I have a very strong emotional attachment to many of the releases listed below. Choosing this list was exceptionally tough; I’ve been fortunate to discover some incredible bands and artists over the past year, and it’s safe to say that outside this list lie a great many immense tunes that can be found via a quick browse through TMMP’s archives when you’re done with this lot. However, the following choices are the cream of the crop. Read more…
Opening with a scratchy guitar body groove and winding its way through percussive harmonics, slinky melodies, and thick, earthy riffs, Dance of the Last Rhino is exactly the kind of awe-inspiring instrumental guitar masterpiece we’ve come to expect from Jon Gomm. The above compositional elements aren’t layered in a multi-tracked sense, but performed simultaneously. If you’re new to Jon Gomm’s world, then welcome – and whether you’re a newbie or superfan, you know you need to check out the video below… Read more…
What do you get if you cross Brandon Boyd’s lyricism, an idiosyncratic yet familiarly contemporary male pop vocal, a touch of Biffy Clyro’s more commercially-oriented song structures, and a little Jon Gomm-esque acoustic work? Well…this. Into Color manage to take so many disparate parts and fuse them into something appealing in a pop sense, yet sufficiently inventive to attract the praise of the most hard-bitten muso. Once again, they deserve massive respect for another solid step in the right – and a fresh and exciting – new direction. Read more…