Album Spotlight: Duff McKagan's Loaded - Dark Days

Lately, there has been quite a bit of attention given to Guns N' Roses. The video game Rock Band 2, which was released for the XBox 360 last month, features "Shackler's Revenge" as a playable track; this was the first time in nearly a decade that new Guns N' Roses music was officially released. The movie Body of Lies, which was just released last week, features another new song called "If the World" during its closing credits. And perhaps the biggest GNR-related news of all was the announcement last week that Chinese Democracy, the band's first album since 1993's cover album "The Spaghetti Incident?", will be released on November 23, 2008 - incidentally, this will be exactly fifteen years since "The Spaghetti Incident?" was released.

A lot has happened in those fifteen years. For one thing, the only remaining original member in Guns N' Roses is Axl Rose. The other members have long since gone their own ways and have been keeping themselves pretty busy. Take bassist Duff McKagan, for example: since leaving Guns N' Roses, McKagan has continued to find success as the bassist for Velvet Revolver. That is far from the only band he has been involved in, however. A few weeks ago, one of my favourite blogs, Free Metal Albums, posted a link to an album called Dark Days by Duff McKagan's Loaded. As a longtime GNR fan, I naturally was very curious about this album, so I decided to check it out.

I was very pleasantly surprised with what I heard. Dark Days has a sound that is strongly reminiscent of old Guns N' Roses, which is mainly rock and roll with a good dose of punk rock. Unlike his role in bands like GNR and Velvet Revolver, Duff actually takes center stage in Loaded, singing and playing bass, rhythm guitar, and piano; think of some of the songs that Duff sang lead vocals for on "The Spaghetti Incident?", like "New Rose" and "Raw Power", for an idea of what to expect. But Dark Days is far from being a rehash of old GNR ideas - songs like "Criminal" and "Misery" feature added instrumentation in the form of strings and piano, respectively, which really add a lot of depth to the sound. "Want To" has an amazing outro, and "Shallow" sounds at times like a dark version of The Rolling Stones' "Time Is On My Side". Album closer "Your Way" has a dark, keyboard-driven sound that is reminiscent of Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter".  The entire album has a surprising  amount of depth, and I find myself hearing new things everytime I listen to it.

Whether you're a long time Guns N' Roses fan, a newcomer to the band, or just someone who likes to hear a good, hard rocking record every once in a while, I can't recommend Dark Days highly enough. It makes for some great music to listen to while we count down the remaining few weeks to one of the most highly anticipated albums of all time. If you are at all intrigued by any of this, please head over to the Loaded page at Idol Management to download a free copy of Dark Days.

Happy listening!

URLs:
http://freemetalalbums.wordpress.com/
http://freemetalalbums.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/duff-mckagans-loaded-dark-days/
http://www.idolmanagement.com/duffmckagan's/loadeddarkdays.htm

Album Spotlight: Marillion - Happiness is the Road

My interest in Marillion began about ten years ago, and they very quickly became one of my favourite bands. But as much as I love them, I have to admit that I haven't actually kept up with them lately: the last album I actually purchased was the special edition of 2001's Anoraknophobia, and while I have heard the bulk of their recent material, it hasn't yet found a place in my CD collection. Part of the reason for that is the fact that it been very difficult, if not impossible, to find their albums where I have lived, leaving rather expensive special orders as the only option for obtaining them.

Imagine my surprise and delight, then, when I learned of the innovative way in which Marillion have made their latest album available. The official release date for Happiness is the Road is October 20, 2008, but a digital copy of the album has been available for free from musicglue.com for the last nearly a month now; all that is required to obtain the tracks is an email address. Marillion have essentially leaked the album themselves, but in a manner that gives them much more control than they would have over a normal leak - videos and messages embedded within the files themselves let the listener know about the hard work that went into making this music, direct them to the band's website, and urge them to support the band in any way they can. For a band that has become known for making bold moves (for example, being one of the first bands to utilize the power of the Internet to communicate directly with their fans, and funding the recording of their last few albums from fan pre-orders), this one seems to be exceptionally bold indeed, and it will take some time before its impact will be fully known. At the very least, it has allowed new Marillion music to find itself in heavy rotation in my playlists for the first time in years, and I am doing my part to let others know about it as well.

So, how about the music? I think that anyone familiar with at least some of Marillion's music will feel quite comfortable listening to Happiness is the Road, and anyone who hasn't heard them before may find themselves pleasantly surprised by it. Of the two discs, I have found the first (titled Volume 1: Essence) to be more immediately accessible than the second (titled Volume 2: The Hard Shoulder), although the latter has been growing on me after repeated listens. Some of my favourite songs from Essence are "This Train Is My Life", which has a classic mini-epic sound reminiscent of past Marillion songs like "Afraid of Sunlight"; "Woke Up", which has a beautiful, slow, dreamy sound with gorgeous layered vocals; "Liquidity", a short but very pretty piano-based instrumental; and "Wrapped Up in Time", which has a beautiful, chilled out feel to it. The Hard Shoulder has a pair of excellent pop songs in "Half the World" and the first single, "Whatever is Wrong with You" and an excellent, epic outro in "Real Tears for Sale".

