The Meltdown 2.49

My favorite songs, including track from Living Sacrifice, Mxpx, Zao, and TwoThirtyEight.

Wolves At The Gate - VxV

I love Wolves At The Gate! From their debut ep, to Captors, to the Back to School cover ep, everything the band has done has worked for me. Some bands are just solid.

VxV is the band's first album of original material with new vocalist Nick Detty. VxV is also the band's best material to date. By a large margin!

The songs are heavier and Detty's vocals add a layer of aggression that hasn't been in WATG's music before. At the same, the melodies are stronger and with the added heaviness to the music, the melodies pop more. Lyrically, it's some of the band's most inspiring material. It might not be complex or deep, but the context of the songs is rich and purposed.

Songs like Dust to Dust, Relief, Rest, and Majesty in Misery showcase all these elements beautifully. Great melodies with strong hooks that find their way into your head, lyrics that touch the soul, all the while hitting with a driving heaviness. Tracks like Wake Up, Wild Heart, and The Convicted all have more of a hardcore base. Fans of Close Your Eyes will love these songs. Great gang sing-a-longs.

Wolves At The Gate is one of those bands that I don't understand why they aren't huge! VxV is the perfect metal core record!

The Meltdown 2.48

New music from Young Fox, Flyleaf, Colossus, Beleaf, Moriah Peters, Mouth of the South, and more.

The Meltdown 2.47

New music from 68, Anberlin, Thousand Foot Krutch, Those Who Fear, War Of Ages, Alert 312, and more.

The Meltdown 2.46

New music from Mxpx, Beartooth, Kye Kye, Alert 312, Wolves at the Gate, and Tedashii.

True Liberty - Give Me True Liberty Or Give Me Death

I loved True Liberty's Marked For Life. It was a hard hitting punk record that touched on classic east coast hardcore punk to California cool punk (Social D, Face to Face).

Me Me True Liberty Or Give Me Death only features three new tracks. And they're fantastic! Loud and Proud is old school punk through and through. Unite will get the circle pit going. Fast and energetic, it's a great punk anthem. Standing Tall is laid back and brings in that California cool. In three songs True Liberty is able to cover the spectrum of what they do and they do it well. It leaves you wanting more.

But Give Me True Liberty doesn't end with the three new tracks. The rest of the album is a live record. The live recording starts with a cover of the folk classic God's Gonna Cut You Down. The covers are my favorite part of the live section. Johnny B. Good is well done and that goes right into Social D's Ball and Chain. True Liberty's energy is not lacking on their records but you get a great feel on the live recordings. You can compare the energy between the studio and live versions of Unite. Both are hard hitting but you can hear the raw fury on the live version.

True Liberty's range and energy make them one of my favorite band's on Thumper Punk's roster (Do I say this with each Thumper Punk release?). Give Me True Liberty Or Give Me Death is a great teaser for what's to come from True Liberty. I hope there's a new record soon!

Artifex Pereo - Time In Place

Familiarity. There's something about music that automatically feels like you have a connection to it.

I'm not sure Time In Place is instantly one of those records. While comparisons to Sullivan and Secret and Whisper come to mind, I wasn't instantly drawn to Time In Place on my first listen through. There were moments I thought "ok, I get it", but mostly, I was sadly underwhelmed and a little bored. Which seems silly to say. The riffs are technical and interesting and Artifex Pereo has a knack for changing time signatures on a dime, keeping the listener on their toes. But I wasn't impressed.

The familiarity of Time In Place came with time. Listen after listen I felt myself growing more and more fond of Artifex Pereo. Songs like Liable For Tragedy, Weep and You Weep Alone, and Overview, which feel like they'd fit just as easily in My Epic's catalog. The rest of the record has a great post hardcore, "emo" vibe that is both fresh and nostalgic. Time In Place is far from boring. And I'm not sure why it took a couple of listens for me to really connect with the record.

Artifex Pereo is a great addition to the Tooth and Nail roster. Time In Place is the perfect mix of a fresh new perspective on a genre long since beaten down, while still feeling like a nostalgic hit that you need from time to time.

The Meltdown 2.45

New music from Anberlin, Mike Mains & The Branches, Forevermore, Artifex Pereo, and My Epic.