Sam's BEST OF 2019 #2

2. Scrawny – Wallows

“I'm a Scrawny mother fucker with a cool hairstyle.”

You know it takes a certain level of UN-ironic confidence to do a line like that and not sound like a try-hard fuck face and these guy's managed to do that and be one of the few new bands I've heard about that people actually listen to and while their album kind of has a bit too many songs that sound the exact same this song is a fucking exceptional cut that brings a certain energy that I often feel is lacking in a lot of the more electronic heavy down tuned offerings I hear blaring out of most alternative stations I find myself listening to for more than 10 minutes at a time these day's and considering I like my rock to be a more guitar driven affair with a lot of punch to hear a newer act make a tune that is both of those things of course I'm going to be pretty happy.

These guy's aren't reinventing the wheel and if I were to be honest with you this is essentially a vampire weekend tune if vampire weekend didn't suck ass and the fact that it's not in every teenage coming of age movie trailer from here to infinity is nice because this song is one of the few bits of spontaneously energetic Indy rock that's managed to not make me roll my eyes.

These guy's are cool and I hope they don't have the same scenario as the 1975 where teenagers make a bigger deal of them than they need and turn their shows into a hodgepodge of annoying ass screaming fan girls reminding me that I'm too fucking old for this shit.

Album of the Day 3/26/15

So I can't lie I really dislike a load of modern hard rock and heavy metal acts because they all seem to come off as very single note and boring in plenty of way's and also a lot of modern/hard rock stations have been playing the same shitty songs for the last 10+ years and most of the top acts in modern hard rock make very safe formulaic music, and with that in mind I do occasionally dive in and listen to some of this trash because well.....I was an angry white boy at one time and the occasional heavy record can amuse me.

My only issue in that right is finding the right record to post because there's a few acts that I can decently get behind but I think in this case I'll post something that I recently came across randomly looking at a buddy of mine's collection and gave a whirl in the form of HELLYEAH's debut self titled LP from that magical year of 2007.

I do recall being amused with this band when they came out but then I eventually grew up and kind of broadened my own musical taste so the fact that upon looking up information on them I was surprised to learn that they're still going and while I had no desire to give the new stuff a listen I can say that this album kind of starts out on a really strong note before only really kind of having any bits of being alright when Mudvayne's Chad Gray who in all honesty is a solid vocalist for his genre is screaming the word fuck repeatedly in the more metallic numbers.

In all honesty the best songs on here while being relatively light on overall deph are at best by the number headbanging heavy numbers that only serve as an outlet to just kind of give the drummer from Pantera something to do...

Sam's Top 25 of 2012: #25

Tonight-Seether

Alright I figured I’d be best to kick off this with a tune that came out earlier in the year but I really didn’t give too much thought to especially considering it’s one of the better tunes I’ve heard from modern rock radio in one Seether’s, “Tonight.”

I’m not going to lie this is a very by the numbers rock song in many ways but it’s that sense of simplicity that makes it so appealing really. It’s a solidly well paced tune with the enjoyable metaphor of screaming your problems to the world and  while it’s also the lightest offering I’ve ever heard from these guy’s I’m honestly surprised just how good it’s actually managed to remain so with that in mind I figured I’d go a good bit mainstream to start out this list.