Matthew Dear: Deserter

I really enjoyed Matthew Dear's latest album Asa Breed; my favorite track on the album is deserter. This song has this subdued 80's theme to it that is as creepy as it is fragile. I was pleased to stumble across a live video version of the song that I think really demonstrates that Matthew Dear excels where so many electronic artists seemingly cower (bouncing cowering) behind their laptops.

Spotlight: 108

I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon 108 in my recent searches of emusic looking for my monthly download stipend.

108 actually has a history back to the mid 90's as one of the "krishna-core" bands that emerged around the most unlikely of religious influences, Krishna. You might have seen the jovial Hare Krishnas in your neighborhood (they have a temple sort of meeting house in Spanish Fork, Utah) as they bounce around chanting trying to cheer everyone up. Not the most natural candidate to breed a whole movement of hardcore bands, but the results were equally as delightful.

I find 108's latest album, A New Beat From a Dead Heart, to be refreshingly congruent with their older stuff (granted, I have only heard their album from the mid-90's called Holyname - which was a single 50'ish minute track) Call me old fashioned, but so much of what is deemed hardcore these days seems so overridden with metal elements. Even the vocals on hardcore albums these days so rarely consist of real screaming, it is usually some sort of distortion effect to make even the singers most angst-ridden wails sound just so horrendous and bereaved. 

108 on emusic

108 on myspace