00’s

Santa’s Scuzz Sundays: Relient K – “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”

December 5, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Cover Art for “Let It Snow Baby… Let It Reindeer” (Released in 2007) (via Gotee Records)

Happy Holidays to you and a Ho-Ho-Hello – this is Santa Claus, the big white-bearded red coat-wearing man who you once met at a place like Huntingdon Garden & Leisure Centre, and I’m taking over Jacob’s ‘Scuzz Sundays’ feature on One Track At A Time, who I am not connected to in any way at all whatsoever, because he deserves a little break from writing up about a different piece of music every day! Believe me, I would know as somebody who makes toys in the workshop with a team of bumbling elves in the Arctic all year round. However, while I’m performing my small chores like writing Christmas cards on my typewriter in the office or checking to see who has been naughty or nice – I love to get down to some Pop-Punk from the late-90’s and mid-00’s. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine, but the trashier – the better. One of my modern favourites is the fast, frenetic soft metal cover version of the ancient carol ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman’ by the Christian Contemporary punk band Relient K, who you may know from winning two Dove Awards and releasing two gold-certified albums in their careers. Jacob also tells me that Matt Thiessen, the lead vocalist, has also produced material for Owl City and Switchfoot. ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ is taken from the band’s second christmas album, the pun-tastic ‘Let It Snow Baby… Let It Reindeer’ that includes a mix of cover versions and original tracks. It has been hailed by Jesus Freak Hideout as “one of the better modern christmas projects you can find today”, and it earned good reviews from IGN and Pop Sugar. Let’s rock out to Relient K below.

Released in 2007, ‘Let It Snow Baby… Let It Reindeer’ sold over 4,500 copies in its first week of release, and although most of the band’s licensed cover versions of numbers like ‘Silver Bells’, ‘Sleigh Ride’ and ‘O Holy Night’ were eventually pulled from iTunes, they have later appeared on Gotee’s Christmas compilation album CD ‘Tis The Season To Be Goatee’ that has been available in shops since 2010. Short and sweet as a Christmas cookie at just about two minutes long in duration, Relient K’s version of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ approaches Christmas from just about every angle of Christmas as a proof of a well-rounded concept, with familiar lyrics that touch upon the birth of Christ and the capturing the spirit of the season as Thiessen promises us with “O tidings of comfort and joy” and “To free all those who trust in him/From Satan’s power and might” over the top of some lightly distorted guitar riffs that keeps the tempo of the tune rolling at a quick pace. It feels surprisingly heavier than you may expect from Relient K, in terms of the tone and the textures, and it contains some unique guitar melodies that give the track an excitable feel as the beats shift back and forth between the speakers of my grotto at certain times. My little helpers also love this one because they say it manages to be a fun and diverse festive venture. Overall, I think there’s a lot to like here, and this is a fresh and original spin on the classic carol.

  • Pictured: Matt Thiessen (Vocals/Piano) & Matt Hoopes (Lead Guitar/Percussion) (2016) (via Chorus.fm)

That brings us to the last paragraph of the post! Jacob will be back tomorrow, and thank you for checking out his blog every day. I would, if I had more time to. Alas, I have got presents to pack for the children of Alaska. He’ll be here tomorrow to share some music with you from a New-York based soulful rock trio who share the sane name as a Mexico-set animation film that Disney Pixar released in 2017 featuring members of Dirty Projectors, Pavo Pavo, Chimney and Dustrider amongst their lineup.

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Countdown To Christmas 2021: Jens Lekman – ‘The Cold Swedish Winter’

December 1, 2021 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Jens Lekman in a garden photoshoot for a Bandcamp Daily feature (2017) (Photo by Ellika Henrikson)

Good Afternoon to you! You are reading the words of independent music journalist Jacob Braybrooke, and it is time for me to clock in for yet another daily track on the blog – since it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! It’s the 1st of December today, and so a new entry in our ‘Countdown To Christmas’ series for this year is a must-have. However, it feels a touch too early for a true Christmassy ballad yet to me, and so here’s something a little bit more generally winter-specific for your enjoyment instead. ‘The Cold Swedish Winter’ is a gorgeous and transcendant one from Jens Lekman, a Swedish indie folk singer-songwriter from Gothenburg. Known for his lyrics that are usually anecdotal and wry, backed by sampled strings and guitar-oriented melancholic pop textures, Jens is one of my favourite purest songwriters in the industry, and so any excuse for me to talk about his creative choices is enough to make me grin from ear to ear. Written in the style of a narrative, as usual for the former Swedish #1 album chart holder Lekman, ‘The Cold Swedish Winter’ is one of the finest tracks to be found on his first full-length album, ‘When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog’, which he self-produced and released via Service in April of 2004. It was re-released with slight variations by the more well-known label, Secretly Canadian, later on that year. Let’s spin the winter ballad below.

