Here is my article for the September edition of Eleven on the local band Union Tree Review.

Union Tree Review like to keep things local. By local, I don’t simply mean to the city of St. Louis, but to the very neighborhood they live and play music. Union Tree Review describe themselves as a Cherokee Street band, and they are an ideal candidate to lead the charge of reviving the St. Louis music scene, or rather shine a spotlight on how awesome it is already.

The evidence can be found looking no further than the street they call home. Surrounded by burgeoning arts scene, awesome ethnic food, and tons of people involved in all aspects of local music, one could be content never leaving the block again. This setting is the perfect climate for Union Tree Review’s blend of indie rock and alt country. By adding viola and the occasional horn section to the soothing warmth of singer Tawaine Noah’s voice, their songs shine in the small venues and coffee houses of which their neighborhood is in abundance.

Union Tree Review look to bring elements of the Cherokee community together for their next album. Drummer Matt Strom explains “We’re going to hopefully create an entire album from writing the songs to the people recording, producing and mixing the songs to the people making the album art all within five blocks of each other.”

While Cherokee St. may be tight-knit, Union Tree are tired of the city’s insularity. Noah expounds upon his frustration: “For a while, everyone had their own band and they were wrapped up in that. ‘Oh, you have a band? Well, good luck!’” UTR think St. Louis bands need to be more proactive in promoting shows – and the group practices what they preach. However, guitarist Jordan Howe explains how spreading the word only about yourself isn’t good enough: “You want everyone to work and succeed. If we get a lot of people at our show and Humdrum plays too, maybe more people will come to the next Humdrum show.” It’s this level of cooperation that will elevate not only Union Tree Review, but the entire St. Louis music scene. Isn’t that what “keeping things local” is all about?

Quick Tracks:

“Foreign Eyes”
Simple, sweet but melancholy folk tune with great harmonies, viola and horns that accent the emotion of feeling old at the age of twenty four. One listen, and you can see how it was written after a breakup in winter, while staring out a window over a cup of coffee and shot of whisky.

“Let Me Be”
Song for the over-worked and under-paid, otherwise known as the anthem of the young, post-collegiate city dweller whose frontier is growing up. Slower, low key Ra Ra Riot and Anathallo meet Ryan Adams. This song is itching to be heard live.

You can hear some of Union Tree Review’s music at Myspace and Facebook
They also have a Twitter

Kvelertak are about as Norwegian black metal as Refused was Swedish straight edge hardcore, which is to say only slightly. When listening to Kvelertak’s self-titled debut and Refused’s Shape of Punk to Come it’s obvious that they both came from their motherland’s prominant music scenes, Refused were once a typical Swedish SXE band and Kvelertak could probably cover an Immortal song or two, but the similarities end there. Kvelertak may have a blast beat here, some machine gun guitar picking there, but that’s about as close to black metal as they get. Even throwing out the term “black’n'roll” doesn’t quite get it just as how it doesn’t quite fit Nachtmystium’s latest few efforts, but it gets you close.

Kvelertak’s self-titled debut album is filled with sweaty, beer-swilling party anthems that are the perfect companion to summer: light, carefree and fun. There is plenty of gang vocal parts which are excellent to sing along to when a little inebriated, tasty twin lead guitar parts for the air guitarists at our bbq’s, the drums are huge and about every song has a hand clap or two. Plenty to get excited about.

Kvelertak are not simply straight cock rock either as there is a distinct darkness present on the album too. Not just any old regular darkness either, but Norwegian darkness. You know, that part of the world where there are whole 24 hour periods that the sun never shows itself. There are kvlt riffs here and there but the black is mostly in the vocal. The lyrics are all in Norwegian, and the main screaming is harsh and cold which separates the listener from the rather inviting band. That separation is typical in black metal and Kvelertak definitely feel that way.

