Devo – Live LP (black)

This is 6 live recordings from 1980. I saw Devo when they came out and I thought that they were really great. They were really fun, energetic and …just Devo!!! I can only imagine what they were like in their younger days.

These are really great songs and they sure as hell are going to be stuck in my head for days. 

FFO: Devo, Devo and Devo.

Blondie – Heart of Glass 12” single (black)

Classic Blondie track. This single has Rifle Range and an instrumental version of Heart of Glass on the B side. It would’ve been better if there was another B side on this rather than an instrumental version of Heart of Glass. Deborah Harry was totally banging though so that makes up for it.

FFO: Blondie, Blondie and Deborah Harry.

Dave Hause – Resolutions (single)

This is the solo acoustic work of The Loved Ones front man Dave Hause. I picked this up when I saw him while he was in Australia recently touring with The Bouncing Souls and Hot Water Music.

These songs definitely have a Loved Ones vibe to them, but I can see why Dave/the band decided not to keep them as Loved Ones songs.

There are 3 songs on this single, including 2 originals (Resolutions and C’mon Kid) and a cover of a Steve Earle song (Another Town). The songs are good and leave me craving more. This is a good tie over till the solo record and the new Loved Ones record comes out.

FFO: The Loved Ones, The Gaslight Anthem and the abundance of punk front men doing acoustic solo albums.

First To Leave – Change Never Lasts

Catchy pop punk with a hint of a hardcore influence. The lyrics focus on relationships, love and friendship. This isn’t ground breaking stuff, but I don’t mind it. I can happily listen to this. However, the English on song ‘Right Now’ is sooooo bad. The lyrics are:

Why she have to be so beautiful?
Why she have to change the way I feel about myself?

Now, I’m no expert in grammar or the English language but it just ruins the whole song for me. It’s ‘why does she’. Ok, sorry I just had to get that off my chest. Don’t get me wrong though this is a good record.

FFO: Saves The Day, Title Fight and The Movielife

The First Step – Connection EP

The First Step play youth crew inspired melodic hardcore with a positive message. This EP makes me want to stage dive, sing along and just have a great time. Each song lasts for less than 2 minutes and leaves you craving more. Check these guys out.

http://www.myspace.com/thefirststep

FFO: Champion, Betrayed and Gorilla Biscuits.

The Beatles – A Collection of Beatles Oldies LP (black)

This is a collection of Beatles songs from 1963-66. I wasn’t heavily into the Beatles as some of my friends were in high school but I listened from them time to time. I thought this was a pretty good comp.

I got this as a Christmas present from Mum this year, which I thought was pretty funny because, according to Wikipedia, this comp was put together as the ‘result of EMI not having any new material by the Beatles for the 1966 Christmas season.’

                                                                                    

FFO: The Beatles, The Beatles, and The Beatles.  

First Blood – Silence Is Betrayal

More ultra breakdowns with war/borderline conspiracy theory themed lyrics. Most of the Rambo theme is gone and replaced by a strong political message.

FFO: Earth Crisis, breakdowns and overly political hardcore. 

First Blood – Killafornia

More Rambo themed mosh heavy hardcore.

I saw these guys recently with Stick To Your Guns and the singer was wearing full camo army fatigues.  That pretty much sums this band up.

Reworked versions of some of the songs on the EP can be found on here to.  

FFO: Mosh heavy metal/hardcore. 

First Blood – First Blood EP

Ultra chuggy hardcore with a Rambo theme.

FFO: NYHC, Rambo, hardcore breakdowns. 

The Bay City Rollers - Once Upon A Star LP (black)

Rollermania!

The Bay City Rollers – Rollin’ LP (black)

I love this band and I don’t care who knows it!

FFO: The Beatles, The Cockroaches and cheesy teeny-bopper acts of the 1970s.

Arlo Guthrie – Alice’s Restaurant LP (black)

Classic American folk record with the famous 18 minute and 34 second long song ‘Alice’s Restaurant Massacree’.

I listened to this while laying hung over in bed on Boxing Day and trying to figure out why the guy on the cover (I’m guessing that is Arlo) is at a restaurant naked and what is keeping his napkin in place.

I don’t listen to much folk music but I enjoyed this record. I also thought it was pretty cool that the whole A side was taken up by one song.

FFO: American folk and creepy record covers. 

Simple Minds – Live 10” (black)

This 10” single features live versions of songs Promised You A Miracle and Book Of Brilliant Things. It also comes with a poster.

I’d never, to my knowledge, herd Simple Minds before, and I can’t picture me going out of my way to dig up any of their records.

FFO: 80's stadium rock. 

