In a world where honest music is a rare commodity, Counterfeit i stands apart and plays with real emotion and intensity. This Chicago-based experimental group, founded by Derek Allen in 2008, does not care about mass appeal and refuses to sacrifice artistic integrity for the fleeting fame that the music industry so readily offers. From their first release, Circuitry (2009) to their last EP, Search Party (2010), Counterfeit i has progressed and grown on their own terms, creating only music that is real and true to themselves.
Their newest album, a glimpse, an eclipse, continues in this tradition. Recorded and produced throughout 2011, Counterfeit i has again delivered a true work of art that all fans of honest music can appreciate.
Following the release of their self-titled debut in 2004 under their own imprint Punch-It Records Chicago’s Counterpunch began their journey into both the US and international markets. Touring both domestically and abroad brought them opportunities to play along side Rise Against, Strung Out, and Pennywise amongst other stalwarts in the genre. 2011 saw the band release their second LP, titled ‘An Idiot’s Guide to Being an Asshole’ with Go Kart Records. Multiple European tours and festival stops later, the band was ready to step into the studio with Matt Allison to record 2014’s ‘Bruises’. Released in 2014 by Cyber Tracks Records, this release saw the bands most extensive touring regimen to date. Hitting the road alongside the likes of Face to Face, Strung Out, NOFX, The Living End, Good Riddance and more brought them in front of their largest audiences to date. In 2019, the band stepped into Black in Bluhm studios in Denver to record their 4th LP just before COVID shut down the world. In light of facing a new normal the band hit the pause button on releasing their latest full length effort, deciding instead to put out a 7″ record with a few of the B Sides from the Black in Bluhm sessions. Teaming up with Thousand Island Records and SBAM Records to bring the world a snapshot of the new era of Counterpunch. Their newest LP ‘Rewire’ was released in June 2022 both from Thousand Islands Records and SBAM once again.
Ghostly, witty, & teetering on the edge of the gutter: Blues Poet COUSIN BONES returns with a powerful new line-up that’s been called Post-Apocalyptic Blues. The highly original songs are filled with blood banks, soup kitchens, lost lovers, trash fires, & telepathic cockroaches. COUSIN BONES is so down-home it’s scary.
Since dropping their debut full-length, 2003’s Turn It Around, COMEBACK KID has been an undeniable staple of the hardcore community. Each subsequent release has built upon the foundation of its predecessor while continually experimenting with and incorporating new musical elements from beyond the confines of modern hardcore. Five seconds into the band’s latest release, Symptoms + Cures, though, it’s made clear that this time around, COMEBACK KID has pushed their output to a new plateau.
Originally formed in 2000 by members of Winnipeg, Canada’s underground music scene, COMEBACK KID has amassed a catalog of four full-length international releases along with a live CD/DVD. Says vocalist Andrew Neufeld about the band’s origins: “We wanted to keep the intensity from our other bands or those we looked up to at the time, but also took influence from ‘90s skate punk and more melodic acts.” He continues: “We wanted the music to be heavy, but the vocals were meant to incorporate a bit more melody than was found in traditional hardcore. Still, I don’t think we knew how far we could go with it at the time.”
The band’s sophomore effort, 2005’s Wake The Dead, affirmed their position atop the heap of modern hardcore bands; however, when writing commenced for 2007’s Broadcasting…, vocalist and founding member Scott Wade announced his departure from the group, finding Neufeld abandoning his axe to take over vocal duties. But Broadcasting… didn’t miss a beat. With Neufeld more than capably filling Wade’s shoes, CBK delivered a powerful record that was undeniably COMEBACK KID while incorporating further-developed musical ideas and a more colorful vocal performance.
Having delivered their pure and passionate brand of hardcore to fans around the world since 2002, COMEBACK KID released a live CD/DVD package dubbed Through The Noise in 2008. On top of accurately relaying the intensity and attitude of a CBK performance through a 17-song set list comprised of favorites from the band’s three previous releases, it also included an hour-long documentary entitled Our Distance that shared the band’s story to date. Since then, the band has dominated stages on several continents and worked on an array of other projects, musical or otherwise, all while composing the fourth COMEBACK KID record.
Officially dropping August 31st, 2010, Symptoms + Cures is the latest offering from the lineup currently consisting of Neufeld on vocals, founding members Kyle Profeta on drums and Jeremy Hiebert on guitar, as well as guitarist Casey Hjelmberg and bassist Matt Keil.
The album is firmly rooted in the brand of hardcore that its three predecessors helped established, yet incorporates more musical layers and vocal variance than we’ve heard from the band thus far. “We really found our mesh with Andrew singing,” says Profeta about the effort. “Our last album was more of a ‘feeler.’ We were just getting in the mode of Andrew becoming our front man. With Symptoms + Cures, we’ve really found our sound with him and we’re all really excited about it.”
Trademark elements of the band’s sound are abundant on Symptoms + Cures – gang vocals, half-time bridges, and tastefully-placed breakdowns among them. However, the record also features a more dynamic vocal performance than we’ve previously heard, weaving a much harsher and urgent vocal delivery with sing-able passages, not to mention new musical expansions that stray from the straight-up simplicity of hardcore.
Still, these new elements only serve to enhance, not overpower, the core of COMEBACK KID’s sound – and this is assuredly a COMEBACK KID album.
Once the record’s been delivered to the masses, COMEBACK KID will embark on a world tour, hitting North America, Europe, Asia, and South America and sharing stages with acts like Madball, Sick Of It All, Four Year Strong, A Wilhelm Scream, Parkway Drive, Bleeding Through, and others. Says Neufeld: “It’ll be nice playing with some new bands as well as some of our hardcore heroes – bands we all really respect.”
