Obscure and worth it

Today I'd like to introduce you to a fun little band that, unfortunately, never really took off: Dark Hall. Dark Hall is, or rather was, an instrumental jazz fusion group from the late 90's. They released a total of three demos, one with their original lineup and two more after changing guitarists. In the end, Dark Hall never actually released an album, and I've only been able to track down their last demo (their self-titled effort from 1998) and one track from their 1994 demo Solace.

You might be wondering why I'm so interested in this non-starter of a band from the 90's. One answer is that Dark Hall was simply great at what they did. For demos, the five tracks of theirs floating around are well mastered and impeccably performed. This wasn't exactly amateur night, and Dark Hall had a rather noteworthy cast of talent. Dark Hall started as a trio with Steve Di Giorgio on bass, Chris Dugan on drums and Flamp Sorvari on flute and saxophone, adding Eric Cutler on guitar in time for their first demo. Now, I haven't been able to find much information on Flamp Sorvari or Ken Schultz (the band's replacement for Eric Cutler on guitar in '95). However, the rest are associated with some fairly high profile acts of their own. Chris Dugan is known less for his musicianship and more for his work as an audio engineer, working with Green Day from American Idiot to Revolution Radio. That probably goes a long way towards explaining the high audio quality of the demo. Founding guitarist Eric Cutler (not to be confused with the opera singer of the same name) is also a founding member of Autopsy, a rather legendary death metal band. Steve Di Giorgio is probably the most prolific of the bunch, playing bass guitar for a slew of metal legends, from Autopsy to Death to Testament to Control Denied.

On the video I've embedded in this post, the first four songs are their 1998 demo Dark Hall, with the last track being from their 1994 debut Solace (meaning Eric Cutler is on guitar, rather than Ken Schultz). You can pick them up for free at the band's ReverbNation page here: https://www.reverbnation.com/artist/downloads/3622154. According to the band's write up, they're "in the planning stages for a new recording." I, for one, wouldn't get your hopes up too high, though. They've been in the "planning stages" since 2013, and we haven't heard a peep from them since. They could actually be making something new, but I dunno. It's quite possible that we'll have to content ourselves with their killer demo in the meantime.

By the way, if you have some obscure band that you think deserves a little more coverage, let me know so I can feature it. I can be reached at my email, askguitarman@gmail.com. Until next time, Guitarman out.

Obligatory end-of-year music feature

Well, it's been a hell of a year. Unfortunately, I mean hell in the biblical sense. 2016 has been pretty much a giant dumpster fire of a year, and it simply can't die soon enough in my opinion. If nothing else, I at least have some free (or, rather, name your own price) music for your listening pleasure. The following records have no minimum price on Bandcamp, but I suggest you at least pay something instead of just leeching. People have to eat, and all that. Anyways, here're some free* tunes I've been listening to lately.




Ah, blackgaze. Astronoid's Air is basically what happens when you supply a black metal band with antidepressants and switch their vocalist out for a pop-punk singer. The result is something uplifting and surprisingly accessible, even for those who aren't fans of metal. Not only is this album available for no minimum price, it's also one of my favorite albums to come out of 2016. There aren't really any excuses for not checking it out.




The Armed is a bit of an odd band. First off, yes, the album is actually named Untitled. Second, The Armed released Untitled as actually free on Bandcamp instead of as a name your own price option. In other words, there isn't a way to really pay the band for the album. This is a fairly strange move to be honest. If they simply wanted their music to be accessible, they could just as well have chosen the name your own price option as that (strictly speaking) carries no obligation of paying anything at all. Instead, they went out of their way to NOT receive any money for their work. As an econ major I find this somewhat baffling, but hey, that's punk for you I suppose. In any event, The Armed's Untitled is a fantastic slab of hardcore and punk that seems straightforward but ultimately isn't. It's all fairly conventional until the song Dead Actress, but I'd rather not spoil it for you. Just give them a listen if you're in the mood for frenetic energy and youthful aggression. Being a fan of The Dillinger Escape Plan would also help, as The Armed can be quite similar at times.




Is it black metal? Is it death metal? They call themselves blackened death metal, but I'm not sure I see this as a death metal record as much as it is symphonic black metal. Whatever you call it, Hyperion's debut album Seraphical Euphony is bloody impressive. If it weren't for a less than optimal level of audio compression, Seraphical Euphony would be very nearly perfect in my opinion. As it stands, these Hyperion newcomers have still managed to knock the ball out of the park with this one. Black metal fans, sleep on this one at your own peril. It's yet another quality offering from 2016, a year that's been as good for metal as it has been shit for all else.

