2016 – A Music Extravaganza!

 

It’s said that as we age, we stop looking for new sounds to infiltrate the ear canal and just bathe in the nostalgic warmth of what we already enjoy. Apparently I missed the bus that goes to that particular neighborhood in Blandsville…

In years past, I’ve spent a bit of time in January looking back at books that I read over the previous year. However, my book consumption rate last year was goddamn pathetic, so that’s out for 2017. Luckily, I stepped it up big in terms of what I’m listening to.

Now, this has nothing to do with bands I was already into who released new stuff this year. So I won’t be mentioning names like Metallica, Sixx A.M., Adele, David Bowie, A Tribe Called Quest (though I thought long and hard about including them, since it’s their first new material in forever and a day) or Iggy Pop. Okay, I won’t be mentioning them from this point forward. All released really good stuff. But this is about new shit. At least, stuff that’s new to me. Some of them have been around for awhile. Hey, I’m old! It takes me awhile to find things! Be glad that I manage to find pants!

And there was A LOT of new shit in 2016. Thanks to my XM account, I typically ‘find’ about 20-25 new bands a year. This year was like that, only on a lot of steroids. XM led to a lot of them, but so did people. All kinds of people. People who I follow online, friends, acquaintances, whoever. If you have ever mentioned a musical act within earshot of me, and particularly if you’ve previously led me to something cool, there’s a good chance that I’ve listened to them. All it takes is the quickest of throwaway mentions. My ears are whores.

So consider this my attempt both to bring some eyes to my little corner of the Internet, and to also thank many of you for bringing me to some new music by trying to return the favor. There will likely be a few surprises. There is at least one MASSIVE change in opinion. Try not to be one of those sad little fuckers who skims and just looks at band names…read it, you lazy fuck! Enjoy, mock, laugh at me, I don’t give a shit. Oh, and prepare yourselves for power chords. I am a sucker for power chords.

I’ll link to a video for each group in the band name.

LET MORTAL KOMBAT COMMENCE!

Oh, and I also promise that there will be zero ‘joke’ links to Rick Astley. This is a post about good music, and therefore Rick Astley has no place here.

Amaranthe – I am sick and tired of rock/metal bands fronted by a dude growling like some demonic version of Cookie Monster. It’s old. It’s played out. Get the fuck off my lawn and bring in someone comprehensible. Amaranthe was one of several groups this year who made it kinda work for me, because Capt. Screamo isn’t going it alone. In fact, Amaranthe has three vocalists all trading off. There’s growly guy, there’s hot girl with a nice voice, and there’s Mr. Forgettable (who can at least harmonize with the nicely voiced hot girl). Well done, Sweden! You’re now forgiven for the prior existence of Ace of Base. I went with a decent song attached to one of their few videos that doesn’t look like a shampoo commercial with pyro and fight scenes. Which would actually be a pretty awesome commercial. This one’s courtesy of XM.

Animals as Leaders – I posted on Facebook about new music at some point this year, and Liam stepped up with a couple of suggestions. This is one of them. A rock band without vocals? A rock band fronted by a black guy? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?! Their style is all over the place. I don’t even know how else to describe them beyond “fucking cool guitars, man”. They can all pretty clearly play, and that means a lot coming from me seeing as I have zero musical chops whatsoever.

Avenged Sevenfold – I had heard OF the band before, but never really looked into them much. I do recall previously hearing one song of theirs that was an homage to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This year, they seemed to explode on XM in a big way, and I was left wondering why in the fuck it took me so long to actually check them out. Metal band with hardcore influences and album covers that are clearly inspired by Iron Maiden? Check, check and check. Ridiculous band member names like M. Shadows, Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance? Check, check and check. And a chosen video that is almost entirely comprised of the bloodiest goddamn puppet show ever? CHECK. This is completely and utterly up in my wheelhouse. Shit, this IS my wheelhouse. I only wish that I’d realized it sooner.

