The Blackmail Seduction - The Blackmail Seduction II

BANDCAMP: https://theblackmailseduction.bandcamp.com/album/the-blackmail-seduction-ii

The Blackmail Seduction began their musical journey in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has since relocated to the Los Angeles area, but there’s a surprising amount of heartland influences making their way into band’s songwriting. The band’s second self-titled album, The Blackmail Seduction II, has an interesting mix of sounds and textures while maintaining its focus on well constructed tracks with a sharp lyrical bent. Lead vocalist Jess McClellan’s songwriting for The Blackmail Seduction has a strong autobiographical suggestiveness, but it’s well rounded enough to encompass an universality possessing across the board appeal. It’s quite a feat to balance clearly personal songwriting with mass market punch, but The Blackmail Seduction hits its mark with style time after time on this release.

“Dead Girl” builds to a steady boil, but The Blackmail Seduction keeps a firm grip on the reins throughout the song and never overplay. Newcomers to the band’s sound and songwriting will note how, despite McClellan’s songwriting dominance over the band’s material, they never fail to play as a cohesive unit. Newcomers will also gravitate towards McClellan’s emotionally powerful voice. Despite the emotiveness of his singing, he has an edgy rock tone in his voice that helps give it the right amount of attitude. “Tell the World” takes that to the next level with a forceful rock sound quite unlike anything else on The Blackmail Seduction II. Troy Hardy and McClellan’s guitar playing comes together better on this song, arguably, than anywhere else on the release and even unveil a double guitar attack different than anything else on the release.

“She’s Leaving Home” has a much more pensive demeanor than the preceding song and brings new sounds into the band’s identity, but the most striking aspect of the song for me comes across in the stately pace set rock in the song. There’s ample melodicism as well and the backing vocals during the song are critical to the song’s success. “Visiting Hours” shows us another turn in the band’s musical personality and has a more muted air than any of the aforementioned songs including “She’s Leaving Home”. I’m especially impressed by McClellan’s singing during this song – one can easily assume this song is ripped from the pages of his autobiography, but it isn’t difficult to relate to this song. He really lays it on the line with this track and it’s an invigorating listening experience.

The Blackmail Seduction has an uphill climb in the modern musical landscape, but I remain a believer that sincerity can still carry the day for listeners. You can’t help but respond to their obvious investment in these songs and there’s never any sense of the music or sentiments feeling forced. Instead, The Blackmail Seduction II hums from the first and doesn’t have a single apparent lull. It’s a more than worthy successor to the band’s debut and sets them on a course for even greater success in the future. Jess McClellan and his cohorts are poised for great things on the back of genuine talent.

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

Joshua Beach

Del Suelo - The Musician’s Compass: A 12 Step Programme

URL: http://delsuelo.net/

Del Suelo’s inspired musicality will hook you in from the first. The Musician’s Compass: a 12 Step Programme opens with the tune “Second Encore” and Suelo, a stage name for Erik Mehlsen, introduces the story of a traveling band’s day with intelligence and accessibility. The songwriting isn’t above embracing an array of influences but, rather than attempting to ape them, Mehlsen’s playing excellence infuses them with a distinctive melodic touch and wrings further changes to familiar sounds and themes. “Pack Rats” is a single release from The Musician’s Compass: a 12 Step Programme and a fun music video accompanies it, but it’s glossy and skillfully presented window dressing for one of the leading musical performances found on this studio album. Mehlsen boasts chops galore, obviously, but any technique he draws on informs, rather than interferes, with his ability to connect with listeners.

There’s a certain wry appraisal of character reflected in how Mehlsen cops so many twists on popular song and album titles for tracks on this album. The punk nod of “Berlin Calling” promises something Clash-like and Mehlsen delivers, in his own idiosyncratic fashion, while also advancing the album’s narrative. It would likely prove an interesting experience to read the accompanying novel of the same title, likewise written by Mehlsen, while listening to the album, but there’s no question the songwriting accomplishes much. “A Lust Supreme” expands further on this feeling and sweeps listeners up into its late night metropolitan swirl. Another standout chorus is the key hook for “A Lust Supreme” and creative keyboard work flashing like quicksilver over the drumming keeps things moving at a satisfying, measured rate.

“Nightstream” is, at first, a study in sonic contrast as its opening wash of white noise, akin to a raucous crowd, transforms into the album’s most meditative, pensive moment. There is a palpable pastoral shading coloring “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?”and the consistency of Mehlsen’s approach to the vocals begins to pay off huge by this juncture as it continues strengthening an unified sound few artists of any stature can claim. Mehlsen, track after track, inhabits these songs with a rare combination of melodic presence and emotional rigor – he doesn’t spare anything plumbing the depths of “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” and the post production effects applied to his voice only enrich the overall effect.