Hopefully this triple post helps make up for my rather spotty posting record during last semester. I look forward to 2016 being over with in a few days. Until then, Guitarman out.

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

Hello again, world. For a good while, I wasn't sure if I would ever post here again. Quite a few things have changed since my last post. I changed jobs, my mom is moving to a new neighborhood, my sister is living in a different country (follow her Irish escapades on her blog: The Novelest). I'm doing what I can to balance a full course-load, a ten-hour workweek and various forms of impending doom (midterms, papers, floods, etc.). Basically, the ol' blog got put on the backburner for far longer than I had anticipated. At the end of the day, though, I don't want Ramblings of the Guitarman to be some project I toyed with for a while and then abandoned. I may not get much in the way of traffic here, but I'm fairly fond of having my own little corner of the interwebs. I'm not going to do something irresponsible like promise regular updates and then leave you all hanging for another year, but I will do my best to keep the site updated. It might not be all band reviews, but I should find something to put here every now and then.

With that in mind, I have a treat for all two of my readership who comes here for music stuff and not just because they typed in "rotgm" instead of "rotmg" when looking for info on Realm of the Mad God (yes, I am aware that the similarity makes it really hard to actually find this blog; no, I am far too fond of the acronym to consider changing it this far in). Here's some free music!


While I admit to not actually finding them myself (I found them through Angry Metal Guy, and his excellent self-titled blog), Iron Thrones is too good of a band for me to skip over. This Minneapolis-based metal outfit disbanded back in 2012, but produced two killer albums back when they were still active. They somehow managed to combine prog-y melodeath with metalcore, of all things, and the result is far more coherent than you might expect. In case you were wondering which half of the equation is more responsible for the songwriting, take a gander at the track lengths. We're talking as long as 12 minutes in some cases, and they go by effortlessly (no small feat, that). This is a band that could transition with effortless grace from beautiful prog arrangements to crushing breakdowns and back again. Their second album, The Wretched Sun, features the usual clean/hardcore vocal transitions you might expect of this type of music, but their first album, Visions of Light, manages with only the hardcore half of the package. Oddly enough, the music doesn't suffer for it. You'd think that maintaining the same vocal delivery over such varied musical passages would in some way be detrimental to the flow of songs, but it actually works here. The vocals variously wash over or pummel through the listener, as called for by the song.

This is the part of the review where I'd usually try and justify my title of Guitarman by commenting on the axe-work employed by Iron Thrones. It's certainly impressive, but it's so far divorced from my area of expertise that I find it difficult to comment on. The playing is tight, and there are certainly some some memorable riffs here (the main riff from Heart of the Light, for example), but riffs really aren't the focus. This isn't a band that writes a riff, puts a song around it, and then slaps on a guitar solo for good measure. The focus is more on chord progressions, rhythms and the vocals than on any given riff. I suppose that might be a product of the band's metalcore influences, and I do appreciate that it keeps the prog half from getting too self-indulgent. Iron Thrones writes good songs, not just good riffs, which is a nice change of pace from the Dream-Theater-clone-of-the-week type of progressive metal we usually get. All in all, I highly recommend Iron Thrones to fans of progressive music looking for something a little more raw, and to fans of metalcore looking for something a touch more layered and complex. I'd recommend Iron Thrones to all of you, actually, so long as you don't mind harsh vocals. I get that they're an acquired taste, but one well worth the price of admission in my humble opinion. Give them a spin at their Bandcamp page, ironthrones.bandcamp.com, for free downloads of both Visions of Light and The Wretched Sun. Alternatively, if you're feeling particularly lazy, just use the widgets I linked earlier in this post.


Until next time,
Guitarman

She Loves Pablo

It's certainly been a while since I last posted here. Sophomore year has been...chaotic so far, to say the least. Well, I'm back home for the holidays, finally getting over my lingering cold (having passed it on to my immediate family) and seem to have internet access for the moment. Let's get cracking with some more music, shall we?