Black Veil Brides – If I was the type of person who was easily embarrassed by his entertainment choices, I’d probably be blushing a bit right now. After all, we’ve arrived at a band generally cheered for by teenage girls. They look like an amalgam of a Hot Topic catalogue and what happens when a bunch of kids spend their days watching A LOT of Shout at the Devil era Motley Crue videos. But sweet merciful fuck do they sound like a modernized take on what I actually was listening to as a kid. It’s like they took hair metal, fed it growth hormones, then punked it up and sent it in to the ring to tear everyone else apart. Luckily, I am a man without shame. Well done, Junior Nikki Sixx fan club! And thanks to a fellow denizen of a war gaming forum for this one.

Blackalicious – I’m pretty sure that this is the one and only time on this entire list that we have back-to-back entries coming from the same non-radio source (hi, Monique). Let’s hear it for alphabetical order and random chance! They immediately reminded me a lot of Eric B and Rakim. Since I consider those two perhaps the most criminally under-appreciated hip hop group of all time, that’s a meaningful comparison (again, coming from someone with zero musical ability). An MC spitting rhymes at a seemingly impossible rate and a DJ slapping you around with catchy samples? And all without any pointless bullshit tracks about how many diamond encrusted cars they own? That being a refreshing change is somewhat depressing.

Boy & Bear – And now, part 2 of the back-to-back! According to Google Play, they’re an indie rock-folk band. I have no idea what that actually amounts to. I barely understand what makes anyone fit into any music category anymore. Particularly in the world of metal. There are too fucking many categories of metal that have no clear fucking distinctions! I spent many years of my life thinking that the definition of folk music was ‘granola crunching hippie bullshit that makes my ears bleed’. Of course, I also spent many years thinking that Slaughter were a good band, so what the fuck did I know? Rest easy, peeps. I no longer believe that Slaughter are or were a good band. Turns out that younger me was wrong from time to time! Who knew? Well…not him. Sadly.

Brody Dalle – Okay, this is sort of cheating. I was (and am) a big fan of her band The Distillers. I was (and am) a big fan of her band Spinnerette. So it’s not like her stuff is totally new to me. But since her new stuff is under her own name, and features a new band, I’m counting it. Fuck you, it’s my list. She’s gone from straight up punk to albums that are a grab bag of different styles from track to track. Shit, the one I linked to has a mid-song shift from synth-y vocals and guitars to a power chord extravaganza that is impossible to sit still to. Seriously, if you aren’t at least drumming some fingers during the second half of that fucking song, you’re probably dead. At any rate, I ended up at Brody’s new stuff by following a link while looking up a different band. Let’s hear it for the random chance of the Interwebs!

Butch Walker – Oh, what a winding path I weaved to arrive at this one. I remember someone on a sports gaming forum mentioning Butch many years back, but it didn’t resonate. Then last year, another group (Can’t say who because they’ll be appearing further down this list) did a cover of one of his songs. He liked it so much that he appeared on it. Anyway, the name rang a bell, and this time I gave his stuff a listen. He’s actually written/produced songs for a lot of other acts, and that doesn’t surprise me because the man is the grandmaster of catchy hooks. Sometimes rock, sometimes country, always cool. It worms into your brain and won’t leave, like those weird ear worm things in Wrath of Khan. Just without the whole ‘let someone else control your mind’ part. And unlike the worms, this music won’t kill you. Probably…   Also, the biker gang in that video morphing into Black Veil Brides super fans amuses me.

Charm City Devils – This is another one coming from the same war gaming forumite who mentioned Black Veil Brides. There is nothing fancy here. Just a straight up, balls out rock band. Probably without any balls out. It really wouldn’t make a lot of sense to have them just dangling out there, right? But sometimes, catchy is enough. If you know me at all, you know that I’m a sucker for cover songs that pull off an awesome twist on the original. This is the first song from them that I heard, and it sure as fuck pulls off an awesome twist on any other version of that song that I’ve ever heard.

Crown the Empire – Hey, it’s another band that has multiple vocalists (though only two). There’s the boy with the nice voice who seems like the cute kid that the girls like. And then there’s the screaming banshee who probably spends a lot of time in counselling. This is starting to sound like the character list from a drama on the WB network. With a few exceptions, their best stuff gives both singers a chance to show off what they’re bringing to the party. And if you like what you hear, they have a long series of videos which all fit together somehow into the same incomprehensible storyline! So, there’s that. This was a band Nikki Sixx mentioned somewhere. Actually, there are a few other bands on this list who likely came to me from the same source, because I don’t actually remember who recommended them. These guys are apparently metalcore and post-hardcore. What in the actual fuck would either of those even mean to a rational human being?! When did we enter a post-hardcore world, and what does it mean for the economy?

