Midtown's
most recent album, ‘Forget What You Know’, grabs the listener from the start
with catchy hooks and clever lyrics. Track 5, "God is Dead" momentarily slows
the pace down with a piano intro which seems completely disconnected from the
rest of the song as the pace is immediately kicked back up after the intro. Then
Midtown repeats the same needless slowing of pace again with the end of track 9
and parts of track 10. The vocals on track 11 have much more of an "emo" feel
rather than a "pop" feel like the rest of the album. The end of the album is
rather dull with the lengthy and repetitive song "So Long As Our Bodies Are
Numb." The guitars and bass on the album are strong and rhythmic, which is a
plus. Lyrically the album takes on intellectualism while addressing a number of
interesting topics such as religion, relationships, and sex.The lyrics are not
cliche phrases, either, with lines like "Sex is old. Old and boring" or "I don't
want to fuck you. I don't want to touch. I just want to fill you with regret."
While many pop albums have a relatively happy feel as they tend to only scrape
deeper issues, this effort by Midtown leaves a jaded and angry taste in the
listener's mouth. (Jeniffer Adams)
The Nancy School - Fancy
Title for a Part-Time Job (Self-Released)
A long
time ago, when the big "alternative" bands were the B-52's, REM, and Sonic
Youth, there was such a thing as "college rock". Actually, most of the
proto-alt bands were lumped into this category as well, though they didn't
always fit. Well, for those old enough to remember, ‘Fancy Title for a
Part-Time Job’, the second CD from The Nancy School, is college rock, plain and
simple. Now, I tend to hate about 90% of the college rock bands out there,
because the vast majority of these bands are self-indulgent exercises in
weirdness and clichés that entertain only those too full of themselves to hang
with people who like music they can hum. The Nancy School, however, succeeds
where others fail because they have the musicianship and musical knowledge to
make their musical explorations entertaining and interesting. While not
sounding like Phish, they do tend to share a similar sense of joyous musical
mayhem. This IS art rock, however, so unless you enjoy such flavors already
then this band could be somewhat annoying… just a little warning. The Heathen
Hippy gives it 3 and ½ college keggers. For more info or to order a copy
of this CD visit
http://www.thenancyschool.com. (Taliesin Govannon)
Since
the release of Norselaw’s ‘Sweet Home Scandinavia’ in 2003, Cleveland “Viking
rapper” Valhalla Ice has parted ways with co-vocalist Ragnar. Norselaw is now
just Val, who handles all the vocals and guitars on ‘Macabre Skies’. He does
get an assist from guest musicians Shawn Davis on drums, Dave McDougal on bass,
and Gollum (of Nocturnal Solace) on keyboards, but for all intents and purposes
Valhalla Ice is Norselaw. For me, ‘Macabre Skies’ is at its best on the tracks
where the rap and black metal sides of Norselaw blend together, like “Macabre
Skies”, “Battle Hymn for the Conquered”, “Hegemony”, and “Back With a Fang”.
These songs make what could easily have been an unholy union sound perfectly
natural. Less successful for me were two more traditional rap-rock songs
(“Language’s Demise’ and “Lie of the Frost Giants (Reverse Racism)”) and a
ballad (“Rejection of Spring”). They sound more like they belong on
the previous album than here, and musically don’t stand out as anything
special. On the flipside, the album both opens and closes with atmospheric
black metal numbers with no rap parts. Not only do these two tracks feel
right at home on the album, they're both quite good. Just as Norselaw
seems to be taking the musical side of things more seriously (for the most part)
on this album, the lyrics seem more serious as well. Not that there isn't still
a sense of humor, but it's put in the service of making a point. Not always a
point I agree with, but it would be pretty naïve to expect political correctness
from either black metal or white rap, let alone a blend of the genres. For more
info, go to
http://www.norselaw.com. (Bob Ignizio)
Team Fright – ‘Basement Birthday
Party’ (self released)
Cleveland’s
Team Fright has sort of a late eighties underground/post punk sound to them.
