Jane Carrey Band - Self-Titled CD

Release Date: 15-September-2009

Genre: Indie/Folk/Jazz

Format: CD

Publisher: Carreyon23 Music

Total Time: 49:35

Reviewed: 07-December-2009

Track Listing:

01. Carnival 4:03

02. Sexy Man In A Death Metal Band 4:52

03. Simple Beauty 4:17

04. Wishing And Waiting 3:40

05. Cry Cry Cry 4:00

06. Breathing Without You 3:57

07. Oh Lover 3:16

08. Sticky Situation 3:37

09. Jane Bond 3:37

10. City Lights 3:53

11. Blank Face 3:13

12. Me And Mikey 3:33

13. Use My Heart 3:34

Review:

With a growing fan base, well-played live performances, and a debut release that really shines, the Jane Carrey Band is certainly defining their place within the indie music scene.  All the most important ingredients are in place for the makings of a successful band, not the least of which is extraordinary talent.  In adding to the band's expanding list of industry accolades, the self-titled release by the Jane Carrey Band has been named by SonicJive.com as its 2009 New Release Of The Year.  

The Jane Carrey Band are singer/guitarist Jane Carrey, guitarist Daniel Sahagun, bassist Ian Sloane and drummer Terry Goldberg.  Their recipe of ghosted ballads, forlorn melodies and lovesick lullabies is immersed in ambition, depth and musical sweep. However, these songs are bigger than heartache and for the most part the music resonates in an uplifting, airy intimacy. And, despite the melancholy theme throughout, the band manages to sound playful and utterly charming at times, an unexpected blend of beguiling contradiction.

There are some wonderfully delicious forces at play on this CD  that are revealed through musical substance and outward charisma. As a songwriter and performer, Jane Carrey has an undeniable grasp of melodic form and structure.  Some of the album's most celebrated gems ("Sexy Man In A Death Metal Band", "Jane Bond", Simple Beauty" and "Cry Cry Cry") possess both dominant and sub-dominant harmonies with wonderful interplay between vocals and instrumentation.  The arrangements are splendid and eclectic.  The production is crisp and multifarious. Usage of instruments like the vibraphone, glockenspiel and upright bass help to complete the jazzy feel of this CD.  Subtle intricacies, such as the piano solo in "Blank Face" convey ambiance and dimension.

As a vocalist, Carrey shines on "Sexy Man In A Death Metal Band", displaying a flawless range while reinforcing a come-hither attitude and wanton desire.  At points where the music halts we are left with Carrey's uncovered, smoldering hunger and adulterated invulnerability.The sub-plot here is a more-than-usual rock feel to the song that accentuates its storyline. 

Similarly, "Me And Mikey" is another great song with swaggering rock guitars accentuated by rhythmic percussion and hypnotic bass lines. Thematically desperate and unguarded, "Me And Mikey" is "Sexy Man's" mortal antithesis, an impassioned plea for reconciliation and compassion. 

Through the use of addictive instrumental hooks, mesmerizing harmonies and playful choruses "Cry Cry Cry" showcases an expertise in radio-friendly pop prowess.   Super-charged momentum belies the lyrical content, however, so phrases like "Take me to the depths of Hell" and "Please don't leave, first medicate me" seem more defiant than narcotized.  The backing "ah ah ah ah-ah" vocals in the second verse spotlight the wonderful irony of this composition. "Cry Cry Cry" is the jewel of this disc.

"Simple Beauty" is a lush and layered dissertation that effortlessly combines essences of jazz, folk and pop. The listener becomes musically immersed with the opening notes while nuances like the attenuated use of the glockenspiel and acoustic guitar command listener attention.  Again, the interconnect between dominant and sub-dominant harmony is breathtaking.   On "Simple Beauty", Carrey and band exude a veteran proficiency that surmounts their recording inexperience. 

Other highlights include the covertly mysterious "Jane Bond,"  which is as suave and sophisticated as the character from which the song was derived,  as well as jazz-centered numbers "Breathing Without You" and "Blank Face."  "City Lights" is a scorching, avant-garde jazz and folk amalgamation. Call it a chill-out votive for the retro-Euro set that will play just as well in Los Angeles as it would in Greenwich Village. As a bonus, the song segues flawlessly into the wonderfully eclectic "Blank Face."  

The self-titled debut release by the Jane Carrey Band is an enchanting recording, beset with introspective imagery and so fluid it actually moves.  Some of the lower-key songs may not work for some listeners and I am not sure if leading with "Carnival" sets the correct mood musically (though it works  thematically). That being said, it is rare for a debut CD to have so many appealing songs. For the better part of the disc the band is classically intoxicating and for the most part, irresistible.  Five stars. 

