Hemlock Wine

Fuck this, I quit.

2006-12-10T21:49:00.000-08:00

Yeah, turns out I don't enjoy this anymore. Bye!

Maybe I'll be back later, probably not.

2006-12-03T21:10:00.000-08:00

Ok, so with the release of LOVE I needed to celibate.

So this isn't a mash-up, but instead its a Beatles, metal tribute band. They take music and song structure from the Beatles, and mix it with Metallica styles and lyics

Taxman is mixed with Enter Sandman, Got to Get You Into My Life become Got to Get You Trapped Under Ice. I'm sure you get the idea.

So the lyrics are amazing, and instrumentals are pretty good, but the singer sucks.

Also, its encoded with a weird FLAC codec. You need Winamp to hear it.

Off!

Drunksouls - On Verra Plus Tard

2006-11-26T22:18:00.000-08:00

Une Verre de la Musique!

Drunksouls is a english/french "Rock 'n Reggae" group, combining a rock guitar lines with a strong reggae feel in the vocals. Some tracks are almost completely reggae, some mostly rock, and some a different, folkish genre taking influence from both.

Electric guitar, base, synth, drum set, cabasas.

My favourite two tracks on this album are actually in french. Both 'Comme Louise et Themla' and 'Promenons nous dans les bois' have very, very strong instrumental backings, introducing auxilary percussion and keyboard lines. The second has a kick-ass guitar solo. I kinda wish I had had a decent french teacher so I could understand these lyrics.

If you like reggae, start with 'No more fighting'.

If you speak french, or wanna hear an awesome solo, start with 'Promenons nous dans les bois' (something about us in the woods).

Otherwise just start with the first track, have fun, and take your poison.

Antarhes - Breathin' Again

2006-11-19T21:00:00.000-08:00

Music?

Gothy power rock. Like Evanescence, only good.

Honestly, I have nothing to say. It's pretty good.

Review over.

American Bred!

2006-11-12T18:51:00.000-08:00

Music! Music Music!

Welcome Tilt readers! Am I actually going to get any readers from Tilt? Does 'Tilt' need to be in italics? Read the babyPaul review or click here for my intro shtick. I need readers. Anyone?

This band is a heavily guitar and bell based, well band. They play a lot of instrumental music that, despite being instrumental, is actually almost consistantly good. They manage to write songs, each one orignal from each other.

Their title track, American Bred! is classic rock. Jingoistic classic rock. Jingoistic classic rock that actually paid for an add on the side of GarageBand. It is absolutely nothing like the rest of the music.

It's mostly instrumental music over a ton of genres. Classic rock is certainly covered and so is jazz. Lots of it has a tropical feel.

Stupid band doesn't have any cover art.. humph.

If you like the electric guitar in classic rock you'll probably like some of this band. There are a lot of tropical bell sounds. Fake instruments do come into play, as a warning, but it's tasteful.

Songs to Note:

EarthDay - Creepy alien vocals, scary but one of a kind.
American Bred! - Great example of the classic rock, one of the few songs with vocals.
DemBones - Good fake trumpet, bass lines.
The Voices of Reason - Very fairytailish.
Pack a Bell - Nice bell lines. My favourite track by far.

Oh, and they have a shitload of tracks. Like.. thirty or something available to download.

I give them two out of two, mostly because I want to give them full marks and thats the only way I can justify it. Start with American Bred, then EarthDay, then Pack a Bell.

Have a nice day and take your poison.

Go Panic!

2006-11-05T18:42:00.000-08:00

Here it is.

I almost didn't pick this song. I heard it and thought I recognized it; maybe from MTV, maybe from the radio. Turns out I just heard it online, although apparently its big in Germany.

To start, I'd like to take issue with the band's name: Go Panic!. The name is a pain in the ass. Firstly, the word "Panic" does not include an exclamation mark. Sure, Panic! at the Disco did it, but that doesn't make it cool. Secondly, including puncuation at the end of a name is a pain in the ass for anybody trying to include it into a sentence. If it ends a sentence do you add a period as well? And what if it ends a question?

"How stupid of a name is Go Panic!?"

See? It makes me look angry! And I really don't want to have to use quotation marks.

Anyway, so back to the music. It's indie rock (At this point I would like to point out how almost nobody on GarageBand has a label, making them all indie, weakening using indie as a genre) and its pretty good. Think light-punk/pop/rock.

