June, 2010

It’s time to sing the praises of the brilliantly bold but understated talents of Hhymn.

With a modest number of Myspace friends, Hhymn are a little hidden gem from the UK that are soon to emerge and shine right into your eye, blinding you with pure beauty. There’s no fussy over-production, just a whimsical folksy sound that strikes chords with the likes of Arcade Fire, Beirut and The Doves. Two years after forming Hhymn, Ed Bannard and Simon Ritchie are to release their first official debut single, along with some buddies on their own label Food Chain – praise the lord! No that’s not the name of the track, Land of Souls is available to purchase from Monday (28th June) and is accompanied by an equally perfectly crafted B-side, Amanita. I’m sure you know how rare a good B-side is. From the first listen both songs give me that cliché warm, fuzzy feeling inside, their tools are vast from Organs to Glockenspiels but never encroaching on the meaningful and empathetic lyrics. Hhymn have been described as having enough melancholy to sink a battleship, go grab some armbands and slip into the blissful beats.

Listen to Land of Souls by Hhymn

Hey Warped Tour fans, are you ready? Are you pumped?

The 16th year of the Vans Warped Tour kicked off today in Carson, California, and was (obviously) a total success! If you’re going to Warped Tour this summer, which bands are you most stoked to see? If you’re not, WHY.

Check the first official pit blog and video below!

PIT BLOG 1 – CARSON

It was around this time 3 years ago when SoCal quartet Pierce The Veil had released their first official album under their new name — stemming from the previous name, Before Today — and unleashed a debut hardcore high-pitched storm, “A Flair For The Dramatic”. And now, after being on hiatus for quite some time, they’re back to business, with their latest release, “Selfish Machines”.

The 12-track sophomore appears, at first, to be one big melancholic love story, but after diving a little deeper in to the album, and reading up on the track-by-track at AltPress.com, there seems to be a lot more than just tales of Southern girls and being selfish. Just reading about the 9th track, “I Don’t Care If You’re Contagious” makes you think about life.

(AltPress.com) – I Don’t Care If You’re Contagious: I wrote a great deal of these lyrics after a young fan had explained to me that her boyfriend had just recently died in a car accident. She told me that he held her hand for the first time at our one of our shows. She told me that she just wanted to thank us for being a part of their lives. This was one of the most shocking and heartbreaking things I’d ever heard. I wrote the song as a gift to her. It’s meant to be her boyfriend speaking to her, telling her that he is still watching over her and that he will love her forever.

In general, the album is all about love, heartbreak, and relationships; but then again, so is every other song in the world. So in this sense, there is no real originality here. The overall album, however, sounds very real and crisp, in that you can hear each individual instrument and background vocal fold with true clarity. You can really distinguish the attention to detail in this album when compared to other artists in the post-hardcore genre.

PTV has evolved in their sound, gradually adding more and more electronic enhancement (Fast Times At Clairemont High) and incorporating a more defined latin background. Vic Fuentes manages to keep as girly voice as possible, with the occasional pitchy crack and harmonic squeal, as well, the heaviness of the album doesn’t really differ much from previous works.

Rating:  

Did you hear? J-Sleazy and the gang are back with round two of Attack Attack!’s latest attempt to re-invent themselves as respected musicians. With a slew of member changes and constant criticisms of their talent and genre, the band has finally unleashed the second full-length album, self-titled, from Rise Records.

Think post-Sonnny From First To Last, Stick To Your Guns, and Cobra Starship.

A chilling piano intro begins the album on “Sexual Man Chocolate”, getting our hopes up for a somewhat decent metalcore album. And for the first three songs or so our expectations are pretty much exceeded — it is, so far, indeed a metal album with a hint of electronica; until the fourth track, “Shut Your Mouth”. It’s a good song, if you’re a fan of dancing and, perhaps, Jeffree Star. I understand that electronica takes a big part in Attack Attack! as a band, but “Shut Your Mouth” strays just a bit too much from the general genre that the band has landed on, and really sticks out as annoying filler. As my own preference, when listening to heavy music, I want to stay in heavy music until I’m ready to be done. I don’t want any dance, J-Sleazy, or anything of that sort. The overall idea behind this album’s genre is pretty confusing in general. You’ve got a good ‘ol heavy as hell fast-paced sound in songs like “Renob, Nevada” and “AC-130″, a girlish Cobra-esque “Shut Your Mouth”, and Boyz To Men in the final track, “Lonely”, with something that Brokencyde would put out in the last 60 seconds of the album.

Caleb, the groups third and current lead vocalist, brings a heavier scream to the table, whereas Carlile had the higher-pitched accent. And as far as I’m concerned, the band’s music hasn’t greatly changed or evolved.

Let’s hope any future music videos won’t earn them any more comments from critics.

Rating:  

If, like me, a quirky band name increases your heart rhythm and your ears prick up in excitement then let me introduce you to the unusually named Muchuu.

Probably not the best band name to use in a game of Hangman but probably the cutest band to listen to this summer. Muchuu (‘moo-chew’) which is the direct translation of ‘dream’ in Japanese are a brother and sister glittery-pop outfit hailing from Hereford, UK. The two play their very separate parts; Milky is the twee-indie vocalist whilst brother George is the techy, music master. There is no doubting the oriental inspirations in the majority of the tracks on debut album ‘Adventure We Go’ is proof that these two are fully-fledged musical explorers starting to make their mark on the indie-electro pop world. Each song has bundles of character and grabs you with two arms for closer inspection of all the experimental elements it boasts. You’ll love Muchuu if you adore being completely immersed in a daydreamy state and yearn for long summery drives through country fields–the two aren’t advised to take together. I caught up with the pair to discuss afros, unusual sound bites, disturbing dreams and general Muchuu magic.

