Monday 16 February 2015

A 2005 Masterpiece, Something New, And A Checkup


A 2005 Masterpiece



 The Evil Queens were one Hell of a Rock band out of Columbus OH. The four piece outfit put out what I consider to be a genuine Rock and Roll masterpiece in 2005.  First It Boils, Then It Spills is an alcohol infused, dirty, balls to the wall album that lives up to their namesake. 

I found it several years ago crammed among a bunch of unknown crap albums in a dollar store, of all places. What drew my attention was the beautifully simple artwork with an occult flair. Once I managed to wedge it from the shelve I knew I had to hear it. Let's just say it was a great buy for a buck.

From the first listen I fell in love with this CD. There is not a song on the album that I do not like, and that even goes for the bonus tracks. It is difficult for me to choose a favorite tune from the tracks. If you like your Rock and Roll dirty and raw than this is an album you have to hear!


 They were originally well known in the Columbus bar scene and were later discovered by Addison Records due to a podcast from Ohio from Donewaiting.com First It Boils, Then It Spills went from a self-released CD to a nationally produced album within a month due to a great podcast. 

Unfortunately Mike Eckhardt, Eric Hinterschied, George Hondroulis, and Jacob Sundermyer called it quits for The Evil Queens in 2008. Even though I will never be able to see these guys live I am content to be able to crank up this great album whenever I just want to Rock out.

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Something New



The Washington Rock band Thirteen was born out of the love of the Rock and Roll stylings of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Guns and Roses. Guitarist Daniel Mahanger has gathered a group of like minded rockers with the goal  to "Save Rock and Roll from the one hit wonder shit (Justin Beieber, One Erection) that dominates the radio today."

At present they have released several singles in hopes that the band can get reactions from the fans on the process of the bands recording. They are all very well produced and recorded at Scott Weiland's Lavish Studios, where many of the Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver songs were recorded. 

The ballad "I Let GO" Her Goodbye is an exquisite song. Their female singer brings a sultry fire to everything she sings.  Her acoustic rendition of the ballad "Time" is even better than the full version, and both are top notch.

I like both of their "Romeo Kiss" versions, though I like the male sung version best just because it seems to feel heavier.

As I usually like to say: don't just take my word for it, go to their website and listen for yourself.  They sound really good and I can't wait to hear what else they come up with. 



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A Checkup



The Rock band NAPALM out of Hemel Hempstead, UK is no longer together.  James O'Connor, Josh Robinson and Josh Deeley; the three teenagers that released very promising singles such as "I Can't Stand" decided to go there separate ways.

The track "I Can't Stand" was released April 2014 as a charity song for the Canadian Cancer Societies awareness for cancer. It is a really good track. 

I was fortunate enough to design their logo and do some other artwork for them before they called it quits. 

I was really impressed by the quality of the music that they released especially considering all three of them were only 15 last year when they produced the singles.



















James O'Connor, lead guitar, briefly joined with drummer Joel Felsenstein to form a Metal band 
called Bloodfury whose lineup is still under 
construction.






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I unfortunately was not able to catch Return For Refund's Kingston gig last week. CFRC broadcasted acoustic tracks from them on 12 Feb and I was able to get a copy of that recording. 

They were excellent as usual. It was great to hear some tunes by them that were not on their EP, along as a few from it. They even played an old classic Talking Heads tune. If you would like to hear it you can download it from the CFRC website.

Their EP is making the band plenty of fans on the college radio circuit. It has also garnered very favorable reviews, such as the one by Kevin Barber from Music Existence: " This is just the beginning for Return For Refund. With such an impressive debut EP, hopefully a new full-length album is just around the corner."

Check out the fan made video of their song "Some Is Better Than None" that I made posted below.



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1 comment:

  1. HI,

    I just came across this blog and had no idea you were covering my band (Napalm) a few years ago! thanks for shedding some light on us!!

    Josh

    ReplyDelete