Hopesfall

A few weeks ago a old friend of mine dropped me the line about Hopesfall  playing a reunion show next month. Now of course I would love to attend this because it's the NoWings To Speak Of lineup, which was their original lineup before they really blew up to the Trustkill/Warped tour fans. I've never been a giant fan of emocore, screamo,emotional hardcore, whatever you may want to call it but these guys always did a superb job playing it live and on recording.Unfortunately they never ended up playing my town, which I tried to book them around 2001/2002, but they always were playing shows in Louisville and Nashville when I would go down to hang out and go to shows.

From time to time I've been known to poke fun a little of over emotional bands who play live and act like fools crawling around the ground looking like they are about to cry or shit their pants for that matter. Hell their are a million bands now a days doing this but every time I saw this lineup of Hopesfall play live they were truly "emotional." It didn't look like it was rehashed, rehearsed, or fake at all. I remember watching them at Cornerstone and Furnacee Festivals and during their set witnessed a ton of males and females crying out loud. It just floored me that a bands live performance can actually do this to someone. Growing up in the hardcore scene you usually see people put fits to faces not hold their hands in their air and cry. With that not many bands gave me the "goose bump effect"  as I like to call it but when I saw Hopesfall play live I can honestly remember two different times getting this feeling. I saw them play with Cave In in Nashville years ago and their bass player used to do back flips of the drum riser in the middle of a song, this was a pretty cool to see for a 19 year old who only listened to traditional punk rock and heavy hardcore. I was so lucky to this classic lineup perform so many times in Louisville, Nashville, Furnace Fest, and Corner Stone Festival. So I'm not to bummed out I can't make it to the reunion show.

They have numerous records that are still being pressed by Trustkill Records I'm sure so I thought I would post their best work to date on this blog. I always thought this band had a sound at the time that went against what was popular in the early 00's and late 90's hardcore community. When metalcore was growing and Hatebreeds cloans were everywhere these guys were playing melodic hardcore that was influenced by bands like Hum, Promise Ring, Frodus, and Mineral. I thought everything they released was great but this E.P. They really did a good job of creating a sound that didn't have your normal verses, chorus, and bridges laid into it. Which was very apparent in emo/indy rock and in a lot of generic hardcore at the time. More than anything this E.P. had a Hum like quality which I thoroughly enjoyed. It always reminded me if Hum was playing hardcore music in shitty basement wearing flannel which is a odd analogy. Their guitar Ryan created the perfect blend of soft and emotional singing over Doug the vocalist ruff and aggressive screams on each track of this recording.
They really defined the future genre of emocore, or whatever you want to call it. This recording has a very beautiful spacy yet aggressive sound that a lot of bands could never nail and still cant. After this E.P. was released everyone quit the band but their guitar player Josh  and their future recordings never sounded the same.

I urge anyone to give this E.P. a listen and if you're a fan of them try to make it out to the reunion shows next month. I would love to attend but I'm sure I would be the only person from my city driving to N.C.

Here some information about the show: http://www.buzzgrinder.com/2011/early-lineup-hopesfall-reunites-for-two-shows/














Hopesfall- "No Wings To Speak Of" E.P.
[Takehold Records: 2001]
DOWNLOAD

1. "Open Hands to the Wind"
2. "April Left with Silence"
3. "The End of an Era"
4. "The Far Pavilions"

ill blood: the album that still bleeds documentary

ill blood: the album that still bleeds. from Johnny Five on Vimeo.

Even though I used to love some of the rip-off No Warning bands that exploded after this album came out and few years down the road, I cringe that bands that try to sound like this now. There were a hand full of bands who did it well and many that were just plain awful.I guess my reasoning behind this was the overkill of bands, riffs, and kids that jocked this band. It took me a few years to realize that N.W. wasn't amazing as they were respected for and I think this was caused by the reality brick that hit me the head that told me, "No Warning is just repackaging version of Breakdown spread up." It's shocking I didn't realize it years ago but of course I wasn't in love with the band Breakdown in 2001. I still enjoys everything N.W put out from the demo to the last album they recorded. Hearing the ill blood album any times spark my memory of good times at shows and friends over the years, that's for sure.

I stumbled upon this documentary that I must have forget about over the last year or two.I have no idea who released this and the background behind it but it's basically ex members and some respected punk/hardcore individuals talking about the ill blood record. It's put together pretty pore so there not point of me giving you a review of it. Just watched it and come up with your own assumption of it.

