Jonathan Hill

A Soapbox for Uninformed Opinions

May
26

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Spiritual Beggars Demons Review

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Spiritual Beggars Demons Review

Artist: Spiritual Beggars
Album: Demons
Genre(s): Rock
Subgenres(s): Hard Rock, Stoner Rock
Released: 2005
Length: 49 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Icarus Music, Inside Out

Track List:

01. Inner Strength (Intro)
02. Throwing Your Life Away
03. Salt in Your Wounds
04. One Man Army
05. Through the Halls
06. Treading Water
07. Dying Every Day
08. Born to Die
09. Born to Die (Reprise)
10. In My Blood
11. Elusive
12. Sleeping With One Eye Open
13. No One Heard

Spiritual Beggars Demons Cover

Demons is the 6th effort by Swedish quintet Spiritual Beggars. The band draws on influences that span across the rock spectrum to include elements of psychedelic rock, blues rock, hard rock and even heavy metal for the colossal song In My Blood. When meshed together these diverse influences form the basis of the semi-obscure stoner rock scene, of which the Spiritual Beggars are usually associated with.

The lyrics are quite straightforward and focus on the struggles of life, regrets and depression but are presented in a way that is more akin to perseverance than misery. It is the last album by Spiritual Beggars to feature singer Janne “JB” Christoffersson (Grand Magus) whose powerful grit laden voice brings the songs on Demons to life in a way that few others ever could.

His voice is backed by a plethora of catchy, driven guitar leads and passionate solos courtesy of founding member Michael Amott (Arch Enemy, Carcass). This contrasts with bassist Sharlee D’Angelo as his playing seems to exist somewhere in the middle of everything else and while never being washed out, he rarely comes to the forefront. He gives the album a denser sound quality but lacks many of the outstanding moments you’ll hear coming from the guitar.

Spiritual Beggars frequently delve into fluid instrumental passages that give each band member the chance to really come to life and show that they have perfected their craft. Drummer Ludwig Witt injects creative fills between verses and keyboardist Per Wiberg provides colourful, sometimes textural keyboard lines (and an extended solo at the end of Dying Every Day). He often sounds like he is taking on a support role but if he featured more prominently it could have introduced an exciting and different dynamic to their sound.

Spiritual Beggars embody the heart and soul of rock music on Demons and in doing so they create a genre defining album that should have a place in the collection of all rock fanatics.

May
19

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The Atomic Fireballs Torch This Place Review

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The Atomic Fireballs Torch This Place Review

Artist: The Atomic Fireballs
Album: Torch This Place
Genre(s): Jazz
Subgenres(s): Swing Jazz
Released: 1999
Length: 39 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Atlantic Records, Lava Records

Track List:

01. Man With the Hex
02. Mata Hari
03. Swing Sweet Pussycat
04. Caviar & Chitlins
05. Lover Lies
06. Spanish Fly
07. Pango Pango
08. Hit by a Brick
09. Calypso King
10. Drink Drank Drunk
11. Flowers in the Sand
12. Starve a Fever

Atomic Fireballs Torch This Place Cover

Torch This Place is the first major label album and last ever release by The Atomic Fireballs. Finding initial success on the Vans Warped Tour in 1998, the band released Torch This Place the following year but unfortunately they never followed it up and subsequently faded into obscurity before they could make a name for themselves, much like the short lived swing revival scene.

While best described as a swing revival act, The Atomic Fireballs effortlessly match the powerhouse performance style of bands associated with the punk scene, which is something that cannot be said for most swing revival acts. This, along with John Buckley’s distinct throaty singing voice, makes The Atomic Fireballs stand apart from their contemporaries.

Their sound is not centred on a single instrument and instead opts for letting them interplay with each other to create a layered and rich listening experience that is easiest to recognise on Mata Hari and Flowers in the Sand. The brass section consists of a trumpet, trombone and a tenor saxophone that steals the show more often than not. Drummer Geoff Kinde provides a good number of short and sharp fills between his powerful and rhythmic percussive thumps.

The double bass and piano make louder contributions the quieter numbers Lover Lies, Hit By a Brick and Starve a Fever but can still be heard well enough on most of the other songs. The guitar on the other hand is by far the quietest instrument on the album and it is hard to hear it outside of Mata Hari and Spanish Fly.

