Built to Spill - Carry The Zero

I've been a fan of Dinosaur Jr ever since I was 14. My only exposure to the band was this track called "Out There" I heard over the radio once. I radio DJ described the band as if The Cure just got Hendrix to play leads for them. Immediately, I knew I had to dub the track. So I took my classmate's Dad's Bee Gees cassette (Sorry Aaron Hiew, if you're reading this, I still have the cassette and the other half now is In Flames's debut) and recorded it. I never heard the band on the radio anymore but I played the track over and over again. It was audio gold for the week. I searched all over the place for similar bands. I can't believe it took me this long to find Built to Spill. This track embodied the same aesthetic and spirit of Dinosaur Jr. The droney feel, with occasional undistorted guitars with wailing leads. The solos were distinct and stark contrast. When bands play like this, they throw away all the stereotypes of Alternative Rock being weak and only care about a bubble gum pop imagery. This band stand in defiance and carry on a proud tradition of Alternative Rock. Now bask in this awesome glory. If you love Dinosaur Jr's "Watch The Corner," you'll love this piece of audio gold.

The Black Keys - Little Black Submarines

Stairway To Heaven is one of my favorite tracks ever. I remember my Dad's cassette in the living room. When no one else is at home, I would play it over the family stereo and pretend I'm playing the guitar, jumping from one couch to another. Of course my Dad will then get pissed off at me, ruining the living room, with my dirty footprints on the furniture. Despite the angry face of my Dad, I know he was smiling in his heart that his young kid was enjoying good music. That joy in my heart listening to Zeppelin at a young age made me search other bands (though unfortunately ended up with me stealing cassettes from record stores and to my Mother's dismay, finding more "devilish" songs by Ronnie James Dio.) When I first of this song last year, that warm part in my heart lights up again. This time, reminding me of the soft cryptic intro of bands like Led Zeppelin and the energetic feel and rush of the early days of my discovery of rock and metal. This track just blares out with it's bluesy riffs, not ashamed at showing off their influences from the 80s, all with modern production. While bands just make their guitars go loud for no apparent reason, here with have a band that uses it for pure energy. I swear Jimi Hendrix himself probably rose from the grave and wrote parts of this song. This is how hard rock and distorted guitars should go on a rampage.

Pedro The Lion - Second Best

When the word Punk Rock is mentioned, images of high speed drums, enthusiastic guitarist, wailing vocalist spitting anti establishment rhetoric all conjure up as one unit against "the man." There are times bands who are of that genetic line evolve to from the conventional norm. Well, for a genre that seeks to fight conformity, it's no surprised some will take a different approach. Some pick up Post-Hardcore, some slow down with a massive destructive steamroller through Sludge while some just go in a droney depressive mode, coated with the thickest distortion they could assemble in their Dad's garage studio. Pedro The Lion still spew political rhetoric over an extremely stoned sounding 90s alt vocal line, eschewing the Ian McKaye bark associated with modern day punk and hardcore. I call this the Doom Metal equivalent of Alternative Rock and Punk. Thick, depressive distortion, and justifies the sad aura through the political reality they're painting. Prepare for that wall of noise as you click play.

Lantlôs- Pulse / Surreal

People often under estimate how versatile Black Metal can be. (Yes, there's a hell lot of Black Metal on this blog.) While the rest of the modern Black Metal scene delve into post-rock, the original post rock influenced artist, Neige from the band Alcest, combines his already unique sound with smooth jazz. The tremolo riffs work well along what you would hear along the CD rack that houses dark jazz music. The result, instead of sounding like the dreamy hipster-ish landscape he created in his Black Metal equivalent of a Wes Anderson movie, now transcends into the shivering cold of an urban Western Europe street. I could easily imagine the torment of a homesick walking the streets of Paris listening to this during winter in the middle of the night. Then all of a sudden a deep stab in his heart makes him realize that the streets was where home really is, everything is surreal and the journey is what made him who he is.

THE ROTTED - Rotted Fucking Earth

When Death Metal met Hardcore Punk, Grindcore showed up like an illegitimate offspring, burning and moshing around like no one's business, not bothering the conventions set up by their previous circles. Death Metal's growl and schlock gets absorbed into simple 2 minute long, anti-establishment punk rock power chord rampage and drumming started to have more in common with athletics rather than your conventional beat. However, there is still an innate desire for punk rockers to pour their Discharge influence in their metal. Here in this track is the example when blast beats take a back seat and angry d-beat drumming, leading the track into a mish mash of Death Metal overcoat on a Hardcore Punk track. This sounds like the missing link between modern Grindcore and 80s Death Metal. A retro-outlook if conventional punk (yes, I know how the word punk and conventional is contradictory) still had a hand in the Grindcore broth.

Lord Mantis - Perverter Of The Will

I've been looking for bands that sounds like Cobalt for a very long time. The combination of thick sludgy guitars and Black Metal grimness, sounds like the right direction for Black Metal. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks about this. Not only that, the band has the guts to sprinkle a Dillinger-esque influence, with the against the grain leads towards the end. The feel of this track sounds like a southern laced menace, on at 1st instance would make people never thought that Black Metal came from outside America. This band and Cobalt made Black Metal came from America, thrived there and got it's identity there.

