Forever in your Mind - Smooth

Forever in your Mind - Smooth 

URL: http://www.foreverinyourmind.com/ 

Forever In Your Mind are produced by Dustin Atlas, Eau Noir and Josh Gudwin (Justin Bieber, Bebe Rexha), and co-written by the band, the songs pair up well, tackling the mysteries of a relationship on the edge. Sporting a serpentine groove and sleek blues riff, “Smooth” dissects the competitive nature of love, while the equally sophisticated “Missing,” with its wailing harmonies, laments a relationship fractured beyond repair (“All that remains is my broken faith”). The two tracks “reflect real emotions everyone feels,” notes Liam. “We wanted to be as real as possible, because we’re writing in a more mature frame of mind.”

The Boy Band craze is something that will never die, and the Trio of Forever In Your Mind have been getting it down since 2013. They have gone through changes and still survived the ringer. On this new release, they get ready to tour with a couple of fresh cuts to add to their set. It should keep their crowds happy whether in NY or Denver. This should help give them another reason to come out to see them. Performing is really what it’s all about for both them and the fans. There aren’t many facts in music but that is as close to one as it gets. What better way to throw it out there than to tour and hopefully tour more. “Smooth” is no cover of “Shake Your Booty” or a Christmas song, both of which they’ve done in the past. This has huge wings of its own in which to fly and soar over and above most Forever In Your Mind songs. I rate it as the better of the two tracks featured, but they both earn their marks. It’s just that “Smooth” is the deeper of the two, which puts it in front of “Missing” where it belongs. And this one comes with a nice video clip to look and get even more into the song. It’s about figuring out who we are and fitting with others or not. Making and breaking rules is just one of the dynamics they cover in the words.

Where this takes Forever In Your Mind is yet to be seen, but it has the potential to take them over the top of the rainbow and land on their pot of gold. But it’s not like they don’t stay busy with other activities, they have just gone to another level on this track, as well as the other a-side of the coin. And maybe they’ll get a lot of traction with both, or in reverse for all anyone knows. But you can judge for yourself by picking it up or streaming it. The video can be found on social networks and the songs at retain with the rest of Forever In Your Mind’s music. It’s not hard to find, but it should be more accessible based on the quality of these two new titles.

A lyric video can be found for “Missing” and lets it stand on its own for now, but a video should get produced of this one two. It’s more on the upside concerning the arrangement and the vocals are all over it in contrast to “Smooth” which has a much mellower presence. But for all “Missing” is good for, it does reach places the former cannot possibly go in structure. So, these two make perfect sense together, even though they don’t have anything in common but the socio-political subject matter they’re always good for. And if Forever in Your Mind aren’t good, people are losing their hearing for the worse. This is a world class act with a release of the same caliber in tow.  

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialFIYM

John Birch 

Another Mile by The Spiders

 

Another Mile” by The Spiders

 

NAPSTER: http://ie.napster.com/artist/the-spiders/album/another-mile

It’s rare for a song that is well-composed, well-timed, and plainly great to come along. It’s even rarer for a song that somehow makes listeners want to move, to get excited, to pop up, but The Spiders’ newest single, “Another Mile”, fits the bill and does just that. Those who’ve heard the song are probably rocking out right now, and those who’ve yet to do so should read on to find out what makes the track so special.

First, “Another Mile” is instrumentally engaging and powerful. A formidable guitar, steady bass, and thrashing drum rhythm coordinate directly out of the gate, thereby making clear to listeners that they’re in for a fast-paced treat. Importantly, the song’s instruments never feel forced or, as is commonly found with modern rock tracks, too quick. Rather, “Another Mile” manages to strike a delicate balance between sprinting and walking—a balance that’ complemented by top-notch playing skills, and a balance that sets the stage for the song’s remarkable lyrical delivery.

A song like this, even with its once again outstanding instrumentals, would be lost without grade-a vocals. Luckily, The Spiders’ front man delivers the goods. Besides being consistent and range-focused in his singing, the lead vocalist here perfectly times and matches his words to the instrumental pitch, resulting in an almost-artificial-sounding overall song. Just in case some readers were unsure, it is certainly a good thing when a song’s vocals and instrumentals match up so well that they sound artificially arranged!

And for further clarity, they were not, in this instance.

“Another Mile” also impresses lyrically. The upbeat, optimistic words uttered by the lead man are sure to inspire listeners—an impressive contrast to most other music today! What’s more is that these vocals, which obviously focus on “Another Mile” in refreshing one’s body and mind, also encourage others not to give up in adversity, and to appreciate everything life has to offer. Again, this is a stark contrast to most other music, as vocalists so often remind listeners of their specific plight and difficulty.

