Nu-Vember: Powerman 5000 - Footsteps and Voices

Band:  Powerman 5000 (PM5K)
Song:  Footsteps and Voices
Album:  New Wave (2017)
Genre:  Nu-Metal, Industrial

So I generally wouldn't sit these guys in the Nu-Metal spectrum, but I feel like this song is close enough for this.  Hype time, this is a fresh track from the rather enjoyable band PM5K.

When these guys put out a new album in 2014 I was pretty sure it'd be their last one.  Not cause it was bad, but it also wasn't anything new.  This album on the other hand is a really solid entry into their catalogue.  I'm a huge fan of the sound they had on Anyone For Doomsday, but after a while though that sounds got a little stale.  This new album sounds a lot more along the lines of straight up Metal tracks, Rock tracks, and all kinds of stuff.  It's a really cool change to a band whose sound was heavily ruled by traditionally industrial noise.

Sid Vicious In A Dress is for sure one of my favorite tracks on the album, but in the spirit of keeping it Nu-Metal I decided to go with the song that actually sounded like that.  Good times y'all, check out the album if you're a fan of PM5K, Rob Zombie, or the new wave of Limp Bizkit where they got all angry.  It's worth a listen.

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Warpaint - Elephants

Band:  Warpaint
Song:  Elephants
Album:  Exquisite Corpse
Genre:  Art Rock

I'm gonna be honest, I have no clue what the hell I just fell across when I found this band.  I literally typed "new song" into the Google searchbar and it showed me a song by that title that this band did.  That song didn't really grab me, but then I proceeded to read some comments talking about how "oh, this is such a different sound for the band" and I checked out some of their old stuff.

Like, this is really cool music.  I don't really know anything about this, but I really want to learn more so I can show it to people, ya know?  Check out the song, it's just so different.

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Raised Fist - Friends & Traitors

Band:  Raised Fist
Song:  Friends & Traitors
Album:  Veil Of Ignorance (2009)
Genre:  Hardcore Punk, Crust Punk

I'm pretty excited about this band cause they're the first band that's been classified as Crust Punk I've ever run into.  It's a term I hear thrown around a little but I honestly haven't heard any bands to the best of my knowledge before.

Actually reading into it it looks like the genre was a precursor to Grindcore, so I suppose I should have probably picked up on that sooner.  Ah well.

Solid song though, reasonably enjoyable.

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Avatar - Hail The Apocalypse

Band:  Avatar
Song:  Hail The Apocalypse
Album:  Hail The Apocalypse (2014)
Genre:  Groove Metal

So my brother and I actually liked this song enough to incorporate aspects of it into one of our new tunes.  The main riff with that little rev up thing, that's so freaking cool.

Once again, as per the my usual criteria, bands with a good gimmick work.  In this case, their gimmick is just a really strong frontman.  Like, look at this dude, this is amazing.  The only real downside I've seen is that his vocal work, while really good, doesn't always hold up well live.  I'm willing to accept that though, as I'm not likely to see them, haha

Looking into them, it kinda looks like they picked up a following by making a song about The Queen Of Blades from Starcraft.  So yeah, that's a good way to pick up some people, that's a huge community.  I'm planning on giving it a listen, I'll let you know someday how I like it.

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Nu-Vember: Islander - New Wave

Band:  Islander
Song:  New Wave
Album:  Violence And Destruction (2014)
Genre:  Nu-Metal

If we're being honest, a lot of what Islander does just reminds me of Deftones and Periphery.  This song for example especially, just the way it flows musically reminds me of general Deftones mellow sound or specifically The Bad Thing by Periphery.

This is a newer band though, which is why I'm including them in the highlight reel that is Nu-Vember.  They're honestly a really solid sounding band, I'm looking forward to seeing what they come out with.  Their newer album is a lot more straight up Metal than this one, so musical evolution is clearly an option for them.

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Tokio Hotel - Scream

Band:  Tokio Hotel
Song:  Scream
Album:  Scream (2007)
Genre:  Alternative Rock

So I really had assumed these guys were gonna be weirder than they turned out being.  My brother found this band when he was in this kick of listening to weird music just for the sake of it being weird, and I kinda made judgement based on that, ya know?

Turns out they're, as far as I can tell, just a nifty little Alt Rock deal from Germany.  Worth giving a listen at least, ya know?

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New Release: Portal Ω Phreqs

Band:  Portal
Song:  Phreqs
Album:  Ion (2018)
Genre:  Death Metal

The Metal gods have decided to bless of yesterday on Thanksgiving by giving us a hot new single from Portal, experimental Extreme Metal band from Australia.