‘The Cold Swedish Winter’ by Jens Lekman is also the namesake and theme tune for a radio drama series which airs on BBC Radio 4. Showrunner and voice actor Danny Robins was influenced to create the sitcom after hearing the ditty, which tells the story of a marginally successful London-born stand-up comic who has relocated to Sweden that began in August 2014, and it began airing it’s fifth series last December. Given that he’s still a pretty niche artist, I can only wonder if Jens actually knows about the programme. Still, it is easy to see why ‘The Cold Swedish Winter’ sparked some ideas because it truly is a very pretty number. As usual for Lekman, the lyrics are dry but lightly comedic, with sequences which compare Cliff Richard and Lou Reed’s ideas of Sweden briefly, and other lines that involve porn and gonorrhea. It feels intimate and striped back, and his instrumentation lacks the budgetary bells and whistles of contemporary acts but it still manages to encapsulate the comforting and frosty feelings of the festive season decently enough, so it therefore still manages to click together as a Christmas single despite not intentionally being designed as one. He uses simple refrains like “The Cold Swedish Winter is right outside, and I just need somebody to hold me through the night” to set the romantic scene of asking a girl to pretend that he likes her. She replies in a shy call-and-response format, hushing him with solid refrains that expose his simple desire to feel loved. It also ends with Lekman’s typically introverted twist on the material, where he predicts the future of Sweden where archaeologists will dig up their hearts of stone. On paper, it looks random and seems as though it plainly shouldn’t work. However, it does cohere, as Lekman manages to sound convincing with his voice and tell the anecdote with a sincere, somber note where although we don’t know whether the overall anecdote is true or fictional fantasy, but he makes me feel like it is, as his listener. A patient and thought-provoking songwriter, Lekman is the type of artist who I could write a full essay about if I could be assigned to. Meanwhile, the mournful Violin samples that underscore the point and the powerful female vocals are the metaphorical angel on top of this Christmas tree. Overall, its an icy visual as pretty as a hand-drawn painting.
Pictured: Jens Lekman performing ‘A Postcard To Nina’ live (in 2008) (Photo via Interface Sessions)

Last December, we effectively reacted here on the blog to the day where the UK government essentially axed Christmas, and the kind words of Jens Lekman came to our aid like Rudolph on that fateful night with a song that helped us all to put these things into some proportion. Relive the emotional moment with the post here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/12/22/todays-track-jens-lekman-the-end-of-the-world-is-bigger-than-love/

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Night Falls Over Kortedala’ (Released on Sept 5th, 2007) (via Secretly Canadian)

That’s all from me today! Thank you for your support with the site, as usual, and please keep an eye out for tomorrow’s post. It comes from a fresh face on the blog whose music resembles psychedelic soul, prog jazz and alternative folk. Raised in Richmond, California – she participated in the Red Bull Music Academy programme in Tokyo in 2014 – where she co-recorded ‘Late Night Munchies’ with RJ & Mark Maxwell.

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Scuzz Sundays: Papa Roach – ‘…To Be Loved’

November 21, 2021 — Leave a comment
Pictured: Cover Art for ‘The Paramour Sessions’ (LP) (Released on Sept 12th, 2006) (via Geffen Records)

Good Afternoon to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for us to remember another of the ghosts of Pop-Punk’s past that dwindled after the late-90’s to the mid-00’s into a pile of ash for ‘Scuzz Sundays’, not forgetting that it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! In a similar vein to last week’s entry on Hoobastank, Papa Roach have also been covered for the ‘Scuzz Sundays’ feature once before, but it was published over a year ago. ‘Last Resort’ earned a fairly ‘meh’ reception from me, and so it’s time to see if some of their later work can redeem things. Formed in Vacacille, California in 1993 when lead vocalist Jacoby Shaddix and drummer Dave Buckner came across each other on the Vacaville High School college football pitch and they bonded over their shared love for music. Known for hits like ‘Last Resort’ and ‘Between Angels and Insects’, as well as Gold-certified albums such as 2002’s ‘Lovehatetragedy’ and the triple platinum-certified LP release ‘Infest’ from two years prior, the Pop-Grunge group are also well-known for composing ‘To Be Loved’, which was originally featured as the theme tune for WWE’s ‘Monday Night Raw’ programme that was used between 2006 and 2009. It was the opening single of 2006’s ‘The Paramour Sessions’, which was titled as a reference to The Paramour Mansion, where the album was recorded. Dedicated to the memory of Shaddix’s step grandfather, who committed suicide that year, following a diagnosis of an unspecified form of terminal cancer, the record is a departure in sound for the band, as it trends into more of a Hard Rock sound instead of Nu-Metal like the group’s previous releases. Let’s revisit the album’s most popular single below.

In it’s late-00’s heyday, ‘To Be Loved’ slowly ascended to the #8 position of the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and #14 in the Modern Rock Tracks charts that have been compiled by Billboard in the US, and it has been memorably used during the theatrical trailer for the 2008 film ‘Never Back Down’, which was directed by Jeff Wadlow (‘Kick-Ass 2’, ‘Bloodshot’) and boasted a star studded cast that included the likes of Amber Heard, Sean Faris and Djimon Honsou. Throughout the track, Shaddix promises he’s “Taking it back to the hardcore level” with some big vocal hooks and some jangly lead guitar riffs, marking a slight tease into the band’s older Rap Metal sound with a light Hip-Hop introduction that goes into something more distorted and alike to an uncontrollable frenzy, with a post-bridge that shouts ‘Screamo’ movement in a not-so subtle nature. Lyrics like “I want domination/I want your submission” and “I’ve gotta roll the dice/Never look back and never think twice” are what you would expect considering it was used for a long-running WWE TV product at one point, and the instrumentation fits the chaotic nature of the vocals with tight Drum riffs and upbeat guitar riffs. There’s some light use of snares, but they are paper thin. This feels water-tight on the whole in terms of sequencing, however, with a fast pace that never really lets up and an enthusiastic vocal performance that blends into the aggressive melodies decently enough. Overall, if you were looking for the pinnacle example of what a ‘Scuzz TV’ song was, this is the one. It is cheesy, an obvious crossover track with Pop elements, and a riotously paced single with some cheap lyrics. While I can’t comment on whether I believe it is Papa Roach’s best work, as I haven’t listened to enough of their own discography to get a full picture of that award, I thought this was fine overall. It is what it is. Disposable, but fun and it got the job done reasonably well.

