Motor City Rocks has tried out a new musical experiment. State of the art criticism at it’s best. Five people enter into a room, listen to three albums from three bands, not knowing the name of the band or any of the songs. They say what they’re thinking about the song AS IT PLAYS! We’re not Pitchfork, I’m not good at adjective laden hyper description of sound. This is an album on trial, being judged by peers. All of our comments on the albums are posted anonymously below. We hope you enjoy!
Just Boyz – Sorry Ladies!
Just Boyz was the house band at Scrummage University and played under the name Benny Stoofy for most of their live shows. Just Boyz is Ben Christensen, Conor Edwards, Antonio Manzari, Eric Chodoroff, and sometimes Alex Lauer. Conor, Ben and Alex make up Lord Scrummage.
You can download and stream the entire album here at their website FREE.
ONTO THE REVIEW:
This sounds like the Residents when they were in pre-school. Sounds like a movie soundtrack. They sounds like a normal band under water. It’s like Malcolm in the Middle goes to the carnival and this is the background music. If They Might Be Giants and Dan Deacon had a baby, Not their adult offspring, their nine year old. Feels like Zappa without the hard edge. You’re going to have to take a few monster bong rips to really appreciate this. Was this the Bubble Bobble Super Nintendo music? The perfect music for a video game about monkeys. Reminds me of early 70s Pink Floyd, the soundtrack to More. I think they stole unreleased tracks from Ween. I feel like it’s background music. There’s a lot of things going on at the same time, a weird vocal thing, the 8 bit noise, and the melodies, instruments going in and out. We should let them know which parts they like so they can decide which band to be. They seem like a different band with each song. I have to say I don’t really like this band over all. I can’t see putting this in and listening to it. It seems like a new band getting a feel for what works for them, I like parts but there’s too much going on.
Final rating: 2.1 out of 5
Mahoney – Mahoney (EP)
First let me point out, this band is Mahoney, NOT The Mahonies.
ONTO THE REVIEW:
This is very middle of the road typical rock. I’ve heard this type of road a million times. I can see them winning a radio contest and opening for the foo fighters and being really stoked. In every song, there’s the pop gimic sound effect. They stick every single top 40 gimic in over and over. It’s concentrated bubble gum. During one song, there will be 4 really obvious popular band influences. A single song sounds like 3 other people’s songs. I hear a little bit of Bloc Party in there. It’s well produced and well mixed, it sounds good. I can picture it on the radio. I feel like this is a guy’s final project for mixing and he’s trying to prove he can do everything. Kind of formulaic. This one sounds like a Good Charlotte song. I’m over this band. I can’t believe the lyric mentioned a gun, this has nothing to do with violence, it’s like they throw in these words to prove to their mom that they were bad ass. This is the music the masses want, we’re just too much a bunch of pretentious dicks to enjoy it. This is a 13 year old’s punk now-a-days. I hear a lot of early 90s grunge influence. 89X amalgamated into one album. Were they on that show “The Making of the CD Dollar Bin band”? Good energy. Everything is very in the pocket. Produced and preformed well. Devoid of any interesting ideas in any way. This is the music you would hear in a bar in Livonia. If I didn’t know this band and they opened for a band I was going to see, I’d leave the bar and try to get re-admitted later. I hope this band is underage because no one over 18 will want to fuck them. The twilight crowd, mother daughter multiplier. This is the Kanye part. This is a baaaaad song. The only thing that could redeem this song would be if there was like a 3 minute long Slash style guitar solo. They need some guy just wailing on his ax. You know that you’re going to be the guy that this guy tells to fuck off in the liner notes of his first platinum album. Our complaints about this album will probably be compliments to them. The only band I didn’t hear them ripping off were the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and if you’re aiming that high, you need to put some slap bass in there. They need a rapping segment during the bridge of this song.
Final rating 1 out of 5
Robin Parrent – Beauty Damaged
This is Robin Parrent‘s solo album he was in The Subnormals, The Craves, the Revenants, and Violent Ear (according to Last.fm which is never wrong).
