The Indie Rock Dojo

  Odious Filth by Donner & the Devil is a very creative instrumental mix of jazz/blues and rock.  It starts with a smooth jazz groove with nice bluesy chords on that piano.  As the song progresses, it has an incredible build.  It moves into a flowing groove with the guitar starting to build in a sense of urgency.  Once the kick starts hitting four on the floor, the rock feel starts to enter with the bass guitar starting to push the song into more intensity.  The guitars continue to soar on top of everything else with a sense of eerie anxiety. It is such an incredible instrumental, mixing the genres in a way that I've never heard before like this. There are so many things I like here.  First, the production of all of the instruments is very good.  Every instrument is easy to pick out and fills all of the audio space that's available.  Second, the performance of every instruments is really good.  There's nothing simple going on anywhere on this track.  The bass is rolling

 "Spells" by Tina Hyde is a Pop Rock song that starts with a great sounding piano with melodic powerful vocals on top of the mix.  After the intro, distorted guitars are introduced leading to the verse, where the guitars provide a soundscape on both sides of the headphones.  The guitar also is improvising with rhythm, palm-muting and squeals.  Another part of the soundscape is the string section, adding intensity in the perfect areas of the song, getting even louder where it counts. I am impressed with the drums.  They sound great and are up in the mix, but they never do more than the song requires when it comes to types of fills and the chosen rhythms.  That is a good thing.  They are very steady and are easy for the band to follow no matter where the song is going. I found it very creative in the fact that piano can play throughout the song with distorted guitars in the mix.  The guitars did provide that extra kick in intensity, but the piano did keep leading and keeping th

 "Brick by Brick" by Marcus Magnusson is a jamming tune heavy with classic rock tendencies, phenomenal songwriting and top notch guitar performance.  The overall mix is very great, including the performance of every instrument throughout.  Guitar solos are on point and frequent, and the band is tight all the way around, including the hits that the drums accentuate and everyone else follows with precision! There are a couple parts of this song that especially stand out to me.  First, I love how the chorus has two different feels that flow very nicely together.  It expertly switches between hard ringing power chords and aggressive vocals to a more flowing relaxed beat led with the ride cymbal's dome and palm-muted rhythmic chords on the guitar. Second, I love the bridge that calms everything down, builds up, then crushes into a full band guitar-solo jam session!  This is just my favorite piece that proves that there is never a dull moment throughout the whole song.  There a