Pictured: Papa Roach performing at the Reading & Leeds Music Festival (2014) (Photo via BBC Music)

If you really want to check out some of Papa Roach’s other more well-known past material, allow my prior post pertaining to Papa Roach to be your ‘Last Resort’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/07/26/scuzz-sundays-papa-roach-last-resort/

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Infest’ (LP) (Released on April 25th, 2021) (via DreamWorks/NPG Studios)

That’s all for today! Thank you for joining me for ‘Scuzz Sundays’, and I’ll be back tomorrow with another regular blog post in the long lead up to the ‘Countdown To Christmas’ rush! This time, it will come from a New York-based songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist who has released three studio albums and a 7″ single. Digital Trends included 2018’s ‘You, Forever’ in their list of their best albums that year.

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Countdown To Christmas 2021: Frightened Rabbit – “It’s Christmas, So We’ll Stop”

November 20, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Cover Art for “It’s Christmas, So We’ll Stop” (Released on Dec. 15th, 2008) (via FatCat Records)

Good Morning to you! You are reading the words of Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time to grab your Gingerbread Latte to sip along with as we continue our ‘Countdown To Christmas’ today, which I’ll be leading because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! A Scottish indie folk band who were formed by Scott Hutchinson, who originally began the group as a solo project, in 2003 – Frightened Rabbit were a band who released five albums, two EP’s, two live albums and ten singles to critical acclaim, which allowed the band to develop a large cult following that is still avid to this day. There is a sadness to the band, however, as Hutchinson fell ill and he went missing on a terrible night in 2018, where his body was later found dead near Port Edgar, South Queensferry. Based in Glasgow from 2004, the band were also known for their frequent collaborations and extensive touring with Aaron Dessner, a multi-instrumentalist from The National. Frightened Rabbit’s work has been released across Fat Cat Records and major label Atlantic Records, and the strongly reviewed 6-piece were also well-liked for their regular charity work with the Invisible Children Inc. music coalition project. Hutchinson, alongside his brother Grant Hutchinson, also worked with Justin Lockey (Editors) and James Lockey (Minor Victories) on their side project Mastersystem. Mainstream-wise, Frightened Rabbit were perhaps best known for 2013’s ‘Pedestrian Verse’, which reached #9 on the UK Albums Chart. However, their final album, 2016’s ‘Painting Of A Panic Attack’, which included the particularly good single ‘Get Out’, was my personal favourite. In 2008, they got into the seasonal spirit with ‘It’s Christmas, So We’ll Stop’. Let’s give it a spin.

Scott Hutchinson released an original mix of ‘It’s Christmas, So We’ll Stop’ as solo material in 2007, before he reworked the track with expanded instrumentation and additional production for a re-release the next year. He said, “It’s Christmas… is about people deciding to be pleasant to one another for about a day, regardless of whether or not they actually get along the rest of the year”, adding, “I feel it’s maybe healtheir to live a little more consistently (not that I do), but often humans need excuses to be nice and giving and loving to one another, and Christmas is one of those times, for better or worse”, to the Vinyl’s product description. At just over five minutes in length, Hutchinson encourages a ceasefire for hatred over the top of some swelling String sections, a melancholic lead guitar hook, some softly psychedelic backing vocals that feel warm in texture, and some gradually building Drum rhythms. Lyrics like “As the rot stops for today, Let the rot stop for just one day” touch on restraining the disillusionment and sensual assault that comes with the excess of the holiday season. Later lyrics, like “‘Cause the wine on our breath puts the love on our tongues”, touch on product overindulgence and throw shade at commercialism a little, while vaguely spotlighting the community of Christmas as the main theme. The final refrain of “The next day, life went back to its bad self” hints towards the hostilities of the wider world being resumed after the big day of December 25th. While treading familiar ground for a Christmas single, in terms of the key material discussing the halting of arguments and the easing of tension that it all brings, Hutchinson manages to polish everything in a neat way. His vocal delivery feels sharp and piercing at times, giving off the idea of the knives being put down for the single day but also suggesting a warmer armistice, and it introduces a raw element of melancholy and a sense of foreboding to the instrumentation. The soundscape, as a result, is full of musical diversity. It is slightly charming and witty in a black comedy format, but it’s also a little sombre and downtempo, all while maintaining an uplifting quality in the spirit of the religious season. It feels very frank, with the blend of orchestral and acoustic instrumentation complementing his variety of tones as the songwriting develops in a way that’s gradual. It is one of the most poignant, yet realistic, festive songs out there.

  • Pictured: Scott Hutchinson (Lead Vocals/Acoustic Guitar/Writer), Billy Kennedy (Lead Guitar/Keyboard). Andy Monaghan (Rhythm Guitar/Backing Vocals), Simon Liddell (Bass Guitar) and Grant Hutchinson (Drums/Percussion/Occasional Backing Vocals) (in 2013) (Photo via RedBull.com/Atlantic Records)

That brings us to the end of our trimming of festive output for this week! Please join me again tomorrow for ‘Scuzz Sundays’, as we take a listen to a Pop-Punk anthem from a well-known California-formed rock band who bonded over their love of music on the football pitch and they recorded one of their albums in the Paramour Mansion.

