Tuesday April 13, 2010 New Music

I was a little late to the party on Bison b.c.'s Mastodon-style of metal on their 2008 album Quiet Earth, but wound up being a fan when I got around to spending some time with the album. Their new album Dark Ages is rumored to incorporate elements of thrash and punk with stepped up songwriting that moves them out of the mere Mastoclone category, so I will definitely be checking it out. Grab the new song "Two-Day Booze" from the album for free here and judge for yourself.

I don't know much about Coffinworm, except for that they are on the Profound Lore label which is on a real hot streak lately. This automatically makes Coffinworm worth at least giving a shot. When All Became None is their debut album and you can grab the song "Start Saving For Your Funeral" from it here for free.

Coheed and Cambria is one of those bands that I want to love, but they make it difficult by putting out albums that I find lackluster. To be fair, I probably find them lackluster because they do require a bit of commitment to wrap your head around (I already wrote a bit more involved opinion about my love/hate relationship with them when the first single for this album was released), but nonetheless I will be giving Year Of The Black Rainbow a shot. Perhaps the fact that I'm on a Rush kick lately will help my ability to appreciate Coheed's style of prog. We shall see.

Foxy Shazam's first album Introducing was given to me by a friend of mine. He casually mentioned that it was pretty cool, but didn't emphatically endorse it. I put it on my iTunes and promptly forgot about it. The funny thing is that over the next few months whenever I would have my iPod on shuffle, songs from that album would pop up and I would find myself loving them and I would always tell myself that I needed to sit down and listen to the album in it's entirety, but alas I never did. They've since signed to a major and our releasing a new self-titled album. It is certainly on my radar, but only time will tell if I ever get around to listening to it or if it goes the way of their debut and languishes in the outer reaches of the sea that is my overstuffed iTunes.

I've already heard MGMT's new album Congratulations as they were streaming it on their website because it leaked well ahead of street date. It isn't as immediately catchy as their debut, but seems more like it'll take a few listens to sink in. Up to you whether you want to bother giving it those few listens or not. Personally, I'm up for the time investment as I really do like the band.