You’re brother and sister outfit, please tell me that you have Jackson 5 esq routines?

George: Unfortunately, no. I’d like to have an afro though.
Milky: We used dance around in the lounge and put on plays when we were little, to entertain our parents…but that’s as far as it goes with dance routines!

Seriously though, how do you not end up tearing each others hair out after spending so much time together? Milky: Well we do annoy each other slightly sometimes, but only slightly. In general we get on pretty well. We have quite different personalities but when were making music and practicing and gigging we kind of forget about that and just have fun. George: Yeah, we’ve got past the arguing thing. Just about.

Your music is often created by using various objects that you come across, what’s the oddest thing you’ve used? Milky: A ladder. And a digital camera zoom.
George: We also slammed a door a good few times to get the right door slam sound. That was pretty weird.

The music you write is about dreams and escapism, what kind of dreams do you have for yourselves?

Milky: I usually have rather strange and disturbing dreams. They’re often just so odd and confusing I can’t explain them! Sometimes I feel odd for the rest of the day…but sometimes they’re really cool, like a mini movie in my head. As for my dreams for my future, I’d love to visit Japan and other cool countries, spread Muchuu music all over place and for people to really enjoy our album, move into my own little house and buy a pet pug!
George: I can see the future in my dreams. In terms of aspirations, I’d like to keep making different music, away from the boring clichéd music that is around now about sex and money and meaningless stuff just to profit people. Wow, I wasn’t expecting to produce such a political answer.

You’re playing Bestival this year, will you be partaking in the fancy dress parade? The fantasy theme is perfect for Muchuu surely?
Milky: Yeah I heard about this, I need to get something sorted, sounds fun, I don’t often get the chance for fancy dress! So many options…a mermaid might be cool or just a big ball of glittery magic and cover myself in sequins and stickers. Or something out of the Neverending Story. Or Chii from Chobits…
George: Really? I didn’t know about the fancy dress parade. In that case I’ll get my giant dragon costume out. It takes 300 people to operate it.

It’s clear from the sound of the album, not to mention the title, that you’ve had a lots of escapades, how do you put these inspirations into song?

George: I guess I try and show the inspirations musically. Milky is the lyrical one though. I’ve contributed in the past with a couple of sentences. So proud of myself.
Milky: Well I just jot down things that pop into my head when I’m out and about, or just sitting and thinking. I scribble ideas and lyrics down in my notepad or on my phone, then merge them all together to fit a song. I also love to experiment with different sounds to suit the mood or subject of the song. It’s such a good feeling when it all comes together and the music really shows how I was feeling or what I was writing about!

With the first album out, what’s next for Milky and George?

Milky: We really hope people like the first album, and that lots of people get to hear it and we get to continue gigging all over the place, including gigs overseas. We’re already writing songs for the second album, which I’m also excited about.
George: We’ll just have faith and see where the music takes us. We can’t help writing more songs, so that will probably continue forever.

The album ‘Adventure We Go’ will be available for digital download and in stores August 31st. My favourite tracks include ‘Somebody Tell Me’, ‘Dancing With a Ghost’ and ‘Patchwork‘.

It seems like many bands these days fit into the electronica/dance-pop category. Honestly, a lot of them end up sounding the same, but I have to say, after giving Breathe Electric’s “Lovestruck” a listen, Breathe Electric is definitely not your generic dance/power-pop/electronica band.

The EP opens in a proper fashion with the high-energy title track. As the song progresses, it becomes maybe a little bit too repetitive, but sustains the energy and excitement that it begins with.

One thing that definitely sticks out to me about this particular album that many bands are guilty of, is the over-repetitiveness of songs. On a positive note, singer Grant Harris’ voice is definitely unique and helps put Breathe Electric’s music above all of the other generic pop bands despite the use of auto-tune throughout the album.

Something I really enjoy about this particular album, is the difference in each song. Yes, they do all seem to be about love and girls, but somehow each song is different enough that they keep the album from becoming monotonous, which is something I can’t stand. Each song is exciting and just a warning: you might find yourself dancing.

A particular song that sticks out to me, is “Electronic Lover”. The song slows down the somewhat fast pace of the album, but in a good way. The song itself is still full of energy, just a little slowed down.

Something else that many popular bands these days incorporate into their music, is just plain awful lyrics. Yeah, I’m looking at you 3OH!3 and Brokencyde. Even if the lyrics on “Lovestruck” are slightly generic, they beat putting down females and lyrics mostly talking about drugs and alcohol.

And now, the end of the album. “Stop Actin’” is the final track. If I had chosen the tracklisting, I really don’t think I would have chosen this song. It seems to keep the same mood in the sense of energy as the previous track “Electronic Lover”. The song is a bit slower paced as with “Electronic Lover” and is a disappointment. Although most of the songs on the album are around the same length, “Stop Actin’” feels shorter, like an abrupt, hurried ending.

If you like to dance, you will most likely enjoy this EP. Breathe Electric has a lot of potention to gain even more friends and become more well-known, which I would like to see. I was pleasantly surprised when I listened to this album, as this genre isn’t usually what I listened to. Definitely worth listenting to more than once.

I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Breathe Electric, a pop-electronica band has a new EP coming out. The EP titled “Lovestruck”, hits stores June 15th, and will also be available for download. “Lovestruck” can be preordered here. You can also catch Breathe Electric on the Vans Warped Tour this summer.