The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Face Down - Don't You Fake It (2006)

Nostalgia on the blog right now, I am listening to a band that I haven't listened to in years. But a band I used to love a lot after their debut album Don't You Fake It. I gave up on The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus with the follow up album Lonely Road though. Mainly because my taste in music had changed between 2006 and 2008 but partly because the album was a huge disappointment for me as well.

The debut album by the band is by far the most known album I think, and for me by far the best album they produced. The record is in the emo rock sphere and contains hit songs like Face Down, Your Guardian Angel and False pretense. The music is characterized by pop punk rock (or something in between these three) with fast and simple sounding riffs, and choruses easy enough to sing along to. It's easy to start to like the record if you are a fan of the genre and bands like Story of the Yeah, Escape the Fate, Anberlin, stuff like that. For me it's still a good record since I have some history with it while I was a teenager, but if it came out now I'd probably pay little to no attention to it. In general I'd still advice to listen to the album if you have a soft spot for the genre, like I do because of my past. If not, you better ignore this post you'll not like the band, haha. 

The song I'm posting is the most famous song they produced, Face Down of course. It isn't my favorite song by the band, which probably will be Your Guardian Angel or Grim Goodbye. But if I think about the band the first song that comes to mind is the Face Down song, since it was the one that got them famous for a short time back then. Enjoy!

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Young Statues - Eraser -- Age Isn't Ours (2013)

Young Statues is a New Jersey/Philadelphia based band that I know little to nothing about. What I do know is that they released the Age Isn't Ours 6 track ep last few days, and it doesn't sound bad at all after a few listens. It's an indie rock band with sometimes an emo rockish sounding touch to them if you ask me. The vocals are decent and the music is actually pretty good in my opinion. Nothing extraordinary but a very decent release that is worth to check out. It seems it's the third release by the band after a self titled album in 2011 and an acoustic ep last year, so more to check out if you like what you hear.

The song I'm posting is the first one on the ep, called Eraser. The quality of the video isn't great at all but I actually like it because of this, it adds some sort of charm to it. If you want to properly check the band out you can go watch this video of Spacism, which was featured on their debut album. Enjoy!

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The Strokes - All The Time -- Comedown Machine (2013)

Right now I'll be talking about a very recent release from one of the major bands from the genre (indie/alternative rock). The Strokes as you can read in the title released the Comedown Machine album yesterday (if I'm not mistaken). To start off I'd like to say I'm a fan of The Strokes, especially the first three albums. But I don't often listen to them, I got the hard copies of the first two and planning to buy First Impressions of Earth someday soon though. The fourth album I'm not familiar with as well, it got mediocre reviews and well I listened less to music when it came out so I skipped this release, I'll pick it up soon promise. But yes I'd say I'm a fan of them, certainly not the biggest but I do like them. Back to the matter of the day: Comedown Machine. If I have to use one word to describe the record I'd use WEIRD. Seriously it's a weird record, not bad not good (yet) but weird. 

The record starts of with a very mediocre Tap Out for me personally, I have no clue about past singles supporting the album so it's my first listen to everything. At first listen the records start pretty weird for me the high vocals from Julian Casablancas aren't really my thing. Music wise the album sounds great but the vocals are plain weird in some songs, and I can't get myself over it. In the third song One Way Trigger the high pitched vocals are growing on me though, I still consider it weird but after the third listen I'm starting to have that click in my mind that is saying: well yes it is weird but it's actually pretty damn good. In between you have All The Time which is awesome, it's Strokes like I know them, first three albums I mean. Same applies for the fourth song Come Down Japan. The 5th tracks 80's Comedown Machine, is very atmospheric, or how to hell to describe it. It's not really what you expect from them but it's well done, again weird (for them) but good. afterwards you get again a classic Strokes sounding song with 50 50. And it continues like this you always have to make the switch between what the hell is this? and the sound you are used to by them. No it isn't a bad record, after a few listens you really come to like it. But it's not what you expect from them at all. So again I'd describe the record as weird, this might be because I skipped the previous release so my apologies if this is the case. But for someone only familiar with the classic sound of The Strokes it's a bit of a culture shock. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but like so many bands they evolve I guess, let's just try to enjoy the new material as much as we enjoyed the old material.

The song I'm posting is unknown until now for me, haha. Well I typed all the previous before choosing out a song, I'm new to the record so I don't have a favorite song yet and I'm just gonna search for an official video. And the winner is All The Time, one of the songs you'd expect from them, and yes it's official.

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Freelance Whales - Generator ^ First Floor-- Weathervanes (2009)

Right now I'm going to talk about a band hailing from New York, Queens to be more exact. Freelance Whales has been active since 2008 and has two studio albums out already. Diluvia which was released last year and the debut record Weathervanes that I'll be talking about here. The music they produce is a mix of indie, indie pop and folk elements which they do very well. To create the music they do they use a whole range of instruments, something you can see as well in the video I'm posting for you guys. Not only do they use the acoustic, electric, bass guitar and the drums. They add  the harmonium, glockenspiel, banjo, mandolin, synthesizers and so on. This creates a pretty unique and very good sound and makes them one of my favorite bands in the indie pop genre.

