The Rock Thread

Natas - "Ciudad de Brahman (1999)

The widely celebrated sophomore album from this Argentinian outfit offers a lovely blend of heavy stoner rock, psychedelic atmosphere & hypnotic desert-rock grooves, all presented in a super-professional package that I find really easy to listen to. In fact, there are very few bands out there that do this sound better.

For fans of Kyuss, Tool & Brant Bjork.

4/5

Buffalo - "Mother's Choice" (1976)

The 1976 fourth full-length from this iconic Sydney outfit came after the axing of legendary guitarist John Baxter in the interest of creating a more accessible, radio-friendly sound. For that reason, it is often disregarded by fans of the band's classic era but it's really not that bad a record. In fact, it compares with Buffalo's previous couple of releases (i.e. their 1974 self-titled E.P. & "Only Want You For Your Body" album) very well. "Mother's Choice" is an inconsistent record in many respects though & the psychedelia & early heavy metal that people tend to recognize Buffalo for are nowhere to found but, if you can judge the material on its own merit, this isn't a bad listen. You should expect a fair amount of boogie rock, blues rock & rock 'n' roll influence in their accessible hard rock sound though.

For fans of Status Quo, Rose Tattoo & Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs.

3.5/5

Ummm.... Matt Ishida and the Teenage Wolves - Arrive

Genres: Pop Rock, J-Rock

Do any of you recognize that face?

...

You figure it out?

I'll give you a hint.

His best friend is a lizard in wolf's clothing...

who turns into a wolf...

who digivolves into a ripped shirtless furry.

This is literally happening, apparently.  Our secondary hero from Season 1 of Digimon, who put together his own band in the sequel season, is basically the subject of a virtual band now.  More than 20 years after Digimon 02 stopped airing, Bandai put together a literal album for his band.  Curiosity kinda overtook me this time.  Izzy was right: curiosity is essential, and it's not gonna kill this Gatomon today.  When I saw Matt's band long ago, I wondered what their other songs sounded like.  Better yet, I wondered what the original sub songs sounded like rather than that generic 90's alt-rock stuff they used as filler in the Fox Kids dub.  Guess I'm finding out.

Anyway, the real clincher here is whether or not any of the songs can match any of the themes done by Koji Wada in the early days.  I mean, those were major bangers.  Now, it's not wrong to say that in comparison to those, these songs feel thrown together.  But it's basically comparing a standard diner burger to Ramsay here, so that's not entirely fair.  What I appreciate is that the people behind this album are really trying to write heartfelt and meaningful pop rock here instead of just either knocking off Koji Wada or trying to do something "cool" and "modern."  It feels like a music lover is really trying for the first time and getting somewhere, and not just with some good melodies and nice vibes.  The fact that we get a good slow-dance style pop song like "Hitoribocchi no Seesaw," one of several new versions of previous songs, and some of Matt's harmonica on occasion feels kind of authentic.  Believe it or not, we get a song sang by... hehe, Gabumon here.  And he's not really decent like Matt, but he's not as bad as Bob Dylan.  Besides, we get some very clean production that does a lot with the instruments but never goes overboard, as well as some good solos and nice variety on the instruments.  There's more to the album than what a stunt like this generally warrants, whether it gets punkish like some heavier Blink or serene enough for a walk on the beach.

So a Digimon icon has joined a collective of popular characters who became virtual bands, such as the Archies, the Partridge Family, the Chipmunks, and the best of these: Gorillaz.  The album has little to no notoriety, so it doesn't really affect the character's popularity, and his popularity doesn't affect the album's bare-bones attention.  Nevertheless, it was pretty catchy, took a bunch of different directions without going too far and managed to satisfy a kind of curiosity Digimon nuts may have been wondering about since 2000.  Of course, with the rising popularity of the franchise due to the recent Story games, a growing card game franchise and their best anime since 2002, it's no wonder they had the money to pull this out of their hats after 20 years.  And once again, the product isn't really disappointing here.  It's nice to not only know what Matt's band sounds like, but that they can write a number of good and catchy songs without going into 90's rock sameyness like a number of alt-rock acts.

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