Dead Sara – Do you like female fronted hard rock bands? If you don’t, this list is going to be pretty rough for you. Do you listen to a band like Halestorm and think to yourself, “Man, this is good, but I wish it was a little more out there. More willing to crank up the brash and crazy a little more frequently.” Then say Hello to your new musical savior. These guys (and gals) were the last new band of the year for me. I didn’t actually listen to them until the first week of January, but they were in my Google Play backlog from December, so they totally count. Their lead vocalist sounds like a modern day Janis Joplin with less whiskey and more breathing fire. They also check the ‘crazy band member name’ box with guitarist Siouxsie Medley (which is an ode to a Sioux relative, not Siouxsie Sioux). I have absolutely no recollection of how I ended up hearing about this band, I’m just glad that I did.

Delain – I have no idea why it is that Europe produces so many metal bands with women on the mic. I would say that it’s some weird result of a taxpayer-funded healthcare system, but then where the fuck is our collection of such groups? Is there something in the water? Something to do with lutefisk and other weird as fuck Euro-foods? Delain slots into the Symphonic Metal category. That seems to mean that they often feature orchestral backing and a lot of dramatic sounding shit. I think. Maybe. My first exposure to Delain was through a song featuring the vocalist from Within Temptation. And I have no idea what else to say, so let’s just move along.

Electric Citizen – Remember when I said that I’ll take band tips from anyone? I meant it. I found out about these guys from some dude on Instagram. I don’t even remember which specific person it was. Let’s take early Black Sabbath. We’ll put a woman behind the microphone. Now toss in a bit of psychedelia and put them in a time machine set for 2013. This is what would step out of the pod once the journey was over.

Fields of the Nephilim – Another sampling of what happens when I listen to the tastes of random strangers on social media platforms. Somewhere in another life, a version of me is getting fucked up on red wine listening to this. I used to think that anything labeled as Goth had to look like The Cure (That’s not a good thing) and sound like depressives waiting to die (That’s not good either, but less bad than Robert Smith). Once more, musical education for the win! Also, I like the seeming addiction to cowboy hats that this band seems to have. It makes no sense, but it’s fun in a stupid and goofy sorta way.

Florence and the Machine – I have no Earthly idea how to describe them. I suppose they’re a rock band, but they also feature things like pianos and harps and crazy fucking arrangements. It’s like if you tossed all sorts of good music from a billion different genres into a blender, filtered the result through a lunatic, then topped it with a dollop of really good vocals and served it with a side of echoing drums. And that video is apparently part one of a ‘movie’ made up of music videos that lasts 48 minutes in total. That’s the sort of madness that I can get behind. This is also one of those examples where a song got in my head (thanks, XM), and then I dived in deeper to find that I’d actually heard a lot more from them previously. I just didn’t know who they were at the time.

Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes – Do I even need to say anything? Honestly, if that name doesn’t already drive your interest levels up, I don’t know who in the fuck you are or what’s wrong with your brain. Okay, okay. They’re a hardcore punk band. The lead singer is covered in tats and sometimes shouts the lyrics in a delightful Cockney accent. But who are we kidding? You hit the link as soon as you read the band name. I know because I didn’t even hear them on XM. I just caught the band name after switching it on too late to hear the song. It didn’t matter. I sought it out.

Gemini Syndrome – No, it’s not a movie starring Charlton Heston in a desperate fight against a killer virus. It’s a pretty straightforward rock band. There really isn’t anything all that stupendous about them. I might not even be listening to them a year from now, but sometimes all that you need to make it work for right now is one song with a chorus that’s catchy as fuck and you keep hearing it on XM and you can’t get away from the goddamn thing and OH GOD THE MADMAN IS INSIDE THE HOUSE! Also, their front man is pretty much Hard Rock Santa.

