2008 was a pretty good year for music, many fantastic bands released great albums with rock fans being treated especially. While there were many high-profile comebacks in 2008, Metallica and Guns and Roses spring to mind, but I’d like to look at what were my personal favourites during 2008.
First up was the new Joe Satriani album released on March 31st, Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock. The album is about as typically Satch as you could get. Since his experimentations with electronica and drum machines on Crystal Planet and 2000’s Engines of Creation, Satriani has settled into the comfort zone of blues rock for which he is so well known. For any other artist this would be a bad sign of a lack of fresh ideas or a good one gone stale. For Joe Satriani it means a string of quality albums. There’s still no one that can replace a vocalist quite as effectively as Satriani. His contemporaries often sink into self indulgence or wild experimentation and excess (which is no bad thing at times).
However what Satchafunkilus brought us is an album that non-guitarists can genuinely enjoy. It’s catchy, it’s accessible, it’s melodic and memorable. The album is also much leaner than previous outings at just ten tracks, although these have been given the freedom to breathe and develop. The average running time is slightly longer than Satriani fans have grown accustomed to over the years. Professor Satchafunkilus is about the most perfect guitar performance you’ll hear until the next Satriani record and is a pleasure to listen to.
2008 saw Thrice release the second half of their Alchemy Index quadrilogy. On April 15th they released the Air and Earth EPs as one two-disc, twelve-track double album. Marking the completion of an epic project the album saw Thrice really exploring the other musical facets that were hinted at in their previous release. Earth is all acoustic and raw folk blues music while Air is a go-between the stripped down feel of Earth and the bombast of their Fire EP. Water, Fire and Earth show Thrice at their extremes of experimentation while Air binds the project together and perhaps shows a future direction for the band.
While I think that 2007’s Fire and Water has consistently better songs the Earth and Air EPs, they have perhaps the two standout tracks of the project in folk anthem Come All You Weary and the driving and haunting Broken Lungs. These two songs alone are enough to elevate this album above much of 2008’s musical output and cement Thrice as key players in the alternative and experimental rock scene, finally breaking out of their early punk rock roots. Hopefully the next Thrice album will get them some more recognition in Britain as I believe they stand head and shoulders above most mainstream rock bands.
My pick for the best album of 2008 is In Flames’ ninth studio album, A Sense of Purpose. This is their most complete and consistent album to date, a perfect blend of melody and driving heavy metal. The band have strong death metal roots and are marketed as such, but really they have little in common now with their peers. What separates In Flames is their keen sense of melody and controlled mayhem that makes the 47 minutes of this album so listenable. Not afraid to experiment either, A Sense of Purpose sees In Flames record their longest song yet, the twisting Chosen Pessimist.
What makes the album so good for me is its consistency. Every single song feels like it belongs and you get the impression that if it were on any other In Flames album then it’d be a standout track. On A Sense of Purpose Gothenburg’s finest band are at their peak of songwriting and creativity, showing that great metal is so much more than just growling and downtuned guitars.
For one of my favourite bands to release their best album to date makes 2008 a great year for music and it’s one I think 2009 will have a tough act following. Hopefully something will come along that can live up to In Flames, and it’ll be interesting to see just what we’re given this year.
Choosing a band name is the most difficult decision that any group has to make. A name will define you and is the first impression that most people will get of your band. People will often hear the name before they hear any music, pick the wrong one and it’ll put people off before they even listen to you. Of course, your name absolutely must be original as well. Choose something that someone else is using and at some point down the line you’ll have to change it. This article will steer you on the right track for choosing a band name.
The first thing to do is think about what kind of music you play and how you’d like your band name to reflect it. If you’re in a swing band it’s no use calling yourself Death Face or Hatebreed as everyone will think you’re going to be a death metal band. An extreme example, but it illustrates the point that the name must be synonymous with your genre. Death Face and Hatebreed would be good names for black metal bands, as people will get what they are expecting.
Make sure your band name is original. There’s no use in marketing and promoting a name that you’ll end up having to change once you gain a following, it’s wasted time and will just cause you more work down the road. This part is probably the most difficult thing about choosing a name, with more and more bands being created the list of available names gets shorter and shorter. Also with the Internet giving us the world’s information in an instant there’s no excuse for picking someone else’s name anymore. People will be searching for their bands and if they find you then they won’t be happy.
Speaking of the Internet, it’s a vital tool for promoting your band and will prove to be your greatest ally in your search for fans. With this in mind it’s best to choose a name that’s going to be easy to push to number one in Google as well as having the dot com web address free. If people can easily find your band online then you’re guaranteed to get more hits and downloads and hopefully more people to gigs and more merchandise sold. Make sure that the MySpace address is free too, it’s vitally important that people can find you easily on the web. Most people will just search Google or MySpace when searching for a band so make sure that if all they have to go on is your name then they’ll find you, and not a local carpet cleaning company.
A band name does not necessarily have to have a deep hidden meaning, it just needs to sound good. People need to want to wear your t-shirts and tell people about your band. If they feel stupid with your name on their chest or feel like an idiot saying the name then it’s probably not a good sign. Try to pick something that people will speak about. Make sure that you really read your proposed name in as many different ways as you can as well. Make sure you spot any double entendres or innuendoes before anyone else does, might save some embarrassment later on.
It’s not easy, my band is still unnamed after a three month long search for a moniker. Try to pick something you’re really happy with as once it’s set then you’ll be stuck with it.