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Scuzz Sundays: Hoobastank – ‘Out Of Control’

November 14, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Doug Robb (Lead Vocals), Dan Estrin (Lead Guitar/Backing Vocals), Jesse Charland (Keyboard/Bass Guitar) and Chris Hesse (Drums) (2013) (Photo by http://www.hiddenjams.com/)

Good Morning to you! You are reading the words of Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for us to delve back into 90’s-00’s Pop-Punk territory for yet another edition of ‘Scuzz Sundays’ on One Track At A Time, the music blog where it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! If you were to name a list of acts with wacky or purely silly names, the likes of Chicano Batman and Bowling For Soup would probably ring the most bells. Somewhere near to the top of the list with them, however, would have to be the Agura Falls native Rock band who are still known as Hoobastank. The band did pretty well for themselves, meanwhile, by scoring a wide range of sync deals in popular culture and selling their way to over ten million units worldwide with crossover chart hits like ‘The Reason’, which we previously covered in the blog upon the dreadful Covid-damaged season of last March, to a pretty negative reception from myself, to be honest. It has been over a year since that time, however, so it’s time to see if we get more positive results this time around. An understandable pick to do so would be ‘Out Of Control’, the lead single from the band’s most well-known album, ‘The Reason’, which was their third full-length studio album release in 2004. It charted at #16 in the US Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks Chart and at #9 on the US Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart. The single also features backing vocals by Ian Watkins and Jamie Oliver, two prior members of the controversial Welsh alternative rock band Lostprophets. It was also featured in the soundtrack for a few video games, including ‘Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes The Neighbourhood’ as well. Let’s remember the Nathan Cox-directed music video below.

Now a multi-platinum selling group with three Grammy Award nominations under their belt, Hoobastank decided to give ‘The Reason’ a 15th anniversary re-release to celebrate their success in 2019, which was printed on both standard black and limited edition white Vinyl, and it featured four previously unavailable bonus tracks as well as an exclusive acoustic version of the album’s title track. ‘Out Of Control’ was included on the record, and the lyrics follow the narrative of a person who has gone out of control in a downward spiral after blindly following the orders of someone else. Sequences like “Try to focus but everything’s twisted” and “All alone I thought you would be there” are very straight to the point and explicit in their meaning, with lead vocalist Doug Robb musing on distrust and confusion, while lyrics like “Where should I go? What should I do?/I don’t understand what you want from me” are more focused on seeking of purpose and looking for answers to alleviate your pain and suffering. He reminds me of Faith No More’s Mike Patton in terms of his screeching delivery when he breaks down the title of the track in the chorus. Musically, the instrumentation blends a decent variety of heavy styles because the verses are a little familiar to Nu-Metal fans, the chorus goes for more of a rousing pure Pop style, and the bridges touch upon some Post-Grunge effects leading to a pre-chorus which screams Foo Fighters to my ears. Backing harmonies pop up from time to time, and the backbeat feels grittier in mood than the more Rap-Rock delivery of the post-chorus. In terms of my opinion of the track itself, I found the chorus to be relatively catchy and the instrumentation to seem perfectly fine, with a decent lead guitar performance from Dan Estrin elevating the aggressive, strong vocals from Robb to a more memorable degree. The problem, however, is that everything feels pretty in-your-face and there’s no subtlety to make the songwriting feel a little more profound. This is certainly not designed to be high art, but the lyrics feel so direct to the point where there’s nothing vaguely interesting to take away from them at all. That said, the drum beats feel very brash and the Power-Pop chorus are complementing the overall style in a way that feels solid, and so the track holds together reasonably well despite some flaws that I have with the songwriting. Overall, I much preferred ‘Out Of Control’ to ‘The Reason’, which I covered on the blog last year, as it was a fun track to listen to that, despite feeling very of-its-time, has some decent performances from the band members who all play their instruments to the Grunge-inspired formula of the track pretty nicely. I just wish the lyrics weren’t so plain and bland, as it could have been better in that regard, but it is still a fair improvement. We were just about over half of the way there.

  • Pictured: Hoobastank playing at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London (2019) (Photo by Connie Taylor)

If you need an excuse to check out some of Hoobastank’s music, you have ‘The Reason’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/03/22/scuzz-sundays-hoobastank-the-reason/

  • Pictured: Cover Art for ‘The Reason’ (LP) (Released on April 26th, 2004) (via Island Records)

Thank you for reading my latest blog post and thank you for your continued support by reading the site each day or discovering the blog for the first time today. I’ll be back tomorrow with music from a Los Angeles-based artist who is releasing her debut LP in February. She has currently signed to 100% Electronica – George Clanton’s label.