Ghost – And now for something really, really, REALLY completely different. So, if I were to tell you that they sing about the Devil A LOT, you’d probably immediately imagine something fairly death metal. But wait, come back, no! It’s not. Not at all. I mean, they’re pretty obviously joshing around with all the devil shit. No true hardcore Satan worshipper is starting a song like this for real…right? I don’t fucking know. All I know is that their front man dresses up like an evil Pope, the rest of the band are Nameless Ghouls hiding behind masks (one of whom was apparently Dave Grohl for awhile because he’s a fan), it isn’t the screaming shit you were expecting when I first started this write-up, and they’re catchy as fuck. They also got into a public spat with the Catholic Church OVER A BURGER. Goddamn. Oh shit! Am I a Satanist now?!

Ghostface Killah – Liam shared a story on Facebook about the Wu Tang Clan and their various solo projects. I read it. It raved about Ghostface. I checked him out. Mother of fuck, yes. Catchy as Hell samples. Beats threatening to pound their way into your skull and then back out again. A name lifted from a 70s Kung Fu flick. He is the goddamn king of the Wu Tang kingdom. And yes, the intro bit to that one is lifted entirely from a Blaxploitation flick. Hey, it’s a lot more entertaining than those stupid skits that infected so many hip hop albums were! Mother of fuck, those fucking skits on rap albums were quite possibly the worst fucking thing about music for about a fifteen year period. Never funny, always lame, dated as shit, embarrassing. Just complete fucking garbage.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals – And sometimes without the Nocturnals part. It’s confusing. Another one briefly mentioned in a forum thread somewhere on the Internets. And here we are. Can someone’s musical style be ‘kinda everything’? If so, that’s what I’m using here. After all, the same band did this. And this. Is country blues rock with a hint of alternative folk a genre? Let’s go with that, then. It’s also (sadly) refreshing that the fact she’s smoking hot is a nice bonus behind her abilities to write a song, sing and play damn near anything. Or maybe I’m just cynical. Let’s call it a little from column A, a little from column B.

Highly Suspect – Another one first heard on XM. And their good stuff is good. REALLY, REALLY GOOD. But their bad stuff…mother of fuck, it will haunt your worst nightmares and cast you into an auditory Hellscape. This is the first band who need to come with a warning label. ‘We can write about two thirds of a decent album. The rest is disinterested liquid shit that’s worse than filler.’ Still, their good stuff is awesome. And their lead singer actually comes off like a decent guy in interviews, sort of a ‘Bizarro World Liam Gallagher’, if you will.

Kendrick Lamar – Sure, he does the typical freestyle stuff you’d expect to hear from almost any rapper these days. But then he changes up his entire vocal style. Or he starts firing words out of his mouth faster than a fucking machine gun. And then the whole backing track changes, the tempo kicks off in a new direction, and everything is upside down again. Or he goes completely off the reservation for the seven minutes of pure madness that I linked to. Kinda reminds me of Saul Williams just in terms of going off in bizarre directions, where you don’t ever have any idea what might happen next. I also have no idea where in the Hell I heard about him. He was just suddenly in my head. Maybe Kendrick Lamar spends his days hiding out in cars, hypnotizing people, and quietly rapping to them until his stuff is stuck in your head?

Leon Bridges – I am an absolute sucker for Soul and Motown. I think it reminds me of long road trips from Hell in the family station wagon when I was a kid, driving into BC or all the way back to Southern Ontario and trying not to die from heatstroke along the way. What did we listen to? A lot of CBC radio. And that meant a lot of Motown. Leon Bridges sounds the part, but he’s a modern 26 year old kid out of Texas. And holy shit, does he have the chops. If the upbeat stuff isn’t enough, there’s also this song/video combo that will punch you in the heart a little bit. This was yet another new one I was pointed towards by a forum member who used to be a radio DJ. Dude is a gold mine.

Lissie – Oh look, it’s yet another singer-songwriter who refuses to just make things easy and fit into a single goddamn box. Let’s hear it for Bluesy country folk rock! I first heard about her through someone on a gaming forum who I spent a fair amount of time joking around with. One day, he just up and vanished. Came to find out last year that he’d had cancer and died. For some fucked up reason, I immediately thought back to his recommendation. Her original stuff is excellent, and her cover songs are insanely good. And as I’ve said, I am a sucker for a cover that shakes things up. And I’ll tip my glass to an old online compadre whenever her stuff comes on.

