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Artist: Fellow Album: Fellow EP Reviewer: Tyler Hess Sometimes what you expect to happen is the very cause of the opposite action to occur.  In related news, I enjoy both making up my very own proverbs and listening to the same CD over and over again until I can actually find something more than the obvious in a band, at least when I have the time and opportunity.  At first glance, Fellow, an alternative rock band out of Visalia, California has incredibly similar vocals to Flyleaf (minus any kind of screaming), but with a different approach. … Continued →

Artist: Blood and Water Album: self-titled Reviewer: Tyler Hess It is always interesting when two seemingly drastically different genres of music are meshed together to form one harmonious piece of art.  It would be like watching a movie that mixes comedy, horror and romance all into one film experience.  Oh wait, they did that in the “Evil Dead Trilogy”.  That was an epic series of films.  I also have completely distracted you from my point.  Blood and Water have famously (not yet, they should be soon though, if I have my way) grafted in their reggae leanings with their pop punk stylings and morphed them into twelve songs of awesome.… Continued →

Artist: See You Soon Album: Don’t Give Up EP Buy It: Smartpunk or Amazon MP3 Review by the Headless Horseman. 1. Lights 2. Run Run Girl 3. Never Be The Same 4. Don’t Give Up 5. Fall In Love 6. Perfect 7. If You Want To There are two kinds of musicians: those who are like Flight of the Conchords, and those who aren’t. Explaining the meaning of this will be difficult, so allow me to illustrate. Rise Against are not like Flight of the Conchords.… Continued →

Artist: The Atlantic Manor Album: On The Wrong Side Of A Saturday Night Label: Do Too Records Reviewer: Tyler Hess Eight. Think about that number. This is the eighth record in eight years for this indie folk country artist that is probably most comparable to Neil Young, yet still hard to define into one simple genre. That is determination and consistency for any band, but especially for one that will probably never have much of an audience. This is definitely one of those things like Mountain Dew, you just have to have a taste for it or you’ll probably hate it.… Continued →

Artist: Backdrop Album: What’s Next? Released: Spring 2008 Reviewer: Tyler Hess Well look at what we have here, another band from Iowa, this time from Iowa City, as Backdrop comes full speed ahead with their alternative rock that they recorded and produced by themselves at home. That is about as indie as you get, so that alone pretty much makes them a good fit around these parts, at least, that is, if they are any good. Taking a simpler approach to music compared to a lot of the bands out there these days that break out with a hundred layers on every song and synthesizers that can get a bit overused, Backdrop’s “What’s Next” is a 3 piece band with catchy hooks matched up with nasally vocals and generally forgettable but workable guitar work and unnoticeable drums.… Continued →

Artist: You The Symphony Album: From Air To Arms Reviewer: Tyler Hess Never have I read so much about one band and understood so little about what they (or their management) are trying to say about themselves as I now have about You The Symphony. Yet, that takes absolutely nothing away from the enjoyable six track piece of rock music that they have provided on their “From Air to Arms” EP. What surprises me the most is their ability to have a cohesive sound on the record, yet I never feel like I’m listening to the same sound twice.… Continued →

Artist: The Almost Album: No Gift To Bring Label: Tooth and Nail Released: 11/24/2008 Reviewer: Tyler Hess I give up. You win, Aaron Gillespie. You can do anything you want to. The Almost, the brainchild of the backbone of the heart-pounding body that is Underoath has brought us yet another project to sink our teeth into, this time a mere appetizer of an acoustic EP displaying a new song, a Christmas song, a hymn and two new versions of old songs. No, this probably isn’t going to display the new direction that the almost will take whenever they come out with another full length later next year.… Continued →

Artist: Here’s My Chance Album: Through The Towns Released: Spring 2008 Reviewer: Tyler Hess Apparently, there is a scene in Iowa. It makes sense, I’ve just never thought about it. Have you? Well, maybe you should, I’m sure they’d appreciate it. I bring this up, in case your deductive powers are low due to thinking way too much about Christmas shopping, Here’s My Chance brings us their pop-punk sound from Des Moines, a town name I’ve always enjoyed saying, because I’m a nerd. Now that I’ve said too much about too little, are you wondering what they are really all about?… Continued →