Those melodic talents continue shining through on “Caress of Steel Wheels”. It’s a smart, well-written tune with another of The Musician’s Compass’ first rate choruses. He really throws himself into this one and reaches soulful peaks that make this one of the album’s best tunes. I can’t really say enough about the drumming for this release – the production never fails surrounding each beat with clarity and snap that sets a sharp tone for the song. The habit of five star choruses continues with “Enter the Tempel” and it’s one of a handful of moments on this sophomore release when Mehlsen’s singing is so good and evocative you forget he’s so young comparatively young and such a virtuoso musician as well. It’s likely a seldom discussed facet of his skill set, but the vocal performances on The Musician’s Compass: a 12 Step Programme is nothing short of breathtaking.  The album peaks in a breathtaking way with the extended tune “Darn that Dream/Stairway to Eleven”, a song that gives us a sense of his main character’s regret without ever belaboring the despair. There’s nuance and depth in everything Del Suelo does on this release; it’s really nothing less than a modern classic.

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/10y9nciKuBaNJnnmKihbuN

Joshua Beach

Wave 21

URL: http://menwithouthats.com/wave21.html

Wave 21 delivers direct, well played and melodically strong music appealing to a wider audience than purists. Their style is described as country rock, but it is limiting as a label. Wave 21’s songwriting from sisters Mary Lynn and Emmy Lou Doroschuk definitely touches on country and faint rock influences, but there’s an undeniable intelligent pop sophistication with their songs unlike much of what we hear from this style today. The sisters are the talented offspring of  Men Without Hats’ producer and guitarist Stefan Doroschuk and their talents on display are the results of working at their craft since an early age. Their father joins them in Wave 21 as a bassist and violin player while, as well, playing the role of producer for this superb sounding release. This Montreal based band, however, isn’t just a way for the Doroschuk’s to get their music out there – Wave 21 plays like a full fledged outfit and never disappoints.

There’s definitely a rock influence in the band’s music, even if we don’t hear it often, and the reverberating drums leading us into the first song “Ya Ya Ya” soon settles sonically and establishes a lean, surging groove. The refrain of the song title reflects the joy at the heart of this performance better than any of the lyrics, but those are nonetheless quite fine for what the song requires. Mary Lynn Doroschuk’s voice immediately captures your ear and, despite the obviously fine quality of her voice, she never “over sings” or attempts to dominate the track. Instead, Doroschuk shapes her voice to each of the album’s ten songs and it makes these tracks immeasurably stronger efforts. The lead guitar has a delicious twang without ever sounding over-exaggerated, but acoustic guitar lays down a consistent groove across the entirety of the song.

“Love Shouldn’t Make Me Cry” has a great sound, the instruments seeming to entwine rather than sounding like your typically structured performance, and there are some moments really standing out in the arrangement. The rhythm section contributions are the most important thing in bring this song off with Stefan Doroschuk’s bass playing bringing some intensely creative fills into the performance. You can’t help but admire how they put this one together. “The Fun Times” is another achievement on the album. The band proves they aren’t above confounding a listener’s expectations and add a song to the album notable for a number of reasons, its hard-earned wisdom simply put among them.

The final high point for me is the song “Catch Me”. This is a country influenced gem with a decided pop sensibility, particularly in how well the Doroschuk sisters refurbish the theme with their own spin on the tradition, and it sounds like the best chorus to me on an album full of them. Wave 21 are going to gain considerable notice thanks to the quality of this album and sound well on their way to long, respected careers. The ten songs on this debut are full of lessons you cannot teach.

REVERBNATION: https://www.reverbnation.com/wave21band

Joshua Beach

AV Super Sunshine’s “Time Bomb”

AV Super Sunshine’s “Time Bomb”

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/AVSupersunshine

The two mixes of AV Super Sunshine’s “Time Bomb”, the club and radio DJ version respectively, offers a powerful example of how an ace collaborator can shape material in a compelling way. Famous DJ and producer Michael Bradford transforms the already fine track into something entirely new, a forceful and dynamically structured EDM masterpiece with accompanying regular instruments like guitar and piano humanizing, in a sense, the musical attack. It runs five plus minutes in length and it’s just this range helping to make it one of the more impressive club aimed released in recent memory. It isn’t difficult to imagine a building teeming with sweating bodies exhausting themselves to the lengthy groove Bradford establishes with this mix thanks to a monumental sound system and the inherent talent going into this release.

