The first Flowerland release in 15 years comes on October 16 and is bringing back the old school energy of the 90s. Flowerland formed in New Haven, CT, in 1991, and is presenting the original line up composed of vocalist Roger Guimond, guitarist Steven Christofor, drummer Jon Lichatz, and bassist Jef St. George. The band has now returned to the scene with The Caffeine Disk EP, containing six Flowerland classics  remixed by John Agnello, producer of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and Kurt Vile just to name a few.

Core part of the East Coast independent music scene in the 90s, Flowerland stays faithful to the counterculture releasing the EP via the independent record label ‘Gypsygarden records.’

Opening with the roaring ‘Crazy Horse,’ the EP instantly feeds the listener with raw and outflowing energy. The record goes on with ‘Glass i,’ which maintains the magnetism already expressed in ‘Crazy Horse’ adding a darker feeling to it, with vocalist Roger Guimond delivering an admirable performance.

‘(Jim Brown’s) Military Country’ starts off on the same page as the previous tracks, and then develops a sweeter touch, which cuddles your more instinctive feelings from the first two tracks. The highly adrenalinic vibes are taken back by the agitated ‘Low’.

‘Kill Alice (slowly)’ might be the best track of the EP. Angry, violent, but with sparkles of a fragile attitude, it brings the listener into a hypnotic atmosphere. The bass awakes the deepest thought of the listeners, Christofor’s guitar is magnificent and Lichatz’s drums exceptional, almost delirious.

Finally, the track ‘Flow’ becomes the perfect closing to the EP as it wraps up all the agitation and bass of its predecessors and releases the build-up although keeping the power.

Clearly influenced by the Grunge movement of the 90s, Flowerland mostly takes from it the punk instinct and its raw and natural inspiration which translates into passionate creation. The band then mixes this with a more classic-oriented rock approach, creating a delightful result.

The EP is easy to listen to, almost half an hour of genuine hard rock. It goes on smoothly and does not get old; it seems to acquire quality after each listening instead. It is a tornado of emotions, surely not a record to play as a background activity. It wants and deserves attention, and easily gets it. The biggest merit is probably to be able to show how relevant those sonorities still are.

Rating:  EXCELLENT 4/5

http://youtu.be/Pkw59s6JjdQ

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Jack White has often been referred to as one of the most talented musicians of the last decade. In 2011, the White Stripes, the rock band composed of Jack and Meg White, broke up. The band rose to prominence during the 2000s and continue to be recognized through and associated worldwide with their biggest hit “Seven Nation Army.”

After the band disbanded, Jack White’s musical future was unclear. He collaborated with different kind of musicians such as Dead Weather, Tom Jones, The Raconteurs, and Insane Clown Posse, with whom White explored new and very particular ways of approaching music.

Now, the Detroit-born artist is returning to the music scene as a complete musician, announcing the release of his first solo album ‘Blunderbuss’, due on April 23-24. The record will be produced by White’s self-owned record label Third Man Records in collaboration with Columbia.

Jack White declared that ‘Blunderbuss’ is “an album I couldn’t have released until now. I’ve put off making records under my own name for a long time but these songs feel like they could only be presented under my name. These songs were written from scratch, had nothing to do with anyone or anything else but my own expression, my own colors on my own canvas.”

The first single from the album, ‘Love Interruption’, was released on the 30th of January and is now available for streaming on Jack White’s website and for purchasing on the main digital music platforms. The single will also be released as a 7-inch vinyl edition on the 7th of February; it will contain ‘Love Interruption’ and the non-album track B-side ‘Machine Gun Silhouette’. The vinyl edition of the single is already available for pre-order on White’s website.

The critically acclaimed artist will surprise the audience with this very particular track as the introduction of the new album. Love Interruption is a gentle track built on keyboard and acoustic guitar; it taps into folk and country, giving the impression that White chose to walk a path for his solo career that differs from the powerful rock that has previously characterized the artist.

The lyrics are quite dark, with White saying he wants love to “stick a knife inside me, and twist it all around” and “change my friends to enemies and show me how it’s all my fault.” This dark feeling, though, is then smoothed by what seems to be a raise of self consciousness and a positive attitude of self preservation with the chorus “I won’t let love disrupt, corrupt, or interrupt me anymore.”

