Album Review: Future - Endure

Artist: Future
Release: Endure
Label: independent
Release Date: October 2010
Reviewer: BMer

Track List:
01. Endure Intro
02. Go In ft. R-Swift, Thisl & K-Drama
03. Endure ft. Pastor AD3
04. Fight Klub Interlude
05. Fight Klub
06. Winners ft. Fitgerald
07. At His Throne ft. PRo
08. God Ain’t With You
09. Frontline ft. PRo & Json
10. Struggle No More ft. Fitzgerald
11. Never Back Down ft. Mike Real & Rio (KuntryBoyy)
12. Future vs. Pride ft. Bumps
13. Conviction
14. Hold On

If you are looking for some high-energy southern Christian rap then Future might just be that, the future! Although not on the level in popularity with other artists like Lecrae and Trip Lee, Future still features an all-star cast on his latest release titled Endure. Fellow “x-hustler” Thi’sl features a few times, as well as Flame, JSon, Pro, KDrama and quite a few more. This is the kind of in-your-face hip-hop takes on some serious issues, as well as some serious big-name rappers!

The theme throughout Endure is just that, endure. Just looking at the track list you get the idea that Future knows life is tough, but we need to persevere, with song titles like “Battle”, “Frontline”, Struggle No More” and “Fight Club”. One of the best tracks on the album starts the album off, “Go In” starts off with some horns and when the beat drops, it’s on! Thi’sl and K-Drama help set things straight throughout the track. Future delivers clear confidence and his flow never seems forced.

Other standout tracks include “Fight Club”, “Endure”, “Winners” and “Struggle No More”. There is quality effort to make the hooks and chorus stand up next to the smooth delivery of Future, something that often lacks on Christian rap albums. AD3 on “Endure” is solid when he sings “keep it moving, keep it Holy, keep it pure, Endure”. On “Fight Club” you hear plenty of sporting references, usually to leaders in their respective sports like Lebron James and the Florida Gators. One of my favorite sport references happens in “God Ain’t With You” where Future raps “you can be a star and still be Christ’s example – Tebow”. There are plenty of other clever references, like on “Never Back Down” – “I got a new heart from my daddy too, like John Q.”

The song “Winner” features a super-catchy chorus delivered by Fitzgeral “in this life I choose Christ so I’m already a winner, all because of Jesus I’m already victorious.” Future is relentless throughout the track with his lyrics, constantly promoting faith in Christ “I don’t believe in fate I believe in faith along.”. He also recommends that listeners don’t wait too long to turn to Christ because “you’re all sinners / never escape the heat like in Miami, all winter (so hot).”

The track “God Ain’t With You” could be considered controversial, you know instantly who the track is directed at with the opening line “you say your last names Ever, your first name is Greatest…” Yes, Jay-Z is the directed target, but this song could apply to just about everyone in the entertainment business. “You’re like a kid with tokens, and the arcade is open. You just bought a boat, but God controls the ocean.” The song touches on the exercise of most entertainers to thank God at their shows, yet you could question their validity by the way they live.

Endure is not without its weak moments, for example there is a staged rap-battle for track 10, “Battle”. The battle is between Future and pride, yes the characteristic of pride. The idea is creative, pride telling Future “I’ll have you thinking you’re effort’s great, trusting merits instead of grace” but the delivery is corny, with an MC and crowd cheering and other effects to give the impression that this battle happened in 8 Mile. This is a modern-day Screwtape Letters in some sense, so it worth it to read through the lyrics, considering the motives of pride. The best line though, from pride “I’m a big deal like Lebron to the Knicks, while you remain the Kwame Brown of all lottery picks.”

OVERALL Endure is a solid release from Future, full of credible performances from other rappers in the Christian rap genre. Each song has that anthem feel to it, each one would justify that towel you carry around at shows to dry off the sweat, you’ll be bouncing non-stop throughout Endure. Future puts his name on the map, for fans of straight-forward Christian rap with issues most of us can relate to, check out Endure.

Reviewed for Indie Vision Music

Album Review: The Music Room - Live While You're Alive

Band: The Music Room
Release: Live While You’re Alive EP
Release Date: Jan 2011
Label: none
Reviewer: BMer

Tracklist

1. I Wanna Know You
2. Dark Outside
3. Be Here
4. Rubbish
5. Life is Beautiful

The Music Room is a sibling outfit out of small-town Northern California. Live While You’re Aliveis a collection of five well-written folksy acoustic songs. The EP is full of creativity and each track has a unique quality of warmth and love; Live While You’re Alive is a moment of relief in a hectic life.