Fireworks – Adventure, Nostalgia and Robbery 7” (yellow/green split)

This 7” contains a song that would later be found on the album All I Have To Offer Is My Own Confusion, 2 other brand new songs, and a Kid Dynamite cover (Heart-a-tact).

This 7” was my first introduction to Fireworks and was an impulse purchase at my local record store.

The songs are great and the artwork is pretty sweet.

This 7” serves as a good bridge between their We Are Everywhere EP and AIHTOIMOC.

FFO: New Found Glory, The Wonder Years and Saves The Day. 

Fireworks – All I Have To Offer Is My Own Confusion

This record has to be in my top 5 pop punk records list. This album was produced by Chad Gilbert and packs more of a punch than their ‘We Are Everywhere EP’. This isn’t ground breaking stuff but it’s catchy, positive, fun and honest. These are great pop punk songs and I can’t pick a fault with them for the life of me.

The artwork is a whole lot better than that on ‘We Are Everywhere’ and I particularly like the one line meanings behind the songs found behind the CD tray.

If you’ve never herd this band before check them out. You won’t regret it. 

Fireworks – We Are Everywhere EP

This is a really solid EP from one of my favourite pop punk bands. This is catchy, melodic and positive pop punk done right. The intricate guitar parts and the drumming is what make this band that much more special and stand out from the inundation of pop punk bands at the moment. If you like pop punk this is a must.

The only complaint I have with this EP is the artwork. Its way to bubblegum for me.

Fires of Waco – In The Wake Of…

This band is formed by members of The Gifthorse (one of my favourite Australian bands), Just Say Go and Values Here. This has been stuck in my stereo for a good week. This is their debut release with 6 original songs (not including the intro and outro) and a Rites of Spring cover (For Want Of). This is pretty solid, except for the sung vocals, but I’ll talk about that in a second. The recording is pretty good on this. The artwork is done by guitarist Stevie Scott and I quite liked it. The vocals are great, until you hit songs Low Lit Light and 18 Years. On these songs Ryan (I’m going off info from my sister here so don’t come after me if I’m wrong) attempts to sing. He needs to practice this. Don’t get me wrong he’s not horrible; he just needs some more practice.

If you like Polar Bear Club or The Gifthorse there’s a good chance you’ll like this CD. It’s out through Arrest Records.

The Fire Still Burns – The Fire Still Burns 7” (red /200)

The Fire Still Burns features members of Lifetime and Ensign, playing really catchy and melodic punk rock with a touch of hardcore for good measure. This 2 song 7” is great! I think that they are broken up now but track down a copy of this if you can. Check them out here.

The Ergs/The Measure [SA] – Split 7” sides A + B (mix grey)

I’ve finally gotten around to getting the first half of the 2 split 7”s between these two bands after listening the shit outta sides C + D.
This 7” sees the bands covering each others songs (the original versions of these songs appear on sides C + D). Although, it was interesting to hear each band’s different take on each others songs I preferred the originals better. In both cases I though the originals were that little bit better.
Each band also offer an original song as well, which I thought were great. If you don’t know these bands the best comparison for The Ergs, in my opinion, would be early Get Up Kids, and for The Measure [SA] would be Fifth Hour Hero (then again that might just be the male/female thing, I dunno).
Anyway, these bands play great pop punk. Listen to them and get these 7”s.

Fire First – Tell Me I’m Right

Fire First play pop punk with a hint of influence taken from Fat Wreck bands (well I think so at least). Instrumentally I liked this, but the vocals annoyed me at times. They were just too nasally. They kinda reminded me of a grumpy Tom DeLonge.

The band is offering this for free download. You can find that here.

Off With Their Heads/Detournement – Split 7” (orange mix)

On this 7” split each band offer one acoustic original and an electric cover. Before picking up this split I’d only herd one song from Detournement, and that happened to be the electric version of ‘Odessa’, which is the acoustic original the band offers. This probably isn’t the best release to be introduced to a new band, but I’m gonna have to keep my eyes (and ears) peeled for them at my local record store.

Detournement’s cover Tracy Chapman’s ‘Talkin’ Bout A Revolution’ and even though I haven’t herd the original version I’m sure it wouldn’t rock this hard. Though I do have Tracy Chapman’s ‘Crossroads’ LP, but I can’t remember shit off of it.

Off With Their Heads’ side of things is what I really came here for. ‘Listerine’ (their acoustic original) can now be found on their new LP ‘In Desolation’ under the title ‘My Episodes’. Now I don’t know too much about Panthro UK United 13 (infact I know nothing of them) but the OWTH version of ‘Princess’ sounds pretty good. I’m gonna have to check these guys out as well.

Also great artwork by Zak Kaplan (of Detournement).

