Janvs - Vega

Artist: Janvs
Album: Vega
Genre: Progressive Black Metal
Year: 2008
Origin: Italy

After recent listenings, I've decided that Janvs' 2008 release, Vega, is one of the best albums from last year; I'm not sure why I neglected to include it in my listing. The lyrics seem to be more interesting than the average satanic black metal farce (from what I've read, I don't speak Italian), and they manage to incorporate progressive melodies and occasional clean vocals while still sounding like a (sophisticated) black metal band.

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Punch - Punch

Artist: Punch
Album: Punch
Genre: Hardcore / Thrash Punk
Year: 2009
Origin: USA

Punch is a powerviolence/thrashcore/very-fast-punk band from my local metropolis, San Francisco. The female vocalist is extremely fierce, which accompanies the band's blistering speed and heaviness perfectly. The lyrics are of course quite important to the band, with vegan and feminist ideologies featured prominently in those that I read. I only came across this, along with the band's only previous release, the Eyeless EP, very recently, but I think this is definitely a promising young group.

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Hyatari - They Will Surface

Artist: Hyatari
Album: They Will Surface
Genre: Drone / Doom / Sludge
Year: 2008
Origin: USA

Hyatari is a drone / doom metal band from West Virginia. The drone reputation comes mostly from the first album I think, since this one, their second, is sludgy doom and slow, melancholic rock that is far too melodic to be considered drone. The music is totally instrumental, but still emotional.

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Anti-Flag / Bouncing Souls split

Artist: Anti-Flag / Bouncing Souls
Album: split
Genre: Punk
Year: 2002
Origin: USA

It's Blog Action Day! I'm supposed to talk about climate change. So, ride your bike or walk somewhere today. And don't eat any meat today - the meat industry is one of largest human-created sources of carbon emissions. This shit matters! A small rise in sea-level from melting glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica will be devastating to the people in a poor, sea-level area like Bangladesh. Lives are at stake.

And here's a very nice ep from one of the greatest, most unashamedly political punk bands I know. And the Bouncing Souls side is ok. I will forgive Anti-Flag just about anything they do musically nowadays because this older material is so damn great. This release marked almost ten years of awesome, unmistakably unique punk albums from the band.

I should also mention that each band does a cover of the other on this split: The Bouncing Souls play Anti-Flag's "That's Youth" and Anti-Flag does The Bouncing Souls' "Freaks, Nerds, and Romantics". "Ever Fallen In Love" is also a cover of the original by the Buzzcocks and "We're Coming Back" was originally by Cock Sparrer (lots o' cocks here I guess).

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Yellow Machinegun - Bean Ball

Artist: Yellow Machinegun
Album: Bean Ball
Genre: Crossover Thrash
Year: 2001
Origin: Japan

Yellow Machinegun is three overly cute Japanese women who play a surprising hardcore / thrash mix that will please fans of Municipal Waste and the like. I really like bands with an image that doesn't fit their scene. Sorry, no time for more of a review!

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Grouper - Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill

Artist: Grouper
Album: Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill
Genre: Shoegaze / Ambient
Year: 2008
Origin: USA

Grouper is a one-woman band from Portland, Oregon making fuzzy, wavering, super mellow, and eventually catchy music. Dragging A Dead Deer... is continuing my recent trend of posting music listenable only through headphones - don't try to play this one through your laptop speakers. It's not exactly "song"-oriented music, but the track Disengaged is especially beautiful. It looks like she's gone huge recently (at least on Last.fm), which is a little surprising but certainly deserved.

I noticed that this has the same tag-things as the Nadja post, and I suppose the same kind of people would enjoy both, but they aren't quite the same. This one is much more acoustic and pop-y. I only use those tag-things to draw people who might be interested in a particular post anyway.

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