Moneen - The Red Tree

I’m not even a long-time fan of Moneen, and I didn’t think their last effort, Are We Really Happy With Who We Are Right Now? to be that much better than average, but this album cannot be ignored. As silly as this sounds, I’d recommend it to fans of high-energy bands, something along the lines of early Early November or Gatsbys American Dream. What I do remember when I saw this band live a while ago was that they brought energy to their live performance; that same energy can be felt during The Red Tree.

Believe it or not, it’s not the energy that’s so appealing about this album. It’s the band's ability to take that energy and apply it to slower songs. Prominent tracks like “The Day No One Needed to Know” beam with raw emotion, and is completely stripped down to the naked vocals, and then all comes back together to deliver a remarkable song. Another notable track that is much more defining of Moneen is “The Frightening Reality of the Fact That We Will All Have to Grow Up and Settle Down One Day.” Not only defining because of its unusually long title that Moneen has been known for, but it’s really a song that first-time listeners can hear and understand what Moneen and the rest of this album is all about.

Genre: Indie, Post-rock
Label: Dine Alone, Vagrant
Released: 2006
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The Blood Brothers - ...Burn Piano Island, Burn

Straight out of Seattle, creating some of the most viciously hyperactive music I have ever heard, come the Blood Brothers. A five-piece hardcore/post-hardcore outfit, the Blood Brothers lasted from 1997 to 2007, playing an experimental and incredibly frenetic form of punk full of anger and aplomb. On ...Burn, Piano Island Burn, the group employs a more varied offence than seen in previous releases, as each song seems to seamlessly switch back and forth between fierce, balls-out hardcore and slower, more rhythmically-coordinated pop music. Considered by many to be the Blood Brothers’ magnum opus, …Burn, Piano Island Burn is an album full of convulsive, frantic music, one that refuses to let up to the very end

Genre: Screamo, Post-Hardcore
Released: 2003
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