HundredPennies

Despite the general opinion that Weezer haven’t released a great album since their early days I still stuck by the band up to their last effort, Make Believe. After traded in their catchy rock riffs for cheesy synthesiser laden ballad’s this release was pretty forgettable & left me wanting more old school Weezer tunes.  When I heard the fun upbeat single Pork & Beans (more on that later) from their latest release I was actually pretty excited about the rest of the songs as it sounded like it would be a return to form for the band.

Some really great music tours have been recently announced for Melbourne so I thought I would write a post to keep track of them all (the calender on this site seems to have disappeared).

Coming up this Friday is the Strung Out & No Use For A Name show at Billboards. Tickets are still on sale ($39) from Oztix and considering they’re over here for a whole month & playing plenty of shows there’s no excuse not to check out this sweet double header act. Check my previous post for further details

I’ve been meaning to write a review for the new Donot’s album for quite a while (it was released way back in March), but since there’s no local distributer for their records in Australia I took me awhile to obtain my copy.

Despite the fact that they’ve been kicking around since 1993 and have released 5 fantastic albums these five German punk/rockers have yet to crack the the mainstream market outside of Europe. If you haven’t heard of them before then I would suggest listening to their massive 31 track Best Of / b-side / Live album The Story So Far: Ibbtown Chronicles. It was always going to be hard to top this record but the Donots have really outdone themselves with their latest effort titled Coma Chameleon.

After Offspring released their atrocious 2003 Splinter album I had pretty much given up on the band and thought they had gone the way of the dinosaur.

I was therefore surprised (and dare I say excited) after I saw them headline this year’s Soundwave Festival where they played a number of nostalgic tracks from their Smash & Ixnay albums and a couple of new songs. After hearing them live I was even a bit hopeful (secretly withheld of course) that their upcoming release would regain the credibility they’d lost with earlier craptacular singles Pretty Fly and Original Prankster.

Since I’ve been so Thrice crazy on hundredpennies lately I thought I would tackle some other recently released albums. There’s plenty to get through including new stuff from Weezer, Less Than Jake, Alkaline Trio, The Donots, Trial Kennedy and Offspring’s latest which I’ll be covering today. Keep checking back in the coming weeks if you want the lowdown on any of these albums and if you want me to cover any particular one first leave a comment & let me know.

I hope you’re ready for the final part of my Alchemy Index review, since this ones going to be a big one feel free to skip to the final verdict if you’re too lazy to read. While I found Thrice’s first two volumes to be slightly lacking in depth, they’ve more than made up for the disappointing Water EP with the final two volumes of III:Air & IV: Earth.

Congratulations to Heath Tully for ticking off yet another of his goals on project 183.

For those unaware this project consists of completing 183 various goals/achievements before the time he hits 30. So far he’s completed 32 of these goals including, getting a motorcycle license, being a contestant on a TV game show, completing a rubic’s cube in under 183 seconds & abstaining from alcohol for 100 consecutive days.

If you’ve read my previous post then you should know that Thrice have recently announced an Australian tour to promote the release of the final volumes in their Alchemy Index project. I therefore though it would be a good time to write up a full review of this ambitious four volume epic, which I’ll be breaking up into two parts. Without further ado here’s my coverage of Volume I (Fire) & Volume II (water).

Just read this morning from the good guys over at Bombshellzine that Thrice have recently announced a tour to coincide with the completion of their ambitious & variable Alchemy Index albums.

Melbourne is the only state lucky enough to host two shows so make sure you don’t miss the chance to see Thrice playing at the Corner Hotel on Saturday 30th & Sunday 31st of August. Details for the other shows can be found here.

Since there’s been so much tech talk floated around recently I thought it would be a good idea to break it up with a short write up on a great movie I saw last night called The Orphanage.

While it was directed by a relative newcomer (Juan Antonio Bayona), it shares a visual style very similar to last years critically acclaimed horror tale Pan’s Labyrinth (no surprises since it was produced by Guillermo del Toro). If you’ve seen the above mentioned movie then you should know that the Spanish are building up a great reputation for delivering some really atmospheric scares.