Black Ships released the gnarly (is it ok to say that?) four-song Low EP earlier this year, and it sounds like a loud and thunderous combination of Coalesce and Killswitch Engage. This is excellent lifting music if you time your rest periods to the breaks.
MP3 | Black Ships – These Nights In These Places Low EP
You, Me, and Iowa are not from Iowa. They play poppy indie rock that sorta sounds like Aloha playing Jimmy Eat World cover songs with lotsa keyboards. In other words, there are upbeat and grit-free melodies that are just inaccessible enough they won’t make all the kids crazy. Almost. Pretty good even if unremarkable. Rec’d if you like Maritime.
MP3 | You, Me & Iowa – Perpendicularly Speaking The Adventures Of…
As It Should Be is an EP by Treva Blomquist that finds her sounding like a laboratory-manufactured product from the DNA of Kathleen Edwards, Miley Cyrus, Carrie Underwood, and Martha Scanlan. It’s a little bit country and a lot pop; it’s well executed and unoffensive but 110% unexciting.
MP3 | Treva Blomquist – Home As It Should Be EP
The self-titled full length from The Revisionists is clichéd garage/barroom/roots rock that isn’t over the top and doesn’t bring anything new to the table. It’s comes off sounding like Cheap Trick vs. Danzig vs. AM-era Wilco. Except that it’s really really bad.
MP3 | The Revisionists – Monday The Revisionists
Your Highness Electric is fucking bizarre. Crazy brass parts mingle with music that sounds like The Darkness playing White Stripes covers through a Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins haze and some Zeppelin stomping. These guys are without a doubt excellent musicians, but this stuff has just too much cock-rockin’ weirdness for me.
MP3 | Your Highness Electric – Man The Doublewise The Grand Hooded Phantom
Wow, there are some spectacular chord changes in that You, Me & Iowa track. It reminds me a lot of volcano!.