Very strong guitar lines; definately not the same ones you hear everyday. The vocals are a bit straining, but thats to be expected in the genre. It's not like punk bands care if their singers can sing.

If you like Nirvana, you'll like A Part of Me. It's a lot like Smells Like Teen Spirit, only with brighter vocals. Similar guitar and drums, and even the vocals share a identifyable style just before the final refrain.

I'll give this band two exclamation marks, a comma, and an elipsis out of a total of seven.

As a side note, I'd like to mention Greg Camilleri. His music's not CC, but its good; especially All the Days Blur.

theWell - Everything and More

2006-10-29T18:12:00.000-08:00

Get The Songs Now

I am officially endorsing utorrent, for a bittorrent client. At least, for the time being. No install required.

Now I need to tell you all a little bit about me, before I get into this review. I am a child of the eighties. I feel for the grudge scene in Seattle. I know disco will never die. That all being said, I was born three months into 1989, so while my memory of this wacky time may not seem to be perfect, it is. Besides, if you remember the eighties you weren't really there, amiright? huh?

And to all of you math majors in my audience, I know. If I was born in '89 that makes me only 25 years old. Old enough to be feared and respected as a serious blogger.

Ok, that all done with, we have a new band this week. theWell. A band that not only looks silly at the start of a sentence, but reinforces to everybody how poor my punctuation knowledge is (It should have been "...this week: theWall"). I can't really pick a specific genre out so I've decided to make my own up eighties-styled, Law-and-Orderist, cosmos jazz.

Eighties styled: Not so much similar to the eighties, but if I were making a TV show about the eighties this would be the background music.

Law-and-Orderist: A lot of the guitar styling (that guitar sliding thing-a-mabob) and licks, as well as some of the auxiliary percussion is reminiscent of Law and Order. Also there is great work with the synths.

Cosmos Jazz: It sounds cosmosish, plus thats what they call it.

Pros: I like this synth and the crazy eighties guitar stylings. It sounds like I am being ubducted by aliens why being attacked by cops on the streets of New York.

Cons: It's a full length album in only five tracks; that leaves each at about 8 min long. It's mostly instrumental.

Summery: Listen to it. It's great working music, if not worthy for your mp3 player. Three combs and a hot make out session out of five. Start with 'Jamafrika,' don't bother with 'Save Yourself.'

Steve Dunston - To Get Home Before Night Comes

2006-10-15T19:49:00.000-07:00

Get The Songs Now

I am officially endorsing utorrent, for a bittorrent client. At least, for the time being. No install required.

Soft Jazz. They call it pop, but it is TOTALLY soft jazz.
But nobody listens to soft jazz so they call it pop.

So I'm back to Jamendo now. Has everybody downloaded Bittorrent?

So I've just gotten one of my reviews edited. Ouch. Aparently I like everything too much, and use "fun" and "really" excessively. I personally would have pointed out how jumpy I am.

Steve Dunston. This dude is fairly high profile for a nothing Jamendo artist. He has apparently written for Scrubs, a few commercials, and a musical: "Witness". I really (used that word again) don't care about that. He has good-to-great-leveled songs on his album, and two that are total and complete crap. A pretty good ratio, I'd say.

Um, the band (Steve Dunston being the band) is fairly minimalistic. A consistent drum line for each some, a keyboard. There's a bit of synth in there someplace, but I bet its just a setting on the keyboard. In fact.. I sense a drum machine.

Um, the lyrics are not bad by any measure, but they are repetitive. Not a bad repetitive, it works really well

Pros: Many iPod-worthy tracks, its minimalistic but it works. Why did I say iPod? I mean Mp3 player! I will not stand by as another brand name dominates an entire product industry. This will not be another "Kleenex" or "Rollerblade"!

Cons: Two sucky tracks, probable drum machine, only one real instrument (but it works well)

Best Tracks:

Danger Girl (fun)
Better Man (slow)
360 Degrees
Lost in my Head
Alone in a Room (fast, fun)

Summery: Give Danger Girl a chance and go from there. Three tears from the crushed soul of Bill Gates at the sight of Apple winning market share out of a possible four.

Enter the Haggis

2006-10-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

Get The Music Now

Crap, I saved over this entry. Sorry.

Um, its kinda country but not really. They say its Celtic Rock/Newgrass.

Its good, very effective use of metal-style electric guitar with pipes and a fiddle.

Um.. Twirling Towards Freedom is a perfect example of the fusion (instrumental).

Bye, and sorry again.

I like the lyrics to Gasoline.

