Rilo Kiley!

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaannnger// To the smoke detector” 

My friend took this concert picture in May 2008:

Rilo Kiley plays around with human emotions through Jenny Lewis' indie pop. lyrical edge.

AFA is…..

Luke Dlouhy- Lead Guitar/Vox/Screams

Kelsey Chewning- Lead Vox

Caleb “Da General/Scott/Bill” McGuire- Bass

Ryan Corrigan- Mooglifier/Screams

Brett Benedict Walters- Drums

 

They ricochet off the walls with originality and hit ya right in the kisser with Kelsey’s crooning.  Seeing these guys perform during the Sonshine festival this summer, I was thoroughly impressed.

Not just with their music mind you, but the fact that they actually initiated a dodgeball tournament, providing the crowd with balls and plenty of great music for energy!

 

This accordion rock quintet is extremely original so lend an ear!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/aimingforaurora

Last night, the St. Paul HM scene was taken over by Christians.  Being a christian is not a religion, as The Great Commission made perfectly clear last night, it is a relationship!  Having faith in Jesus Christ is all it takes and their praise and worship was best exemplified through the heavy sounds of …

Being amidst fellow believers who have passion for heavy music as well felt like I had died and gone to Heaven myself.

Leroy, the lead vocalist of War Of Ages, explained how his passion displayed at shows is mainly taken from audiences and the
energy created.

The Color Morale also played an amazing set.  I recommend these guys if you are more prone to actual melodic tones.  The lead vocalist, Garrett, knows precisely how to perform with gritty vocals and extensive knowledge towards lyrical writing.

The Great Commission from California also performed with definite intensity.  Their passion was placed heavily on worship, with a heavy metal cover of a Hillsong United worship hymn.  These guys expressed pure worship through an onslaught of hardcore dancing and an invitation for faithful freestyle!

The Here And Now

–Fool-hardy power pop/ rock–

Josh Lawrence
Ryan Perez
Adam Chin
Max Wrye
Joe Vidunas

Seeing these guys last Tuesday night at The Garage in Burnsville, MN was definitely a surprise!  And by surprise I mean TREAT!  Opening for Lights Out Dancing, who knew exactly how to throw down a dance party, The Here And Now made quite an impact on me with their Taking Back Sunday performance quality and their catchy harmonies.

Having a new album tentatively dropping in December called “What You Live For,” these guys really should grab your attention.  Their sound is really strong instrumentally with poppy pounding.

Best track: “Under The Influence”

Forming in Feb. 2009, Lawrence explains, “We really want to do this for a living, make our music heard.”

Take Josh’s advice and give them a listen!

http://www.purevolume.com/thehereandnowny

Cameron Jacobsen – Vox
Carter Pederson – Guitar and Vocals
Alex Armel – Bass
Drew Ongstad – Drums

Harboring enough emotion to put on such a heavy show should be difficult. Fortunately though, the four hardcore hopefuls making up Before I Wake (BIW) simply draw all of their emotion from the crowds they play for.  And at a BIW show can easily become an endless, ongoing flow.  Armel, the bass player stated matter-of-factly that “watching the crowd move makes me want to move.”

Having released three tracks strapped together in a freshman  EP release self titled and formulating the sounds of these four high school-age musicians, Before I Wake definitely creates quite a name for themselves with it. Being fairly new to the local scene having just formed in Fall ’09, Before I Wake is gearing up for their show scheduled on November 9^th with Brokencyde at The Garage. With intense drumming backed up by resonating bass tones, they drive Pederson’s vocals with more ability to croon.  For their up-coming show, Pederson plans to be “all crooned-up.”

Pederson affirmed the band’s intentions of continually using catchy, melodic choruses with this assuring statement.
“I like getting stuck in people’s heads.”

With genres slipping between hardcore/ screamo and thrash- there really is no validation through words for the sounds born in these guys besides the melodic choruses that create catchy sing-a-long spots in their otherwise, illegibly mosh-friendliness .

The heavy influence of For Today becomes increasingly apparent through Jacobsen’s howls. I will say that, at times, it feels almost as if Jacobsen is striving for something that’s just out of his reach.  But considering how young this band is collectively, their accomplishments don’t leave a lot of room for failure and their sound consistently matures!

