Sam Ash Music Store
Raleigh, NC 27604
(919) 855-9581
If you like to play guitars, then chances are you are going to love Sam Ashe. The store is filled to the brim with musical instruments, mostly guitars. For me, the best part abotu sam Ashe is that all of the guitars are …

How good has it been over the last few years to be a fan of thrash metal!! I like loads of different kinds of music, more than most people i know, but old-school thrash metal will always hold a special little place in my heart as it’s the music …

The Blackening is metal legends Machine Head’s sixth offering to the “Djent” scene.
The production is much more polished than previous albums, and the overall sound is crisper, and tighter. The band have definitely stepped up a notch in terms of technical ability and musicianship with this offering, and as …

My wife were watching our nightly episode of the show Destination Truth on Netflix Instant Watch last night and, when it was done, realized it wasn’t even 9 yet. Since it was too early to go to bed, we looked for something else to watch.
At first, I thought we …

The DGX 305 Portable Grand is a 76-key keyboard from Yamaha. It comes with a user manual, accessory CD-ROM, and music rest but I bought mine from a music store that gave me a free keyboard stand and a Yamaha power supply which is good considering that the …

Jay-Z
“Girls, Girls, Girls”
The Blueprint
Roc-A-Fella Records
Jay-Z follows up “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” with his second single and music video “Girls, Girls, Girls” from his sixth album titled “The Blueprint”. I will begin by saying the music video has some good production values and is a bit more interesting than his previous tart …

Bizzy Bone is a member of the Grammy award winning group Bone Thugs -N-Harmony that released the smash hit “Da Crossroads”and has come up with a new concept to release mini cds via his website for $10 with productions being limited and the music being all new and original …

Artist: Beyonce ft. Slim Thug and Bun B.
Video: “Check On It”
Album: “The Pink Panther” Original Motion Picture Soundtrack/B’Day/#1’s
Label: Columbia
Director: Hype Williams
Hype Williams spreads his wonderful, professional, and messiah-like grace all over this Beyonce music video which is a single off of the original motion picture soundtrack for the 2006 …

¡Viva La Gloria! is a song by Green Day which is the fourth track on their most recent album, 21st Century Breakdown. The song opens up with a very melodic piano line at a fair tempo which Armstrong begins to sing over with an equally melodic sound. I can’t …

Hate, Rain On Me is a song by Andrew Jackson Jihad and appears as the seventh track on their most recent release, Knife Man. Opening up with a guitar riff that is neither overly melodic nor overly aggressive, the band interestingly takes a fairly balanced approach to the tone …

Overview —“ EMG pickups, one brand that is generally associated with heavy metal, makes a variety of pickups, generally active, and for this review I will be focusing on their EMG 81 Active pickup. The guitar I have this pickup in his an ESP/LTD EC-1000 with the pickup in …

Overview —“ Fuel, probably the most aggressive and fastest songs from either Load of Reload, is the opening track to Reload. I have to admit that I feel bad to the people who started to listen to Reload and then heard this track as the first song and then …

Destroyer by KISS has got to be one of the best albums ever. I simply love it. The songs are awesome and the cover is one of their best!
The cover features all four original members of KISS (Paul, Peter, Ace, and Gene) in full makeup in a very …

Fates Warning is a song by Iron Maiden which appears on their album No Prayer For The Dying. The track starts off with a clean guitar part with a melodic lead played over it which is a nice start to the track and actually not a way that Iron …

Wave of Mutilation is the third song off of the pixies 1989 album Doolittle. While many state Surfer Rosa as the overall best Pixies album, I would have to disagree and say Doolittle is my favorite album of theirs. There are so many great tracks off of it, with …

Aaliyah ft. Ginuwine, Timbaland, and Missy Elliot
“One In A Million (Remix)”
One In A Million
Blackground/Atlantic
Director: Paul Hunter
Remix singles have the potential to do many things for listeners, but remix music videos are a hit and miss game when it comes down to it. The remix for Aaliyah’s signature hit, “One …