Essentially that means well written pop songs played in a noisy, clangy kind of
way. Think The Vaselines crossed with The Jesus Lizard. It’s meant to be
catchy, dark and dissonant at the same time, and certainly succeeds in doing
so. To be honest, it’s not a style of music I generally seek out, but I still
found myself getting into the first two tracks (“Ambulence Driver” and “Second
Shift”) on this four song demo. The other two tracks (“The Queen of Zine” and
“Mary Black”), however, left me kind of cold. Personally I would have liked to
see “Penny Dreadful”, a song I’ve heard the band do live which really stood out
to me, on here instead. But hey, that’s just me. The production is very raw
and minimalistic, most likely done on four track although I don’t know for
sure. If you like your noise rock with a bit of pop, or your pop with a bit of
noise, this may be more to your liking than it was to mine. For more info
visit
http://www.wredfright.com/team.html. (Bob Ignizio)
Midtown's
most recent album, ‘Forget What You Know’, grabs the listener from the start
with catchy hooks and clever lyrics. Track 5, "God is Dead" momentarily slows
the pace down with a piano intro which seems completely disconnected from the
rest of the song as the pace is immediately kicked back up after the intro. Then
Midtown repeats the same needless slowing of pace again with the end of track 9
and parts of track 10. The vocals on track 11 have much more of an "emo" feel
rather than a "pop" feel like the rest of the album. The end of the album is
rather dull with the lengthy and repetitive song "So Long As Our Bodies Are
Numb." The guitars and bass on the album are strong and rhythmic, which is a
plus. Lyrically the album takes on intellectualism while addressing a number of
interesting topics such as religion, relationships, and sex.The lyrics are not
cliche phrases, either, with lines like "Sex is old. Old and boring" or "I don't
want to fuck you. I don't want to touch. I just want to fill you with regret."
While many pop albums have a relatively happy feel as they tend to only scrape
deeper issues, this effort by Midtown leaves a jaded and angry taste in the
listener's mouth. (Jeniffer Adams)
A long
time ago, when the big "alternative" bands were the B-52's, REM, and Sonic
Youth, there was such a thing as "college rock". Actually, most of the
proto-alt bands were lumped into this category as well, though they didn't
always fit. Well, for those old enough to remember, ‘Fancy Title for a
Part-Time Job’, the second CD from The Nancy School, is college rock, plain and
simple. Now, I tend to hate about 90% of the college rock bands out there,
because the vast majority of these bands are self-indulgent exercises in
weirdness and clichés that entertain only those too full of themselves to hang
with people who like music they can hum. The Nancy School, however, succeeds
where others fail because they have the musicianship and musical knowledge to
make their musical explorations entertaining and interesting. While not
sounding like Phish, they do tend to share a similar sense of joyous musical
mayhem. This IS art rock, however, so unless you enjoy such flavors already
then this band could be somewhat annoying… just a little warning. The Heathen
Hippy gives it 3 and ½ college keggers. For more info or to order a copy
of this CD visit 
Since
the release of Norselaw’s ‘Sweet Home Scandinavia’ in 2003, Cleveland “Viking
rapper” Valhalla Ice has parted ways with co-vocalist Ragnar. Norselaw is now
just Val, who handles all the vocals and guitars on ‘Macabre Skies’. He does
get an assist from guest musicians Shawn Davis on drums, Dave McDougal on bass,
and Gollum (of Nocturnal Solace) on keyboards, but for all intents and purposes
Valhalla Ice is Norselaw. For me, ‘Macabre Skies’ is at its best on the tracks
where the rap and black metal sides of Norselaw blend together, like “Macabre
Skies”, “Battle Hymn for the Conquered”, “Hegemony”, and “Back With a Fang”.
These songs make what could easily have been an unholy union sound perfectly
natural. Less successful for me were two more traditional rap-rock songs
(“Language’s Demise’ and “Lie of the Frost Giants (Reverse Racism)”) and a
ballad (“Rejection of Spring”). They sound more like they belong on
the previous album than here, and musically don’t stand out as anything
special. On the flipside, the album both opens and closes with atmospheric
black metal numbers with no rap parts. Not only do these two tracks feel
right at home on the album, they're both quite good. Just as Norselaw
seems to be taking the musical side of things more seriously (for the most part)
on this album, the lyrics seem more serious as well. Not that there isn't still
a sense of humor, but it's put in the service of making a point. Not always a
point I agree with, but it would be pretty naïve to expect political correctness
from either black metal or white rap, let alone a blend of the genres. For more
info, go to
Cleveland’s
Team Fright has sort of a late eighties underground/post punk sound to them.
Essentially that means well written pop songs played in a noisy, clangy kind of
way. Think The Vaselines crossed with The Jesus Lizard. It’s meant to be
catchy, dark and dissonant at the same time, and certainly succeeds in doing
so. To be honest, it’s not a style of music I generally seek out, but I still
found myself getting into the first two tracks (“Ambulence Driver” and “Second
Shift”) on this four song demo. The other two tracks (“The Queen of Zine” and
“Mary Black”), however, left me kind of cold. Personally I would have liked to
see “Penny Dreadful”, a song I’ve heard the band do live which really stood out
to me, on here instead. But hey, that’s just me. The production is very raw
and minimalistic, most likely done on four track although I don’t know for
sure. If you like your noise rock with a bit of pop, or your pop with a bit of
noise, this may be more to your liking than it was to mine. For more info
visit 