Jacobsen’s frame-bending, raspy screams make up the band’s signature trademark that sets them apart from other groups in the local scene.  This immediately and without a doubt stamps them with originality. Having already been approached by several other offers to join other local bands with his talent, Jacobsen makes his response quite clear by stating, “I will never leave Before I Wake.”  The rage reverberated from his vocal chords perfectly juxtapose the catchy choruses coming from mainly Ongstad’s mind and sung by Pederson, the face behind the lead guitar and heartfelt vocals of BIW.

A lot of their inspiration can be found originating from the band, For Today, yet their primary focus is found elsewhere. With heavy beats sprouting from Christian mindsets, both bands have fairly comparable pounding and praiseworthy personas.  Scary Kids Scaring Kids is also a big competitor for influential roots in a lot of the BIW instrumentals. Being first and foremost a Christian band though, Jesus Christ plays the most gigantic role in the band’s influences and impact that they may have on others. Their faith is meant to be felt through their music as Jacobsen proudly proclaims,

“We drop-tune for God.”

Give BIW a listen! : http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Before-I-Wake/180206927427

]]> http://indietoaster.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/friday-feature-before-i-wake/feed/ 4 IndieToaster biw http://indietoaster.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/friday-feature-we-are-the-blog-goodbye-duckie/ http://indietoaster.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/friday-feature-we-are-the-blog-goodbye-duckie/#comments Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:09:52 +0000 IndieToaster http://indietoaster.wordpress.com/?p=875 ]]> Happy Hardcore/ Indie Metal

“We don’t want to be like other conventional metal bands, which is why we … do a techno and just have a rave in the middle of our performance and then go back to playing metal songs.” – Zach Schneider

The band’s influences range from Chiodos to The Black Dahlia Murder to The Devil Wears Prada
–so hard listeners, listen up!–

The band is made up of:

Zach Schneider- Lead Guitar/Synth
Cody Blackwood- Drums/Vocals
Andy Pritchard – Lead Screamed vocals
Collin Toner- Rhythm Guitar/Backup vox
Renee Schminkey – Keys/Bass/Vocals

With 5 complete members, this band’s makeup is mastered.  They EVEN position a girl as their bass player!  Her name is Renee and she even has a side project in the works where she plays keys and does vox.  At the concert I went to last weekend, there was a point where all the members besides Renee sat down and allowed her to play her own set for her side project, “Goodbye Duckie.”  With her solo performance, she just gave the audience a prequel to what could be found on her solo release, now available on Itunes, just search “Goodbye Duckie” and immediately her ten tracks will pop up.

^^Renee definitely threw it down with the best of them last Saturday night in Hinkley Minnesota.

Upstaging five other local bands surely helped We Are The Blog earn a name for themselves.  The band threw off enormous loads of energy which only reflected off of the audience with intense throwdowns.

“It was great seeing all these kids move and get into it.”
- Zach Schneider

Surpassing the technical difficulties that plagued this band, especially in Andy’s microphone, they definitely managed to rile up the crowd for genuine, mosh-heavy love.

Best Track:  “Jesse Calls Me Sexxxy”
(heart-heavy lyrics mixed well with hardcore screams you can understand and really defined guitar riffs.)

For a dance party, be sure to turn up their track,
“There’s No Bears Until The Apocalypse”

Listen Now:  http://www.myspace.com/wearetheblog

]]> http://indietoaster.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/friday-feature-we-are-the-blog-goodbye-duckie/feed/ 5 IndieToaster http://indietoaster.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/tuesday-tune-in-this-or-the-apocalypse/ http://indietoaster.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/tuesday-tune-in-this-or-the-apocalypse/#comments Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:18:49 +0000 IndieToaster http://indietoaster.wordpress.com/?p=868 ]]> Seeing them in concert just a week ago, my friend, Charity, and I were completely enthralled with the sound of

This Or The Apocalypse.

So much so in fact, that Charity wrote a follow-up review for them, highlighting certain tracks.

They have extremely fast guitar rifts, unique breakdowns, and lyrics to sing along with but also some that are screamed heartily.  A few of their songs – such as “Lamnidae” and “Subverse” – have strong analogies about never giving up- even when life brings us hardships.

These ear-pounding artists reveal that it is so easy to tell others the pain from our past but how instead, we should just move forward past the hindering circumstances and show how much we have accomplished in our lives.

They certainly have.