As if the bulk and talent of Jack White’s achievements so far was not enough to awake the interest of most music lovers, this single has given the audience an additional reason to raise their expectations for the upcoming album release.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikekatzif/

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Legendary English rock band The Cure will thrill fans this year by headlining a series of major European festivals during the summer. The band returned to the live performance scene last year with a series of “Reflections” concerts, where they performed a long set, going through the first three album of the band’s career.

At the end of the “Reflections” New York performance in November last year, frontman Robert Smith announced their plan of an upcoming tour for 2012.

The band kept the promise, and The Cure recently confirmed on their website a list of European festivals they will be performing at. The band’s announcements will coincide with the festivals’ sites. The dates are only an introduction to the band’s activity for this summer; at the bottom of the list, The Cure website page reads “LOTS MORE TO COME…”

The already confirmed festivals to be headlined by the band, as of January 24, are:

• Pinkpop Festival, Landgraaf, Holland – May 26
• Primavera Sound 2012, Barcelona, Spain – May 30-June 3
• Hultsfred Festival, Hultsfred, Sweden – June 14-16
• Hurricane Festival, Scheeßel, Germany – June 22-24
• Southside Festival, Tuttlingen, Germany – June 22-24
• Rock Werchter, Belgium - 28 June
• Les Eurockéennes, Malsaucy, France – June 29-July 1
• Roskilde Festival, Roskilde, Denmark – July 5-8
• Heineken Jammin’, Venice, Italy – July 7
• Rock in Roma, Rome, Italy – July 9
• Bilbao BBK Live, Bilbao, Spain – July 12-14
• Optimus Alive, Oeiras, Portugal – July 14

So far there is no confirmation for any festival in their motherland, England, as well as no mention of whether the band will come back to perform in the U.S. The band is currently working on a new album, although no indication of release date has been given.

Meanwhile, 2012 will most likely see the release of a deluxe re-issue of the album “Wish” to mark the twentieth anniversary of the record. Though no official statement about the re-release has been given, speculations are fueled by reading the band bio on the official website of The Cure where it states: “The Cure have been re-issuing re-mastered versions of their early albums since 2003, with 1992′s ‘Wish’ (the album that carries the single ‘Friday I’m In Love’) scheduled for the ‘deluxe re-release’ treatment in 2012.”

Furthermore, in celebration of Record Store Day next April, a 7-inch vinyl of “Friday I’m In Love,” the 20-year-old hit single, will be released in the UK to raise funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

The release of the single is part of the “Secret 7-inch” project; a project combining music and art. Seven bands and recording artists, including The Cure, will release one of their singles as a 7-inch vinyl and fans and creatives are invited to design sleeves for those singles.

The sleeves will be displayed at the Idea Generation Gallery in London next April, in an exhibition which will run for the entire week leading to Record Store Day on the 21st of said month. On this day, all the vinyls will be available for purchasing, with the buyers not having knowledge of which sleeve, nor which single, they will be buying.

Fans of The Cure have been invited by the band to submit their artworks for the project, and 45 winners will soon be selected.

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Alice in Chains, one of the most admired bands from the Seattle grunge scene, plans to release a new album soon. After some rumors about a new record, the guitarist and vocalist of the band, Jerry Cantrell, ended Alice in Chains’ set at their only gig last year by saying, “Time to head back to the studio and finish that record.”

Furthermore, he recently told ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine that the band started writing last year and that the break they took after the release of their latest album in 2009 was not intended to be so long.

One of the reasons for the long break was that Cantrell had to recover from shoulder surgery, which took some time. When interviewed by ‘Rolling Stone’, he added that they kept on writing and working on new material even during his rehabilitation. However, no time indication has been given so far about the release, though it is known that the band is planning to record in the early part of the year, giving hope to those who expect the album to be released in 2012.

The band does not seem to be pressured for a deadline. At the beginning of December 2011, when asked about a time frame for the record via ‘Grunge Report’, Jerry Cantrell replied, “Whenever we’re done. Schedules in music, I know people have done it and say you need an album out by this date, and you’re talking about album tour, it can burn you out quickly.

It did with our band. We’ve been fortunate to be partnered up with companies that respect the process. We’re never really forced to make music. If it doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t. We’ve been writing a lot. I also had shoulder surgery earlier this year. I’m at the tail end of rehabbing that. That put us back a little bit. But we have some stuff. We’ll do some writing. Hopefully we’ll have it out next year. We’ll put it out when we feel that it’s worth putting out.”

Another question regarding the new album is the role of William DuVall. The new singer, who is also the frontman of the rock band, Comes with the Fall, will probably cover a more prominent role than in ‘Black Gives Way to Blue’ of 2009, maybe having a wider influence on Alice in Chains’ sound.

