It is very rare in all the music that we hear each day that it effects us in a major way. I would like to introduce everyone to the new album from Bekker "First Things To Come." It has such a great feeling to it. Each song I can feel the emotions swoaring around each lyric, each note. I get lost after track after track. The mellow vibe it brings allows me to shut my eyes & feel like it was written for me. But the whole album isn't all mellow. There are also songs that make me wanna dance & move. This album is a must have for music lovers. Especially those who can appreciate good lyrics.  Check out a few of my favorite songs such as "Shade of Red Master" and "All Tied Up."

So music lovers, do yourself a favor: take a listen to this album.

The Casualties are back with their first new album in three years (since 2006's Under Attack) and they do not disappoint. This album is for the most part an excellent collection of old-school punk songs and anthems and it shows the band off well, even after nearly 20 years of active duty. We Are All We Have was released on August 25, 2009 on Side One Dummy Records.

Lyrically the band, as usual, alternates between personal and political songs. The first three tracks are about the scene and being in an underground band for the long haul. The next three songs are political, covering such topics as America going off its philosophical tracks, global warming, and war. After that the songs mix it up as far as subject matter. There are songs about unemployment, being forced to move away from your home because the land values go up (thereby making it to expensive to stay), being arrested, badly beaten by the cops, and thrown in prison for very little, and so forth.

Musically the first six tracks are classic style Casualties songs, fast, hard and loud (track 1 excepted but it’s more of a prologue to what follows). This is the sort of thing fans of the Casualties know and expect from these guys. And they do it very well; they’re as tight as they’ve ever been on this record.

However one of the interesting things on this record is that as the songs progress the band starts to push themselves musically – not that much, they stay firmly as The Casualties we know and love – but just a little bit to be noticeable in ways that add to their sound. This begins with the various tempos of track 7 ("In the Tombs") a song that goes from slow to fast, back to slow. This carries forward on track 8 ("Stand Against Them All") which is a big rock song, not as fast as most of their stuff, and more like something that, say, Rancid or the Clash might do (although make no mistake – Jorge’s vocals do not change one bit). Then there’s track 9 ("Depression - Unemployment Line") which has a long rhythmic and percussive opening that gradually builds over the course of the song’s first minute with the addition of all the band’s instruments (including vocals) up to the point where it breaks into the main song. Track 10 ("Looking Thru Bloodshot Eyes") also has some tempo change ups beyond the usual Casualties song but the main surprise in this song is during the run-out section the vocals become actual singing as opposed to Jorge’s usual screaming vocals – don’t know if he’s doing that or someone else is, but for a few seconds it gives a very different feel to the song. This is actually built on in track 11 ("Lonely on the Streets - Jersey City") when the back-up vocals form a sort of duet for part of the song with Jorge in a call and response kind of fashion. Also this is another big rock song (like track 8) and it has some of catchiest hooks and riffs on the whole album.

After this the band returns to classic style songs with tracks 12 and 13, both of which are under two minutes, rounding out the whole thing in a solid manner – or they would if it weren’t for track 14, which is the one weak spot on the album. Track 14 ("Rocker’s Reggae (Working Man’s Dub)"), the last track on the record, is the only one on the album that feels self-indulgent. It takes the run-out theme from the last part of track 7 and extends it into a track that lasts for over eight minutes in a repetitive manner both musically and lyrically. Normally this sort of thing appears on an album as a hidden track (if it appears at all). Honestly "We Are All We Have" could have dispensed with this track completely and not suffered at all. However since it’s the one blemish on an otherwise very solid record that ranks up there with the best of anything the Casualties have done, don’t let it stop you from enjoying this record.

  Right before I started playing this cd I assumed they were some kind
of indie by the art work and name (goes to show you can't judge a book
by it's cover) and before I played it I knew that these guys were
going to be original and have their own style just from the cd and just
the original way they put it together.
   :cd inserted: and within seconds I was kicked down a peg or two
with that whole indie assumption in which I was WAY off! RPR has an
amazing mix of sounds and if I had to put a name to it, it would have
to be a Mix of Evanescence, Roche Limit, A Night Mire Before Christmas
sound track, with spoken words to music, and not just lyrics someone
wrote on a bar napkin while drunk the night before the show but these
lyrics are poems and sung beautifully by a girl fronted vocalist.
Make sure to check RPR out and listen to their music. If you do check them out than leave
me a comment on this review on what you think of them, I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Blink 182  "The Mark, Tom and Travis Show"

  This cd has all your favorite blink songs all live with the crowed
going nuts in between each song. You'll also get to enjoy all the blink
banter in between each song. They make you feel like your their at the
show rocking out with them. But if you don't know blink very well this
cd is full of cursing and not something you want to put on in front of
your grandma. If your a fan of of the 182 than this is a cd that would go
great in your collection.