Fingers Crossed – Semester Of Stress

More of the same modern pop punk. The production quality isn’t that great but I didn’t care too much, for me the raw production quality made the songs seem more honest in a way. Also the fact that these guys are giving this away for free (here) gives me the perception that these guys are doing this for the right reasons (although I don’t know shit about this band so I could be completely wrong).

This is ok.  

Fingers Crossed – We Fight Girls

Fingers Crossed play modern pop punk. This isn’t great but it’s a lot better than a lot of pop punk bands around at the moment. I download this from here. 

Final Fight – Half Head, Full Shred

Final Fight is a fast melodic hardcore band. They aren’t pushing many boundaries but they sound extremely passionate and like they mean every word and every chord. This is a lot better than what a whole lot of other bands in this genre are doing. 

Eleventh He Reaches London – Hollow Be My Name

A while ago I borrowed a friend’s copy of Eleventh He Reaches London’s ‘The Good Fight For Harmony’. I liked that release by this Perth band quite a bit. After hearing some songs from this new record on some comps that I came across I got excited about this record. So I finally got around to purchasing this record during a recent trip to Melbourne at a Dixons (there are a bunch of these second hand record/CD/DVD stores in and around Melbourne. They have a great selection and everything is fairly cheap. I picked this CD up for $8).

This is a pretty powerful and dark record. The songs are pretty lengthy at times (the longest being the last track, For The Commonwealth And The Queen, at 11:03), but the songs held my attention and have unexpected twists and turns. The lyrics are great as well. There’s a running theme of bitterness towards anything godlike, royal or fatherly. The artwork suits the music perfectly.

The only thing I found annoying about this record is that at times the transitions in sections of some songs are jumpy. A perfect example of this can be seen during For The Commonwealth And The Queen at 3:12.

All round this is a great record. Check this band out if you have the attention span.

The Bouncing Souls/Hot Water Music – Split 7” (Black/Pearl white /500)

When I put this on my turntable I instantly started smiling. Last night I saw Hot Water Music and Bouncing souls play with Dave Hause (front man of The Loved Ones). For those who care the local support at the Melbourne show was A Death In The Family, and for Sydney it was Grand Fatal. Anyways at the Melbourne show I purchased this 7”.

Both bands cover a song of the other. The Bouncing Souls cover Wayfarer, while HWM cover True Believers.

Both these songs are part of HWM’s encore where all bands come out and play the songs together resulting in uncontrollable sing-a-longs and crowd surfing.

These shows were amazing, as is this 7”. If you didn’t see this tour and had the chance, I feel sorry for you.

The Bouncing Souls – Neurotic 7” (black)

This is a great 4 track 7” that my girlfriend picked up during our recent trip to Melbourne from Missing Link. These songs are energetic and fun. I'm not I can happily listen to this on repeat. These songs are on The Good, The Bad & The Argyle.

However, the way the lyrics are laid out annoys me. They’re just a chunk of lyrics with no titles separating each song from the next.

I recently saw The Bouncing Souls in Melbourne and last night in Sydney and was kind of disappointed. Their records are so full of energy but their live performance failed to deliver for me. Greg (the singer) seemed bored and tired during both sets. Oh well.

This 7” rules anyway. 

Hot Water Music – Finding the Rhythms LP (translucent purple + 7”)

This record is so raw! I’ve been listening to so much HWM over the last month or so in anticipation of their tour with The Bouncing Souls and I haven’t found myself getting tired of any of their records at all which I think is really rare. Though this probably isn’t my favourite HWM release it still has some incredibly awesome songs.

Anyway pick this up if you haven’t got it. If you haven’t herd HWM before (which if you’re reading this I don’t believe) I probably wouldn’t start with this. Maybe A Flight and a Crash or No Division.

Also Jason Black is a freak on the bass!

The Berzerker – The Reawakening

I used to listen to this band a little in high school. A mate burned me the first 3 albums which I thought were pretty cool and it was completely different to what I was listening to at the time, Avail and Nirvana at the time. Anyways, I found this album on my computer (I’m guessing my sister downloaded it but I can’t imagine her listening to this) and gave it a listen. The Berzerker play ‘industrial death metal’, which is basically death metal/grind with techno drum beats. Now I don’t know too much about metal so don’t blast me if this description is off, but I think it comes pretty close.

I started off with all intentions of giving this a proper listen, but then I got sidetracked and got distracted. This album didn’t grab me like the other records have. I don’t know why though. Oh, and there are 5 remixes at the end of this that are horrible!

Fifth Hour Hero – Not Revenge…Just a Vicious Crush LP (blue/yellow split w/ white splatter /300)

Ok this is the last FHH release I have. Visually this record is great. The artwork looks good, gatefold sleeve packaging, and the colour of the vinyl looks so freakin’ pretty.

