Listening to the New Acacia Strain Album - or - My Hot Lava Colonic

Wow. Not that I'm surprised, but this album destroys.

"Would you like to import the CD "Fear Before" into your iTunes library?"

Yes. Yes I would,

That's the thing I love about pre-orders, they usually show up a day early. I was awakened from my slumber this morning by two packages, one of them was my pre-ordered Fear Before CD and shirt.
In case you haven't listened to the album yet and aren't sure if you will like it, here's what Death + Taxes (A fairly reputable magazine) said about the album: "A wildly imaginative mix of vitriolic post-hardcore, unteachable instrumentation and uncompromising lyricism"

Though I'm going to put my own spin on the album (later of course), I agree with Death + Taxes sentiments.

Razia's Shadow Stream

Everyone over at AP has been shitting themselves over the past couple of weeks about the new Forgive Durden album Razia's Shadow: A Musical.
Song clips were available on the albums website (which was until a couple of weeks ago shrouded in mystery) but now the album is up for full stream on the Forgive Durden website.
I'm listening to the album right now and am pretty impressed. The album has a special guest vocalist for nearly every track who play different characters in the "musical". This is a concept album through and through.
Though I have no prior history with Forgive Durden, something tells me that their first album didn't sound like this (further investigation will be required).
All I can do is suggest that you listen to the album. I'm not really sure what to compare it to right now (gasp). I guess think of your favorite musical re-written by a lounge act with a backing symphony... Confused? Me too. Just give it a listen, you should be able to tell pretty quickly whether or not you will enjoy it.

Fear Before Pre Order Merch

In case you've listened to, and love the new Fear Before album as much as I do, you can pre-order their new album along with a shirt or hoodie at this location.

In case you didn't heed my advice before, you can listen to the new Fear Before album here.  If you even think that you like heavy music, please, listen to this album.  Even if you don't like heavy music, at least give this album a chance.  It goes so many places and does so many amazing things; a couple of songs are worth your time.

New Fear Before Stream!!!!!!

This has happened much earlier than I expected, but Fear Before has posted their entire new album for streaming over on last.fm. A direct link can be found here .

Update:
-Okay, so it sounds completely different than Art Damage, but we were expecting that. Barring the fact that it sounds nothing like their old stuff, I love it so far.

Update 2: This album kicks ass. I am very pleased and look forward to listening to it more and more. If you have never heard of, or given Fear Before a chance, now is the time to do so. More extensive thoughts later.

Paper Trail

If you noticed my Last.Fm bar to the left, you would also have noticed that T.I. has been making the rounds on my itunes. Since today is Tuesday I made a trip to Best Buy to browse for CD's. Knowing good and well I was going to purchase Paper Trail and Forgetting Sarah Marshall I almost made it out of their without going over my shopping list (I saw Bleeding Throughs new album Declaration at the last second and picked that up too). I'll have reviews on T.I. and Bleeding Through up soon (and Set Your Goals and Spitfire).

'Ohh how the plot thickens..."

The new Underoath album came out today. There was substantially less hype surrounding the release of this record as compared to their last record (which makes sense considering that they didn't really do to much different on this record).
Maybe it's because I haven't had too much time with it yet, but I'm missing the vast improvement that some people are claiming is present from Define The Great Line and Lost In The Sound of Separation.
The CD isn't bad by any means. I'm just wondering why everyone seems to be losing their shit about how great this CD is.
There a couple of stand out tracks in "Breathing In A New Mentality" (Especially the beginning, turn up your speakers for the full effect), "Anyone Can Dig A Hole But It Takes A Man To Call It Home", "The Only Survivor Was Miraculously Unharmed", and "Too Bright To See Too Loud To Hear". The Later three being some of the heavier tracks on the album while the last is softer for the most part, but totally badass.
The group seems to play with softer sounds on this record (not really a bad thing), but don't seem to do anything with the changes of pace. Track 7 ("Casting Such A Thin Shadow") on Define The Great Line is a definite break from the rest of Define The Great Line, but its slow, meandering, Pelican like build up that leads into its atmospheric, crushing, Deftones like crescendo not only sounds totally awesome, but shows the band stretching themselves in an interesting way. There don't seem to really be any of these moments on this record.
I'm definitely willing to admit that maybe I just need more time with this album to get into it and see it for what it is. And to repeat It's a good album. By genre standards it might be one of the best of the year, yet when you do as much as Underoath does, as well as they do it, criticism comes with a heavier hand.