Overall, I am very pleased with Happiness is the Road. It's wonderful to hear some new music from one of my favourite bands, and it's exciting to see that the band is trying new things in order to reach new fans and reconnect with old fans. I can't recommend this album highly enough, so if you're still reading this, I would urge you to head on over to musicglue.com and begin downloading, as it will take some time to obtain all of the tracks. If you like what you hear, then please support the band in any way that you can, whether that means buying a physical copy of the album, buying a concert ticket, helping them to reach more potential fans, or whatever else you can do. Please leave a comment here if you feel so inclined, as I would love to know what people think of this music.

Happy listening!

URL:
http://www.musicglue.com/marillion

Artist Spotlight: Brad Sucks

First of all, welcome back to Totally Free Music.  I pretty much took the summer off from blogging, but I'm hoping to get back to a more regular posting routine like I used to have.  I've still been listening to lots of great, free music, so there will never be a shortage of things to write about; the tricky part is finding time to write about it all.

Today I would like to feature an incredible source of free music. I find it incredible for a number of reasons: the quality, the variety, and the fact that it is all created by one man, Brad Turcotte, a.k.a. Brad Sucks, a.k.a. "a one man band with no fans."

The first thing I would recommend is downloading a copy of Brad's first album, I Don't Know What I'm Doing. The album starts off with the thumping, high energy dance beat of "Making Me Nervous", which gives way to the grungy "Look and Feel Years Younger". The mellower, acoustic-based "Fixing My Brain" is next, followed by the more aggressive "Bad Attraction", which finds Brad stepping out of his usual low-pitched vocals into a higher-pitched, Kurt Cobain-esque scream. The fact that the first four songs of the album are so different from one another is a tribute to Brad's undeniable talent, as he has taken elements from a variety of different genres and shown that he is equally at home with all of them.

The same level of quality is maintained throughout the entire album, and the variety makes every song a highlight in its own right. There is more acoustic-based rock in songs like "Sick as a Dog", "I Think I Started a Trend", and "Dirtbag" (which features an awesome, chilled-out coda); more energetic dance-infused rock in "Never Get Out" (which, along with "Making Me Nervous", has become a mainstay in my "biking" playlist on my cell phone, which I use to listen to music while I am cycling to and from work, and only gets populated with the most adrenaline-pumping songs I own); and a beautiful ballad in "Overreacting", which features an excellent guitar solo.

The songs are all expertly produced, with all of the instruments sounding very clean and crisp. A highlight of every song is the vocals, which are all multi-tracked, giving them a very distict sound and giving the entire album a very cohesive feel.

As great as I Don't Know What I'm Doing is, it is only the tip of the iceberg as far as Brad Sucks is concerned. Brad has been cool enough to make the source audio files for the entire album available, meaning that anyone is free to remix it or do whatever they would like with it. You can find dozens of remixes at http://www.bradsucks.net/you/?type=remix, and Brad has taken his favourite remixes and made them available in the I Don't Know What I'm Doing Remixed compilation.  The source files themselves are available at http://www.bradsucks.net/you/?type=source.

Even more music can be had by becoming a Brad Sucks Best Friend Forever. This will get you access to the Brad Sucks BFF message forum, as well as a selection of demos, remixes, covers, collaborations, and other "miscellaneous things of dubious quality." Again, it's all free, so you have absolutely nothing to lose (and, in my opinion, a whole lot to gain) by signing up. One of my favourite songs available in the BFF section is Brad's collaboration with nerdcore hip hop pioneer MC Frontalot, "Livin' at the Corner of Dude & Catastrophe"; avid Rock Band players may recognize this song, as it was released as downloadable content for that game just a couple of weeks ago, and has become one of my favourite songs to sing.  Hopefully it won't be the last Brad Sucks song available for that platform.

This post has been LONG overdue - in fact, I've been editing it on and off since the spring.  One of the things that prompted me to finally finish it was the release of Brad's second album, Out of It, just last Monday. I downloaded it the morning it was available, transferred it to my USB key so I could listen to it at work (since I don't have access to the internets at work), and... managed to forget to bring my USB key that day. The next day, however, I did remember, and Out of It has been in regular rotation in my work playlists ever since. I haven't had as much time to absorb the new album as I have his other material, but after a few days I have been very impressed with it. Out of It seems to take the best aspects of I Don't Know What I'm Doing and bring them to the next level; I have noticed a tighter integration between the acoustic, electric, and electronic aspects of the music, and the vocals are awesome as always. Some of my early favourites include the grungy "Fake It" (which was available as a pre-release single for a few weeks), the upbeat acoustic rocker "Bad Sign", and the beautiful ballad "Gasoline", which features a stunning, extended instrumental outro with some gorgeous keyboard sounds.

According to the web page for Out of It, the album has taken a "long, long, long" time to complete; having only discovered Brad's music earlier this year, I haven't had to wait too long for it, but it sounds so good that I have to believe it would be worth the wait no matter how long it's been. I wish Brad every success with this album, and I hope that it allows him to continue making awesome music for a long time to come.

Happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.bradsucks.net/
http://www.bradsucks.net/albums/i_dont_know/
http://www.bradsucks.net/albums/i_dont_know_remixed/
http://www.bradsucks.net/you/
http://www.bradsucks.net/remix/
http://www.bradsucks.net/bff/
http://www.bradsucks.net/albums/out_of_it/