Sophia Marie is a hard rock singer and bass player. This is her debut full length release and shows off some powerful metal riffs, ballads and hard hitting rock anthems!
The intro sets the tone of darkness and despair showing what’s to come over the next 12 tracks. The music is heavy and rocking with some chilling Gothic undertones. There is a lot of power and passion forced into each track all of them having a certain bleak atmospheric vibe to them. Sophia Marie has a solid voice that at times sound sweet and poppy like Kylie Minogue and other times sounds more dark and menacing like Siouxsie Sioux.
On offer are some fast paced rock anthems like Voodoo and Under your spell, some slow metal tunes like Losing control and With you and some softer ballad-like moments such as Run to you and Get Free.
A major highlight is the single Mr Big Shot, sounding like the Fear Factory with Kylie on vocals. The mix of the popish vocals and the heavy metal soundtrack work well together creating an interesting and engaging contrast. The music has a lot of depth with a smooth flow from heavy to soft moments.
This is a great offering of hard hitting metal moments that go from soft to heavy and quiet to loud with seamless precision. The musicianship here is fantastic with some mighty rocking guitars and thumping drums all of which form an apt soundtrack to Sophia Marie’s vocal delivery. Overall a solid debut that is well worth checking out if you like gothic-metal acts like Nightwish or Lacuna Coil.
Royal Chant, the band formerly known as Sickboy, are back with the debut EP. On offer are two tracks that were previously available as an double A-side MP3 download in Somedays and Coughing Fits and two previously unreleased tracks in Shatters Alright and Sea Chanty.
The EP opens with Shatters alright. The first half of this track is much smoother and laid back track compared to the other Royal Chant tracks of late. Mark Spence has a much calmer vocal tone here. The song gathers speed at around the half way mark as the band start to rock out in a chaotic grunge style. Somedays is a fast paced, energetic and raw punk rock tune. This is topped with some witty lyrics delivered with Mark Spence’s great growling voice. This track is a lot of fun and works as a great rocking anthem, especially with the sing-a-long chorus. Coughing Fits shows a good use of echoing vocals and dark atmospheric textures. There is a lot of energy throughout the song as well as all sorts of interesting background sounds. Sea Chanty is quite a clever piece going from what sounds like a drunken sailor sing-a-long to then being a fast full on punk rock tune. The two fit together well and amount to something that is a lot of fun to listen to!
This is another impressive offering that a good mix of loud grungy rock and catchy pop moments. These work well together keeping the song interesting the whole way and showing the band can go from one vibe to another quite seamlessly.
Just when we thought a McDonald’s breakfast was the healthiest way to start the day, along comes KFC with this tasty offering. Mmmm… damn those plastic hot dogs look nice.
Next time you are in Malaysia be sure to give one a crack.
To finish off the list of music that has stood out over the last year here is the Tomatrax Top 100 of 2009. This was yet another strong year for music making it very hard to narrow songs down to 100 and even harder to work out the order. Over the 100 songs just under 90 artists are featured with no artist making it into the list more than twice.
The time of the year has come for the best albums of the last 12 months to be argued about, so to get things started here are the Tomatrax Top 10!
NUMBER TEN
Gomez – A new tide
Gomez continue to develop and build on their unique folk/indie rock sound in their latest album. The tracks mostly led by acoustic guitars exert a lot of charm and life. Highlights include the stripped back opening Mix, the double bass led If you ask nicely and the fast and catchy Airstream Driver. This is yet another brilliant release that is a must for fans of Gomez or indie rock in general.
He could be the biggest thing to come out of Ballarat since Plugger. His voice strikes you. Radio legend Billy Pinnell says it’s “a voice suggesting Jeff Buckley, Pete Murray, Dave Matthews and Eddie Vedder”. He sounds like John Mayer – with something to say. Even Kyle Sandilands was impressed, saying, “mate, you are like finding that extra bit of chocolate in the fridge”. Meet , “the controversial Idol” from 2008. Like Bobby Flynn, James was the square peg in Idol’s round hole. At first, the judges loved him. Marcia applauded his “serious blue-eyed soul”, while Dicko gave him the backhanded compliment: “You’ve got no style, but when you start singing, it all comes to life.” The judges wanted James in the Top 24, but then Kyle confronted him: “Do you want to win this contest?” James replied: “To be perfectly honest, I probably don’t.” Dicko erupted. “As far as I’m concerned, you can bugger off back to Melbourne. If you don’t want it enough, you can get fucked.” James says he got a lot out of his Idol experience. “I learnt a great deal about voice preservation, performance delivery and conveying the message of a song to an audience. I received many compliments and it was a confidence booster to think that people who have worked in the industry think I have a good voice. I also learnt that Idol has some questionable morals and may be discouraging and prematurely ending the careers of far more young singers/songwriters than they help, all in the name of ‘good TV’.” James is used to copping criticism. His grandpa told him, “You’re no Bing Crosby”, while other people have compared him to soccer star Wayne Rooney. “He’s not all that attractive, so it could also be filed as a comparison I haven’t liked!”
