Dinosaur Jr. - Green Mind

This is the closest Dino Jr ever sounded like Nirvana. Hell, Mascis sounds as if he's Kurt here if Kurt had less cigarettes. Talking about cigs, this song is about a guy trying to pick between his ciggie buddies and his girlfriend. Maybe that is why Dino Jr isn't as famous as Nirvana. They dabble in cigs while all the other rockstars dabble in cocaine. (Kurt fans, don't kill me)

I don't smoke, but I'd choose my buddies.

Smashing Pumpkins - Space Oddity (Bowie Cover)

Space.... the final frontier. The line from Star Trek that inspired the name of this blog. Here's another thing that's space inspired. Smashing Pumpkin's cover of Space Oddity (originally by David Bowie). This track, thanks to Bowie's amazing composition, feels larger than the usual rock song from his era. Couple that with the Alternative Rock that the Pumpkins oozes, this track feels like a 90s rock era influenced musical number. This could easily fit into a modern musical with the dreamy landscape the band is famous with in it's later era. Add more layers of distortion over the non-conventional notes the song uses, this song can easily be shoegaze'd .(TM) Plus points on the creative solo interpretation here. Kudos to Corgan and the gang.

Apoptygma Berzerk - Shine On

I never grew up with EBM. I never grew up with SynthPop. I normally stay away from cheesy electronic music. This track changed my mind. When this band combined SynthPop with distorted rock guitars, I was sold. If any of you know tracks like this, please recommend me instead. I have no idea about this catchy subgenre. Great to dabble in the frontier.

Castevet - Mounds Of Ash

Castevet is one hell of a weird band, in a good way of course. I have never heard Post-Hardcore and death metal combined in such a way. I'm not even sure if I can call this Death Metal. While the rest of the metal world dabble in Post Rock with their tremolo filled Black Metal, this band takes it to death metal. The guitars buzz away in a very atmospheric way but the structure that reminds you of death metal with all the drumming, pounding away like madness. At times, Black Metal tendencies are explored in tremolos but a huge chunk sounds as if Chuck Shuldiner of Death decided to join Fugazi for a moment. On paper it may sound like a nightmare but for some reason it worked here. Go ahead and check out these boys. I'm honestly this becomes the next best thing. We need a break from the reign of Post Rock/Black Metal in metal blogs or magazines.

Kvelertak - Blodtørst

This is THE track from Kvelertak. Despite their kickass second album, this track still rings in my head when I think of the band. Why? Southern riffs, the punk rock verses, and black metal rasps (heck, an undistorted bridge that gets revisited in Evig Vandar) is rolled into one quick, catchy track. Their 2nd may be cool and all but this one has everything balanced.

Ludicra - In Stable

Too bad this band is no more. Very few good female fronted Black Metal bands exist nowadays. However, to call this band Black Metal only is disrespectful for them. Their combination of crust punk, bits of thrash here and there, and at times a touch of classic rock is necessary to describe them. They manage to squeeze a myriad of melodies poured into one song, stay catchy, without conforming to the verse chorus norm. Heck, the whole album stray away from that and don't sound repetitive. The band doesn't shy away from melodies that are more suited for old heavy metal albums (this song sorts of has Control Denied's Expect The Unexpected). The lyrics too are also a fresh breathe from the regular, anger, Satan, sacrifice or suicides of conventional black metal. They are artsy but smart enough to stray away from hipster-esque poetry. Now go do yourself a favor and give this band more exposure.

Smasing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings

The 90s to the early 2000s was a weird period. It signaled the end of the popularity of arena rock bands pushing things to the extreme. Metallica slowed down and people started to associate them more with Nothing Else Matters or Enter The Sandman instead of say Four Horsemen or Creeping Death. Also, Billy Corgan had hair.

What the 90s had to offer though was accessible rock music, in a verse-chorus-verse format. The music was still harsh, yet catchy. It did not have high-end guitar solos that where guitarist masturbate along the frets. The guitarist start using textures, palm mutes and power chords that any 12 year old could pick a guitar and imitate. While fans of the big four cry and claim it as their equivalent of "the day that music died," they have to realize one thing about metal, hardcore and other extreme music at that point. It was becoming more and more inaccessible to the average listener. Metal had evolved to a level where it can only be enjoyed through an acquired taste. In fact, it has be likened to an opera, where you have to develop an ear to it.

What the 90s provided was a slew of "gateway bands." Back to the Smashing Pumpkins, with tracks like this or The Everlasting Gaze, (or even GASPS! Nirvana), is that these bands became training ground. Young kids use this as their training ground and get familiar to the sound of distortion, pounding drums and the occasional solo. When they sense that it isn't enough, that is where they move to heavier territories. Here's to more gateway bands or tracks like this in the future. Crunchy, short and angst y. The 1st step to preserving extreme music culture. Pour your hate onto other "gateway bands" like Limp Bizkit & Linkin Park but you can't deny their service on bringing more fans to discover other genres of rock or metal.

Bad Religion - I Want To Conquer The World

First of, sorry for the huge delay between posts. I will return to the one post every two days format soon. Also, I have been busy with exams and I was at a debate tournament in Chennai, India, called Worlds University Debate Championship (Extremely controversial, google it). However, this blog isn't to talk or comment about the high and falls of an event. This is a blog about rock music, it's message, it's impact and it's bastard children.

Now moving on to that bastard child. This song is for all the messiah wannabes; messiah complexes who think who can fix everything by the time they get power. We hear this echoed in candidate races, in political races where so-called-do-gooders declare a policy that seeks to address an extremely populist issue. Politicians declare that by the time they get into power, they will fix every single issue possible on the face of the earth. Then the masses vote for them based on that political promise rather than ideological line.

The country that I'm from, Malaysia is trapped in the message of this exact song. Political parties, both government and opposition promise extremely specific & populist acts they will do when they get into power. One person promises that price for object X will go down while another person promises to remove student loans that has left the populace in debt lethargy. Some go all to the extreme and claim to be able to magically remove racism & corruption in one night. If only more of them show exactly the specifics on how they handle the issue and leave people worshiping them like an idol. If only more candidates say specifically what their ideology, stance or views are rather than this game of strategic ambiguity. If only more stand on ideology, rather than populism.