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Scuzz Sundays: Bloc Party – ‘Helicopter’

November 7, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Kele Okereke (Lead Vocals/Rhythm Guitar/Sampling), Russell Lissack (Lead Guitar/Keyboard), Justin Harris (Bass Guitar/Synths) & Louise Bartle (Drums/Percussion) (2015) (Photo by Rachael Wright)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s the time of the week where we re-evaluate some of the biggest hits that would have gained airplay from the likes of Kerrang and Scuzz TV in the decades past, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! The current line-up of Bloc Party sees long-serving frontman Kele Okereke touring with Russell Lisack, Louise Bartle and Justin Harris, but previous iterations of the project have seen guitarists like Matt Tong and Gordon Moakes playing among their ranks. Although I’m not very sure how well-known that Bloc Party are globally, they are a household name in the UK, having scored many memorable crossover hits like ‘Flux’, ‘Hunting For Witches’, ‘Banquet’, ‘Two More Years’ and ‘The Prayer’ in the UK Singles Charts, well on their way to selling over three million albums worldwide. ‘Helicopter’ was a permanent fixture on the multiplayer mode of ‘Guitar Hero 3: Legends Of Rock’ from 2007, and it was one of the band’s first mainstream successes, as it was released as a standalone single in 2004 before also appearing on their debut studio album, ‘Silent Alarm’, the next year. Known for blending 00’s ‘Indie’ rock tropes with elements of Ambient House and Electronica, Bloc Party received decent reviews for their first LP and the record was named the ‘Indie Album Of The Year’ at the 2006 PLUG Awards and at the NME Awards of the same year. Let’s remind ourselves of ‘Helicopter’ below.

A Garage rock-tinged 00’s indie anthem, ‘Helicopter’ reached #26 in the UK Singles Chart and the main riff was adapted from The Jam’s ‘Set The House Ablaze’ taken off their 1980 album, ‘Sound Affects’. Making it’s mark on popular culture, the original record and remixes of the record have appeared in video games like ‘Project Gotham Racing 3’, ‘FIFA 06’ and ‘Colin McRae DIRT 2’, and it can also be heard in film and TV productions like ‘Yes Man’, ‘Charlie St. Cloud’ and ‘Malcolm In The Middle’ too. As for the track itself, Bloc Party managed to stand out from contemporary peers like Interpol and Franz Ferdinand by drawing from the dark spectrum of their homeland’s 1980’s indie pop canon with some Gang Of Four-laden guitar stabs in the chorus and by jogging the memories of The Jam, especially in the melodic vocals that add a grittier feel to their sound. The lyrics are a rally cry for a call to arms against those who stand for political incorrectness and the acceptance of those who stand still, with lyrics like “Are you waiting for a miracle?” influencing a feel of urgency, and notable refrains like “North to South/Empty” inspiring independence as a glorified weapon. Yet more raw guitar riffs energetically charge these vocals, and the somewhat off-key backing vocals are cased in a distorted fuzz, giving the effect of back-tracking of polished perfection. There’s a catchy Strokes-like harmonized guitar line in the verses, and the track also has a memorable bridge that builds up some bitter effect-boosted guitar riffs leading to an up-tempo riff or harmonics that add a fresh, somewhat inventive, dimension to the track in its great finale, so to speak, and this is a very solid effect because it creates some pounding instrumentation that feels energetic before the charismatic Drum outro. I felt that drummer Matt Tong really shined in this track, and the accessibility of the tune managed to garner interest from the average indie pop/rock listener without departing too drastically from their influences of Electronica and Ghetto House that were important to Bloc Party’s core sound. In conclusion, while this probably isn’t the most accurate representation of Bloc Party overall, it is still a very catchy pop/rock tune that pulls a few of the tricks up its sleeves to a raucous effect with catchy hooks and a nice balance of radio-friendly appeal and something more alternative. It was a timeless single that, along with Arctic Monkeys and Maximo Park, commanded sizeable audiences for Indie acts.

  • Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Silent Alarm’ (LP) (Released on February 2, 2005) (via Wichita Recordings)

Thank you for checking out my latest post, and I’ll be back tomorrow with an in-depth look at solo music from a Cuban-American singer songwriter who was previously a member of the girl group Fifth Harmony, who found fame with global chart hits like ‘Worth It’ following their third place finish from the US series of ‘The X Factor’ of 2012.

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Scuzz Sundays: One Eyed Doll – “Committed”

October 24, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Hole’ (LP) (Released on 1st January, 2007) (via Self-Released)

Good Morning to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for us to revisit some ghosts of Pop-Punk’s past for another weekly edition of ‘Scuzz Sundays’ on the blog – not forgetting that it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! When you think back to the music that channels like MTV, Kerrang and Scuzz supported back in the 00’s, it was a sadly very male-dominated picture. However, one of the few female artists who “kicked ass and took names”, as wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin would have said on old WWF re-runs, was Kimberley Freeman – the brains behind the operation of One-Eyed Doll, a Gothic Rock duo that she leads with Jason Rufus Sewell from Austin, Texas who were voted as the ‘Best Punk Band’ at the Austin Music Awards at SXSW three years in a row – 2009, 2010 and 2011. Known for her acrobatic and high-energy live performances, her trademark high kicks, her unique baby voice that resembles both Serj Tankien and Jack Off Jill on some different occasions, and her pony-tailed Harlequin aesthetic, Freeman was featured as one of Revolver Magazine’s ‘Hottest Chicks’ in 2011, 2012 and 2015, and so representation of talented women in the industry sadly didn’t make many moves for the better just yet. Still, she has also been featured in Guitar Player Magazine’s list of the ‘Top 20 Most Extraordinary Guitarists’, and One Eyed Doll have racked up over one million views on YouTube despite being a pretty niche band, and so the modern times are treating them rather well. The band are still recording music and touring today, with 2017’s ‘Something Wicked’ EP being their last release of original, new music and 2018’s ‘Holier’ serving as a remixed edition of their well-received debut LP, 2007’s ‘Hole’, as well. They even shot a new video for ‘Committed’, which you can see below.

