Tag: The 2000’s
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Eagles of Death Metal ‘Peace Love Death Metal’ (2004)
Eagles of Death Metal is a fun little garage rock project fronted by principal songwriter Jesse Hughes with contributions by alternative rock legend Josh Homme. The name is a play on words to 70’s rock band the Eagles, and the fact that they aren’t a death metal band makes that little inside joke even more…
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The Matches ‘Decomposer’ (2006)
My love for The Matches was first sparked by their debut album E. Von Dahl Killed The Locals. It was one of the first pop punk albums that truly felt personal to me in a significant way– as I wrote earlier this year when reviewing the album: There was a point in high school where…
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Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer ‘Self-Titled’ (2002)
As I wrote in my writeup for Circa Survive’s magnum opus On Letting Go, I’m a huge stan for Anthony Green. From my perspective everything he touches is gold: The obvious element which makes it work Anthony Green. Green’s prolific artistic output as both a member of multiple bands (he currently fronts four of them)…
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The Fall of Troy ‘Doppelganger’ (2006)
The Fall of Troy was an underground favorite of mine during high school– their innovative blend of post-hardcore, math rock, and progressive metal was a dynamic addition to my musical repertoire that coincided with my love for post-hardcore bands like Underoath. Doppelganger is by far their best album in my eyes, and features all the…
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J Dilla ‘Donuts’ (2006)
It was the winter of 2006 and iconic beatmaster J Dilla was in and out of the hospital. With his previous chart-topping performances with artists like Common, The Roots, Mos Def, Janet Jackson, and Busta Rhymes in the rearview mirror, and his health quickly deteriorating due to a rare terminal blood illness, Dilla got to…
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Rise Against ‘Appeal to Reason’ (2007)
As a certified Warped Tour kid I’ve always had a deep appreciation for some of the more veteran punk rock acts that are still going strong and cranking out meaningful music. Much like their contemporaries Bad Religion and Hot Water Music, the Chicago-based hardcore punk outfit Rise Against has carved out a really nice career…
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The Donnas ‘Spend The Night’ (2003)
I remember The Donnas pretty vividly during my early high school years. I saw them live at Shoreline Amphitheater at BFD Festival the summer after graduating 8th grade and was blown away. Keep in mind this was during the garage rock revolution of the early aughts and at peak Plank testosterone production levels– all I…
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As I Lay Dying ‘Shadows Are Security’ (2005)
Shadows Are Security was one of those albums I discovered in high school when I was first getting into melodic metalcore. I was a punk rock kid through and through for most of my early teens, but around the time Underoath dropped They’re Only Chasing Safety in 2004 it set me off on a path…
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LCD Soundsystem ‘Sound of Silver’ (2007)
LCD Soundsystem’s 2007 album Sound of Silver is a dutiful exploration of dance-punk and electronic music, showcasing lead singer and primary songwriter James Murphy’s penchant for artistry. Building on the success of their eponymous debut album. Murphy’s production combines vintage analog equipment with modern technology, achieving a rich, layered texture that defines the album. His…
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Fall Out Boy ‘Take This To Your Grave’ (2003)
Despite the fact that Fall Out Boy is absolutely one of the most prolific pop punk bands of all-time and their debut album Take This To Your Grave was released only two years after Sum 41’s All Killer No Filler and four years following Blink-182’s 1999 album Enema of The State, in my mind the…
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TV on the Radio ‘Return to Cookie Mountain’ (2006)
Return to Cookie Mountain was released during my freshman year of high school. One of my new friends in that class burned me a copy to listen to and I distinctly remember the feeling I had when I first heard “I Was a Lover”. It was a feeling of wonderment, strangeness, and utter disbelief. Being…
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Simple Plan ‘No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls’ (2002)
During the rise of pop punk in the early aughts there were a ton of bands that plied their trade on MTV’s Total Request Live. Few were better than capturing the silly teen angst of being a 13-year old than Simple Plan, whose debut album No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls captured exactly what it felt…
