My first songs from All Time Low were from their Put Up Or Shut Up EP. I loved Jasey Rae and Coffeeshop Soundtrack from the get-go. This was during the time that my interest in punk music was renewed.

When I first listened to So Wrong It’s Right, I glossed over most of the first half of the album, not finding anything really unique or as epic as I felt the PUOSU EP was musically. But when I got to the latter half of the songs, the melodies started to stick. My habit when it comes to listening to a new album is to listen through the entire thing over and over again during a commut going to the office and then later, retrace which songs had left an impression in my mind’s ear. It was the latter half that had that effect on me. Songs like Dear Maria, Count Me In, Come One. Come All and most especially Remembering Sunday.

I honestly, honestly believe Remembering Sunday was what made this album a hit for me. Because of the anticipation for the song to come up in the playlist, I was able to tolerate the common sound of the first few songs and enjoy completely the music of the latter half, and then completely enjoy Remembering Sunday from the first second it plays till the last part. The major bonus to this track was Juliet Simms. Originally, I thought the female singing in the song was Haley from Paramore only to discover that it was Juliet Simms from Automatic Loveletter. They sounded quite the same. That does not deduct the fact the Juliet’s voice added a whole new dimension to the song and I loved her part on the latter half of the song.

I’m not coming back, (forgive me)
I’ve done something so terrible
I’m terrified to speak, (I’m not calling, I’m not calling)
But you’d expect that from me
I’m mixed up, I’ll be blunt;

Now the rain is just (you’re driving me crazy, I’m)

Washing you out of my hair and out of my mind

Keeping an eye on the world,

So many thousands of feet off the ground

I’m over you now

I’m at home in the clouds
Towering over your head

Lovely lyric! Wikipedia lists several more songs that were exclusive in iTunes and international releases. I would like to hunt for these exclusives and see if they are worth keeping.

But one thing’s for sure: I will be looking forward to All Time Low’s next album. They say Mark Hoppus, ex-bassist for Blink-182 did a collab with them in one of the songs.

1. “This Is How We Do” – 2:29
2. “Let It Roll” – 3:00
3. “Six Feet Under the Stars” – 3:36
4. “Holly (Would You Turn Me On?)” – 3:52
5. “The Beach” – 3:01
6. “Dear Maria, Count Me In” – 3:02
7. “Shameless” – 3:41
8. “Remembering Sunday”– 4:16
9. “Vegas” – 2:49
10. “Stay Awake (Dreams Only Last for a Night)” – 3:34
11. “Come One, Come All” – 3:32
12. “Poppin’ Champagne” – 3:19

Sweeping round two, the semis AND the finals = PRICELESS.

Mae stands for Multi-sensory Aesthetic Experience. They are not a Christian band although all their members are Christian. But I could not care less about that because Christian band or not, I love listening to this band’s music.

Destination: B-Sides is a compilation of remixes, live versions and acoustic version of their songs from Destination: Beautiful. The first two songs from this EP/compilation that I was exposed to was their acoustic version for Sun and a wonderful slow piano version of Giving It Away. It was only this year that I was able to finally complete the entire B-Sides album.

1. “This Time is the Last Time (Wave Remix)” – 3:25
2. “Suspension” – 3:50
3. “Sun (Acoustic)” – 5:22
4. “Tisbury Lane” – 5:45
5. “Awakening” – 4:16
6. “Futuro (Live)” – 3:11
7. “Sun (Live)” – 7:30
8. “This Time Is the Last Time (Live)” – 5:23
9. “Giving It Away (Acoustic)” – 5:20
10. “Goodbye, Goodnight (S.M. Remix)” – 4:31
11. “Going to School” – 3:42

Mae was one of the few bands that caught my ear back in 2005 and got me completely hooked that I would always tell my friends about them and have them listen to a couple of songs, after which, my friends would get hooked and start looking for their albums as well. But B-Sides was the album that really left a mark on me mainly because of Giving It Away. I just love the vocals and the simplicity of the piano accompanying the vocalist.

Now that I have the complete set of songs, Suspension is the next song that has got me raving about this album simply because of the melody and what the lyric talks about. It talks about that feeling when you are so much in love or you want a person so much that you feel that you cannot go anywhere but where he or she is. Suspension is an emotional high both in the audio experience and what the lyric tries to convey.

