It's been awhile, but England produced a rockin' band again: Mazes hail from Manchester and their debut "A Thousand Heys" jams pretty hard. Here are 2 songs from it that I like a lot, and you can buy this LP come April 11th on the always great FatCat Records.
WeloveNo Age, and this performance at Other Music in NYC during CMJ time is proof further why us musical blogs get erect for such rad jams from these gents. Dig that new song "Sleeper Hold", is it showing up on the Sub Pop debut mayhaps? Oh and "Neck Escaper" never gets old, rock that shiz for life. I will.
It is a beautiful thing when you go to a show to see someone and walk out of the venue with a new band to love. This happened to me when in Chicago many months back to see Tom Brosseau on a Fat Cat tour and the opener happened to be the amazing David Karsten Daniels. After chatting a bit and purchasing the cd, I realized that I had seen this record at the shop I was working at and ignored it, because of the oft putting cover art of "Sharp Teeth" (it now makes sense in context, I promise!).
What I like about DKD is his ability to seamlessly weave between mellow and upbeat without it feeling forced. Also, as seen in "Beast", mother fucker knows how to work a buildup in song like no other. Sprinkle some quality lyrics in this cookie mix and you're going to bake yourself something delicious. Highly recommended!
I fucking love Welcome and their 2007 release of "Sirs". As I wanted to hold off on what I was intending to post today (and have been for oh so long), I decided to finally get on top of one of those "meaning to post for too many goddamn months" entries, so here we are...
It is autumn. No really, it is; look outside (hopefully you're in New England, like me, enjoying the world's sexiest possible fall season), breathe in the brisk air, rake your leaves, drink your apple cider and then turn off the fucking folk records. I am guilty of this too, so who am I to judge? But every now and then, you sort of wake up from a haze and want to get your life on the right track, not with a hop but a karate kick and the best way you can do that is with rock and roll.
Welcome put out a record called "Sirs" back in March here in the states (you lucky bastards overseas got it in November 06, you suck/rule) on the wonderful Fat Cat (No Age, Tom Brosseau, all your favourite bands) and when I was working at the record shop back then, my co-worker discovered and fell in love with this record. Being a complete wanker, it took me a couple of tries before fully realizing that this band had done it: they released a complete melting pot lp filled with everything upbeat and wonderful about rock music. It's so dirty yet cohesive, cluttered and catchy with vocals from the best of both genders, begging to be turned up at the highest volume on endless speakers, kicking your enemy's teeth in and laughing about it over a pint.
I could really post the whole record and I think half the reason it took me so long to put this up was because I didn't know what songs to put up, but here are 2 that I think are a great starting point. If you like what you hear, it only gets better: track this down. Fuck yeah.
PS! To the band in Connecticut called Welcome, change your fucking name! I'm sick of the let down I get every time I see you dudes on a flier and find out it's you.
NOTE: Today's contribution comes from Matt Giordano, who actually wrote this a couple of weeks ago, before the album came out here in the states. So he had crazy cred, except I took forever to post it, thus robbing him of all possible kudos. Sorry? Fuck yeah.
It's slightly humourous that I found out about this band whilst in London two months ago, seeing as how they're from L.A. and all, but it just seems appropriate due to the fact I was surrounded by a couple of great up-and-coming designers and noise enthusiasts. To put it bluntly, No Age fucking rips, but not in the typical sense. Their songs mirror angst and drip punk ethos, yet are so well written and arranged that the listener empathises with the subject and recognises the beauty in what's being lost. Their debut compilation "Weirdo Rippers" is available on 28 August in North America (it's already been out in the UK for two months). Not only does this disc come highly recommended, but it is one of the years most fully-realized debut outputs, and that's quite an accomplishment.
