Monday, May 7, 2012

Sykotyk Rampage's Newest & Next Albums, Plus New Solo Audio Uploads!

Today's new news post is split in two directions: Half new material from a prolific local band, and half new songs from a pair of local guitarists, but the prevailing theme of new original tracks flows through this post, so check it all out below, starting with a newly released local hard rock album!

If you're a fan of the original crash band, you'll like this, as Sykotyk Rampage have officially confirmed their slate of 2012 albums, but before that, they've finally released their last album from last year! As you may remember, they announced 6 new studio albums last year, with 5 being either uploaded or put on sale in August & September, but "Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts of Stupidity" remained unreleased. Well, the band finally uploaded the album to their Reverbnation page yesterday, and now you can stream it for free! Note that it's not posted on their Reverbnation store yet, but neither is it's predecessor "Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts of Intellect", so either they're being uploaded simultaneously on purpose or they're meant to be free. "GMWTOS" is considered by the band as their 25th album despite the late upload, and it has the same lineup and recording information as the rest, so nothing's too different. The track listing is actually two songs longer than band pages originally suggested, with songs named "Silence" and "Nobody added to the end, both of which were cut from the first "Genius Mushrooms" album last year. Probably most familiar on the track listing is the song "Acreage", which has been a recent live setlist addition, but longtime fans of Sykotyk Rampage will be right at home with this material!

Also, if you're curious about who sings what, drummer Paul Becker handles lead vocals on all but three songs, two of which his brother Dirk sings lead on, and one being an instrumental. So will I review "Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts of Stupidity" on the site? I hope so, but probably not for a while, as a whole pile of new albums we're mentioning in a second will take precedence soon, and I wanna review the two "Genius Mushrooms" albums in order anyway. I will say that "...Stupidity" is heavier than "...Intellect", but whether that makes it better is up to you guys to decide. Stream it today at the above links for some solid new crash music, and if it goes on sale, I'll let you guys know!

With that all said, Sykotyk Rampage have officially announced six more new albums coming out this summer, making this the second straight year that they're releasing a half dozen albums! Just to compare, they only put three out in 2009 & 2010, so the guys are definitely making up for lost ground. In intended chronological order, the albums are entitled "Jonathon, Your Music Sucks!" (pictured), "Sykotyk Ramp-age", "Anal Disruptions", "Smells Real Good On A Bad Night", "The Cross", and "Will Do Anything, Seriously?", which will put their discography to 35 albums when released! All of the albums have had their artwork posted on their Facebook page, so click here to check them all out. Varying quality for the cover art, but that's par for the course from recent years. All have 11-12 planned songs, though track listings for them haven't been announced yet to my knowledge, so I don't know if there's any prevailing themes or concepts at the moment, though the previously posted "Roll A Doobie" sounds likely for one of the six. Release dates are apparently scheduled for July & August for these 6 albums, but note that many of their recent albums have been noticeably delayed from their actual release/posting dates, so note that the given dates aren't necessarily concrete.

I'm definitely looking forward to these next 58 or so Sykotyk Rampage songs, and fans of their unique take on alternative hard rock and blues should as well! It's hard to judge the albums based on artwork and album titles, but some definitely sound more irreverent than others, and I wonder if the anti-religious message on the artwork for "The Cross" will mean anything more? I definitely plan on reviewing one of these new albums in August if any are out by then, and like with last year's releases, precedence will go to the heaviest album, not the first, because keeping a chronologic order for such a prolific band is tough without falling behind. As updates roll in for Sykotyk Rampage's next new albums, stay tuned for more news on this unique local quartet's next moves!

We'll close this post with some recent new audio uploads with a pair of local guitarists, starting with local solo guitarist Mike Cliffe's new original song "Bowl of Grain"! Uploaded to his YouTube channel late last month, Mike says that this originally started as a blues number, and it still retains some of that vibe, though with some extra sections that add a creepy or ominous vibe, before ending as a hard rocker with atmospheric backing sounds. It's one of his better recent originals in my opinion, and the visuals really fit the song well too, so give his solid new song "Bowl of Grain" a listen below!



And finally, local solo guitarist Neno Jovanovic has uploaded a new original sample track in-progress onto his YouTube channel! Also posted late last month, it's a 1:50 hard rocker that has a catchy riff, and it shows Neno's talentes well, especially given that it's his first publically posted original composition on YouTube in over six months! I like where this is heading, so give Neno's new sample a look below!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and notes shortly! Thanks everyone!

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