She Loves Pablo is a four-piece groove/stoner rock group hailing from Zagreb, Croatia. Before I get to the band itself, I'd like to thank Jesus Varela (guitarist of Maldia) for telling me about them. I probably wouldn't have heard of them otherwise, which would've been a shame. She Loves Pablo has quickly become one of my favorite groups in the stoner genre, thanks to a fairly no-nonsense approach to songwriting and execution. The riffs are massive, the vocals are powerful and articulate, and the drums and bass are perfectly locked into the songs' behemoth grooves. The band takes the best of garage rock and heavy blues, dials the distortion and fuzz to eleven while snapping it all neatly into a mesmerizing beat. Take their song Burnin' My Soul, for example; that bassline and rhythm guitar riff are just downright tasty. Especially on their second album, Burn And Levitate, everything just clicks perfectly into beat. Production values are astounding for free music. The vocals are even free of any of the accent or affectations that come from having English as a second language. I really can't recommend them highly enough to any fans of heavy blues, garage rock, hard rock, grunge, etc. Anyone who considers themselves a fan of rock and blues riffs run through a considerable layer of fuzz should definitely give them a listen. I certainly have been.

I hope you enjoy She Loves Pablo as much as I have. I'll be trying to get back to posting at least once a month for 2015. Happy new year!

Soul Cycle

It's been a while since I've been this completely floored by free music. Remember my previous post about Sonorant? It seems that its frontman (also only-man), guitarist Chris Catharsis, has been busy with his more recent project, Soul Cycle. This time, however, Chris brings more than Meshuggah-esque djent rhythms and alternately looming or brutal melodies. Soul Cycle's modus operandi is a bit harder to pin down than that. Take the opening of the song Heartless from Soul Cycle's eponymous debut album. The first minute or so features cheery, chorus-soaked arpeggios of the sort one generally does not expect to find on an album this heavy. While similar elements are present in some of Sonorant's works, here these interludes feel more strongly integrated into the music, and with spectacular results. Chris Catharsis has matured as a songwriter, and it shows. The music on Soul Cycle and Soul Cycle II is thoroughly splendid throughout, with brutal rhythms, searing leads and spectacular melodies. Moreover, the music reaches emotional heights previously lacking from Chris' work in Sonorant. Rather than simply beating down the listener with brutal riffs, the offerings here feel significantly richer and more dynamic. As an added bonus, Soul Cycle and Soul Cycle II are full length albums, as opposed to the EPs produced by Sonorant. While the music is available free, I must say that audio quality is fantastic with. One. Glaring. Exception. I understand that not every group can afford to staff a drummer. Really, I get it. Soul Cycle is, after all, only two people: Chris Catharsis doing triple duty on lead, rhythm and bass guitars, and Mark Hawkins also on lead guitar. However, there are moments when my ears feel violated by the sheer tinniness of the programmed drums. These moments, while few and far between, manage to seriously detract from the guitars, which are the obvious main attraction of Soul Cycle. Don't let my criticism dissuade you from giving them a listen, however. Soul Cycle is packing some of the most blisteringly intense and searingly delicious shred I've heard in a while. Not too many groups can actually pull off that magical combination of impressive guitar chops and songs actually worth hearing. Either you get "good enough" guitar-playing or "merely passable" songs. I certainly am not hearing compromises from Soul Cycle. The melodies are strong, well-executed, and leave your guitar-nerd of a host feeling absolutely ecstatic. It's just that good.

All in all, Soul Cycle offers some stupendous guitar carnage for the low, low price of free. The music is incredibly precise while also being emotive. The recording quality is, for the most part, top-notch. The songs are diverse and technically impressive. This, ladies and gents, is some grade-A face-melting material we have here. You can find Soul Cycles two currently-released works here: http://soulcyclemetal.bandcamp.com/. You can choose how much (or whether) to pay them for both albums. If you enjoy the music (I certainly do), then please support the artists responsible. Until next time! Guitarman, out.

I'm not quite dead yet!

Well, it's certainly been a while since I've last posted. School and personal matters have been holding my attention fairly firmly lately. Anyways, I only have a few more weeks left before I head back home for the summer. It's certainly been a long first year of college, with plenty of unforgettable (for better or worse) memories. I hope to return to a more frequent posting schedule once I no longer have to worry about schoolwork hanging over my head. In any event, I should probably spit out what I came here to say. Well, Slayer... ...wait, Slayer? Yes, Slayer. Slayer apparently has some new material in the form of the single "Implode." This is the first piece of new content they've released since the tragic death of Jeff Hanneman. I'd give you my opinion of the track, but I'd much prefer to have you judge it for yourselves before I taint your view of it. There's no sense biasing you beforehand; enough people are already angry at Slayer for moving on past Jeff. Anyways, you can download the new track "Implode" from here: http://www.slayer.net/us/implode. Just sign up for the mailing list, and they'll send you a download link. For the record, the track has absurdly high audio quality. The song file is about 50MB, and it's not even particularly long! Anyways, I'll try and get some more posts out before too long. See you then!