-- Michael Canter, www.jivewired.com

theendisthebeginning - master machine

Year: November 10, 2009

Genre: Indie/Post-Rock/Alternative/Ambient Rock

SonicJive: http://www.sonicjive.com/theendisthebeginning

Format:  CD

Label: The Brown Noise/Chupee Records

Total Time: 20:27

Reviewed: 09-November-2009

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Leah-Carla Gordone - Phoenix From The Ashes: Rise

Year: 2008

Genre: Pop/rock/soul/folk/adult contemporary

SonicJive: http://www.sonicjive.com/lcgordone

Format:  CD

Total Time: 57:32

Reviewed: 20-October-2009

Track Listing:

01. a mother's lullaby 1:19

02. naked 5:40

03. sleeping dogs 3:15

04. what it feels like 6:30

05. i am your friend 3:57

06. sweet by-and-by 4:11

07. flyin' high 5:08

08. words 4:56

09. break 3:48

10. why 5:05

11. tomorrow's another day 4:24

12. rise 4:00

13. believe in me 5:19

Review:

Phoenix From The Ashes: Rise is a stunning album from Leah-Carla Gordone.  Born and raised in the heart of New York City, Leah-Carla is the daughter of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Charles Gordone. She has toured the country and parts of Europe. She has opened for Norah Jones and The Indigo Girls. 

Her autobiography The Motorgirl Memoirs: Adventures In Mania And Semi-Normality will be available in bookstores and at www.amazon.com beginning October 25, 2009.

Take a deep breath.  Light a candle.  Turn out the lights.  Pour a glass of you favorite wine.  Put your headphones on. Listen.

Inspired by real-life stories, Leah-Carla Gordone crafts exquisite beauty on this CD which is the musical appendage to her upcoming literary autobiography.  Both haunting and captivating in equal measure, Gordone's music is cinematic in scope, no doubt inspired by her fight with bipolar disorder and subsequent victory.  Lyrically, she is hauntingly beautiful and tellingly effective and vocally she emerges as an ethereal cross between Alanis Morisette and Rickie Lee Jones but with a uniqueness that separates her from the two.  Gordone is throaty and full when necessary and when the mood calls, subdued for effect, never overbearing or obnoxious.

"Naked" is the strongest track on the CD. Gordone is at her peak vocally hitting both ends of her range and everything between without restraint or effort. Dez Lawrence on keys is a magnificent accompaniment and really shines but make no mistake, this is a statement song by Gordone.  Immersible in mood and setting, "Naked" is a breathless dive into percussive waters, both invigorating and bound  to the need for love and the feeding of that fire and passion.  Its parts compliment each other in sum, as one would be helpless without the other, and this is reflected superbly in its arrangement. To put it more simply, "Naked" is one of 2009's most knee-buckling beautiful songs.

Additionally the CD features a number of highlights, including the achingly poignant "Sweet By-And-By", a tear-jerking ballad that is sublimely fragile and packed with sad but beautiful words.  The instrumentation on "Flyin' High" is atmospheric and effectively manifests an effervescence that flawlessly expresses its mood.  "Words" is a defiant lament that delimits the repetitive nature of bad relationships.  This enigmatic song has an upbeat and hopeful tempo that offsets its underlying, melancholy orchestration and dispiriting message.  Kelly Simmons on viola is superb throughout this song and the emphasis on the snare is extremely effective as well.  "Sleeping Dogs" is a funky groove/r&b/rap hybrid reminiscent of Me'Shell Ndegeocello .

Built on well-layered instrumentation and the stunning vocals of Gordone and an effectively understated band that includes Dez Lawrence and Kelly Simmons as well as Ryan Combs on bass and Tim Armstrong on drums, Phoenix From The Ashes: Rise is a work of magic.  Because of the autobiographical foundation created by Leah-Carla, this CD will always hold a special place in my collection.  But there is more to it than that.  The album speaks for itself musically and were Gordone's life story not attached it would still rate very favorably.  But the combination makes it that much more special.

Michael Canter, www.sonicjive.com

"The best movie of the year.  Make no mistake, this one is an instant classic." - Scott Feinberg, Los Angeles Times.

