The Blood Brothers in conjunction with Epitaph Records have gone back and reissued their last four full-length albums which excluding “March On Electric Children”, include extra content. For those who don’t know who The Blood Brothers are or what they sounded like, imagine a punk band being fronted by two singers that range from off-tone singing, to straight out screeching when necessary. To cover these re-issues I’ll start with the oldest and work my way forward.

March on Electric Children (Reissue) is sadly just a reissue for all of you who missed it the first time around. The record still contains some of my favorite songs by them, Siamese Gun and American Vultures. This album is as solid as a re-release as it was when it first hit shelves.

Burn Piano Island, Burn, however, originally released on the now defunct record label Artist Direct and produced by Ross Robinson (Korn, Slipknot and so many other metal bands). First of all, bringing in a producer like Ross Robinson forced the quality forward, he didn’t change their sound, he only made it stronger. Although this is great album in it’s own right, it’s made better with the content from the Ambulance vs. Ambulance single from the UK including the music video. If that’s not enough it comes with the DVD release Jungle Rules Live, also released originally on Artist Direct and very out of print until now. A good deal to say the least if you’re missing either part from your collection. Notable tracks include, Ambulance vs. Ambulance, The Salesman, Denver Max.

Then the band topped their previous work with “Crimes“, which is my favorite release from the Blood Brothers to date. It just showed them growing, expanding and refining their sound, while remaining true to themselves and the music. The reissue gives you a second disc of material to mull over. The first five tracks are from their E.P. “Love Rhymes with a Hideous Car Wreck”,if you already have that E.P. don’t throw it away quite yet as one of the tracks doesn’t appear. namely their remix of the song “Anthrax”. From track five on they placed live material from the Reading Festival 2005. All of them are soundboard recordings, and are mixed very well (but where’s Beautiful Horses and Crimes to fully recreate the show?). Also on the bonus disc is the video for Love Rhymes with a Hideous Car Wreck. Notable tracks from this release are: Crimes (my favorite), Teen Heat – Live (Reading Festival 2005) [Bonus Track], My First Kiss At The Public Execution, and Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck.

Rounding out the releases is their final album, “Young Machetes (Deluxe Reissue)“, continuing to change course they moved back a bit to their louder punk sound and yet still managed to keep the album as catchy as Crimes was. The Bonus disc gives you the three remixes that were featured on the two singles, in order, Set Fire To the Face On Fire and Laser Life, and then gives you six live radio show recordings from KXLU in 2006. Needless to say it’s interesting to hear any of their songs live, especially with decent recording. You also get the videos for the tracks Laser Life and Set Fire To the Face On Fire. Notable tracks: Spit Shine Your Black Clouds, We Ride Skeletal Lightning, and Laser Life.

I just want to say thank you to Epitaph for re-issuing all of these albums, and giving some people a chance to catch up on what they missed or better yet a second chance for others to get into them. If you don’t have these yet, now is a great time to pick them up and get a lot more for the original cost. If you’ve already got everything by them check out some of their new projects the members have gone into like: Jaguar Love, Past Lives, Weekend, Neon Blondes, Head Wound City, Gajamagic (and anything their drummer was involved in).

Score:

4.5/5
The Blood Brothers were and are genre defining.

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Apologies for the earlier post, it was written in a slight rush and apparently I forgot how to speak my own Language.

In response to those who disagree with the score, I think I was generous, the more I listen to this album, the more I think I should lower it.   An album deserving a 5/5 would be genre defining, “Colors” did this. This album did not.

What do you get when you take fantastically talented musicians who try to show that they’re all deep and talented on the same album? A mixture that leaves only a taste, and has you wondering why certain pieces are over the top, and others buried.

The times when BTBAM are trying  be deep come off wrong. The slower melodic songs on the album seem almost like they are trying too hard to achieve what they want to give us. On the other hand, the long tracks show them doing what they do best, fusing genres and styles together with the best of them. You get the heavy metal-core vocals matched over solos or a jazzy styled picking, returning to the heavy breakdowns.

During the heavier songs they slow down a bit and put some melody in there, but the balance of the song is apparent when they do it. None of the slow tracks show a balance, they just kind of drag. It’s easy enough to skip the slower songs. But once you skip ’em, you’ll have to handle the length of the heavier tracks, the shortest is just over nine minutes long, the longest just over seventeen minutes. The album is, after all, only six tracks. Four long, two short.

If BTBAM is your bread and butter you won’t be disappointed, however, I don’t predict this album grabbing new listeners.