The cool Texan duo have a combined discography of 11 full-length album releases to their name, and their music has been used in several different pieces of media like television shows, online streaming series, video games and movies, including a very notable feature on MTV’s ‘Road Rules’ series, and the band have also developed a niche from performing strongly at major Anime comic conventions like DragonCon, and including the headline slot at the 4&20 Blackbird Festival in California. Taken from their 2007 debut album, ‘Hole’, originally, ‘Committed’ follows Freeman’s typically eccentric vocal style by essentially being written about an imagined life in a mental asylum, with straightforward lyrics like “How I wish this room was vacant/Can’t seem to break through these padded walls” and “Kicking, screaming, drooling, biting/They say there’s no use in fighting” that set up the scene visually, and feel a little funny in the process. The verses have a rough, Garage sound behind them with chugging guitar riffs and uptempo Drum melodies, with a fade out in time for the bridge where Freeman sings “One more mark against society/Can’t you see I’m not a threat” atop some muted melodies, and she begins to make a quirky social commentary of some form. The perspective of singing as a mental patient feels a little ambiguous, and so the track could probably be interpreted in different ways, such as to be about the treatment of the mentally ill in society or the perception of ‘crazy’ as a construct of stereotype, but the erratic guitar riffs and the jagged bass melodies keep the track feeling catchy and easy to remember for a short while, with a chorus that gets wild and a final guitar solo that unleashes pure Punk mayhem onto your brain cells with the short bursts of frantic guitar riffs and the variety of the noise collage. Though it may get a little bloated or baggy for some, I enjoyed how elaborate the sound truly is and Freeman strikes me as a creative person who may be a little shy or awkward, but doesn’t compromise on her true artistic vision for her music. This was a lot of fun overall, and certainly above average for the Pop-Punk scene of the time that relied on the likes of Sum 41 and The All American Rejects to sell tickets. It just feels more quirky than those bands, who were definitely serviceable, but ‘Committed’ was a burst of colour. Variety is the splice of life – and Freeman has plenty of it in the tank.

  • Pictured: Kimberly Freeman (Lead Vocals/Theremin/Kazoo/Rhythm Guitar/Percussion) and Jason “Junior” Rufus Sewell (Drums/Bass Guitar/Synths/Keyboard) at Rockfest (2019) (Photo by Mark Scott)

Thank you for checking out today’s post, and I’ll be back tomorrow for an in-depth look at a well-emerged UK indie rock band who, in a similar vein to Foals and The Vaccines, are another part of the recent resurgence in British guitar rock music. They were nominated for one of BBC’s ‘Sound Of…’ awards, and their newest single was premiered on BBC Radio 1 as Arlo Parks’ “Hottest Record In The World” in September.

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Scuzz Sundays: The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus – “False Pretense”

October 17, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Ronnie Winter (Lead Vocals/Acoustic Guitar), Joey Westwood (Bass Guitar), Josh Burke (Lead Guitar), Daniel Reshnick (Synths) and John Espy (Drums) (Date n/a) (Photo via HMMagazine.com)

Good Morning to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and you’ve visited the site in time for ‘Scuzz Sundays’, our weekly look back at the Pop-Punk relics that were all released between the late-1990’s and the mid-2000’s to see how they live up to their potential in the present day, because its always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! ‘False Pretense’ marks the debuting appearance on the blog from The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, a mid-00’s Post-Hardcore 6-piece who joined the wave of ‘Emo’ Pop/Rock bands including Fall Out Boy and The All-American Rejects from the later stages of my early childhood Grunge phase, and they simply got their bizzare name from voting for random words that each member stuck onto a wall between themselves. They were competent enough, however, and the band have since gone on to release five full-length studio albums together since meeting in an AP Music Theory class in 2001. Their 2006 debut, ‘Don’t You Fake It’, is probably their best known since it was eventually certified as Platinum by the RIAA in 2006 for exceeding over 500,000 copies in sales. They were supporting bands like 30 Seconds To Mars, Amber Pacific and A Static Lullaby in their time, and they have impressively continued to stick around since their appearances at multiple festivals like Soundwave Festival and going on acoustic tours to keep them sounding fresh with new twists. They last released the ‘Emergency’ EP containing two previously unreleased singles. ‘False Pretense’ was used in the 2008 action movie ‘Never Back Down’ – directed by Jeff Wadlow and starring Amber Heard. Let’s remember it below.