Milwaukee Film Festival Showing at North Shore Cinema, Mequon, WI 53092

Racing Dreams
USA | 2009 | 94 min | English

Extreme Kart Racing is to NASCAR what Little League is to professional baseball. Three young racers discover if they have everything it takes to make it in racing.  Academy Award nominated director Marshall Curry (Street Fight) takes us into the lives of Annabeth (11 years old), Josh (12) and Brandon (13) as they compete for the World Karting Association's National Championship.  Clocking speeds of up to 70 MPH in extreme racing karts, these young racers hope to follow the scores of great NASCAR drivers who also got started in racing's Little Leagues.  As they race their way through the year-long championship series, they also navigate the treacherous road between childhood and young adulthood.  In intimate moments of young love and family struggle we experience a time in life when all of us are just beginning to figure out who we are and what we are made of.  Think Spellbound on a racing track.

Director:  Marshall Curry
Producers:  Bristol Baughan, Marshall Curry, Jack Turner, Dwayne Johnson, Danny Garcia, Ben Goldhirsh
Cinematographers:  Alan Jacobsen, Wolfgang Held, Peter Gordon, Marshall Curry
Editors:  Matthew Hamachek, Marshall Curry, Mary Manhardt
Selected Filmography: Street Fight (2005)
Previous Screenings:  Tribeca Film Festival 2009 (Award Winner), Indianapolis Film Festival 2009 (Award Winner)

Website: www.racingdreamsfilm.com

Mike Zito - Pearl River

Year: September 22, 2009

Genre: Blues/Roots/Rock

SonicJive: http://www.sonicjive.com/mikezito

Format:  CD

Total Time: 55:52

Reviewed: 22-September-2009

Track Listing:

01. Dirty Blond 3:37

02. Pearl River 4:54

03. Big Mouth 4:08

04. Change My Ways 5:15

05. Eyesight To The Blind 3:21

06. One Step At A Time 3:37

07. 39 Days 4:07

08. Shoes Blues 3:24

09. The Dead Of Night 4:05

10. Sugar Sweet 3:30

11. Natural Born Lover 5:30

12. All Last Night 5:27

13. C'mon Baby 4:57 

Review:

An entertaining mix of rootsy originals, Pearl River is an intricate suffuse of Delta blues, Southern-fried country funk, and roots-rock. Mike Zito is a gifted vocalist and an accomplished song writer, belting out a bevy of bluesier numbers with passion and finesse emphasizing full, throaty vocals.  Zito draws influences and inspiration from the likes of Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Many of the songs propound on standard blues imagery, but Zito offers glimpses of hope through change, self-realization, even salvation.  What makes Pearl River special is Zito's ability to convey those emotions musically as well as lyrically.

This album features a song that could well be the independent blues & roots song of the year. The title song, Pearl River is a fiery composite of delta blues and roots music. Featuring Cyril Neville on vocal accompaniment (he also co-wrote the song), Pearl River is a bayou-bluesy, dusty road eulogy with an emphatic gospel feel.  Zito is at his gritty best vocally and Neville is absolutely regal.  Reese Wynans' sublimely fervent keyboards marinate well with Zito's guitar solos and impassioned vocals. Pearl River will likely spawn a blues/country/rock crossover hit for Zito. 

One Step At A Time is the first single release from Pearl River and features Anders Osborne on acoustic guitar and accompanying vocals.  Here Zito is at his soulful best, raising his stock as a singer/songwriter. Expressive and lively, there is a timelessness to this song; it feels like a standard.   Alternating with him on lead vocals, Osborne offers a more casual style that makes a nice contrast to Zito's intensity and their harmonies are flawless. You'll find One Step At A Time impossible to forget.

Shoes Blues has a funky 1960's Memphis revivalist feel that is deep, raw and reminiscent of the legendary Stax Records signature sound.  Here Zito performs a duet with Susan Cowsill (of The Cowsills fame).  The vocal interplay works well;  Cowsill offers heart-felt, country-accented vocals that perfectly underscore Zito's resonant sound, and again, the interplay between Wynans on keys and Zito on guitar is magical.

Other standout tracks include Dirty Blond and Natural Born Lover, both relentless, Texas-blues rave-ups that are roaring and impassioned tributes to some of the most vital, influential, and yet often unheralded figures in blues/rock, such as Jimmie Vaughan, Doyle Bramhill, C.C. Adcock and Guitar Slim.   All Last Night is an unrestrained and vehement blues jam that will melt your CD player.

