Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Dog Is Dead


Hopefully the name Dog Is Dead is from a movie. If it's a quote that lives within a special part of the band's heart and has emotional significance then it's potentially excusable. This blog should be called 'Good Bands, Bad Names'. Every post seems to feature my initial apology for the bands name followed by my endorsement of their songs. If you've got a good thing going though, right? guys?

Dog Is Dead have a saxophonist! None of us thought we'd see the sax coming back in to popular music for a quite a while yet. I won't mind if this is a one off. It's used well though. The two tracks that I'll stream (Two! Gift upon gift!) have pretty obvious sax melodies which work in tandem with keyboard to give them a smooth sound. Above all that though, the gang vocals make for some cool crescendos.

You may remember that in the last paragraph I promised two songs. I'm here, hat in hand, letting you know that I'm sorry, there's just one. It's great though. To hear a second song (and a third even!), visit their myspace. Bonus: The Zoo is a free download from The Culture of Me.

Dog Is Dead - The Zoo








The new single Young will be out on September 20th through Your Childhood Records

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Valar

This is my second "review" of Valar's We Have A Home Among the Trees EP. I write twice because I've somehow contrived to delete the last and because the EP has grown on me like a fungus. A wonderful fungus. Here is the EP streamed in full. Start track 2, Wolf I playing as you read on.

<a href="http://valar.bandcamp.com/album/we-have-a-home-among-the-trees">We So Need To Talk by Valar</a>

Buy this EP. It costs AUD$10. That's just under £6! That's nothing. I challenge you to think of 7 whole numbers smaller than 6. It can't be done! That's the sort of value we're talking about here. It's barely £1 per track. 1 is the smallest whole number there is! I know!!

With or without my clever numberwork this EP will sell itself. The falsetto can't help but draw attention. It soars between guitar effects like an eagle through ravines. But it's wilder than an eagle. It's a tiger. A haunting, post-rock tiger. Like them on facebook to find out when their next show will be.