We’ve talked about 4 Footer before, as I wrote a piece on their show at Holiday House last year. Once again, 4 Footer was playing with Bastards of Reality and man, what a fantastic bout of post-punk / heavy metal glory we were given! It was like being tied up in a burlap sack and beaten with a Dethklok “Thunderhorse” Explorer.

The highlight of the night for me, however, was being one of the few recipients of a 4 Footer demo CD. The nine-track EP featured some of my favorites like “Power Move”, “Dirty Old Man”, and “It’s Like Kablam!” The recording is nicely done and the mixing allows for one to easily hear all the subtle nuances of the instruments. Jack Denning’s vocals are clear and crisp, with no fancy effects like reverb getting in the way.

The only thing I could say about the CD that could be interpreted as a negative would be that it only had nine tracks on it, but hey, you can’t argue with free. I’m hoping that they get into the recording studio for another round real soon, though, as I want a good copy of “Epic Fail” to rock out to – it’s truly a brilliant song.

4 Footer is a full-on punch in the face with hard-hitting rock jams. A fun diversion from a rock scene that’s begun to take itself way too seriously.

What I liked about the album by the Wolff boys was that it was simple pop made by a few boys that are not overstepping their own reality, and what I like about this album is that Calhoun is writing straight ahead pop tunes about real relationship problems without making a huge fuss.  He isn’t writing about idolizing some girl he can’t have or anything, he writes about breaking up or promising to make himself a better person to keep something alive.  To be honest, I think he is overstepping a little when he states that he’d take down Mike Tyson if a girl would give him a chance.  I have no doubt he’d try, but the Champ would chew his ear off before knocking him out.

Calhoun has made a name for himself in the last few years with songs on many TV shows: Men of a Certain Age, One Tree Hill, So You Think You Can Dance, Cougar Town, Real World, MTV True Life, A&E, E! and ABC Family to name a few.  With this new project, The Heaven Switch, he seems to be breaking from his usual formula and crafting better material for himself.  You can pick up pieces of Toad the Wet Sprocket, Blessid Union of Souls, Howie Day or Stephen Kellogg as he spins tales of love lost and trying for redemption.

You can stream the first four tracks to give you a great sample of the album: “Raise a Flag” is a solid opener to draw you in, “Stolen Car” will keep you moving, then lead single “Trainwrecks” is a great way to tell someone you love them no matter what, and “Fault Lines” is a good breakup tune.  Later tracks like “Surface” and “Best of Times” are also ones to watch for.

If you are in the market for something that is not run of the mill pop, then I would give this fellow a shot.  It may not be my cup of tea but that does not mean you won’t enjoy some of these tunes.

Having seen Pearl Jam and then watched the movie, hearing the music brought me back to those concerts and many others I have attended.  You can hear the band finding a groove and working up the crowd, but you can also hear the crowd riding that groove and working up the band to push themselves on stage.  For example: the song “Betterman” was written by Eddie Vedder for his mother and it might be one of the saddest songs in their catalog.  Yet the live cut on this album from Madison Square Garden two years ago is daunting to listen to.  The entire crowd sings the song while Vedder gently plays the notes and the full band kicks in.  The intimacy that you feel when the crowd joins in brings all of the songs together.

The first CD contains many of the tracks that were used in the movie while the second CD has several demos and then live versions of the actual song.  One of my favorites is “Times of Trouble” which would later become “Footsteps”.  Each track brings you to a different period in the band’s life and you can feel that tension riding over the guitars, drums and vocals.

For me, I jumped into Pearl Jam full time around Binaural and also love No Code – which was the album that many folks were jumping out at.  From there it has been a tough relationship, and I find they are still a consistent group making albums not just for themselves but for the folks that take a week off work to follow them around on tour.  From Green River to Malfunkshun to Mother Love Bone to Mookie Blaylock to Pearl Jam, this is history, this is evolution baby.

Three versions of Up! were released, all with the same track listing: a country version (the green disc), a pop version (green disc), and an international version (blue disc), which was in the style of Bollywood music. I listened to the country version, but based on other reviews that I have read, the differences among the three are quite minimal. Twain’s voice is essentially the same in all three styles. The album you prefer depends solely on what you would like to hear more in the background, some fiddle and a banjo or some funk guitars, keyboards, and a string section.

If you liked Twain’s first few albums, then you’ll like Up!, unless you were hoping that Twain would expand her musical horizons. Despite the three different versions of the album, Twain ultimately does not seem to stray from her simple and oh-so-catchy tunes. Her voice sounds exactly the same as on Come on Over, and many of the songs reminded me of her older hits. It’s almost like she looked at her old songs as models for her new ones, instead of coming up with original material. You can decide for yourself whether that’s a good or a bad thing.