After four independent releases and his 2008 national debut with Today, Mike Zito is about to embark into somewhat epic territory as Pearl River will surely garner national mainstream and blues/country/roots crossover accolades.  Produced by David Z. (Prince, Buddy Guy, Etta James, Jonny Lang)  and joined by a handful of guests, including Cyril Neville, Anders Osborne, Reese Wynans and Susan Cowsill, Pearl River is Mike Zito's most accomplished work to date. This five-star release comes with our highest recommendation. 

-- Michael Canter www.SonicJive.com

The internet at forty

Sep 4th 2009
From Economist.com

A mid-life crisis threatens its future

THIS past week marked the 40th birthday of the internet. And, like most other things on the brink of middle-age, the internet is struggling with its own mid-life crisis. At issue is whether it can continue to provide equal access for everyone and everything, or must evolve into something entirely different in order to cope with changing circumstances.

Such contentious issues never dawned on the dozen or so engineers who gathered in the laboratory of Leonard Kleinrock (pictured below) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on September 2nd, 1969, to watch two computers transmit data from one to the other through a 15-foot cable. The success heralded the start of ARPANET, a telecommunications network designed to link researchers around America who were working on projects for the Pentagon. ARPANET, conceived and paid for by the defence department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (nowadays called DARPA), was unquestionably the most important of the pioneering “packet-switched” networks that were to give birth eventually to the internet.

AP

Packet switching slices messages (whether text, graphics, audio or video) into suitably sized blocks of data, like a series of letters in the mail. Each “letter” has an address on the front, a sequence code on the back, and a chunk of the data inside the envelope. The network over which the packets travel routes them independently of one another, allocating the path that each is to take according to the resources available at that instant.

The goal is to get the best use out of the limited capacity of the various links in the network. As a bonus, packet switching ensures that, thanks to the many different routes individual packets can take, the message will always get through—even if it has to wait for errant packets that have taken the long way round. Such redundancy makes packet networks—unlike traditional circuit-switched networks—extremely robust.

Several weeks after the demonstration at UCLA, the Stanford Research Institute in the Bay Area joined the fledgling packet-switched network, to be followed shortly thereafter by the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. By December 1969 the first four nodes of ARPANET were up and running.

One crucial thing was still missing before ARPANET could become the internet as it is known today. There was no way of connecting it to other packet-switched networks, especially those based on the X.25 standard developed (from ARPANET) by the International Telecommunication Union, and used widely in Europe and elsewhere.

The missing link was supplied by Robert Kahn of DARPA and Vinton Cerf at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Their solution for getting networks that used different ways of transmitting data to work together was simply to remove the software built into the network for checking whether packets had actually been transmitted—and give that responsibility to software running on the sending and receiving computers instead. With this approach to “internetworking” (hence the term “internet), networks of one sort or another all became simply pieces of wire for carrying data. To packets of data squirted into them, the various networks all looked and behaved the same.

To its lasting credit, DARPA paid for the necessary software to be developed and made it open-source and freely available. The result was a suite of internetworking protocols known as TCP/IP (after the first two protocols defined by the standard, Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol). So effective was the Kahn/Cerf approach that insiders used to joke that TCP/IP would even work over a pair of tin-cans connected by a piece of string. (Enthusiasts have, in fact, transmitted IP packets using pigeons.) The internet as it is now known was born when ARPANET was converted to TCP/IP in 1983.

It was a decade later, though, before it became a household term. Anyone with memories of using early online services such as CompuServe or Prodigy will recall how tedious it was to navigate their cumbersome menus just to send an e-mail or read a bulletin board.

That all changed in 1991 with the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau at the European Centre for Nuclear Research in Geneva. Within a year software packages such as Viola, Cello and Mosaic had made it possible for users to browse the web graphically, by clicking on highlighted links embedded in pages of information that would redirect them to other web pages, and so on. The rest, as they say, is history.

Or so it would have been if all that the world’s 1.1 billion internet users wanted to do was search the web for information, buy goods online and send e-mail messages to one another. But today such applications account for only a small fraction of internet traffic. The bulk of the bandwidth is hogged instead by people downloading or swapping music, television shows and full-length movies, or playing online video games.

Nowadays, YouTube streams more data in three months than all the world’s radio stations plus cable and broadcast television channels stream in a year. Justification enough, say the cable and telephone companies that provide access to the internet, to ration it, charge extra or even block heavy users altogether—as Comcast, America’s largest cable TV provider, was caught doing illegally a couple of years ago.

Proponents of “net neutrality” argue that, apart from charging or rationing heavy users, the telephone and cable monopolies want to act as gatekeepers to the internet, deciding which websites load quickly and which won’t load at all. In other words, they want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data, while discriminating in favour of their own search engines, internet phone services and streaming video. Tim Wu of Columbia Law School calls it the “Tony Soprano business model”.

