Guitarist Eli Maiman discusses how Walk the Moon’s sophomore album, Talking Is Hard, differs from the band’s debut, what attracts them to the ‘80s, and why they pride themselves on their live show.
Interview: Eli Maiman of Walk the Moon
LATEST ARTICLES - PAGE 94
Review: Mat Kearney – Just Kids
In a little over a decade Mat Kearney has built a career (and life) most would envy. He’s sold over a million albums, has had a half dozen singles, traveled the world, married a model and continues to inspire his countless fans. Just Kids, the fifth album from the Nashville-based singer-songwriter is arguably his most personal and honest record, but it is far from his best. For those who like a record to be one in which the artist reveals a lot of himself, then there will be plenty to love about Just Kids. Moreover, those who enjoy Kearney’s spoken-word-cum-hip-hop vocal stylings found on Bullet and Nothing Left to Lose, will also find plenty to relish in. But neither of those things makes an album and for its numerous charms, Just Kids still falls way short. For starters, the album’s sonic veneers veers heavily towards commercialism and accessibility and maybe that’s viable to some, but at this point in his career he should be crafting albums that are daring, innovative, original and challenging. Just Kids is neither of those things.
Read More “Mat Kearney – Just Kids”Interview: Butch Walker
Last week, I got a chance to chat extensively with a personal hero of mine, Butch Walker. We talked about Butch’s new album, Afraid of Ghosts, including how the recent loss of his father inspired a new direction for his music, why he decided to have Ryan Adams produce the disc, and why his trademark sarcasm and upbeat songwriting is nowhere to be found. We also touched upon Walker’s back catalog, the woeful reasons why no one should be expecting to find Letters on vinyl anytime soon, whether or not The Black Widows will be making music again in the future, and why Butch’s protege Jake Sinclair took over most of the production duties on the new Fall Out Boy LP.
Review: Against Me! – Transgender Dysphoria Blues
About one minute into the lead track, front-woman Laura Jane Grace snarls, “you want them to notice the ragged ends of your summer dress, you want them to see you like they see every other girl, they just see a faggot, they’ll hold their breath not to catch the sick” … and the gauntlet is thrown down. What Against Me!’s new album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, offers is a mixture of attitude and bravado that pulls together an emotion, weight, and gravitas that I’ve felt missing from music for a while. The lyrics contain something actually worth saying and while the sing-a-long choruses may get stuck in your head, there’s an underlying message that expels itself in a way unique to music — one that travels from head to heart and leads to rumination long after the guitars and drums dissipate.
Review: The Lawrence Arms – Metropole
In a recently aired episode of the AP.net podcast I go on a (way-to-long) rant about genres and the labels we put on bands. The heart of the argument is ‘fuck labels and fuck genres’ because it’s all a mess. We waste time sitting around saying, “Is this pop-punk, or pop-punk, or pop-punk?” The whole thing is a classification system that no one agrees on, no one abides by, and it becomes a cluster-fuck when trying to talk about bands or describe a sound to someone. In fact, sometimes I think we spend more time arguing about genres than the music itself. Some genres have turned into four-letter words and used as a means to demean and dismiss bands almost as a personal affront. I hate it and I’m unsure if there’s a bigger offender than “pop-punk.”
Review: Copeland – Ixora
I think my biggest draw to music is the emotion it pulls from me when listening to a great song. That feeling where you experience the song with the entirety of your being. Everything fades away and all that matters in that moment is the space between notes, ears, and heart. Copeland’s upcoming album, Ixora, embodies everything I search for in music.
Interview: Aaron Marsh of Copeland
On December 2nd, 2014, I had the chance to sit down and talk with Aaron Marsh of Copeland about their new album Ixora, the band’s future, and what it was like to get back together.
Interview: Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory
I love most genres of music, but I have a special place in my heart for hardcore music – Terror, Hatebreed, etc. You know who else loves hardcore music? Chad Gilbert from New Found Glory. I thought it would be cool to sit down and talk about one of his favorite hardcore bands, Madball. So we went to Starbucks in Portland, OR and talked about exactly that – Madball, and memories he’s had with them. If you’ve never listened/heard of Madball before, definitely give this a read and check them out.