Up! garnered Twain the distinction of being the only female artist to have three consecutive albums released in the United States become Diamond. However, since Up! Twain has only released a handful of songs; on her website, she cited personal struggles as the reason for the delay in new music. Unless you count her Greatest Hits album, Twain’s fans have been without a new album for just about a decade! Twain released one single last year (after six long, empty years) entitled “Today is Your Day,” but there is still no word on a new album. Twain reported recently that she will by headlining Caesars Palace for two years starting later this year, with a show called Still the One. At least she gave us plenty to listen to; the 19 songs on Up! would probably be on a minimum of two albums for any other artist.

This set of tunes comes from Vancouver, British Columbia instead of someplace in New Zealand.  We should be happy that Shalini Kumar is pursuing her dream of recording music rather than becoming a successful accountant living on a farm on the opposite side of the world.  I’ll never know how her number crunching skills are, so I’ll just have to tell you that she can sing very well.

I’ve stated before that I’m a sucker for well crafted pop songs, and this EP has five great examples.  When a sad subject can make you tap your feet and bounce, you know someone is doing their job; which is why I like “Feeling Lonely”.  Another interesting piece is how she incorporates other instrumentation into her music that reaches further than guitars and drums.  Piano and string arrangements intertwine to help create a soothing backdrop, and you can hear the complexity grooving underneath the sweet vocals that want to whisk you someplace far away or take you somewhere dark and personal.

There are not a lot of songs on this EP, and my favorites are “Feeling Lonely”, “Freeze Up” and her best track, “Book of Dreams”.  She has lofty ambitions to make it into the world of music, and you can’t help but cheer her on as she races toward her goal.  It is refreshing to hear and see artists that don’t rely on costume changes, skimpy clothing and bad reputations in a tabloid to bolster their careers.  For more information on Shalini check her website.  Anyone that likes pomegranates, Mozart and violent video games can’t be all bad.

F’d Up, David Comes to Life – the story: a man name David falls in love with a girl, who loves him back, and she dies.  He meets another girl, falls in love but she does not love him back, so she leaves him.  Feeling terrible about his life, he questions everything, and just as he is about to break,, he realizes that knowing these two girls and realizing he can love so much is more important than anything else, so he decides to start fresh.  With growling vocals, slick guitar and drum work, this is a hardcore punk rock masterpiece that Green Day should listen to for more inspiration.

tUnE-yArDs, WHOKILL – Merrill Garbus might be the only person I can think of that can rock an electric ukulele.   Blending tribal drums and rhythm with vocal loops, catchy beats and synth is pretty damn cool.  This album is a step outside the pop box and one hell of a listen if you want something different.

M83., Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming – a French DJ creates some awesome beat-laden techno that could also double as the soundtrack to a Steven Spielberg movie.  If you don’t believe me then just watch this video for some proof.  Did you get a great pair of headphones as a gift?  This album would be perfect to zone out to on a new pair of ear goggles, or to play over a good stereo.

There you have it, folks, the last entries on my year end list before 2012, I promise.  Go out and return all those other lame gifts and then pick up a few albums that will rock you.

In 2008 the duo of Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney teamed up with producer Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, to record Attack and Release.  The album was a departure from the garage-soaked blues many were accustomed to for the last four albums; it had a few good moments but felt out of place.  Their 2010 follow-up Brothers brought back the garage, kicked up the volume and broke the mainstream.  Many of their songs had been in commercials by this point and there wasn’t a hit to bring to the radio which they scored with “Tighten Up”.  A year has passed; Danger Mouse is back for round two and this short statement should inject some life into a cold winter.

Clocking in at 38 minutes, the boys waste no time getting down to business, and if the opening riff on lead single “Lonely Boy” doesn’t make you shake, just stop listening.  This album must have been recorded in a garage with Go-Go Dancers; gone are the delta blues and in their place are faster riffs and clearer vocals.  Don’t get me wrong here; I loved that snarling guitar and gravel vocals but I think El Camino is the middle ground between A&T and Brothers.  What hasn’t changed here is the content of the songs: Dan still writes blues songs that are sad and Pat hammers his kit right in time.  I do miss Thickfreakness and Rubber Factory but this album is pretty fun.