Despite garnering mixed reviews from critics, ‘Don’t You Fake It’ reached the #25 spot on the Billboard 200 in the US, and it also spawned two other successful singles: ‘Your Guardian Angel’ and ‘Face Down’, and the band promoted the release with a set at the Bamboozle Festival in 2018. The band also released a remastered edition of the LP in 2014 which includes ‘Disconnected’ and ‘The Grimm Goodbye’, two rare cuts found only on the Deluxe edition of the original release. If you’ve ever been fond of bands like The All American Rejects or OPM, ‘False Pretense’ will find you in the mosh pit of similar territory, with some frivolous Pop-Punk guitar riffs and some Rapcore explorations. There’s also an energetic Baroque influence that harkens back to very early Panic! At The Disco material, and so their sound really feels like a mish-mash of their other contemporary acts in some respects. The lyrics are very straightforward too, with lyrics like “The world’s got a funny way of turning round on you/When a friend tries to stab you right in the face” and “You tried but you were caught red handed/Are you happy with your role?” dealing with spite and betrayal in a very easily consumable way, while vocalist Ronnie Winter chants hooks like “False pretense, you’ll hurt again” and “Don’t sweat it/Set a false pretense” in the chorus to hammer his point home about a close friend turning their back on him. While the band don’t have a great amount of originality or innovation to them, it is a broadly well-meaning and acceptable crossover between Pop, Rap and Punk elements, with different parts of other bands – like the more Grunge-oriented chorus that nods towards Linkin Park – thrown in the cauldron together for good measure. The lyrics are a little bland, but there’s nothing inherently poor about them since they suit the end to meet the needs decently enough and don’t head towards any tangents, so the record feels tight and coherent. It never does much to surprise you in terms of instrumentation, but, once again, the Pop-Punk guitar riffs are riotous and have enough of a harsh edge to craft an instantly recognizable blueprint. The drums are competent too, but they also lack memorability. Overall, it feels pretty uninspired and it doesn’t stand out a great deal, however, what we do get here is solid enough to make a little splash. An unoriginal effort that fails to establish a USP, but it is inoffensive and made with efficient ability.

  • Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Don’t You Fake It’ (LP) (Released on July 18th, 2006) (via Virgin Records)

That brings us to the bottom of the page for another roughly 24 hour period of the weekend! Thank you for your support with the blog, and I’ll be back tomorrow to kick off the new week with some recent-ish material from a surprisingly big name for a Monday! It comes from an eclectic gang of animated animals who were founded by Blur’s frontman in the early 2000’s and they have been cited as the “Most Successful Virtual Band” in the world by the Guiness Book Of World Records in 2010. They have sold over 25 million records globally – and won ‘Best British Group’ at the 2018 BRIT’s.

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Scuzz Sundays: Priestess – “Lay Down”

October 10, 2021 — Leave a comment

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for me to please the ancient gods of Rock with another ‘Scuzz Sundays’ post on the blog, where the revisit the Pop-Punk productions of the past, as it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of new music every day! It is a busy day of work and visiting family for this aspiring music writer today, and so I’m not going to keep you too long. The long and short of the matter is that ‘Lay Down’ – this week’s pick – was the leading single taken from the debut album of the Canadian Post-Grunge meets Stoner Rock quartet Priestess, which was titled ‘Hello Master’ and was issued by RCA Records in 2005. The project started out as a dedicated “retro rock” project that emulated 70’s classic rock bands like Black Sabbath and AC/DC, before the band jumped into the unfamiliar surroundings of the recording studio with producer Gus Van Go (Arkells, Michael Rault) for their first full-length effort. Luckily for them, it spawned a few successful singles and it received generally positive reviews from critics before the more daring follow-up – ‘Prior To The Fire’ – emerged in 2009 and was disliked by their label for its edgy lyricism and more experimental content. The band are currently on an indefinite hiatus, but 2005’s ‘Lay Down’ is their best known single, and it got a music video directed by Wendy Morgan. Give it a spin down below.

Priestess saw relatively little chart success aside from 2006’s ‘Talk To Her’, which peaked at #33 on the US Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, but the profile of the band was raised significantly when ‘Lay Down’ was prominently featured on ‘Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock’ on past gaming platforms, a business-savvy move which Priestess see as a proud achievement, stating in interviews that consumption of the media format amongst young people serves as a great introduction to their classic rock influences and the genre as a whole. ‘Lay Down’ is one of their tunes that notably deals with violent lyrics and mature themes, with frontman Mikey Heppner singing about a mourner – at graveside – who is trying to make the dead corpse peacefully rest in their coffin as our protagonist slowly gets to grips with the loss that has occurred and how it has affected their mental wellbeing. The guitar riffs are punchy, but not overbearingly ferocious, with Heppner singing the sorrowful lyrics over the top of some thumping Drum beats and some soaring guitar chords, although there’s notably no electronic interference in play here either. The lyrics deal with grief and, in a way, love with a familiar ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll edge’ that sees a mid-tempo guitar solo and fetching bass guitar riffs controlling the tempo. Overall, I felt this was a solid three and a half style sort of effort by Priestess. I was ultimately listening late at night on Saturday and I had my headphones sinked into my ears, and it still tested pretty well. The production is fairly average because the vocals sound pretty raw and the instrumentation does not have a great amount of variety to it, but the rhythms are simply catchy and memorable enough for me to remember immediately after hearing the band play. The vocals have a fairly straightforward and typical style for the 70’s influences of the band, but they never feel outdated beyond the style in any way. The lyrics themselves are a little bleak, but the solid guitar riffs drive the beat forward to a good melodic style where it comfortably gallops along the track’s tight duration with a solid flow. On the whole, there’s nothing that feels drastically new or different to their contemporaries here, but the lack of auto-tune is welcome and the band don’t write lyrics about sleazy women or being a rebel in a stereotypical sense for the time and so they manage to stand out from their peers. An engaging slice of vintage Rock.

