I have nothing to say and somewhere to say it

so I will just say a few snippets of random music news that interests me that I've found out here and there.

Underoath and Emery are touring Australia together during June, but unfortunately are not coming to New Zealand. And by annoying coincidence they are playing in Sydney are mere two days after my wife and I come back from a holiday there... Grrrr. Anberlin are also touring Australia in June, and again, aren't popping over the ditch to New Zealand either.

Project 86 have a new album out shortly, and are giving stuff away with it if you pre-order ti from their website.

Blindside are recording an EP, or at least they told us that at the show in Auckland in April and have also said so on their myspace.

The Canterbury finals of the Smokefree Rockquest were on last Friday. Frankly Mauve won and I know the drummer, so that is quite exciting. Another band called Much to Much were also impressive, I thought they should've gotten a placing as well. Also, for a young guy, the vocalist from Beneath the Silence had quite an excellent metalcore voice.

alright, time to stop blogging and go play some guitar.

Blindside, Kings Arms, Auckland, NZ April 14th, 2007

So, take a band that, like the Refused, came out of Sweden in the mid nineties, with a similar brand of intense hardcore punk.

Have them tour the US, but instead of letting them implode mid tour, have them hook up with the management team behind POD and Project 86 and and let the biggest christian nu metal band in the world champion them to their fans.

This is how blindside burst on to the scene at the turn of the new millennium

Signing to an imprint of a major label, they released "silence" in late 2002, with a drastic change in musical style. Still heavy, still intense and still using screaming as a vocal technique, the production was cleaned up considerably from the raw feel of their early work and singing was also a lot more prevalent. At the time this and their touring associations leant it the label of just another nu metal album. Looking back with hindsight, both it and it's successor "about a burning fire" share more with emo tinged post hardcore than they do with hip hop flavoured metal.

Corporate restructuring meant they found themselves without their record label, and in 2005 they released a semi indie album, "The great depression" which has been notoriously hard to track down in New Zealand.

Finally in April 07, They came to auckland and played to a packed in crowd at the King's Arms Tavern. I managed to get to that show and get "The Great Depression" the next day.

Opening with the first track from silence, they ripped into the set. The drummer looked like Asterix. The guitarist looked like the wax doll of rasputin from the red dwarf episode "meltdown" with long black beard and long black hair, covered on top with a cap. The singer pulled off a look that only a lank northern european could— tight brown trousers, held up with suspenders, but somehow very rock and roll. The only thing down about the gig was his fly, which was at half mast throughout the show. Oddly though, the bass player looked completely normal. Like really normal. well cut, tidy jeans and t shirt. Well groomed hair. He could've been a young professional playing bass for the youth service on a sunday night. It was a massive contrast from the other 3, who despite very different looks all fitted with each other.

They played a considerable amount from both silence and about a burning fire, which was great as most of the crowd seemed to know all those songs really well, and were able to scream along. They also threw in a few songs off the great depression, as well as a new song from an upcoming EP. The only nod to their pre-silence days was the song "King of the Closet" second in their 3 song encore set, before they closed with about a burning fire.

The mix was perfect. every instrument was clearly audible but blended into the overall sound. The bass and drums were really strong and anchored everything nicely. A lot of the time there was a full band sound and heaviness from just them... so the guitarist was free to do cool sounding leads over the top.

The vocals were amazing. He can sing and he can scream— he can slide from one to the other so easily that you almost forget the difference. Listening to their albums it's almost unbelievable how well he can do both with the same breath... It's even more more impressive live.

All in all a great show.