[Review] Just Like Vinyl - Black Mass

Just Like Vinyl emerged from the ashes of The Fall Of Troy after the release of their last album In The Unlikely Event in 2009. Thomas Erak joined forces with Jake Carden (also on guitar and vocal duties) and Henry Batts (bass) joined shortly after. With TFOT still playing their final shows the trio began rehearsals and recorded a few demos for their debut LP. The result was a self-titled album far away from TFOT virtuosic nature but still retaining the protagonism of the guitar above all. Two years later we have Black Mass, building upon the sound of their debut but turning the distortion up a few notches: the riffs are heavier, the drums sound thicker and the percentage of screaming and howling probably excedes 50% of all the vocals.

The band experiments with twisted accentuations, tempo changes and a few odd time signatures, keeping the album fresh song after song. The lyrics are probably the aspect that changed less since TFOT's separation, still tackling with themes such as cheating, love turned into hate and all that Erak has got us accustomed to.
Since the songs are much heavier that in their self titled a little of The Unlikely Event shows up in some of them (Hours And Whiskey Sours, Atm) with Lucky Star sounding like it could have been a bside from The Fall Of Troy's last effort. The mix is good and all the instruments can be heard clearly even in the noisiest moments. Overall a very good sophomore album that expands the range of JLV's sound.

8.5/10

http://justlikevinyl.com/

(8/10) Omar Rodriguez Lopez - Saber, Querer, Osar y Callar

If there is any rule to Omar Rodriguez Lopez' recent solo career, that rule is each time an album comes out it means at least two will be out soon. Saber, Querer, Osar y Callar [SQOyC] is no exception, after the release of Un Corazón de Nadie it only took a little more than a month for another of Omar's experiments to see the light. Following the trend of the aforementioned album, Saber is another compact delivery of noise-electronic-drone rock, with the particularity of featuring fellow The Mars Volta drummer Deantoni Parks on live drums. From the get go the album is all about synths, distorted, echoing vocals and almost free-style shifting "electronic" beats. It almost feels as if Rodriguez Lopez had written and recorded all the songs and then tasked Parks with pasting drums on top, which is not necessarily a bad thing and in fact works great; since the songs have a much less defined structure than regular TMV songs Deantoni has more space to improvise and lay down ideas over Omar's fertile soundscapes. 

SQOyC opens with the noisy, eerie collection of synths of Home Lost, with Deantoni laying beat after beat over Omar's babbling-like vocals, diving directly into the second track (Habits) and then taking a short break in the relaxed Gentle Umbrellas (with a very interesting implementation of backward guitars), that only gets a little more energic towards the end. The following four tracks can either be perceived as hit-or-miss efforts depending on how much time you are willing to invest into them and how much you can tolerate Omar's love for experimentation (curiously Tentáculos is an alternate version of Agua Dulce De Pulpo from Un Escorpion Perfumado, though at this point it's harder to tell which one came first). Decided? takes a step aside of the electronic nature of the album to deliver a more guitar-driven experiment that will probably remind you of Omar's early solo work, with Angel Hair going ever farther from the rest of the songs, probably Omar's own take on a love song and one of the most interesting songs on the album once you listen to it a few times. Overall a very solid effort, specially for something that could be labelled as an experiment.

(7.5/10) Omar Rodriguez Lopez - Un Corazón De Nadie

After 2011's unusual blank space in Omar's release calendar comes the first album since 2010's Un Escorpion Perfumado, following the overall aesthetic of said release but this time featuring Omar behind all the music, from vocals, through bass to live drums and showing a bit more of his electronic side which he has been exploring briefly in the last year, aside from the completely electronic 2010 album Tychozorente, the first to feature no guitars, that is, of course, ignoring his past ventures into noisy territory with Despair and ORL&JMW.
Un Corazón De Nadie was released (as usually) as a surprise upload in Omar's Bandcamp page with cd preorders following a few days later. The release was probably planned as a tribute to his mother who passed away a few months before (she's holding Omar in the cover and is credited with creating the collage picture).

Like in Un Escorpion Perfumado the album consists in about half a dozen songs often separated by electronic/noise interludes and experiments featuring pulsating bass lines and sinister sounding synth arrangements, the fifth track (Colmillo) is the first to stray from that definition, offering a nostalgic and light hearted synth melody, briefly followed by the sound of hammering percussion and odd beats in Querer, featuring Omar on piano. Most of the vocals are often unmelodic and delivered in the form of low register whispers, something that Omar seems to feel comfortable about and that has been present in other recent releases. After Querer the albums dives into noisy and mostly instrumental territory until the closer Adiós arrives, while still delivering some interesting landscapes like Hez. 

Overall Un Corazón De Nadie is a good statement in Omar's branching career and a good stepping stone for his recent obsession for synths and electronic music, I just wouldn't recommend to those looking for an accesible entry to his catalogue or for those more accustomed to his "guitar" albums.

(7.5/10) Marriages - Kitsune (2012)

A new release from Sargent House, the debut album from Marriages is a short  psychedelic post-rock album very similar to Dot Hacker's debut album and ep, only slightly heavier. The band is composed of members of Red Sparrowes (the three members are from RS though they all have other projects). The album was recorded between the last months of 2011 (when the band formed) and the first months of 2012, and was released today via Bandcamp. Kitsune flows very well from beginning to end, both as an album or analized as individual compositions, the only drawback is that the album has the lenght of an EP and clocks at 26 minutes, which doesn't let much space to experiment, but ultimatelt it serves the flow well.

01. Ride In My Place

02. Body of Shade

03. Ten Tiny Fingers

04. Pelt

05. White Shape

06. Part The Dark Again

Emma Ruth Rundle - Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Flute 

Greg Burns - Bass Guitar, Synthesizer 

Dave Clifford - Drums, additional Guitar on "Pelt" 

http://marriagesmusic.bandcamp.com/album/kitsune

Just Like Vinyl: review and philosophy

Tomorrow at 8'o clock (Argentinian Time), El Espectro De Color is realizing it's first programme on a local radio. We will be talking about some Erak's new composing aspects and the rock industry nowadays. Hope you enjoy it.

You can hear us here: http://puckradio.listen2myradio.com/

The Mars Volta - The Malkin Jewel (Single)

The Mars Volta's new single from their upcoming album Noctourniquet. You can buy the tracks from iTunes or Amazon or get a free instand download in 320kbps MP3 if you pre-order the album here (btw I'm getting that T-Shirt!). You can meanwhile listen to the song and play a fun mini game at the same time here or just watch it on Youtube.

(8.5) Thinking Plague - Decline And Fall (2012)

If I were to judge this album based on it's cover and both the name of the band and the album it would be fair to say that it looks and sounds like "another generic hardcore/metal band", but it's not!. There's one simple way to describe what this album is like: syncopated, atonal jazz-fusion... is that enough? If not then let me get a little more specific, it's like a mix of King Crimson's most "recent" syncopated instrumentals and their jazz fusion era, plus a stripped down, less chaotic Kayo Dot... with female vocals. If you don't have a general idea of what this bands sounds like yet then you're probably reading the wrong blog...
That's pretty much how the album sounds like, but what makes it even more unique is it's vocals, to begin with, it's not everyday that you find a jazz fusion band with a female vocalist, and second, the vocals are as atonal as the sax or the guitar playing in the background, as if they improvised/wrote another instrumental track and used it as a vocal melody.

Now go give the album a listen!.

http://www.generalrubric.com/thinkingplague/main.html