Sonorant

I promised posts, so here's some more free music. Introducing Sonorant (AKA Chris Catharsis), a Georgia-based metal guitarist well worth keeping an eye on. These days, metal bands can often be divided into either melodic or rhythm-focused groups in terms of their instrumentals. The more melody-based metal acts (Bullet For My Valentine, Avenged Sevenfold, etc.) tend to have a wider appeal than, say, rhythm-centric (and, in my personal opinion, fascinating) groups in the vein of Meshuggah. This is arguably all the more reason to appreciate acts like Sonorant which manage to strike an even balance of melodic and rhythmic craziness. Not only displaying a keen ear for melody, Sonorant appears to be heavily influenced by none other than the mighty Meshuggah, as evidenced by the cover of Meshuggah's song Sane on the band's Myspace page. For those of you unfamiliar with Meshuggah, they are essentially the masters of rhythmic displacement, polyrhythms, polymeters, and inordinately heavy guitar grooves. As Meshuggah guitarist Fredrik Thorendal once told Guitar World magazine (quoted from the September 2012 issue), "I understand why people hear odd meters in our songs, because we group our notes in different ways. But just about all of them are 4/4." The band's tracks tend to focus more on creating a groove than a melody. Sonorant's songs, however, combine the interesting rhythmic elements of bands like Meshuggah with some fantastic melodies. As an added bonus, Sonorant's songs don't have vocal tracks, allowing them to appeal to those who would be repulsed by the menacing barks, snarls and growls of Meshuggah's singer. As usual, more of Sonorant's tracks can be found for free at their Jamendo page. Enjoy.

Hot Fiction, and a status update

Well, it's been about a month since I've posted. Between writing essays and reading school texts, I haven't had much time to breathe. Anyways, it's been too long since I've been able to post some free music, so here we go! Hot Fiction is a London-based alt-rock and blues outfit that's caught my attention lately. Their music somehow has a strong groove while remaining loose and open. It's a fairly minimalist sound, which works quite well for their style of the blues. Naturally, their primal sound and two-man lineup will draw forth the inevitable Black Keys comparisons, but Hot Fiction definitely has their own distinct feel. For more information, you can find the band's bio here. I'm a sucker for heavy blues, so they drew me straight in. I'm hoping that they might do the same for you. As usual, you can find their music for free. Enjoy. (By the way, the reason the formatting for this post is a little odd is because www.blogger.com is being weird right now. I'm actually typing this into the html editor, because the normal text input will only let me type while I hold the left mouse button for some odd reason...)

Oleg Serkov

Well, I'm a little behind schedule, but life happens. Anyways, I'm just going to cut to the chase and bring out the music!

Catalogue professionnel de musique libre

Oleg Serkov is a Russian guitarist and songwriter with a sizeable collection of free singles and extended plays for your perusal. He's a fantastic musician, but an even better composer. His songs are rife with poignant melodies, diverse interludes, and dramatic tension. Coupled with fantastic production values and stellar musicianship, he's worth a listen.

Edit: Once again, I don't know why the Jamendo player is being so weird lately. Gah.

Well then...

It would seem that my internet hates me. I had intended to write this post yesterday and schedule it for release today. Sadly, I have not been able to access the internet at my house since lunchtime yesterday. As a result, I'm writing this in the backroom of a local coffee shop. Furthermore, as you may have noticed, I am several hours late in doing so. To prevent a repeat issue, I will be queuing an additional blog post that will be released next week on schedule. Without further ado, let's hear some music.

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

Drop Alive is a two-man hard rock outfit from Pavia, Italy. I say hard rock, but Drop Alive's eponymous debut opens with a pulverizing wall of rhythm guitar that reminded me of the works of Canadian thrash metal giant Annihilator. The album is a bit short, at some thirty-odd minutes in length, but it hits hard and fast from start to finish. Interestingly enough, the band's frontman, Simon, was responsible for all instruments (except the drums) and songwriting for the album. Drop Alive isn't quite a one-man-band like Brad Sucks, but there is still a tremendous sense of unified artistic vision on the album. I could go on, but I think the music speaks for itself. It's amazing, and it's free. Honestly, what more could you want?

Some belated music

Well, so much for consistent posts...For the record, my internet access is a bit inconstant. I'll shoot for Fridays at 9AM pacific time, but I will occasionally by unable to meet that posting goal. Anyways, here's some music.