Siblings Aimee and Dane Johnson decided to record their songs after playing them live for over a year. The lead-off track “I Wanna Know You” sets the tone for the EP with an upbeat piano and accordion throughout. Aimee’s vocals are not commanding, but more subtle and quirky, reminiscent of Katie Herzig or Zooey Deschanel of She & Him. Aimee’s creative melody lines nestle neatly with her guitar-work, while brother Dane accompanies each song with light percussion and an occasional harmonica. Producer Brian Steckler also features on the album with solid piano work.

You can’t help but smile throughout Live While You’re Alive, The Music Room have written songs about love and life that instantly make you wish you were drinking warm coffee in your kitchen while looking out the window at your white picket-fence. Despite the lighter exterior most of the songs hold a deeper message about life. “Dark Outside” talks about the struggles in relationship when two people aren’t on the same page. “I Wanna Know You” speaks of God’s compassion towards each of us individually, while still being the creator of the universe. “Be Here” is a wonderful track with rich ambience and perfectly placed vocals by Dane, his carefree delivery is a great compliment to Aimee’s voice.

The best track on Live While You’re Alive is that last track, “Life is Beautful.” The lyrics are a reminder that we can get caught up with craziness of this world “Preoccupied and too numb to realize that life is beautiful” and with the repetition of the line “Life is beautiful” you can’t help but get caught up in the brief moment of peace Live While You’re Alive offers.

OVERALL I’m really enjoying Live While You’re Alive by The Music Room. There are no agendas here, nothing but well-written songs about life with a reminder to love those around you. Fans of Sixpence None the Richer, Waterdeep, Glen Hansard, and wholesome folksy music will really enjoy The Music Room.

Reviewed for Indie Vision Music

Album Review: Venia - I've Lost All Faith in Myself

Band: Venia
Release: I’ve Lost All Faith in Myself
Label: Blood & Ink
Release Date: November 2010
Review By: BMer

Track Listing:

1. Crux
2. Mouth of a Liar
3. Numbers Game
4. The Call
5. Calloused

Minnesota is having a great year in music, already boasting quality releases from Your Memorial and Blank Page Empire, now we get a 5-song EP from Venia titled “I’ve Lost All Faith in Myself.” Released through Blood & Ink Records who are also having quite a year having released another great hardcore EP with Dependency’s “Convicted”, Venia are on-point with their spirit-filled hardcore. If you haven’t checked out Venia already then this would be a great place to start.

Venia represent hardcore music to the fullest, they tour constantly throughout the year and they still find time to record a solid record, they’re one of the hardest working bands out there. The band is still playing the smaller venues, and sometimes when those shows get cancelled Venia will find a house to play at. With so many bands these days decided to add a little metal to their sound, or maybe dance beats, Venia keeps it real and authentic with punk drumming, breakdowns and gang vocals, there are no gimmicks here.

The opening track “Crux” expands on the title of the EP (I’ve Lost All Faith in Myself), talking about not putting faith in the things of this world “faithless in what I thought had worth / Faithless in the things of this earth!” The gang vocals on this opening track just enhance the importance of the message, something that the hardcore scene desperately needs. Venia play such quality hardcore, and play with some other hard-working hardcore bands, that it’s easy for them to get in the door and share their message with the kids. This message isn’t just “positive hardcore”, but faith-based hardcore, they don’t water down the message in order to be accepted, you clearly hear the name “Christ” on the track “Calloused”, something you don’t find with many “Christian” bands.

The next two songs, “Mouth of a Liar” and “Numbers Game” continue the urgent pace laid out by “Crux”. “Mouth of a Liar” features the best drumming on I’ve Lost All Faith in Myself while “Numbers Game” takes a serious look about those who mislead, the scenario that is written about here could be applied to quite a few different “leaders” today. Each song on I’ve Lost All Faith in Myself features a solid breakdown and a chance to sing along, but all of the songs seem to be in support of “The Call”, the best track on the EP.

“The Call” features duel vocals between Venia frontman Chad Urich and the original vocalist for Strongarm Jason Berggren. Jason actually co-wrote the song and leads off the song with “This is the call / a time for reckoning!” This song could not get any better, the breakdown which starts with spoken words “Sear this on your conscience and brand it on your heart / for the faithful there is a promise / a sacred trust of salvation / never forget and never give!” leads into the high-point of the song, gang vocals repeatedly shouting “I will not deny!” “The Call” could easily be the closer to Venia’s live set, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them playing “Crux” live as well.