Musically it’s everything you want from a FHH record. It’s catchy as fuck, the instrumental work is awesome, dual male/female vocals are in full effect.

I only got 3 or 4 hours sleep last night so I’m gonna keep this short and if you’ve read the other ‘reviews’ on other FHH records then you know what to expect.

The band is long broken up now (they broke up in 2007) and this is their final record. Geneviéve and Olivier formed another band called Rome Romeo. Find them here.

Fresh Aire – Interludes LP (black)

I got given this in a crate of records at a garage sale for free. This is ambient shit. Kinda relaxing. Kinda boring. Great to fall asleep to. The sleeve is silver foil which is neat and looks pretty cool.

Ps: This isn’t my turntable/set up. Mine’s the homeless equivalent of this. 

The Amity Affliction – Youngbloods

This still isn’t my thing.  

The Amity Affliction – Severed Ties

This ain’t my thing at all. Growly vocals, then some singy vocals, then some breakdowns, repeat. Post hardcore stuff. Whatever. Guitars sound good at times though but all in all I'm mainly ignoring this record. Oh and there is synths. Whoever introduced synths to post hardcore should be taken out the back and shot. There are tons of guest vocals and a cover of Pat Benatar’s ‘Love is a Battlefield’. I know a lot of people who love this band, but I don’t really care. Not my stuff.

Fifth Hour Hero – You Have Hurt My Business and My Reputation Too

 

This is the first FHH release I ever bought. After hearing a few tracks on some No Idea comps that I had I went out and bought this. I’ve listened to this EP so many times and I’m no where bored of it. I have the CD version of this but I think the artwork would look a lot better in 7” form. This is probably my favourite of my FHH records. These 4 songs are simply perfect.

Fifth Hour Hero – Scattered Sentences LP (purplish red)

10 more awesome FHH songs. Great duelling male/female vocals as usual but most of the songs on this records are sung by Geneviève while Olivier only sings 2 of the 10 songs here. Great politically aware lyrics as well. Just buy this band’s records.

Fifth Hour Hero – Collected in Comfort LP (clear orange)

Holy shit! This is awesome. Five kick arse tracks and an untitled acoustic track. I’ve only listened to this record a couple of times since I bought it but I didn’t realise how good it was. I guess that’s the point of this whole thing, to discover and rediscover records in my collection that I’ve ignored for so long.

Each song, except one, has an explanation that accompanies it, giving some insight into what the songs are about. I have mixed feelings about bands providing explanations with their songs. Sometimes it can be a great thing and offer deeper meaning and understanding to the songs. Other times I just wanna figure out what the songs are about for myself. I especially hate when bands push their agenda through these explanations. FHH don’t do this, they put their thoughts and feelings on matters such as violence and consumerism. Anyways this is a good record. Go buy it!

Navel/Fifth Hour Hero – Split 7” (black w/ big hole)

This split 7” is pretty cool. Navel are a melodic punk rock band from Japan who sing about getting ‘dunk on purpose’ and feelings in broken English. I’m definitely into this. I haven’t herd many bands from Japan besides Nim and FC FiVE who are both pretty great.

On the Fifth Hour Hero side of things, these aren’t the best 2 FHH songs I’ve herd but they are still pretty good. This 7” wins me over for the awesome tracks but also for the fact that I love it when bands do splits with bands from different countries (FHH are from Canada). All the lyrics are also translated from English into Japanese as well which I thought was pretty cool.

Ps. excuse the small image it’s all I could find.

This Is My Fist/Fifth Hour Hero – Split 7” (white)

This Is My Fist is a female fronted melodic punk band. They are OK, but the Fifth Hour Hero side kinda blows it away. FHH’s song was just that much catchier and I enjoyed it a bit more.  

Fifth Hour Hero/The Sainte Catherines – Aims Easy As Pointing Your Finger Split 7” (mix colour /812)

I have a massive soft spot for Firth Hour Hero. Their 2 songs are killer. I don’t know why I like them so much, maybe their use of both male and female vocals, their catchy as fuck choruses, I dunno. I have a few FHH splits and albums coming up as well.

I have to admit, I don’t know much about The Sainte Catherines besides a few songs from some Fat Wreck comps. The songs they offer are a lot faster and rougher than FHH’s. They are executed really well.

The packaging for this 7” is pretty sweet as well. It opens up from the back (?) with a lid/flap which is pretty unique and cool. Get your nerd on.

The Fight – Home Is Where The Hate Is EP

Kinda boring punk rock from the UK. I only bought it because it is released through Fat Wreck and cost only a couple of bucks from the bargain pile.