Music Saturday: HEARTIST and ASKING ALEXANDRIA (a bit of a rambling piece…)

As I’ve mentioned in the past on here, one of my other passions is music (in fact, this is a passion that has dominated far more of my life than books and reading). I used to spend hours each day investigating new bands, albums, songs – subscribing to multiple magazines (even importing them from the US). I even ran a little fanzine, “MWRI” – a Terry Pratchett reference, “Music With Rocks In” (even then, I was a SFF fan). Recently, however, I’ve been listening to less new music.

Partly, this grew from an impression that things were starting to stagnate a little in the rock and metal communities. “Heavier and Louder” were the order of the decade, it seemed. I like plenty of groove and melody, though, so when ever some of my favourite bands started to conform to the “bludgeon thy listener unto death” gospel of rock, I lost ever-more interest, narrowing the number of bands I followed religiously. True, this is just a personal impression resulting from exposure to what felt like endless hardcore clones. Nevertheless, I felt slightly disillusioned with the scene I had called home since I bought Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I and Iron Maiden’s Fear of the Dark as a kid (I should thank Chris Green, a school friend, for lending me his discman and these two albums when I was ill – eternal gratitude). Although, I think Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA was the first album I loved (not as “hard” rock, but still part of the same larger community, I’ve always thought).

Over the past couple of years, though, melody and groove seem to be making a massive come-back, as bands and fans remember that it’s rock and roll, and that there’s nothing wrong with writing hooks. One of my favourite bands, Five Finger Death Punch, have been releasing consistently excellent (and progressively better) albums each year. Trivium rediscovered their love of classic, Metallica-esque metal, and released a stunning album. And so on. Recently, I finally discovered to new (for me) bands that write in the bounds of my tastes: HEARTIST and ASKING ALEXANDRIA.

Artwork: Queens of the Stone Age, “… Like Clockwork”

So, a break from book covers and comic artwork, but I first saw this at London Bridge tube station, and it really caught my eye…

No idea what the album’s like, and I have to admit they are not a favourite band of mine (in fact, I’ve never liked any of their stuff enough to keep an album…). Just thought I’d share the image, which was done by someone known as “Boneface”.

Here’s the title-track’s music video…

Fall Out Boy went away, got better, then came back…

I was never really exposed to my of Fall Out Boy’s back-catalogue. I think I only heard the two main singles from Infinity on High (2007) – “This Ain’t A Love Scene, It’s An Arms Race” and “Thnks Fr Th Mmrs”. Anything else I heard by them was accidental or unacknowledged. They always struck me as a curiosity, and nothing really more than that, despite so many of the music magazines I read devoting pages and pages of space to writing about them.

Then again, I’ve never been someone who listened to the radio, so I often missed things. At the same time, I never really got tired of songs, either. (Maybe that’s why I’m one of the few people who will admit to liking Nickelback songs…?)*

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent… I have periodic Music Videos on YouTube Binges, and I stumbled across Fall Out Boy’s latest single. And it’s actually rather good. So here’s the video for your enjoyment…

The song is taken from Save Rock and Roll, the band’s latest album – out now.

Here’s a bonus video, from another Save Rock and Roll single, the brilliantly named “My Song Knows What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)”…

* I say “admit”, because despite the fact that everyone I know readily, gleefully mocking the band, they are consistently one of the highest selling bands on either side of the Atlantic. And that’s not including illegal downloads. Millions of people are actually buying their albums. Who are these seemingly-mythical buyers…?

A Musical Diversion… ESO

Discovering ESO was an absolute accident – a Facebook ad had been appearing in my timeline for a while, and I finally decided to click through to it. And I’ve now listened/watched this video countless times. I really like the band’s sound, and can’t wait for the album – Nothing Left To Lose, which is out on October 1st in the UK and (hopefully) MP3 retailers in the US.

Music: “Living Things” by Linkin Park

Ho-hum, a long-time fan grumbles

I originally had very high hopes for Living Things. I had even been prepared to write a long review, believing this may be the return of the band that dominated my stereo, and later MP3 player, for most of the early 2000s. Sadly, this album is, effectively, the Linkin Park equivalent of elevator music.

Music Video: “Burn It Down” by Linkin Park (Warner Bros.)

I’m having a rather Linkin Park-themed day, with their music videos playing in the background on repeat, and thanks to IceBergInk’s Scott, I discovered that the video for their latest single, “Burn It Down” has finally been released! The song’s from their upcoming album, Living Things (released end of June), which I’m very much looking forward to.

Music Review: “Post Mortem” by Black Tide

Black Tide are a band I missed completely when they released their debut album, Light From Above (2008). At the time, I wasn’t following the scene as much as I had before, and tended to focus on the bands I already knew, who have released a slew of amazing albums in recent years. I only learned of them when YouTube threw up “That Fire” as a recommendation for a video playlist I’d been putting together. And I quite liked it. So off I went to get the album.

I’m not entirely sure which genre or sub-genre of rock they belong in, if I’m perfectly honest. I suppose the best place to put them would be “neo-thrash”, seeing as they blend some of the best elements of thrash, while also bringing a more modern pop-sheen. Really, this is pretty light metal, and purists will sneer at it (as they are wont to do at almost anything), but I think it’s a pretty great album. And it’s criminal how young the band members are…

Music Video for Fantasy/Sci-Fi Fans

Is this a band who like their genre or what?

“Warriors of Time” by Black Tide

I’ve actually got an album review for the band’s second album, Post Mortem, in the works at the moment. It was while checking out their other work that I stumbled across this, and thought it was (somewhat) relevant to the rest of the content of the blog. The album review will go live in the next couple of days.