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RECENT
2008 REVIEWS
GUNS OF DETROIT - Monsterattake's
"The Guns of
Detroit are slated next week to release their first CD -- an eight-song indie-label
offering that should cement their standing as one of College Station's most
likely rock bands to garner a national following. That's not a prediction. As
with all up-and-coming bands, a lot is dependent on perseverance and blind luck
for such a scenario to occur. But guitarist/singer Randall McKay and Co. have
proved on Monsterattake's that they have the chops to transcend the local music
scene," The Eagle News - CollegeStation, TX
THE MOST POWERFUL TELESCOPE IN THE
UNIVERSE - EP
it's free and recorded in a couple of
days so it's rubbish right? Well actually no it's not rubbish it's a laid back,
mellow, free form jazz inflected, mix of Slint, Shellac , shellac Tortoise and
early 70s Pink Floyd. Simply majestic yet majestically simple." -
besttuna.blogspot.com/
SPECTACULAR FANTASTIC - Consume
"The Hardest working label in showbiz, 75 or Less has released a quick little EP
from Cincinnati's Spectacular Fantastic, Consume, and it's one the label's
strongest releases to date. From the opening devolved Television riff of
"Limitless and Free" the band is taking things back to mid-90's American indie
super-pop and the harmonized results are pretty great. With feet planted firmly
somewhere between Dinosaur Jr.'s too-often maligned but undeniably awesome Green
Mind and the more polished end of Guided By Voices, (which is still totally
rough compared to anything else) Consume stays sweet and guitar heavy
throughout, with chiming and sometimes dissonant solos, and again with the
propulsive Dinosaur-esque euphoric drumming. This is a great,msunny record to
keep you kind of cheery through all this miserable weather." Eric Smith
Providence Music Magazine
THE HAYWARDS - Side One/One Side
"The Haywards'
Side One/One Side starts with the dryly ironic "A Lot of People Fall In Love
In The Key of C," a snarky duet for singer-songwriter David Enright and a piano played
with a single finger that strongly recalls parts of the Magnetic Fields'
similarly meta 69 Love Songs. After that quirky beginning, the album
maintains the stripped-down
one-man-band feeling (the Haywards are largely a solo project by Enright,
with occasional help from various friends) through a variety of styles and moods. For
example, "Drool Cup" is a blues for slide guitar, hushed vocals and a
mutated tape-loop rhythm, while the similar "When You Wrung Yourself Out"
adds bursts of backwards
guitar and what sounds like a toy piano. In between, the much poppier "I
Meant Well" returns to the Magnetic Fields comparison, only this time
recalling the group's early Phil
Spector meets the Young Marble Giants sound. A tinge of wistful melancholy
hangs over the album, not least in Enright's often mournful vocal style;
this keeps
"playful" from being exactly the right word to describe the loose,
experimental vibe of the varied arrangements, but the ramshackle, homemade
feel of Side One/One Side
lightens what
might otherwise have been a considerably darker album." -
ALL MUSIC GUIDE Stewart Mason
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