At the same time the vocals are pretty similar to Swedish crust/punk and, as Metal Sucks so accurately pointed out, are very similar to vocal god Tomas Lindberg (Disfear, At the Gates). Harsh, throaty screaming over top of killer 70s rock and roll throwback that is heavy like Savannah, beer bellied, full-bearded metal. While the record is at times harsh, it’s mostly just fun, and the hooks are ridiculously catchy and just stay lodged in your brain.

While it’s difficult to sum up Kvelertak’s sound, I think the video for their lead single “Mjød” gets the point across rather well. See it here. Do you get Kvelertak now? If not, maybe wait for that next bbq, have a few brewskies, and try again.

I’m a huge Cave In fan. After being introduced to them via Chris Henningfeld back in 2006 when Chris was still the bass player of my old band, I’ve consumed all of their records. From 99′s metalcore masterpiece Until Your Heart Stops to last year’s EP Planets of Old, they’ve rarely miss-stepped (in fact, if you exclude their first “record” Beyond Hypothermia since it was really a collection of 7″ releases rather than a proper album, they’re probably one of the few bands of which I can say “I celebrate the guy’s entire catalogue.”)

Well, I just heard today via Lambgoat and the PRP that at a show last night (August 7th) in Cambridge, MA they announced that they are in the midst of finishing up a new album entitled White Silence. The record will be around 9 songs, and will be primarily of new material. It should be released by their long-time label Hydra Head. Great news!

Unfortunately, that is the extent to the news. I want to know more! I want to hear a new song and see the album artwork (even though I can’t imagine anyone has even begun to think about making artwork for the record given it’s unfinished.) After a quick search on Youtube I found a clip of one of the new songs. Check out “Centered” here. Sounds pretty awesome. I can’t wait to hear a proper mp3.

My article on Ocean Rivals made the cover of the August Eleven Magazine. Pretty pumped about that. You can see my article on the top right hand corner of the image below.

“The South will rise again.” A phrase I heard kicked around by borderline racists, good ol’ southern boys and those who just didn’t know any better all throughout my childhood in southern Virginia (and while we can argue about whether Virginia is really the South, but it really makes no difference to the person who feels southern. So if you disagree with me, go suck a lemon.) And while those good old boys may have thought they were referring to a sudden resurgence of drawl speaking individuals who believe in the absolute right of the states, what they really were talking about is rock and roll.

The uprising of dirty rock has been happening for several years now, and on the metal side most notable is the success of Georgia’s Mastodon and the slew of bands who have followed the dirt roads they traveled on: Blacktusk, Kylesa and Baroness. These bands, plus how everyone “in the know” is all about loving the Melvins (hey, Nude With Boots was great!) sludgy, swamp metal is everywhere now including southern Missouri. Leading the pack on a trip from St. Louis to Savannah are the beloved black robed ((Thorlock)).

Seeing ((Thorlock)) live is immediately arresting. They are not just 3 dudes in jeans and band t’s, but are Druidic priests in black robes. I can’t get over this, there is just something compelling about the visual element of their show that I feel forced to pay attention. Fortunately, the visual shtick isn’t the only thing about ((Thorlock)) that keeps my attention: their music friggin’ rocks.

Their songs are full of behemoth-sized riffs, great vocals that are powerful without losing their sense of melody and they sounds huge, which is more difficult for a three-piece. On their 2008 self-titled record, a few song titles indicate they also have a sense of humor: “Assneck,” “Triceratops,” and the chorus to “Mississippi Wheelwash” is “Giddy up, amigo/Vamos muchachos.” They even cover of “Deuce” by KISS. The band obviously don’t take themselves too seriously.

No matter how silly the content of their songs seem, ((Thorlock)) is serious about rocking your face off. On record and live it is damn near impossible not to nod along with the song. Perhaps ((Thorlock)) have addled my brain with their religion of cannabis-soaked riffs, I can no longer tell. Call me a believer either way because I am ready to follow this band to the swamp lands.