Bad astronaut "Houston We Have A Drinking Problem"

Bad Astronaut is a killer band, they sound a lot like LagWagon. With
their rock hard hitting drum beats and catchy lyrics it's a no brainier
that this band will soon be your favorite driving tunes for a road
trip or to and from work. Each song just as good as the song before.
They have a rock feel that switches to a slower rock but will then
throw in some punk. If you have never heard of these guys I recommend
that you go and check them out.

Coaster, which is now available from Fat Wreck Chords, is NOFX’s first album of new songs in three years and, for the most part, they remain true to form, serving up the NOFX fast-paced drunk punk that we’ve come to expect and love from them. (The version available on vinyl is called Frisbee and has different cover art)

The album gets off to a fast start on track 1 with the political “We Called it America” about the decline of the U.S. economy. It’s the first of a couple of political tracks on the album, which also include a pair of tracks that deal with religion: track 5, “Blasphemy (the Victimless Crime)” is a savage attack on organized religion and a defense of unbelievers. It also has a great minor key riff. Then there’s track 8, “Best God in Show,” which is more about the incredulity NOFX feels towards believers themselves who attribute everything to God, no matter what it is:

“Thank god for the Grammy, thank god for the touchdown / thank god for blowing up the enemy’s sacred ground.”

Of course it wouldn’t be a NOFX album without both comedy and lots of alcohol around. There’s plenty of both here. Stand out tracks include 3, “First Call,” about going to get drunk in the morning when the bar first opens, which also name drops several of NOFX’s fellow bands. Then there’s track 6, “Creeping Out Sara,” in which Fat Mike relates an encounter that he had with (he thinks) Sara of Tegan and Sara although he’s not sure that it was Sara rather than Tegan (NOTE: on Frisbee this song is called “Creeping Out Tegan” so clearly you're meant make up your own minds on who it was that Fat Mike creeped out). Track 7, “Eddie, Bruce, and Paul,” sends up the break up of Iron Maiden, complete with hair metal guitar solo and the occasional falsetto vocals. Track 11, “I Am an Alcoholic” is a bit more serious since it’s sung from the point of view of a “drug addicted alcoholic” who can’t stop what he’s doing. This song has the added bonus of an El Hefe trumpet solo.

Musically the band is as tight as they ever were. The mosh speed predominates but they’ve mixed in killer riffs, some slower, poppier songs, and reggae and ska into the blend to bring about what we would - for the most part - expect from them.

However I did just say “for the most part” and there’s a reason for that. Longtime NOFX fans are in for a big surprise on this album and that’s contained in track 4, “My Orphan Year.” Fat Mike wrote this song about the deaths of his parents, apparently both in 2006 (hence his “orphan year”). It seems his father left his family when Mike was young and his mother raised him alone most of the time. Fat Mike talks about his different stances towards his parents as they were dying. He and his dad seem to have never really made up and when his father was dying and asked for him Mike always said:

“I told him that I’d love to / but I had things to do.”
“And so he died without his son / I heard about it drunk after a show.”

Ouch! His mother on the other hand:

 “….battled cancer / for over seven years.”
“I nursed her and I held her / when time was running out.”

And apparently he was with her at the end.

Although NOFX has written serious songs in the past usually they’ve tended to be about political issues (especially while Bush II was in the White House). As far as I know this is the first time Fat Mike’s done a song that’s obviously highly personal and introspective - and the band does it straight; there’s no sneering or irony anywhere on the scene, something the song acknowledges in its closing lines:

“2006 good-bye parents / For once I am sincere / 2006 my orphan year.”

Without a doubt this is the saddest song that I can think of NOFX doing and they handle it beautifully - the music and lyrics match up really well. This song will resonate strongly with anyone who has lost a close relative or friend. But make no mistake: this is still a NOFX song, with the NOFX sound; they haven’t gone Emo at all. However this song does show that, should they ever wish to do so, they are capable of deeper things than we would normally expect from them. Who knows what they might create if they ever decide to follow up on this?