Randy Coleman

2006-10-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

Get The Songs Now

I am officially endorsing utorrent, for a bittorrent client. At least, for the time being. No install required.

I'm not really sure how to write this review. I've decided to back off from Jamendo for a while as half of my audience informed me yesterday that they don't have bittorrent or e-mule. I've spend my morning searching GarageBand.com instead and found a pop artist I like: this guy.

There is absolutely nothing in any way new, or special about this guy. His music is easy to listen to, but in no way original. I'm not saying he's not good, he's great, but his band is comprised of a single vocalist (himself), a piano, a guitar, and a drum set. Drums don't get too much more complicated than tapping the high hats each beat, piano goes up and down the scale, etc.

Think of James Blunt for a second. Are you thinking of James Blunt? I hate James Blunt. This man's music is James Blunt, a bit better, but still James f*cking Blunt.

**Removed due to extreme suck.**

I don't want to give you guys the wrong impression. I like listening to the music, I just hate everything else about it.

Start with Goodbye Renee', and if you like it listen to the rest.

Summery: Four and a half severed head of James Blunt out of a possible five. (Little known fact about James Blunt, if you chop off his head, three more grow in its place.)

NOTE: It is currently unclear to me if this song is licenced under CC. It is free, legal, and easy to download so I will leave it, but I am unsure about the exact details of the licence.

Kolokon - Rock'n'Roll Patxuko

2006-10-01T23:08:00.000-07:00

Get The Album Now

Ok, I have to be honest with you, I spent too much time this weekend playing Defcon and not enough on Hemlock Wine. As I result, I don't really have a review for you.

So what do we have here.. *flips through the files that don't actually exist, but only serve to make me seem more professional*. Ah, world music. Ok, so Kolokon is a Spanish group, from Spain. Some of the music is in English, but its mostly Spanish. Each track is a distinctive "world music" genre. Its kinda fun, as each song is completely different. One track sounds like a Greek wedding, one is modern blues, one's a circus! There's funk, a tiny bit of rock mixed in, basically a feel for everything except for pop and country. They are very effective electric guitar lines and decent instrumentation.

Don't let the first few songs fool you, this track gets better as it goes.

Best Tracks:

The rebel call - Funk.
A beira do mar - At first I thought it was the Macarena.
Ella - Lyrics sound great, I almost wish I spoke Spanish.
Welcome (House of Blues) - Modern Blues.
Coito interurbano - Traditional, great electric guitar solo at the end.

Summery: Three and a half stars. I love it, but they ruined it for me by starting with a weak track. Too much "world music," not enough guitar solo, blues or funk.

t r y ^ d - Public Domain

2006-09-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

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Imagine a remix album. Ok, now imagine that instead of remixing a few well known songs into a dance mix, you're mixing tracks that your band mates made across the country into a single new sound. That's t r y ^ d (pronounced triad. I'd have to assume).

Creating their music completely over the Internet, never all meeting in one place at once, the five members of try^d create one of the worlds first and only "virtual bands" with what they call "industrial classic pop."

The first full song, track two, "The Final Rewind." Is definitely worth a listen if nothing else. It combines strings, electronic music, a drum set, and a choir sound all together into a slow but powerful piece.

The bridge makes great use of presidential speeches to expose how presidents from both sides, and across time have exaggerated threats to go into war, making an excellent intro for the next song. "Peace on Earth," is a fun, upbeat song making nice use of the electric guitar. It's a little ray of light in the mind numbing depression (and strings) or the rest of the album.

To be honest, I had a hard time listening all the way through each song, just because so many of them had the same dark, echoed, evil-cathedral sound. Nothing against the songs, but I get bored easily. If this is you, you might just want to check out individual songs, not the whole thing at any one time. Each song by itself is pretty good, but together they may be a bit much if you have the musical ADD.

Hey look, something shiny!

One of those "dark" songs that I actually did listen to all the way through was "My Piano Sings." Everything about this song is dark, yet I actually enjoyed it. I think people have forgotten that that human voice is capable of so many sounds, this one song exposes three very different vocals lines. I'd like to see more of this.

How many times can I say "dark" in one post? Dark, dark, dark.

Pros:

The "cool factor."
They have a strings section and piano.
Great vocals and band.

Cons:

Instrumentally heavy, if you only listen to the lyrics.
Computer effects are overused.
Feels "dark."