While fans will undoubtedly find much to embrace in Symptoms + Cures, it’s notable that the band members themselves believe this to be the pinnacle of their cumulative output. “It’s a good feeling that despite how long we’ve been doing this, we can still get so collectively excited about our music,” shares Neufeld. “We love doing this. There’s no better feeling for any of us than being in a room, losing our minds, and watching others lose their minds to the music.”
These four friends have spent the past three years developing the odd blend of indie dance-rock, alternative and electronica that is Common Anomaly. While the group’s numerous influences range all the way from The Mars Volta to Daft Punk, their sound ultimately falls somewhere among the likes of Foals, Minus The Bear, and The Faint. Their polished, high-energy live performances have earned them a growing loyal fanbase and a regular schedule of shows all over the Colorado Front Range, where they can frequently be seen with fellow up-and-comers The Photo Atlas, The Epilogues, and The Knew, as well as such national acts as Royal Bangs and Bear Hands. Common Anomaly’s sophomore album “Iridium” (mixed/mastered at the legendary Blasting Room Studios) was released March 2011, and a summer tour with is in the works.
Conflux’s music coalesces meticulous classical composition, loose jazz improvisation, and raw heavy metal brutality into a deeply sophisticated but widely accessible sound. Sound crazy? It is. But it’s also unequivocally awesome. With a broad range of appeal, the quartet consistently challenges the notion that “art” and “entertainment” are two separate entities, producing songs that are just as groovy as they are cerebral.
Sci-fi fusion trio Consider the Source defy easy categorization. If intergalactic energy beings, upon their initiation into an order of whirling dervishes, built a pan-dimensional booty-shaking engine powered by psychedelic math…it would sound like a cut-rate CTS cover band. With their blend of progressive rock and improvisatory jazz, soaked in Indian and Middle Eastern styles, CTS blends disparate elements into an utterly original whole. A relentless touring schedule has earned them a fervent following around the world, with fans ranging from jam-band hippies to corpse-painted headbangers.
Their latest album, You Are Literally a Metaphor, is the culmination of a fifteen-year musical journey. Packed with the same fury and dazzling virtuosity of their previous work, Metaphor is also a portrait of three musicians reaching new levels of maturity.
From the bluesy swing of “When You’ve Loved and Lost Like Frankie Has” to the ethereal electro-synths of “Sketches From a Blind Man”, CTS’s minimalist pop instincts stand shoulder-to-shoulder with progressive metal and freewheeling improvisation in a true expression of their omnivorous musicality. Three of Metaphor’s nine songs are Eastern European traditionals, but could easily be mistaken for the band’s original tunes, so singular has their sound become. CTS retain their signature fiery maximalism while pushing the hooky, anthemic songwriting to the forefront. Bassist John Ferrara’s new Taurus bass pedals and guitarist Gabriel Marin’s new custom Vigier double-neck guitar add new dimensions to the band’s already diverse sound.
This is an album born of comfort and growth. In the five years since World War Trio, the band has toured extensively, Marin and Ferrara have released side projects, and drummer/percussionist Jeff Mann has gone from a relative newcomer to a road-hardened veteran. After all this time, CTS knows how to create space for each other, how to finish each other’s musical thoughts and sentences, how to think as three individuals but speak with one voice. You Are Literally a Metaphor is a statement of confidence, an assertion of identity from a band with no reservations and nothing to prove.
CTS have performed in a half-dozen countries across three continents. They have shared the stage with a wide variety of artists, including: Victor Wooten, King Crimson Projekt, Wyclef Jean, Ozric Tentacles, Soulive, The Disco Biscuits, Papadosio, Turkuaz, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Wayne Krantz and many others. They have performed at festivals and events including: Electric Forest, Peach Fest, Gathering of the Vibes, Resonance, Summercamp, Shakori Hills, ProgDay, and Progtober. You Are Literally a Metaphor is available at considerthesourcemusic.bandcamp.com
Converge is a smart, aggressive, brutal quintet. They are an absolute cataclysm of noise that sounds like contact mics were stuffed in a bass drum and tossed down the side of a mountain. Very clever, disorienting time swaps, extensive riffage. An actual racket, swirling and careening as the band takes turns possessing and being possessed by their own instruments. Converge are so full of intelligence, skill and intensity that it’s simply masterful.
Combine tight musicianship with a loose cannon and you get Cooler by the Lake. With a two-guitar attack, rhythm section, keys, flute and sax, a dedicated back up singer and raucous singer Rory Lake at the helm, Cooler by the Lake has conquered rock clubs all over the Midwest for the last 12 years. It’s more than music; it’s an intense rock experience. That’s why their shaken cocktail of classic rock, psych, prog and punk appeals to all fans of rock, especially when served by wildly charismatic Rory Lake. Due to their unique versatility and amplified entertainment factor, Cooler by the Lake has squeezed on stages with rock legends Molly Hatchet, The Fixx and Asia as well as punk and indie acts Nashville Pussy, Cherry Valence, Danko Jones and Apocalypse Hoboken. Cooler by the Lake has also performed during a live simulcast of a bacon eating contest on ABC’s, The Jimmy Kimmel Show.
Golden era hip-hop roots planted in black Iowa dirt are the foundation. Growth tempered by alternative era rock influence. This along with a love for the juxtaposition of the dark, horrific nature of life paired with a slapstick and comedic view of the world allow for a wide, unpredictable arsenal ranging from soul-spilling indie bedroom rock to wise-cracking battle rap and on to radio pop.
