Music Reviews on the Uptick

I am not so sure Chimpy is creative enough to post humorous ramblings on this blog more than every now and then. In an effort to be more healthy, we will be leading a less interesting life the next few months...more movie watching, less visiting-bathrooms-in-a-bar time, if you get my drift.

If being boring and sober could mean anything positive to Chimpsonadavenport, it would be the fact that Chimpy is listening to lots and lots of new music. For those of you who don't want to canvas the blogosphere, I would like to think we here at Chimp Central can separate the peel from the banana. We'd like to share only the soft, tasty good stuff with our fair readers. Today's theme is Noise Rock. Let's share some of the tastier tracks now, shall we?

Parts & Labor are a noisy funk-punk trio from Brooklyn. Go get the song Fractured Skies. This is one of those songs and bands where the first 30 seconds is the WORST part of the song. It's all grating rhythm section with some droning keyboards and synths cut up in the background. I almost deleted it the first listen just a minute into the song - I have little patience, I want my music to be good from start to finish. Patience paid off here though, finally you get to some vocals and it becomes tolerable. Then all of a sudden: harmonies! walls of sound! Was that even some horns? Oh my! Yes Billy, there is a tooth fairy, and under your pillow she's left some progressive noise rock. Check it out.

Bringing the noise in a different way are another New York based band, Palomar. With obvious nods to the Pixies, the Breeders, and even the Cranberries, the star track to download is called "Woah!" It seems that every other band these days is co-ed. Dudes don't wanna rock out with just other dudes when they can hook up with someone in their band after band practice. And it's not cool at all anymore to be in a chick band (come on, who really liked the Donna's anyways?). So we get Arcade Fire, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, the Knife, Architecture in Helsinki, Broken Social Scene, etc. But you can't argue with the masses - they want high pitched vocals backed by simple chords on shredding guitars, rich bass lines, and adrenaline inducing drums. Give 'em what they want Chimpy, give 'em some Palomar!