Loaded – Also known as Duff McKagan’s Loaded. There’s a documentary about Duff up on Netflix (called It’s so Easy and Other Lies) that I watched in late 2016 that featured a lot of music by Loaded. Once I figured it was something he’d done as a side project, I looked further into it. Mostly a straight up rock band with punky roots (which describes him pretty accurately, too), but every now and then they come up with something like the song I linked to. It reminds me A LOT of Stones songs with Keith Richards on the mic. Like this one. When you can make something that reminds me of one of my favorite rootsy Stones songs, I’m a fan.

Massive Attack – This is another sorta, kinda cheat-y entry. I had heard Massive Attack previously, but it was more of a ‘one song comes on from time to time’ thing. I had never actually sat down and listened to an entire album. That changed this year. I heard one of their songs on XM and thought to myself “Hey, this is really good. And I know that a lot of my friends listen to them, or at least used to listen to them.” Hello, James. And Monique. And…Vlad, I think? Seems like a Vlad sort of group. So I explored a little further. And a little further. And then a lot further. I wish that I was as receptive to music suggestions back then as I am now. But at least I am now, right?

Oasis – Holy massive opinion shift, Batman! Yes, Liam Gallagher is a complete piece of shit. I hate his whining voice, particularly when it’s not partly masked by walls of guitars and feedback (hence, Wonderwall is shit). But those guitars. HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK, those guitars. It’s a festival of pure riffage. Also, Noel Gallagher is both deadpan hilarious and cool as fuck. I like to think that he cranked up the guitars in the mix to help people ignore his brother. Considering how often he seemed ready to knock Liam out, one can easily imagine this being true. I caught this song on XM last year, and it was the first time in an eternity or two that I had even heard Oasis. And I liked it. But several friends of mine were listening to it when it was cool. So all of you can take a bow or something.

Red Sun Rising – Another band heard first on XM (seriously, this happens enough while driving that I find myself looking for the next place to get off the road so I can quickly add the band’s name to a Google Doc I have set up for precisely that purpose). Another straight up rock band with some catchy hooks. They remind me a little of Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. And hey, I like me some Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. They’re a little less ‘out there’ in a good way than either of those bands were, so will I still feel the same about these guys in a year or two? We’ll find out then.

ReVamp – Hey look, it’s a band that no longer exists! I guess you can’t really look, then… Floor Jansen has a ridiculously good voice. She took over as the third vocalist for Nightwish, and as a fan of that band I wanted to look and see what else she’d done. And that’s how I ended up at ReVamp. If anything, I think she’s better here than she is with Nightwish. There’s a lot more power and a lot less restraint. There certainly seems to be a lot more range, going from melodic and soft to full throated roar. Dramatic song structure? Check. Orchestral notes poking through the drums and guitars? Check. Shifts in vocal tone throughout a song? Check. I’m in. As in as one can be with something that’s now just ether and memories.

Rival Sons – And I did arrive upon the linked track and HOLY SHIT IT’S LIKE THE INTRO TO WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS! Southern rock meets Led Zeppelin as Robert Plant and Jimmy Page this band kicks the levee in and the land is flooded in hair grease, power chords, moustache wax, jackets straight out of the 70’s, and sweet fucking awesome. If this sounds good to you, listen further. If it doesn’t, who are you and how in the Hell did you find yourself here? Please leave. Another one I heard thanks to the same guy on a war gaming forum…again.

Royal Blood – Sometimes you don’t need layers of synth or an orchestra that you keep stored in the backroom until those moments when you require them. Sometimes you don’t even need an entire goddamn band. Just two British guys and some amps and you’re good to go. No, more amps. You know what, just leave them all. All of the amps. They mix things up a bit, but they tend to like it loud. If chords can be described as meaty, these are entire sides of beef slamming against your face. Two guys shouldn’t be able to make this much noise. If there were four of them, fatalities would probably result. I don’t remember where I first saw it, but it was the linked video that drew me in. It’s…interesting.