Okay I’m not even going to begin to get into the question of why the New York Dolls would make a new record in 2009 when only two of the original five members are still alive; that’s a debate I leave to the scholars and the super-fans. We all know who the New York Dolls are / were and how important they are to the history of Punk. All I’m concerned about is whether this album is a good album on its own terms, regardless of how it may compare to the NYD classics of the past.

Surprisingly Cause I Sez So is a very good album - or maybe not so surprisingly since David Johansen has been a professional musician for about 40 years, and he and his other remaining bandmate from the early days, Sylvain Mizrahi, have turned out a new collection of tunes between them that sound pretty darn good even after all these years. They’ve included the newer band members in the songwriting process and they’re not resting on their past reputations. This album doesn’t just stick to dirty proto-punk. The first two tracks are straight out rockers - and they’re great - but after that the band begins to explore more diverse territory, including blues, R&B, pop, lounge ballads, and even a reggae-style remake of the old Dolls classic “Trash.”.

It’s true that Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, and Arthur Kane are now all long dead and they are deeply missed. And it’s true that the surviving Dolls have gotten older and more mature - but they still really do have it where it counts. They can still play up a storm and David Johansen can still sing pretty well after all these years. His voice has a real dirty rock quality to it that a lot of the great long time rock singers have and he knows how to use it to good effect. If you’ve never heard any of their stuff before, or if somehow you’ve never even heard of them at all (like if you’ve been living in a sealed bomb shelter since 1970) this album is as good a place as any to start getting to know them. It is now available from Atco Records.

The Aggrolites are a great reggae / ska band and this, their fourth album (appropriately named IV), hits the streets on June 9 courtesy of Hellcat Records. There’s really not all that much that I can say about it except that these guys started out early in this decade to reclaim Ska and Reggae from the extremely bastardized versions of it that had become predominant with the rise of bands like No Doubt and other bands (some include Sublime in this movement) that made music by mixing reggae and ska with lots of Punk and rock, thereby gaining the best elements of neither.

The Aggrolites make a much purer style of reggae and ska - like you might have heard in Jamaica in the 1960s. Bob Marley would recognize their style, as would the Skatalites, and Prince Buster. The songs here are very rhythmic and infectious. You can party to these songs; a lot of them are for dancing and with song titles like “Wild Time,” “Feelin’ Alright,” and “Reggae Summertime” they are quite aware of that. But they also have a more serious side and some of their songs, like “The Sufferer” and “Brother Jacob,” for example, have darker, more serious themes in their lyrics. And naturally, love appears as a theme in a number of the songs, especially “Ever Want to Try” and “Gotta Find Someone Better.”

At 75 minutes it must be admitted that this is a very long record, and it runs the risk of getting repetitive occasionally, but you know what? Since this is a fabulous album that rarely happens.

where oh where do I start. As you can see the CD cover is a big cookie with a cigarette butt, basically giving you no idea what to think about this band. You can not judge this CD by its cover. ha! Well with keeping an open mind when popping this cd in, The Bigfellas are a indie rock, folk band with a hint of country and i'm leaving out about 5 genres. they remind me a little of the Gin Blossoms. They have a wide range of instruments, piano, sweet guitar riffs, piano, acoustic guitar, and to top it off they have some great lyrics, some very clever and some funny but original. They are a band I would listen to every other day. (not a lot of bands I'd listen to every day). These guys are fun, go and check them out..
* www.BigFellas.net
* www.myspace.com/thebigfellas

MC

  Let me start on song one! I can't wait to hang out with the guys and put song one on and turn it up, its awesome and if really fun. That's all i'm going to say about that. Dirty White Socks is a punk rock, rock and roll, band from Germany. They remind me a LOT of The Scarred, with a slight mix of The Clash and The White Stripes. They play pretty solid through, keeping the same energy in every song. What stands out to me with this band are their intros to each song, each one different but still keeping it in the same atmosphere. I'm not going to say that song number 11 (No Love Song) but it shows they a wide range or music skill and can kick it down a notch with keeping my ears perked. They made me dirty a sock, maybe they'll make you dirty one to at

www.myspace.com/dirtywhitesocks 

With Supporting Caste Propagandhi is finally back after four years since their last album and they haven't softened one bit. They're as politically active as ever and, with times being what they are, boy do we need them now. As time has gone by they’ve gotten better and more ambitious as musicians and songwriters and this record shows it. It's a terrific record from – to quote the promotional liner notes – "4 visibly-aging prairie skids who still cannot believe that of all the gin joints in all the galaxies in all the universes, they had to be born in this one." They are as strongly opinionated as ever and still willing to use strong language to make their point. Instead of being released on Fat Wreck Chords, their most recent home, this album is being released on Propagandhi’s own label, Smallman Records.

In addition to their political rants some of their songs are actually starting to take personal, even introspective turns (such as tracks 1 and 9 for example). It doesn't mean they're getting soft, because they're not. Some of the tempos are slower, but they get delivered with just as hard a smash of guitars as ever, veering between Punk, Metal, and even Emo (the part of Emo that emphasizes the loud distortions of the music rather than the whiny lyrics part). Track 4, "Dear Coach's Corner," is good example of this, starting out with a fast metallic type attack which includes a savagely paced guitar solo before changing up (briefly) when the singing begins, to a slower indie type-song for the first verse, before getting louder and morphing into a big rock/pop-type song for the first chorus and essentially staying that way for the remainder of the track, even when it returns to the verse structure. Lyrically the song is framed as a question addressed to Canadian hockey announcer Ron MacLean, wanting to know how and why hockey can be compared to Nazis and Nuremberg rallies (something I'm told that he does rather a lot in his game commentary).

Despite their increasing range as musicians they are still recognizably Propagandhi. Track 2, "Supporting Caste", in addition to being a powerful attack on how organized religion is used by the establishment to buttress its own power and justify wars, also contains musical stylings that trace their roots all the way back to Propagandhi's early days. Although it has a slow, moody bridge the bulk of the song has a rhythm and tempo written in the "classic" (if there is such a thing) Propagandhi punk manner.

And yes, they still write the really short, fast hardcore punk songs even now. Track 5, “This is Your Life,” is a good example of this, coming in at all of one minute and three seconds. It’s sure to satisfy hardcore fanatics who want their music loud and fast, and their vocals gutturally screamed rather than actually sung. Track 10, "Incalculable Effects," has a lot in common with this song, being stylistically similar; but it's longer, sometimes slows down a little bit for a tiny touch more melody, and has more a more metallic sound mixed in with the hardcore.

Track 6, “Human(e) Meat (The Flensing of Sandor Katz),” is a very disturbing song about a killing and subsequent eating of a person sung from the perspective of the killer, yet by bringing Sandor Katz's name into the title of it as it does it (go look both him and "flensing" up – it would take too much time to explain here) it almost makes you wonder if the song is actually a put on! Even if so it's still a very disturbing one which gains power from having some catchy hooks in the music.

On a technical note Track 8, "The Funeral Procession" fades out about a minute before its actual ending to be replaced by a repeating riff that is very different from the rest of the song. I'm not sure why they did this unless it's to set up the next track, which it runs into without stopping, although when track 9, "Without Love," finally arrives it jumps to a completely different sound when that song begins. Your guess is as good as mine on this.

Track 11, "The Banger's Embrace," actually shows a bit of a lighter side to Propagandhi, something they used to have a lot more of on the early albums, but has been missing recently. This is about their place in Punk today, both as it was in the "old" days and how the spirit never dies. A lot of bands sing songs like this but Propagandhi's song is actually (gasp!) hopeful about the scene's future. It's probably the most fun song on the album up to this point.

Track 12, "Last Will & Testament" is probably the only song that I might call a bit self-indulgent. It begins with over three and quarter minutes of music before getting to the vocals, which last just under two minutes, before another minute of music which gradually fades out. The whole thing is about 6:15 long but it could easily be shortened by about two and a half minutes.

However after track 12 ends there's a hidden track which begins about five minutes later at 11:06 in track 12. It's a cover of "Come to the Sabbat," a very satanic rock song by late 60s / early 70s British band Black Widow and it's terrific, even if the chorus call repeats too many times. It's just that Propagandhi doing a song like this and obviously having a blast while they're doing it (complete with screams, chants, and synthesizers) is very unexpected after the somberness of all that comes before it. It's a great ending to a great album.