t r y ^ d - Public Domain

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Imagine a remix album. Ok, now imagine that instead of remixing a few well known songs into a dance mix, you're mixing tracks that your band mates made across the country into a single new sound. That's t r y ^ d (pronounced triad. I'd have to assume).

Creating their music completely over the Internet, never all meeting in one place at once, the five members of try^d create one of the worlds first and only "virtual bands" with what they call "industrial classic pop."

The first full song, track two, "The Final Rewind." Is definitely worth a listen if nothing else. It combines strings, electronic music, a drum set, and a choir sound all together into a slow but powerful piece.

The bridge makes great use of presidential speeches to expose how presidents from both sides, and across time have exaggerated threats to go into war, making an excellent intro for the next song. "Peace on Earth," is a fun, upbeat song making nice use of the electric guitar. It's a little ray of light in the mind numbing depression (and strings) or the rest of the album.

To be honest, I had a hard time listening all the way through each song, just because so many of them had the same dark, echoed, evil-cathedral sound. Nothing against the songs, but I get bored easily. If this is you, you might just want to check out individual songs, not the whole thing at any one time. Each song by itself is pretty good, but together they may be a bit much if you have the musical ADD.

Hey look, something shiny!

One of those "dark" songs that I actually did listen to all the way through was "My Piano Sings." Everything about this song is dark, yet I actually enjoyed it. I think people have forgotten that that human voice is capable of so many sounds, this one song exposes three very different vocals lines. I'd like to see more of this.

How many times can I say "dark" in one post? Dark, dark, dark.

Pros:

• The "cool factor."
  
• They have a strings section and piano.
  
• Great vocals and band.
  

Cons:

• Instrumentally heavy, if you only listen to the lyrics.
• Computer effects are overused.
• Feels "dark."

Best Tracks:

• The Final Rewind
• Peace on Earth
• My Piano Sings
• Samping Memory
  

Summery: Three and a half stars. Give it a shot, put in on random with your other music. If you like the dark music, it's probably some of the best you'll find anywhere, but what do I know? I don't listed to the dark stuff.

Why are you even reading this? Why not just listen to the music yourself? It's free!

babyPaul - Moodswings

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So I really like this album. I'm not going to lie. It could easily be my favourite album that I have found on the Internet or off since I discovered the Islands.

Maybe that's not true. I love the Unicorns too.

"Moodswings" is the name of the album and it works. There is defiantly something special about this album. This is a fairly diverse album, and yet it feels strangely familiar. Almost every song feels like an old favourite. Imagine 90's pop with the Beatles singing backup, Elton John supervising the lyrics, and a hint of modern pop-punk.

It starts off with a really fun German track entitled "Auf einem anderen Stern" or "On Another Star," which is a love song, in which the speaker sings to his lover how their love will keep them away from all the chaos in the world. This is followed by a very "pop-ish" I-have-a-new-crush track entitled "Beautiful Girl." I have to admit that this is the song that caught me. "I Back Down to Razorblade Town" is also pretty fun if you ignore the obvious themes and "Play With Me" has really fun bell and guitar lines.

The band itself is really great. The electric guitar really stood out for me on a few of the tracks. Also, the creator wasn't afraid to use back-up singers or press beyond the guitar-bass-drum set mold that has has too tight of a grip on music.

The entire album appears to be about one girl: "Julia," which is really effective at bringing the "Moodswings" all together into one nice collection of music.

Pros:

• It's fun.
  
• The band is great. Nice guitar, drums, singers (lead and backup), and auxiliary.
  
• It feels like an old favorite.
  

Cons:

• Most of the album is pop (if you hate that kind of thing).

Summery: Five stars. If it wasn't free I'd buy it.

Chelmi - Freestyle Connexion

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I've been looking all over for perfect album to start Hemlock Wine with. Something that people can compare to their everyday music, something that'd catch a wide audience, something normal (and hopefully in English). After a while of searching for an album I thought everybody would like, I realized that that's not what this blog is about.

Freestyle Connexion is one-of-a-kind French ska album.

One of the things about the ska and reggae genres I've always taken issue with is that the lyrics are generally not all that amazing. Maybe more people should just speak crazy moon talk instead of singing? Basically what I'm trying to get at is if I hadn't told you that it was french, odds would be that you'd never notice and you definitely don't have to speak french to enjoy this album.

The album starts strong with a very danceable track, discussing how he is not satisfied with world politics, namely the United States (Gasp! What a surprise! And in ska too?) The second track is a fairly generic, mostly English, pro-pot song, not amazing but defiantly not bad.

The third track is defiantly my favourite on the album, if just for the instrumentation. The percussion is more than your usual third-beat beat, flute solos fit in perfectly, and the guitar line just made me smile. It starts off a Capella, then comes in the band, and it eventually evolves into a three way dialogue between the two signers, and the flute.

OK, I guess this brings us to the last track. Don't listen to it. It's twenty minutes of the same thing, basically beat-boxing. To be honest, I'm not really sure what "good" beat-boxing sounds like. After fifteen minutes it gets a bit better, at least funnyish. I wont give it away.

So here it goes.

Pros:

• Fun
• Danceable
• Great instrumentation.
  

Cons:

• The Word "libéralisation" will make you laugh.
• The themes are fairly generic for the genre.
• The last song is 20 minutes long.
• It's in French
  

Summery: Three stars. Give it a chance.

Imagine (Introduction)

"Imagine, sung by George W. Bush" by Rx.
(Right-click, and select "Save Target As" to download)

In 399BC Socrates was found guilty, charged with questioning the status quo. In Ancient Athens, he was sentanced to death. His poison: hemlock.

This is Hemlock Wine, a new type of musical blog where everything I review is yours to download one hundred percent free and legally, all the time!

How can I do that? There are too many great bands out there that aren't getting the attention that they deserve and many have chosen to licence their music under a "Creative Commons" licence. That means that the music is out for anybody, as long as they follow a few restrictions (generally, this just means you can't sell their music and you have to give them credit.) While not all my music is CC licenced, it is all free to download without having to sign up or register anywhere.

Hemlock Wine is your resource for reviews on every type of music under the sun, as well as free, easy and legal music downloads. All we ask is that you open your mind and take your poison.

(Downloading BitTorrent or eMule is recomended)