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Volume 4: Redefine
The Rockstar
Various Artists |
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The latest installment of cutting edge underground talent… and "cutting edge" might best be taken in the literal extreme-we're not speaking of NIN rip-offs by any means. Twenty full-on blazers from a predominant east coast locale with a few Southerners throwing their back alley charm into a high octane fuel to fire mix of extreme Rock styles destined to go down in history, if not in flames from underexposure. By now you may recall our first band to appear here, Scrape, NYC Death Crew recently signed to Metal Blade and hitting the mark here with "Branded," a fiery tune that proves anger management classes will always bring in enough revenue to thrive in our current economy. SOS, another local favorite hailing from Queens, that hot bed of Heavy Metal talent featuring the founder of 3:16 and all of the trouble its looked for and found in its relatively short but sincere existence. "Redefine…" as has been the case prior to Volume 4, offers no strict definition of what Rock & Roll's supposed to be or evolve into, rather features a mix of styles, built around Hard-Core principles, and 100% aggression without the residual effects of genre-bending and cross-over variants. "Stay Out," provided by… Providing The Sickness proves the importance in the name, this one's as nasty and dirty and poorly recorded as the title would indicate-you'll want to avoid anything to do with this one if you have even one ounce of decency left in you! Strap-Ons, perfect Punk Rock name doing perfect Punk Rock music circa the late '70s and "Drugs Sex Violence" while in an opposite extreme we have Todd Shea and "Broken Glass," an '80s style Metal power ballad that recalls more in the way of tradition rather than stage and camera work-think early Maiden in a sense, maybe even Queensryche instrumentally. There's an abundance of material to choose from here, all relatively unique from each other and well recorded considering their currently independent lifestyle. Band and contact info are naturally included in the economic cover booklet for what we're looking at here as a pretty together package of workable talent and some expectedly laugh-out loud and altogether cool names-I mean, can you imagine, Todd Shea? Actually that's not too far out in left field-and probably his real name too-but how bout Soulshed; Ted Bundys; or my favorite, Yellow Teeth! The tunes all veer well away from mainstream wanderings and dig their own little niche in the Rock & Roll underground. Other bands worth hearing first include but are not limited to, 84 Digits with their Punkish/Power Pop "Second Chance," Dead Emotion and their raw to the bone mix of Punk, Funk and Goth in "Inside These Walls," and the Pop-ish leanings of "Anger" served up by Luxury, doing easily the most toe-tapping and catchy of the bunch. Pick non-hit goes to the Ted Bundys and "Psycho Bitch" which sounds like this psychotic mix of Goth/Punk/Rave/Alt & something out of a deeply disturbing black and white horror flick! Released by 3:16 Productions Review by Vinnie Apicella
[va85@columbia.edu] |