AeroLynx Music Blog

Finally! Young The Giant is back, and they're coming out with an album (hopefully) this summer. I really hope they release more tour dates, because I narrowly missed them at Central Park last summer, and now it seems like all four dates they have in New York are inconvenient. Well, whatever. I can't do anything, so I'll just enjoy their new album as much as I've enjoyed their last two - immensely.The first thing that really strikes me about the song is the range of moods, tones and volumes they can go through in one song. They go from blazing guitar and shouted vocals to melancholy strums and whispered promises in a very short time, and pretty much accomplish it and make it work.The song is also excellently crafted, with all the right instruments at the right times, and very catchy but not extremely meaningful lyrics. The second verse is definetely the best, but the deepened vox echo effects really threw me for a loop, but they ...

When I saw the lineup for day two of the 104.5 Birthday Celebration, I knew I had to buy tickets and trek it out all the way to Camden, New Jersey. I made an executive decision to miss the Great Enough, because I don't really like their music. I also missed Glorious Sons, but I saw the rest of the bands on the new music discovery stage. They were all. pretty good, none I've really heard of and all seeming like they started off as college bands. The Shelters were pretty good, but they seemed a bit too close to Arctic Monkeys for comfort. DREAMERS, arguably one of the best of the small bands, also dug into an early 2000s guitar rock vein, going more towards the Strokes but unique enough to be interesting. The Wrecks put on a good show, but I don't really like their music that much. I'm definitely going to listen to more The Shelters and DREAMERS, and hopefully catch them at the bigger BB&T stage in a year or two. Missio was frankly a disapp...

The 1975 released their opus two years ago with I Love It When You Sleep, and fans have been clamoring for new music ever since. They whetted everyone's appetite with DH00278, but the excitement only lasted as long as the two hours it took to listen, as it was just a live recording from their performance at the O2, not new music. But now they finally do have new music, but Music For Cars has been scrapped, and is now merely a title for the period of the next two albums, dropping this year and the next. They're called A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships and Notes on a Conditional Form, and I don't know whether to be happy there's two of them or annoyed because the first won't even drop until October. Anyway, I'm happy at the moment because we have Give Yourself a Try right now (with a crazy video I'd have to do another review of there's so much in it) and I'm currently happy. Who know where I'll be if they don't drop anything more before...

Awhile ago Damon Albarn confirmed that this year would bring a followup to last year's reasonable showing from Humanz, which we now know will be called The Now Now. Four of these Gorillaz singles were dropped at pretty much the same time, Humility, Sorcererz, Fire Flies and Lake Zurich, the former of which received a ebullient skateboarding video made for summer that catapulted it to the top of the YouTube trending chart. Is it worth the hype? Maybe... but I'll start with Lake Zurich, the first that dropped. The majority of the song is relatively sparse electronic house track, full of elements that fade in and out over the basic key line and the almost natural sounding drums. It's good, wholesome classic house and does this cool switch around three minutes that makes you want to listen for the full long four minutes. It has a weird interlude which sounds like it was from Murdoc and doesn't really make much sense, so it just sounds like Damon Albarn was having fun on ...

When I saw Vance Joy was coming to Prospect Park, I knew I had to go. It was a payed show, but I could stand outside with the only problem being no line of sight to the stage. I didn't really catch the opening acts except for a snatch of rising star Alice Merton's hit single No Roots, as she's touring with him. Vance Joy did an excellent job in his set, playing a pretty long set of which I knew half the songs. He had an acoustically well done arrangement, with contributions from his backing band of mainly brass providing a flawless accompaniment to his excellent singing and acoustic guitar work. He seemed very earnest and tried to explain each song and not go with the flow, but the crowd was really into it and still sang and danced along with every song. I though he'd stop at Riptide, but he also performed Saturday Sun and Lay It On Me to compound a jubilant performance. The crowd howled for a encore, but by that time he'd finished it was ten and he'd already co...

BANNERS came out with a well meaning and decently popular debut EP in  2016, and even got a feature on a FIFA soundtrack. Yet there was room for improvement, and it came in the fantastically catchy and emotive Empires On Fire, which I wore out last year (on spotify, sadly there wasn't a vinyl for it). And now this song: certainly due for an new EP or album, but I'll leave that up to them. BANNERS wastes no time, getting it into a steady drum-blasted guitar riff washed with synthes. After that it gets into a much more stripped instrumental to back Michael Nelson's melancholy but hopeful verse. The prechorus uses a weird method of building up through chords with backing vocals to build up to the chorus, which works really well. The chorus is pretty grandiose, like the intro, and reaches gigantic heights before pulling back into an acoustic guitar, synth and vocal backed low second verse. It continues back to the chorus and finally a crescendo in which BANNERS sings a bunch of...

The Hunna have been preparing for an album, with mixed results. summer and Flickin' Your Hair were pretty good and Dare was okay, but YDWIWM was a bit of a mess. One problem they have is cohesiveness in their style, and originality. That problem really shows through in this song, which takes their most common style: a faster copy of Catfish and the Bottlemen. The vocalist for The Hunna isn't as good as the one for Catfish and the Bottlemen, but they certainly bring more energy. I feel their songs don't really feel that powerful, the lyrics with little meaning and not a very charismatic style. Songs like She's Casual, Summer (which sets them in a more poppy vein they're better in) and Flickin' Your Hair are good, but it looks like this album is shaping up to be a mediocre one.