August 05, 2006

Music Review: Fort Minor - The Rising Tied

I picked this CD up on a trip to Best Buy a couple weeks ago. I really like Linkin Park and this CD is the first release[0] by Mike Shinoda, one of LP's frontmen. There are defintely a couple of really good tracks on the CD. Most notably "Where'd You Go" and "Remember the Name". Both will probably get fair amounts of airplay if they haven't already.

Most of the other songs don't flow wonderfully, like when he's singing/rapping, it doesn't go along with the beat of the music all the time. Kinda throws it off sometimes. It's decent, but I'm not overly impressed. Then again, I'm not a huge hip-hop fan, which may have something to do with it as well.

I give it 5.5 out of 10 pirates.

[0] That I am aware of.

Posted by Michael at 09:11 PM | Comments (0)

Music Review: Dashboard Confessional - Dusk and Summer

I was eagerly awaiting Dashboard's new release, since it's pretty much my favorite band. I've listened through it at least a couple times and I have to say that it's good. It sounds like Chris Carraba (lead singer/songwriter) is trying lots of different things out. He's got some songs that sound very different than his previous work and some which sound similar to things on his acoustic album as well as "A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar". To me it seems like he's trying to figure out which direction to take his music.

Not my favorite of his CDs, but it has some solid tracks on it. Unfortunately (for him), I don't think many of his songs will get serious airplay. Candidates that could make it[0] are "So Long, So Long" and "Dusk and Summer".

I give it 7.5 out of 10 pirates.

[0] "Don't Wait" was the first single off the disc, and I think it got _some_ airplay.

Posted by Michael at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)

June 10, 2006

New CDs

I bought a couple of CDs the other day. I purchased Rise Against - Siren Song of the Counter Culture and Panic! At the Disco - A Fever You Can't Sweat Out. Both are pretty good.

Rise Against is (from what I heard) supposed to be hardcore punk. While I probably wouldn't classify it as such, it is definitely more punk than most of the punk-pop that is on the radio right now. I probably wouldn't classify it as punk though, simply because the songs are over 2 minutes in length. =) It's pretty good too. I have been enjoying it this past week, there are about 5 songs that I rate at 4 stars (out of 5) on my iPod. I give the CD a rating of 4 out of 5 pirates.

Panic! At the Disco is fairly new, it has Fall Out Boy's singer, but I don't know if it has any other of Fall Out Boy's band members. I haven't unfortunately given it much of a listen yet, but so far it sounds fairly comparable to most of Fall Out Boy's stuff. I'll probably give it a more in depth listen soon and will post a rating, but for now I can't since I haven't given it a serious listen.

Posted by Michael at 11:17 PM | Comments (4)

February 27, 2006

Matchbook Romance - Voices

It's been a while since I bought a CD. Well, not really. It's been like 3 1/2 weeks. OK, so maybe it hasn't been that long. In any case, I recently bought the new Matchbook Romance CD Voices. I bought their first CD a long time ago in a nearby galaxy and really enjoyed it. As such I was looking forward to their new disc. So far, I haven't been disappointed. I like 6 of the songs a lot and the others are a little slow and I haven't been able to get into them yet.

The CD sounds a lot cleaner than the Stories and Alibis release. The art inside the disc is very cool too.

4 out of 5 pirates.

Posted by Michael at 09:19 PM | Comments (3)

December 01, 2005

Music Review: The Fray - How To Save a Life

Picked up this at Best Buy for $10 the other day on my brother's recommendation. Very cool stuff. Kinda mellow, it has some piano in it, which is a little different for most of the rock that I am familiar with. But very cool nonetheless.

The first 4 songs on the CD are very good. Especially the 3rd.

4.5 out of 5 pirates.

Posted by Michael at 08:46 AM | Comments (1)

February 24, 2005

CDs I bought a while ago

Here's an update on some of the CDs I have purchased recently and how good I think they are.

Posted by Michael at 02:56 PM | Comments (4)