Song by Song Review: Cameron McGill & What Army’s Is a Beast

04/27/2011 By

When the CM&WA album, Is a Beast, came to me for review, I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first glance. The artwork is compelling and thoughtful, all while keeping a minimalist approach to its delivery. What I would come to realize, after listening to the art on the inside, is that this message of a visual nature was a blatant reflection of the audio sound-scape embedded on the disc.

“Houdini” starts off the album with a very ambient and suspenseful build that drew me in and had me hooked from the first pounding of the toms. This gradual, purposeful crescendo helps give the vocal more weight and makes the explosion of sound (that comes later on) have even more impact. A stellar opening track, I had to listen to this one twice before moving on to the rest of the album.

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Song By Song Review: Jookabox’s Eyes of the Fly

04/20/2011 By

“Jookabox is a bit paranoid”, they say it makes…others paranoid (look behind you). They seem to dance around a fire pit, maybe there’s something on a stick being worshiped or sacrificed. You peek at jumping shadows and hope no one picks you out. Jookabox spreads melodic dissidents through synthesized sawtooth waves usually over dribbling toms, percussive and sometimes tribal.

But 16 bars later they set you in a rich synth patch with delayed guitars and a rock back beat. These are spaced out recordings that speak to you like a jump rope rhyme. Layer after layer of vocals and harmony sound soooo serious while clapping their hands. Seems to be a lot of ironic contrast.

“Man-tra” – Starts off spooky, but then over this dance beat comes taunting and sarcastic vocals and chants. Oh, and a very creepy pitched shift pitched section. They manage to throw a little surf rock in the mix.

“Drops” – Less spastic than “Man-tra.” Lots of great drums over reverbed out guitars. Nice and full of space. “I can’t concentrate to save my life!”

Jookabox – The Eyes of the Sky – “Drops” by TVD-Downloads

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Song by Song Review: Jonny’s S/T Debut

04/13/2011 By

Now THIS record is sideways. On this first and self titled record, Jonny comes across as everything – from over the top, commercial sounding “music they play for kitchen product ads on TV”, to true heartfelt songs and alluring, dreamy harmonies – only a tree would have a hard time singing along with most of Jonny. If you think about it, that’s a pretty wide river, but Jonny does make it across. Follow along with this:

1) ”Wich is Wich” Over the top or what? If you have ever heard The Monkees, here they almost are! It’s so full of hooky, simple melodies that you are left thinking “Which witch IS which?” Its plain old simple fun.

2) “Candyfloss“ Now they have made a left turn in the same neighborhood, but they’ve aged a bit. Not quite as simple fun, Jonny hangs on to the hooky melody concept. AND …  they’ve discovered that a song can be longer than two minutes. “Candyfloss” would have been in the top 50 right beside The Cars and early Todd Rundgren. An alternate title could be “Jonny finds a girl he really likes a lot and could be having his first crush!”

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