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The Mother Hips ‘Pacific Dust’ (2009)
The Mother Hips are somewhat of a Bay Area institution having delivered their brand of 90’s alternative meets 70’s classic rock for over 30 years now. Pacific Dust carries on the spirit of what has made The Mother Hips such a fixture in the Northern California music scene– dynamic guitar parts, rock-steady rhythm section, and…
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Slaid Cleaves ‘Broke Down’ (2000)
I was first introduced to Slaid Cleaves by one of my closest friends during freshman year of high school. His father was a huge folk music fan and always had a ton of new and interesting records from lesser known artists lying around the house and would always share them with a smile on his…
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The Strokes ‘Is This It’ (2001)
There are great musical achievements that stand the test of time. There are bands who are just fucking cool. And there are bands who catch fire out of nowhere before capturing the attention of the entire world. It’s not often those traits intersect so perfectly that the Venn Diagram ends up looking like a circle.…
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System of a Down ‘Toxicity’ (2001)
Today when a band gets labelled with the term nu-metal it’s almost a credibility death sentence. Back in 2001? Not so much. This was the era when Korn and Limp Bizkit were a mainstream thing, constantly played on MTV, and every young male in their teens was obsessed. Amidst this backdrop System of a Down…
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Rufio ‘Perhaps, I Suppose…’ (2001)
Perhaps, I Suppose… is what I remember my early teens sounding like– obsessed with girls with absolutely zero experience in how to communicate with them, imbuing way too much meaning into mundane fleeting glances, and desperately trying to figure out what all these big feelings going on in my head were all about (hint: it…
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The Temper Trap ‘Conditions’ (2009)
I spent the better part of last weekend listening to The Temper Trap’s 2009 album Conditions and asking myself if this album was a low-key late aughts masterpiece that time somewhat forgot. The Australian-based quartet has all of the delayed glittery guitar grandiose of Edge from U2, the driving rhythm section of Coldplay that sounds…
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The All-American Rejects ‘The All-American Rejects’ (2002)
The year was 2003 and I was a newly minted Middle School graduate entering high school. I was getting heavily into music, compulsively buying records at a fervid clip, and the local radio station Live 105 was putting on their annual summer concert festival BFD (short for Big F***ing Day) during the halcyon summer months.…
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Alberta Cross ‘Broken Side of Time’ (2009)
Alberta Cross was a mainstay for me during college, and still stands to this day as one of my favorite alternative rock albums. Their blend of darkly sinister guitar riffs that sounded as if the apocalypse was around the corner, clear respect for the traditions of the blues, absolutely thumping rhythm sections, and the haunting…
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My Morning Jacket ‘It Still Moves’ (2003)
Well before My Morning Jacket turned the corner from underground darling into a mainstream adjacent band that your mom saw perform on the Jimmy Fallon show (she enjoyed it), they were a group of reverb-lovin’ good ole boys from Lousville, Kentucky that loved to get out there and crank out 8-minute meandering folk rock rock…
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Taking Back Sunday ‘Tell All Your Friends’ (2002)
If you were a dude in high school during the mid-2000’s, Taking Back Sunday was a defining band in the era that defined the emo genre. Lead singer Adam Lazzara’s impeccable swag was the stuff every friend I knew wanted to emulate. His carefree long hair, impeccable vocal range, and stage presence that included him…
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Motion City Soundtrack ‘Commit This To Memory’ (2005)
Motion City Soundtrack was a perennial favorite of mine during high school. This was the era of my life when pop punk reigned supreme and I immediately found connection with Motion City Soundtrack for a variety of reasons– our shared Midwest roots (we both hail from the Twin Cities in Minnesota), their unique blend of…
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Hot Water Music ‘Caution’ (2002)
It’s hard to fully explain how much I respect the hell out of Hot Water Music. This is a band that formed in 1994 and is still at it today with the majority of band members pushing 50 years old. That’s a hard task to do in the music business, let alone one as unrelentingly…