((Thorlock)) have a new 7″ coming out later next month that I cannot wait to hear. You can download their self-titled record here as well as stay up to date on ((Thorlock)) news and other good St. Louis based sludgy and heavy bands at Pissfork.net. Long live the South!

Follow ((Thorlock)) on Twitter

This article is an artist profile of a local St. Louis rock band called Ocean Rivals that I did for the upcoming issue of Eleven. I interviewed the band before writing the article. They were my first “band interview.” The “Quick Tracks” at the end are short descriptions of two of Ocean Rivals songs. Here’s the article:

Ocean Rivals are a rock band. What you see is what you get. Listening to their music for the first time feels familiar. It doesn’t sound particularly new, it just sounds right. Their influences are culled from past half century of rock and roll: the Beatles, the Kinks, Oasis, Wilco, and Spoon, to name a few. However, Ocean Rivals’ sound cannot be summed up by any one of those bands alone. Their music feels old yet fresh at the same time, but most of all, it sounds damn good.

Ocean Rivals are four guys who have been playing in the St. Louis scene since they first learned how to play their instruments. Vocalist and guitarist Daniel Alexander and guitarist Andrew Joseph have been making music together since they were teens, and they formed Ocean Rivals with bassist Scott Edward and drummer Robert Lewis (and a third guitarist who has since left) after their respective bands broke up. “We felt like they had the same drive and mentality for the kind of music we wanted to play. It just felt natural,” says Daniel.

That was almost three years ago. Ocean Rivals have since put out a record, and are applying the finishing touches to a new full-length entitled Summer’s Dogs. While all the drums and the mixing are being handled by Firebrand Recording, they’re doing the rest themselves. Since there is no rush on the finished product, why not be a bit picky? “We really wanted to take the time to dial in very specific sounds for all the guitar parts” Daniel explains. Despite doing most of it on their own, there was no shortage of gear to go around. “We’ve been in the scene so long, and we’re friends with really cool people and bands, it’s so easy to call someone up and get a Les Paul for this, or a nice vocal mic for that.” It’s nice to have friends with toys.

Summer’s Dogs should be out by the end of the summer, and Ocean Rivals can been seen live August 6th at Lemmons with another St. Louis (and Eleven) favorite Troubadour Dali. Be there, and see if anything sounds familiar to you.

Quick Tracks:
“Submarine Plot Thickens”
An anthem with swing and swagger. A straight rock intro that gives way to something more complicated. Excellent vocal delivery of several tongue-twisting lines with a melody that twists and turns as well, but remains in your head. Think Modest Mouse and Oasis filtered through a Fender Twin Reverb washed in sea foam.

“The Cruise Ship Song”
A banjo and piano driven, folky pop tune about taking a boat ride off the edge of the world. Could be a Beatles B-side sung by Being There-era Jeff Tweedy. Cute and delightful. Check them out yourself as both tracks can be downloaded at http://www.oceanrivals.com/freetracks.zip

Check out Ocean Rivals at their Myspace page here
Eleven Magazine

To any given carpenter, nails are good for one thing: getting hammered on. Southern California’s hardcore grind outfit Nails aren’t your typical stainless steel variety because they hammer right back.

Nails are a band that knows how dish out abuse and they don’t mess around. Unsilent Death‘s 10 songs have only three that clock in over a minute and half (and one is only 1:31) with three that just barely make the 30 second mark. Every excess has been cut. Indulgence be damned.

Having come of age in bands such as Betrayed, Carry On and Terror, Nails music share many similarities to the hardcore they grew up playing. Barked vocals, lyrics exploring staunch individuality, righteous anger against repression, and feelings of alienation. Their songs follow the verse/chorus/breakdown format common in hardcore but with speeds even the seasoned dancer couldn’t pick up change to not to mention having very few parts repeated long enough in order to get down. Nails get in, make their point and get out. Hardcore dancing be damned.