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

Daniel Bautista is a prolific guitarist hailing from Las Palmas de G.C., Spain. His repertoire spans from classic metal to metal versions of the classics, as well as other less metal-based styles. Daniel offers an impressive discography of free albums: twenty years of free works! For delivering both quantity and undeniable quality, Bautista deserves a look. For more information (and the aforementioned free music), visit his website at http://www.danielbautista.com. Cheers.

More music, and a new schedule

Greetings. Now that I've graduated, and had a short celebratory break, I can continue posting to ROTGM. In fact, I have good news. For the rest of the summer, you can expect new posts every Friday at 9AM Pacific Daylight Time. For the sake of consistency, I will be writing the posts before Friday and then setting them to release on schedule. I'm looking forward to this. So, without further ado, here's some music.

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

Dead Relic is an alt-metal band that hails from La Laguna, Spain. This eponymous EP is a feast for the ears. The production is crisp, the vocals are articulated well, the instrumentals are flawless. The mood of the recording turns on a dime, and the band creates some satisfying contrasts between song segments. I really enjoyed the layering of guitar parts. There's some interesting combinations of clean and crunch here. It's not particularly heavy in the grand scheme of things, and it has some great melodies. You owe it to yourself to give it a listen!

Home Sweet Home

Well, I just got back yesterday from a week-long mission trip to Guatemala. Since today is the last day I can squeeze out of my spring break, I've decided that I'm long overdue for a blog post. Here's my latest free music find:

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

Introducing Florian "Flo" Fusade, a French blues guitarist who has truly caught my attention. I don't think I need to elaborate much on this one. His wailing guitar speaks for him. Anyways, he has two albums (both fairly short) that you can pick up here: http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/6125/flo. Give it a listen, why don't ya.

Guess Who's Back?

It's about time. Punk/electronica/indie badass Brad Turcott, the frontman (also the onlyman) of the band Brad Sucks, is back. His latest record, Guess Who's a Mess, maintains the electronic vibe of his sophomore effort Out of It. I, for one, kind of miss the raw punk intensity of his first work. Sure, the high-gain distorted guitars gave me a headache when played from my car speakers, but it was worth it. Even though the album lacks the raw guitars Brad Sucks first had, Guess Who's a Mess still rocks. Brad's lyrics are, as usual, the main focus. Sardonic wit and sweet grooves fill the album. Enough talk. It's free, so download it already.

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

I'm baaaaaaaaack. With free stuff. Again.

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything. Life has kept me pretty busy lately, what with school projects, teaching myself Japanese for no legitimate reason, working on my eagle project, and fundraising for my third mission trip to Guatemala. Needless to say, I'm glad that school is canceled today as a result of heavy snow. I now actually have time to post more stuff. Huzzah. Anyways, on with the free stuff:



This is without a doubt one of the greatest free album I have ever encountered. That's saying something, because I sift through quite a lot of the stuff. Hailing from Sweden, Machinae Supremacy incorporates a SidStation into heavy metal music. A SidStation is a type of musical synthesizer sound module which uses SID chips from the ancient Commodore 64 computer's sound system. Basically, it's a device for making chiptune music. This seems like an oddball choice for a metal band, but it fits in seamlessly with the band's sound. Machinae Supremacy's latest work, Rise of a Digital Nation, was featured by the band on The Pirate Bay. For those of you who don't know, The Pirate Bay is a controversial Swedish website which is a notorious den of internet piracy. That's a rather bold move, to officially release your latest album on one of the most well-known centers of illegal activity on the internet. Whatever floats their boat, I suppose. Anyways, head over to The Pirate Bay to pick up this album. And while you're there, PLEASE don't pirate anything. I don't want to condone that sort of behavior, and don't want to be dragged into a court of law over something like that. Don't get me in trouble people! XD

Anyways, here's the album webpage: http://www.riseofadigitalnation.com/
Here's the band's webpage: http://machinaesupremacy.com/
Here's the webpage for SidStations: http://www.elektron.se/products/sidstation

I'll post again soon this time. I promise.

Guitarman, out.


PS: I have no idea how to embed a Soundcloud player that starts automatically, so I've left up the previous Radio of the Guitarman album. Sorry about that, but it shouldn't be too much of an inconvenience.

The name is misleading

Well, it's been a while since I posted something new, so here goes. This is the last artist from that music dump I promised but that never really materialized. This time, it's one hell of a misnomer.