This is definitely an album worth listening to.

PETA Letter to Ben and Jerry’s

The first time I heard Last Winter’s music was when I stumbled upon Karen Teh’s Multiply page and I saw her playlist of the band there. The moment I heard their music, I was hooked. They have a mix of deep and simplistic lyric, coupled with really nice vocals and backed by not-too-noisy-but-not-too-soft melodies. It kept my head banging at work back in 2005. Since then, I could not bring myself to remove their songs from my iPod even if I was already running out of space. I own a simple 8Gb iPod Nano 2nd gen and filling it up with songs is easy. But Last Winter had always been a fixture in my iPod and in my computer. I did lose track of what was going on with the band and only recently did I find out that their songs have already been featured in some MTV shows. They are still worth listening to though despite their exposure in MTV and their sounds remains to be the same in their 2007 album and I am happy with that.

I can see the Milky Way from Illinois…

Recently, I have been going through MySpace pages mainly those in the alternative rock genre and I rediscovered Last Winter. I was a bit saddened when I read in their blog that they had to part ways but recently, they updated their fans about the group coming back together again. Definitely something to look forward to for 2009.

Under the Silver of Machines has some new material but almost half of it are songs from their Transmission: Skyline album like Chasing Lights, Standing Here and Don’t Forget To Write. Do note that the ones taken from the Transmission: Skyline album aren’t just copies of the 2005 version. They come with new vocals, better harmonization and a better, more organized sound. I am definitely loving these newer versions of the songs that I have always liked from Last Winter.

The new material are no less pleasurable to the ear. The song I like most from the new stuff is The Violent Things. That definitely gets my head banging in the office when it starts playing.

I can honestly say this band is worth giving a listen to and their 2007 album is a welcome improvement quality-wise from Transmission: Skyline. Below is the line-up of their songs:

1. Cassiopeia – 0:59
2. The Violent Things – 3:21
3. A Pacific Romance – 3:13
4. Kiss So Hard – 2:56
5. Girl Next Door – 4:00
6. Standing Here – 3:48
7. Our Summer In Illinois – 3:36
8. Made For TV – 3:48
9. Don’t Forget To Write – 3:38
10. Chasing Lights – 4:01
11. Starlight Drive – 4:22
12. Vela To Norma – 5:52

This used to be a photoblog but I figured I’m not really shooting non-otaku stuff often enough to put something it that would be considered significant for a photoblog. So I had to let go of the idea. Instead, this place would be used to talk about music that I hunt down by hopping from one MySpace account to another, from referrals from friends and from what I hear from obscure radio stations. Basically, it is about music that is mostly unknown to the general listening populace.

Why?

Because I like listening to something that is not necessarily mainstream. I am not one of those snobby music folk who think they are all high and mighty just because they listen to something that is indie or alternative or progressive or basically music that is uncommon. I simply like to get ahead of the pack on groups, bands, solo artists and individuals who have a really good sound but have yet to be signed to an album or have been signed but their following does not necessarily rival that of Michael Jackson.

It is an ego trip of sorts to have been listening to a band or a song way before it became popular on the local radio stations. Like when some punk rock wannabes in our neighborhood started raving about Blue and Yellow by The Used like they had hit a gold mine, my brother, who knew some of them just smiled and said we have heard of that song two years ago. The same with Your Guardian Angel by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. It was only a couple of months ago that it entered the mainstream music scene but my iPod has been playing it for almost two years. I’m Yours by Jason Mraz has been enjoyed by my family and close friends for almost two years now and it is only recently that it has gained popularity.

It IS an ego trip of sorts. And I will bet there are others who ego trip on what I am currently listening to right now.

I will still follow my preference in music which is basically what I think sounds good. Not what the general populace dictates but not necessarily deviating from the taste of the season completely. I did listen to Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown. I got both their albums and enjoyed a lot of their songs that did not get into mainstream radio. That is why when Superhuman by Chris Brown came up on the radio, I was already more or less tired of listening to it.

I am no expert in music. I am just here to write about what I like to listen to and perhaps you can drop by every now and then to see if for once, our tastes matched.