Music Meridian

The new System Of A Down CD has been in super-heavy rotation in my cd player lately. Here's why:

Take the wildness/weirdness of past System albums and make it even more weird an bizarre. Yet, at the same time, make it 10 times as catchy. That's a hard balance to achieve, and they really nailed it on this one.

The lyrics are goofy as well. Plus there's blast-beats and death-metal growls. It's covering a lot of bases.

I'm starting to see another upward trend in my dream of the "return of prog rock". With this new album, plus Mars Volta's latest and other bands bubbling up like Coheed and Cambria prospects look good. Plus, Entertainment Weekly did an article on prog rock a few weeks back. I felt like I was in the twilight zone when I saw that.

I'm so surprised (and glad!) that something this bizarre is making headway in popular culture. What next? The new Nile is going to be a billboard charttopper or something? haha...probably not.

Even though Nile's new album has the best song title I've seen in a while:
"Chapter Of Obeisance Before Giving Breath To The Inert One In The Presence Of The Cresent Shaped Horns"

Nice.

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Enjoy!

"You dream about tone. You practice relentlessly. You dedicate yourself to mastering your instrument. But all your hard work could be wasted the moment you step onto stage. Nothing can be more disheartening for the modern cowbellist than to find the sound of his instrument drowned out by the overpowering volume of today's electric guitars and drums. That sweet tone - crafted and refined through hard work - is lost in the din before it ever reaches the audience."

Visit the Rad Monkey Cowbells website.

Garbage's new album "Bleed Like Me" marks the band's 10 year anniversary, and is a reinvigoration of their sound. Backing away from the electronica heavy sound on their "Beautiful Garbage" album and going back to a guitar-centric sound was a good move. Shirley Manson's vocals seem stronger than ever after her much-publicized throat problems, and the band has created a rich sound that blends well but doesn't back off. This is a good old-fashioned rock out album. Lyrically, it's a mixed bag of irony, painful honesty and downright cheesiness, but it works overall with Manson's sometimes sardonic, sometimes earnest (and surprisingly sometimes Liz Phair-ish!?) delivery. Highlights include "Run Baby Run", "Sex is Not the Enemy" and the single "Why Do You Love Me." A recent appearance on Letterman featured the band singing the title track, which worked well but featured a less than energetic stage presence. "Bleed Like Me" is a pleasure to listen to, and will likely be in my rotation for quite some time. It makes me want to be Shirley Manson.

Wow this is fun. http://www.kenbrashear.com/

Ok, so this is a 2004 release. Sue me, I don't buy music too often. Just picked this up last week, and I actually like it. First impressions with the vocals weren't favorable, but the music itself and lyrics are outstandingly simple yet honest. As I was listening to "I won't be left" the thought popped into my head that if I were to write music, this is the kind of song I would write, which made me dig deeper into the disc, by which time the vocals started to grow on me. What a great track. Also, of course, is the XRT radio darling "Walking with a ghost" which is still catchy, and "You wouldn't like me" which is probably my second fav. Haunting stuff at times, yet poppy enough to not get you totally down. My kind of shit.

Hello, and welcome to the first installment of what may or may not be a "regular" feature here at MusicMeridian.com. We're gonna try doing music mix podcasts.

The first mix focuses on a obscure branch of prog-rock called Zeuhl. This genre was spearheaded by the French group Magma in the early 70s. It's very bass and drum heavy, and is usually sung in a made-up language (Magma's language was Kobian). Too far out there for you? If not take a listen to the podcast:

Zany Zeuhl Podcast (Right click and "save target as"... for best results)

There's lots of hard-to-find stuff on here (like Dun and Eskaton) as well as bands that don't quite fit the definition of Zeuhl, but are kinda similar (Henry Cow, Thinking Plague). So dive in and let me know what you think.

1. Eskaton - Eskaton (from 4 Visions)
2. Vander/Top - H'Hai (from Best On Tour '76)
3. Thinking Plague - Ls Etudes D'Organism (from In Extremis)
4. Dun - L'Espice (from Eros)
5. Henry Cow - Half Asleep, Half Awake (from Unrest)
6. Univers Zero - Combat (from Crux Du Dehors)
7. UTotem - Both Your Houses (from UTotem)
8. Christan Vander - Kohroz 1 (from Kohroz) (Warning- 10 minute drumsolo)
9. Magma - De Futura (from Udu Wudu)