3 posts tagged “orange lazarus”
I was originally thinking of making an article based around the history of emotional hardcore, primarily 90's screamo. However, I took a step back and realized that many of the prominent bands are represented in the current band, Hot Cross. So, I decided to write up an article on Hot Cross in perfect timing with their latest release, Risk Revival.
We'll start with the bands that came together to form Hot Cross. The drummer (Greg Drudy, who also runs the record label, Level-Plane) and the vocalist (Billy Werner) came from Saetia. When Saetia split up in the mid-90's, Greg formed Interpol (yes, that Interpol) and Billy left for London for school. The remaining three members formed Off Minor. Off Minor went through several line-up changes until it included Matt Smith (and there may be an inaccuracy here, as I am unsure if Matt also played in Saetia), who played bass for them. Josh Jakubowski was a guitarist of the band Neil Perry, who went on to play in several other prominent screamo bands such as Joshua Fit for Battle and The Now. Finally, there was Casey Boland who played guitar in You & I. These bands were all friends with eachother and it was inevitable that there would be some collaboration along the line.
In either 2000 or 2001, the band got together without Billy and recorded some songs. At that very brief time, the vocalist of the band Errortype: 11 was in the band. However, he was having scheduling issues and had to quit. The remainder (Greg on drums, Josh on bass, and Matt and Casey on guitar) recorded instrumental versions of the songs that would become A New Set of Lungs and sent them to Billy in London. He and Greg kept in touch and Greg asked him if he would like to do vocals for the band upon his return home. He accepted the offer, returned home on a Monday, practiced with the band for the first time on Wednesday, and played a show with them that Friday. A New Set of Lungs came out in May, 2002.
The album was comparatively successful, living up to the hype that no one thought it could. A split with Light the Fuse & Run followed a year later, after many complications. They recorded and released Cryonics, their first full-length, and then went on a rampage through Japan with Envy and City of Caterpillar. Both the album and the tour were a complete success. Many consider Cryonics to be the band's best work.
Hot Cross recorded a split with Lickgoldensky in 2004, and then Fair Trades and Farewells a year later. It was an EP, where Josh and Matt switched roles so they could play what was most comfortable to them. This payed of greatly, and Hot Cross's sound as a whole completely changed to a more angular and technical style. Given the immense amount of positive feedback of the album, Josh stayed on guitar and Matt stayed on bass to record a split with The Holy Shroud. Unfortunately, due to Josh's busy career as a music producer, he announced his leaving of Hot Cross in 2006. Fans of the band lost hope, as Josh was one of the most important members to the band's sound. There were parts of nearly every song where the vocals surrounded on him. He'd make his return to the band in a different way later in the year.
The band continued to play as a four-piece throughout 2006, during this time, Greg became friends with a few of the higher-ups at Equal Vision Records (Converge, Coheed & Cambria, Fall of Troy, Alexisonfire, etc.) and the band switched over from Level-Plane. This was obviously a sign that the band was moving in the right direction. Greg was also relieved that he no longer had to worry about marketing and distributing his own band.
They recorded an early version of Risk Revival, but were unhappy with it. They made the very difficult decision to throw out the old one and record with, guess who, Josh Jakubowski. Unfortunately, the album leaked a month before its release date (Febuary 20th). Those who got their grubby mitts on it were very impressed. The album exhibits a return-to-roots sound that has more of a punk flavoring to it than any of their past albums. Casey manages to do on one guitar what they needed two guitarists for on their previous records. Losing Josh as a second vocalist means that there's a bit less variety in the record, but there are several songs that stand out in that they are very different from the rest, such as "Silence is Failure". Overall, it is a brilliant record, and I eagerly await my preorder.
So, now that I've told you what there is to know about the band, why should you check them out? If you like fast, guitar-driven music that pummels you without going overboard, this band is for you. If you're someone who is new to hardcore music, they are at least an excellent gateway band. Also, if you like this band, I recommend that you check out their pre-Hot Cross work in the bands I mentioned near the top, you won't be disappointed.
Yardsale went well, although none of my stuff (I put out very little) sold at all. I did get Starbucks though, which is always a plus.
I got nothing done today. Yuck. I didn't shower until like 6pm, and I only got a little bit done on my Cubism piece. I want to stop working on that for a bit and work on my actual first concentration image that I can work on in class. So far, the idea is that mutated trees are cutting down suburban housing like mankind cuts down forestation. Yep.
Other than that, I'm sloooowly typing up an article for Orange Lazarus about Killwhitneydead. There's a number of reasons, really. I know way too much about them, their music rules, and their history is... an interesting read, lol. Further researching them, I found out that Tribunal Records is having a SALE! There's like 20 albums there for under $5. lol About half of those appear to be full-length as well!
So... yeah. Nothing eventful. Blah.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BOTH MY MOM AND KISHA and that girl in the back whose boyfriend bought her a cake for lunch, got it stolen from him, and he had to chase after the kid who took in and stab through his mouth with a key to get it back. HURRAY!
We were looking at all the slides from the people who did AP Art last year, goddamn, Allison's stuff is amazing. I saw most of her stuff as she was working on it last year, but there was about half of her stuff I never saw. I still want to buy her picture with the kitten sitting in front of a vase from her. It looks just like Kuja, our deceased cat.
And I want to apologise to Matt, here, since he now has a Vox. I am most likely not going to have any free time at all ever unless I feel like stressing myself out later by skipping a day of work on my art. It sucks, but at least it's fun. I mean, I don't care if you come here and play video games or something and watch me draw, or if you want to share my art supplies and learn some drawing skills yourself, lol. I don't know how my mom will feel about that though, lol.
Anyway, I have to go through my older TCG's like Pokemon and some of my Playstation games to sell for tomorrow's yardsale. I'd also like to type up the Killwhitneydead article I finished for Orange Lazarus. It's long as fuck, like five pages on notebook paper (and I write very small to begin with), where the Neil Perry article was like two pages with stuff going into the margins. I promise you it'll be a fun read though. There's so much hilarious stuff about KWD that most people don't know about, like how they got their name, or the legend of the fake Killwhitneydead, lol. Maybe it will make them more respected somehow. I don't know. For me, knowing more about the band definitely helped me appreciate it more. I've known for a while that the KWD persona they had up for several years was fake, even from the first album. I did use their "Scene of the Crime" DVD as a source for most of it, though.
Also, I read the post on the Vox Team's blog about adding image tags to songs, so I'm going to do that and upload eight songs. I'm thinking about:
Transistor Transistor - [Erase All Names And Likeness #04] Power Chord Academy [3:32]
Cinemechanica - [The Martial Arts #03] Brain Tarp [3:37]
Kylesa - [To Walk a Middle Course #01] In Memory [4:29]
Circle Takes the Square - [Document #13: Pyramids in Cloth #01] Patchwork Neurology [3:28]
Protest the Hero - [A Calculated Use of Sound #04] Soft Targets Dig Softer Graves [4:26]
pg. 99 - [Document #5 #04] My Application to Heaven [3:03]
The Dillinger Escape Plan - [Calculating Infinity #02] 43% Burnt [4:31]
The Fall of Troy - [Doppelganger #02] Ace One, Scene One [5:00]
They are all very representative of what I listen to, and at the very least, Kisha needs to take a listen to The Fall of Troy, Transistor Transistor, and Cinemechanica. I want to know what she thinks of them!
That's all. I'll be uploading these as I clean my room. :D