Here are a few starting points: “Gold on the Ceiling”, “Run Right Back”, “Hell of a Season”, “Money Maker” or the epic jam “Little Black Submarines”.  The literal translation of el camino is “the walk” and if this album proves a thing, it’s that The Black Keys can talk the talk and walk the el camino.  Digital or physical, grab a copy and see them this spring at a venue near you, I’ll be seeing them right before my birthday.

At any rate… Early last month, Disturbed released a compilation of B-sides and unreleased tracks titled The Lost Children. The 16-track album traverses B-side tunes from the band’s first album, The Sickness, on up through their last offering, Asylum, and is a great retrospective of the group’s career.

If you’re picking up what I’m putting down, you might be aware that Disturbed recently announced an indefinite hiatus due to personal reasons and not from any conflict within the band. In an interview with Billboard, Frontman David Draiman is quoted as saying “This is really not due to any animosity. I want to make that very clear. In fact, we just had dinner together last night. Believe me, it’s not like we can’t work with each other any more or we don’t get along. This isn’t a bad blood thing, and I don’t ever want people to get that impression of it.” We’ll see how long this lasts.

Let’s get back to The Lost Children, shall we? I’ve got to make one thing clear here; this is the album I was hoping for when Asylum was released. Varied and inspired, hard-hitting and driven, this is the kind of release Asylum should have been. It’s interesting to me that all they had to do to put out a good album was to release a bunch of B-sides. It just goes to show that Asylum may very well have been the group scraping the bottom of the barrel.

It’s sad, really. Especially when you consider that nearly all of the songs on this album are great. The first two tracks, “Hell” and “A Welcome Burden” are two of my favorites, as well as “Midlife Crisis”, a cover of the Faith No More song, and “Living After Midnight”, a cover of the Judas Priest song, which more than makes up for the U2 cover from their last album.

This one’s a solid-to-great offering from a band that showed a lot of guts. Here’s hoping they get it together and bring it on back sooner, rather than later.

Deschanel swiftly (and daringly) introduces us to her soothing vocals, taking on the first notes of the album completely on her own, in “The Christmas Waltz.” The production for this song is ever so simple, but somehow works brilliantly. “Christmas Day” follows; it’s pleasant enough, nothing special. There are many ways an artist can mess up “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which comes next, but She & Him serve it to us just right, with a coolly slow edition. Other numbers that the team performs extremely well are “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “The Christmas Song.” Most of the songs feature primarily Deschanel on vocals. If you’re looking to hear more from “him,” “Christmas Wish” provides some nice contrast on the album.

The pair takes a very relaxed approach to these Christmas classics. I doubt even Elvis would be opposed to She & Him’s suave rendition of “Blue Christmas.” Unfortunately, their take on “Little Saint Nick” was simply no match for the Beach Boys; She & Him sounds better without backup vocalists. In a surprising twist, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” turned out to be the worst single on the album. This is the tune that Deschanel sings wonderfully onscreen in Elf with Will Ferrell. (Yep, Deschanel plays the deadpan Jovie. She often sings for her roles in films and currently stars in the new Fox series, New Girl, as the main character Jess.) Ward and Deschanel rush through this tune, and fail to prevent a very convincing couple. It’s the only song on the album that is truly a disappointment.

She & Him have played it quite safe with their Christmas album. There’s not much pizzazz, but perhaps that isn’t necessary in a Christmas album. Deschanel’s voice is smooth as silk; the whole album has a very relaxed and simple feel. All of the songs have a very homey feel. In the end, it’s a solid Christmas album that’s a worthwhile edition to other Christmas regulars.

Right off the bat, what I liked about this album is that these boys seem to be singing from their hearts and experiences.  We aren’t talking Justin Bieber-sized anthems here, so don’t get the wrong impression.  These songs don’t sound naïve; rather these are two boys confronting growing up and being at those awkward ages many of us grew to detest.  When they sing about having a crush on a girl, you can hear the sincerity that sounds much better than some older dude trying to score.

Each of the boys has a chance to sing, while younger brother Alex plays solid drums and older brother Nat can play a good guitar.  Matter of fact, the boys played all the instrumental duties and vocals on this album which is very impressive for a band of their genre.  This is what pop music should sound like; enough sugar with some edge that you can sing along to and not feel too guilty about.  These boys aren’t selling themselves as deities and have the craftsmanship to make it in the industry as they grow older.

Check out: “18″, “Colorful Raindrops”, single “Thump Thump Thump”, “I Won’t Love You Any Less’” or rousing opener “Illuminated”.  If you are shy about exposing your kids to something as huge as Biebs, Lady Gaga or the like, then you might want to give these boys a try.  They seem to hit issues kids can relate to, and that is what matters most.