Score – 3.5 / 5

Favorite Tracks:

• Obfuscation
• Fossile Genera – A Feed From Cloud Mountain (my true favorite on the album)
• Swim To the Moon

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I love when a band has the prowess and skill to let their music speak for themselves, Pelican do this amazingly well, they kind of have to, they don’t have a singer. (With an exception, but I’ll get to that later) The album opens with an upbeat track, the warm tones from the guitar speak volumes to set the scale from the record to balace off of the heavier moments. This is not their heaviest record, but nothing has been as heavy as their first release (also an amazing record). The Creeper comes close though. The album moves in a similar fashion throughout, until you get to the last track, then a voice appears. The song Final Breath closes out the cd, in a way I never expected, the melodic vocals over a track that reminds me musically of the opening track. And it fits, it fits really well. I say bravo to them for doing something different, and crafting it to the album perfectly. The oveall mixing and sound on the cd is great as well, which only helps them sell their music as their voice, and when they add voice it only adds punctuation to the mix.

Score – 4 / 5

Favoite Tracks:

• The Creeper
• Specks of Light
• Final Breath

It’s amazing how the years pass, and without thinking about it some things remain as good as they were the day they came out. This album is a great example of how that is. The big difference this time around is the sound quality! The tracks have volume to them, and I’m not just meaning i turned it up really loud. The bass has a fatter tone, the drums are no longer thin and lost to the back. It’s like hearing the grunge sound with new ears, you can definitely see what technology and more money invested in the mastering process can do. The album comes with expanded liner notes and bonus tracks, well not really tracks so much as a live show tacked on to sweeten the deal. The main disc was the same (with greater quality) and the live show won me over on the packaging. It’s a soundboard recording from a Portland show way back in the day. The quality on the show is amazing as well, plus they played songs that weren’t on Bleach, so you get the true feel of their shows from back then. They also picked a show where they made a few mistakes, which I find impressive because it gives a view of how their shows really were. I wish venues in my town could mic and mix sound like this, I might actualy see shows if they did.

Score – 4.5 / 5

Favorite Tracks:

• Negative Creep
• Dive (Live)
• Blew (Live)

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All I can say is wow! Now I know this style of metal is not for everyone, but if you fancy yourself a metal fan then you should have this album. From the opening of the cd, they grab you by the throat and don’t let go.. They show more technicality on this album than I’ve heard in a very long time. The song writing is dang near flawless, and the production is there to match. It’s not your typical riff, chorus, breakdown, repeat song structure like so many others in this genere do. Literally what I expected to happen rarely did, sweeping from the left to right channels and back together to emphasize breakdowns. The record flows fantstically, the thrash points countered by the quick solos or amazingly well done guitar sweeps finished by a pinch harmonic. The drumming is, well also amazing. I wonder how much was beat replaced or actually played in the studio, but either way, if he can play it live like that, I want to be there. The vocals are as they always have been for The Red Chord, if you’ve not heard them yet think of a really good mid-to-low-end metalcore singer. It’s nice to see something with overall quality from a tired and saturated scene.

Score – 4.75 / 5

Favorite Tracks:

• Hour of Rats
• Tales of Martyrs and Disappearing Acts
• One Robot To Another

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Bring on the hardcore……instrumentally this album is fantastic. It’s converge at their finest, fast thrashing riffs, good breakdowns, with their usual production value given to all aspects within. The vocals are somewhat different, opting for the more popular shout rather than the all out scream, the yells stand out in front while they bury the screams in the back. I’m a big fan of Jane Doe, that was the pinnacle of their writing process everything met perfectly on that album. This record is still better than most that have come out for this scene all year, so don’t fret that they ‘ve lost their edge or have changed for the worse. It is them doing what they do now.

Score: 3.5 / 5

Favorite Track:

• Reap what you sow
• Wishing Well
• Cutter

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Anybody expecting that old comedy folk routine will be disappointed for the most part. However, that doesn’ mean this album isn’t good. Instead FotC move on to tackle the American pop music scene in their own manner. Amazingly they compose some of their songs in a way that if their wereno lyrics to them you’d think it was Lady Gaga, JT or the next flash on the hip-hop scene. Lyrically they deliver as they always have, witty, clever, and funny. All in all, the album is put together well and the production matches the overall quality.
Score

3.5 / 5

Favorite Tracks:

• Sugalumps
• I told you I was freaky
• Rambling through the avenues of time

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Rammstein is a mixed bag, some things they always do the same. On the standard version of the cd they give you 11 tracks no more, no less. The cd opens with exactly what you would expect from them, driving guitars, keyboards backing the rythm with the icy cold german lyrics. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right? Then they do something almost unexpected, some of the tracks feel as if they’ve had life breathed into them. It’s the same style, but with more inspiration behind them. They take their standard industrial metal, and engineer new ideas to leave you with a different feel, creating something more memorable. A good example is the title track or Fruhling In Paris (an almost acoustic track). The vocals also have variation with actual singing thrown in! The only low point of the album in my opinion is the song Pussy, it’s the only song that they sing in English on and the lyrics to it are bad, stick to german guys, it saves you from sounding dumb. Overall the cd is really good, nice to hear the same style, but with something new added to the mix to make it feel fresh.