Screaming Females - Doom 84

The name is definitely apt. Channeling the spirit of doom metal from 1984, this what normally is a chaotic alternative rock band, shows their blues and metal influence. The vocals oozes Ozzy Osbourne's misery when he really was miserable, covered with some excellent riffing and leads. The beginning just hints the Iommi influence but then it explodes half way through with excellent riffing that reminds you of War Pigs. Though purist may complain of the overt Alternative Rock lines on the track but that's the idea, alternative rock with a sprinkle of Sabbathian flavor. Now only more alternative rock is heavy metal or doom metal influenced. This sounds better than so many pseudo, trying too hard doom bands. I'm glad to see this track is pretty new, seeing how it was only released in 2013.

*Plus points for having a female vocalist trying to do an Ozzy impression.

Souldivider - The Rift

Just how the hell is this band not famous? Or at least famous in it's genre circles. The only reason why I found this track was because I decided to dig deep in the stoner rock subreddit. The track screams of stoner riffs all over the it. The catchy bluesy vibe that could easily excel like how Hellacopters did. Go click for awesome stoner sounds and do yourself a favor.

Foo Fighters - Big Me

I just finished watching Foo Fighter's documentary, Back and Forth recently. Apparently according to Dave Grohl, a lot of Nirvana fans were pretty pissed about Foo Fighters. When I looked back at this video and contrasted it with Nirvana's video clips, I thought, maybe they hated the band because their video clips were so cheerful while Nirvana's were all pretty depressive or at least serious. Anyway, aside from the video, the track itself is pretty cheerful. In fact, it can be easily passed off as a songs from the Beatlemania era. For those who has never heard of this song before, get ready for a sweet treat.

Entombed - Wolverine Blues

There was a time The Hellacopters didn't exist and Nicke Anderson was playing drums in a Death Metal band. But fret not, this band wasn't a conventional Death Metal band! Taking ques from rock and roll, punk and death metal, Entombed became it's own unique contribution to rock history by forming Death N' Roll. The heavy crunch riffs coating lyrics of savagery, reminding everyone, what a beast the creature wolverine is. Contrary to popular belief about the track, it has nothing to do with Wolverine the Marvel comics character but this is just a song on the primal savage nature of mankind. Now excuse me will I rip off some tree branches.

Hellacopters - Soulseller

From the ashes of Death N' Roll  band, Entombed (I'll post about that on another day) and several other rock and roll bands, comes one of the dirtiest garage rock/rock and roll band to pop up in the 90s. Nicke Anderson sings in his best 80s rocker impersonation in lyrics that just references soul selling to the devil like any other "good" rocker would do. The solos here were not afraid to remind you of the heyday of garage rock and sprinkles of Rolling Stones sounding goodness. This is Rolling Stones with dirt and slime all over it, blasted on faulty amps that only a cheap suburb dweller could afford. This is rock and roll in its primal state.

The Kominas - Kuj

When one conjures images of Pakistan at this day and age, we imagine illegal drone strikes sanctioned by President Obama or goat herders waiting to be recruited by the Al-Qaeda. One of them is perpetually portrayed by FOX news. Dig deeper, and you will find a bunch of Pakistani kids, who grew up in America and took Punk Rock with them back to Pakistan. This band employs a pop-punkish sound but dares to go rapid change of paces, warranting them respect, like American boys NOFX. What's cooler is that the band sings in Urdu, something punk rock's British roots is foreign to. The lyrics of this band came from an Urdu poem from the 19th Century, describing the beauty of Lahore, Pakistan. This is like NOFX taking verses from "O Captain My Captain" and went all power chord on it. With original content like "Sharia Law in the USA", "Rumi is a Homo" or "All I Want is a Handjob," anti-establishment has reached South Asia.

Cobalt - Arsonry

When we think of Black Metal, we think of frostbitten guys who went through all their effort, recording videos of them in the forest surviving hypothermia for your enjoyment; You sadistic bastards. Well, now you have another alternative. Here is an alcohol powered case of PTSD coating your black metal. The sound coming from Cobalt is a Black Metal but with a glaze of the American South and crust sprinkled all over it. The result is an angry, bitter, yet fast paced as punk rock but in its essence is Black Metal that sounds distinctively sounds Americans. It sounds as if it had no Scandinavian roots. This sounds as if hell was run by men who had PTSD after the Iraqi invasion and found their wives betraying them while abroad. The slides during the outro just sounds as if the last bucket of gasoline poured onto the soldier’s bed, with him on it, and his wife tied to it. It’s suicidal but it represents anger for the world's futility, not self-hatred.

Leper - Sedition Not Sedation

While before this, I introduced you to the not so humble origins of Black Metal, here is the modern incarnate of it, set in a blender with crust punk, ska (yes you read that right) and hardcore punk. What came out was a glorious permutation that could only exist through cross pollination between scenes for decades. As black metal and other punk music continues to mesh, there will still be more innovative music coming to keep our love for distortion and fast drums alive. This is the reason why rock, in all its form is still alive; people who just don’t give a fuck about what the past rules that existed and create something new for the next generation. Leper did a great job at that. Did I say they were Canadian?

Venom - Black Metal

Gritty production values on this track defined a generation of face painted teenagers; that gave enough scares to parents across the globe. While the track is called Black Metal, this sounds more like a slightly evil version of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands who were kicking ass at that point in history. Metalheads of this era, may find it tame but imagine listening to something this fast paced in your face heavy metal for the first time, it may as well to the soundtrack to Lucifer’s glorious barbeque.