Matteo Cargnelutti

Well, I did say that I'd be posting more frequently. Anyways, on with the music.

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Our artist today is Matteo Cargnelutti, a guitarist out of Bretagne, France. He has a rather eclectic catalog of styles, but the album I've highlighted here is one of his more straightforward works. I say "album", but Moods lasts only 21.2 minutes from start to finish. It is obvious that Matteo prefers quality over quantity. Despite being recorded in his home and not at a professional studio, Moods is a well polished production from start to finish. Fans of shred guitar, rock, metal and blues should give it a shot. Trust me, it's well worth your time.

The Singletons

First things first, I've embedded an automatic music player to ROTGM. That way, each time you visit here, you will immediately hear the band I highlighted last. Cheers!

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It's been more than a week since I've last posted, and my backlog of music to post on ROTGM has gotten rather lengthy. To counter this, I have decided to try to make sure I'm posting AT LEAST once per week, if not more. If things go well, I may be able to keep this up all summer long. So, without further ado, here's some music!

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

The Singletons are a four man band from Barcelona, Spain which claims on their website to be "now with a 100% more of rock". While that statement is undeniably grammatically flawed, the message is arguably correct. The Singletons offer little in the way of innovations, instead clinging to British influenced garage rock, but they make up for it with the energy and heart that makes garage rock so much fun when done right. They may not be original, but they sure do rock. Before I forget, the lyrics are in English not Spanish. I just wanted to clarify that for those who are picky about such things.

Freedom!

Well, school's out for the summer. Now that I'm no longer constrained by schoolwork, I will be posting much more frequently than I have been lately. With that said, here's my first post of the summer. With the last four posts being about international rock and metal acts, it's high time for a change. I want this blog to have something for EVERYONE, not just rockers and headbangers. With that in mind, here's some jazz.

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Unlike everything else I've posted so far, this is actually a compilation album and not the work of one specific artist. I like that with jazz. Compilations keep things fresh. This album is a collection of ten songs from artists signed to Blue Canoe Records, an indie jazz label outside of Atlanta, Georgia. It's a nice mix of youthful and seasoned jazz, with no weird crap thrown in to dilute it. As you may have noticed, I listen to some strange stuff from time to time (Diablo Swing Orchestra, for example). Thankfully, there are no surprises of that sort to be found here. It's just straightforward jazz, free of charge thanks to Blue Canoe Records. It's worth noting however that this is not the entire album. Two of the twelve original tracks have been omitted in the free download I've linked here, but it's still worth downloading the remaining ten. Even if you don't call yourself a fan of jazz, you should give this a shot anyways. The main reason I run this blog, after all, is to help people expand their horizons. If I didn't stretch your musical comfort-zone, I wouldn't be doing my self-appointed job, now would I?

Maldia

It's rare for me to be this on top of something. The band in question here is Spanish metal act Maldia. Granted the band has been around since 2006, so they aren't exactly new. However, they sure took their sweet time with their self-titled debut: it just came out last month. As far as I can tell, the band doesn't have much of an international audience. All the info I could dig up on them was in Spanish, and I don't intend to confuse you with my pathetic attempts at translation. The music more than speaks for itself.

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I am...honestly still in shock. Spanish lyrics aside (I understand that many of my fellow Americans don't share my love for foreign bands due to the language barrier), Maldia is one of the most impressive metal acts I've come across in a good while. Often, when a metal band is undiscovered, it's for a very good reason. Or two. Or twenty. Not only are there countless unsigned metal bands out there, most of them are almost physically painful to listen to. Either the lyrics are painfully trite, or the vocalist's attempts at "singing" are so subpar that it makes you wonder how drunk the other band members were when they decided to hire him/her. Often as not, these bands churn out the same riffs and the same patterns as everyone else on the metal scene. There are so many talent-less metal bands in both the songwriting and performance departments out there that the actually decent bands get lost in the shuffle. I'm hoping that doesn't happen here.

What Maldia offers is a bit of fresh air to the indie metal scene. You rarely find indie metal bands that can both write decent songs and actually play them. Except for some moments with the vocals, Maldia's debut is a surprisingly solid piece of thrash. Yes, there are awkward moments with the singing. For the most part, it's pretty good, but some overly dramatic moments and extremely out of place sound effects (burping mid song? Really people?) prove to be a touch annoying. However, anyone willing to look past this will find an impressively brutal and melodic album. What's more, it's free to download courtesy of the artist. I recommend you keep you eye on Maldia. They definitely have potential, which is something that could pay off for them big time in the long run.