DOOMRIDERS – Darkness Come Alive

Mixing a hard and fast rock and roll sound along with splashes here and there of hardcore attitude is the latest album from Boston’s Doomriders, Darkness Come Alive. Seventeen adrenaline pumping tracks that are bound to keep the listener’s ears throbbing…but it a good way! A majority of the songs on this album could be described more along the lines of hard rock. “Heavy Lies the Crown” and “Come Alive” come across sounding heavily influenced by Danzig, while the tracks “Bloodsucker” and “Rotter” highlights the more hardcore side of this band. Overall, the musicianship here is solid and the cover is super creepy! Score one for the dark side!

(Deathwish Inc., no address provided)

RISE AND FALL – Our Circle is Vicious

Who would have thought that it would take a hardcore band from Belgium to present hardcore vocals I could actually understand? Reviewing this kind of music really puts the reviewer in a bind as far as what can be said in detail, especially if one is not an avid fan of the genre. Let’s be honest, hardcore music all tends to sound the same. In the case of Our Circle is Vicious, Rise and Fall uses elements from metal to punk and produces an album that truly impresses this novice.

As mentioned above, the vocals are actually audible. Nothing bothers me more than listening to vocals I can’t understand, a constant in the hardcore genre. “It’s a Long Way Down” is a two-minute song that truly highlights the drumming skills of Dann with its fast punk beat. With “In Circles,” they slow it down a bit but continue the unrelentingly brutal vocals of Bjorn. An interesting moment in the album comes during the instrumental track “Stillborn,” a real monkey wrench in the gears to say the least. The last thing I thought I was going to hear was a distorted drum and guitar driven instrumental (although there are some distorted vocals thrown in that are barely noticeable). The overall versatility of this band is what impresses me the most. Musically they are extremely well in tune and tight and their ability to switch up their sound throughout this album makes this a well-executed effort. Hardcore fans should rejoice.

(Deathwish Inc., no address provided)

FOREIGN CINEMA – Non-Synchronous Sound

There’s something very appealing about the minimalistic sounds of Foreign Cinema’s newest release Non-Synchronous Sound. It’s always nice to throw on an album and have its resonance flow through the space effortlessly until you realize the album has run its course. Imagine the mellow back beat tones of Thievery Corporation mixed with vocal structure similar to Depeche Mode. The track “Ice Machine” has a feel of something out of an old Spaghetti Western film, which oddly coincides with the feel of other tracks on this album. You could picture these sounds featured in old black and white foreign espionage films; obviously a goal, considering the band’s namesake. “Lovers and Killers” closes out this EP, a song which definitely comes through with a Depeche Mode sound. This would be one of those albums perfect for situations when you are sitting around with friends, sharing a bottle of wine or engaging in conversations. A full-length effort would be well accepted by this reviewer but this will be fine for now.

(Parallax Sounds, no address provided)

CARCRASHLANDER – Mountains On Our Backs

Dreamy soundscapes full of tweaked tones meet driving guitars on the newest album from Carcrashlander. This nine-track album rides like an audio road trip taking the listener through scenic ambient lows full soft tones, only to turn the corner and become thrown full-throttle into a raging instrumental barrage of guitars and effects.

The title track opens up the album with a mellow beat and feel but ends in a hectic guitar solo full of twisted peddle effects, all while the mellow beat plays along until the end. The vocals throughout this effort remain calm, even haunting. This remains the case during some of the heavier tracks like “Quoting Dead Comedians.”

One of the simpler but equally impressive songs was “Bone Noose” with its quasi-vintage surf sound, definitely a highlight of the album. Besides the use of peddle effects on guitars, there’s also the cleaver use of electronic feedback and even some trumpets, vibes, and flutes. I was impressed with the fact that even as the members of this band improvise into instrumental chaos on several of the tracks, it all comes to an end with the very mellow beat that started the song. It’s as if the beat survives the madness and continues on into the next track in order do it all over again.

Mountains On Our Backs will take you on a rollercoaster ride of sounds and leave you wanting more. Even through all of the intense musical intervals that dominate this album, you will be left feeling calm, yet musically satisfied.