Yet another year is coming to an end. So to start the various lists of highlights for the past twelve months here is the latest volume of Tomatrax Unearthed Picks covering 41 of the best songs from 2009. Best of all you can listen to them all for FREE!
Be sure to check out Unearthed for some of the best new Australian music, and to keep up to date with new music check out the Tomatrax reviews page!
The tracks are as follows:
1. Stremer Bendy – Boy oh boy
2. The Mimps – La La La
3. Royal Chant – Somedays
4. Super Massive – All the things I’ve done
5. Circle – Just pretend
6. Suzie Stampleton – 6 ft away
7. Black Seas – Second guess the asleep
8. The Horse Darkly – Getaway Car
9. Wind & Brackets – Tiny actions smaller hands
10. TV Nations – R.A.T.S.
11. Bird Automatic – About the money
12. Tara Simmonds – When you say that I don’t care
13. Canvas Kites – Wayside
14. Dave Jacobs & The Prodigal Sons - Walkabout
15. Sophia Marie – Mr Big Shot
16. Perpetual End – Sin for beliefs
17. Washington – Clementime
18. Azlock – Sun
19. Aronora – Taken away
20. Brilling – The Old Captian
21. The Reefs – The King and I 22. galactic empire – greenwichmeantime
23. Domini Forster – Puppet Strings
24. Pimpin’ Horus – No shame
25. Fergus Brown – hot kisses, cold tiles
26. The Painkillers – Gypsy Davey
27. The Parking Lot Experiments – Forest fire
28. Kasha – Let a storm
29. Harlequin League – all your wars are won
30. Breach – Such a rush
31. Ivy St – There’s a whole lot more that waits
32. The Owls – In the middle
33. Hawks of Alba – Look what you’ve become
34. The Ocean Party – Winter
35. Simone and Girlfunkle – Sailing
36. Sarah Monahan - Coming Home
37. SOLID LIGHT – Gloss
38. Give or Take – Mr. Beaumont
39. The Battery Kids – Ghost Town
40. The Ride – Blow My Mind
41. Old Kent Road – The Salt, the sand, the sea
Tomatrax Unearthed picks Volume 2 can still be listened to by clicking here!
There are many reasons we should be disturbed by Tony Abbott being Leader of the Opposition. None more so than his choice of beach attire. I’m guessing Jeebus would prefer his missionaries get about in a more modest pair of swimmers.
Tony… we do not want to see the outline of your nuts. OK?
Just when we thought a McDonald’s breakfast was the healthiest way to start the day, along comes KFC with this tasty offering. Mmmm… damn those plastic hot dogs look nice.
, “the controversial Idol” from 2008. Like Bobby Flynn, James was the square peg in Idol’s round hole. At first, the judges loved him. Marcia applauded his “serious blue-eyed soul”, while Dicko gave him the backhanded compliment: “You’ve got no style, but when you start singing, it all comes to life.” The judges wanted James in the Top 24, but then Kyle confronted him: “Do you want to win this contest?” James replied: “To be perfectly honest, I probably don’t.” Dicko erupted. “As far as I’m concerned, you can bugger off back to Melbourne. If you don’t want it enough, you can get fucked.” James says he got a lot out of his Idol experience. “I learnt a great deal about voice preservation, performance delivery and conveying the message of a song to an audience. I received many compliments and it was a confidence booster to think that people who have worked in the industry think I have a good voice. I also learnt that Idol has some questionable morals and may be discouraging and prematurely ending the careers of far more young singers/songwriters than they help, all in the name of ‘good TV’.” James is used to copping criticism. His grandpa told him, “You’re no Bing Crosby”, while other people have compared him to soccer star Wayne Rooney. “He’s not all that attractive, so it could also be filed as a comparison I haven’t liked!”
There are many reasons we should be disturbed by Tony Abbott being Leader of the Opposition. None more so than his choice of beach attire. I’m guessing Jeebus would prefer his missionaries get about in a more modest pair of swimmers.