Artist: Shane & Shane Album: Glory in the Highest: A Christmas Record Label: Inpop Records Release Date: October 14, 2008 Review by: Eric Pettersson Tracklist: 1. O Holy Night 2. O Come O Come Emmanuel 3. Away in a Manger 4. It’s Beginning to Look like Christmas 5. Born to Die 6. Silent Night 7. White Christmas 8. Holiday 9. Glory in the Highest 10. O Come Let Us Adore Him While our site has never been especially big on CCM singer/songwriters, there’s a special leniency that comes every December where people who love all styles of music come together to celebrate winter and/or the birth of Jesus.… Continued →

Artist: Danielson Album: Trying Hartz Label: Secretly Canadian Release Date: November 4, 2008 Review by: Eric Pettersson Tracklist: Disc 1: 1. Now Try 2. Body English 3. Flip Flop Flim Flam 4. Singers Go First 5. Jersey Loverboy 6. Animal In Every Corner (Version) 7. Rubbernecker 8. Sold! To The Nice Rich Man! (Live) 9. Thanx To Noah 10. Rallying The Dominoes 11. The Lord’s Rest (Live) 12. A Meeting With Your Maker 13. Daughters Will Tune You 14. Runnin’ To Brother Disc 2: 1. A No No 2.… Continued →

Artist: Switchfoot Album: The Best Yet Label: Credential Recordings Release Date: November 4, 2008 Review by: Eric Pettersson Tracklist: 1. Dare You to Move 2. Meant to Live 3. Stars 4. Oh! Gravity 5. This Is Home 6. Learning to Breathe 7. Awakening 8. This Is Your Life 9. On Fire 10. Only Hope 11. Dirty Second Hands 12. Love Is the Movement 13. Company Car 14. Lonely Nation 15. The Shadow Proves the Sunshine 16. Concrete Girl 17. Twenty-four 18. Beautiful Letdown Switchfoot is a band that has always stood out among its peers.… Continued →

Artist: Jon Foreman Album: Limbs & Branches Label: Credential Recordings Release Date: October 28, 2008 Review by: Eric Pettersson Tracklist: 1. Your Love Is Strong 2. Behind Your Eyes 3. The Cure for Pain 4. Resurrect Me 5. Southbound Train 6. Broken from the Start 7. The House of God Forever 8. Instead of a Show 9. A Mirror Is Harder to Hold 10. In My Arms 11. Learning How to Die 12. Over the River Taking a break from the crunching guitars and loud sing-a-longs of bestselling modern rock band Switchfoot, vocalist Jon Forman spent the past year recording a series of four EPs, each named after the season in which it was released (starting with Fall and ending with Spring).… Continued →

Artist: The Radiance Effect Album: Wake The Forgotten Reviewer: Tyler Hess With some bands it is just difficult to translate their music from one format to another. Either they are a great studio band that can’t really put on a show to get the kids’ attention or they are a great live band that can’t fit all their raw energy onto some kind of a cohesive recording. The Radiance Effect is a band that boasts of playing 250 shows a year in a manner that helps them to reach out and touch people’s lives.… Continued →

Artist: Awake! Awake! Album: We’ve Been Strangers Reviewer: Tyler Hess Hailing from the incredibly cool name of a town, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, this band has brought forth a solid effort of alt-rock along the lines of other indie bands that are known around here such as My Epic and Sleep For Sleepers, with vocals that often go into more of a Number One Gun/Kessler/Esterlyn type sound. To tell you the truth, I had so many bands that I wanted to compare these guys to simply because they refuse to stick to just one sound for the entirety of the album.… Continued →

Artist: The Listening Album: Transmission 1 Label: Indie Release Date: October 28, 2008 Review by: Michael Mayer III Tracklisting:

1. The End
2. When
3. Prayer in the Dark
4. Fight With You

It’s tough for me to review EP’s since I usually never buy them for their lack of substance. However, when one of my favorite bands hasn’t released any new material in close to 4 years I tend to get giddy with excitement and make exceptions… and it was a wise choice. Yeah, it’s only 4 songs, but they combine for a solid 20 minutes of music that I can’t get enough of.… Continued →

Artist: Arkeo Album: Of Clive And Malcolm Reviewer: Tyler Hess Hailing from the mythical state of Hawaii, this progressive alt rock band has come out with a new full length that might push them to the next level. See also: maybe, possibly, could. That is what we in the world of thesauruses call synonyms. I use them as an emphasis. It is usually the little things that help bands go from bad to good, from good to great, from great to amazing. The question that must be answered is what has “Of Clive and Malcolm” done for Arkeo?… Continued →

Artist: The Distance Between Album: Building Bridges Reviewer: Tyler Hess First of all, I am not a big fan of incomplete sentences. Sure, it makes you think, but I have enough on my plate these days that it just isn’t something I need right now. That is strike one. Second, I don’t really need any more mediocre alternative rock in my life. This is one genre where you better do it well or stay home. Where does The Distance Between fit in? Well, essentially… By starting off fast, these Californians start off rocky.… Continued →

Artist: Death is Not Welcome Here Album: Death is Not Welcome Here EP Reviewer: Tyler Hess It isn’t very often that I am introduced to a band with the thoughts “hey check these guys out, they basically just broke up”, so it is with a different attitude that I consider this 5 song EP. Sure, the music is the same either way you hear it, but what follows is going to be different. There is no looking forward to the future of the band, wondering what direction they are going.… Continued →

Artist: Chandelle Album: The Cold That Keeps You Alive EP Label: Green Bean Recordings Buy It: Amazon MP3 Review by the Headless Horseman. 1. The Cold That Keeps You Alive 2. Lions and Lambs 3. In These Bones 4. Our Days are Numbered 5. I Keep the Door Open 6. Throw Your Spark I have a confession to make. I am a dirty sexist rotter. Shun me. I have this thing for girls who sing pop songs. And Chandelle made me fall, very, very hard.… Continued →

Artist: Curbsquirrels Album: We Wish We Knew How To Quit This Reviewer: Tyler Hess A few years ago, there were two relatively unknown bands that came together to produce a split CD called “Composition” on the now defunct “DUG Records” Label. One of them, Last Tuesday, went on to sign with Mono Vs Stereo and record two great albums before calling it quits in early 2007, while the other faded into relative obscurity. That other band was the Curbsquirrels, whom I tried on various occasions to track down over the past couple of years, to no avail.… Continued →

Artist: Hazel and Vine Album: All Together Now Label: Ethos Records Reviewer: Tyler Hess It is time, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, for me to make a blazingly rare outlandishly stupendous statement: This is the worst music I’ve ever enjoyed so much. There. I said it. I had never heard a song from Hazel and Vine before listening to this live show CD, but it didn’t take me very long to realize that this was indie pop rock with vocals that go out of key way too often, music that is pretty simple and lyrics that are at times a bit too immature, creating a sound that is almost impossible to not enjoy.… Continued →

Artist: Kevin and the Octaves Album: Hang Your Stocking Start The Rocking Reviewer: Tyler Hess Finally, the joyous celebration of the uniting two of my best friends, Christmas and pop-punk.  Let us have a riotous good time, shall we? Let’s face it, most of us have heard some songs so many times and so unoriginally and boring that it makes us a wee bit sick.  Some of these songs are my least favorite Christmas songs, yet with the energy and new direction they are taken I find myself shouting along with songs that would normally have me letting out a big fat groan and an eye roll that causes minor earthquakes.… Continued →

The Keep Breathing Tour Featuring: Wavorly The Wedding A Current Affair It was a dark and stormy night.  The Germans were breathing down our necks and we were running out of ammo, food and oh…wait…I got confused because my ears are still ringing.  Well, not so much mine, but probably my girlfriend’s ears.  I’m tougher than that.  However, a life long (sorry, I keep lying, forgive me) dream of seeing the Wedding live.  As in a show, not as in just making sure they weren’t dead. … Continued →