ONTO THE REVIEW:
Charles Manson’s ice cream truck is here! Very 60s. Nice marching rhythm. With this band I feel like it’s someone writing about something that he feels, he’s trying to express a genuine emotion and tell a story. This isn’t bad at all. I’d like to see them live. The female vocals compliment his voice really well. It sounds like they have a really good knowledge of music, they sound like an experienced band, who’ve written lots of songs before. . They have dynamic rythms. This has a very Rain Dogs Tom Waits feel to it. They have a bit of the Violent Femmes too. I’d pay around $6 to see them live. I’d like to hear the female vocalist sing lead on a couple tracks. The whole album has it’s own flavor which you can tell it’s intentional. The lo-fi distortiony feel is a really good sound to have right now, and they do it well. This is kind of a post-white stripes, grunge rock detroit, but they hit it at a good time. The singer sounds a little like Jack White at times. It’s not a big thing, but I like the little soundscapey type noises in between the songs helps it, it pulls the album together with a theme. This song sounds like Jim Morrisson when he’s strung out on smack. Ok, this part is just the vocals jerking off “look what I can do with my voice!” Gordon Gano in his darkest moment wouldn’t have done this song. Is someone noodling on a violin? This part’s boring, it sounds like he’s just tuning up or something. This has a cool Dick Dale guitar part. He has a lot happening in this music, but it’s not too much. He’s got a great progression where he’s ascending musically. In a lot of music, it’s the silence that’s the most important parts, and I think he understands that. This part reminds me of a track from the Velvet Underground’s third album. He’s a good guitar player. It goes from a really fun album into a lot of dicking around. It kind of lost momentum.It sounds like that guy on QVC who sells guitars….Estaban? He’s just dicking around on the guitar now, this doesn’t sound like a song even. It’s no longer a song, it’s a religion now. This is his vocal warm up that accidentally got recorded. If I woke up tomorrow on a raft made up of strung together with logs with a piece of straw in my mouth and a big oar, I would listen to this. I just want him to scream or do something. This sounds like something he could be playing in bed, I can’t see him rocking this out live on stage. Sounds like a cd you’d get at a renessance festival.He needs to emphasize the guitar a little less. These are some mad Bauhaus style vocals.
Final rating 2.75 out of 5 [after this was established there were people trying to push their rating up because they thought Robin deserved at least a 3, but we finally agreed that vote manipulation doesn't help out the democratic system -ed]
Your critics:
Steve Barman
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Jim Davey
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Kevin Eckert
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Lance Mitchell
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Chris Theisen
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The Summer Pledge’s debut album, You Are You
, is an audio canvas that the band has painted with a moody, atmospheric sound. The album blends together pleasantly to make a nearly interconnected opus from the first track through the eighth. The spacey sound carries through the album from start to finish, and each track is decorated with chiming guitar arpeggios, unconventional drum beats, captivating bass lines, and nostalgic lyrics. The recording itself is fantastic, and the layers of the instruments, effects, and vocals are skillfully constructed. The vocals sound slightly behind the mix giving the album a dreamy, outer space sound as the guitar riffs jingle through your ears, and the bass line carries each song through carefully landscaped changes. The album is on the shorter side, and with good reason so that not to lose a listener’s attention to long winded space jams. The title track of the album lends itself to stand alone, but some of the songs lack individuality outside of the album. These skilled musicians make You Are You exceptionally pleasurable to the ears, and even better if you listen to the album in its entirety.
FEATURED TRACKS:
“Who Are You” – The Summer Pledge
“Silver Choice” – The Summer Pledge
** You Are You can be found online at Woodbridge Records or on Amazon.
The debut album form Zoos of Berlin is a startlingly expansive journey of a gorgeous spacey soundscapes. Drummer/engineer Collin Dupuis and band mates recorded Taxis
in a make-shift 5,000 sq. foot studio within the Russell Industrial Center. The result is a haunting and natural reverb and tonality that brings to mind David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy. The texture isn’t the only thing the Zoos have going for them, they have an inherent sense pulling out fresh melodies from complex layered harmony. The vocal work of Trevor Naud and Daniel I. Clark is precise and flexible. Their vocal styling reminds me of the Beta Band, but Zoos have a wider range.