Brad Sucks (name of the band, not my opinion) is a bit of an oddity. From listening to them, one could hardly guess that the "band" consists of one man who is responsible for all the songwriting, lyrics, performance  and recording. That's pretty freaking impressive in and of itself, but Brad Sucks has value beyond the novelty afforded it by its lack of other members. Stylistically, the band creates a strange hybrid of indie rock, electronica, and punk that in my opinion actually works quite well. The lyrics are one of the strong points here, with their sly wit and self-depreciating humor. The only flaw to be found is with the recording quality of the first album. When played at a decent volume, the treble from the distorted guitars on tracks like "Bad Attraction" can quickly induce rather severe headaches. That being said, that track I mentioned is still one of my favorites. Headaches alone can't stop me from listening to music of such high quality.

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

It is worth noting that all music by Brad Sucks, including the individual instrument tracks from his recordings, is available from his website free of charge. Here's a link: http://www.bradsucks.net/

PLEASE ignore the first track

Seriously. Judging this album by its bizarre first track would be a massive mistake. Oh, and before I forget, this post is a continuation of the music dump I promised back in July but never actually delivered. This would be the second of the three bands I said I would feature. Now that we've got that out of the way...

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

Cool Cavemen is a French funk-rock fusion group that, on their latest album "Multipolar", decided to dabble in a little funk-metal as well. The production values are high, the rhythms are contagious, the lyrics are hilarious. I simply cannot recommend this band highly enough. That's why I will be very disappointed if you judge them by the uber-silly first track of the posted album. I might even be upset enough to hunt you down and bludgeon you with a giraffe. I wouldn't actually be able to do that, but I might be upset enough to want to. But I digress.

There's just a few things I need to get out in closing. First: Cool Cavemen has bilingual French and English vocals, though they won't usually have both on a song. It's one or the other. Second: this album, just like most things on this blog, can be downloaded free of charge, courtesy of the artist. (There's a button marked "download" on the player. It's not rocket science people!)

Well, that's it for the second part of the music dump. In a few days (depending on my internet) I should have the third part up as well. Until then!

Music dump time!

Well, I'm back from Cali'. Actually, I've been back for a good while. I really don't have a good excuse as to why I haven't posted recently, so to make up for that this post (and the next few) will contain the music dump I promised last time. None of these artists are particularly new, but they are well worth your time if you're interested. I'd go so far as to say these three bands create some of the greatest free music on the internet. Paying attention yet? Good. Let's begin.

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

PeerGynt Lobogris is a Spanish music act that, to use an obnoxious cliche, refuses to be defined by genres. I hate the "beyond genre/classification" cliche because most reviewers use it incorrectly. It's a lazy way of saying that the reviewer him/herself doesn't know the genre the band belongs to. However, PeerGynt Lobogris actually is one of those bands that can't be given a specific genre. The band's musical repertoire is so frickin' eclectic that you need quite a few genres to label them. It's not even that they bend or blend genres. One song on an album could be new age easy listening music. The next song could be thrash metal. The song after that may sound like a funky Santana. If I didn't know better, I'd think that several different bands were responsible for each of PeerGynt Lobogris' albums. It's absolutely nuts. To generalize broadly, PeerGynt Lobogris plays elevator-worthy new age, metal, and Santana-esque riff-fests. The band has been around since 1997, and they are quite prolific to say the least. The album I have here is a sort of greatest hits deal, but it's only 13 songs to cover well over 100 songs in their discography. It barely even scratches the surface of what they have to offer.

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack...with free stuff.

Well, I'm finally back. The reason I haven't posted anything in a while is that I've been at the Liberty and Learning Youth Conference at Hillsdale College in Michigan for the past few days. That place has a phenomenal campus and one heck of an impressive shooting range. Their shooting facilities are on more than seventy acres of land, and are absolutely top notch. It turns out that I'm actually pretty handy with a pistol, although my shotgun skills kind of sucked in comparison to most of the other people there. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to take pride in my one-handed lefty bulls-eyes which I was somehow able to pull off after only my second day using handguns. But enough about firearms, here's some music. This time, I've got something really good for you...

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

The band is WE ARE FM, a rock group out of Amsterdam. What they bring to the table is a flawless mix of crisp pop rock/punk and electronica. It's hardly the first time we've found rock and techno combined, but it rarely sounds this freaking good. Absolutely phenomenal. Download it. Now. If you end up regretting it, then I disown you. :P

Matteo Cargnelutti

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

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

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.