| The Velvet Teen - Cum Laude!
Eschewing the alt-rock intricacies of Out of the Fierce Parade and mostly down-tempo, piano-centric orchestrations of Elysium, the Velvet Teen once again redefine themselves and their sound on their latest triumph, Cum Laude!. Cum Laude! not only treads new ground for the group, but does so with formidable aplomb, wrecking any notion that this band can be pinned down.
In contrast to Elysium’s six extended tracks, Cum Laude! favors shorter, quicker, and more dynamic compositions. One of the first things you’ll notice on it is the heavy vocal filters, which, ironically, only embolden Judah Nagler’s croon. Nagler has never been stronger and here his voice simply rises above the glitch-heavy rock like a heralding of something prophetic and radical. Opening track "333" attests to this when Nagler belts out, "I took the pain out of my pen / I took my self out of my selfish ways / and wrote all...I took the greed out of my grin / and sunk my teeth into my work instead / and they followed."
Although produced with the same sparkling precision as Elysium, Cum Laude! is a hybridized beast of a supremely varied parentage.
Dog Day cuts like a knife
Make no mistake, Dog Day is a power trio. They're a polished power trio that has a sound that rips through the speakers like a fireball. Adding an edge to cover tunes sharp enough to cut glass. Their originals are songs that are kept simple enough for everyone to get the first time around, bound tightly by strands of raw energy.Dog Day holds to the traditional power trio made popular in the 1960s. A true power trio has one lead guitar, one bass and one drummer. One of the first power trios was Buddy Holly and The Crickets, staying true to the basic formula of guitar, bass and drums. The power trio was exemplified by The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream. These groups laid the foundation for future power trios such as James Gang, Grand Funk Railroad, Motorhead, Green Day, King's X and Nirvana.
Electronic maestros craft new subculture
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - In the corner of Noah Fleischman's Kansas City basement sits a table with electronic toys, keyboards and guitar pedals, all gutted and rewired, circuitry spilling from the casings. But he's no gadget repairman. He's a musician. Fleischman manipulates the machines - toys, instruments, talking dolls even - to make strange, dissonant sounds. He is one of many experimental artists immersed in a blossoming, do-it-yourself subculture known as circuit bending. "I like the random chaos. No two devices are the same," Fleischman said. On Web sites like eBay, circuit-bent mutant machines are hot commodities. And festivals and workshops have sprouted worldwide. Many have turned to circuit-bending creator Reed Ghazala's anti-theory.com Web site for guidance.
Weezer Scrap Fifth LP, Start Again from Scratch
After an uncharacteristically productive period in 2001 and 2002, during which they released their first albums in five years, Weezer have been taking things relatively slow, perhaps taking extra care to ensure that their long-gestating (and still forthcoming) fifth full-length exceeds the expectations of their notoriously hardass fanbase. Since December of 2003, Weezer had been in and out of the studio with producer Rick Rubin working on new material, to varying degrees of success. However, the band has now scrapped the results of those sessions, in favor of new material they began work on three weeks ago. According to a post on Weezer.com, the group has been in the studio for much of August laying down songs from scratch. The website explained the band's decision to shelve their work with Rubin, stating that it was a "response to [frontman] Rivers [Cuomo] regaining his sense of momentum with his songwriting, and not feeling right about continuing with the incomplete recordings from December." It goes on to reveal: "In effect, the band is now producing itself, as it did on [the prior albums] Pinkerton and Maladroit, but this time they have a wise shoulder to lean on if and when need be.
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