A new beginning

Over the last few years I haven't been much of a blogger, I just haven't feelt the need to do it and i'm sure the blow up of social networking really took away from my interst to blog. Things have changed a lot over the last 3 to 4 years with my completion of college, not touring, playing in bands, or booking shows anymore. So I thought to myself this morning, randomly of course, I think I want to start this blog back up again.

How much I will update is the questions, I can't even give you a answer to that one, but I will try to keep this more active then i have years prior. I will keep what's going on in my personal life to a minimum and try to keep this focused on my love for music and other tid bits of things I enjoy in life. I'm sure I will still have awful grammer because I never feel the need to spell check or proof read, so bash me on that.

...and yes I'm still straight edge, I still go to shows, and I still enjoy hardcore, punk, metal. Unlike a lot of my old friends I haven't turned into the early 30 year old hipster who turned his back on the subculture that pretty much help mold the man I am today.

Chi town here I come...

6 more days and I get to witness this band and a few more amazing ones at the Burning Fight Book release show in Chicago this coming weekend, I'm pretty excited about it.

BurningFightBook.com

Where The Wild Things Are

I haven't been this excited about a movie in ages, my all time favorite book as a child called "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak is coming out as a full length feature movie and set for release this fall.


The book tells the story of Max, who one evening plays around his home, "making mischief" in a wolf costume by chasing the dog with a fork and growling at his mom. As punishment, his mother sends him to bed without supper. In his room, a mysterious, wild forest grows out of his imagination, and Max journeys to the land of the Wild Things. The Wild Things are fearsome-looking monsters, but Max conquers them "by staring into their yellow eyes without blinking once," and he is made "the King of all Wild Things." However, he soon finds himself lonely and homesick, and he returns home to his bedroom, where he finds his supper waiting for him, still hot.

The Force

A little Star Wars LOL for you.

No Drugs for Rollins

Mr. Henry Rollings doing a anti-drug commercial

Stigmata

I might as well keep throwing up some downloads while I think about it and this current post is on Troy's New York own mighty Stigmata. For years the only album I thought existed by them was their one album release on Victory Records entitled "Do Unto Others" which was released in 200, it never really impressed me that much.But their strongest and most epic album is the head stomper entitled "Hyms from a Unknown God," when I got my hands on this album it totally fucking floored me, it's more than just a solid record it's pretty much a 101% perfect metallic hardcore album. Their first 2 albums are two hard-to-find CD's, "The Calling of the Just"and 'The Heart Grows Harder' both of course a now-defunct labels. I don't even remember how I came across the CD form of the album, I think I ran across it at a used CD store around 2000 but I glad I didn't give up on them after hearing their Victory release but this album was jaw dropping.

Fronted by the massive front man Boby Rily and this guy knew how to pick up a lineup. They incorporated some awesome muscians over the few albums they released but most notable member is the riff machine of Mike Maney. Who really has don't a lot of bands from what I know of after Stigmata called it a day, which is a total shame because this guy knows how to write a hard song.
This album totally shows off his talent as a guitar player and the over all song structure of this band is just plain sick. It's had some of the most interesting and heavy riffs I have heard from any hardcore or metal bands rolling out in 1995. The only thing really hardcore about this album is the breakdowns and some of the vocal delivery but most of it is just heavy grooved out metal that will throw you for a curve ball with the riffs this band can spit out. Though some of Boby Riley vocal patterns blow me away espically on the 2nd track..Murder of Life the way he flows over some of the drum beats and guitar riffs are mind blowing, its very interesting to listen to this album from a singer standpoint because he some really cool things. Some of the songs could honestly put Slayer, Hatebreed, and even Merauder too shame in the hardness dept., the entire album feels like a ten ton hammer crashing down on your house.

Not a lot of bands around the late 90's where putting out hardcore like this espically in 1995 it was probably to heavy for most, their song structure really made them stick out but it still shocks me they never were that popular then and still aren't today.You can shoot me if you like but I find this album almost equally good to Merauders classic "Master Killer" album, too me it's 10x more pissed off sounding.



Stigmata - "Hyms from a Unkown God"
[Too Damn Hype Records : 1995]
DOWNLOAD

1. Save Us
2. Nothing But Enemies
3. Murder Of Life
4. Ignorant & Wire
5. Clipper Of Wings
6. Hands Of Gods
7. Burning Humana