Music Reviews | TheFourFour

Album Review: Derelict, by Honky Suckle

Posted on16. Dec, 2009 by thederosh.

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There is a palpable difference in tone to the 14 songs on Derelict, the debut album from the freshly consolidated bluegrass group Honky Suckle, compared with most other bluegrass albums. Happy-go-lucky material this isn’t–”I would walk through Hell just to have another taste of you,” the band repeats, turning love into a desperate make-or-break in the opening “Forbidden Fruit”–but that’s part of what sets this album apart and keeps the listener sucked in. It’s not depressing music, but it uses a tinge of melodrama and a rough-around-the-edges persona combined with engaging effect.

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Album Review: Light Show & Audio, by Anthony Narvaez

Posted on27. Nov, 2009 by thederosh.

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It’s obvious by the second track of Light Show & Audio, a song titled “Minor Damage to Inanimate Objects,” that Anthony Narvaez can claim modern-rock music as his background before going solo. The onetime Psychavoc and Carefree Cadaver lead singer performed on his own first under the name Skieserupt, but is now ready to step [...]

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Album Review: The Phallic Malice EP, by Knife*Death

Posted on29. Jul, 2009 by thederosh.

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If The Short Histories of Powerful Nations had a tongue-in-cheek doppelganger, it would have to be Knife*Death. While the former flies in the face of metal convention with revisionist-historian lyrics and walking-megaphone intensity, neither of which fit the genre’s mold, the latter band slaps convention in the back of the head and runs away laughing. [...]

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Album Review: Gold Tops, by The Bootheel

Posted on15. Jul, 2009 by thederosh.

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Consider this one of those rare occasions when a band’s description of itself actually fits. Most bands are prone to hyperbole when it comes to bio details, and that’s putting it mildly. Not so The Bootheel, which attaches the appropriately compact tag “aggressively Midwestern” to its sound. On its debut EP, Gold Tops, the group combines [...]

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Album Review: The Nova Heat, by The Nova Heat

Posted on10. Jul, 2009 by thederosh.

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It took three years and who-knows-how-many band lineups to complete, but The Nova Heat doesn’t sound like an album one could rush to make, anyway. Really, it’s not one you can even rush through listening to. The sublime joy is in sitting down with nothing else around you but headphones on your head and trying [...]

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Album Review: Shelter For My Enemy, by Assembly Line Gods

Posted on09. Jul, 2009 by thederosh.

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Sounding like a cross between early Tool and Dirt-era Alice In Chains, Assembly Line Gods go for dark menace mixed with a hint of the demonic from the outset of Shelter For My Enemy. “The Devil always wins,” singer David Samples snarls over his bandmates’ punctuated, chug-and-thump instrumentation on “Liberty Bell.” He’s referring to himself, [...]

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Album Review: Blood On James River, by Holstein

Posted on25. Jun, 2009 by thederosh.

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Alright, so maybe it was a little unrealistic to hope that Blood On James River would be a happier record than Holstein’s previous work, The Big Black Clouds EP. Blood is really an expansion on the established vibe, literally and figuratively. Two of the previous album’s songs–”Big Black Clouds” and “Complications”–return for use here, and [...]

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Album Review: A Brief Treatise on Land Ownership Vol. 1, by The Short Histories of Powerful Nations

Posted on18. Jun, 2009 by thederosh.

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Say what you will about the sheer long-windedness of the band’s name and album title; The Short Histories of Powerful Nations have a lot on their minds and, frankly, aren’t interested in pleasing the masses. A Brief Treatise On Land Ownership Vol. 1 is hard rock as high art, a three-song revisionist history lesson not [...]

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Album Review: Black Lungs & Bitter Tongues, by Iseah

Posted on12. Jun, 2009 by thederosh.

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Iseah’s EP Black Lungs & Bitter Tongues brings an intensity so unusually sharp it should come with a warning label of some kind. Perhaps Do not listen to unless other modern hard-rock bands bore you would be appropriate. In a genre that has become the new least-common-denominator form of rock music–let’s face it, it’s easier [...]

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Album Review: Things Change, by Josh Heinrichs

Posted on04. Jun, 2009 by thederosh.

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Given the events of recent months, calling Josh Heinrichs‘ album Things Change seems like wrapping six songs around an understatement. First there was the split with his band, the local reggae powerhouse Jah Roots, and the surprising cutting of his signature dreadlocks soon after. Whether planned or coincidental in their timing, breaks with the past [...]

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Album Review: Welcome Home, by Storyline

Posted on02. Jun, 2009 by thederosh.

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Though it’s really only 50% new–three tracks appeared on the band’s previously distributed demo–Welcome Home is a, ahem, welcome step forward for Storyline, and further proof that the band is not One Star Story Mach II.