Previous IN THE RECORD EXCHANGE GIFT SHOP: THE FUTURE IS NOW – 2012 CALENDARS!
Do you like it hard and heavy? Then come to The Record Exchange and visit The Headbanger’s Wall, a listening station devoted to some of today’s best bands pummeling you with raw power and raw emotion.
The Headbanger’s Wall currently features Devil Wears Prada, Architects UK, All Shall Perish, ICS Vortex, Diamond Plate, Arch Enemy, Sleeping Giant, Krum Bums, We Came As Romans and Revocation. Come melt your face with us.
Purchase Headbanger’s Wall titles HERE.
Want to get on the guest list for the Blue October Soundcheck Meet and Greet at Knitting Factory on Thursday, Sept. 22?
Purchase Blue October’s new album Any Man in America (on sale for $13.99) at The Record Exchange and you and a guest will get to meet the band before the show!
Here’s how it works: Buy Any Man in America at The Record Exchange. We will put you on the guest list (with a +1, so you can take someone with you). The night of the show, you’ll go to the Knitting Factory at 5 p.m. to meet the band, shake hands and get your CD signed.
NOTE: The CD purchase gets you into the meet and greet only, NOT the show. Tickets for the show can be purchased at The Record Exchange.
ABOUT ANY MAN IN AMERICA
Blue October’s sixth studio album, Any Man in America, continues the Texas-based alternative rock outfit’s transition from radio-ready post-grunge act to stadium-sized synth rockers with an unabashed flair for the melodramatic. Slick, angry and maniacally overproduced, Any Man in America is about as subtle as a court summons. Recently divorced lead singer/guitarist Justin Furstenfeld has no qualms about putting his domestic problems on display, and he rages against the machine (both figuratively and literally) until every inch of his relationship’s corpse has been exhumed.
TYLER, THE CREATOR
Goblin
To those who don’t follow underground hip hop, Tyler, The Creator (ringleader of the rap collective known as Odd Future) seemingly appeared fully formed in a dervish of hype and nasty tweets when, in fact, this laboriously titled group of hip hop deviants had been releasing crazy-ass mixtapes on their own for a couple of years. So now we arrive at Goblin. The album’s production came almost entirely from Tyler himself, along with contributions from fellow OFWGKTA member Left Brain. Without a doubt Goblin is meant to shock, but have no doubt that it’s the work of a mad genius. If you can separate yourself from the hype then it’s easy to see what all the uproar is about.
VIVA VOCE
The Future Will Destroy You
There are a handful of things about Viva Voce that lend themselves to a just-the-facts presentation: This songwriting team —Kevin and Anita Robinson – met and married in rural Alabama over a decade ago and made their first four-track demo as Viva Voce in 1998. As for describing the music the Robinsons make—Says Anita, “Basically, with each record we’re just trying to find a way to create the music that’s been living in our heads since the last one.” Written, performed, produced and mixed entirely by the duo at their Portland home studio, The Future Will Destroy You unquestionably serves as a showcase for Anita’s post-psychedelic guitar heroics—check out “Analog Woodland Song” and “The Wondering Soul” for some of the finest quiet-loud eruptions since the Pixies’ heyday. But the disc also emphasizes the Robinsons’ sense of songcraft like never before: You might not hear a ballad this year lovelier (or spookier) than “No Ship Coming In,” in which Anita’s vocals glide over a pool of shimmering space-roots atmospherics. And the apocalyptic title track? Let’s just say nobody’s ever made the end of civilization sound like such an appealing prospect.
THE HORRIBLE CROWES
Elsie
Most of us know Brian Fallon as the frontman for the Gaslight Anthem, an act who started out in Jersey basements and slowly built their way up to headlining New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Despite the success Fallon has had with his main band he’s always loved darker acts like the Afghan Whigs and Tom Waits. The Horrible Crowes — his new side-project alongside longtime friend Ian Perkins — is his tip of the hat to the acts who have shaped another side of his musical vision. Sonically Elsie sees Fallon stretching out musically in ways that might surprise longtime fans of his writing. Elsie is also the most personal release of Fallon’s career, and while the Gaslight Anthem’s music is loaded with characters and iconography, this album sees Fallon stripping back the metaphors to put it all on the line. “There’s only one character here and it’s about me.” While drug addictions, ex-girlfriends and religion all creep their way into these songs, Elsie isn’t a linear album as much as it is a catalog of experiences that are conveyed in a way that was equally as cathartic for Fallon to create as it will inevitably be for his listeners to hear.
BUY THE CD HERE
BUY THE VINYL HERE
It’s been a long time since we’ve heard from Primus – eight long years in fact. In that time Les Claypool and company have sailed the Seas of Cheese to various side projects, novel writing, soundtracks and other non-rockist pursuits.
But then drummer Jay Lane, who was not only in the band briefly back in 1988 and has played with Claypool on his various side projects, came into the fold and injected new life into the band.
But though Green Naugahyde, the latest Primus album, is new there is an energy whose only analogue is the sound of primal Primus. “From a sonic perspective,” says Claypool, “it definitely is reminiscent of Frizzle Fry in many ways, because of Jay coming back into the fold. The rhythmic feel of it is very similar. But it’s also got 20 years of life experience on it – from many different angles. A song like ‘Jilly’s on Smack’ just wouldn’t have been written in the early Nineties, because we hadn’t lost a friend to heroin addiction. A song like ‘Lee Van Cleef,’ which is reflective of my youth, just wouldn’t have been written back then. So there’s a lot of salt to it, yet there is this vigor of Jay’s very rhythmic playing.”
So there you have it. What’s old is new… But Green Naugahyde will never go out of style.
Nick Lowe fans, we’re playing into your hands with this one. Purchase Lowe’s new album The Old Magic on Tuesday, Sept. 13, at The Record Exchange and we’ll give you a set of super-exclusive Nick Lowe magic playing cards!
Get more info on the new album, as well as some audio samples, from the fine folks at Yep Rec HERE.