I was watching cable and saw a video for a song from this album which turned out to be “Steady, As She Goes.” The whole time I was thinking, ‘This is quality music. I hope it’s not Jack White gone solo .’ Voila, it’s a new four-piece band that makes loud, sometimes catchy, sometimes slow and always gargantuan rock wrought from what seems to be basic song structures and delivered with maximum creativity and listenability. There’s also some really sweet distortion and bitchin’ly subtle keyboards. Sayonara, White Stripes. Aloha, Raconteurs!
Journey Live In Houston 1981 Escape Tour (Columbia)
It’s been 24 years and most of us have probably listened to endless Journey on car radios, partially broken record and tape players, and early in the evening at places that heshers go. I reckon it was all to pump you up in preparation for reliving your glory days with this live concert album. I like how Steve Perry keeps inserting “Houston” into songs, like in the part in “Don’t Stop Believin’” where he sings “just a city boy, born in raised right here in Houston” instead of “South Detroit.” Did he do that in cities all across America?
Someday To Failure, Dear Brother (Self-Released)
I’ll premise this by saying that I quit liking the screamo genre back in 2001 with the dismantling of Albuquerque’s Last Day Parade: Power chords, quick tempo changes and metalesque growling into the microphone died for me back then. That said, up-and-coming locals Someday are a band I would have really liked and wanted to make-out with back in the day. This album is well-composed, technically adept and wholly honest. And the vocals, when they aren’t indistinguishably screaming, are very nice. I highly recommend track three, “This Moment Could Change Everything,” which lends a pulsar element of pop to the all the shredding.
