Wow! What a month of ear-candy! Some artists, however, I didn't find very appealing. I hope you don't mind so much of my opinion injected in these mini-reviews. You can voice yours, if you like, by using the discussions function.Borrowed
- Starflyer 59: retro-psychedelic in the vocals with Bluesy/Glam/New-Wave/Psychedelic rock instrumentals. Starflyer 59 is quite laid back, but can, at the same time, be heavy. Bands that came to mind were Soulfood 76, Glass Harp, old David Bowie, and vocal similarities with Phil Keaggy. Really interesting sound! [4]
- Swirling Eddies: A bunch of Terry Scott Taylor's musician buddies having fun! I smiled, and even laughed out loud while listening. Some even made me flinch. The silly voices, out-of-tune instruments and bizarre style mix could cause one to think they were slamming the songs they re-made. I give them a with-reservations [5] --they're not for everyone.
- Sunday Drive: The rocking end of the stereotype. Arena rock, but not really big-hair and spandex. The vocals were sometimes overly emotional, strained, slightly slurred and nasal. Lyrics quite cliche. [3]
- Warlord: Death/thrash metal. Extreme white-noise guitars. At track 3, I was tempted to turn them off. Almost too much noise to call it music. [2]
- Torn Flesh: Speedmetal with understandable lyrics. Slight growl/shout in vocals. (Might the vocalist be an auctioneer for his other job?) I'm tempted to think the project was done for fun, since the vocals really lacked a professional sound. [3]
- John Schlitt: A bit more pleasantly plodding (Heavy/low end) than most Petra. Not as big-hair and spandex and a bit more artsy for a Petra lead singer solo project. [4]
- Vengeance Rising: Like Warlord, but slightly less noisy death/speed metal in the old '80s style. [3]
- Maire Brennan: Soft minor-keyed Celtic rock, if it can even be called rock. Beautiful vocals. Quite a bit in Gaelic. Maire Brennan's an extremely pleasant listen. [4]
- Sounds of Blackness: The title, as well as the spoken intro to this CD implied this album is for blacks. I couldn't shake that idea while listening. The music was done BY blacks, but the theme should be directed to ALL listeners. Styles I heard were: rap, hip-hop, soft mushy stuff, Gospel, soul, reggae, blues and jazz. A lot of the stuff was good, but I thought there was too much emphasis on race. [4] for some, and [1] for other tracks. For bearing with the whole CD, I gave it an overall [2]. I'm not part of their intended target-audience.
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