The Indie Rock Dojo

 Lion Trail, out of Israel, is a heavy rock/post-grunge/hard rock band that with amazing chops on every instrument and they aren't afraid of showing off the shredding skills!  Does shredding mean incredible skills on other instruments than just guitar?  In this case, I say YES!  Not only that, but they all are rhythmically tight with one another and depend on each other completely.  I can't get enough of this band because this is what they always do. OK, so I said directly that the guitars are incredible.  Now, I need to mention that the bass sounds great and powers through.  It leads with the chord progressions, but also improvises its own path very tastefully.  The drums are steady and change rhythms effortlessly.  The drummer pushes an incredible amount of energy into the song and is in full force as captain of the ship.  As a related note...I LOVE the metal speed drums when they come in!  The vocals keep a great melody, but most...

 Lenny and the D, out of Texas USA, are a melodic rock band with a strong 80's rock presence.  "Vice Grip" has a very catchy melody.  There is some very good musicianship in this song, as well.  The rhythm guitars are solid, and the bass is very active and adding lots of flavor to the rhythm section.  The vocals have a a clean delivery with a lot of melody doubling.  I also enjoyed the keyboard additions that carry decoration around the top-end of the frequency spectrum, adding nice color as a lead  above the guitars. I really enjoyed the dualing guitar solo in the bridge.  They played together very creatively and were rhythmically perfect.  I loved hearing each guitar in opposing headphone sides! One great hook in this song is the vocals in the chorus.  I hear a shout "You" (DEVO-inspired???), then I hear the melodic vocal response "...got a vice grip on my heart." I recommend this song to anyone who loves a good-feeling 80's inspired r...