Eight Bands, One Episode
It has been a while, but your hosts saw the same tour! Sure, we didn’t go together, but it still allows us to do a live review! We do that in addition to three album reviews and a First Impression, so you best get started.
Reviews:
Mastodon – Emperor of Sound (Reprise)
Without Waves – Lunar (Prosthetic)
Woe – Hope Attrition (Vendetta)
First Impressions:
Mutoid Man– “Melt Your Mind” from War Moans out June 2nd from Sargent House
Live Review:
The Sonic Unrest Tour II featuring Infinity Shred, Norma Jean, The Contortionist, and Periphery
Mastodon – Emperor Of Sand
Without Waves – Lunar
Woe – Hope Attrition
The Sideshow Podcast 
Those Mastodon ratings sound like the smallest 2 point difference ever between your ratings. If someone gave it a 3.49 and another gave it a 4.51, that rounds to a 3 and a 5. While I have listened to Emperor of Sand a few times, I haven’t listened to it enough to give it a rating yet because I’ve been too busy listening to that album that you are going to review next week.
-The Rick Roll song is called “Never Gonna Give You Up”.
-That call for a circle pit from the Norma Jean guy wouldn’t work in New York City. New Yorkers are not familiar with Nascar.
-Where did The Contortionist get their following from? Don’t you remember that your former co-host liked them? They appeal to the Between The Buried And Me crowd. While I haven’t seen The Contortionist live, I can imagine comparing them to the BTBAM concerts where people will mosh to the quieter piano parts.
-Since on this tour Periphery only stopped at New Jersey and Connecticut (no NYC), I have not seen them since their last album was released. I’m curious as to how the new songs on Periphery III came across. I love the songs in the middle of that album, such as “The Way the News Goes”, “Remain Indoors”, and “Flatline”.
– A year or so ago, Heavy Blog is Heavy stopped giving number ratings with their reviews, and I COMPLETELY understand why and agree with that decision. The numbers are very relative and may not accurately reflect what was actually said about the album. I would do the same, but I do think the snapshot can be helpful on the site. As a longtime listener, what do you think?
Anyway, you are right that is this a ‘small’ 2 point difference – the album was growing still with both of us, and i wanted the combined one shown to the world to be the 4.
– I know what the song is (I’m not that out of touch), but i had a had a brain fart I tried to gloss over. Apparently, that didn’t go smoothly. Lol
– An NJ is so much more into NASCAR than NY?
– I can see the BTBAM appeal with The Contortionist quite easily. I just feel like that BTBAM is talked about A LOT more and just seemingly more ‘present’ in the blogs and overall community. I feel like i have barely heard anything notable about The Contortionist since the last album. That said, I didn’t care that much for said album, so maybe i just ignored any news.
– Periphery actually played all three of those songs, so I’ll say they come across very well!
— Brian
I think the 5 star rating scale works fine. Sure, you can nitpick certain shortcomings of it, such as if you liked one album from a band more than another but you are giving them the same rating. But it makes for a convenient point of reference for your feelings about an album at the time. Plus, how would you ever figure out your year end lists if you couldn’t just look back at all the 5s you gave throughout the year?