The Atomic Fireballs are often over looked due to their short career but their ability to write swing jazz songs with punk-like energy makes Torch This Place a unique and electrifying album that is definitely worth your attention.

May
12

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Behold the Arctopus Skullgrid Review

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Behold the Arctopus Skullgrid Review

Artist: Behold the Arctopus
Album: Skullgrid
Genre(s): Heavy Metal
Subgenres(s): Progressive Metal
Released: 2007
Length: 34 minutes
Language(s): N/A
Label(s): Black Market Activities

Track List:

01. Skullgrid
02. Canada
03. Of Cursed Womb
04. You Are Number Six
05. Some Mist
06. Scepters
07. Transient Exuberance

Behold the Arctopus Skullgrid Cover

Behold the Arctopus’ Skullgrid will either leave you in awe of the bands musical abilities or recovering from a throbbing headache. If you do manage to get passed the intense musical acrobatics of Skullgrid you’ll quickly find that there isn’t much left to intrigue you with beyond that.

It’s nearly impossible to absorb and remember any of Skullgrid because no part of any song is present for more than a few seconds before it changes into something else. There are some strong moments but they are scattered throughout the album and get lost between the meandering instrumental passages on either side of them.

Canada is probably the most coherent song on Skullgrid with the opening segment being repeated a handful of times at seemingly random intervals, making it at least partially memorable. Song lengths vary greatly on Skullgrid with the title track being just over a minute long, You Are Number Six clocking in at 9 minutes and the other 5 songs going from 3 to 7 minutes in length.

There is easily enough material on Skullgrid to be fleshed out into multiple full length albums but instead you will hear Behold the Arctopus play every guitar scale, drum pattern and rhythm under the sun packed into a brief 34 minutes. The trio have technical abilities in spades but they would rather show off said abilities instead of crafting a series well thought out instrumental songs.

Skullgrid can best be likened to masturbation: self-indulgent, messy and no one else should have to hear about it.

May
5

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Team Sleep Team Sleep Review

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Team Sleep Team Sleep Review

Artist: Team Sleep
Album: Team Sleep
Genre(s): Electronic, Rock
Subgenres(s): Trip Hop, Trip Rock
Released: 2005
Length: 54 minutes
Language(s): English, French
Label(s): Maverick Records

Track List:

01. Ataraxia
02. Ever (Foreign Flag)
03. Your Skull is Red
04. Princeton Review
05. Blvd. Nights
06. Delorian
07. Our Ride to the Rectory
08. Tomb of Liegia
09. Elizabeth
10. Staring at the Queen
11. Ever Since WWI
12. King Diamond
13. Live from the Stage
14. Paris Arm
15. 11/11

Team Sleep Team Sleep Cover

Team Sleep is the self-titled debut album and end result of an extensive collaborative project that manages to pull together a myriad of influences ranging from shoegaze, post rock, dream pop, instrumental hip hop and glitch music. When combined, these influences are used to create a low key trip hop/trip rock album that focuses on ambience and textures with an experimental edge rather than big choruses or flashy instrumental leads.

The trip hop/trip rock songs that make up about 2/3 of the album are abruptly broken up by the more experimental and challenging songs littered through the track listing. The post rock/shoegaze styling of Your Skull is Red and Blvd. Nights will make you feel like you’re being swept under by a tidal wave of noise.

In contrast, the hip hop and glitch inspired song Staring at the Queen features programmed percussion that clangs around like a lumbering machine and is rounded off with skipping and looping effects in an effort to make it sound as dysfunctional as possible. King Diamond on the other hand uses samples of Chino Moreno and Mary Timony to create an odd spoken word collage with a similar musical style. While arguably not the highlights of Team Sleep, they are certainly memorable.

Paris Arm is a straightforward love song that is unexpectedly sung entirely in French by Sandy Lakdar, who is not credited in the album booklet but does get mentioned on the Team Sleep homepage. It is also one of the shortest songs on the album, only outstretching the interlude Delorian by 9 seconds.

While the brooding ambiance makes Team Sleep a suitable soundtrack for the small hours, the noisy post-rock/shoegaze and glitchy hip hop inspired songs will provide enough variation to stop the songs from running together.