BANTAMWEIGHT – Fall Away
Wherever you are living, chances are that you are decrying the state of education in your country. With few exceptions, it is true that governments invest much less in teaching the children than in, potentially, bombing other people’s children. Learning is not exactly a priority for governments, just like voting is not exactly a pressing matter for those that have been lucky to have been offered a good education.
With that being, check out what some kids have been able to learn, largely, on their own? BANTAMWEIGHT may sound like a couple of frustrated Berklee graduates, taking out their frustration of tireless study on their work. However, according to their bio, their well-honed skills are the result of endless repetition, among themselves, in a small 11’x9’ practice studio.
Rock duos weren’t supposed to sound like this. They’re supposed to play garage rock and emphasize the thrills of rock n’ roll while endorsing its most primal, simplistic elements. This is certainly not the case with BANTAMWEIGHT’s Fall Away. A modern prog-rock feist where the duo manages to sound like Devin Townsend battling the world’s top DJs, Fall Away is a graduation thesis in five minutes.
Padre – Brown
Pop music is pretty shallow, sure, but from the early rock n’ roll to the latest twerk crazes, it’s a design flaw we just have to ignore. Some don’t, like Lou Reed or Bruce Springsteen, and as their careers progressed, their songwriting became much more focused on telling stories about the ills of the world. Still, fans had them play Perfect Day and Thunder Road every chance they got, and they duly obliged.
Misery is the river of the world, though, of course. Taking that philosophy to heart and seeing just how much bad luck and hardships they can inflict on a character, Australia’s Padre use their guitar-heavy single to relate the story of Brown.
A very nifty animated video accompanies the track offering the right visual stimulant to ensure that the audience remains on board with the story being told. The vocals take turns between narrating the damned fate of Brown and clean, melodic singing. Together with the wall of distorted guitars, it helps to create a tongue-in-cheek, memorable alt-rock single reminiscent of the ones that would have dominated the radio waves back in the 1990s.