Portal was a band my dad and brother showed me a while ago because the singer is an interesting dude.  He wears like, a clock or a wizard hat whenever they play live, and as such fall right into my favorite category of band.  Bands with a gimmick.

Now I'll be the first to admit that bands like this are not for everybody.  They function much more heavily in the noise category than most other metal bands, but I don't really mind that.

This new track for their album Ion (to be released on January 28th) sounds a little different than their usual style.  It's still chaotic though, just in a slightly different way.  I love how it sounds, I can't wait to see what the rest of the album turns into.

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Dwayne Johnson - You're Welcome

Artist:  Dwayne Johnson
Song:  You're Welcome

Album:  Moana Soundtrack

Genre:  Soundrack

So due to a whole lot of exciting things happening yesterday, I was unable to get my post written on time, I apologize.

But I got it up before Noon, so I'm gonna guess most of y'all wouldn't have read it yet anyway?  I hope at leasts.

So yeah, happy thanksgiving!  I figured I would try and post a song about thankfulness or something, and I suppose this is close enough.  Have a good day all

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Nine Inch Nails - Something I Can Never Have

Band:  Nine Inch Nails (NIN)
Song:  Something I Can Never Have
Album:  Pretty Hate Machine (1989)
Genre:  Industrial
Language:  Strong

Come on now, who doesn't like Nine Inch Nails first album?  The whole thing is just a straight up work of art.  I mean, at least appreciate an album that helped define a era of weird agery music, yeah?

I come back to stuff like this from time to time because it's just something that speaks to me.  Kinda like the weird art styles I'm attracted to, Nine Inch Nails just has something about them that screams "Hey, I'm really good, love me" in a way I don't know how to tell people.

You very much feel Reznor's raw emotion through so much of his music, it's intense.  There's actually a version of this song played on piano that I'd advise you check out.  It's a very different way to interpret the song that brings light to how uneasy the whole thing feels.  I like it.

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Nu-Vember: P.O.D. - Set It Off

Band:  P.O.D. (Payable On Death)
Song:  Set It Off
Album:  Satellite (2001)
Genre:  Nu-Metal

Shouldn't be a surprise that I include the band that's probably the most popular Nu-Metal band ever.  I've seen a couple lists now that have placed them at the top of people's like, top 10 lists.  How they beat guys like Korn out I'll have no clue since they're literally what I think of when I hear people talking about Nu-Metal, but whatever.

P.O.D. pulls a special audience though, they manage to snag the Christian crowd along with everybody else.  Not an easy feat.

I've always found their music to be a little flat, but I'm told I just need to get into their first album or two to really get into their sound.  Either way, I have a couple songs of theirs that I like, which include this one.  Go to town all!

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Nirvana - Downer

Band:  Nirvana
Song:  Downer
Album:  Bleach (1989)
Genre:  Grunge

After reading an article about Kurt Cobain being a petty asshole, I decided I wanted to get into Nirvana again.  But like, not good Nirvana, the crappy demo tape old school Nirvana.  In the article it mentioned their album Incesticide, so that seemed a good place to start, yeah?

Turns out other than some live stuff, there's not too many songs that are unique to the album.  There's alternate versions though, and those are pretty sick.  Then there's some songs that just straight up ended up on albums like Beach.

This one perked my ears cause it rocks that nifty bass riff like, the whole way through the song.  Even the off key screeching of Kurt couldn't hurt my enjoyment of the song.

Jokes aside though it's actually a pretty dope song, and as long as you don't mind kinda noisy music the album is pretty solid too.  It's definitely their least accessible music though, even songs like Rape Me were musically enjoyable.  Bleach is just a mess of sloppy guitar and vocals, with a mess of feedback going on.  Not a bad thing to me since that's literally the sound my band goes for, but I really can see why you wouldn't want it.

All in all though I'm enjoying actually looking into some of Nirvana's lesser played (on the radio at least) songs.  It's helping me understand why they were as popular as they were.

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This Is Hell - Acid Rain

Band:  This Is Hell
Song:  Acid Rain
Album:  Black Mass (2011)
Genre:  Hardcore Punk

While I was writing up for the Week Of Evil I came across these guys.  For the life of me I can't remember what band it was, but apparently the band is releasing or had just released an album called Black Mass.  Searching for that album though just brought me to these guys, since they also had released such an album, and since they aren't Black Metal there's a decent number of people that like it.