OVERALL I’ve Lost All Faith in Myself is quality hardcore. Venia are leading the charge, bringing hardcore back to the forefront. I’m not sure there has been a faith-based hardcore band playing this well since Stretch Arm Strong, Strongarm and Comeback Kid (back when everyone thought they were a Christian band). For those fans of “tough-guy” hardcore like Sick of it All, Shai Hulud, Madball (and on and on…) you need to be listening to Venia and like I stated earlier, I’ve Lost All Faith in Myself is a great place to start!

Reviewed for Indie Vision Music

Show Recap: Haste the Day @ Marquis Theater

Tour: Haste the Day Farewell Tour
Date: 1/31/2011
Venue: The Marquis Theater (Denver, CO)
Reviewer: BMer

After 10 years in the business Haste the Day have decided to call it quits. But before they leave us fans they put together one last tour trying to hit all of the cities they hadn’t hit in the past six months. Thankfully Denver was on that list, unfortunately though we would not be getting the full lineup for the tour which featured Mychildren Mybride, A Plea for Purging, and The Chariot in support. The Chariot were finishing off another tour and are joining this tour on the Seattle stop.

This was sort of a home-show for Haste the Day. The original band members all hailed from Indianapolis, therefore that’s technically considered home for HTD and where they will be ending this tour. But the lineup as of now features Stephen Keech on vocals and Dave Krysl on guitar, both played together previously in Denver-based New Day Awakening. The show eventually sold out and throughout the set, fans of New Day Awakening were in full-voice requesting songs from the old band. Stephen talked about that band a little but joked that this current lineup doesn’t know any New Day Awakening songs.

Haste the Day opening the set with “68” off of Dreamer. Stephen was sporting a very short haircut and beard looking somewhat like a mountain man rather than the frontman for a metal band. The band was full of energy and so was the crowd, “68” was nuts and they followed that up with “The Place Where Most Deny” which went over pretty well. Obviously most fans of Haste the Day know there is quite a difference in sound and feel from old Haste the Day (Burning Bridges and When Everything Falls) to the recent releases like Dreamer and Attack of the Wolf King. Most of the older songs really hit hard, the crowd was much more energetic for the older songs which feature straight-forward breakdowns. The first chance they got was the third song in “Blue 42” and sure enough the crowd went crazy.

Throughout the evening Stephen led the band through a few slower tracks, something they’ve been doing over the past few tours playing songs like “An Adult Tree” and “Autumn”, this time they played “White As Snow” and “My Name is Darkness”. While these songs are pretty cool and a nice contrast to the heavier stuff, everyone just kind of stands there and doesn’t know what to do. After they played “My Name is Darkness” they left the stage before coming back out for the encore. They opened the encore with “Chorus of Angels” which went over really well. After that Stephen could sense the restless in the crowd (2 slower songs and a break) and said “don’t worry, we’ll get back to breakdowns soon.” They closed the evening with “When Everything Falls” and it got rowdy.

There were at least 6-7 kids ejected from the venue during Haste the Day’s set, they were thrown out for fighting. I’m not sure if Stephen is giving this speech every night or if he noticed the excessive violence this evening, either way he gave a 5-minute talk about the hardcore scene and how people claim “it’s all about love, but then they go attack someone. There’s no love in that.” From there he talked about the band’s faith in Christ and how kids need to put their faith in the Truth, and not in the hardcore scene. It was great to hear him speak about love and Christ and it was well received by the crowd.

They played through most of the regular songs including “Blue 42”, “Stitches”, and “Mad Men”. They also played some songs that they don’t always play like “American Love” and “Needles”. Three times during the set the crowd voted between songs, the first time we chose “Walk On” over “Fallen” (I voted for Fallen), the second time we chose “Travesty” over my favorite new track “Dogs Like Vultures”, and the last time we chose “Pressure the Hinges” over “Needles”, however Stephen really wanted to play “Needles” so he went with that. “Pressure the Hinges” was probably the only song that everyone expected to hear but didn’t. From their latest album they played “The Place That Most Deny” and “Travesty”, I wish they would have dropped “The Place…” and played “Dogs Like Vultures” instead, but I can’t complain, it was a solid set.

The supporting acts this evening were Mychildren Mybride and A Plea For Purging, A Plea played first with a solid set featuring “Silent Sick America”, “Shiver”, and closed with “Malevolence”. Throughout the set front-man Andy Atkins encouraged the crowd to complete 300 stage-dives. He said that Denver was the rowdiest crowd so far on the tour, but he “measures his fun level in stage-dives.” Later he dogged on Mychildren Mybride, who were playing next, and asked that someone in the crowd skip their set and take him to get a burrito from Illegal Pete’s (in Boulder), if they did “he’d be forever their dude!” Well it happened and they got their burritos. He did let the crowd know that he was joking about Mychildren Mybride and that they are “the best dressed band on the tour.”