Nails are not always so brief though. On “No Servant” they find the time to squeeze in a guitar solo the song would be lacking without and during “Depths” the final breakdown seems to extend endlessly without ever hitting bottom. Even the wordless minute and a half of chugs and noise on the title track feel utterly necessary to underpin the idea that Nails “will never die a silent death.” The unchecked anger and emotion is fist-pumpingly intoxicating. While listening to Unsilent Death all I want to do is take a crowbar to somebody’s head. Unlucky bystander be damned.

The relentless aggression heard on the record is very much encouraged by Kurt Ballou’s (Converge) masterful production. The guy is without peer these days in terms of getting the nastiest, heaviest, and most massive sounds out of every band he puts to tape. Each instrument shines individually and pummels collectively and the few studio effects used are subtle, which is right in line with Nails’ modus operandi of no bullshit excess. Ross Robinson be damned.

The length of Unsilent Death is in itself a testament to Nails’ appreciation for straightforwardness. 10 songs that last 14 minutes. Despite being a young band, Nails avoided the pitfall that many bands who perform shorts songs do not by resisting the temptation to compensate for play time with a higher track count. Nails are not blind with rage, they are cold and calculating. Mistakes be damned.

Seldom does one come across a band as intensely furious yet composed and put together as Nails. Check out Unsilent Death, or you be damned.

You can check out a few songs over at Invisible Oranges
You can see if Nails will be in a town near you here

“We are the old graves digging the new.”

The lyrical conclusion of the third song from Trap Them’s latest musical assault, the 12″ EP Filth Rations is an apt insight to Trap Them’s overall sound: Swedish death metal, Manchester grind, Cross-over thrash, pissed-off punk and abrasive hardcore. Trap Them are a summation of old styles filtered through a new lens. Whether dredging old graves or digging new, Trap Them always leave bodies behind.

Filth Rations is 4 songs, and 14 minutes of all out rage. Capitalizing on the song-writing chops honed on 2008′s excellent Seizures in Barren Praise, the new EP is without a bad track. Guitarist Brian Izzi’s song craft is reminiscent of the death metal band Carcass in the way Izzi deconstructs a riff. Instead of laying parts together, songs are created by the complete realization one or two ideas. As a result, the songs have a logical flow and feel unforced. The process works really well for the first two thrashers “Carnage Incarnate” and “Degenerate Binds” especially. Trap Them know how to bring the hammer down, but on the third song, “Dead Fathers Wading in the Bodygrounds,” is where they let the axe fall.

Like “Mission Convincers” from Seizures and “The Iconflict” from 2007′s Seance Prime EP, “Dead Fathers” brings the brood as much as it does the wrath. While the first two tracks are more Georgio Romero in their violence, the feeling of utter dread in the third song is like Dario Argento’s Suspiria. This place (i.e. this town, this country, this life) is fucked and inevitably so because the cycle of exploitation will always repeat. “We are the old graves digging the new.”

It is this dismal viewpoint that sets Trap Them apart from both the hardcore and the metal scene. Vocalist Ryan McKenney’s lyrics have been united conceptually on each record by the story of the down-trodden, fictional town “Barren Praise.” McKenney’s bleak lyrics and the aggression in the music symbolize the anger and anguish felt throughout small-town America. Despite great, prophetic even, lyrics and quality songs, Filth Rations feels too familiar.

McKenney has said that Trap Them aspire to push the envelope and really experiment with their sound by releasing an EP in between each full length, however I feel this EP does not experiment enough. Trap Them outdid themselves on their previous record, which was one of the best releases of 2008, so it is no surprise that this EP sounds more like B-Sides than new material. Great songs that just blaze old trails.

On the upside, Filth Rations leaves me wanting more, and with a full length promised to be released later this year on Prosthetic Records, hopefully I will not have to wait too long. I also hope they dig new graves rather than dredge the old, even if those plots in the ground do feel so good.

