Review:: BLUESHIFT | Visitors

For fans of: The Used, The Mars Volta, Fall of Troy

Combine mesmerizing guitars, passionate and expansive vocal melodies, and drums that are heavier than Hell and what do you get? I’ll give you a hint: it’s the debut EP from Visitors, BLUESHIFT. With only their first release, Visitors have proven that they deserve any positive attention that they have gotten or will get.

BLUESHIFT’s first track, “With a Y,” starts the EP with a bang; though, every song hits just as hard as the one before, and every melody is as irresistibly haunting as those preceding. On top of this, the EP flows together in such an incredible way, stitched together by intelligent, yet vehement lyricism – my personal favorite being “Camera Obscura.” From start to finish, BLUESHIFT is reminiscent of the roots of progressive rock, following in the footsteps of predecessors and obvious influences, such as The Mars Volta and artists alike. If you’ve got a good two hours on your hands, fill it with BLUESHIFT (it’s roughly 25 minutes, but once isn’t enough).

Release Date: May 20, 2014
Rating: 3.9/5
Run Time: 25 minutes

Track Listing:
1. “With a Y”
2. “Ages”
3. “Past Passages Passed”
4. “Camera Obscura”
5. “Springtides”

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Written by Joe Calvi

Review:: The Collective and The Individual | The Elephant In The Room

The Collective & the Individual is the new full length album from The Elephant in the Room, a progressive rock/pop band from New Jersey. The 11 song album was produced by Casey Crescenzo of The Dear Hunter. The band’s Facebook page, they list Rx Bandits and The Mars Volta as influences and it makes perfect sense. Even before seeing those bands listed I immediately made a connection to them. Each song is haunting melodic like The Mars Volta, progressive reggae rock like Rx Bandits, or a hybrid of the two. The final sound is extremely unique and works better than I could have ever imagined.

The opening track on the album, “Left in the Dark”, is an example of the aforementioned haunting melodies. The almost creepy sound when combined with the lyrics and the fantastic backing vocals makes for a great song. Songs like “Monster” and “Never Believe What You’re Told” are similar in style but different enough to where you don’t feel like they are extensions of the same track.

Then you’ve got songs like “Actions Speak Louder than Words”, “Makers Mark”, and “Sky People” which are more along the lines of the more reggae rock sound. Again though, you’re hit with some great and interesting lyrics, for example the phrase “human cybernetic mind control” is most certainly uttered in “Sky People”.

The best songs on the album are probably the ones that successfully meld the different sounds into one great sound of i’s own. Tracks like “Ghosts”, “What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt You”, and “P-ts” are some of my favorites on the album and are clearly a well-executed amalgamation of the differing styles. You really do get the best of both worlds, somehow getting the darker tones with still a beat of driving reggae rock sound.

Kudos to both the band and producer for this album; they’ve put together an amazing sounding album that is clearly their own.  I could just be out of the loop, but I’ve not heard anything like this. They’ve done such a remarkable job of taking melodies and tones that can easily be combative with each other and turn them into an interesting fusion with creative and strong lyrics. This is most certainly an album that I’ll be recommending to people.

Release Date: October 29^th, 2013
Rating: 4/5
Runtime: ≈41 minutes

Track List:
1. Left in the Dark
2. Monsters
3. Actions Speak Louder Than Words
4. Neither Here Nor There
5. Ghosts
6. P-ts
7. Sky People
8. Makers Mark
9. What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt You
10. Never Believe What You’re Told
11. We Will Meet Again

The Elephant in the Room is:
Alfred Vitale – Vocals / Guitar
Joseph Savino Jr. – Guitar / Vocals
Greg Szaro – Drums
Jared Duncan – Bass

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Written By: Mark Northern