Your correspondent thinks both sides are being disingenuous. There is no question that, if net neutrality means keeping the internet the way it has been for the past 40 years, it will stall and eventually collapse under the weight of the world’s burgeoning demand for online multimedia. It desperately needs a make-over as well as significant investment in additional capacity.

And beware of those who scream the loudest for net neutrality: a neutral internet that offers a first-come-first-served service only perpetuates the advantage that large incumbents like Google, Yahoo, Skype and Akamai already enjoy at the expensive of smaller firms and start-ups.

But the phone and cable companies are themselves being duplicitous. Their argument for a tiered service, with heavy users paying more, is based on the need to guarantee a higher “quality of service” for time-sensitive data such as streaming video or internet telephony, which can freeze annoyingly if packets get lost or delayed. By contrast, no-one cares if an e-mail takes a few seconds longer to arrive—and it can therefore be allotted a lower quality of service.

Your correspondent believes some form of prioritisation for time-sensitive data is going to be crucial in a world of video everywhere. But he is not convinced that the phone and cable companies should be allowed to charge for it, as it costs them little to provide. Besides, a technique called “over-provisioning” provides more bandwidth for less money than any of the quality-of-service approaches currently being touted. Anyone in doubt should check out the Internet 2 Abilene Network used by a number of American universities.

A bill that would guarantee net neutrality is working its way (for a third time) through Congress. The last two attempts by Ed Markey, a Democratic representative from Massachusetts, to get net neutrality onto the statute book faltered. But with a more sympathetic president in the White House and a new chairman at the Federal Communications Commission, the bill’s political fortunes would seem to have brightened noticeably.

Whether the bill will do much for people wanting to watch their favourite TV shows on a computer or mobile phone is a different matter. Sooner or later, the dilapidated internet will have to be refurbished.

Polly PUt The Kettle On - One Man Screamed

Year: August, 2008

Genre: Rock/Funk/Grunge

SonicJive:  http://www.sonicjive.com/PPTKO

Format:  CD

Total Time:47:50

Reviewed: 31-August-2009

Track Listing:

01. Complicated Mess 4:32

02. Angst 4:20

03. Walk With You 2:23

04. Burned Appendages 3:57

05. Power 4:22

06. My Crime 5:41

07. Angel 4:10

08. Same Mistakes 4:40

09. Crystal Ball 6:04

10. Rescued 3:42

11. Better Than I Am 3:59

Review:

J.C. Simonsen is the man behind Polly PUt The Kettle On, literally.  J.C. handles all songwriting, production and arrangements as well as providing vocals and instrumentation, hence the name of the CD One Man Screaming.  This CD is a hybrid collection of carefully-crafted rock, funk and grunge that plays well.  The most important pieces of the making of a successful indie act are in place, not the least of which is immeasurable talent.  Simonsen handles all aspects of the production of this effort very well, and at times he is way above the norm.  "One Man Screaming" is a slow-burning under-the-radar grower that gets better and better with each play.

From the offset this is a very heavy yet understated rock record - somewhat maudlin and contemplative, a man alone with his thoughts and observations. Simonsen meticulously sculpts a reverberant lo-fi soundscape, it's repressed emotion bubbling beneath the surface.   Complicated Mess, Power, My Crime, and Better Than I Am take the sound that is Polly PUt The Kettle On into epic, forward-thinking territory.  Indeed, Complicated Mess is the finest track on the CD, combining elements of rock and grunge with a hipster, shoegaze sound.  It carries the downtrodden, acoustic singer/songwriter appeal that is a personal favorite of mine and Simonsen owns it and works it in effortless fashion. I am not sure how to explain it, but there is a hazy, hungover feeling to Complicated Mess that is it's strength here.

Angel is another gem on this disc.  It is musically more uptempo than the other songs but Simonsen does well to keep it constrained enough so as not to disrupt the dark and brooding mood of the entire disc. This is fully accomplished through his lyrics "you're like an angel fallen down from the sky/I see the fire burn in your eyes/A child of heaven with an arrow in your side/so now you've come to die".  The arrangement on this song is heightened through rhythm and voice, evolving into an almost progressive improvisation. Simonsen stands out vocally, showing more range than on any of the other songs. 

On Same Mistakes, Simonsen adds a modern twist to guitar work that is a reminder of Neil Young's electric work with Crazy Horse.  At various moments there is an almost electric-folk feel to the song, but again, the inhibited angst finds its way to the forefront, giving a foreboding presence that segues well into the following number, Crystal Ball.