Sunroad is one of the hottest hard rock bands from Brazil.
Formed by Fred Mika and his cousin, Danillo Vee, in the heat of Brazil in 1996 and influenced by many top-notch heavy metal/hard rock bands such as Deep Purple, Whitesnake, Eloy and MSG (and more), this band has produced …

Albums of the 11th Madonna released, could be described as an ambitious project from Madonna. 12 songs with up-beat tempo, many include elements of hip-hop, although still strong in the style of Madonna. Perhaps collaboration with Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams, and Nate “Danja” Hills, will bring a fresh …

The album Thugs World Order released in 2002 by Bone Thugs N Harmony was not what I was expecting. I didn’t really like the beats or the production on the album. The album lacked the old dark mystic sounding music of older Bone Thug N harmony album. One thing …

This year was the T in the park music festivals 12 year and by far the most succesful to date. The festival took place on the weekend of 9th - 10th July although a lot of campers (including myself) arrived on Friday 8th to get our tents pitched and …

Taking Chances seemed very appropriate as the album title was taken by Celine Dion. By presenting some old songs and some new songs, which differ with the type of songs that had been sung. Dion to make a change. Since her last album, A New
Day Has Come in 2002, …

Ain’t Too Proud To Beg is a cover which is performed by The Rolling Stones which appears on their album It’s Only Rock —˜N Roll. I’m not familiar with The Temptations’ original version of this song but we’ll see how The Stones’ version of this track goes. The track …

Weekend Wars is the second track off of MGMT’s second release, Oracular Spectacular. When I first started listening to MGMT, Weekend Wars was one of the first tracks to really jump out at me. I will say that compared to Time To Pretend, Weekend Wars changes much more, and …

Octavarium is a rock music CD by Dream Theater. Although it is not my favorite of their CD’s it is still very good.
I always like how Dream Theater can start with one instrument and gradually add instruments into a great rock sound. However, this effect was overdone …

R. Kelly
“Trapped In The Closet, Part 16″
TP-3 Reloaded
Jive Records
It’s Chapter 16 of “Trapped in the Closet” and we seem to all of a sudden find ourselves trapped in the same freaken’ restaurant from Chapters 14 and 15. Twan is in disbelief over the news of his newfound fatherhood at …

Jennylyn Mercado is a singer from the Philippines. She won a reality show entitled ‘Starstruck’. This show is about finding talents to be build up as a star.
Anyway, she is gifted with a good voice so the TV station who produced the show gave her a music album. …

A few days ago I bought lovestrong. by Christina Perri on iTunes. Now, I’m a huge Perri fan, so I was destined to like the album, but even so, I like it more than I thought I would. In fact, I’ve bought maybe 20 CDs in the past 12 …

This is the song that is always playing in the radio during Mother’s Day and Women’s day. Even the variety programs, the artists there are singing this song when the occasion always involved women. I am not a fan of Billy Joel but I like his songs absolutely. And …

If you are not familiar with rapper Del The Funky Homosapien, he is THE best rapper on the planet!
With that being said, we review his release “Future Development”
Being cut from his label before this album had a chance to be released, this album is rare in the U.S. It …

Restless Heart Syndrome is a song by Green Day which appears on their most recent release, 21st Century Breakdown. The song starts off with the piano yet again and features a subtle string section as well which certainly adds a very somber mood to the track. Armstrong comes in …

After the release of their self titled debut album The Doors went on to become legendary.The band held a simple formula for mind expanding performances.Ray Manzerak’s creepy organ playing will always define the world in which Jim Morrison was able to poetically paint.This album is a landmark and very …

This is one of my favorite songs and when I hear it now I still sing to it because first, it doesn’t only have a great beat, but second, the meaning of the lyrics of this song is cute yet sincere and sweet at the same time. It is …

