Anticipation of Flogging Molly’s new album, Float, has been building in by gut since seeing them at the Palladium a few weeks ago. To the layman, it may have seemed as though Flogging Molly had fallen off of the face of the earth since their last release in 2004, but fans and concert-goers have certainly noticed their nearly endless number of tours over the past four years. And they’re fantastic in concert! But their amazing energy and presence haven’t always translated well to their studio albums.

This is not exactly the case for Float. You get what you expect from this album; there are few surprises, and it’s mostly the same old Flogging Molly sound. However, they managed to escape the tedious repetition they ran into in some of their past albums, as some of that incredible energy they wield has made it into these recordings.

The album opens strong with the first single, “Requiem for a Dying Song,” a consistent introduction to the rest of the album. “Paddy’s Lament” picks up the pace with a harder edge, which flows smoothly into the title track “Float,” a quiet ballad with a sad but confident sound, coupled with beautiful instrumentals on the fiddle and banjo. The album continues through the standard fast-paced songs including “You Won’t Make a Fool Out of Me,” “Between a Man and a Woman,” and “From the Back of a Broken Dream.” There is also an occasional slower song, like “The Story so Far,” to balance out the album. Read More

Occasionally, people ask me why I like the Smashing Pumpkins. It’s really hard to describe why you like music, but I think I’ve come up with a pretty good reason. The music they have released over the years is so incredibly diverse that I could almost never get tired of listening to them. The Smashing Pumpkins are definitely my all-time, number-one, if-I-only-had-one-band-to-listen-to-on-a-desert-island favorite band.

So I was excited to hear they were releasing an EP, in a relatively short time after their first release in seven years, Zeitgeist. This four song EP, American Gothic, does exactly what I love: it introduces a new sound to the band. At least, it is a new sound for the new Smashing Pumpkins, which is essentially a rehash of frontman Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain’s short-lived project Zwan with different people on the bass and guitar. After a heavy, head-banging release in Zeitgeist that was vaguely reminiscent of Siamese Dream and more a nod towards metal and hard rock with power-chords galore, it’s nice to see the band slowing down into a mellower, more acoustic groove. For those of you not well-versed in the esoteric history of the Smashing Pumpkins: Zeitgeist was surprising and powerful, where American Gothic is more melodic, more relaxed, and more beautiful. Read More

Sleep Through the Static, Jack Johnson’s first album since he provided all the music for Sing-A Long and Lullabies for the Film Curious George in 2006, is also Johnson’s first album not to be recorded in his home state, Hawaii (it was made at the Solar Powered Plastic Plant in L.A.). For an album that was recorded entirely with sunshine (read: solar energy), Sleep Through the Static doesn’t sound like it. Johnson’s tracks are darker, more lyric heavy, and generally more cynical than his past albums.

The album opens with ‘All at Once’, which sets the tone of Sleep Through the Static with lyrics like “All at once/The world can overwhelm me/There’s almost nothing that you could tell me/That could ease my mind” and “Sometimes it feels like a heart/Is no place to be singing from at all”. But despite these lyrics, the track is one of Johnson’s best forays into darker territory on the album.

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Hot Chip’s third album, Made in the Dark, is mostly a continuation of their sophomore album, The Warning, but departs from its predecessor with more electronic sound and style, mixed with more slow, chill songs. The album begins with the slick electronica sound of “Out at the Pictures,” with a cool stutter style to the chorus that keeps your head bobbing. Next up is the first song released from the album, “Shake a Fist,” which came out back in September of ’07. I was a little surprised; the track was relatively repetitive, despite a departure from the norm by adding a brief monologue-of-sorts midway through the song. The first single actually associated with the album is the third track, “Ready for the Floor,” which brings the album back up to a steady pace. With a rough-but-cool intro leading into a light beat and melody, the song is a standout on the album.

A few other songs are standouts, if for nothing more than being different. “We’re Looking for a Lot of Love,” is a chill, relaxing song with a good melody and no overemphasis on electric sound. “Made in the Dark” follows a similar train of thought, as do “Whistle for Will” and “In the Privacy of Our Love,” though the latter has a tight little synthesized bit at the end to finish off the album. “One Pure Thought,” on the other hand, jumps out at you – just like “Ready for the Floor” – and keeps your head bobbing along with the beat for the whole track. A light melody mixes with a heavier grind through the middle of the song, with enjoyable results.

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Skateboarder turned musician Matt Costa returned last week with his sophomoric Unfamiliar Faces. The album, his follow up to 2006’s Songs We Sing, was again released under his friend and sometimes collaborator, Jack Johnson’s Brushfire Records label. Costa hails from a similar background as his friend, although for him it was a skateboarding, not surfing, accident that led him to the world of music.

Unfamiliar Faces has a slightly less upbeat and optimistic a sound as Songs We Sing. Tracks are more complex, with heavier lyrics and more progression, and feature a variety of new instruments (‘Emergency Call’s horns, the powerful drums that guide ‘Downfall’) in Costa’s repertoire. Costa even samples new genres in tracks like the bluesy ‘Bound’, the western sounding ‘Never Looking Back’, and the Southern ‘Miss Magnolia’.

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A Mars Volta album inspired a cursed Ouiji-style talking board purchased in Jerusalem called “The Soothsayer,” which told a tale of a love triangle between a woman, her daughter, and a man, all through the voice of their collective spirit, “Goliath”. Yeah, that sounds about right.

The bands fourth studio release, The Bedlam in Goliath, makes the mistake of starting off on the wrong foot - the first three tracks are so-so concoctions of standard Mars Volta rhythms slapped together at feverish paces, with a few instances of brilliant riffs here and there. They finally get their formula right on the single, “Wax Simulacra,” a 2:40 face-melter in which The Mars Volta’s latest addition, drummer Thomas Pidgen, states his case for being in the band with a non-stop barrage of thunderous fills. They keep the momentum going with “Goliath,” supported by a hip-hop groove guitar riff reminiscent of Rage Against the Machine.

Then comes the classic Mars Volta what-the-hell-just-happened moment, “Tourniquet Man.” It’s a power ballad. No, I’m not joking. Towards the end, the Volta pull out two new tricks up their sleeve: tons of terrifying vocal effects (phasers and flangers and who knows what else) and a flute. Better tricks than the garbled, frantic, noteless saxophone solos they kept using on Amputechture.

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Fun, fresh, and straight out of Providence, the men of Zox released Line in the Sand, their third studio album, on Tuesday the 22nd to the excitement and anticipation of faithful fans. Packaged differently than their previous two and featuring revamped album art (notably, the broken and ant-filled compass on the album cover), the sound of Line in the Sand is also a more mature and well-rounded leap from both Take Me Home and The Wait.

In many ways, Zox’s third is unlike anything they’ve put out before; however, it is also distinctively Zox. Eli Miller’s voice and lyrics dominate most of the tracks, but a new dimension of Zox is added with a lot more vocals from Spencer Swain and Dan Edinberg, better known for their talents on violin and bass, respectively. Line in the Sand also features a far wider range of instrumentals including keyboard, accordion, cello, and saxophone–many contributed by Edinberg.

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