The record brings you 13 tracks full of quality, it starts off very slow with the song I'm posting having a very long intro  (in the video it doesn't take as much time as on the record) but at the end of the song you already you know you will absolutely adore the band. after this excellent opener the record continues to bring you catchy melodies with good combined vocals which works very well for the band. If you are one of the few that didn't hear about them yet I would strongly advice you to start listening to them. The indie pop/folk music combined with some more electronic tracks are quite excellent and explain why this album was critically acclaimed well. 

The song I chose is the Generator ^ First Floor track. Few reasons for this, it's the most known song by the band, it's the first song I knew by them few years back. And last but not least the video is absolutely lovely. So enjoy!

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Say Hi (To Your Mom) - Laundry -- Discosadness (2002)

Next up is the Seattle based (America) band Say Hi, which previously was named Say Hi To Your Mom, I personally prefer the second band name, but hey who am I. It's an Indie Rock band that has been playing since 2002 and mainly consists of Eric Elbogen who does pretty much everything. When on tour he has a bunch of friends who help him out. But for the records he sings and plays pretty much everything himself. The record I'm talking about here is the first one Discosadness which came out in 2002. After this first release Eric released 6 more albums with Um, Uh Oh being the latest back in 2011. I never found any of his albums in local stores and even downloading used to be an issue so I'm only familiar with 3 of the first 4 albums, and having half of the fourth album. The later three albums I know nothing about but I definitely will try to find them some day soon.

The record is an easy to listen to Indie pop/rock album with very catchy melodies and lyrics. The record contains ten tracks, and all of them really are worth listening too, starting with The Fritz over The Pimp and the Sparrow, Laundry and ending with Blizzard and The Showdown in Goattown. Honestly I adore all of these tracks, I think it's his voice combined with the soft easy listening music that got me completely sold.

Only thing I can say about Say Hi and The debut album Discosadness is go check them out they both are amazing and a personal favorite of mine.

The song I posted here for you guys is Laundry, it's one of the best tracks for me among But She Beat My High Score, Let's Talk About Spaceships, & Hooplas Involving Circus Tricks (which are all three of the Numbers & Mumbles album if you would like to check them). The reason to pick Laundry instead of one of these is because Laundry was the first one I knew of Say Hi (To Your Mom). Soooo... Enjoy!

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System of a Down - Hypnotize -- Hypnotize (2005)

Again a post about a band I used to listen to when I was younger, like the post about Deftones this band is a bit harder than the material I usually listen to now. System of a Down have produced some good albums in the past like Toxicity and Steal This Album!, I honestly never heard the debut record before and the Mesmerize album is a bit of a shit album for me. The album I'll be talking about a bit today is the Hypnotize album, again one of the good albums and the only one I actually bought in the past, planning to buy Toxicity one day though. 

Basically I bought the album when I was younger for the title song. Obviously I'm putting this song in this post as well then. The Hypnotize song is among the legendary Chop Suey my favorite song by the band. I guess this is because it's a bit softer than the other material and back when the album came out I was switching from harder rock to indie rock. The rest of the album was certainly good like Tentative or Stealing Society, but this one song stands out for me. Basically whenever I listen to this band now it's just the few songs that really stand out for me like Hypnotize, Chop Suey, Toxicity... I rarely put on an album of them anymore, except for right now because I'm writing a post about it of course. 

Why would I write a post about a band I don't listen to anymore then? Well I made a deal with Koen, if I posted SOAD, he'd promote my blog to everyone he knows. So I did my part of the deal, I'm waiting for my promotion, haha. Anyways I mentioned the song i'm posting before so nothing more for me to say, simply enjoy!

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Joy Wants Eternity - Above The Clouds Lies Eternal Sun -- You Who Pretend To Sleep (2007)

You could have guessed after me mentioning them in my previous post about The Joy Formidable that the next one would be about Joy Wants Eternity. Like I explained in that post this two bands introduced me to Post-Rock although one of them clearly isn't Post-Rock at all, but I advice to read the other post as well if you want to understand it all. 

Nowadays I don't often listen anymore to Joy Wants Eternity, not because the album isn't good or anything but I listened a bit too much to them when I first came to appreciate it I think. If you only have one album then you end up being a bit bored after re listening it over and over again, or at least I do most of the time. Back then I couldn't find the earlier EP, which has an amazing title if you ask me: Must You Smash Your Ears Before You Learn To Listen With Your Eyes. But maybe I have more luck tonight since I will be looking for both the old one and the new record that came out in may apparently. Hopefully it gets me to listen some more to this excellent band. Oh and like always I will buy the album if I see it in stores here or if I can get it at a decent price online, but I don't pay for downloads I want at least hard copies for my money, sue me... 

Anyways lets focus again after my short plea for illegal downloads, haha. The band is Texas based and produces pretty decent post-rock. Since it's been a long time I listened to the album it's hard to tell you how good they actually are, but they made me want to hear more from the genre so they can't be bad no? I remember the song From Embrace to Embrace being pretty excellent as well as the Yet Onward We Marched to be one of my favorite songs of the album. But I wanted to post one of the first two songs of the album since they made the switch between The Joy Formidable and this Post-Rock band sound so natural. So in the end it became this one, Above The Clouds Lies Eternal Sun. Which is like the complete album a very good song if you are into the genre. Or lets hope that it can inspire you to dig into the Post-Rock genre like it did with me if you are not into it the genre, anyways... Enoy!

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