Album name: Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die Artist name: Phantom Family Halo Genre: Rock Released: October 2009 Label: Crash Avenue ZME Rating: 5/10 Website: myspace.com/thephantomfamilyhalo Um. Phwwwr. Chhhhk. Ahem. It’s not that there are no words to describe the Phantom Family Halo’s recent offering: it’s just hard to string whatever words come to mind into a working sentence. Let us be quite clear: the Phantom Family Halo are a bit mad. Deliberately so, perhaps,…
“I don’t get Animal Collective.” So went a text from Mike, a friend and fellow music blogger/journalist of mine. On the surface it sounds as if Mike is rather narrow-minded. Yet, it really is quite the profound statement if you stop to consider it for a moment. There are days that I wonder that same idea, not just about AC but any artist I consider great or simply enjoy. But AC is one group in…
Don’t you just love year-end lists? I know I do. It’s a time where I can look back and reminisce with pleasure at all the great moments in music which occurred year long. It’s also a time where I can catch up with a lot of artists and albums that I might happen to miss, and, trust me, there always are some great ones that slip by. However troubled 2009 might have been, it’s been…
Hey ZME Universe, I’m sorry I’ve fallen a bit off the map in terms of my columns, but I’m excited about these end-of-decade lists. I’ve been preoccupied with my own list of best albums of songs. I love the lists that the ZME crew is putting together, but something tells me no one else on the staff would have the proper appreciation for the Portland, Maine power-pop trio The Leftovers. I can understand, though. While…
I suppose congratulations are in order to some of you readers. Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing In The Name” has been named the UK’s Christmas number one single, beating out X Factor winner Joe Mcthingy’s Miley Cyrus cover “The Climb” by some number of downloads. Or something. Well, woo bloody hoo. Have a metaphorical biscuit. It’s not that I don’t understand the impetus behind the whole Facebook campaign that started this whole escapade. I’m as…
This post is part of our “Top Albums of The Decade” series. Follow the series to read about the best music to grace our ears in the 2000s. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever to Tell (Interscope/Fiction Records) On their first full length record the NYC art-punk trio managed to overcome all the hype built up by their previous astonishing two EPs, and deliver one of the best debuts of the decade. Messy, punk, loud, sexy…
Charlie Clouser | “Hello Zepp” | 2004 The only truly great film in the “Saw” franchise is the first one; it usually is with horror. It only seems natural, then, that the best rendition of Charlie Clouser’s here-comes-the-giant-twist theme of the series is found in number one. Based off of the original version, “Zepp Overture,” “Hello Zepp” is so named because this reading of the song begins **spoiler alert** when Adam begins the Jigsaw tape…
Quite the pleasant surprise to wind up in our inbox today, when a press release surfaced detailing the release of David Byrne/Fatboy Slim’s upcoming concept album, “Here Lies Love”, about the life of about the life of the former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos and her relationship with a servant from her childhood (Estrella Cumpas). It’s a massive album, one long in the making, primarily fueled by the forming Talking Head’s “passion for…
Oooh, apologies for my completely unexplained absence from this organ last week. A variety of continuous, unlikely emergencies conspired to keep me away from my precious keyboard and monitor on Sunday, eventually culminating in an exciting race through Dublin to find a kind of precious anklet. Either that, or I was pathetically tired from working all week, and that anklet story was actually just an elaborate dream I had. I really don’t remember, and frankly,…
Kanye West, Nas, KRS-One and Rakim | “Classic (Better Than I’ve Ever Been)” | 2007 The Aughts have been rather stingy with its worthwhile posse cut output. In fact, besides “Better Than I’ve Ever Been”* I can’t recall a notable example. It’s a shame, really. Posse cuts used to be a place where a half-dozen or more emcees could all rock the mic together – even while rapping about unrelated subject matter – and it…
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