This is How The Wind Shifts is a concept album by the post-hardcore band Silverstein. The album has an interesting structure. It is composed of 7 two part songs. Part 1 of each song is on Side A of the record and part 2 of each song is on Side B. This is not at all obvious. I’ve been listening to this album since it came out in 2013 and I just noticed this pattern 5 years later. Additionally, playing This is How and The Wind Shifts at the same time reveals a secret song This is How The Wind Shifts. Neat gimmics aside, this album is incredible. Shane Told’s vocals are perfect and syncronize well with the music. There is a noticable improvement from the vocals on Silverstein’s first album When Broken is Easily Fixed.  This album is very vocal centric. The passion put into each song is unmatched. It’s really incredible that a band like Silverstein can release an album every other year with each album seemingly better than the last.

Final Verdict: Wow.

Rating: 5/5

While We’re At It is the Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ tenth studio album. After reaching mainstream success in the 90s, the band released a total of 4 more albums through 2011. Each album released after Let’s Face It was pretty much a dud with only a few notable songs. While We’re At It, released in 2018, is the first album the band has released in 7 years. I had a lot of hope for this album, but it came up short. It’s apparent that the band put politics at the forefront of the album with songs like Here We Are which showcases the band’s negative views on the current state of the US. This is pretty much riddled throughout the album. The Bosstones are really upfront about it which doesn’t really work well. It would be a lot better if they used more imagery and metaphors, but instead they just come out and explicitly sing about left-wing political topics, alienating a large portion of their fans that don’t want to hear about politics. There is a tasteful way to work politics into music, and that was not shown in this album. Although most of the album was pretty bad, the album has two redeeming songs: Unified and Green Bay, Wisconsin. Unified,as the title suggests, talks a lot about the importance of unity in a divided nation. Green Bay, Wisconsin is by far my favorite song on the album. It’s a break from the politics, talking about just having fun and listening to ska. Overall, it looks like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones will unfortunately still be paying the bills off of albums that came out over 20 years ago as While We’re At It was a disappointment.

First Impression: The album is not worth listening to, but if you’re a fan of ska, listen to Green Bay, Wisconsin. That song is awesome.

All’s Well That Ends Well is Chiodos’ second full length album. Debuting in 2005, the album was surly their breakout hit, gaining them a lot of popularity in the post-hardcore scene. Personally, I thought the album was pretty mediocre. I really enjoyed the variety of instruments used in the album including piano, synth and the standard instruments like guitar, bass and drums. If you’re a fan of intricate guitar work like me, this album is a bit of a disappointment. Majority of the guitar is just barre chords and the bass is pretty generic. However, the band makes up for it with the variety of instruments and sound effects like the waves crashing in the song Expired in Goreville. Craig Owen’s distinct vocals are objectively not perfect and sound a bit whiny at times, but for some reason I am drawn to them.

First Impression: This album is worth a listen, but definitely has its flaws.

Kaonashi is like nothing I’ve heard before. It’s a bit like a blend of math rock and hardcore. The songs off this album all sound completely different. You’ll Understand When You’re Older is as brutal as they come, but then they have M.O.R.G.A.N. that is a bit more on the post-hardcore side with a lot more clean vocals and even some piano. The album tells a story of a relationship and its falling out. The lyrics are pretty sappy for how brutal the album sounds. The singer’s unclean vocals are very unique, but I dig them. The band’s clean vocals, on the other hand, aren’t great.

First Impression: Pretty cool album. It’s definitely worth a listen or two.

In a new series of future blog posts titled First Impressions, I will be giving my first impressions on albums that I have never listened to. In order to actually review an album, I believe that it is nessecary to listen to the album at least three or four times. Therefore, these blog posts won’t follow the album review format. There will be no ratings and each album will be revisited with a formal rating in a later blog post. First album up is Why Did You Do It? by Kaonashi.

While their run was short, Eternity Forever was a phenomenal band. Their one and only album release, Fantasy, is a great listen. Although the album is short, with only 4 songs, it does not come up short of perfection. The album is a blend of funk, jazz, R&B and rock. Band members Ben Rosett (ex Strawberry Girls) and Brandon Ewing (ex Chon) both are former members of purely instrumental bands. Add former Dance Gavin Dance clean vocalist Kurt Travis and you have a match made in heaven.

Final Verdict: Great listen for fans of jazz or alternative rock.

Rating: 5/5

After 8 years, a total of 3 singers, and a 2 year hiatus, 131 was a pivotal album release for Emarosa. They seem to have finally found a band lineup and a sound that works for them. Their latest vocalist, Bradley Walden is fitting in perfectly with the band. The whole album is really captivating throughout. Most songs on the album are captivating with clean vocals, intricate guitar work, and meaningful lyrics. However, I did not care for the song Re. It didn’t really fit in with the album. It was a sort of medley of the other songs on the album, but seemed really overproduced. Other than that, 131 is a great listen for anyone interested in rock.

Final Verdict: Nearly perfect album.

Rating: 4.5/5

Oh man, where do I begin? This album makes me laugh every time that I listen to it. It’s hard to tell if Limp Bizkit is actually serious or if this album was just ironic. The theme of the whole album is “I’m Fred Durst and I’m pretty cool. If you think you’re cooler than me then I’m gonna beat you up.” I really tried to search for deeper meaning, but I couldn’t find it. The only lyric that I could extract from the album with any possible meaning is “Do you think we can fly?” from their song My Generation, talking about how his generation can succeed, even though older generations look down on it. The One is the band’s attempt at writing a deep, meaningful song, but it completely falls flat. The vocals are horrible. It’s clear that the band should stick to writing catchy rap rock songs.

Contrary to what I said earlier, the album is pretty catchy. That may be why the album reached 6x platnum status. Sometimes, I find myself singing along to songs in my head. Like “My way or the highway” or “keep rollin rollin rollin rollin.”

Final Verdict: Album is pretty bad, but its catchiness deserves some credit.

Rating: 2/5

California post-hardcore band Hail the Sun’s 2014 album Wake has proved to be the band’s definitive album. The album keeps the listener captivated and on their toes. The band’s dynamic capabilities are shown throughout with slower songs like Relax/Divide immediatly followed by Disappearing Syndrome, a heavy hitter. This is certainly an album that should be listened to as intended: front to back, starting with Rolling out the Red Carpet and ending with Anti-Eulogy. Each song transitions beautifly into the next dealing with themes like death, anger, substance abuse, relationships and religion.

Final Verdict: Honestly, I can’t find any problems with the album. It’s perfect in its entirety.

Score: 5/5

Today, I will be reviewing two blogs: Metal Sucks  and Rock Sound.

Metal Sucks is a popular blog about metal music. However, I looked at a few of their blog posts and it seems like a pretty horrible blog. Whoever runs the blog just seems like a group of pretentious elitists. For example, the first post I viewed was just the author bagging on an album without including any substantial criticism. The only content the review had was a bunch of unfunny jokes about how bad the album was. My blog will have a lot of actual criticism and explanations on why I think an album is good or bad.

Rock Sound is another blog about rock music encompassing metal and alternative as well.  Rock Sound is a lot better than Metal Sucks and actually includes some substantial criticisms, however, they don’t go very in depth with their reviews. My blog will contain more in depth reviews.