Read More “Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory”Review: Walk the Moon – Talking is Hard
I came up with an idea a few months ago that I put to the test recently. A couple of weeks ago I shut off the lights, eliminated all distractions, closed my eyes, and played Walk the Moon’s Talking is Hard for the first time, front to back. My hope was that I could connect completely with the music pouring from the speakers and produce completely candid thoughts about the songs. Much like a movie in a theater, music deserves to be played directly to the viewer. It’s tough to do that these days. You’re listening… but are you really?
Walk the Moon is a four piece band out of Cincinnati and they’ve been churning out delicious alt-pop songs since ’08. They had me hooked with “Anna Sun” two years ago from their self-titled, which delivered an incredibly solid line-up of tracks. I don’t know what happened in the past two years, because Talking is Hard is an improvement on Walk the Moon in every way.
Read More “Walk the Moon – Talking is Hard”Review: Copeland – Ixora
“Your music helped save my life.”
These words are so simple, so jarring and so potent. Almost every musician has heard them at one point in time. While some may be exaggerated and overstated, the fact remains that music is one of the strongest voices in this world and its impact can never be underestimated.
How is this relevant, you ask? Copeland helped save my life.
Read More “Copeland – Ixora”Interview: Nathan Willett of Cold War Kids
Frontman Nathan Willett talks about getting loose and chaotic again on Cold War Kids latest record Hold My Home, not overthinking during the writing process, what’s he’s learned from side project French Style Furs, and how a high work ethic has kept the band going strong for 10 years.
Review: Taylor Swift – 1989
Over the past five or so years, few artists have displayed progression and growth more interesting to watch than Taylor Swift’s. In 2008, she was a global superstar with a multiplatinum album and a few world-conquering singles. In 2009, she was the Grammy darling. In 2010, she did the unthinkable for a pop artist of her stature and wrote an entire album without a single co-write. In 2012, she released her most ambitious work to date with a record that hopped half-a-dozen genres and showed immense growth in songwriting craft. And this past summer, she announced arguably the biggest move of her career so far by bidding farewell to country and fully embracing pop music.
In some ways, Taylor’s move to pop wasn’t terribly surprising. The biggest singles from 2012’s Red, “We Are Never Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble,” were both deliriously catchy pop gems, while 2010’s Speak Now was arguably just a pop album dressed up in organic full-band country arrangements. But for an artist who got her start in Nashville and who always made storytelling the core of her songs, the news that Swift was going to go full pop on her fifth album—titled 1989—truly was shocking.
Read More “Taylor Swift – 1989”Review: Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness – Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness
Going through a crucible has the tendency to change a person and make them stronger. That was the case for pop-punk/piano-pop songsmith Andrew McMahon when he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005. The Something Corporate frontman, already the mastermind behind a pair of exceptional LPs with his former band, finished mastering his greatest record, 2005’s Everything in Transit, the day he was diagnosed. Remarkably, the CD still released on schedule, despite the fact that McMahon had to cancel his tours and undergo chemotherapy. Because of that fact, it became the kind of record that transcended its genre. For fans, it was simultaneously an album that could be a personal soundtrack as well as the soundtrack to McMahon’s inspiring rise-from-the-ashes recovery.
Read More “Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness – Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness”Interview: Hozier
Andrew Hozier-Byrne talks about his No. 2 charting debut album, performing on Saturday Night Live, his Irish background, and reflecting on the human experience as honestly as possible.
Review: Jimmy Eat World – Futures
“Has it really been 10 years?”
That’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot this fall, because the autumn of 2004 was one of the most important seasons of my life. It was my most paramount musically formative stage. I’d always loved music, even leading up to that season: listening to the radio, making cassette tape copies of my brother’s CDs, playing the piano, jamming the few albums I owned repeatedly in the afternoons after school, downloading tracks off Limewire and making mix CDs. But I never fully understood the impact a song or album could have on my life until the fall of 2004. Until Futures.