| Mix picks: CD
DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL, "Dusk and Summer" (Vagrant Records) -- The latest album from Chris Carrabba's super-successful emo-rock outfit Dashboard Confessional continues the artist's emotional excursions into the world of young love -- with all its heightened yearnings and frequent sorrows. And if there are hints of U2-style production textures, as in the standout second track "Reason to Believe," well, U2 collaborator Daniel Lanois had a hand in the production, though Linkin Park producer Don Gilmore, who produced Dashboard's 2004 "Spider-Man 2" soundtrack hit "Vindicated," is responsible for most of it. .
IF YOU GO: more than personal
Slip on The Sun Awakens, the new recording by the indie folk-rock thrill seekers known as Six Organs of Admittance, and you may be as puzzled as anyone in describing what you hear. Despite its name, the album-opening Torn by Wolves seems inviting enough, with strains of sunny melodies and folkish rhythms. But by Bless Your Blood, the storm clouds gather and electric guitar, no pun intended, bleeds into the soundscape. By the time the 24-minute River of Transfiguration closes the record, you feel you're at a sance with a minimalist drone and distant choral passages as your primary guides. All of which might suggest that Ben Chasny -- or "Mr. Six Organs," as his record label calls him -- is one moody fellow. But in conversation, Chasny is as animated and quick-witted as his music is meditative -- that is, until you ask him to put a label on his music.
more than personal
Slip on The Sun Awakens, the new recording by the indie folk-rock thrill seekers known as Six Organs of Admittance, and you may be as puzzled as anyone in describing what you hear. Despite its name, the album-opening Torn by Wolves seems inviting enough, with strains of sunny melodies and folkish rhythms. But by Bless Your Blood, the storm clouds gather and electric guitar, no pun intended, bleeds into the soundscape. By the time the 24-minute River of Transfiguration closes the record, you feel you're at a sance with a minimalist drone and distant choral passages as your primary guides. All of which might suggest that Ben Chasny -- or "Mr. Six Organs," as his record label calls him -- is one moody fellow. But in conversation, Chasny is as animated and quick-witted as his music is meditative -- that is, until you ask him to put a label on his music.
Electronic dance act Dress Code finds focus
Although local electronic dance act Dress Code performs occasionally in clubs and at events like Mid-Point Music Festival in Cincinnati, Derek "DJH" Holley thinks of his project more as a virtual band. As the term suggests, the Dayton-native's one-man electronic band has a much larger presence on the Internet. .
As I Lay Dying: Hear It!
For San Diego based Christian Metalcore outfit As I Lay Dying the time has come. First formed back 2001, they released their debut Beneath the Encasing of Ashes that same year on the indie Pluto Records. They later signed to Metal Blade records in 2003 and their Metal Blade debut Frail Words Collapse followed soon after. In the interim the band underwent numerous changes in personnel before its current line-up recorded last years acclaimed Shadows Are Security. Recently the band issued A Long March: The First Recordings which contains the now out of print Beneath the Encasing of Ashes and the band's much sought after 2002 split EP with American Tragedy as well as that same EP re-recorded. On the band's recent tour of Australia, Joe Matera sat down with As I Lay Dying's guitar meisters Phil Sgrosso and Nick Hipa during the band's soundcheck in Melbourne for this exclusive interview for UG.
Body Politics
Perhaps it's unfair to begrudge Mr. Lif the right to record a stinky-booty song. Every hardworking MC is entitled to a little alleged comic relief, and hip-hop has long shown an affinity for the mundane facets and pitfalls of sex. But Lif's not every MC, and his previous record, 2002's I Phantom, wasn't just any rap album. It began with Lif asking a friend for a handgun and ended with a cataclysmic landscape of fire and ash. In between, it examined the cause and effect of urban economics, from corporate-sanctioned drudgery to the realities of growing up with absentee, work-three-jobs parents. It was heady stuff, rapped with sass and confidence. Mo' Mega, by contrast, is thematically scattershot and packed with easy targets. Lif's talent with bitter-tongued lyrics and acid-poet imagery hasn't weakened, but somewhere along the way, he failed to recognize that the fullness of his previous disc's worldview elevated him above all the ego-tripping hacks who blend self-serving, undergrad-level political protest into the eternal quest for hip-hop lucre.
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