Music Discovery: The Gracious Few's "Closer"

"Closer" was a free single on iTunes a couple years ago, and it comes from The Gracious Few's eponymous 2010 album. The Gracious Few are actually a supergroup consisting of guitarist Chad Taylor, bassist Patrick Dahlheimer, and drummer Chad Gracey from Live, and vocalist Kevin Martin and guitarist Sean Hennesy from Candlebox. Their style is hard alternative rock, similar to Three Days Grace or Bush. Musically, the song starts quietly, but once the drums kick in, the song has a driving beat. The guitar then takes the lead, with hard chords leading through the chorus along with Martin's piercing vocals. The verses are more subdued, with the bass driving the song along here. Overall, "Closer" is a great hard rock tune.

September: A Good Month for Music

September is turning out to be a pretty good month for new album releases. On September 4th, Imagine Dragons released their debut studio album Night Visions, and Matchbox Twenty released North, which was their first non-compilation album since 2002's More Than You Think You Are. On September 10th, The Avett Brothers released The Carpenter (which you can expect a review of soon [spoiler alert: it's good]), and the next day, The Dave Matthews Band released Away from the World. The end of the month holds promise, too: two albums of note will be released on September 21: deadmau5's Album Title Goes Here and Mumford & Sons's Babel. Rounding out the month will be ¡Uno!, the first album of the Green Day ¡Uno! ¡Dos! ¡Trè! trilogy, on September 25th, and on September 28th in a few European countries (and October 2nd mostly everywhere else) will be the release of Muse's album The 2nd Law. Other releases include albums by Hoobastank, Mika, Pet Shop Boys, Pink, and The Killers, as well as the 25th anniversary edition of Michael Jackson's Bad. Expect a few reviews coming up, probably of The Carpenter, Babel, and ¡Uno!.

Music Discovery: An Endless Sporadic's "Impulse"

"Impulse" is the first track from Ameliorate by instrumental progressive-rock band An Endless Sporadic. You might recognize this song as being a bonus track on Guitar Hero III. The "progressive" label is not to be taken lightly. After a minute or two into the song, you will wonder if you are even listening to the same song. However, the beginning riff repeats itself later in the song to remind you what you're listening to. In the middle, there is the breakdown of all breakdowns. It might sound like absolute nonsense, but it's still relatively structured... I think. If you're into instrumental rock, give "Impulse" a listen, and if you like what you hear, also check out "Anything" from the same album.

VOTE: FL Studio Projects!

And I finally make my first post about MY music. Although it's not me on the piano, I decided to dump the several starts of FL Studio songs onto my blog for the world to see. Some are really short (like, seriously, really short) and others are longer, plus I have one completed song to show. In addition, YOU get to decide which unfinished project I finish first! To listen to each song, click on the song title and download the song. Then, you can play it in your music player of choice. So here goes:

Album Review: Continued Silence

Introduction
Continued Silence is the major-label debut EP from alternative band Imagine Dragons and their fourth EP overall. The lone single from the EP is "It's Time", which has received moderate success on alternative radio and gained some fame after being featured in the trailer for "The Perks of Being a Wallflower".

Name Change, and Twitter!

Sean's Thought Channel is now Sean's (Mostly) Music Notes!

WHOA NAME CHANGE OMG WHAT IS THIS MADNESS

Okay, so I changed the name to be more fitting, since I really only ever talk about music here anyway. Also, the style of the blog has been overhauled to a "dynamic" theme. My Facebook page has been updated accordingly; however, the username is stuck, so it's still facebook.com/seansthoughtchannel. The website has also been changed to seansmusicnotes.blogspot.com, so update your bookmarks accordingly! (lol) And also... wait for it...

TWITTER OMG

Follow @SeansMusicNotes on Twitter so you can see my posts in even more places!
...that's all I got.  

Music Discovery: SoulEye's "Positive Force"

Retro video game fans will love this one. "Positive Force" is by Magnus Pålsson, better known as SoulEye. The song comes from PPPPPP, which is the soundtrack for the indie game VVVVVV. Like the enitre album, "Positive Force" is chiptune style, giving it an 8-bit retro sound. The syncopation in the drum rhythm along with the sine (I think) lead makes it feel right from a video game (and it is, so no surprise there). Of the songs from PPPPPP, "Positive Force" is one of the best. It's very upbeat and has a great chorus with a well placed key change in the chorus. If you're into retro games, have played VVVVVV, or in general like 8-bit music, I would recommend checking out this song as well as the album PPPPPP. Also, you can find "Positive Force" on the Rock Band Network, in addition to "Potential for Anything" and "Pressure Cooker" from the album.

EDIT: Howzabout I give you a link to the song? Here you go (after the break):

Ramblings About Choral Arrangements

At last year's LCWM choir concert, I arranged Uncle Kraker's "Follow Me" for my guys group, Legàcy (yes, the accent is necessary). This year, I've been a lot busier with arrangement for the pop concert, which is Disney themed. For Legàcy, I arranged a 4-song medley/mashup/whatever of "chill" music, including Travie McCoy's "Billionaire", Bruno Mars's "Count on Me", Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours", and Bill Withers's "Lean on Me". The song is written in TBB, which for those of you who aren't music-savvy, stands for Tenor-Baritone-Bass, meaning there are three harmony parts; I am the tenor, Isaac Schultz and Justin Hruby are the baritones, and Sam Vetch is the bass. Nearly everyone who I've shown the arrangement to is excited to see it performed. I also arranged "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" from The Lion King, also in TBB. That will be sung by all the guys in the choir. Also, for our Chamber Choir, I arranged "Circle of Life" a capella (without piano). It's technically SATB (Soprano-Alto-Tenor-Bass), but three of the parts split to really make it SSAATTB. I intended to get that done in one weekend, but it turns out writing seven parts is harder than three. Who knew?
So yeah, if you're planning on going to the concert in May, keep an ear out for those three songs. If this article seems random, it's because it is. I just felt like writing something, and this was the first thing that came to mind.

Music Discovery: Jonathan Coulton's "The Future Soon"

OMG AN ARTICLE!

Jonathan Coulton is a musician who focuses on pop/rock and folk rock. He is also probably a nerd because some of his song topics include Swedish furniture stores ("Ikea"), working at an IT job ("Code Monkey"), and, of course, zombies ("Re: Your Brains"). "The Future Soon" regards, well, the future and how the protagonist can't wait for it to come. He talks about how he'll "probably be some kind of scientist / Building inventions in my space lab in space" and eventually become one with his machines before going back to Earth to court a high school crush. Musically, "The Future Soon" is very cool, focusing on many different guitar chords while also having underlying keyboard. From the bridge on, the background is filled with mechanical beeps and other gizmo sounds. I would highly suggest checking out this song and Jonathan Coulton's other songs if you're into quirky lyrics or if you're a nerd like he is.