‘Black Gives Way to Blue’ was the first album released by Alice in Chains after the passing of their late former singer, Layne Staley, who was then replaced by DuVall. The record has been addressed by band members to be celebrative of the legacy of the late band member and the band’s goodbye to him.

Staley died in 2002 from a lethal drug mix after struggling with severe drug addiction for years. He is one of those figures in music, and unfortunately particularly in grunge, who left the scene too early. He remains profoundly loved by fans and respected by the music scene.

‘Black Gives Way to Blue’ was a record which stuck to the typical Alice in Chains sonorities, fully respecting the band’s usual musical approach. It will be interesting to see if they will keep the new album on the same level or if DuVall’s presence will bring a slightly different set of sonorities to the group this time.

Image Courtesy of   https://www.facebook.com/aliceinchains

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The year that marked the twentieth anniversary of one of the most meaningful progressions in rock history and of some of the most influential masterpieces like Nirvana’s “Nevermind”, “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Achtung Baby” by U2, just ended. Twenty years after 1991, what is the state of rock music?

2011 was in itself a good year for rock: “Wasting Light” by Foo Fighters, “Endgame” by Rise Against, and “I’m With You” by Red Hot Chili Peppers are just few of the good releases that signified the past year and the presence of the beautiful diversity of rock. However, to make a comparison between the state of rock in the contemporary music scene and the one of 1991, seems unfair.

Twenty years ago, the rise of grunge not only brought to life a new musical style, expressing alternative sonorities and meaningful messages, it also changed the roles in the game of the music industry, making the counterculture mainstream. It is undeniable that almost all rock bands have been influenced ever since by what happened twenty years ago, so in some ways this revolution is still present.

“Never lose faith in real rock ‘n’ roll music … Never lose faith in that. You might have to look a little harder, but it is always going to be there” said Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters frontman and ex Nirvana drummer, when accepting the MTV Video Music Award for Best Rock Video for Foo Fighters’ “Walk.”

What surprises most people nowadays is exactly what Dave Grohl said: you have to look harder to find ‘real’ rock. After rising to power twenty years ago, the contemporary music industry seems to be ruled by a kind of pop music that does not really care about content or sonorities, but rather gossip, fashion and superficiality instead.

Many newer singers and bands seem to care more about impressing instead of touching people, even to the extend of not doing it through music. Lady Gaga, with her multiple costumes and creation of an alter ego, seems to be more concerned with what to wear rather than what to play; child stars like Justin Bieber, who relies on his looks rather than his voice, make provocative declarations like “I feel like the Kurt Cobain of my generation,” in order to make people talk about him, but the mere statement shows that he has no idea who Kurt Cobain was as a musician.

Rihanna has a sexy pose for every word in her songs but who can be sure it’s her real voice in the haze of voice effects and computerized distortions. Furthermore, a new type of music worker is forged through television today. Reality shows will throw any wannabe with any camera appeal to the audience, and the audience seems to blindly enjoy it.

Music charts of 2011 were often dominated by well-advertised groups created by TV standards. For example, since 2005, the UK Chart’s Christmas No. 1 has always been a song from the winner of some reality show, with the exception of 2009 when Rage Against The Machine won after a Facebook campaign against reality shows.

These few examples merit the proposition that what is really missing in the music industry is real music, real artists. Some of the most successful artists are so focused on building their imaginary characters that they forget to actually make music, relying on computerization rather than authenticity. The music industry supports this and the audience buys it all. Meanwhile, great rock bands who carry on their projects and make good music are almost lost in the scene.

“Music the great communicator,” sing Red Hot Chili Peppers in their song “Can’t Stop,” but thinking about the message that current mainstream music is communicating, nothing good comes to mind. In this scenario, there is no sign of a revolutionary and innovative rock movement about to explode. It is true that twenty years ago, nobody saw grunge coming.

On the other hand, the situation is different now. Music gets everywhere through the internet, everybody has the chance to be known somehow, and it should have gotten easier to distribute something with as much potential as grunge had in 1991 and punk in 1976.

“It’s sad to think what the state of rock ‘n’ roll will be in 20 years from now. It just seems when rock ‘n’ roll is dead the whole world is going to explode” said Kurt Cobain in an interview a few months before his death on 1994. Rock is not dead, at least not yet, but Cobain prophesied correctly: it is quite sad to think what Rock has come to today.

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