It's not a band I'm familiar with, and it's not my favorite strain of Punk music, but it's not too bad really.  I liked it enough to post it, right?

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Rick Ross - Dead Presidents

Artist:  Rick Ross feat. Future, Jeezy, Yo Gotti
Song:  Dead Presidents
Album:  Rather You Than Me (2017)
Genre:  Rap, Hip Hop
Language:  Strong

This song is a wonderful example of my hearing the flow of a song, but having no clue what's being said.  I have this problem sometimes where I'll just ignore the lyrics to a song and focus on how it sounds.  This isn't usually a huge issue, but when it comes to Rap I've been screwed over once or twice because of it.

I went to show my mom a 2 Chainz song once that I love a certain piece of, and it turns out the flow I loved came from the most crude part of the song.

The same thing is true here honestly.  I absolutely love the first few bars in Future's verse cause of the flow, but lyrically I can see why you might not want to say, play it around kids.  Bums me out, it's such a good flow.

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Nu-Vember: Limp Bizkit - Break Stuff

Band:  Limp Bizkit
Song:  Break Stuff
Album:  Significant Other (1999)
Genre:  Nu-Metal
Language:  Strong

So let's be real, as if Nu-Vember wasn't enough to clue you in I have a huge love for Nu-Metal.  I do acknowledge that on the whole the genre is filled with bad bands, but there's one that's worse than some of the others, and I love them the most.

Limp Bizkit.

With their crazy frat bro energy, Limp Bizkit managed to rock the Nu-Metal world in the early 2000s.  A lot of people had bad taste then as seen in this photo, so that really helped Limp Bizkit just hit the stage in a major way.

One thing you can't write off though is that they managed to make some 3 amazingly solid albums to kick off their career.  The others weren't too bad, but the first 3 were better than they have any right to be.  See, Limp Bizkit has some honestly fantastic talent in the group.  The guitarist Wes Borland for example (The dude in the weird outfit) is straight up ingenius with what he comes up with.  The sounds he makes his guitar make are just awesome.

Honestly if Fred hadn't started fighting with other bands they probably would have been doing much better in the main field.  But hey, they (for the most part) make music they enjoy, and that's what counts.  I love it, I jammed to this album for a few months when I finally picked it up.

If you watch this video, you'll see a mess of cameos from various music icons from the 2000s, so that's a fun little "where's Waldo" for ya.

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Kanye West - Black Skinhead

Artist:  Kanye West
Song:  Black Skinhead (BlKKK SKKKn Head)
Album:  Yeezus (2013)
Genre:  Rap, Hip Hop
Language:  Strong

I feel like I couldn't in good conscience post Kanye right after Taylor without using this photo.

It took me ages to pick the freaking Kanye song I was gonna post today.  I just shuffled his songs for a while and honestly picked 5 or 6 different songs that "I'm definitely gonna post".  It didn't even help once I decided to go with the angry Kanye album, Yeezus.  Like, my goodness, there's so many great tracks on it.  For an album that only has 10 tracks on it it has no right to be as good as it is.  I honestly feel like I enjoy all the tracks on the album, which I suppose is weird since it was all controversial and new when it came out.  Take a listen though, this song (and the rest of the album) don't really sound like Rap people are making right now.  There was so much potential here, it could have been amazing.

To be honest though, I don't know that I'd want to listen to a lot of albums that sound like this.  It's a very good album, but at the same time it might get a little old after a while.

Either way, Kanye manages to remind me why he's one of my top 5 rappers.

Keep it 300 like the Romans though?  Come on Ye, that was the Spartans, check your facts.

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Taylor Swift - ...Ready For It?

Artist:  Taylor Swift
Song:  ...Ready For It?
Album:  Reputation (2017)
Genre:  Hip Hop

So good ol' T Swift dropped an album the other day, have you listened to it?

I've heard a decent chunk of it at this point, and I really have just a couple takeaways.  The album is wonderfully produced, the beats and quality are just really good music.  However, edgy Taylor is not a good look.  She's hitting that awkward emo stage she should have hit in her teens and she's trying to blame other people for her problems.  Lyrically it's a little weird too, there's some songs that just make me feel weird, and others are just way too petty to be good.

This song is an example of one that just feels a little weird.  The song's beat is straight up wonderful, it actually reminds me of something Kanye would come up with.  The lyrics though don't really work for me.  It's a little off, I dunno.

The album just leaves me feeling a little worse about Taylor Swift honestly.  Red was a legitimately solid album, but this one makes me feel like she's a child trying to prove she's all grown up.  Kind alike Miley's faze he went through.

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