  • Pictured: Mikey Heppner (Lead Vocals/Lead Guitar), Dan Watchorn (Rhythm Guitar/Backing Vocals), Mike Dyball (Bass Guitar) and Vince Nudo (Drums/Percussion) (2009) (Photo via Priestess.ca/story)

That’s all for now! I hope that you have a pleasant weekend, and please join be back here again tomorrow for an in-depth listen to some new music from a gifted Canadian electronic music producer who landed a spot on my ‘Best Albums Of 2020’ list with his latest LP release ‘Suddenly’. He is signed to Merge Records and he will be touring the US and Europe next year. He is probably best known for the 2010 recording ‘Sun’.

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Scuzz Sundays: Slipknot – “Duality”

October 3, 2021 — Leave a comment
  • Pictured: Corey Taylor (Lead Vocals), Mick Thomson (Lead Guitar), Shawn Crahan (Percussion/Art Director/Photographer), Craig Jones (Keyboard), Jim Root (Bass Guitar), Chris Fehn (Backing Vocals), Paul Gray (Backing Vocals), Joey Jordison (Drums/Mixing) & Sid Wilson (Turntables) (2019) (via PR)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it is time for us to listen to some quite un-church like music before we head to church for ‘Scuzz Sundays’, the part of the week where we revisit some of the ghosts of Pop-Punk and Nu-Metal’s past. This is Spooky Season – after all. One band from the late-90’s to mid-00’s who fits that bill is Slipknot, the Iowa-based Alternative Metal band fronted by Corey Taylor, who once appeared on an episode of BBC Two’s ‘QI’ on UK television and seemed like a likeable guy all-around, to be fair. Slipknot still seem to be immensely popular, scoring a UK number one album with ‘We Are Not Your Kind’ as recently as 2019. One of the most interesting albums to come from the crossover stars is ‘Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses’, a record that deals with “the healing process” of the band’s themes of decay and decapitation from the previous record. To meet these ends, Slipknot changed their style very discreetly by incorporating more traditional, melodic song structures as well as brooding guitar solo’s and a splattering of acoustic instrumentals. The album was a large success, despite the band’s initial unproductive struggles over the record, where Taylor was found drinking heavily to comfort some very personal issues. The record was praised by AllMusic for its “dedication to making it a Slipknot album” and Kerrang’s readers rated it as 31st in a poll of ‘The 50 Best Albums Of The 21st Century” taken in 2009. One of the best-received singles was ‘Duality’, which peaked at #5 on the US Rock Chart and Slipknot’s record label, Roadrunner Records, listed the music video for the single as the best one in their history in 2010. Refresh your mind below.

Slipknot have now found pretty staggering crossover success with combined sales of reportedly up to 30 million records globally, but these metrics didn’t always seem to be within their mask-wearing grasp. Until ‘Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses’ was issued in 2004, Slipknot’s future seemed bleak. Taylor’s battles with alcoholism worsened over the years, and the other members of Slipknot decided to work on a few side projects – like Stone Sour, Murderdolls and To My Surprise – but the band eventually decided to enlist Rick Rubin as the producer of their album and cracked down to work in the studio together, before releasing ‘Duality’ as the comeback single. ‘Duality’ felt like a volatile soft-reboot for Slipknot at the time, giving them a harsher edge and a more catchy sound, while appreciating the raw style of their prior work. The guitar riffs are sharp and disjointed enough without feeling clunky, and the Spoken Word style of the verses is quite intriguing since it gives refrains like “I have screamed until my veins collapsed/I’ve waited as my time’s elapsed” and “Tell me the reality is better than the dream/But I found out the hard way, nothing is what it seems” a vibe of toxicity and a feel of cinematic dark poetry that does stick out a little more compared to their contemporary peers of the era. Taylor uses a grumbling, dark croaking vocal delivery to complement the down-tuned, screeching guitar riffs and emphasize the horror atmosphere of the percussion. I think that it is easy to find their costumes and masks to take things a little too far for some audiences, but I don’t mind that aspect of their live performances and general visuals too much since it shows me they can simply be bothered to create a compelling visual companion piece to the art they create, and that is enough for me. On the whole, while I can’t say that I’ve ever really cared for Slipknot by a great amount, I really enjoyed my time with ‘Duality’, and not really in a ‘guilty pleasure’ way that plagues some releases. I felt there was plenty of genuinely well-crafted material here. The chorus was sharp and filled with some very punchy hooks that feel melodic enough, but fits the terrifying and gory imagery of Slipknot overall. There’s a couple of well-written lyrics here that match poetry with pain, and the extra layers of tension are paced decently, with the more subdued vocal style of the verses being counteracted with a more patented style later on with some solid guitar work that creates a surge of tense rhythms for the chorus. A spiked thumbs up!

  • Pictured: Slipknot in an official photoshoot for ‘We Are Not Your Kind’ (2019) (Photo via PR/NME.com)

As one of the more popular US heavy metal bands of our time, Slipknot have been worthy of a mention on ‘Scuzz Sundays’ before, albeit over a year and a half ago. Still, if you want more content, you can find out what I thought of ‘Before I Forget’ here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/02/23/scuzz-sundays-slipknot-before-i-forget/

  • Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Vol. 3 The Subliminal Verses’ (LP) (May 2004) (via Roadrunner Records)

That’s all for now! Thank you for your continued support regarding the blog, and I’ll be back tomorrow to kick off another week’s worth of daily music picks. Join me for an in-depth look at a British Columbia-born singer-songwriter who, after working as a restaurant line chef in his teens, turned to a life of music where he played with Jason Corbett in Speed To Kill. He is now known for his bob wig and androgynous make-up.

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