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LATEST ARTICLES - PAGE 212

Ted Leo – “You’re Like Me”

Ted Leo
Jason Tate

Ted Leo’s new song “You’re Like Me” can be streamed below. He also sat down with Stereogum to talk about his upcoming album:

He recorded 27 songs total, and there were three versions of The Hanged Man in play at various times. One leaned toward the punk and power-pop that represents “what people would traditionally think I do,” and one leaned toward the exploratory art ballads he used the studio to craft (or as he puts it, one that was “completely the slow, dark, weird stuff”). He settled on a happy medium between the two for the actual album. (His friend Aimee Mann, who’s heard the album, says it has a dash of “mad scientist” about it).

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Review: Pet Symmetry – Vision

Becky Kovach

The best albums are the ones that challenge you the most and, for the past month, Pet Symmetry’s Vision has truly been a challenge for me.

It’s not that I didn’t like it, or that it needed to grow on me. It’s that there’s quite a bit to unpack, despite the fact that the album is only 11 songs and 30 minutes long. I’ve started and re-started this review more times than I care to admit, because each listen through left me with more to say than I knew what to do with.

Though it’s a quick listen, Vision never once feels short or stunted, or like there might be something missing. On the contrary, Pet Symmetry’s songs feel complete in what is often an unusually brief amount of time.

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The All-American Rejects Tease New Single; Talk New Album

All American Rejects
Jason Tate

The All-American Rejects are teasing a new single called “Sweat.” Lead singer Tyson Ritter sat down with Billboard to talk about the band’s upcoming album and what’s next for the band:

That’s all about to change. A pair of new songs — “Sweat” and “Close Your Eyes” — are due July 7, with their fifth full-length looming in the fall. We hopped on the phone with Ritter to get all the details: the benefits of pressing pause and ignoring outside pressures on your art, learning to love writing again, and returning to the project you’ve been wielding since adolescence.

And:

It’s not going to be the same Rejects record because it never is, if you’ve listened to one of our records. This time, to me, the visual offering is so important. The last five years of learning my craft as an actor and really developing that side of being a visual artist in that way has made me realize how important that really is — to put the eyes to the ears. This is going to be more of a visual experience. This record is going to be about your eyes and the headphones.

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Review: Captain, We’re Sinking – The King of No Man

Captain, We're Sinking
Zac Djamoos

Captain, We’re Sinking’s The Future Is Cancelled was one of the most impressive punk albums in recent memory. It’s a tense listening experience, as songs burst and crash with little warning; vocalists Bobby Barnett and Leo Vergnetti jumped between near-inaudible whispers and throat-damaging howls at the drop of a dime, singing harrowing stories of depression, alcoholism, and suicide. It all felt spontaneous, necessary.

The King of No Man feels a bit more rehearsed. Where before the band had more jagged edges, they’ve smoothed them over. Instead of finding catharsis through ragged shouting as on The Future, No Man finds it in quieter moments, to varying effects. Opener “Trying Year” ushers this new era of Captain, We’re Sinking in appropriately, pumping the brakes every time one would think Barnett’s getting ready to let loose (although he or Vergnetti does sneak a pretty impressive guitar solo in there). “Hunting Trip” is a slowburn comparable to “A Bitter Divorce” with a less intense payoff, finding Barnett singing the song’s climactic final lines over a clean guitar line. It feels a bit toothless in the end, like there should’ve been a little more push to end out the song, and it sort of sputters out rather than exploding. Then there’s “Dance of Joy,” a bizarre, drum-led song that would never fit on The Future Is Cancelled. It’s weird to even think the same band wrote this song and “Shoddy Workmanship,” but it ends up being one of the album’s highlights, due in good part to Vergnetti’s powerful vocal performance.

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