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The Matches ‘E. Von Dahl Killed The Locals’ (2004)
There was a point in high school where The Matches were my favorite band in the world, hard stop, no doubt about it. I loved the fact that they were a local band (they hailed from Oakland, CA), I loved the fact that their live show was absolutely electric (I had the chance to catch…
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Circa Survive ‘On Letting Go’ (2007)
When former Saosin lead singer Anthony Green left Saosin to form a new project in the mid-2000’s it was soul-crushing to 15 year old me. I was an avid fan of their 2003 EP Translating The Name and couldn’t imagine a world in which they wouldn’t be making music together. It all worked out in…
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Ratatat ‘Ratatat’ (2004)
In the genre of guitar electronica (which is pretty damn niche), Ratatat ruled supreme during my high school and early college days. These guys were the epitome of Brooklyn hipsters before it was fashionable to be a Brooklyn hipster, recording their neo-psychedelic electronic rock album in their bassist’s Crown Heights apartment during the resurgence of…
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Ghostface Killah ‘Supreme Clientele’ (2000)
As a member of the venerable Wu-Tang Clan, Ghostface Killah’s credentials are cemented without even taking his solo career into account. But with Supreme Clientele everything that made Ghostface such a massive figure in hip hop were taken to the next level, delivering one of the best solo albums from the group that effectively invented…
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From First to Last ‘Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has A Body Count’ (2004)
Long before Skrillex was an EDM god winning Grammy awards hand over first and playing to festivals with 100K ravers in attendance he was known as Sonny Moore, the frontman of emo rock outfit from First To Last who played to a mere 100 raving lunatics in small dingy rock clubs. I was one of…
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Flogging Molly ‘Drunken Lullabies’ (2002)
It was St. Patrick’s Day yesterday so naturally I took some of my old punk classics out for a spin– Dropkick Murphys, The Pogues, and as you probably guessed, Flogging Molly and their 2002 album Drunken Lullabies. My daughter has really been getting into themed music as of late (if she’s wearing a tie-dyed shirt…
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Ween ‘Quebec’ (2003)
Ween’s eclectic discography isn’t for the faint of heart– described as “bratty deconstructionists of alternative rock”, Ween’s brand of rock took on various forms over the course of two decades, traversing from R&B to pop to rock to lo-fi Indie to country, effortlessly incorporating all of those disparate elements in every single album they released.…
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Thrice ‘Identity Crisis’ (2001)
If there’s one band who I’ve truly grown up with throughout the course of my life, enjoying every single one of their permutations and watching as their sonic evolution mirrored that of my own tastes, it is undoubtedly Thrice. Their career is one of epic scope, from their early SoCal skate punk meets Bay Area…
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As Cities Burn ‘Son I Loved You At Your Darkest’ (2005)
Emo and its tangential offshoots have long been a love of mine (as anyone who has been reading my thoughts on music over the past year and a half have known), and As Cities Burn is one of those deep cut albums which has long cemented itself as a cult-classic personal favorite. There’s a bit…
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Deftones ‘White Pony’ (2000)
I’ve always loved the production sound of Deftones’ White Pony in a way that borders on obsessive — whether it be the crack of the snares, the massively lush electric guitars, lead vocalist Chino Moreno’s haunting vocal performance, and the deep thump of the bass, this is one of the best sounding albums I’ve ever…
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Jack Johnson ‘In Between Dreams’ (2004)
As an alum of UC Santa Barbara (Ole Ole Ole, go Gauchos) I’m pretty sure I’m legally obligated to be a fan of singer-songwriter Jack Johnson. He graduated from UCSB in 1997 and played in the band Soil during his college days, opening for legendary bands like Sublime and Dave Matthews Band before they got…
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The Movielife ‘This Time Next Year’ (2000)
Anyone familiar with emo and its various offshoots during the mid aughts can immediately recognize that distinctive Long Island sound– sugary sing-a-long pop hooks with a deliberate nod to the hardcore roots that dominated the scene in the mid-to-late 90’s. Bands like Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, and Glassjaw effectively defined that Long Island sound…
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