Thursday, August 27, 2015

Band Review Catchup: Into Colour, Second Nature, Daniel Ray, Antonio S Galica


I suspect it comes through sometimes that I can be kind of neurotic about the music reviews. I agonize over giving a bad review, and whether my reviews are helpful in matching bands up with prospective fans. I also worry about how long a band has been waiting for coverage, even if the reasons for putting off the review are well-intended.

Just for the record, I am also leaving on vacation next Saturday, and Wednesday I am going to a concert where I don't know if I will be ready to start reviewing them on Thursday, and certainly listening will be disrupted while I am gone. That probably doesn't require this much stress, but here we are.

So today and tomorrow will be going over some names that have been in the spreadsheet for a while, but where there are factors preventing a standard review. I believe this will be soothing, and I can at least move them over to the Song of the Day waiting list if applicable.

Bands without very much material

A band with a huge catalog is its own type of stress, but it gives you a chance to see what they are doing. While it is less to work with, a 4 or 5 track EP can still give a great impression of a band and their direction.

These bands didn't give me a lot to go on. I waited for more to come, but it's been a while.

Into Colour

This is actually pretty interesting in that the song, "Half A Battle", starts out sounding very ambient, then turns harder, but is done in such a way that it sounds like a completely natural progression. I can appreciate that, even though neither ambient nor hard rock are really my thing.





Second Nature

It has been almost a year since their one minute demo went up. When it is outside of my preferred genres, it is even more important for me to have multiple tracks to listen to. This is metalcore, and not my strong suit. I don't think they are doing badly at all, and I will always give bands from New Jersey a chance, but it's just not enough for me to go on.




The weirdest thing for me is that apparently both of those bands have merch available. I am guessing that maybe they play live dates, and just haven't put a lot of material online, but I feel like getting tracks recorded is really important.

I also have a strong preference for original material. That leads us to...

Bands that only show covers

Daniel Ray

I saw that he was working on an album, and I have been waiting for that. It still says that will happen, but it's been a long time.

There is enough material here to at least have an idea of Daniel's range. He should be great for people who like Bruce Springsteen but would prefer him more mellow and acoustic. There is a really nice team-up with another band, The Aroostercrats, on "Two Hearts".




Bands?

Sometimes people follow me that appear to be musicians, but maybe there's not a link to music, or they are promoting something else instead.

Antonio S Galica

When there is a link to Soundclould you are usually safe, but in this case, while some of the tracks do have musical accompaniment it is primarily spoken word. I do sometimes like spoken word, if it's vibrant and funny, and possibly live, but this is not working for me. It may work for you.


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