The tracklist for A Day to Remember’s highly anticipated new record, Common Courtesy can be seen below. Preorder the album here
1 City of Ocala
2 Right Back At It Again
3 Sometimes You’re The Hammer, Sometimes You’re The Nail
4 Dead & Buried
5 Best of Me
6 I’m Already Gone
7 Violence (Enough Is Enough)
8 Life @ 11
9 I Surrender
10 Life Lessons Learned The Hard Way
11 End Of Me
12 The Document Speaks For Itself
13 I Remember
Twelve Foot Ninja are an Experimental Metal band that mix all styles of music together to create one of the most exciting, confusing and often dazzling debut albums to date.
With a style that has gained attention from artists such as Periphery and Meshuggah, it’s not hard to see why this is possibly one of the most ambitious debuts in recent years and how it could easily be the one thing the band need to get themselves out there. This is smooth, fast and beautiful all at the same time with such a huge variation in sound and style that it could even put System Of A Down to shame. The progressive riffs, exciting melodies and larger-than-life sound makes this a truly refreshing album to a genre that has lost its way over the years. With all the good said, does that mean that this could potentially be album of the year material?
Before answering that question, we must first look at the album as a whole. Starting off with the strange and luscious track ‘Coming For You’, it expertly mixes fast, heavy and headache inducing metal before slipping into something much calmer. This continuous shift between genres makes the track intriguing and keeps the listener engaged. Although this kind of style is a great feature to the album, you’d be hard-pressed to expect that it is repetitive.
This album is so full of variety that to get bored of it would take several listens in a row. With each track, there is something new to offer and every time you listen to the album back, you always seem to find something new about it. New sounds, things that you would never notice upon a first listen. Mixing alternative rock, metal, jazz, techno and every other genre known to man is no easy task but Twelve Foot Ninja make it seem easy. As they plow through a whole variation of tracks including ‘Mother Sky’, ‘Shuriken’, ‘Vanguard’, ‘Liberation’, ‘Silent Machine’ and ‘Ain’t That A Bitch’, you can’t help but go from fist-pumping, to dancing and then to head-banging. Infectious and weird it is but it is thoroughly fantastic and entices you the moment you press the play button.
This album has everything and I mean it. Heavy riffs, groovy riffs, weird riffs, melodic riffs. Heavy bass, jazz bass, strange bass, harmonic bass. Fast drumming, up-beat drumming, mind-boggling drumming, slow drumming. Screamed vocals, infectious vocals, mind-blowing vocals, harmonized vocals. EVERYTHING. Imagine System Of A Down… imagine that but on drugs. This is Twelve Foot Ninja. What makes the album even better is it’s mixing. To mix all these styles and perform it live is no easy task but to do it on record and make it feel complete and sound amazing is even harder. But luckily, this does not suffer from bad mixing and mastering, bad production quality, bad anything really.
It is mixed to sound stranger than anything the average human mind could ever possibly think of, produced to sound like an acid trip, mastered to sound exciting. As the album closes, you can tell the band has put in so much effort into this record and, I must admit, it pays off. It isn’t the first of its kind but it is the best. It makes you feel things you never thought possible, allows you to hear something that you never even knew could work together and allows you to listen to every music genre ever within the space of an album. Yes, it is amazing.
So, to answer the question I first began with: is this the best album of the year? Not quite but it is so damn close. In this album, there is something for everyone. You can rave, you can mosh, you can even do the tango if you want to. This is something you could show to your friends and then laugh as the look on their faces goes from confusion to that of an eight-year-old who has just been given the biggest lollipop known to mankind.
This is exciting, confusing and enticing all at the same time and should not be missed. No matter what the genre you prefer to listen to, I recommend this. You will find something you love and will eventually be singing the songs. Catchy, heavy, funky and poppy all at the same time has never seemed so good. If you’re a System Of A Down fan, listen to this. If you like something strange, listen to this. Heck, if you are a music fan then listen to this. It will be worth your while, believe me on that.
10/10
- Asa
Conducting From the Grave return with their self-titled third/ LP It’s been three years since their last release and the band return better than before, giving predecessor albums a run for their money. The band is more ground-breaking heavier than before, producing an album that is unrelenting and heavier than a ten ton hammer.
Kick starting with ‘Honor Guide Me!’, you seem to already know where this album is going. No more than a minute into the album and you are either going to love it or hate it. Filled with heavy riffs, blast beats and some insane vocals, everything here fits perfectly. And you’d be mistaken if you think that they are going to loose their ferocious pace. With more velocity than a NASCAR race, the band shreds, blast-beats, screams, growls and beats their way through tracks such as ‘Lycan’, ‘The Harvest’, ‘Into the Rabbit Hole’, ‘Dante’ and the instrumental masterpiece ‘The Calm Before…’. Each song here is fast, aggressive and terrifying whilst still remaining a joy to listen to. Not to say that the album is repetitive, in fact, it is far from it. Each song on the album offers something new, taking the band that one step further, pushing their own limits and showing us all what they are capable of doing.