Finally, “Another Mile” is also benefitted by a high-quality video. It’d be a shame if such a one-of-a-kind song was accompanied by a lower-end video (as is commonly the case), but that’s simply not a problem here. The runners remind viewers of the need to move through all sorts of hurdles, be they pavement or life problems, and the well-shot footage of The Spiders playing is just exciting—that’s all there is to it, and that’s a good thing.

Rock ‘n’ roll fans, general music fans, and/or anyone interested in being motivated and inspired should check out The Spiders’ “Another Mile” track. The engaging, energetic, fun song is a throwback to the days not only of pure rock, but of music with meaning. Besides, it looks like The Spiders may very well be the next big thing, and as such, anyone who jumps on the bandwagon now will be able to say they boarded first.

YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nJcLro5xkk

Mindy McCall

 

Swaylex - Raging Rapids

 

Swaylex - Raging Rapids 

SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/anrreps/swaylex-raging-rapids 

“Raging Rapids” is the hardest hitting of the three recent compositions Swaylex has uploaded to YouTube. It has consider Sturm und Drang derived from a series of crushing guitar riffs that veer from the melodically direct to fiery lead work seemingly intent on grabbing listeners by the throat and keeping their attention. There’s a lot of confidence coming off this two minute track as well – it is rather impressive that he can make such a memorable impression within such a short amount of time, but the focus he brings to bear on the song enables him to do so. Another crucial factor in its success is the song’s construction. Obviously, due to the composition’s length, there isn’t an assortment of changes during these two minutes, but the segues from one section to the next are flawlessly handled.  It is quite obviously a rock track – but he never relies on the standard genre tropes to capture the audience’s attention.  
 

There’s a bit of fanfare in the way he introduces the song with some screaming lead guitar notes reinforced by patient rhythm guitar running underneath. When he launches into the song properly, the riffing has a leaden tempo and the lead guitar continues accompanying things, but never in too obtrusive of a fashion. The drumming spikes the tempo some with some well timed rolls and fills, but otherwise Swaylex keeps things as straight forward as ever and never clutters up the composition with too many unnecessary notes. It’s quite impressive to hear the confidence he has rolling through these changes, despite how short the song is, and he should have little trouble keeping a listener’s attention for the duration. 
 

Often times, you will listen to an instrumental and the lack of a vocal, especially in the realm of popular song like rock, will seem glaring. There’s none of that here. Instead, Swaylex specializes in a strong theatricality on this song that’s quite intense will retining enough melody to keep the audience’s attention. His guitar work is fluid throughout and the live quality imparted by the video helps increase its physicality and brings listeners even closer to the experience. There’s a palpable confidence in the performance, as well, that sets it apart from typical forays in this area. He sounds surefooted throughout and certain of where he;s going from the first note on. Some may dislike the relatively leaden tempo, but he wrings every bit of possible drama from the tempo and the running time is ideal for such a pace. Perhaps if this song ran, let’s say, four to five minutes with little deviation, we might hear it as something entirely different. That doesn’t happen here. Instead, it flows quite nicely from one passage to the another and the individual parts lock up in such a way that the song never fails to make sense or sounds disjointed. Swaylex’s “Raging Rapids” is a reminder that great talents aren’t always signed to major labels or performing for capacity houses. Sometimes they are just a few keystrokes and a click away. 

I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/album/id1217953302?ls=1&app=itunes 

Lydia Hillenburg

The Chameleon Project - Funk n Space

 

The Chameleon Project - Funk n Space 

URL: http://chameleonproject.ca/ 

The power and undeniable energy that The Chameleon Project brings to the ten songs on Funk n Space isn’t something we’ve heard much of in recent years. The Toronto four piece burn with rare ambition bringing together an array of musical styles into a signature approach that doesn’t seem like it would work, but nonetheless sparks with genuine and artful creativity. Led by guitarist and vocalist Josh Laing, the quartet tackles the songs with a wild and wooly willingness to try anything once and the gambler mentality driving these compositions and performances make Funk n Space a truly revelatory experience. This fiery blend of funk, EDM, disco, jazz, dub, and rock is absolutely irresistible. They show some obvious influences from bands like The Disco Biscuits, John Scofield, and Bonobo, but there’s little question before half of the album has concluded that The Chameleon Project play by their own rules and make it work on the basis of talent alone.  

Despite the influences cited above, The Chameleon Project has their own identity and it’s clear from the outset. “Milky Way” takes a number of musical elements onto its back and makes it all work. The keyboards and drumming are particularly effective here and the incidental human voices rising out of the mix are further adornments that set the performance apart here and elsewhere on the album. It’s a relatively bold move to open your album with the second longest song on the release, coming in at a little over six minutes in length, but “Milky Way” never feels that long and there doesn’t seem to be even a sliver of wasted motion in the track. “Steppin’” shares a similar economy despite its length and shows off the band’s penchant for pouring old wine into new bottles with ingenious revamping of standard reggae tropes. It mixes the electronic textures that are one of the band’s hallmarks with the usual approach to this form. This primarily instrumental album continues to impress with the art rock style distinguishing “Kraken”, though it is a little disheartening to hear such an obviously intelligent band opt for ambient aquatic songs in a song about a water beast. It makes sense for them to do so and they never succumb to overkill, but it just seems a little too obvious.  

