popwreckoning updates |  |
| Posted: 23 Jan 2009 01:45 PM CST It's a cliché, but sometimes an album just speaks to you. Or, in the case of Neon Creeps, yells at you a lot. But that's the brilliance of O Pioneers!: these guys sing (er, yell) about real life; about meeting real life head on and how absolutely and insanely overwhelming it is. Over a charging hardcore backdrop, front man "Eric" (assuming he's the front man, as he's the one making the posts on their MySpace page) shouts out his frustrations with money, old friends, the city and the various problems that everyone deals with everyday. O Pioneers! pretty much sum it up in the chorus of opener "Saved By The Bell Was A Super Good Show", with the howling of "DRAMA! DRAMA! DRAMA!" This repeated exclamation neatly summarizes it all, but in the following songs O Pioneers! elaborate. Our life is a movie, Will Sheff: no maybes. On "9AM Everyday", the singer grapples with the very difficulty of just getting up to face another day: "And I'm hoping I can sleep through this / and forget about all of the depression / and all of the debt / all of this stress / it just keeps building up." On "Chris Ryan Added Me On Facebook", the lyrics detail finding old high school friends on Facebook…unfortunately: "See I'm older now and I don't give a damn / if I ever talk to you again / I don't want to regress to / that stupid piece of shit I was back in / high school." Then closer "Cool Kid City" deals with a feeling poignantly expressed by the band as "No I'm never gonna fit in / down in cool kid city." However, the band always pushes through all the bullshit to offer some small kind of hope. Not only are plenty of "don't let it get you down" and such offered in their songs, but in "I So Told You So", the singer gets his way and lets everyone know, "I wish I didn't have to say / I so told you so but I totally do / and it feels so damn good." Meanwhile in "The Architect of Disneyworld", the band offers us the greatest hope in that we can recreate the world as we want to: "So many times / have I wished for a chance / just to make a change / and make it permanent…we can burn down bridges just to tear them apart / we can burn down cities just to tear them apart / but it's up to us / it's up to us." As great as the lyrics are, they're dependent on the music beneath them to make them worth anything and in the case of Neon Creeps, it never disappoints. While the basis of the band's sound is undeniably hardcore, like Toronto's acclaimed Constantines, O Pioneers!' brand of hardcore sounds strangely more uplifting than it does abrasive. While in a way it could be argued that the point of hardcore was always more about cathartic salvation than any kind of externally-focused confrontation, few bands, including the aforementioned, have managed to make it all sound as personal and listenable as O Pioneers!. Neon Creeps is a great debut from a great band. Recent albums from ambitious modern hardcore bands like Fucked Up (also from Toronto) have upped the ante for what a hardcore album can be and while O Pioneers! will have to work their way up to that level over time to really matter, they're off to a great start with Neon Creeps. Neon Creeps will be available January 27th from Asian Man Records. Tracklisting: O Pioneers!: website | myspace Written by: Marc Z. Grub Related Posts |
| Posted: 23 Jan 2009 11:00 AM CST Indie Kids! Beards! Music! Cops! Find all this and more over at Saddle Creek Records YouTube Channel. Along every stop of the Winter 2009 Tour, Saddle Creek veteran Cursive is making a tour video featuring performances and exclusive behind the scenes footage from every night of their tour. This indie rock group helmed by Omahan Tim Kasher has been in the studio working on their follow-up to 2006’s Happy Hollow. The band is known for concept albums filled with biting lyrics. If this tour isn’t hitting your city, this might be your only chance to hear some of their new material before the album’s release. A few cities are already uploaded with more on the way. One of the current videos does feature a doozie of a new song about freezing temperatures and roads. A few of the cities already have a few videos up. Begin with the first stop here or check out our personal favorite video from Cleveland, OH: Tour dates: Cursive: website | myspace | watch Cursive on tour Related Posts |
| Stream New Franz Ferdinand Album Posted: 23 Jan 2009 10:00 AM CST
In addition to the MySpace album exclusive, starting today users can customize their profiles with a personally created page theme by Franz Ferdinand. Fans can skin their page with this simple upgrade feature to show their support for the band. Users simply log into MySpace and click ‘customize profile’ on the main page to get started. Franz Ferdinand: website | myspace  Related Posts |
| Obi Best to Tour with The Bird and The Bee Posted: 23 Jan 2009 08:45 AM CST For their first full national tour, Obi Best will hit the road with front woman Alex Lilly’s fellow bandmates The Bird and The Bee, for whom she sings backup, on the west coast before launching their own national tour. The band’s forthcoming debut full-length Capades is set for a February 24th release on Social Science Recordings, though it’s been available digitally for quite some time. The album is a collection of whimsical and eclectic indie pop songs with electronic flourishes. Watch the slightly disjointed, space age adventure that is “It’s Because Of People Like You”: Obi Best - "Nothing Can Come Between Us" Tour Dates: * = w/The Bird and The Bee Obi Best: website | myspace | last.fm | Capades review Related Posts This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
MySpace Music proudly announced the world exclusive of Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, the third album from Glasgow Franz Ferdinand. Yesterday saw the launch of the album stream which allows MySpace users across the world to stream the highly-anticipated album for free, giving fans a chance to preview it before the official release on January 27th.| You are subscribed to email updates from popwreckoning To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner |
Inbox too full?  Subscribe to the feed version of popwreckoning in a feed reader. | |
| If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: popwreckoning, c/o FeedBurner, 20 W Kinzie, 9th Floor, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
