War Elephants, My Heart To Joy, Maneuvers, and Transit - 242 Main - 3/14

We went to see Maneuvers again, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the other bands were excellent as well.

The show started with War Elephants, a young instrumental band from Enosberg Falls that plays progressive music. They played a pretty solid set. They are good with meter changes, the drummer in particular.

Next up was My Heart To Joy At The Same Tone, from Kensington, Connecticut. They play music in the style of classic emo or screamo, and they can certainly do that well. They brought a ridiculous amount of amps, and rocked everybody's faces off for a while. Their closing song was really intense.

Maneuvers came next, and they played an awesome set as usual. This time, they brought out a couple of new songs, which are going to be on the upcoming full-length they are working on. Two of these songs, "Black Horse Pike" and "Mare Oceanum" are on their Myspace, so check them out.

I didn't get to see Transit, unfortunately. They are a Massachusetts independent hardcore band, and they sound a bit like Braid or Lifetime. If you're at all into that, check them out, they're pretty skilled.

So, another day, another great concert at 242 Main. Be on the watch for more good music.


War Elephants
My Heart To Joy At The Same Tone
Maneuvers
Transit

Cccome?, Maneuvers, and Amadis - 242 main - 1/28

We've mentioned Maneuvers and Amadis before, but not cccome?. We had run across them in our spidery interweb music quests, but the mp3s we found were lackluster and didn't seem promising.
Enter the live show.
The mandolin player cranked the gain and just shredded it to bits, with RATM style riffs interspersed between solos. One of the coolest, most original things I've seen here.
The vocalist used his voice like an instrument and his harmonica like a voice. He had a great stage presence too, like he was playing from another world.

Act 2 was the Maneuvers. They put on a stunning display of alt-punk power. Their songs have a complexity that breathes new life into their style, but remain incredibly catchy.
I purchased their new EP and highly recommend it, but definitely go see these guys play if you can- the recordings just cant capture the energy I saw last week.

Amadis played like it was the 70's all over again. Leather, shredding, and flying v's...
I wasn't able to attend their entire set, but what I did see was full metal. I gotta say, Vermont having an old school metal band is pretty awesome.

Myspaces-
Amadis
Cccome?
Maneuvers

New Colin Meloy Album Coming! Hurrah!

I speak truth. Colin Meloy Sings Live will be released on April 8th from Kill Rock Stars.

17 songs-

1 Devil's Elbow
2 We Both Go Down Together
3 Evoking a Campfire Singalong
4 The Gymnast, High Above the Ground
5 Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect / Dreams
6 Dracula's Daughter
7 Wonder
8 A Brief Introduction to Shirley Collins
9 Barbara Allen
10 The Engine Driver
11 On the Bus Mall
12 A Skull, a Ship, and a Sheep
13 California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade / Ask
14 The Bachelor and the Bride
15 A Cautionary Song
16 Red Right Ankle
17 Bandit Queen

To tide you over in the meantime, you can snag NPR's recording of the Birchmere gig from the 2006 tour here. For Colin/Decemberists fans, I strongly suggest downloading it. At least download this version of California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade.
You owe it to yourself.

Colin Meloy's Official Myspace has some cool demos and stuff too.

Combatwoundedveteran

Combatwoundedveteran was an experimental hardcore band. They condense breakneck tempos, buzzing guitars, and the throat-destroying screams of two vocalists into a wall of intense noise. And they do this all in under two minutes per song. They broke up in 2003.

Recommended Albums:
This Is Not An Erect, All-Red Neon Body

CWV on No Idea Records
Official Myspace
CWV live
More CWV live

The Foxymorons

Despite the joke name, these guys make some seriously good music. Incredibly stylistically diverse too- Acoustic, Folk, Pop-punk, Alt-rock... They also manage to pull off the atonal, Pavement style vocals very well, as well as soaring melodies more akin to ELP.
Definitely true indie-rock. Definitely worth listening to.

If you have a myspace account you can download an excellent set of 4 songs from their Official Myspace.


Free mp3s-
Hesitation Eyes
Harvard Hands

Wow, Owls!

Wow, Owls! was a Virginia screamo band. They were signed to Perpetual Motion Machine, who have some other good hardcore bands (La Quiete, Life At These Speeds, CTTS). They went from just being a fledgling local Richmond, VA band in 2003, to a tour of Europe 2.5 years later in 2006. They had some troubles with debt, and decided to call it quits after three final shows. 3 of the ex-members are now in a new band, Mouthbreather.

Recommended Albums:
Pick Your Patterns
Wow, Owls!/The Setup split

Official Myspace
Wow, Owls! live

Choking Victim

Choking Victim is a New York ska punk band associated with C-Squat. They famously made heavy reference to Satanism and crack smoking in their lyrics. They are staunchly atheist, leftist, and anti-discriminatory. They share members with other ska bands from the area, such as Morning Glory and Leftover Crack. They have broken up and reformed a few times. I hear they are currently together, apparently? Not totally sure about that.

Recommended Albums:
No Gods, No Managers

Official Myspace (I think)
Some mp3s at Epitaph
Some more mp3s at Purevolume
Choking Victim live