Dad Punchers- S/T

This is our first post in a year, but I needed to share this record with people.

Dad Punchers is the solo project of Touche Amore/DNF drummer Elliot Babin. He originally wrote and recorded 3 songs in his bedroom in-between TA tours, playing all the instruments himself. He then recorded a self titled full length, with the bassist of Joyce Manor helping out. He sometimes plays shows in California with a drummer and bassist.

This record is incredible. It's happy and sad and nostalgic and fun, all at once. It's one of the few records I can listen to when I want to have fun, and when I wanna be sad. It's awesome, indie-ish punk. Plus, Elliot sings like Kermit the frog (not so much anymore, but on the demo...).

buy it here

download here

State Lines - Hoffman Manor (2011)

1. Driver

2. Getaway

3. You Were a Hurricane

4. Cancer

5. Garvey

6. Cheers, Belmonte

7. Probably in a Notebook

8. My Friends

9. House

10. Hoffman Manor

State Lines are a pretty rad young band out of Long Island, NY, who play music that sorta reminds me of Tigers Jaw, The Story So Far and Into It. Over It.. Hoffman Manor is their debut release. Considering their age (judging from a couple live videos and photos, a couple of the members can't be older than 16-17, maybe 18), this album is totally exciting: I like it more than the most recent albums by the three bands I mentioned earlier.

You should be pretty hooked in by the first track, "Driver," and you'll definitely hear the TJ comparison. The vocal harmonies on this record aren't exactly sophisticated, but they're fantastic nonetheless. Same goes for the lyrics, since they can be pretty teen-cheesy at times. I'm not really digging the meta line in "My Friends" ("And we might die trying to cross state lines/ but we'll never regret it") which is a shame, 'cuz the melody is ballin'. "Cancer," my personal favorite track, has some pretty heavy and intense lyrics that are equally promising. Vocalist Jonathan Dimitri has the youthfulness of Title Fight but other than that it's pretty run-of-the-mill Midwest-y emo singing (not a bad thing at all). Manor is pretty consistent for the most part, only slowing down -- in my opinion, anyway -- during the (aforementioned) eighth track, "My Friends."

Like I said, they're all pretty young so their best musical days are ahead of them. Get stoked.

Recommended tracks: "Driver," "Cancer"

For fans of: Tigers Jaw, Get Up Kids, Saves the Day, Joyce Manor

Facebook

Bandcamp

Mediafire

Oatmeal - Dinosaur Eggs

1. michelangelo and the fantastic whatever

2. the obnoxious 3d puzzle

3. one, two

4. i hope you dont mind

5. another terrible metaphor

Oatmeal is a phenomenal band that I don't see mentioned on the internet often / heard talked about. It's probably because a) they have a stupid band name b) have a stupid album name and c) don't use punctuation or capital letters in any of their song titles. Regardless, they are incredible. Really catchy songs that combine somewhat intricate, clean guitars combined with some sweet, crooning vocals.

FFO: Catchy songs that combine somewhat intricate, clean guitars with sweet, crooning vocals.

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?347db7h7gz0lzob

~Raphael B.

Atomic Ballroom Calamity / Aminals - Discography

I have no idea how many people actually have heard of this band. They were fairly popular around where I'm from but I don't know if that popularity extends past New England. Regardless, it should. Atomic Ballroom Calamity (who later changed the band name to Aminals) was a phenomenal and unique band from the Allston/Boston, MA area, I believe, that played an inventive mix of hardcore, with a mixture of everything from thrash, screamo and metalcore elements present. It's really weird how eclectic a mix some of these songs are.

I've taken the liberty of compiling all of their songs together into one folder, so enjoy. There may be some tracklisting errors, but all of the correct track names and track order can be found below, pulled directly from their website.

Also, check out their awesome music video for the song "Aminals" (It's not on YouTube so I can't embed it). Anyway, here : http://www.myspace.com/youaminals/videos/video/37490620

Discography Download : http://www.mediafire.com/?bft569ccgatnpk7

Releases, in order of newest to oldest:

'09 Releases
1. Sloppy Omega
2. War Widows

Hearing Aids
1. Doot dat Doot dat
2. Aminals
3. I am the Devil

Talkin' Shit EP
1. Hi
2. A Swan Song for the Birds
3. Ew, She Smells Like Allston
4. Get Down! Loaded!
5. LMNOPour Grammer
6. White Balance
7. Electric Nose Graze
8. Alright, Bye

Oldies But Goodies
1. Electric Nozegraze
2. LMNOPour grammer

~Raphael B.

Giant's Chair - Purity and Control

1. Nondescriptionist Ethic
2. Robbing Peter, Paying Paul
3. Single File Accident
4. Purity and Control
5. 1000 of Anything
6. Work As Fuel
7. The Speech
8. Blind in One Eye
9. The Ballad of Jody Hamilton
10. Muelbach Pigeon

Giant's Chair was a post-hardcore/emo/whatever band that existed for about five years in the '90s. All you need to know is that they're awesome and more bands should rip them off instead of Cap'n Jazz and those other '90s bands (myself included).

Having only recently been introduced to this band, I've only been able to dive into 'Purity and Control' so far. The vocals remind me a lot of Fugazi while the instrumental sections are kind of like Drive Like Jehu or something. However you want to describe it, it's cool, groovin' music.

The first mediafire link I found didn't have the first song, "Nondescriptionist Ethic", which was the first song I had heard by this band and one of my favorites. So I had to do some extra searching but I think this link has all the songs.

FFO: Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu, Knapsack, Mineral

Purity and Control: http://www.mediafire.com/?uzimwmvzqzx

~Raphael B.

The Newfound Interest in Connecticut - tell me about the long dark path home

Tracklist:
1: The computers stopped exchanging information

2 : andstarted sharing stories

3 : and then they kissed
4 : "Okay you can be tigers but no crashing",

5 : five years of work and we built that song

6 : it sings for itself

7 : I can hear your footsteps just outside camp, sah sah sah...
8 : - I can see your breath rising in the air;
9 : on my back watching the northern lights recede
10 : The Artic Circle.

I just heard about this band for the first time recently and liked them instantly. They reminded me a lot of My Winter Nerve, another really awesome and really under-appreciated band that plaits similar music.

I'm not sure if the typos and grammatical errors in the song titles are intentional so I typed the tracklist as it appeared in the download I found.

The vocals aren't really my thing but the instrumental sections are really cool and easy to get lost in (case in point: track four).

FFO: My Winter Nerve, And So I Watch You From Afar (But really, mainly just My Winter Nerve)

Download: http://www.mediafire.com/?hyyq1ormzkj

-Raphael B.

Cavalcades - Nothing Worse Than Empty EP

April 4th, 1968

Quiet Voices, Loud Places

(A Dramatic Procession Of People Or Things)

Half A Year

Cavalcades is a melodic hardcore band out of Scotland. This EP came out earlier this year apparently and I should of had it way before now but I somehow missed it until I went to check out their new split with Manbearpig, Nai Harvest & For This World is Hollow and These Hands Have Touched The Sky which just came out this month it seems. Anyways this EP and that split are both really good, it's melodic hardcore coming from kids with their heads and hearts in the right place and in a genre that's getting (gotten) kinda over-saturated that's hard to find. You can get all their tracks off of their bandcamp at the name your own price rate so get on it.

http://cavalcadesuk.bandcamp.com/album/nothing-worse-than-empty-ep

-Mike D.