Monday, May 15, 2006

Music that Pleases My Ears

Music 20060514

Another week, another top five. As opposed to last week's list which was mostly bands that had recently released greatest hits releases, this week we see one greatest hits artist and then a bunch of new CDs that I was listening to.

#1 for the week was pretty surprising for me. Edgewater put out a pretty forgettable radio rock oriented release a couple of years ago right when Nickelback was cresting the radio waves. I listened to them once or twice and pretty much wrote them off. Then about 2 weeks ago I saw that they had a new CD out so I decided to listen to a song or two to see if they'd changed - and they did! Now a much more mature and edgy band in nature, they still possess the basic radio rock formula, but take a heavier approach. It makes their new stuff leaps and bounds above what is on the radio today and what they had previously released. Great stuff.

My second most listened to band this week was Lifetime, one of the classic punk bands that influenced so many of today's melodic punk bands. They recently released a greatest hits CD so I took the chance to go back and relisten to a lot of their back catalog. I never was all that into them back when they were in their heyday and after listening to them again, I find that I appreciate them and their influence, but their music doesn't grab me as much as I thought it might now that I am older.

Goatkill are one hell of an interesting band. Most of their songs are quick, less than two minute, grind/spazz/metal conglomerations. You can download their latest CD for free at this link. They're just giving it away. I finally listened to it after we reviewed it a long time ago over on Decoy. It's an interesting release but probably nothing I'll actively listen to again. If you like spazzcore, then give them a shot, or else don't really bother.

When Bleeding Kansas released their last CD I was not all that impressed. With their latest effort, they have definitely progressed, but not as much as I'd have hoped. Their brand of dirty metalcore is interesting for a while, but I can never listen to an entire CD of theirs in one sitting. I think most of these listens this week came when listening to songs between other albums in order to break it up into digestable pieces.

Ignite was my #1 last week and remains in my top five as I still can't get enough of this band. Tied with them for the last spot in the top five was The Killer. I received the rerelease of Better Judged by Twelve than Carried by Six last week as a submission for review and I found myself actually really getting into their brand of hardcore. It's nothing overly special, but the coupling of their CD with a live DVD and the great packaging drew me to it. Then after listening to it, I found that they were better than a lot of your standard tough guy hardcore bands out there.

So, that's what I was listening to last week, what about you?

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