Centershift – The Ride
Similar artists: Incubus, Chevelle, Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu
Genre: Alternative Rock
Centershift is a band that’s trying to take the transcendent sound of live rock music and capture it on a studio recording. It seems to be coming together.
The live music industry is back, and it really wants your money. For that purpose, the music industry bigwigs will get old, famous bands to come out of retirement and other old, famous bands to promise they’ll retire, and unless you see them live now, you’ll never see them again.
But those shows are easily forgotten. It’s hard to truly find a connection with a rock show that’s travelled to 100 other cities before your own and where bands are playing the same hits every night.
Why is everyone there, then? Because, rarely and at its best, a rock show can be a transcendent experience, something that truly enriches your life and reminds you of the endless possibilities.
Centershift’s blend of alt-rock and 2000s nu-metal used for “The Ride” sounds like music made by people who’ve captured a magical moment while playing in front of an audience and are carefully engineering a way to hold on to that moment forever. It’s a song that always feels on edge, in a delicate balance between bliss and disaster. If you don’t think that you need this in your life, you are probably wrong.
Centershift’s blend of alt-rock and 2000s nu-metal used for “The Ride” sounds like music made by people who’ve captured a magical moment while playing in front of an audience and are carefully engineering a way to hold on to that moment forever.
Wax Heart Sodality – Lick Skin / Taste Win
Similar artists: The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, Bauhaus, Joy Division, Echo & the Bunnymen
Genre: Post-Punk, Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
Wax Heart Sodality is a British band that believes in the importance of keeping rock music loud and unfriendly. It’s a strategy that might get them a lot of fans.
Enough biographies have been written about punk and goth musicians have now been written for us to assess their character. Of course, these groups presented themselves as unreasonable sonic terrorists. Sure, they dressed in the kind of clothes that are only to be worn when trying to make an impression.
For the most part, however, these were regular blokes. The folks from The Cure didn’t pout or wallow too much off stage to the chagrin of their fans. And Sex Pistols, apart from Vicious, didn’t engage in too much revolutionary, anarchic behaviour when not asked by Malcolm McLaren to sing about it.
Wax Heart Sodality’s “Lick Skin / Taste Win” is a loud, unsettling mix of goth and alt-rock, but it’s designed to sound foreign and unfriendly. As it turns out, plenty of people react to a voice of discontent that reflects their own feelings. With so many positive vibes offered by the pop world, it’s nice to hear Wax Heart Sodality forcing themselves to do something different.