Scars on Broadway & Serj Tankian – I’m putting these two together because they both came from the same place. I like System of a Down. I don’t quite love them the way some do, but they’re pretty good. Up until this past year, I had somehow missed the fact that members of the band have their own bands. I had heard songs from both but just thought they were System tracks. Nope. Serj is of course the front man from System. His stuff is the closest to System of a Down. Political songs, lots of vocal changes, tone and tempo shifts from out of nowhere, all of that. Scars features Daron Malakian. They’re more straight up guitar punch while he makes mean faces.

Shaman’s Harvest – My first exposure to these guys was not good. Remember that incredibly awful song ‘Rockin is my Business’ (WARNING! THIS SONG IS PUTRID!) from sometime in the 90’s? May I present the modern version. Ugh. Luckily, there was more. A lot more songs that were a little more country fried and a lot less over-the-top testosterone, truck nuts and ball sweat. A pretty sweet Michael Jackson cover. A song called Country as Fuck. It was pretty much all win. Turns out the guy actually has a decent voice when he isn’t doing…you know what, just try to forget that Dangerous song. I know I have. Tried. Someday, maybe I will.

Shinedown – Apparently they’ve had hits for years, but we’d never know it living in the musical wasteland that is central Alberta. I don’t really know how to describe them beyond a rock band who seem ‘into it’. Not all do. Some groups just seem to be doing what they think people want to hear, and who can blame them? Some actually seem to give a fuck and do whatever they want. Even if what they want is straight up rock for the most part, the difference in their ‘give a shit’ level can usually be heard. That’s what keeps it all from sounding like…Dangerous. Seriously, I need to forget that fucking song. It doesn’t hurt that Brent Smith has a pretty good set of pipes.

Shovels & Rope – Okay, remember way back in my entry for Butch Walker when I talked about hearing a cover of his song? This is who did that cover. Actually, it turns out that the guy from this band is friends with Butch and they co-wrote Bullet Belt in 2010. Shovels & Rope are a married couple who generally play folk, but they mix it up a little bit (most folk groups don’t use feedback). I don’t remember where I heard it first, but they did a covers album running the spectrum from Butch Walker and Neil Young to Guns n’ Roses and the Nine Inch Nails song I linked to. Their own material is also really good if you need to just chill out to a modern take on Johnny and June Carter Cash.

Silent Civilian – Wait a minute, that’s Liam Johnstone’s entrance music! Liam Johnstone is coming to the ring, and by God he looks ready to raise some Hell! This was his second recommendation (Well…third if we give him credit for Ghostface Killah), and his first that features vocals! They’re a metalcore band. What does that mean? Who the fuck knows! Anyway, I guess they prove that I don’t always hate screaming vocals. It helps that they do mix it up a bit, of course. And boy oh boy do the other guys in the band like shouting “Hey!” a lot. But hey, gang chorus vocals! I’m a fan!

Sister Sin – I’m going to step out on a limb here and suggest that this is a band name that you want to be very careful with on Google. They no longer exist, pretty much because they toured and recorded so incessantly that they were exhausted and sick of one another. I want you to imagine that it’s 1991. Skid Row is preparing to release Slave to the Grind, but they decide that they’ve had enough of Sebastian Bach, so they toss him aside and replace him with a snarling Swedish woman. Then they threw every ballad in the garbage. You now have Sister Sin. Another band for whom I have nobody to thank because I don’t remember where the Hell I heard about them.

Slipknot – So, everybody starts listening to Slipknot at 40, right? That’s a common thing that happens all the time? I HATED this band years ago. Just loud and loud and more loud and they’re really angry and stuff and that seemed to be the extent of what they were offering. And they’re still loud. And angry. But it turns out that they’re a tad bit more varied than “IAMVERYFUCKINGANGRYEVERYMINUTEOFTHEDAY!!!!”…at least once you get past the first couple of albums. They released a new album last year, so they got a fair bit of XM airplay. And I liked it. Then they started playing more of their older stuff (though not the REALLY old stuff that I’ve already mentioned loathing), and I liked that too. And then I became a very big fan of Corey Taylor, and that certainly helped. XM gets the credit, but an assist to James who was miles ahead of me on this particular curve years ago. A tip of the cap to you, good sir!