Listen to 6 of their trail-blazing tracks here:

http://www.myspace.com/thisortheapocalypse

The show began with the new sounds of Before I Wake, a 4 piece devised in my old home basement with my brother on lead guitar and vox.  Cameron Jacobsen performed well as the screamer, bringing nice equality to the hardcore sound they are set to fit under. It was a very impressive performance, considering the young age.  After Before I Wake, some nameless metal band attempted to set the stage for Destruction of a Rose and Parousia.  Chad Hilson, the vocalist of Parousia, confided into the audience that this performance was indeed Parousia’s last.

This Or The Apocalypse’s guitarist.  Courtesy of Digital Laugh Photography.

Sad faces didn’t particularly last long though because Brothers Loyalty stormed the stage followed by Defend The Fatherless.  After them, This Or The Apocalypse impressed my ear drums with their stylistic mesh between hardcore/ metal, which definitely is a stretch, and their addictive crooning. Their guitarist and their drummer severely impressed me with boisterous energy mixed with talent and the lead vocalist had me hypnotized with his ability to bounce around the stage.

All in all, this Christian hardcore show was intense and really set the bar for local hardcore talent!

Did I mention This Or The Apocalypse performed
with unbelievable drumming talent!?

Grant McFarland drove the crowd nuts with his talent! ^^

Photo courtesy of Digital Laugh Photography

———————————————————————

With all five members giving respectively more than their best and putting their utmost into the performance Tuesday night at The Space in downtown St. Paul, these Lancaster, Pennsylvanian boys definitely made a name for themselves.

http://www.myspace.com/thisortheapocalypse

For Today followed a blood boiling performance from A Plea For Purging which stunned audiences speechless, setting the stage entirely ready and waiting  for the For Today set’s rushing promise of head banging talent and worship.

Immediately, For Today broke out of their shells with pulsing energy.

Check out their hard-hitting faith:
http://www.myspace.com/fortoday

Now, if you are familiar with For Today, it is common knowledge that they are firm believers in Jesus Christ.  This is seen cemented into their stage presence through quick jibber jabber and full-length messages alike in between songs.

Clearly Christian and unmistakeably metal, these musicians give the hardcore music genre quite a facelift!  With their new album, “Breaker”that just came out August 31st, 2010 and is now  in stores, they are entirely striving to impact the hardcore generation with their faith based messages mixed with music at their concerts.

Their messages ranged from in depth magnetic microphone jaunts about breaking walls down with God to being a part of the blessed generation promised to Joshua in the bible.  The walls that must be torn down, the singer said, were walls of lust, walls of addiction, and walls of idolatry.

Listen to “Ezekiel (The Visionary)” for true heart impact.

Engrossing “Southern metal”:
Brothers Loyalty

Band Members:
Vocals: Danny Miller
Guitar: Dan Hymer
Drums: Dan Rau
Guitar: Dakota Warner
Bass: Austin Tang

True Southern rock from
some Midwestern mongrels
minus the cheesy low-pitched growling!

Does the band have any primary influences?

“Definitely Maylene And The Sons Of Disaster, Every Time I Die, All Time Low… definitely He Is Legend and Memphis May Fire.”

Where, in the future, do you see this band going?

“Straight into the ground.” – Danny with a smirk (evident sarcasm)

Danny Miller- “When this band tanks, I’m going to quit Southern Rock and start a Pop Punk band!”

Rolling his eyes while holding his laughter back,
Austin Tang, the “father figure” of the group,
offers a much desired serious answer with-

“We obviously want this band to succeed.”

Speaking of success, I’ve heard that the band as a whole is going for a new sound with more emphasis on harder rhythms.  Could you expand on this idea?

“We’re working on harder variety in our sound.
Nothing too experimental-we still want to keep it BL.”

As for the writing process,
could you explain the pattern?

“It’s mostly Danny and Dan (R.)”

“Dakota just sleeps the whole time.”

———————————————————————————

“The Getdown” is a chaotic collision of talent while “The Hamlet” is such a showcase for emotion!  Bellows and hollers combine with crooning guitar and nailing bass.

Their show schedule seems to be light so far this fall with only four scheduled shows thus far in Minnesota, but with just getting off tour, even musicians need breaks!

In the meantime, as you wait to see these monsters rampage on the stage once more, try and be content with listening to their band page which includes 4 tracks from their latest EP and also plenty of information, tour scheduling and pictures:

http://www.myspace.com/brothersloyaltymn

]]> http://indietoaster.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/friday-feature-brothers-loyalty-interview/feed/ 8 IndieToaster bl