Sell Out Records - A Music Review Blog

Leon Bridges Coming Home Vinyl LP (click here) Leon Bridges has put out one of the most soulful albums I’ve heard in a long time. But it wasn’t until I paid attention to “River” that I truly fell in love with the ideas pushed on the record. It’s in this song, that the nature of love is captured. But not just emotional connections with someone, but rather a larger scope. Obviously, music means different things to different people, lyrics can mean something but end up painting something else. For me, it is the structure of “River” that gets me every time. A simple man’s song turns into a beautiful, soulful institution. It’s not just about love for someone else, if you think about it. You can think about it in terms of God, losing a loved one, church, sanctuary, or just home. I recall that in 2011 when I stepped off an airplane headed home, divorced, saddened, and lost, a song could bring me hope. Little did I know that the soundtrack for that memory would be this. It’s in the lyr...

Chevelle "Point #1" Click Here To Buy   

The Hippos 2003 Release (Buy It here) If you were living in Southern California, like I was, in the mid-2000s then you loved ska. You had to. Ok, maybe not, but I was growing up in a religious community near Santa Monica, California and we loved our ska. I wanted to be a rude boy so bad. If you rewind to 1997 I saw my first concert, and it was MXPX, The Hippos, and Less Than Jake. The band put on a showcase of ska fused music that I just couldn’t get enough of. They toured the country with the other two bands and they even made it to MTV and radio airplay. Then things started to change. The band went from ska punk to synthpop and completely disenfranchised their fans. I didn’t like the synth heavy record that came out in 2003, but hey, that’s just what happens. The band didn’t even put this out initially, they waited 3 years to get it out after fans wanted to hear it. That being said, this is not the traditional ska music that you knew from The Hippos. This time around the band...