It’s sheer aggression but with added clean vocals. The cleans are a high-light on the album, constantly tricking you into thinking that the album is dying down and running out of its power before suddenly coming straight back into its aggression all over again, hitting you with more force than a wrecking ball. It’s ballsy and yet pays off, leaving an astonishing mark in your mind. The album closes with ‘Monster (Part III)’. This is the third part of the ‘Monster’ song series that the band started at the end of Revenants with the two tracks ‘What Monsters We
Have Become Pt.1’ and ‘What Monsters We Have Become Pt.2’. The track is exactly as its title suggests; it is indeed a monster. Being an impressive addition to a great series of songs, the third installment makes you feel satisfied with, not only the album, but the ‘Monster’ series too. It’s a great closure for a great album and it
may just be an album that earns them a little more recognition from labels.
The production on this album is also something that is a stand out. Seeming as quite a few self-released albums normally suffer from bad production, this is something the band should have some great pride in. Although it should be no surprise seeming as fans of the band all chipped in some money for this effort, raising a huge amount for the album to be made. Everything here works. The velocity of the drums, the chugging of the guitars, the heaviness of the bass and the ferocious amount of terrifying power behind the vocals. It’s an album tha feels complete, it feels like the band has actually took a lot of time with it instead of just rushing an album to release. And it feels like the right time to release it too. This is an album that is sure to not disappoint fans with everything feeling like it was placed in the right position.
So then, after nearly three whole years and a lot of support from fans, Conducting From the Grave have made a terrifying death-fest. This is how modern Death Metal should be and this could be the start of the band going in their own direction instead of conforming to a labels regulations. It is heavy yet well-crafted, terrifying yet beautiful and an undisputed piece of fantastic Death Metal. This could be an album that garners a lot more listeners but it will definitely please their fans.
For a self-released effort, this is truly amazing. It’s like being struck by lightning the moment you press play, it is that furious and that damned powerful. I’m not going to say it is the best album of the year, the astonishing one or the one that will leave the biggest impact in your mind but it is the heaviest and most certainly does not disappoint. If you know them, you’ll love it, if you don’t then you may just one to give it a listen.
9.5/10
-Asa
Story of the Year's newest release “Page Avenue – Ten Years and Counting” is more than just a re-release of their now decade-old album. This album brings new takes on old songs bringing back nostalgic feelings to longtime fans and a sound and style that will attract newcomers.
Whether you’ve heard these songs in that past or not, this album by itself is a great example of acoustic music and how new takes on old songs can produce just as much addiction to the band as the original versions. Similar to what Streetlight Manifesto and Toh Kay have done with their newest album “The Hands That Thieve”, Story of the Year captures the essence of the first versions of the songs on “Page Avenue” and turns them into something more and updated. Although the majority of the songs are acoustic versions, there are a few songs including “In the Shadows” that have taken more of a re-imagining mindset not limited to acoustic translations.
The album opens up with “And the Hero Will Drown”, pulling listeners in with compelling piano progressions and re-awaking vocal melodies that will bring the listener back to where they were when they first heard the songs. This take on the song gets the listener ready for the acoustic atmosphere that is presented in almost every song. “And the Hero Will Drown” starts the album off with the right sound to lead into the following songs “Until the Day I Die” and “Anthem of Our Dying Day”. These songs follow the path of the opening track, staying true to the acoustic sound and keeping things immersible and interesting with their emotional vocal lines and chord progressions. The album then takes a side road with “In the Shadows”, showing the band’s more intense style with this updated version of the song. This song is really the only one to change up the pace until “Divide and Conquer” comes along towards the end of the album which ends with the emotional and dark track, “Razorblades”.
This album walks between a thin line sounding very much like a singer-songwriter type album, but manages to lean more towards the side of being an original and creative reworking of nostalgic tunes. Although there are a few lulls throughout the album in the repetition of “Razorblades” and the ambiguity of “In the Shadows”, the album overall is a huge success. Bringing back memories of debut songs as well as intriguing the newest of ears to the powerful and identifiable songs that Story of the Year has been delivering ever since the 2003 release of the original version of “Page Avenue”. Whether you are looking for something close to home that you can rely on, or just want to reminisce in the new sounds of an old favorite, this new imaginable take on the album will not disappoint.
Rating: 9/10
-Nic
Frank Novinec is a guitarist for Hatebreed, an American metalcore band from Connecticut founded in 1994. Past episodes can be found here. If you like the podcast, write a 5-star review for it and subscribe on iTunes. This episode is sponsored by GoDaddy.com; go to killthemusic.net/godaddy and save up to 30% on new products and build your own website for as low as $1 a month! We’re also sponsored by Audible, the world’s leader on spoken entertainment. Audible titles play on iPhone, Kindle, Android and more than 500 devices for listening anytime, anywhere. Go to killthemusic.net/audible to learn more and to get your 30-day free trial.
Pre-orders for A Wilhelm Scream's new album, Partycrasher, are now up.
Morrissey's autobiography will be released on October 17th (available in e-book format as well) in the UK and Europe via Penguin Classics.
Nor-Cal rock band State Faults has premiered a new song called “Incantations,” from their forthcoming album Resonate/Desperate, today at Noisey.com. The band’s upcoming record is scheduled for release on November 12th via No Sleep Records and can be pre-ordered now at http://nslp.co/statefaultspo.
EDM Pioneer Celldweller has released his newest FREE 60 Minute DJ Mix featuring not only his own iconic, original tracks, hard-hitting remixes, and skull-crushing mash-ups, but also music by such luminaries as Daft Punk, Bassnecter, and Figure. Grab a free copy of Celldweller’s ‘Fall 2013 DJ Mix’:
