American Tragedy

On April 5, Hollywood Undead released their new studio album (American Tragedy). Released a month later than expected, the album contained seventee tracks (as well as three bonus tracks). Personally, I think it's their best album yet. Dave Murillo, the new lead vocalist, did a great job replacing ex-member, Deuce. Similar to their first album, American Tragedy is classified in the rap/rock genre. If you enjoy this mix of styles, consider looking Hollywood Undead up. However, as always, their music contains explicit language. If you're offended by this, forget everything you just read.

Celldweller

Last night, I was playing Need For Speed Most Wanted with my brother. Classy, right? While we were racing, a song started to play that I had heard before. A few hours later, I looked up the the song on the internet. It was called "Shapeshifter" by Celldweller. I was not familiar with with the band at all. After plenty of youtube searches and help from wikipedia, I learned that Celldweller is an electronic metal/rap group. Althogh they do not have very many album songs, they often create music for movie trailers, commercials, and video games. In "Shapeshifter," the band Styles From Beyond is featured. I thoroughly enjoy the rhythm as well as the hip hop/metal lead. If you like rap and rock/metal, you'll probably enjoy this band.

Deuce

Ex-Hollywood Undead voacalist, Deuce, has officially started a solo album. He was one of the three main vocalists of Hollywood Undead (along with Johnny 3 Tears and Funny Man). Apparently, J3T was in an interview and bragged about how he had come up with all of the lyrics for their first album Swan Songs. While this has not been confirmed, Deuce found out and wasn't very happy. In fact, he was so distraught that he left Hollywood Undead. Weeks later, he posted a song called "Story of a Snitch." The song bashed J3T and the rest of the band incorporating lyrics like:

Here's the story of a snitch, that I knew for all these years
But now he's a b****
And if he wants he can suck my......... (I won't finish the rest of the song)

Hollywood Undead, however, has not slowed down at all. They've picked up a new lead vocalist and are scheduled to release their next album this summer. As a sneak peak, the band released a song called "Hear Me Now." Personally, I really like the song, but you can tell that something's missing without Deuce Deuce, on the other hand, is currently working on his solo album. Both bands have plenty of talent, and I think both will be very successful.

Trapt

Ahh Trapt. Although this band has been around a while, I only discovered them last year. Their most popular song (in my opinion at least) is "Headstrong." The band possesses a heavy rock feel to their music. One of the reasons I enjoy this band so much is that they incorporate energy into their songs. Also, the lead vocalist isn't always screaming and shoving the microphone down his throat. As far as explicit language goes, Trapt successfully earned the Parental Advisory sticker on the bottom right hand corner of their album. While not as bad as some other bands, Trapt does have some mild language. If you are a heavy rock/punk fan, consider looking into this band.

Hollywood Undead

I actually found Hollywood Undead by mistake when trying to download a song called "California." I made the mistake of not previewing the song, but it was a good mistake. As soon as I heard "California," I was immediately hooked. I downloaded the entire album (named Swan Songs) and thoroughly enjoy every single track. Hollywood Undead uses a metal/rap mix. Every song has rapping (as well as singing) and it is very impressive. They can be also classified in the metalcore/ rock genre. If you enjoy the metal/rock/rap mix, this band is definitely for you. However, the language is explicit. It actually took the band over four months to find a record label that would sign them and not censor the album.

Whitesnake

Let's travel back into the 80's. I was watching the 80's music videos on television the other day and heard this song. There was a fog machine, a man with long blonde hair, and an attractive girl that he fell in love with (average 80's music video). The song was called "Is this Love." It is definitely more dulcet than the average rock song, featuring a lead accoustic guitar. I enjoyed the singing and the lyrics, and the singer was very easy to understand. Basically, it's a great song.

All That Remains

Over the four day weekend, I found myself laying in bed doing nothing at all. So what do I do? I get on youtube. I pulled up the web address and one of the videos that was recommended for me was a song called "Six" by All That Remains. Curious, I clicked on the URL and listened to the song. My reaction: ......hahahahahahahaha.....ha. I listened to the song at least three more times before I downloaded it. The song was so heavy that I couldn't help but laugh. I was finally able to understand what they were screaming about the thrid time I watched the video. The lyrics weren't too bad. Most of it was about how a guy lost his love of his life (probably because he was screaming too much) and how he can't live without her (yes, it is a woman). Believe it or not, there was no profanity! (It's not like you could've understood what he was saying even if he did use some). After the intense intro and chorus, a slow ballad began. I was shocked the first time I heard it because it was actually very well played. I pretty much bought the song because of the ballad in the middle. However, nothing lasts forever, and soon the ballad was over and the screaming began again. Although you can't really judge a band by one song...I'm going to. I don't care for the singing really (if you can call it singing), but the musicality of the band is very impressive. They play their style of music very well and I think their guitarists are some of the best I've ever heard. Everything was tight, and I give the song a thumbs up.

Anthrax

Over the week I only listened to one band that I wasn't really familiar with. That band is a heavy rock/metal band named Anthrax...yes like the disease. I listened to their album We've Come For You All and immediately the album artworks reminded me of Lost in Space (yeah that really old movie) for some odd reason. I listened to all of the songs on the album. My favorite song was "Safe Home." It was catchy, reminded me of some people in my life, and also didn't express athiesm and other negative metaphors towards our government. The singing is very similar throughout the whole album, and it seems like all the songs sound the same after a while. Except for "Safe Home," I don't think the album is really worth purchasing, unless you like people yelling about how God doesn't exist and how our government is corrupt...yeah not my thing. Hopefully there will be more luck next week.

Music

Ah, alright. *ahem* Welcome to my blog. If you there’s one thing you should know about me, it is that my life pretty much revolves around music. I play saxophone in marching band, concert band, jazz band, pit orchestra, and in wind ensemble. I also play electric guitar and acoustic guitar in my spare time when I’m not practicing my saxophone. Along with that, I record and mix music using Logic Studios. Finally, whenever I am not doing any of these things, I am listening to music. Obviously, my blog is going to be based on music *gasp*

For the next exciting 18 weeks I’ll be searching for bands that I have never heard of or I am not familiar with at all. I will proceed to criticize them and probably make fun of them of a little bit…or a lot. Here I go (reader’s discretion is advised).

About a year ago, I was playing Rock Band 2 because it was the hottest thing on the market. I remember playing through countless songs that I already knew and could hum in my sleep. However, I recall playing a song called “A Jagged Gorgeous Winter” one day and I had absolutely no idea whom it was by. About a week later, I was in my room with a $50 iTunes gift card and I was bored (not a good combination). I redeemed the gift card and remembered the song that I had played on rock band. I searched for it and found the song. The artist was a band called The Main Drag. I really enjoyed “A Jagged Gorgeous Winter” because it was relaxing and it had a catchy guitar riff in it so I downloaded it…and every other song on the album. If that song was good then the others would be, right?

Wrong -.- The first song I listened to was “A Jagged Gorgeous Winter” and I quickly realized that Harmonix added half of the song on the rock band version. The song was missing that catchy guitar riff, and I realized how bad the singing really was. Trying to stay optimistic, I switched to another song off the album in hopes that it would be better. The song was called “Goodnight Technologist.” To sum it all up, I could’ve gone for a game of Russian roulette after the first five seconds. I couldn’t stand it. This grown man was singing like a castrated rat. I don’t even know if that makes sense, but it would’ve sounded better than this man’s singing.  

Sure enough, every song on the album was just as bad if not worse. I didn’t even listen to an entire song. After taking out my headphones, I realized that I had wasted ten dollars on an album that shouldn’t be legal to listen to. I had the strong urge to post something on the band’s Facebook page that would’ve looked something like this:  “I appreciate your efforts to make an album and support your family, but really? I didn’t even know it was possible for a male to sing so high and so out of tune. So please, for the sanity of your very few fans, take it down a couple octaves and spare our ears the bleeding.”

Wisely, I did not post this even though I really wanted to. Maybe somewhere out in the world someone really does enjoy The Main Drag’s music. If you are one of these people then I hope that this has not offended you. I think you have a bad taste of music, but you are probably a good person :D That is all from me for this week.  – Zach