Phoenix Music

North Dakota is a great band from Phoenix. They're full of awesome pop drum beats, great female punkish vocals and catchy melodies. Go check out their four-track EP on Bandcamp for some really great rock songs. It was recorded by Kevin Maliszewski and River Jones and mixed by River Jones. This kind of music is always immediately enjoyable.

The songs on this EP have very interesting titles: Thing, Fargo, La La La, and China/Japan. “Thing” is a big stand out. It’s got a lot of great keyboard sounds, the melody is wonderfully catchy, and it drives through for the whole song, even if it only comes it at two minutes and fifty seconds.

“Fargo” is really great too, as it should be. If you name your band North Dakota, and you have a song named after a city in North Dakota, it’ll probably be the first one many people check out. I know it was for me. This one is a bit slower, but it also comes across as more mature. The vocals wait over half the song to come in, and I think it’s really effective. They’re very strong. The drums are great and somehow just as poppy without limiting any of the maturity of this song.

If you’re in Phoenix, go find this band and get them to play a show! If you aren’t, you can go listen to all four songs on their EP for free on Bandcamp, or you can purchase them to put into your own collection for $4.

Loyal Wife is a really interesting band in Phoenix made up of David Jensen, Ashley Taylor, Sam Hardwig, Blake Kimball and Spencer Reed. The band description reads like this is a side project of a side project from a couple people working their way through college and business, but these songs sound like they’ve had a lot of attention. Congratulations on balancing tons of things in your lives, guys!

Phoenix has a ton of different music, and this is among the most commercially viable that I’ve heard without compromising integrity. These really are good songs, and they also sound like they could be played on the radio. These folks are influenced by every moment, and they’ve got a really cool website you can check out here: http://loyalwife.net/. Good art is always helpful in keeping integrity.

Check out Loyal Wife if you’re in the Phoenix area when they’re playing! They’ve got a show at the Phoenix Hard Rock Café on March 30. I’ve only been there twice, but I know that is a really nice place to have a show. If you’re not around Phoenix, just go over to their Bandcamp and check their music out. You can buy it for ten dollars or, as always on Bandcamp, stream it for free! I know there is a huge crowd out there that would love this band. They tagged themselves as alternative, indie, pop, radio, and rock, and all of those are absolutely accurate. This is mainstream rock from Arizona to America.

I wasn’t very sure what atmospheric rock or doom metal were until I started listening to Summoner’s Bandcamp page. They tagged themselves with those phrases, as well as with stoner rock. I’d say I understand the stoner rock one a bit more. It’s sort of like Priestess crossed with Wolfmother and Led Zeppelin. There may be even a small bit of Metallica in there too.

Genres don’t mean anything, but it is always interesting to see what people are calling themselves. I like the word doom, and it’s cool to see somebody call their band doom metal. The cover art by Alyssa Maucere certainly looks like it would belong to a band that calls their music doom metal. Summoner even sounds like it would be the name of a doom metal band.

Check out this band if you’re a fan of classic rock, harmonizing guitar solos, intense vocals, or in your face dynamics. They have huge guitar riffs and songs with titles like “Winged Hessians” or “Across Iron Fields”. These are totally appropriate titles for their genre, but I must ask. What is an iron field? I bet this band would be really entertaining to look at in person. So if you ever hear of Summoner playing a show near you, it might be worth checking out.

These are probably the kinds of people who absolutely love what they’re doing and don’t care whether or not you do. That’s good. There are too many people who try way too hard nowadays. 

Former Babies tagged themselves with five different cities (Oakland, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Diego), but they’re really worth listening to, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, Phoenix, and tell you about this great lo-fi pop band.

Former Babies album, BG013 | The Blackout Album, has seven tracks that are all under two minutes long and all full of totally captivating lyrics. The second track opens with a cute girl singing about the troubles of being a werewolf saying, “I woke in the middle of the night naked in the woods. There was blood all over my body.” The song continues to describe the constant surprises associated with being a werewolf, and it’s appropriately titled “Werewolf”.

“Growing Up With Two Brothers” is the last track on the album and probably favorite. It’s about a girl growing up with two brothers. This band is so perfectly straight forward! I’m a boy, so I don’t really relate to this song directly, but it makes so much sense and the melody is so interesting. I have a sister, so I get some of this from the perspective of being a brother. It’s barely over a minute and a half long, but it’s totally great.

Moll Ball and Shawna England say they aren’t musicians, but these songs are music. They’re totally worth checking out, and you should head over to their Bandcamp page and listen to their songs regardless of their direct connections to Phoenix! Former Babies are great!