamfisted approach Bill takes to writing.
Tonight on Grrls Groove!
French singer-songwriter Marianne Aya Omac (who blew everyone away at Nuits D'Afrique) will perform and be interviewed on Grrls Groove tonight, September 2nd from 10pm to 11pm EST!
News September 1st 2010
Read by Emily Brass and Elle Magni.
Produced by Nicholas Fiscina.
Stories written by Candace Roscoe, Emily Brass and Erica Fisher.
88 Fingers Louie @ Foufs
I was overcome by a strange giddiness that I had not felt since the first time I saw Nomeansno live. 88 Fingers Louie is one of the many bands that I loved when I was sixteen but never had the chance to see in a live setting. This concert marks the end of those years as this will be the last band on the teenage bucket list of groups to see live (minus bands that broke up before I knew them, like Operation Ivy).
Walking into Foufounes I could not help but try to figure out what the crowd would have looked like fifteen years ago when 88 Fingers Louie first released Behind Bars on Fat Wreck Chords. To my surprise it would have probably looked the same: there were baggy pants and NOFX shirts en masse. There were the kids (who can now be called adults) that bought the 88 Fingers tour shirt and immediately put it on over the clothes they were already wearing (which I still think is a big faux pas). The only immediate difference I could notice with the crowd now versus the crowd of the past is a whole lot more bald spots.
There were three opening bands, Street Kids on Acid (who never even heard of Rich Kids on LSD), Prevenge and Brixton Robbers. The line-up should have had Prevenge going on before 88 Fingers but due to a prima donna attitude, Prevenge gave up their spot to the Brixton Robbers.
By the end of the three openers I was left with one thing to write: Prevenge killed it. These guys (and girl) are a seriously fun band. They were by far the tightest band of the night (on par with 88 Fingers) and much like the headliners, every song and every motion just showed that they wanted to do nothing more but play some punk rock and have fun while they were at it. Much to my surprise Prevenge’s guitarist was none other than Chris Snelgrove, who was the guitarist for Flacid (and later All the Answers) back when I was sixteen so it was quite funny to see him onstage all these years later, as if everything was in the exact place it should be, like somehow nothing had changed. I was not the only one who thought that Prevenge was a force to be reckoned with because, as I was able to joke with them about, they sold out (literally they sold every album, vinyl and digital recording they had). As for the other bands I think that the old saying of ‘if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all’ works best in this case.
By the time 88 Fingers Louie took to the stage the venue was packed. The band tore through a wide array of their old songs and it quickly became apparent that the majority of the crowd was only familiar with their debut '95 album. There were however fans like Jee-P (Hold a Grudge) who knew every word to every song and seemed to spend the entire show crowd surfing in front of the stage (which he does at every show).
At first I must admit I was disappointed by Denis Buckley’s vocals because they were so smooth and croonish, unlike the raspy voice of old. This disappointment quickly dropped as his voice retained its callousness after a few songs. The pit grew extensively and before anyone realized it, had taken over half of the venue. The only thing that I can say that the band lacked was movement. Besides the guitarist there was a lot of stagnancy on stage which Buckley made up for with in-between song banter. One story he chose that struck me as odd is that Fat Wreck Chords had released a Wrecktrospective with 88 tracks, and not one of them was an 88 Fingers Louie song. It’s no wonder that that the next song started riddled with expletives about their former label and its owner Fat Mike (NOFX).
In all it was a great show and as underwhelmed I am by reunion shows, this time was somehow different. It did not seem like 88 Fingers was doing it for a last hurrah of monetary gain, it seemed like they were doing it for one last run of some good times and it showed in their music. As the last song drilled through the crowd I was left feeling a bit like the kid who got too close to someone dancing... knocked out.
Mat “Runt” Barrot
You can download a copy of Prevenge’s It Happens All the Time album through Juicebox Dot Com for free at the following site: http://juiceboxdotcom.com/recordingco/jb016/
News August 30th 2010
Read and produced by Lachlan Fletcher.
Stories written by Chris Hanna, Erica Fisher and Marcin Wisniewski.
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