AV Super Sunshine is based out of the state of Wisconsin, but the music has universal vintage. AV has a number of well-received and popular releases to its credit and much of the responsible for its reception can be laid at the feet of the idiosyncratic, yet recognizable, swirl of electronic musical elements and more commonplace instruments like guitar and piano. Piano doesn’t play nearly as much of a role in the club  mix as it does the version intended for radio, but AV and Bradford nonetheless find a place for this sound in the aforementioned take on the song, albeit in radically different fashion than before.  Guitar, however, plays a key role in making this club version fly for listeners and adds aesthetic value as it varies up the music’s sound without ever moving it away from its intended target.

The presence of melody in the club mix is a nice touch, but it might be lost on an ocean of writhing bodies. Appreciated from the hearing point of one’s own living room, however, it raises the musical stakes for the song in a meaningful way – meaning it engages the imagination more than an already creative tune might have missed out on. The synthesizers and pre-programmed drums lead the way, however, from the dense flair of sound opening the song through an ear-popping array of changes scarcely allowing the listener time to keep it up. It’s a dazzling display of talent, however, and worth every second.

The radio mix is positively demure in comparison. Make no mistake, however, AV Super Sunshine achieves notable results with this version – there’s definitely a strong electronic instrument presence in this song, but there’s much more outright musicality in a traditional sense. We hear the lead vocals coming through better than the club mix ever allows and the highlighted backing vocals sync up quite nicely with the main voice. The piano mentioned earlier, as well, has a more prominent role than before and, while it is a distinctly different offering than the earlier cut, many of the same      qualities distinguishing Bradford’s club mix are fully evident in this performance. “Time Bomb”, both the club and radio version, are superb, substantive entertainment from an artist only continuing to grow in talent and stature.

REVERBNATION: https://www.reverbnation.com/AVSuperSunshine

Joshua Beach

Conceptz makes a “Splash”

Conceptz makes a “Splash”

URL: https://www.conceptzmusic.net/

With a great deal of respect dished out to the old school pioneers who paved the way for them while also fronting their own concept, style and visually stimulating persona, Conceptz lives up to their name in the single “Splash,” providing us with a whole new look into the minds of the two skilled artists behind its creation. 

Conceptz have been making noise in the American hip-hop underground for nearly a decade, and their name has become synonymous with originality and the unselfish inventiveness that is now influencing a burgeoning generation of indie rappers. “Splash” is what their most loyal fans have come to expect from them; clear, concise lyrics that don’t mince words or rely on metaphors to make a statement. But in addition to that, there’s something decidedly different about “Splash” that sets it apart from all of their professionally released discography to date. “Splash” is a crossover into electronic pop that many of their closest rivals have pursued but almost universally come up short in achieving. “Splash” takes the band, and their appeal, and brings it into full-color realization.

For a little over twenty years now, the biggest rule in this game has been as follows: don’t step on anyone’s toes, but don’t be anyone’s kicking post, either. Conceptz skirts the line with this one, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. “Splash,” to me, plays out and unfolds like a war cry aimed directly at the corporate figureheads the control the mainstream commercial flow of hip-hop. The underlying message is that Conceptz is here to stay, and not only will the industry cooperate with their masterplan, but they’re actually going to need to mold their structure around what Conceptz is seeking to create. It’s an intrepid threat, but it’s so desperately needed right now in hip-hop and pop music in general. 

For an era that has been supposedly dominated by artist-powered decisions and a collective agreement that major labels and corrupt promotors need to be downsized and cut out of the future direction of our music, this is one of the only times that I can endorse the way an artist has chosen to go about finding their independence.

Conceptz doesn’t have a big agenda in this thing, and there’s no sociopolitical ramifications hanging in the balance with their releases to create pressure on their artistic process. In many ways Highrowglyphfix & Short Fuze are living the rock n’ roll ethos in the most traditional sense imaginable. They’re living just for the music and its complete cultivation, and whatever they have to go through to get their mission accomplished, so be it. That’s what makes these guys so special, and moreover, “Splash” as significant as it really is. If anyone was confused about Conceptz place in the hierarchy of pop prior to now, this track should pretty much clear up any misconceptions. Conceptz is the top boss right now, and rather than trying to figure out how they climbed the latter so fast, I’d worry about trying to keep up with the pace they’re setting.

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

Joshua Beach

Naurea - New Zombie Generatio

Naurea - New Zombie Generation

BANDCAMP: https://naurea1.bandcamp.com/album/new-zombie-generation

Naurea has intermittently produced music since 2002, but they’ve managed sixteen years without any appreciable advance in technique or skill. The latest twelve song release from the project, New Zombie Generation, is so singularly bereft of inspiration experienced listeners will ask themselves what Abel Oliva Menendez, the project’s mastermind working under the nom de plume Olimann, hoped to accomplish with its release beyond satisfying his own ego. Many of the tracks sport musical arrangements hardly different from their counterparts and others are bald faced imitations of their betters in this style. His songwriting expends a lot of energy aping genre tropes from horror and fantasy fiction, but with no discernible effect on the songwriting quality or entertainment value. Instead, they are ramroded into a mishmash with fragmented and melodramatic pseudo-musings. It’s often offensive, as well, thanks to its total lack of any meaningful sense of humor.