The songs are diverse, yet remain consistent thematically. “Black in the Sun” has a rippling horn punctuating throughout the catchy krautrock. Clocking in at just over two minutes, the cryptic lyrics and baroque keyboards don’t leave anything feeling incomplete. “Juan Matus” has a flavors of Stereolab which escalates into a hazed merry-go-round collapsing onto itself, only to resurface as a lounge-y keyboard solo from Will Yates. Another golden track, “Electrical Way” has a funk reminiscent of Headhunters era Herbie Hancock while maintaining the straightforwardness of The Strokes. As with the other songs on Taxis, “Electrical Way” doesn’t give you the opportunity to get bored, it re-invents itself seamlessly and beautifully. I can’t recommend this album enough.
FEATURED TRACK
“Black In The Sun Room” – Zoos of Berlin
** Zoos of Berlin will be playing at the Crofoot in Pontiac on Friday, November 6th along with Black Heart Procession, Thunderbirds Are Now! and Prussia.
Last May I reviewed a concert of Thao with the Get Down Stay Down. They played with Sister Suvi and Samantha Crain. During the show, Thao invited members of the other bands into their set and played several songs along with them, making for an astonishingly wild and active stage. What an amazing performance! With as many as 9 people crammed onto the tiny stage within the Beachland Tavern, I found myself torn between taking photos and dancing. Seeing Thao live and with the caliber of energy that they presented to that crowd seems to have carried over into their new album Know Better Learn Faster – specifically with “Cool Yourself” and my favorite on the album “When We Swarm”, a dashingly slick song that begs you to dance like Ben Afleck in Chasing Amy (You know, in the bar when he’s rubbing his chest and swaying awkwardly). Anyway . . . I also seem to be hearing slight influences from Sister Suvi throughout the album. In Thao’s previous albums they have been, by and large, almost comedic and definitely upbeat with their musical juxtaposition. Know Better Learn Faster does bring some more serious themes to the table. These new elements and change to their already stellar style only solidifies the album’s place within Thao Nguyen’s discography and it comes highly recommended.
Folk Rock Lovers – Eat your heart out.
Don’t miss their upcoming show at the Magic Stick this coming Halloween night!
Friendly Foes has a didactic name and there’s two seperate voices emerging on their new So Obscene EP . I don’t mean just the voices of frontman Ryan Allen and singer Liz Wittman. There’s the first two tracks “How It Works” and “Keep Breathing” which fly by like a car filled with sugar-high teenagers on a summer day. “Keep Breathing” is definitely the stand out song from this release. Wittman’s voice has an attitude and sexiness you can believe in, accompanied well with Allen’s fuzzy lively guitar, and the boisterous bumpings of new drummer Sean Sommer. The other half of the EP slows in both tempo and enjoyability. “Paint It Gold” and “Line Up” seem like they’ve been done before to the point where they’re a copy of a copy duo of pop songs that escaped the mid-nineties. You don’t know what you’ll get when you party with your frienemies, just like Friendly Foes’ So Obscene.
FEATURED TRACK:
“How It Works” – Friendly Foes
So Obscene will be released on 7″ record on October 10th from Gangplank Records. The official release show will be October 10th at the Berkley Front with the Javelins and Allan James and the Cold Wave.
Spitting Nickels new album Stop Don’t / Yes is a hook heavy bag of blues-rock. Where the album clicks, it really clicks, everything comes together perfectly and makes you want to pump your fist (and any sexy person in the room). Dirty grooves, Mississippi via Michigan, bar rock. Stop Don’t / Yes is a fun ride. 
