Song Spotlight: Megadeth - "1,320'"

If you missed out on the free download of Megadeth's "Head Crusher", which was only offered for one day in July, this one is especially for you.  "1,320'", another song from their latest album, Endgame, can currently be downloaded for free from their page at Roadrunner Records.  Like the former song, this one is another dose of old school thrash metal that fans of their older albums will feel right at home with.  The song starts off with the sound of a race car revving its engine, followed by an insane sounding guitar riff that would fit right in on Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!, the band's 1985 debut album.  The final minute and a half of the song consists of Dave Mustaine and new guitarist Chris Broderick trading blistering guitar solos with each other, much in the same way as Mustaine and Marty Friedman did on "Hangar 18" from 1990's Rust in Peace.

I'd also like to take a moment to discuss the value of free music here.  Before I downloaded "Head Crusher" in July, the last Megadeth album I had purchased was 2001's The World Needs a Hero.  I could not bring myself to get excited about their next two albums, 2004's The System Has Failed and 2007's United Abominations.  I think the main reason for this was the fact that I didn't really know who the band was anymore - my favourite albums all come from the 90s when they had their most stable lineup with Marty Friedman on guitar, Nick Menza on drums, and co-founder David Ellefson on bass.  One by one, all of those guys departed the band for their own reasons, leaving me doubtful that Mustaine could ever come close to what he produced with that lineup.

All it took was a single listen to "Head Crusher" to make me realize how foolish I was to think any such thing.  In my post about that song, I said that it sounded "pretty good" and that I was considering checking out Endgame once it was released.  Well, I did just that yesterday, and it has been in fairly constant rotation ever since.  I'm very glad to have found my way back to a band I once proudly considered one of my favourites, and to discover that they are still producing excellent music, no matter who may be in the band.  I think it's even more awesome that it was a free download of a single song that led to the band regaining a lost fan - had I not been able to hear "Head Crusher" for myself, I probably would have carried on without even acknowledging the release of Endgame.  Instead, it is now a serious contender for my favourite album of the year.

So to summarize: free music is awesome and bands stand to gain a whole lot by releasing even a little of their music for free.  If you haven't heard any Megadeth before, or if you like their old music but not their newer stuff for whatever reason, you could do a lot worse than to check out "1,320'".  It's a 3.54 MB MP3 file, and no registration, email address, or anything else is needed to download it - just click the DOWNLOAD TRACK button, and get ready to enjoy.  Happy listening!

URLs:

http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2009/07/song-spotlight-megadeth-head-crusher.html

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/artists/Megadeth/ (go here for the "1,320'" download)

Artist Spotlight: Two Seconds Away

One aspect of this blog that I am very proud of is the fact that I take the time to listen to the vast majority of the music I post about.  It might seem like a small thing, but the fact is that there is an enormous amount of free music out there, and it would be very easy to simply post a huge list of links every day, leaving it up to the reader to decide what is worth clicking on.  Writing reviews of the music I post about helps me to make sense of it all, and I hope that it allows you to decide if something is worth your while to download or if you should just wait until the next post.

With an introductory paragraph like that, you probably already know what I'm about to do.  Yes, I'm going to post about something I haven't completely listened to, but I think you'll agree that it is for good reason.  The artist in question is Two Seconds Away, a duo from Kansas City that has been releasing music for free, one song each week for the last year, as part of a project called New Music Monday.  The only real catch was that each week's song was only available for that week, after which it was replaced with the next week's song.

You might rightfully ask why I haven't written about these guys before - like, when it would actually have been possible to download new songs as they were released.  The answer is quite simple: because I hadn't actually heard of them until this past weekend, when a news article informed me not only of their existence, but of the fact that they would be re-releasing all 52 of these songs for a limited time (a total of 52 hours, to be exact).  The article stated that this giveaway would last from September 25 to September 27, but when I visited their website I couldn't find anything except the final song there.  I decided to start following them on Twitter to find out what was going on, and they soon informed me that the giveaway would actually be starting today and continuing until Wednesday.

I have at least been listening to this music as I've been preparing this post, and I have been really enjoying it.  A lot of it seems to have a laid back, almost folk feel to it, but there are times when distorted guitars and keyboards add more dynamics to the music.  I hear some Edwin McCain, James Taylor, and even Chris Gaines (Garth Brooks' short-lived pop rock alter ego) in some of these songs.  For music that was created under such tight time constraints, the songs are all very well written, and the production is very clear and clean as well.  It should be interesting to hear what happens when they rework some of these songs into a proper album, which is their current plan.

Okay, the more time you spend reading this, the less time you have to download the music.  If you haven't done so already, please head over to their newsletter subscription page, enter your name and email address, and once your subscription has been confirmed, you can download the music in 4 .zip files.  The total size of all of the files is about 303 MB.  Just get it downloaded for now, and then you can take all the time you want to listen to it.  I hope you enjoy it - I'm up to the beginning of the third volume now, and it has been very enjoyable for me so far.  Happy listening!

URLs:

http://www.newmusicmonday.com/

http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=123465

http://www.twitter.com/twosecondsaway

http://www.newmusicmonday.com/phplist/lists/?p=subscribe&id=4

Album Spotlight: Inward Eye EP

It's always great to find music for free, and I'll never stop writing about the lesser known, independent artists that have long been a staple of this blog, but I get a real thrill out of it when the music is something I've actually heard before.  Recently I was just searching for information about The Trews (read more about them, including how to get a couple of free downloads, at Music Musings) on last.fm and came across a couple of comments about a band called Inward Eye, who have an EP available for free download.  Inward Eye have a great song called "Shame" that I've heard on the radio quite a few times now, so of course I had to check out the EP.  To my utter surprise and delight, "Shame" is actually included on the EP!

 

Inward Eye is a trio of very young musicians (with an average of 20) from Winnipeg, Manitoba.  They cite artists like The Kinks, The Clash, The Who, Green Day, and the Rolling Stones as influences, and it's easy to hear a lot of these influences in the 4 songs included on the EP.  I also hear a bit of Alice Cooper in "Shame", with the verse and prechorus having a bit of a "School's Out" vibe, but the chorus launches the song into another dimension entirely, with a staccato guitar riff and absolutely crazy sounding falsetto vocals.  "Blind Paranoia" has more of a punk edge to it, with a great melodic chorus and a bridge that has more out of control vocals and builds in intensity until a couple of bars of hand claps lead back into the chorus.  "You Know I Know" seems to be some kind of "progressive punk rock" song - I've never really heard anything like it.  It starts off very fast and aggressive, sounding like an old Clash song, before going into a somewhat idiosyncratic bridge, complete with whistling, and later into a slower, Led Zeppelin-like jam to close the song; I can easily envision live performances of this song stretching well beyond the 3 minutes and 45 seconds of the studio version.  The final song on the EP, "The Times They Aren't A Changin'", adds synthesizers to the mix to great effect; this is the most Who-like song on the EP, and a great choice for the final song of a debut EP, as it leaves me wanting to hear a whole lot more from these guys.

 

The EP can be downloaded from Inward Eye's official website; clicking on the FREE EP DOWNLOAD graphic pops up a box where you enter your email address, birthday, and country, along with an option to sign up for Inward Eye email updates.  The download is a 25.5 MB zip file containing the 4 songs as 256 kbps MP3s as well as cover artwork.  I hope these guys go far - if this EP is any indication, they have loads of talent and energy to spare, and I'm looking forward to hearing a lot more from them.  Happy listening!

URL:
http://musicddm.blogspot.com/2009/05/free-download-friday-12-trews.html
http://www.inwardeye.com/index2.html