This Day & Age - ...Always Leaves the Ground (CHORD Magazine, April/May 2005)

THIS DAY & AGE

...Always Leaves the Ground [One Eleven]
3 Discs

[Fans of Taking Back Sunday, Switchfoot, and Midtown take note.]

This Day & Age is one of the few "emo" bands that has pop-style melodies without sounding emotionally calculated, while adding beautiful keyboard overtones and guitars to add to the overall sound. There's no whining vocals anywhere to be found on this record; Jeff Martin's voice is clean and melodic from start to finish, drawing comparisons to the poppier side of Switchfoot with a slight Taking Back Sunday-style driving-rock element. This blend creates a fresh sound to attract hungry ears. The band works the melodies to its advantage, making the music shine in a huge way. This record potentially could have songs waiting to be featured on a forthcoming sitcom, which is not necessarily a bad thing. This Day & Age is a band that fits its name well, and the only thing holding them back is a big opportunity, which could be right around the corner. Only time will tell how big these guys will become.

-Rei Nishimoto

The Mighty Nimbus - S/T (CHORD Magazine, April/May 2005)

THE MIGHTY NIMBUS
S/T [Candlelight]

(4 Discs)

[Fans of Black Label Society, High On Fire, and Down take note.]

For those who find recent rock music to sound too polished, here's something that should get your juices flowing. Taking the best parts of dark, insanity-driven rock music with a slab of sludge, their creation of music in the backwoods of Minnesota has made The Mighty Nimbus a band that will excite rock fans for ages. This is not for the faint-hearted. The guitar tones, compliments of Dinis deCarvalho and Erik Larson, thunder through the speakers with their vicious low-end and rumble right through. Dan Soren's howling vocals create an eerie vibe that compliments the music well. The sound of this record is very much comparable to such bands as Crowbar ... and hell, even old Saint Vitus. Not all music is supposed to be pretty, and these Minnesotans have proof they created this with dirt under their nails. It's been a long time since rock music has been this exciting, and I'm glad to hear The Mighty Nimbus has joined the assault.

-Rei Nishimoto

Kaddisfly - Buy Our Intension; We'll Buy You A Unicorn (CHORD Magazine April/May 2005)

KADDISFLY

Buy Our Intension; We'll Buy You A Unicorn [Hopeless]

3 Discs

[Fans of At The Drive-In and Project 86 take note.]

Oregon's Kaddisfly has joined the latest wave of free-spirited indie bands to fuse some life back into rock music. Taking a jam-band format to a modern progressive sound while adding melody and passion, Kaddisfly fills its sound with youthful passion throughout each song. This is not another pre-calculated, whiny emocore band in any sense. They show that they can write emotion-driven music without expressing the same one repeatedly. The main focal point here is frontman Chris Ruff's melodic yet expressive vocal style. Whether he hits the mid-level notes or simply sings, he creates a mood that is often otherwise lost within a band's sound. The band's musicianship is strong and compliments Ruff's vocals without overbearing any part of the overall sound. Kaddisfly has created a powerful record of songs unequivocal to many of their contemporaries' releases.

-Rei Nishimoto

Hatebreed Start Work On Long-Awaited Second Album (Metal Hammer UK - April 2001)

Hatebreed Start Work On Long-Awaited Second Album
added: 30/04/2001

Connecticut metalcore crew Hatebreed are working on their long awaited second album, tentatively titled 'Perseverance'.

Frontman Jamey 'Jasta ' Shanahan gave Metal Hammer an update of the follow-up to 1997's 'Satisfaction Is The Death Of Desire', which is scheduled to include the songs 'Unbreakable', 'Unloved', 'I Will Be Heard', 'Remain Nameless' and 'A Final Prayer For The Human Race'.

"We're playing four or five new ones [on their recent support slot on the Sepultura US tour]. We're getting great feedback on this tour from the songs we didn't play on Tattoo The Earth. The material is better and more focused. It's expanding on the formulas that worked on the last record."

Hatebreed have helped to push the metalcore genre into the forefront. Touring consistently, they have easily become the biggest act to breakthrough in years.

"So many kids come up and say, 'I would have never listened to All Out War, Candiria or Buried Alive if I didn't heard you guys first," says Jamey proudly. "Now that we've played with Entombed, Six Feet Under, Machine Head, Type O Negative and Deftones - we come out and do what we do. We don't try to change our style to go over with those crowds. If those crowds are into us, then great. What we sing about is real. It's not for just one group of people. Anybody can get into it."

With the help of Slipknot, Hatebreed also play this summer's US Ozzfest's second stage.

"For us to be on Ozzfest is ridiculous," Shanahan says incredulously. "There are so many labels willing to pay so much money to get their bands on there. It wasn't necessarily a power move, but Slipknot and our management [No Name] just hooked us up. We're lucky because they want their fans and their people to experience real music made by real people. Slipknot are one of the few bands out there, besides Sepultura, who respect us and see us get bigger than just the punk and hardcore / metalcore circuits."

The band are also working on UK and European dates. For updates go to: www.hatebreed.com.

Rei Nishimoto - Metal Hammer

System of a Down/The Mars Volta @ Long Beach Arena (Saturday, August 06, 2005 - Daily Breeze)

System of a Down gets down with fans

Armenian-American band scores with emotional renderings of "Prison Song" and "Violent Pornography" as well as acoustic versions of several songs.