Smith & Myers – Makes sense that in the same year I became a fan of Shinedown, I’d also become a fan of the brief side project two members of the band (Brent Smith and Zach Myers) launched. It’s just the two of them doing acoustic covers of ten songs. That’s it. Nothing else to say, really. I am a sucker for a goddamn cover song. Will they do more? Who knows.

Starset – They would merely be a pretty straightforward rock band except for their penchant for string sections, electronica, keyboards and beats for days. Oh, and a taste of the dub. Not the ‘wub-wub-wub’ dubstep stuff. More the big ‘BWWAAAAAoooohhhhhhh’ dubstep stuff. Of all the straight up rock bands I’ve listened to this year, these motherfuckers might be the catchiest. They’re like a musical tapeworm that’s latched on and won’t let go. Good for them, I guess? At least they’re a slight bit different from the norm. Standing out a bit helps. And then there are the gang choruses. They like those, too. So do I. Thanks, XM!

Tarja – Tarja Turunen was the original vocalist for Nightwish. She has legitimate three octave vocal range and just generally crazy singing talent. She was actually studying opera before becoming one of the forming members of the band. She was drummed out of there for all sorts of reasons (Nightwish seems to like cycling through vocalists, always under fucked up circumstances), and that was that. At least, that’s what I thought. Turns out she’s been doing her own thing ever since! If you like a lot of drama in your metal sound, take a listen.

I never know what to do with bands called ‘the whatever’, so I’m lumping them in under the letter T.

The Damned –  Here we have a band that started up in 1976. Hey, that’s when I started up, too! They began by playing punk with gothic overtones, then slowly shifted more towards goth with punkish overtones as time passed along. Some of their band members over the years have gone by Captain Sensible, Monty Oxymoron and Rat Scabies. How on Earth did it take this long for me to listen to these guys? And how is it that I, YET AGAIN, don’t fucking remember what it was that got me listening to them now?

The Pretty Reckless – Talk about a goddamn transformation story! The front woman of The Pretty Reckless is Taylor Momsen. This is Taylor Momsen :

Remember that horrible Jim Carrey ‘The Grinch’ movie? I’m sorry, it’s cruel to bring up memories of…well, generally anything to do with Jim Carrey, but just try to harken back for a moment. Remember little Cindy Lou Who? Yeah, that was ALSO Taylor Momsen. Yes, it’s the same person.

Anyway, I heard them on XM without knowing any of this and liked them immediately. Turns out she actually has some chops as well. I haven’t seen them live, but people who I know who have decent music opinions have, and apparently she’s pretty good on a mic. Nice to see that something good eventually came from that horrible fucking movie. I never actually subjected myself to it. It looked about as enjoyable as a war crime, and Jim Carrey is awful.

The Record Company – It’s a rock band that likes to play slide guitar and use a lot of distortion on their bass. They’ve opened for Social Distortion, B.B. King and Grace Potter, and I love all three. They list The Stones, The Stooges and John Lee Hooker as musical influences, and I love all three of them, too. And goddamn do they play perhaps the most badass cover song that I've heard in years! Those preceding sentences assemble together like some sort of musical version of Voltron, becoming a massive robot for freedom, justice and sick fucking songs. This is yet another band I was pointed toward by another denizen of the same war gaming forum. Who knew that grognard types had such awesome taste in music? Well, obviously I did. Now you do, too. You’re welcome and stuff.

The Revivalists – Hey, it’s yet ANOTHER recommendation coming from war-game aficionados! By now, all y’all motherfuckers best recognize that means goodness! They’re a 7 man rock/soul fusion group out of New Orleans. If Maroon 5 didn’t make me want to vomit, weren’t trying too hard, and included a sax player, perhaps they’d be capable of producing something like this. Luckily we don’t have to wait for that niche to be filled. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have enjoyed this at all. Ten years ago, I was a fucking moron.