Artist: Haste the Day Album: Dreamer Label: Solid State Release Date: October 14, 2008 Review by: Michael Mayer III Tracklisting:

1. 68
2. Mad Man
3. Haunting
4. Resolve
5. An Adult Tree
6. Babylon
7. Invoke Reform
8. Sons of the Fallen Nation
9. Labyrinth
10. Porcelain
11. Autumn

Every now and then an album comes along that is so surprisingly addictive you just don’t know what to do. That moment came for me with Dreamer from Haste the Day. I really wasn’t expecting much since I didn’t own any of their earlier work, mainly because it didn’t strike me as unique enough to stand out.… Continued →

Artist: Corey Crowder Album: Gold and the Sand Label: Tooth and Nail Release Date: 11/11/2008 Reviewer: Tyler Hess Track Listing 1. Southern Way 2. Love 3. Look How Far We’ve Come 4. Higher Ground 5. Leaving You 6. Helpless Heart 7. Innocence 8. Changes 9. Devils 10. Slow Down 11. I’ve Become Something 12. Lonesome Road Circles. Waves. Roller coasters. What do they all have in common with the music industry? They are all constantly changing only to end up pretty much where they were before.… Continued →

Artist: Skillet Album: Comatose Comes Alive Label: Atlantic Release Date: Oct 21 2008 Reviewer: Tyler Hess Unlike so many bands that have been jumping on the bandwagon of live CD/DVD combos, Skillet hasn’t been around four three or four years, they’ve been around longer than some of our readers have been alive. I bring this to your attention not to dismiss those other bands, but to express how these disks have that “at last” feeling to them. The funny thing, however, is that I feel like it was a good thing that they waited.… Continued →

Artist: Various Album: X Christmas Label: Tooth and Nail/BEC Released: Oct 28 2008 Reviewer: Tyler Hess Call me sentimental, call me a pushover, call me whatever you want, just don’t call me late for Christmas time. Let’s be real for just a minute. Lay down your indie cred and scene points for just a minute, please bare with me. Christmas songs are just different. If you are taking them too seriously, you’re probably missing the point. Christmas is many things to many people, and no this is not a dissertation on the holiday, but it is generally a time for friends and family and letting bitterness go and the music played is generally a genre unto itself in that it is usually some kind of mixture of lightheartedness and/or a time of reflection on what God did in sending His Son Jesus Christ to earth to save us from our sins.… Continued →

November 11, 2008 By Jonathan/Bloodwater Thank you to Bonafide for taking the time to answer my questions and thanks to Jen from Big Machine Media for setting up this interview. For those unfamiliar with you, first off where does the name Grits come from and why did you decide to go with it? We are from the south, and when you hear GRITS, its already assumed. We wanted a name that stuck out and meant something that represented us. How did you get the nicknames Coffee and Bonafide?… Continued →

Artist: Brave Saint Saturn Album: Anti-Meridian Label: Department of Biophysics Release Date: September 15, 2008 Review by: Eric Pettersson Tracklist: 1. Here Is the News 2. Mercenary 3. Starling 4. Underground 5. When You Burn Too Fast 6. Through Depths of Twilight 7. Hero’s Homecoming 8. Ammodramus 9. Fields of the Fallen 10. Always beneath the Dawn 11. Fortress of Solitude 12. Blessed Are the Land Mines 13. Aegolius 14. Begin Again 15. These Frail Hands 16. Invictus Right now I’m taking a Communication Theory course, and in the theory we just studied we talked about parasocial relationships.… Continued →

Artist:  House of Heroes Album: The End is Not the End Label: Gotee Reviewer: Tyler Hess Rock N’ Roll will never die as long as bands like House of Heroes make sure that the End is Not the End. Terribly unwitty reference to the title of the album aside, the way too long anticipation for the latest release from these guys (followed by the way too delayed review) should not disappoint a single person (unless that person was foolishly wishing failure, which would be just plain mean).… Continued →