(Special Edition) Bonus Tracks
If you’re a big fan of Rammstein pick up the special edition, it comes with five new tracks. They are for the most part very much like their older stuff, or the way the standard version starts off. The highlight to me is the alternate version of Rotor Sand. If you’re just looking for their new sound stick with the standard version and save yourself a few dollars.

4 / 5

Favorite Tracks:

• Waidmanns Heil
• Fruhling In Paris
• Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da
• Rotor Sand (Orchestra Version) (from special edition)

This robot is a pretty big fan of all types of music, so you can imagine my twelve-year-old-school-girl excitement when this massive collection came to me for review. Time Life wasn’t messing around when they put this collection together (at least on quantity). The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live DVD collections boasts more than 24 hours of performances and speeches and another 9 hours of special features -all packed nicely onto 9 discs in a box-set. While not without flaws, I would consider this a must-own for any of you music buffs out there. You can check out my full, lengthy review of this DVD set over at my Examiner.com page, but here’s a brief rundown:

While the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has had its controversies over the years with the selections of those who are inducted, there is no shortage of pure musical greatness in this set. We are talking the likes of AC/DC, Aerosmith, B.B. King, Billy Joel, The Doors, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Johnny Cash, Metallica, Queen, R.E.M., The Righteous Brothers, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and ZZ Top -and that lengthy list is just to name a few of the artists and bands featured in the collection.

In a set this big from The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, amazing musical performances are not in short supply, period. AC/DC and Metallica give fantastic performances, proving that they just may never be too old to rock, and rock hard. The always great Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers jam out “American Girl”. Buddy Guy, B.B. King, and Eric Clapton get soulful with “Let Me Love You Baby”. There are very few sub-par performances in this set (I’m looking at you, Paul McCartney singing “Blue Suede Shoes”), but perhaps one of the best performances to ever grace the Hall of Fame’s stage was 1988’s performance of The Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” with George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty, Mick Jagger and Billy Joel -Simply. Amazing.

My biggest complaint: the organization of this set. In a word, it’s terrible. Logically, one would think that this would all be presented chronologically, but it’s not. Performances jump around from year to year, as do the speeches -in fact, some of the speeches are actually cut up and presented across multiple discs. Instead, Time Life has chosen to package certain performances together by “theme”. For instance, one of the discs is called “Message of Love” and features The Who, Melissa Etheridge, James Taylor, the Bee Gees, John Mellencamp, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Hornsby, the Pretenders, Metallica, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Maybe it’s me, but this is a pretty random sampling of bands and only a few would represent a “Message of Love”. Each disc is like this in that they all feature an off mash-up of bands that supposedly represent a theme -the reason for this choice in arrangement is beyond my understanding. In short, with regards to the organization, it doesn’t flow at all and actually takes quite a bit away from the overall enjoyment of this collection.

While this is a very good collection, it misses on being a great collection. Despite its flaws though, I recommend this for all you music fans out there; the performances and footage included in this collection far outweigh its short comings and would make a great, historical addition to anyone’s DVD collection.

Check out my full review of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live DVD Collection as well as see a break down of all the performances featured on each disc over at examiner.com!

You can purchase Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live on DVD exclusively from Time Life!

This album picks upon the same styling and themes as their previous Red Album, they are something similar to sister albums. With vocals reminiscent to Isis, very minimal and used more to punctuate the songs musically. The music is very well put together, they are a heavier rock band who hits a groove and works the groove the entire song. They also give a good southern feel to the songs, only adding to the older rock ‘n’ roll sound. I really enjoyed the record the entire way through, the songs feel fleshed out, the production and sound quality are top notch. The flow of the album is just keeps you moving, even the acoustic tracks work well in their placement, never distracting or slowing the overall feel of the album. Baroness is fantastic music worth a listen for anyone.

Score – 3.5 / 5

• Jake Leg
• A Horse Called Golgotha
• War, Wisdom and Rhyme

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