A Shiny New Machine

Wow, it’s been a while. My apologies. It’s been a pretty crazy few weeks so unfortunately we haven’t found the time to post as regularly as we had been. Those weeks have been pretty eventful and productive, though. We’ve done some recording with our band Giraffe (we’ll hopefully be finishing something up and posting it soon), made a short film for CampusMovieFest (also will be posted soon), went to a few concerts, and got some new albums.

First, I’d like to say a few words about The Decemberists concert at the Avalon on March 24. I’ve no intention to write up a full review of the show, but suffice it to say it was a little disappointing. They played entirely too much off The Crane Wife and too little from anything else. Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of their latest album, but I’m also a fan of their earlier ones, and a lot of my favorites were absent from the set list (not a single song off of Her Majesty…). Also, Colin Meloy appeared to have developed some sort of rock star syndrome and his ego seems to have swelled significantly from the last time I saw The Decemberists. All that aside there were a few standout moments, including the opening tune “Oceanside” from the Five Songs EP - which I got on video and have provided below - and the closer “Sons and Daughters”.

Next I want to talk a bit about Cassino. Their debut album Sounds of Salvation has finally come out and I couldn’t be more into it. I promise I’ll have a full album review up later this week. All I’ll say is that it’s my favorite album of the year so far, and I think few bands even stand a chance of topping it, save maybe for The Weakerthans fourth album which may or may not be coming out this fall. I’m not going to put any of the album mp3s up because I want to encourage you to BUY this album, not just download the tracks. It was self-released by the band without any label representation, and the guys really need the money.

Here are a couple of the old demo versions of their songs. Both of these have been redone for the album and both definitely for the better. You can check out the amazing new version of “New Jerusalem” and buy the entire album on their MySpace page.

PLEASE buy their album. It rocks.

MP3: Cassino - American Low (Demo)

MP3: Cassino - New Jerusalem (Demo)

POSTED BY: Chris