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Review: Tokyo Police Club – Champ

Tokyo Police Club
Adam Grundy

While I was planning to write about Tokyo Police Club’s 10-year anniversary of Champ last June, I never got around to finishing my retrospective. So, this one goes to 11. This is one of those great indie rock records that has aged gracefully and ended up being the breakthrough album for Tokyo Police Club. Champ followed up their debut, Elephant Shell, and showcased the growth in the four musicians that made up the band. Frontman and bassist Dave Monks sounded as captivating and confident as he ever did on this album, and Greg Alsop, Josh Hook, and Graham Wright helped solidify the band’s great chemistry here. The album was produced by Rob Schnapf (Beck, Saves the Day, Elliott Smith) and he really was able to get the best out of the band on Champ.

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Do You Get Déjà Vu Listening To Olivia Rodrigo?

Olivia
Adam Grundy

When we last premiered a feature on Taylor Swift comparing both versions of Fearless, I was intrigued by the idea of working with my fellow contributors on a similar collaborative piece. Our next group topic takes a look at Olivia Rodrigo’s ultra-popular SOUR album. I asked Mary Varvaris and Zac Djamoos to join me in discussing key comparisons in Rodrigo’s sound to other modern artists, what worked well on the album, as well any missteps or areas for improvement in the young artist’s sound.

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Review: Adventurer – Pacifica

Adventurer - Pacifica
Adam Grundy

On the latest album from the post-hardcore band Adventurer, the group is able to channel a lot of the best elements of the genre into a creative work of art. Led by the talented and energetic vocalist Jeff Masterson, there’s a lot to like about Adventurer on their sophomore album entitled Pacifica. What the band does best on this album is to allow their spiraling guitars to tangle a complex web of emotions paired well with their vocalist’s ability to match each of the highs and lows of the songs. Adventurer have gained key experience by touring with bands like Dance Gavin Dance and Hail the Sun, that they have put directly back into their sound. With an energetic blend of songs similar to Saosin, Taking Back Sunday, and early-Hawthorne Heights, this band could very well be your next obsession.

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How Fuse and ‘Girl’s Not Grey’ Sparked A Fire Inside Me

AFI
Ashley Perez

Remember Fuse Network? Before the channel was nothing but reruns of Sister, Sister and The Parkers, it was a haven for alternative kids. Dedicated to playing the newest and best in rock music, it was rose above other so-called music networks. It was true 24/7 music programming during a time when MTV and VH1 switched to reality TV. And back in the mid-2000s, I was obsessed with it. I’d watch Fuse every day just to see what bands they played. Programs like Comp’d and Steven’s Untitled Rock Show introduced me to My Chemical Romance, Dir En Grey, The Academy Is…, and Every Time I Die. But only one Fuse memory sticks out vividly in my head: watching AFI’s “Girl’s Not Grey” for the first time.

I had no idea who or what AFI was. My friends didn’t listen to them. I didn’t hear them on the radio. But when I saw that video, it grabbed me. It was strange, yet mesmerizing. The band performing under a red sky surrounded by cherry blossoms, the uncanny girl guided by a strange bunny creature, Davey Havok screaming while covered in black tar. It was like walking through a surreal dream. Unlike anything I’d seen before. And the song was catchy too. From that moment on AFI was my band.

I couldn’t get the video out of my head. I waited hours for it to download so I could watch it every day until I knew every scene by heart. But it wasn’t enough. I needed to know everything about AFI. I spent hours online learning about them, listening to their music, memorizing their lyrics, playing Sing the Sorrow daily, and even downloading their catalog from Limewire. (Hey, I was a broke high school student). Soon, printed pictures of Davey filled my locker. My notebooks were covered with poorly drawn versions of their logo. I told anyone who would listen about this amazing new band. I was obsessed.

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Review: Twenty One Pilots – Scaled and Icy

Adam Grundy

On the sixth studio album from Twenty One Pilots, the band literally could have gone in any direction that they pleased. Their run of ultra-successful records started with Vessel, exploded with Blurryface, and maintained high interest in Trench. On the latest album, Scaled and Icy, the band conquers complex themes like anxiety and self-doubt while still maintaining an optimistic outlook that things can and will get better. The material found on this album is largely upbeat, even when the weight of the lyrics allow the listener to reconsider everything that they just heard. In many ways, Scaled and Icy is the album that best represents the sound that their label Fueled By Ramen so successful over the past two decades. This album features elements of label alums like fun., Paramore, Fall Out Boy, and the modern glow of the recently signed Meet Me @ the Altar. By packaging so much raw emotion into this album that consistently delivers more than it misses, Twenty One Pilots have made yet another massive record perfect for summer and finding the light at the end of the tunnel out of this pandemic.