Best Tracks:

The Final Rewind
Peace on Earth
My Piano Sings
Samping Memory

Summery: Three and a half stars. Give it a shot, put in on random with your other music. If you like the dark music, it's probably some of the best you'll find anywhere, but what do I know? I don't listed to the dark stuff.

Why are you even reading this? Why not just listen to the music yourself? It's free!

babyPaul - Moodswings

2006-09-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

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So I really like this album. I'm not going to lie. It could easily be my favourite album that I have found on the Internet or off since I discovered the Islands.

Maybe that's not true. I love the Unicorns too.

"Moodswings" is the name of the album and it works. There is defiantly something special about this album. This is a fairly diverse album, and yet it feels strangely familiar. Almost every song feels like an old favourite. Imagine 90's pop with the Beatles singing backup, Elton John supervising the lyrics, and a hint of modern pop-punk.

It starts off with a really fun German track entitled "Auf einem anderen Stern" or "On Another Star," which is a love song, in which the speaker sings to his lover how their love will keep them away from all the chaos in the world. This is followed by a very "pop-ish" I-have-a-new-crush track entitled "Beautiful Girl." I have to admit that this is the song that caught me. "I Back Down to Razorblade Town" is also pretty fun if you ignore the obvious themes and "Play With Me" has really fun bell and guitar lines.

The band itself is really great. The electric guitar really stood out for me on a few of the tracks. Also, the creator wasn't afraid to use back-up singers or press beyond the guitar-bass-drum set mold that has has too tight of a grip on music.

The entire album appears to be about one girl: "Julia," which is really effective at bringing the "Moodswings" all together into one nice collection of music.

Pros:

It's fun.
The band is great. Nice guitar, drums, singers (lead and backup), and auxiliary.
It feels like an old favorite.

Cons:

Most of the album is pop (if you hate that kind of thing).

Summery: Five stars. If it wasn't free I'd buy it.

Chelmi - Freestyle Connexion

2006-09-10T12:56:00.000-07:00

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I've been looking all over for perfect album to start Hemlock Wine with. Something that people can compare to their everyday music, something that'd catch a wide audience, something normal (and hopefully in English). After a while of searching for an album I thought everybody would like, I realized that that's not what this blog is about.

Freestyle Connexion is one-of-a-kind French ska album.

One of the things about the ska and reggae genres I've always taken issue with is that the lyrics are generally not all that amazing. Maybe more people should just speak crazy moon talk instead of singing? Basically what I'm trying to get at is if I hadn't told you that it was french, odds would be that you'd never notice and you definitely don't have to speak french to enjoy this album.

The album starts strong with a very danceable track, discussing how he is not satisfied with world politics, namely the United States (Gasp! What a surprise! And in ska too?) The second track is a fairly generic, mostly English, pro-pot song, not amazing but defiantly not bad.

The third track is defiantly my favourite on the album, if just for the instrumentation. The percussion is more than your usual third-beat beat, flute solos fit in perfectly, and the guitar line just made me smile. It starts off a Capella, then comes in the band, and it eventually evolves into a three way dialogue between the two signers, and the flute.

OK, I guess this brings us to the last track. Don't listen to it. It's twenty minutes of the same thing, basically beat-boxing. To be honest, I'm not really sure what "good" beat-boxing sounds like. After fifteen minutes it gets a bit better, at least funnyish. I wont give it away.

So here it goes.

Pros:

Fun
Danceable
Great instrumentation.

Cons:

The Word "libéralisation" will make you laugh.
The themes are fairly generic for the genre.
The last song is 20 minutes long.
It's in French

Summery: Three stars. Give it a chance.

Imagine (Introduction)

2006-09-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

"Imagine, sung by George W. Bush" by Rx.
(Right-click, and select "Save Target As" to download)

In 399BC Socrates was found guilty, charged with questioning the status quo. In Ancient Athens, he was sentanced to death. His poison: hemlock.

This is Hemlock Wine, a new type of musical blog where everything I review is yours to download one hundred percent free and legally, all the time!

How can I do that? There are too many great bands out there that aren't getting the attention that they deserve and many have chosen to licence their music under a "Creative Commons" licence. That means that the music is out for anybody, as long as they follow a few restrictions (generally, this just means you can't sell their music and you have to give them credit.) While not all my music is CC licenced, it is all free to download without having to sign up or register anywhere.

Hemlock Wine is your resource for reviews on every type of music under the sun, as well as free, easy and legal music downloads. All we ask is that you open your mind and take your poison.

(Downloading BitTorrent or eMule is recomended)