Mychildren Mybride played next and had the crowd ramped up. The band is an interesting mix of dudes that look like metal-heads, sounds like metalcore, and talk like a hardcore band, always encouraging the band to two-step, and featuring more gang-vocals than the other bands on tour. The kids were climbing over each other for a shot to sing on the mic. They played most of the songs they’ve been playing for the past year including “Terra Firma”, “Wings of Integrity” and closed with the fan-favorite “Headshot!”. They also added “King of the Hopeless” to the set and it went over great.

It was a solid show, the crowd was very energetic and the venue was packed despite the fact that it was -10 degrees outside. Most of the band-members hung around after the show and talked with the kids, John from A Plea For Purging was rocking some huge sword for some reason, and Haste the Day were selling shirts to commemorate their final tour. The only thing that could have made this evening better would have been Haste the Day playing their cover of “Meet Me Halfway” with a cameo from Fergie.

Images by Scott Lenger

Reviewed for Indie Vision Music

Album Review: Thi'sl - Unreleased Chronicles

Artist: Thi’sl
Release: Unreleased Chronicles
Label: X-Hustler Music
Release Date: November 2010
Reviewer: BMer

Track List:
1. Yung Hayte – Intro
2. I’m a Rider (Feat. Soul)
3. Father Help Us
4. Rocked by Grace (Feat. Matt Vollmar of The Great Romance)
5. Get Low (Limbo)
6. Dopeman
7. Wake Up Soldiers (2002) (Feat. Flame)
8. He Gone (Tank)
9. Yung Hayte – Life’s Hard
10. Parade
11. Lift Him High (Feat. Pastor AD3)

Unreleased Chronicles is Thi’sl’s third release, his first since his very successful album Chronicles of an X-Hustler. Unreleased Chronicles is not new material, all of the tracks are previously unreleased songs except “Parade” and “Lift Him High”(which are new), and there are also three bonus tracks you can download from Thi’sl website to add to Unreleased Chronicles.

With only 11 tracks Thi’sl does not waste much time bringing the goods. Track 4 “Rocked By Grace” features a real rock feel thanks to a guest spot by Matt Vollmar of the worship band The Great Romance. The whole track feels somewhat like a Linkin’ Park joint with verses that are rapped over a big rock band feel and a very catchy chorus. Track 7 is called “Wake Up Soldiers” and was the first track Thi’sl and Flame ever recorded together, which was back in 2001. The track features very cool music that sounds somewhat like some old-school nintendo soundtracks. “Get Low (Limbo)” is an energetic head-boppin’ track where Thi’sl talks about staying grounded:

“can’t get puffed up, like vice grips gotta stay tightened up, prisoner of the Christ so I stay cuff’d up…I gotta murder my pride, can’t let the thing bubble-up inside, low like four flat tires, low like the tail-pipe on my ride… we lift Him high but you know we gotta stay Low. “

The best track on Unreleased Chronicles is the anthem “Parade”, one of two new songs on the album. The horns bring the energy while the beat has that krunk-music feel that makes you wanna to the “big money dance”. The song talks about how Thi’sl lived a rough life in the hood hustling everyday and how he celebrates every day he’s alive:

“any day I live is enough to celebrate, could be sleeping in the pen could be layin’ in the grave. Coulda hit me with a case, coulda hit me “k”, that’s why any day I live man it feel like a parade.”

An album featuring works that did not make it the first time around is not without it’s weak moments. Maybe the most notable is the second track “I’m A Rider” featuring Soul. It is surprising to see this track so early on the album, the chorus is rather annoying. Soul’s vocals just sound off, like either the notes are out of his range or the production failed to give him any help. Another weaker track is “Dopeman”, a song with good intentions but failed to leave an impression.

Yung Hate fills in the gaps on the album, first on the intro leaving a voicemail in Thi’sl’s machine and then later on “Life Is Hard” where gives us a glimpse of one his own songs. “He Gone” is a heartfelt tribute to a friend (Tank) who was apparently killed. The song paints some chilling images of life in the game;

“I wish my boy coulda seen me rep Christ / he went crazy when he seen me rock mics / I flipped out when I seen him that night / on the table laid up with no life / this the reason I’m giving my life / to see cats come in to the Light/”

OVERALL Unreleased Chronicles is a solid collection of tracks that didn’t make the original cut. Some of the tracks are excellent like the news ones “Parade” and “Life Him” as well as “Get Low (Limbo)” and some of the tracks were probably cut for good reason, they just don’t make an impact. If you like energetic rap with a gangster feel and honest, Glory to God lyrics you should check out Unreleased Chronicles.

buy here

reviewed for Indie Vision Music