Please Remain Calm has its own gravity. Technically, I’m supposed to have put down my thoughts on the DIKEMBE record already, which is quite good, but Please Remain Calm crowds out everything else floating around it inside my skull. With a few exceptions (“Ballots/Stones”, “War On A Feeling” and “Jerry Rumpspringer”) Hostage Calm didn’t land [...]

On the “Likes / Dislikes” musical chart of my life, the INTEGRITY/”Holy Terror” collective of bands started firmly on the dislike side when I was a teen, as I was generally fearful of bands with fans that were seemingly enthralled with physical violence (and long sleeves). But a migration to the “likes” side started more [...]

AS I LAY DYING are a technically passionate band. I have yet to find myself screaming out lyrics from an AS I LAY DYING song while pacing around with outstretched arms. But I have taken to nodding in assertive appreciation of their songwriting talents, and modest headbanging is generally on the table. So goes the [...]

If I went back to every NOFX review I’ve written since Pump Up The Valium, one central theme has come across – enough with the joke songs already! NOFX may have made their reputation two decades ago for being crass, juvenile, and deceptively skilled in writing melodic punk/hardcore jams, but the 2 or 3 joke [...]

A more nimble OFF WITH THE HEADS, or a clumsier LAWRENCE ARMS. There are RIYLs. LATTERMAN is in there, somewhere, like a haunting, watchful shadow. Those RIYLs are mostly right. Cande Ru Las Degas (talk about a title that throws the curve on the spell check) sounds like the next logical step from the band [...]

Russ Rankin will never be able to escape the shadow of his legacy in GOOD RIDDANCE and I have no intention of listening to Farewell Catalonia without the rich context of Rankin’s impressive background. As the frontman for one of the few hardcore bands that helped define my own personal existence and growth from teenager [...]

SAVE ENDS rolls a natural 20 on Strength Vs. Will! (That’ll be the only exasperating bit of gamer hyperbole here. Promise.) Independent of the World of Warcraft and Dungeons and Dragons references, which nets you less than you’d think, Strength Vs. Will EP is an old school emo record. I mean Vagrant circa 2003 or [...]

It’s January 2008. It’s been snowing since October 2007 and ain’t stopping any time soon. There’s noise about this record called The Senor And The Queen, but mostly about track 2, “Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis?” I think I found “…Elvis?” on a Canadian music compilation. (MuchMusic? I could be completely wrong.) It was the only [...]