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Review: Foster the People – Torches

Adam Grundy

How does a struggling musician and former commercial jingle writer come up with one of the most popular songs in 2011? “Pumped Up Kicks” was literally everywhere that summer the single released to kick-start the insane popularity of Foster the People. From being played while getting your groceries to excessive modern rock radio airplay, there didn’t seem to be a single person out there not humming along to the chorus of the smash hit. The band formed two years prior to their debut album, Torches, and consisted of Mark Foster (lead vocals/rhythm guitar), lead guitarist Sean Cimino, keyboardist Isom Innis, and drummer Mark Pontius. What I thought the band’s strengths at the time of their debut was their ability to make every note, every hook, feel like you were part of something bigger than yourself. Foster the People found early success that most bands could only dream of, and this album went on to sell more than two million copies in the United States. The irony found here was that the business Mark Foster was trying to break away from (commercial jingles) would only add to his band’s marketability, and he’d hear his music in commercials nonetheless.

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Interview: Tyler Posey and Mike Henneberger

Tyler Posey and Mike Henneberger
Adam Grundy

This past week, I was fortunate enough to re-connect with author Mike Henneberger who wrote Rock Bottom at the Renaissance: An Emo Kid’s Journey Through Falling In and Out of Love In and With New York City. Mike Henneberger chose veteran actor/musician Tyler Posey to record the audiobook, that has recently been released. In this interview, Mike, Tyler and I discuss the importance of working consistently on our mental health, the process Tyler went through for recording this audiobook and what made this project different than being on screen, and also how Mike has been constantly promoting his memoir in hopes that others will benefit from his story.

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Review: Fenix TX – Lechuza

Adam Grundy

Of all the bands that got attention during the boom of the pop-punk and Drive-Thru Records era, I always thought that Fenix TX didn’t get enough love. Their self-titled debut (after their official name change) launched their first legitimate hit in “All My Fault” and had several other tracks on the album that could’ve been just as successful with the right commercial push. Lechuza brought some added pressure since they were expected to outsell their MCA/Drive-Thru Records debut and take their sound to new and exciting directions. They officially kicked off this era of the band with the single, “Threesome” that received moderate MTV2 video airplay and some success with the Warped Tour crowd. With great guitar work, solid pop hooks, and a fresh sound to go into this album cycle, why did Lechuza not get the same amount of attention as their colleagues on the same label?

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Interview: Jesse Barnett of Trade Wind

Trade Winds
Adam Grundy

Recently I was able to connect with lead vocalist of Trade Wind, Jesse Barnett, before his band’s release of their new album called The Day We Got What We Deserved. The album comes out this Friday via Other People Records and we discussed everything that went into the new record. I asked Jesse about Trade Wind’s strengths, what they draw on for inspiration, and what stood out most looking back on these writing sessions.

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Review: Never Loved – Over It

Never Loved - Over It
Adam Grundy

On the debut full-length album from Never Loved, the band is able to channel their rich plethora of influences directly back into an ear-pleasing effort. The studio album entitled Over It, was produced by veteran hit-maker Matt Squire (All Time Low, Taking Back Sunday) and Squire is able to get the best out of the three-piece South Florida band. The band is comprised of vocalist/guitarist Cameron Knopp, bassist Jay Gayoso, and guitarist Shane O’Brien, all of whom are able to pull on each of their strengths as musicians to create a worthy debut focused on the mess that gets thrown our way and still finding a clear path forward to get through it all.

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Review: R.E.M. – Reveal

REM - Reveal
Mary Varvaris

It’s no secret that I wholeheartedly love R.E.M. I talk about them regularly on Twitter; I call myself a R.E.M. enthusiast on Instagram. By the time they released Reveal, 20 years ago this weekend, the band was already significant to my five-year-old self. I could take one look at the opening scene of the “Losing My Religion” music video and know the song was starting. The water drips from an open window; Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry run across the dark room while Michael Stipe stays seated; Tarsem Singh’s “melodramatic and very dreamlike” direction still captivates me. I loved that song while not understanding why I connected with it at such a young age. Maybe I loved it because my parents did, too. 