Contrasting with the preceding track, Fade To Black, Trapped Under Ice is an extremely aggressive Metallica track which I’m sure is pleasing to those listeners who criticized Fade To Black. The lyrics to Trapped Under Ice deal with basically a helpless, and quite dangerous, …

This is Slipknot’s second Album, produced by Ross Robinson and released in the summer of 1999. The band includes 9 members each of them going by a number rather than a name. the band has a vocalist, 3 guitarists a bassist, 3 drummers, a dj, and a keyboard/sampler. All …

“Red Rubber Ball” by The Cyrkle is pretty much the only song from this group that appeals to me. It is a pity that this song is on the short side with a running time of around two minutes and twenty two seconds and in that two minutes and …

After listening to the self titled debut from Vivid Remorse it damned on me that every now and then there is a really good reason that a lot of poepl haven’t heard of a certain band. look, the album is okay if you like old school thrash metal mixed …

If there is one song that moves me and transports me to a different place in time, that song would be ‘Peach, Plum, Pear’ by Joanna Newsom.
I have to admit that I could not stand this song the first fifty or so times that I had it crammed down …

“Alice in Chains” was one of the biggest bands of the 1990s. Some people said that their music was grunge. However, I think that their music was much more than grunge, as some of those people only say that because the band originated in grunge rock capital of …

Please Mister Postman is a song by The Beatles which appears on their album With The Beatles. I’m aware that this song is just a cover so I can’t really talk about the songwriting or the structure of the track, even thought it basically follows a traditional pattern which …

When I first heard about the American Hero Concert (held this past Saturday), I was interested in attending it. Both because it was at Swan Park, just down the street from me and because I grew up an Army brat and understand the importance in showing both support for …

Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the Highest! These words are already familiar with most of us as we hear it with other existing Christmas song. But this one is not a Christmas song but more of a worship song that really comes from the heart of the worship leader who …

I Think I Can is a song by Animal Collective and the final track to appear on their EP Fall Be Kind. The main thing that I notice about I Think I Can is that it seems to sound similar to many of the other tracks on this EP …

Like the band’s name Groove Armada, their song sounds groove too. Like this song ‘My friend’, it’s not a new song from them, but I really like it, because whenever I listen it sounds new for me.
The song sounds easy listening, it can calm down your mind when …

No More Mister Nice Guy is a cover performed by Megadeth which appears on their record Hidden Treasures. The track starts off with that classic riff from Alice Cooper’s track but certainly with a more aggressive tone and just sort of more an electrified tone coming from Mustaine. Although …

Life’s a bitch from Shooter is one of my favorite song that I finally find the mp3 recently. I’m so happy with that because I miss this song so much, it’s becoming hits when I was in high school for about seven or eight years ago. At that time …

“Force Fed Broken Glass” is quite possibly my favorite Cannibal Corpse song off their 1994 album “The Bleeding”. This happens to be the 9th track on the album which is the second to last song. It’s kind of weird that they put such a good song towards the end …

Skull and Bones is a remarkable record in that on this album Cypress Hill tried something they had never tried before, and yet there is such a strong sense that they know perfectly well what exactly they are doing, as if they had been doing it for years before.
This …

Brave As A Noun is a song by Andrew Jackson Jihad which appears on their record People That Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World. The band goes through the song quickly and keeps the structure very simple but Andrew Jackson Jihad definitely maintains their characteristic …

Puff Daddy ft. Faith Evans and 112
“I’ll Be Missing You”
No Way Out
Bad Boy Records
Director: Hype Williams
Ah yes, the height of the Puff Daddy craze, this was it right here. Summer 1997. The two hottest songs of the year were Notorious B.I.G.’s “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems” and Puff Daddy’s “I’ll …

Why Jennifer Lopez has gone in producing this video with only her as the star, I do not know. What I can tell, is that she could have made more sales with this awesome track (as it really has some interesting new beats!) if she would have featured other …