Alice in Chains - Rooster

     I'm doing my part to contribute to Throwback Thursday tonight, and while I'm not presenting anything tonight you shouldn't already be familiar with, I will hopefully spark a little debate --  or at least some contemplation -- along the way.

     OK, so my girlfriend and I went for a little unexpected road trip today, for reasons unimportant to the discussion at hand, and while listening to the radio and talking about music, I uttered what many of my generation (and many other generations besides) may consider to be an unforgivable blasphemy: I like Alice in Chains more than Nirvana. Like, a lot more.

     Of course, as a fan of music around the age of thirty, as a guitarist who grew up jamming Nirvana songs right alongside Zep and Rage and the rest, I fully understand and appreciate the impact Nirvana had, and in some ways continues to have, on modern music. I've just thought for a long time that Nirvana were, in a word, overrated, and the older I get the more entrenched in this opinion I become.

     I know musical taste is subjective, but from where I'm standing Alice in Chains was just a better band (I say was because I mean Layne Staley-era Alice here). Kurt could write a good song, and he could definitely do a bit of darkly introspective lyrical content now and again, but the combination of Cantrell and company's musicianship and songwriting together with Layne's dark honesty and unique perspective simply produced more interesting material, and more material I still really dig to this day.

     Like tonight's song, one of everybody's favourite Alice in Chains songs. "Rooster", from 1992's seminal Dirt, was written for Cantrell's father, who served in Vietnam. I don't know if it's my absolute favourite Alice in Chains song (though it is up there) but given the choice I'd put it on over virtually anything in Nirvana's catalogue. Let the vitriolic responses commence!

Mudvayne - Dig

     Quick post tonight, aimed at all of you in southeastern Ontario and the northeastern United States who are, like me, currently getting a hefty dose of Winter's Still Here.

     Your song tonight is "Dig", the song from 2000's L.D. 50 that made Mudvayne famous. I feel it's an appropriately titled -- not to mention appropriately enraged -- song for the amount of snow we've gotten today, and the amount of snow we're going to have to dig our way out of. It's going to be an interesting commute tomorrow morning. Dig, motherfuckers!

Plini - Atlas

     Everybody's got a band or two they like that they wish would more productive (*cough* Tool? *cough*) so it's always good to see a kind of flip side to that coin, namely an artist that's always cranking out new stuff like it's going out of style.

     Australia's Plini is thankfully one of the latter types of musician, a guy who's always putting out something new. If you've been reading Loud Noises for a while you've probably heard Plini by now, but if you haven't you're in luck because he's got a tasty new track out.

     "Atlas" has all the virtuosic guitar work and sparkling melodies one should expect from Plini's work, and is even a little "heavier" than a lot of his stuff. There's even a part, around 2:05 or so, that easily ranks as the most metal riff of Plini's catalogue. Note to Plini: please quit teasing me and release an LP already!

Monday: The Mire - False Idol

     You should have caught on by now to the fact that one of the things I like in my heavy music is some density. Sure, I like technicality, speed, progressiveness, but there's something to be said for density: that quality of a song having a lot of layers, a lot of parts contributing to the whole.

     I would put British band The Mire on a list of bands with some density to them. They've got some layers and some atmosphere to their post-metal, as well as some sludgy abrasiveness, some dirty-sounding dissonance, and some straight up epic moments. It's hard to succinctly pin down what these guys do, but it's worth at least a few minutes of your time for sure.

     Let's say about five minutes, shall we? "False Idols" is the first full track on The Mire's latest LP, Glass Cathedrals, a really solid record that gets into your head after a couple of listens. Have a listen, come up with a better way of describing The Mire and Glass Cathedrals, and leave a comment below.

Sunday: Chimp Spanner - Aurora

     Fans of proggy, instrumental, guitar-based music likely already know that British one man army Chimp Spanner is working on new material, but just in case the rest of you have missed it: Chimp Spanner is working on new material.

     I have no idea how far along Mr. Ortiz is, or how close we might or might not be to a new Chimp Spanner album, but at least I've got something to listen to while I speculate wildly, since a few days ago Paul posted a playthrough vid for one of his works-in-progress. Check out the track, entitled "Aurora",  for the latest and greatest in the world of spanning chimps.

(Alas, the video linked below is NOT the aforementioned playthrough. Blogger doesn't seem to want to find that one, so you're going to have to hit up Youtube and look for it yourself.)

Saturday: Intervals - Moment Marauder

     I know I've featured Intervals pretty recently, but now that A Voice Within is actually out and I've had the chance to spend some serious time with it I feel like there's another track on it that I can't resist shining some spotlight on.

     "Moment Marauder" features a cool, snaky, vaguely Spanish-sounding riff that I really dig, and on top of that it's got a sweet keyboard solo that leads into an equally sweet guitar solo. Even if you're not completely on board with the addition of a vocalist to the Intervals mix, there's a lot of Intervals-y goodness still to be found, like "Moment Marauder"

Numbers - Empty Eyes

     It's been a while in coming, but a release date of March 25th has finally been set for the long-awaited (by me, anyways) debut LP from Seattle's electro-metallers Numbers. Even better, at least for those of you who might not already be Numbers enthusiasts, the band has released a new song to quench the thirst left after "Legal Lee Speaking" a couple of months ago.

     "Empty Eyes" is another great encapsulation of what Numbers is all about: high energy songs loaded with catchy melodies, chunky guitar riffing, and some keyboards and electronic elements just for good measure. They're not necessarily everyone's cup of tea -- although they probably should be -- but they're definitely worth a listen if you're looking for something that's heavy but still catchy enough to get your toe tapping and your head bobbing. Check it out below.