My parents didn’t follow R.E.M. in the 80s. Sure, they would have heard “It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” – which dad hates – and “The One I Love” (which dad loves), but besides those two tracks, R.E.M. wasn’t breaking through in Australia. They didn’t hear “Fall on Me” on the radio, which is a travesty if you ask me. Life’s Rich Pageant – my favorite R.E.M. album, depending on the day – spent seven weeks on the Australian chart. A year later, in 1987, Document enjoyed nine weeks on the chart. Out of Time sat pretty for a whopping 33 weeks on the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Chart. Automatic for the People spent 52 weeks on the ARIA chart. By 1992, the band was rightfully inescapable in my home country.

Despite the wild success R.E.M. celebrated in their “peak” periods – for some, the peak is their run on IRS Records; for others, it’s the four-album run of Document, Green, Out of Time, and Automatic for the People – the band’s later output is criminally overlooked. If you look at pure sales and chart positions, they are among the most successful groups of all time. They are the college rock band that could. If you’re a Radiohead, Nirvana, or Pavement follower, you know the influence R.E.M. has had on them. Some people proclaim any album up to Automatic to be their last great album. If you’re one of those individuals, I have a couple of questions for you: Have you heard New Adventures in Hi-Fi? How about Up? Most importantly, have you sat and listened to Reveal?

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Review: Ours – Distorted Lullabies

Adam Grundy

A little known fact about Ours is that Distorted Lullabies is not actually their debut album. The band, led by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jimmy Gnecco, released their debut way back in 1994 called Sour, and disbanded for several years. Once Gnecco decided to get things up and running again in 1997, he would put the framework together for signing a major label record deal with Dreamworks Records and pair the band with veteran producer Steve Lillywhite (U2, Chris Cornell) to create the songs that would become Distorted Lullabies. I had the opportunity a few years back to check out Gnecco’s solo acoustic shows as he tried to get Ours back up and running full time and it was evident that he clearly still has the musical chops to take his music to the next level. During that particular performance, he told several stories of the early stages of Ours and how the label thought of them as “the next possible U2-caliber band to break out into the mainstream.” While the band did not experience the commercial success of the label’s lofty expectations, this record remains one of my favorites to come out during this time period, and I vividly remember discovering the band through their music video for “Sometimes,” that received semi-frequent airplay on MTV2. While the brooding, and darker-themed elements of their music may be remembered most during this era of the band, I’ll most remember that feeling of discovering my next favorite “underappreciated” artist.

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Review: Fried Monk and Beautiful-Fortune – Here As One

Adam Grundy

After several years of working on each of their respective solo projects, Fried Monk (Lucas Kozinski) and Beautiful-Fortune (Jameel Farruk) join forces on the experimental EP called Here As One. With a sound in the same vein as Broken Bells, Gorillaz and MGMT, this new collaborative project makes for a quick but enjoyable listen. The EP is built around the strength of the lead single, “Planet B,” that drives most of the lasting impact of the record. In a recent interview Farruk described the track by stating, “I’m overly curious about the sun. I’m borderline obsessed with it. As a solo artist, I can’t help myself from having referred to the sun over and over throughout my catalogue of songs.” Based primarily on the aftermath of a difficult breakup, Farruk describes the song as “a declaration of my acceptance of a life without her.” With so much packed into these three songs, it’s hard to not take notice over the two artists’ chemistry.

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Review: The Lillingtons – Can Anybody Hear Me? (A Tribute to Enemy You)

Adam Grundy

There is no denying the power that music can have in bringing us all together, especially in times of tragedy. Shortly after the death of David Jones, lead vocalist of Enemy You, tributes came pouring in from all over the globe of bands who appreciated his band’s music in ways they couldn’t even begin to describe. Enemy You ruled the 90’s melodic punk scene, and left a remarkable footprint for other bands to follow in wake of this tragedy. The Lillingtons have lovingly re-imagined several songs from Jones’s catalog for the Red Scare Industries covers EP called Can Anybody Hear Me? In these six songs that comprise this record, you can hear the magic of David Jones’s legacy all over these carefully crafted covers. In a recent interview for the publication, Brooklyn Vegan, The Lillingtons’ vocalist/guitarist Kody Templeman (Teenage Bottlerocket) added, “We were fans of David Jones’s music before Enemy You, but he was at his peak as a songwriter during that time. Those albums have always been special to us. David will always be special to us. We’re proud and honored to be releasing these songs along with Ken and Chris.” The record has been pressed to vinyl with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

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