Album of the Week: The Sound of Animals Fighting - The Ocean and the Sun

     I've urged that you listen to this week's band before at least once, but they are most definitely a band that is best experienced in album-sized chunks. With that in mind, your homework for the week is to give a couple of hours to The Ocean and the Sun by The Sound of Animals Fighting.

     Genre-wise, this is a hard group to pin down, and not just because it's essentially an indie-rock/post-hardcore super-group with a rotating, "anonymous" membership. Spastic, melodic, at times a little weird post-hardcore with some electronic elements thrown in for spice -- a limiting description, but it at least scratches the surface of the off-kilter energy that's going on here.

     Judging by the band's Facebook, it seems that The Sound of Animals Fighting have been doing a little touring in the last six months or so, but other than that it seems the idea of new material might be in limbo for the time being. Everybody's got main projects in various stages of stuff (like Rx Bandits and Circa Survive, to name just two) so I can understand why another The Sound of Animals Fighting record might not be priority one. But if the awesomeness of The Ocean and the Sun is any indication, another Sound of Animals Fighting record could really be something special.

Song of the Day: The Sound of Animals Fighting - The Ocean and The Sun

     It's Sunday (still, for a little bit at least) which means your song for today is going to be a little bit laid-back, a little less metal. Today's choice struck me as a bit of a no-brainer, given the whole "weekend-chill-vibe" thing, since I haven't even ever mentioned this band yet and they're definitely worth mentioning. The Sound of Animals Fighting was a super-group of sorts, counting members of Finch, Rx Bandits, Chiodos, and Circa Survive among its alumni, though the band has disbanded since the release of its third and final album in 2008. Still, the three album catalogue they produced is pretty interesting and definitely worth checking out.