The Sword – SWEET HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK! Welcome to Riff City! Population : Your Ears! There is no mercy. There is no respite. There is only the riff. And behind that riff lies another, and still another, rolling over you in waves that threaten to drown you in wondrous noise. The weak among you will beg for mercy. The rest will smile a black tooth grin and bang your goddamn head. They’re somewhat comparable to Queens of the Stone Age in that distorted-guitar stoner rock style, only with a lot more low end shredding your speakers. Then imagine that style hooked up with a 70’s rock vixen, and this was born. Thanks to someone I follow on Instagram who kept putting up pictures of their album covers and made me curious. Look at these things! Who could resist?!

 

 

 

 

 

 
The Virginmarys – All good punk bands are angry. They’re pissed off, fed up, and infuriated by what they see around them. Or they’re Good Charlotte. And the world does not need more Good fucking Charlotte. We didn’t need ANY Good Charlotte in the first place. Take that angry punk band and give them an affinity for big guitar hooks and you have The Virginmarys coming straight out of England to punch you in the mouth. And let’s face it, you probably deserve it. This is another in the long line of ‘Cliff has a sieve-like memory when it comes to recalling where he heard about a group’ bands that apparently came out of nowhere…kind of like a divine child just appearing in the womb. Hmmmmm…

The Winery Dogs – We reach the end of the tyrannical rule over this list by bands with names starting with ‘The’! Richie Kotzen, Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy have all played in a lot of other bands.

Some good - Dream Theater (Yes, that song is 23 minutes long. Welcome to Dream Theater!), Adrenaline Mob, David Lee Roth.
Some mediocre - Richie replaced CC in Poison while Mr. DeVille was busy trying to kill himself with smack (This was the weird album with tribal drums and big power riffs and Bret looking like he’d been using roids and bench pressing cars for a year).
And some…ugh - Hey everyone, remember Mr. Big?

Now they’re together, and this is the result. In terms of style, just toss everything into the blender. All of it. If it had anything to do with rock in the past 40 years, it’s in there. Thanks for the thousandth time, aficionados of war-game chatter!

Thrice – Like with Slipknot, I hate their first couple of one-note albums. And that’s pretty much the only comparison to Slipknot that will be made here. They released a four album EP set, each of which was about a different one of the four elements and each of which had a different style of music on it. From that point on, they get a lot more varied and interesting. Their new album includes songs about drone strikes, institutionalized racism, a couple emerging from the fallout shelter where they met, and the concept of blowback (which is the one I linked to, and the song that I heard on XM which drew me in). Each of their albums has a percentage of sales revenue donated to charity, with a different organization chosen to benefit with each album. And their singer’s voice reminds me a bit of the guy from Kings of Leon, but without the whiny aspects that made me strongly dislike the guy from Kings of Leon.

Volbeat – I’ve said five hundred times that I’m tired of metal bands with growly scream-o vocals. That’s half the reason I immediately liked Volbeat when I heard them on XM this year. Their singer actually has a pleasant voice. Thank you, Denmark. They’ve been around for a decade, but they’re still new to me, dammit! Crash a metal band tour bus into a rockabilly show and you end up at the sweet brand of fantastic that is Volbeat. They like to mix in harmonicas and the like with big, crunchy riffs. If metal had existed in the 50s, this would be the result.

We Are Harlot – Okay, it’s time for another twisting tale of finding a band. I heard a couple of singles from a group called Asking Alexandria on XM, so I listened further. I found utterly one note crap (their non-single stuff is rote screaming). Only, I also found out that their original vocalist had moved on and formed this band. And this band is ten thousand times better and more interesting. Shit, that same singer is about to release a goddamn country album…and he’s British! Clearly he needed to get out of the ‘all shrieking hardcore all the time’ that was the previous group. He also looks like a musical version of Zach Galifianakis.

Zakk Wylde – Of course I knew who Zakk Wylde was. The guy was a beast playing for Ozzy for years and Black Label Society is one of my favorite bands. But I’d never listened to his solo stuff until this year, when he got some XM airplay after releasing a new solo album for the first time in two decades. And it’s, of course, really good. It isn’t really unplugged at all, but it’s definitely much more laid back and stripped down.

We’ve reached the end of the list! You’re free! Of course, you always were free. So you can’t blame me for trudging through all of this. That’s on you. But hopefully you heard at least a few things that you liked. If not, that’s on you as well because your ears are clearly fucked up.

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