Song of the Week (1/16-1/22)

     Lately, I have found myself listening to a lot of different genres of music.  I have been listening to different types of rock, rap and electronic music, and enjoying them all.  One of the bands I have been listening to a lot is the Deftones.  Deftones have always been a band that I have enjoyed, offering a great mixture of in your face and ambient, almost psychedelic music.  One of Deftones most recent hits, "Rocket Skates" is my song of the week. 
     "Rocket Skates"comes off of Deftones most recent CD, Diamond Eyes, a CD that was formed out of the car crash of their bassist, Chi Cheng, who is currently in a coma like state.  Deftones enlisted their friend Sergio Vega to fill in for Cheng on bass, who does a pretty good job in his absence.  "Rocket Skates" is a great mix of Deftones always great instrumentals and vocals.  Vocalist, Chino Moreno, uses his smooth, trance-like vocals to pull you into the song, just to use his hair-splitting screams to push you back away.  Guitarist, Stephen Carpenter, uses great riff patterns to help create a perfect environment for Moreno's vocals.  The song, however, is enhanced greatly by two people, keyboardist and turntable operator, Frank Delgado, and drummer, Abe Cunningham.  The keys are very faint in this song, but add a very eerie and psychedelic feel, furthering this idea of a mixture between in your face and psychedelic.  Cunningham's drums on this track take the song to a whole new level, punctuating the song in all the right places. 
     I was amazed to hear how much heavier this song had been from the singles coming right before it.  Deftones had began to stray away from the heavier elements in their music and began to rely more and more on the ambient and psychedelic natures of their music.  I have always been a fan of their unique mixing of the two, and although I like the really light and ambient stuff, I'm glad they have returned to their roots.  Posted below is Deftone's video for "Rocket Skates".  Let me know what you think, comments are always welcome.

Deftones-"Rocket Skates"

Song of the Week (1/9-1/15)

     I have been trying to check out a bunch of new bands lately and I have began to find a bunch that I like.  One of these new bands is known as The Word Alive, and their song "Epiphany" is my song of the week selection.  The Word Alive has taken a nice new approach to metalcore, combining very aggressive music with techno/dubstep elements and melodic choruses.  The song "Epiphany" is one of the best songs to showcase this.
     "Epiphany" immediately starts off absolutely brutal, with crunching riffs and pounding drums and almost blood curdling screams.  Then a little into the song, electronic elements are introduced, and although they make the song no less brutal, they add a nice background element to the song.  "Epiphany" lightens up and becomes more melodic several times throughout the song, allowing vocalist, Tyler "Telle" Smith, to sing and the band to take a more melodic approach and give the song some nice contrast.  The song transitions well between the lighter parts and the heavy parts, and really pulls you into the song. 
     The mixture of brutality, melodics and electronic elements make this song, as well as this band, great.  Since I stumbled upon The Word Alive, I have began to fall in love with their music and I can't wait to see them on Warped Tour this summer.  If you are looking for some really brutal, yet melodic music, I would recommend The Word Alive, hands down.  Posted below is their song "Epiphany".  Let me know what you think. 

The Word Alive-Epiphany
  

Song of the Week (1/2-1/8)

     This week, I discovered a CD that I bought about a month ago but never really listened to all that much.  This CD is A Day to Remember's most recent CD, What Separates Me From You.  Why I bought it and never really listened to it is beyond me, but I am finally giving it the listens that it deserves.  I am realizing how good of a CD it is and that is why I chose to pick the first song I really got into on it, "All I Want", as my song of the week. 
     All I Want is by no means a heavy ADTR song, which are the songs I usually gravitate to by the band, but is instantly becoming one of my favorite ADTR songs.  The song opens with a very catchy riff that stays throughout the song, dragging the listener in.  The instrumentation of this song reminds me a lot of Phil Spector's idea of a wall of sound, stampeding you with lots of noise and instrumentation.  And although the song is more light and poppy, the instrumentation almost seems heavy in a way.  The music retains this catchy riffage and lighter sound until towards the end, where it gets heavier at times and becomes more of a breakdown, retaining that typical ADTR sound.
     Frontman, Jeremy McKinnon, really excels his vocals in this song, keeping his screams to the breakdown section only.  McKinnon really shines in this song, and uses his therapeutic style of vocals to deliver some really emotional, heartfelt lyrics.  McKinnon is one of an elite group of singers that has a great singing and screaming voice, and really shows it, regardless of his lack of screaming in the song. 
     This song overall is a really catchy, upbeat song that will keep you listening over and over again.  The combination of McKinnon's great voice, with heartfelt vocals and the catchy poppy and light, yet somehow heavy instrumentation makes for a really great song.  Posted below is the newly released music video for All I Want.  Make sure you catch A Day to Remember headlining the Game Changers Tour featuring Bring Me the Horizon, Pierce the Veil and We Came as Romans this spring. 

All I Want-A Day to Remember

Song of the Week (12/26-1/1)

     Hey guys I just want to start off by wishing everyone a happy new year and hope that everyone had a great holiday season as well.  I'm going to kick off the new year with the first song of the week.  Lately, I have been searching for some new music and bands to listen to, and I have found a band I really like.  They are new band, getting their start this year and are known as Woe, Is Me.  I have began to take a liking to bands that successfully mesh clean and screamed vocals as well as hardcore breakdowns with electronic elements.  Woe, Is Me has definitely shown me that they can mesh all of these elements together to create some great music. 
     My song of the week selection is (&) Delinquents.  This song features a great balance of decently screamed vocals with excellently sang vocals.  Clean singer, Tyler Carter, has to be one of my favorite clean singers and has a great vocal range that rivals that of Johnny Craig.  The screamed vocals not only help add heaviness to the vocal range, but further enhance the clean vocals.  The song always  has some sort of background electronics going on, usually giving an underlying techno-like beat.  Throughout the song, the rest of the band offers melodic and breakdown sections to the music giving the whole song a bunch of different sounding sections and a lot of contrast.  I think what I like about this song the most is the fact that they are combining a lot of different elements that work well together.  Posted below is the music video for the song and feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

Woe, Is Me- (&) Delinquents