“Reactor” is the first outright foray into EDM territory, but The Chameleon Project mixes up the punches with some stunning guitar work that achieves unexpected lyrical heights thanks to its phrasing. It makes utter sense to pair this track with the follow up “Bigfoot” – The Chameleon Project opts to go even more sharply in a rock music direction with its forceful drumming, but they keep things surprising with an approach to the guitar playing quite distinct from what we would hear mainstream rock acts ever dare. The final song on Funk n Space, “Wako”, shows a little bit of playfulness, but it’s largely a kind of final musical statement summarizing everything the band’s covered to this point. It can stand on its own, however, as a monumental fusion of the band’s tendencies rather than merely elaborating on what has come before.  Funk n Space has the sort of keen-eared take on genre hopping that such experiments deserve, but they’ve also managed to craft an album with the potential to appeal across a wide spectrum.  

SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/chameleonproject 

Scott Wigley

Shelter Dreams - Dreamin'

Shelter Dreams – Dremin’ 

URL: https://www.shelterdreamsband.com/ 

Shelter Dreams have been around since 2007. Songs by Shelter Dreams were played about 190000 times on Number One Music - Radio in USA and reached No 1 in the Charts for Germany - Classic Rock. In January 2017, they released the eight song CD, Dreamin, to the world on CD Baby. They are from Dusseldorf and consist of founder, singer/songwriter Jay Dee, and guitarist Met Jörg Morbitzer. And although there isn’t much to know about them, the music can speak for what can’t be found concerning that. It always helps to start somewhere, but Shelter Dreams are no rookie musicians just because Dreamin is their only release they have out to talk about.

They get started on the CD with the title track “Dreamin” and it’s a groovy number but perhaps misplaced among these eight songs. As I could just as easily take this at the end of the disc. It gets carried mostly by some decent guitars, topped off by a simple vocal that doesn’t wind up its strongest suit. But it gets things underway for “Not Enough” which impresses a lot more in the vocal sector, but it’s still one of the weaker tracks. The guitar of Mobitzer tends to remind of players like Duane Allman, which is never a bad archetype to be reminded of. But he also cuts his own style and it charms the songs with quality playing. And these songs are cut one hundred percent live on purpose.

The opening chords of “Going Down” are nothing much to write home about, but they speak before Jay Dee gets a chance to sing again. And this is a better crack at singing what is obviously not his first language, but German accents always sound great in hard rock and he does better with every track. And “Mean Baby” starts off with proof of that with a sharp twanging of the strings that leads into a nice little blues tinged number. It’s very laid back and I like the way he sings “Oh baby” as the repeated top line. It just cruises right along with a minimum of variation and stays in the pocket the whole time. So far, it’s the tastiest track but the guitar mix could be a lot higher.

This continues, in almost exactly the same way, but with bigger power chords to open “Every Second” and for once there is a hint of that familiar heavy German accent like Klaus Meine of the Scorpions, which can’t helped be thought of when it comes to German hard rock. But Jay Dee makes his own marks. But here is another mid-range track but with a few bells and whistles. It’s probably the best track on offer, but they’re all very consistently even. But for me there is still something missing on “No No” Jay Dee makes a clear effort to deliver a passionate vocal. It has a story that isn’t as easy to follow as other vocal patterns but musically loses nothing with some flashy guitar work.

Track seven is entitled “Maybe Over The Border” and it’s the angriest track on the CD with tales of lowlife experiences, drugs, etc. But even though it’s a dark song, the music is uplifting to its credit on such a doomsday cut. So, it blends together pretty well for what it is, but as a live recorded studio album you can’t always be perfect. It’s not the idea. This track also sports more great guitar tone from Morbitzer that almost has a cockiness worth taking a step further. It could take you over the border, or maybe not. It has a lovely fade-away that is one of the more pleasant moments. And it ends with the bonus track “Sunwave” which goes out on a mellow but tasty instrumental with some smoking guitar and bass. Not a bad way to record for what it is, but Dreamin can benefit from a more polished follow-up release. 

YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/user/Shelterdreamsband

Larry Toering

City In The Clouds - The Contents Of Box 212

 

City In The Clouds - The Contents Of Box 212

CD BABY: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/cityintheclouds

Whenever an artist or band takes the likes to the rap, hip hop, genre it could work in their favor or it could not work out if at all. For Clouds In The City with their album "The Contents Of Box 212", consisting of 12-tracks, it takes two of those tracks with guest appearances by artists RJ Paige on "Shower Thoughts", and Mak Twain on "Out To Lunch". Each of these tracks on their own by themselves sound alright for what they are but they are just not right for this release. If these guest appearances and these genres choices for these two song selections was removed the album would live up to its namesake more so without these tracks needing to sound the way they do. It just throws the album off as it were really.

The rest of the album and its assorted tracks like "Singin", "Down To Earth", "Shine", and "To The Sky", are what make this release stand out the most. Like "To The Sky", really embraces the other genres this band picked out like alternative, indie, punk, and rock, this song picks up pieces from those genres to make the track work so well. While the other tracks mentioned like "Shine", bring out this tone to the album that is just pure entertainment. It portrays this essence of music that makes it sound like there is pure magic in the mists. It has that melody of trace that makes it drive the music more so really giving the listener an experience of sorts. While the other tracks "Singin", and "Down To Earth", keep the pace a float by going different and unique. Like you know interesting to say the least, it has the music being creative for itself. Allowing for the vocal chords and instrumentals to come out of their shells exposing themselves more so, that the music becomes more alluring to the ears in question.

As far as the band goes that is City In The Clouds, they give off this early essence of the likes of Hoobastank meets perhaps Interpol. That is the vibe that they give off the most with their music genre interests and style choice with music creation. As for the album "The Contents of Box 212", it is a release that has a hit or miss aspect going for it. While those two tracks of the rap, hip hop genres do not tend to cut it, the others come in just fine, sounding daring yet decent.

Overall though, it's just another one of those bands with an album to their name. It is a nice release with a decent amount of effort and tunes worthy of a listen at least once through. If their material is not to your liking then this may not be the right band for you. If you find yourselves questioning as to why you cannot get into this particular band, then you may just be over thinking it more than it needs to be thought about.

AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/The-Contents-of-Box-212/dp/B01N69C6I8

Heather Savage

Round Eye – Monstervision

 

Round Eye – Monstervision 

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/roundeyeband

Round Eye come to the world from Shanghai, China, with their second release, the full-length Monstervision. They’ve played numerous festivals around the world and honed their unconventional blend of 50s R&B, Free Jazz and Punk. They go even harder on this album, incorporating even more styles to get their message across to the world, which took some time re-developing in the underground. But it comes to the surface where it will boil into another, but without Steve Mackay on sax. So, they’re growing and this is a big sign of their impressive work ethic and progress.

On Sudden Death Records in Vancouver, BC, they have a beast to unleash. This is a band that have been compared to The Stooges, Captain Beefheart, Dr. Feelgood and The Fall. But there is no use seeing them as anything but their own brand of sax-fused punk, leaving the past behind them but keeping one foot in its best memories. That is where influences like the 50s come into their style, also where it crosses with traditional R&B factors. These aren’t always punk friendly but there have been major exceptions to the rule, TRHCP being a strong example. If Round Eye cross those wider barriers for the better, so be it.  You get all they’re putting out there with no punches pulled, but a big sound to most of it, recorded by Li Wei Yu & PK 14’s Yang Haisong. This isn’t something you ponder in the post-punk scene. You either want a glossy sound or you don’t, and there are a couple of rough aspects but it’s necessary on those tracks. This isn’t an attempt to call any over production, it’s worth mentioning that the recording is of the same integrity as the music, both of which are high standard. They brought along US comedian John Bloom to play the part of Joe Bob Briggs to narrate the album like a weekend radio program. This adds to the proceedings without interfering with the songs.

Having never heard anything like that on a punk album before, it gets a plus for its shiny object value. He gets the program going with some introduction and they open with “Commie Blues” which although it is appropriate for Round Eye’s aim, it falls more in the least compelling of songs they came up with. It gets more creative as it gets more aggressive though, and the rest forgives what could’ve been a better choice to lead off with. But Round Eye have something to say on every track, so, don’t let anything you read stop them. On “Hey Dudes” and “Pink House” they hit some adult contemporary notes that put them in their own punk class. These are some magnificent studio performance moments, surrounded by some less clinical but more on point songs that Joe Bob Briggs barely gets his often-funny words in edge-wise.  But it’s not that serious in theory when you’re just rocking and rolling in your own way, without making ten minute songs and breaking all the punk rock rules. There isn’t an abundance of aesthetics about Round Eye, they’re more gut-level but perhaps they’re a cut above on Monstervision. Just check out tracks like “Richie” “Curami” and “Sifter” for all of the combined elements on this burning full-length LP. They may have a long way to go, but they don’t come untraveled.

9/10  

BANDCAMP: https://roundeyeband.bandcamp.com/album/monster-vision 

Mike Tabor