Avalanche City - Our New Life Above Ground Album Review
07 May 2011 // by trevf
Avalanche City - Our New Life Above The Ground
It’s a great story this… musician Dave Baxter, just like another famous Dave (Grohl), records an entire album by himself, said album goes viral, gets picked up by a Big Record Company, gets top ten hit.
That Hit, 'Love Love Love' kicks off the album, and is a clear statement of intent, really, a mid tempo sort-of-acoustic number with a big, catchy, feel-good chorus.
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Ruby Fusion - Disciplinary Hearings Album Review
13 Feb 2011 // by trevf
Ruby FusionDisciplinary Hearings
Debut full length CD from a Christchurch 4 piece who claim they are “old enough to know better”. It's hard to find much background on this group – A bit of internet digging does reveal links with the Equus record label which appears to be a collective enterprise that has some interesting ideas and which provides a neat phrase describing the sound of the band -“folky-punky blues”.
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Dear Time's Waste - Spells Album Review
25 Oct 2010 // by trevf
Dear Time's Waste operates as a flexible lineup with its focus through singer and main writer Claire Duncan. The sound has been evolving over the last two or so years, and this is and this is their first full length album after the 5 song EP 'Room for Rent'.
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Concord Dawn - The Enemy Within album review
29 Sep 2010 // by trevf
Concord Dawn - The Enemy Within
For those unfamiliar, lets talk a bit about drum n bass: heavy on repetition, groove, and timbre, melodic lines tend to be short and rhythmically derived, and harmonic progression tends to be limited. Dynamics are achieved through the process of breaking down a piece by removing of instrument lines, and then adding them back in again, either gradually or at once.
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Glass Owls - Dead Love EP review
16 Jul 2010 // by trevf
This six song debut CD represents an important stage in the three-year existence of the Glass Owls, as a first chance to commit to record some songs that have been well tried and tested in this Howick-based groups extensive gigging history.
The opening song 'Griffin Boy' wears is influences too clearly on its sleeve with heavy nods towards Julian Casablanca’s vocal style and the instrumentation and feel of Franz Ferdinand.
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Her Make Believe Band - 'A.M. Radio' album review
03 Apr 2010 // by trevf
Her Make Believe band can quote some pretty heavy press about their debut release, especially from their sort-of home base of England.
Much is made of singer Cy Winstanley’s similarity to Paul Simon, and there are times when this is true-either in a beguiling and unaffected fashion (“Stay”), or in a perhaps more stylised, knowing way (Drummer Tom Greenhalgh’s Steve Gadd-esque intro to “Welcome Home”- 50 ways to drop a in a musical reference, perhaps?
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Devils Elbow - 'KO' EP review
10 Mar 2010 // by trevf
KO (EP)The name Devil’s Elbow might not ring many recognition bells-yet- but this two-piece have some solid pro history and have brought some big guns to assist on this their first release, a three track EP.Looking for descriptions of their sound on the web is fun, the best being Facebooks ‘Shitkicker/ Country / Punk / Rock’ line.
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The Dylan Storey Band - Out Of The Soup album review
17 Oct 2009 // by trevf
Dylan Storey
Out Of The Soup
This is the third CD Mr Storey has released since 2005, and reveals a man on a fascinating journey-in that he is a capable instrumentalist (with a players’ need to play) and someone who invests time and thought into his lyrical content. Add to that a somewhat idiosyncratic vocal style, and you have a very interesting “sum of the parts” indeed.
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