“Sugar Sun” opens the album on a less than promising note and previews an approach we’ll hear for the entirety of New Zombie Generation. Menendez opts for the path of least resistance with each of the album’s songs and makes previous little attempt to meaningfully vary any of the album’s first three tunes. The following tracks “Boygirl Vampire” and “Welcome to Monsterland” essentially follow the same musical path with little variation. Naurea doesn’t build the entire collection around its guitar work, but it plays a significant role and fails at every turn thanks to its lack of imagination and poor production values. The former quality is more fully in evidence over the course of the album’s first three songs and gets New Zombie Generation off to a distinctly inauspicious start.

“Hello Mr. Bull” is another nadir as Menendez continues plundering the catalogs of greater composers for his inspiration and produces nothing of any individual note. Some performers are adept enough to build long and successful careers on the back of outright mimicry, but Menendez can’t because he never properly understood what he heard to begin with. “Mama Cadaver” has a particularly gruesome point of view Menendez does nothing to redeem with any saving grace of humor and, instead, hits listeners with much of the same musical nonsense we’ve heard with earlier tunes. “Dead I Am” leans more on Menendez’s industrial rock influences and comes off as little else than an unmitigated rip off of Nine Inch Nails and other such fare without a single transformative quality to be heard.

The jagged synthesizer propelled attack of “Fast Food is the New Religion” might signal, to some, a chance for Menendez to actually shine, but he disappoints once again with depressingly one note arrangement that could have been something more in the hands of a composer with any discernible evidence of creativity. More blatantly mimicry comes with “Nail in the Eye”, a virtual paean to Downward Spiral era Nine Inch Nails, but sadly lacking any lyrical or musical ingenuity. Few musical experiences in recent memory pretend to be more than Naurea’s New Zombie Generation, but there’s nothing here beyond the sound of an inferior talent aspiring to competence and falling far short.

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/7MMyhABIa4rbVcZv8goFoj

Joshua Beach

Crack of Dawn release new Music

Crack of Dawn release new Music

I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/spotlight/1311932780

Surfacing from the darkness of an extended hiatus with one of the most superb offerings of the last calendar year, Crack of Dawn’s Spotlight isn’t just captivating the critics, but it’s earning one of Canada’s most legendary and critically underrated groups a whole new legion of modern, youthful followers. The way they’re going about their comeback wasn’t devised in some marketing boardroom somewhere or engineered with a big financial interest at hand. 

Crack of Dawn is doing what they’ve always done best, and that’s deliver signature grooves that eliminate the pain and replace it with a warm glowing comfort that is only possible through the majesty of earnest, authentic soul music.

Songs that are able to make us feel and experience the same love, the same pain, the same yearning that an artist is describing to us transcend the physical boundaries of our earthly connections in favor of something much more ethereal and divine. In the church of music, the minister that Crack of Dawn collectively forms isn’t a strict one that wishes to stress the ire of hell that awaits us should we step out of line, but one that encourages us to engage with all of the spectacle of emotions that this life and this world have to offer us in the relatively short time that we’re a part of it. Tracks like “Ol’ Skool,” “Booby Ruby,” the title track and “Keep the Faith” don’t make us question the firm ethos that this style of music was built on, but instead reinforce the iconic allure that helped make soul the most relatable genre in pop. If you can listen to that opening smackdown of rhythm that “Keep the Faith” lays on us in its first thirty seconds, I’d seriously have to question whether or not you’re human or some sort of Apple created cyborg who can’t understand our concept of art and its relatability to the planet as a whole.

Spotlight has a very anthological feel to it, and because Crack of Dawn spent the time that they did selecting this particular group of songs to present to us in one place, we’re able to jump head first into its magnetizing, cinematic qualities without any hesitations or preconceived notions about what we’re getting into. While everyone, in every medium of art, wants the kind of passion and devotion that this group of guys has when they come together in the studio, or anywhere else for that matter, it isn’t something that you can teach in a schoolroom, or even on a stage. Some things you’ve just got to be born with, and there isn’t a single doubt in my mind that Crack of Dawn are blessed with many god given gifts that allow them transcend the barriers between us and connect with us in such an awe-inspiring way. While I’d love to hear them tackle some slightly more stripped down material, I’m not going to complain about anything that this band does moving forward. Honestly, I think we should all just be grateful to have them back, and Spotlight is the perfect disc to celebrate their return.

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/3coh1QMgL5E23arZk6H7gM

Gustave Carlson