You can read a great interview here with vocalist Ryan McKenney
You can follow Trap Them on Twitter
You can listen to the first song on Filth Rations, “Carnage Incarnate,” on their Myspace

The wool has been pulled from my eyes, yet what I see I do not understand.

That statement has been my life since viewing the first two seasons of the HBO police drama The Wire. Not only do I feel like I know a little something about the seedy underbelly that is the drug world, I also feel I understand a bit of the political divides within law enforcement on multiple levels. This apparent knowledge makes me feel both more hip and “in the know,” as well as suspicious of local businesses on the very street I live on. No joke, one suspected “front” is this pizza shop on the corner of Grand and Wyoming called “St. Louis National Pizza Company.” The place “opened” in, I think, the late winter/early spring but I rarely saw the lights on or anyone inside the place. Shortly after it opened too there was a sign on the front door that said “Cash Only for a few days.” This sign was left displayed for at least three weeks. STL Nat’l ‘Za also have this stock photo looking artwork all around that just feels like it’s supposed to look real. (I’ve yet to walk in and buy a pizza. Maybe that should be the next step in my investigation.) Suspicious? Definitely. But this suspicion is baseless, obviously, because the reality is I really know absolutely nothing about what I think I see.

But this is what the Wire does to you. In an ESPN podcast called the B.S. Report, writer Bill Simmons was talking to another writer by the name of Chuck Klosterman about the first several episodes of the season 6 of LOST. During the discussion somehow the Wire came up, and Klosterman made the point that the Wire “felt real.” It didn’t seem like you were watching TV anymore, but a documentary or at the very least a show that was based on actual events. Before creating of the show David Simon and Ed Burns were immersed in the violent drug world of Baltimore as a police reporter and a homicide detective respectively and set out to write a show loosely based on Burns life, so the show is very realistic. I don’t all the sudden have a policeman’s instincts, but, because of the realism, it feels like I kind of do.

The more I watch the show, and the deeper the show gets, the more I wonder how much the reality of the show’s universe parallels the actual reality of St. Louis and my own life. One of the next shows I plan to watch is Deadwood, will it make me feel as though I understand what it’s like to be a cowboy? To own a saloon? Perhaps. And by perhaps I mean probably not.

Either way, watching the Wire has been great. I can’t praise it highly enough, the show is probably the best drama I’ve ever seen, and I’m continually blown away by how well it is done. It’s irrevocably changed my life and the way I see the world, though I’m not sure if it’s for the better (or worse for that matter.) Again, the wool has been pulled from my eyes, yet what I see I do not understand.

So I got my first writing gig last month. It’s contributing writer position at a free local music and culture magazine called Eleven. It’s a volunteer position which means I do not get paid, but the magazine is distributed all over town and it’s actually pretty good. Also, it’s work I like to do.

My first assignment was a record review of a local band called roAds. Here’s the review below:

My initial thought after hearing the first 30 seconds of St. Louis natives roAds’ debut album, Return of the Band, was “this is cool.” On the record, the three piece, über-talented, instrumental band group tears through nine songs with a delicate ease characteristic of educated musicians. But after a few more listens, a question arose: “so what?”
Plenty of “cool” records come out every year — why should I listen to this one? See, roAds are a band that has the ability to do anything. They craft good songs with melodic and dynamic movement. They mix it up; each song has its own identity. They even mimic interesting non-musical distractions like a flat-lining EKG and heartbeat that effectively kill and resurrect the song “Lifeline.” Brilliant, surprising, and even kind of risky.
Unfortunately, most of Return plays it safe—afraid to push any riff over the top. Even though the band captured excellent performances and production in a live setting on their record, it still feels flat. I know roAds are capable of more, and on another effort I’d like to hear them prove it. However, as far as is concerned, there are tons of cool records I could be listening to instead.

If you would like to hear the record in question, it is available for free from their Bandcamp page here.

And here’s the cover of my first issue of Eleven & you can go to my Flickr page to check out my name and work in the magazine itself.