By Rei Nishimoto

System of a Down utterly captivated its audience at the Long Beach Arena Thursday night.
From the moment band frontman Serj Tankian -- whose appeal combines twisting, Latinesque dancing with melodically growled vocals -- opened the set with "B.Y.O.B," the crowd fed off his electric personality. (This was true even though guitarist Daron Malakian did most of the interacting with the audience between songs.)

Not only did the band's quirky stage presence translate well, the crowd gave the impression of true belief in every lyric and between-song comment.

Much of the Armenian-American band's material touches on politically sensitive subjects. Those comments were of a positive nature, such as when Malakian suggested that "red people" and "blue people" are really different shades of "purple people."

The two-hour set, which spanned System's four releases since 1998, was highlighted by emotional renderings of "Prison Song" and "Violent Pornography."

But although System of a Down is known for the aggressive side to its musical vision, Tankian and Malakian also scored big with the crowd by performing several songs acoustically.
System of a Down wasn't the only band on Thursday who proved qualified to lead rock into the future.

The Mars Volta -- buttressed by a cameo from Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante -- opened the show with wild musical improvisations heavy on Latin guitar, jazz-tinged horns and progressive-rock synthesizers. Every song included an extended jam that worked the audience into a frenzy.

Rei Nishimoto is a freelance entertainment writer.

Valient Thorr - Immortalizer (Mean Street, June 2008)

VALIENT THORR

Immortalizer

(Volcom)

This is a sign that there is definitely life on planet rock. If these guys’ mission was rock ‘n’ roll, then they were on target and blew it way off of the map. Valient Thorr brought back that big 1970s riff rock sound that many have attempted and few have succeeded. Falling somewhere between AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and High On Fire, Immortalizer packs in walls of memorable guitar licks that do that era justice, while offering guitar rock fans of all ages something they could get into. For any cynics that say rock ‘n’ roll is dead, they need to give Immortalizer a few spins and see if they still believe that.

Grade: A

REI NISHIMOTO

Maylene & the Sons of Disaster (Mean Street, June 2008)

Dirty South

While rock has always cultivated an outlaw image, Southern rock outfit Maylene and the Sons of Disaster turned to real-life criminals for source material. Vocalist Dallas Taylor — who was Underoath’s original singer — says he was inspired by stories his grandfather told him about the legendary Ma Barker gang of the 1930s. Barker purportedly ran the notorious Barker-Kapris Gang during the Great Depression, committing a series of bank robberies and kidnappings across the Midwest. Barker was killed during a FBI raid in a cottage she was renting in Taylor’s hometown of Ocala, Fla.

These violent tales of the “public enemy” era left a strong impression and inspired the songwriting on the band’s latest release, II.

“I used to go to reenactments of this lady named Ma Barker and her sons in Central Florida where I grew up,” Taylor says. “It always intrigued me [to be] eating cotton candy and reading re-enactments about her and her sons getting gunned down. So when we started the band, we tried remembering stories of her past. Things when you’re younger, you may respect or don’t look into as much. The older you get, you wished you paid more attention to it.”

Taylor eventually relocated to Alabama where he formed Maylene. The band is named for the town where the band practices.

“Instead of ripping it off exactly, we wanted to make our own little story of [Maylene] and have it inspired by something like The Goonies,” explains Taylor. “We thought ‘Maylene’ sounded cool.”

The band should sound cool to this year’s Warped crowd.

“I like [the Warped Tour] because everyone’s open to anything,” he says. “People respect a lot more bands. There are bands from all different kinds of music. You also get to become friends with a lot of people. It’s almost like summer camp, meeting a lot of good guys. Out of all the summer festivals, everyone there’s open to any kind of music.”

Maylene toured with Clutch, Underoath and The Devil Wears Prada. But while most responses are positive, Taylor encountered his share of misconceptions over the band’s sound and what they are about.

“Since we’re from Alabama, we get stereotyped,” he says. “There will be people at concerts wearing overalls and flannel, thinking they’re fitting in with us. They think everyone in Alabama is an inbred redneck that wears overalls and flannel, chews tobacco and shoots guns constantly. Sure, we’re laid back and I own guns and barbecue a lot and go into lakes. Other than that, [people believe] since we’re from the South, it is a super backwoods, killing-our-own-meat-type of deal sometimes.”

On the web: mayleneandthesonsofdisaster.us

The Melvins - Nude With Boots (Mean Street, May 2008)

THE MELVINS

Nude With Boots

([Ipecac])

The Melvins teamed up with the Big Business guys again to construct another batch of songs that should get the fanbase excited once more. “The Kicking Machine” opens with monstrous, “War Pigs”-like riffing which pays tribute to one of their biggest influences. There are traditional rock songs here like “Suicide in Progress,” slower, doom songs like “Dog Island” and “The Savage Hippy” for the longtime fans. “The Stupid Creep” could be their experimental tune, adding mid-tempo punk rhythms to odd truck driver-like humored lyrics. You never know what to expect from the Melvins. But one thing is for sure — there aren’t many dull moments on this one.

Grade: A-

REI NISHIMOTO