Rock music in the charts

I've just been reading that My Chemical Romance and Trivium are currently #1 in the UK singles and album charts respectively (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6053586.stm).

To be honest I'm not sure where I stand on this. Of course I would much rather see 'real' guitar driven music receiving the credit it deserves and see it top of the pile rather than the latest manufactured boy-band wasters, but there's just something about us rockers/metallers that makes us uncomfortable in the limelight and receiving the adoration of the pop loving masses! I guess we are just so used to being kept in the dark and having our own scene that we don't like sharing it when a band hits the big time.

I suppose we should be saying good luck to them and here's to more appreciation to rock, metal and punk but I just have this fear of the guys who are flying our flag selling out and appearing on the latest teeny bopper magazines. Let's hope I'm wrong and the rest of the world is finally waking up to what we've known for years!

New Album summary

Tomorrow sees the release of the new Trivium album, "The Crusade". This has been receiving a lot of hype recently. I liked their last album "Ascendancy" so hopefully "The Crusade" will live up to the hype.

Other notable releases that we'll be watching out for include:
Cradle Of Filth - "Thornography" (16th Oct)
Deftones - "Saturday Night Wrist" (30th Oct)
Killswitch Engage - "As Daylight Dies" (20th Nov)
Tool - "Salival" (31st Dec)

In terms of recent releases, Iron Maiden's "A Matter of Life and Death", Mastadon's "Blood Mountain", Motorhead's "Kiss of Death" and Body Count's "Murder 4 Hire" are in the Grindaar teams possession, so we should have feedback on these to you soon.

Rye Coalition

Some rock magazines have been making a lot of noise lately about a band called Rye Coalition. Again, they're not exactly a new band, they've been releasing albums since 1997 and have 5 records to their name previous to their most recent effort Curses. The main reason their profile has been raised recently is that a certain Mr Dave Grohl has produced this new release - and he certainly knows a thing or two about music! Grohl's influence can be heard at various points in Curses and I'd describe them as 80% Paul Stanley style Kiss and 20% Foo Fighters - not a bad mix if that's how you like your rock!

After a couple of listens I'd say they're good but not the brilliant saviours of rock some are suggesting. 7/10
www.ryecoalition.com

New Music: New Project

We thought the blog would be an ideal way to keep you guys updated on what we're listening to but can't find the time to do a fully blown Grindaar review on, particularly any new music we've come across.

So to kick things off I've been checking out a band called New Project. Not many people have heard of them although they're not exactly new, but they are evolving their sound this year. They have a new EP out now called Primal.Logic.Slave which is pretty awesome. It's hard to pigeon-hole New Project and tell you who they are like, there are definite Industrial metal influences in there and there's something familiar about the riffs and vocals but I just can't put my finger on who they sound like, at a push I would say they're a bit like Filter and Static-X. But don't take that forced similarity as the final say, check them out for yourselves - you'll be able to listen to some of their tracks on their official website www.newprojectonline.com I don't think you'll be disapointed, I'd give them 8/10.

Now with added blog-ness

Probably a long overdue addition to the site, this blog is now in place to allow for more regular updates regarding Swoj.com. I'm sure this will evolve as we go, however the main intention is to have a way to keep people updated on the things going on behind the scenes, particularly with the items that are not 'front page' type content. I'm sure there will be the odd rant or two as well!