(Jealous Butcher Records, PO Box 14306, Portland, OR 97293-0306

TINY ANIMALS – Sweet Sweetness

Sweet Sweetness indeed! Usually an album title doesn’t give much insight to the music contained within its contents, but in this case New York City’s Tiny Animals bring the sugar with their debut album. Unfortunately, it lacks the spice but does come through with everything that is “nice.” The 12 tracks featured on this album are highly polished and over-produced in their sound, giving the album a very plastic feel. The effects laid over the vocals of Chris Howerton makes him sound like Weird Al Yankovic (no joke). Musically, the material presented is very straight forward in its structure. They definitely stayed within the lines and refrained from any musical improvisation or exploration. This gives the album a simple and safe feel; safe for mainstream acceptance. Lyrically, there isn’t much depth here; a lot of teen angst and stories of growing pains. They do strip down the super-pop sound with the string driven song “Avalanche”, a moment that provides some flesh to this very synthetic album. If you are a fan of pop rock genre, you might want to check these guys out. As for me, my musical sweet tooth can only take so much manufactured material.

(North Street Records, 88 E. 3rd St. Suite #1, New York, NY 10003)

DANIEL FRANCIS DOYLE – We Bet Our Money On You

One of the most beautiful things about the World Wide Web is the fact that pretty much anyone can self-publish their art and expose it to the masses. Be it audio or visual, the internet allows artists to connect to a world which would have been unattainable in the past.

In the case of Daniel Francis Doyle’s new album, We Bet Our Money On You, it’s a double-edged sword. With Doyle on vocals and drums, the tracks on this album play like an out of tune music box. The majority of the songs featured here end up sounding repetitive, with oddly timed drumming set to a marching beat and random guitar plucking that verge on the boarder of being annoying. There seems to be an attempt by Doyle to style his vocals to that of David Byrne from Talking Heads, but it falls flat from the start. Softer tracks like “Your Baby Is Speaking” actually give some much needed heart and body to this mess of an album, but it doesn’t redeem it enough to be worthy of a recommendation.

By the seventh track entitled “How Can You Work?” I was asking the same thing of my ears, as the same repetitive musical formula was being played once again. Honestly, I’m only one person, and understandably one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but I just don’t see the attraction here.

(We Shot JR Records, PO Box 720291, Dallas, TX 73372)

FILM REVIEW - HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT

Factory 515
17 min., dir. by Jeff Krulik and John Heyn

Time capsules allow us to relive the past through artifacts preserved in time and space. Someday a DVD and an iPod will represent life in the 21st century and will be laughed at by those who will create the technologies of tomorrow. Fashions of 2009 will be considered “retro” by generations to come, and as bad as it may be, someone will cover Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So,” as it will then be considered a “golden oldie.” We all will likely be in adult diapers, complaining about pretty much everything.

Not to bum you out on what’s to come — let’s take a trip back to the not so distant past. It’s May 31, 1986 and you are in the parking lot of the Capitol Centre in Landover, Maryland anxiously anticipating the doors to open so you can bang your long, flowing hair to the heavy sounds of Dokken and Judas Priest. In anticipation of opening the doors for this epic event, you witness shirtless underage burnouts pounding Budweiser and babbling nonsense in a drunken stupor. You witness Aqua Net queens in high heels and outrageous outfits claiming they want to jump Rob Halford’s bones (how ironic is that?). To top off this experience, some teenage boy dressed like a zebra proudly proclaims that punk rock “belongs on fucking Mars man” and that “heavy metal rules.”



If you believe this experience can only be described in the words above or from those who were there, you would be 100 percent incorrect. In that parking lot, guerrilla filmmakers Jeff Krulik and John Heyn filmed the tailgating madness that became what is known as Heavy Metal Parking Lot. This 17-minute documentary captures the images I describe above in all too vivid detail. You might have seen scenes of HMPL featured in the Less Than Jake video for “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads.”



For many years it was only available on VHS, and was almost impossible to find an original copy due to its cult status. In 2007, the feature was finally released on DVD and can be purchased at Amazon.com or rented from Netflix. Features on the DVD include the original documentary, as well as a commentary track. A very cool “Heavy Metal Parking Lot Alumni” feature is included here as well. The filmmakers track down individuals from the parking lot to see where they are today. Amazingly, most of them embrace their HMPL celebrity cult status. Jim Powell of Metal Grind Records in Maryland gives a tour of his “Heavy Metal Basement” where he gives the viewer an in-depth lesson of the history of Judas Priest and heavy metal in general.

In some of the most amusing bonus features, John and Jeff pull off sequels to HMPL by filming the parking lot of the Capitol Centre for a monster truck event, as well as a Neil Diamond concert. They also film the events at a local Maryland bookstore for the release of the latest Harry Potter book and title the feature Harry Potter Parking Lot. They also feature the closing and demolition of the Capitol Centre, which took place in 2002. Now a mall stands where The Capitol Centre once stood. What a shame.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot may be short in length, but its lasting effect on pop culture will last for generations to come. It’s not only a piece of heavy metal history, but it’s also a testament to those who were in that time and at that place in history. Priest Rules!