Brilliantly, Crystal Ball starts as a dark and brooding stunner that casts an affront on hiding the truth and ascends in tone and demeanor as truth is revealed and the vague subtleties between the two are exposed.  The reversal in mood here works well and again Simonsen gives the song a somewhat progressive feel.

We've all had the dream where we are trying to scream but nothing comes out.  Indeed, the loudest scream is often the one we never hear.  Like the dream, Simonsen has mimicked that feeling of restrained emotion looking for an amplified outlet by going somewhat beyond limited genre labels. Very much solitary music, One Man Screaming is the kind of record that plays well at times of emotional apathy.  If you are feeling like you've had enough and just a little road-weary, put this on and try not to be impressed as that wry smile that says "Yeah, I relate" purses your lips.  J.C. Simonsen, aka Polly PUt The Kettle On, is on to something here.

-- Michael Canter (www.sonicjive.com) 

Blue Far Down - Self Titled EP

Year: July, 2009

Genre: Hard Rock/Grunge

SonicJive:http://www.sonicjive.com/bluefardown

Format:  MP3

Total Time: 8:02

Reviewed: 30-August-2009

Track Listing:

01. Tonight 2:38

02. Problem 2:20

03. Wonder Why 3:44

Review:

Hard rock as a genre is difficult to define because of the numerous sub-genres that proliferate the landscape of what is simply straight-ahead, hard-core rock and roll. The basis of every sub-genre is the simple foundation of harsh, amplified sound and thundering, electric guitars (sometimes distorted), a kick-ass back line and pulsating bass.  The difference makers are the bands that are lyrically proficient and vocally outstanding.  No matter what you define as your sub-genre, without great lyrical and vocal content, you are just making noise (instrumental songs aside). In reverence to hard rock bands and artists that have succeeded in this manner, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam and Chris Cornell to name a few, Blue Far Down succeeds using a similar formula.  This is smarter-than-average hard rock, but admittedly, it may be easy to miss the more subtle aspects of Blue Far Down against the thrashing din of their sledgehammer instrumental attack.

On their latest release, the self-titled Blue Far Down E.P. - Daryl, Jason, Bob and Clem have taken that step toward becoming the next, great hard rock band.  The bass work on this EP is simply outstanding and the remarkable instrumentation and vocals are much more advanced than on their previous release.  But where the band really has matured is in the studio production and the arrangements of the three songs that comprise this disc.

Wonder Why is a darkly gorgeous song that evokes pathos as well as anger.  This is Blue Far Down at its collective best; they excel at misery and suffering because they exercise superb consistency in evoking that blues/grunge/hard rock despair.  The demonstrative opening bass line will stop your heart and the song builds to a crescendo of fire and fury with a vocal texture eerily reminiscent of some of Kurt Cobain's more hard core stuff. This is the best song on the E.P.

When you listen to Tonight you will understand what I mean by smarter-than-average hard rock;  a well-placed riff here, intentional distortion there, a muffled scream, and thrashing instrumentation that is specifically arranged to hurtle toward you like a speeding freight train.  There is an uncontrolled control to this song and therein the maturity lies.  Because each band member plays a significant part in this song, the temptation is there for the song to be pulled in four different directions.  Fortunately Blue Far Down resists this temptation and the result is a great rock and roll song that is simply a great lick and a great hook, but with oh so much more behind-the-scenes. With each listen something new yet subtle jumps to the forefront. 

The problem with Problem is that the guitar solo and the bass really stand out here.  Don't get me wrong, the song is good on its own merit and those two elements make it very good.  To me, the song seems to have ended perhaps prematurely and feels like it needs some continuation and culmination.  Maybe in live performances the band extends the lead and bass solos.  Maybe I am jaded because on a three-song EP I would like the songs to be just a little longer from a listener's perspective. Regardless,  I think Problem could stand head and shoulders with the other two songs had it just been a little longer. 

Back in the day, bands used the E.P. as a promotional device to get heard and it makes sense.  One, as a band you get to provide the listener with your best stuff without any filler.  Also, it's easier to catch the ear of a station manager or AOR rep with a smaller listening sample.  Blue Far Down takes full advantage of this format to launch an all-out assault that is their best work to date.  I imagine they walked into the recording studio saying "We're gonna kill it".  Mission accomplished.

(MP3's available at Amazon.com by clicking the cover art)

-- Michael Canter (www.sonicjive.com)