Album Review: Wax Mekanix - Mobocracy (Rock, 2020)

Intensive from start to finish with many, many parts put inside. A well crafted sound collection not to be found that often out there.

Which record would you expect looking at the cover?

Wax Mekanix is an American musician, songwriter, performer, producer, and founding member of NWOBHM cult rockers Nitro. (Not to be confused with the Hollywood band).

In recent times he put out a brand new record. He can be heard on "Mobocracy" performing Lead and Backing vocals, Acoustic & Electric Guitars, Drums and Percussion.

The result surprised me least to say. It's a fully rocking release showing that music needs to be anything but one-sided. A breathe of fresh air went through my ears as I listened to this. It has more in mind with modern Rock sound. So many ideas have been put inside - all you need to be is a bit of opened minded to enjoy this.

Track by Track

Blood in my eyes starts the release with a rough rocker and has a wide calling refrain. It's a little bit rock radio compatible.

Victorious - goes in the easiest of the songs,rocks away, straight and surely a fest for fans of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Many repeats of the chorus towards the end - this may be a bit boring at times.

All Freaks rocks it out a more hacked way. The ripped riffs crawl out of the speakers, many guitar effects and experimentation but straight all in all.

Mad World comes with compressed guitars, different song structures than before, and a dizzy atmosphere. It needs closer listening, brightest sound so far.

Ghostland is a darker themed tune,much detail work on vox and guitars,sounds like one voice broken and burst into many different ones

Black unfolds as a acoustic ballad,deeply touching,tells a great tale of all the lifes grey zones,voice transport so much of it's content,guitar drums-great!

All in all it's anything but a casual record. It's not too long in duration but the content provided is so intensive that running it a second time and even more reveals more and more of the many details worked in. 

This surely has taken it's time and effort to put together so it's well worth a purchase in one of the many packages with fine merchandise attached to the music (also the tracks are available as download alone) on Bandcamp.

The artwork stands out. The unsharp optic and the use of red color at the front may seem strange at first sight but it packages the unusual music performance of the record well.  

The lyrics have been detailfully taken care of. I think I've not read so dedicated and own worded texts in a long time. 

You can connect to Wax Mekanix on Facebook and Twitter Network to see how things move on.

A quick roundup of Zombie Shark Records

Have you ever been discovered a new label but didn't knew how to get a quick idea of all the bands they offer? Sure some of them have a band roster on their site but it's cumbersome to click through to all of the single pages and press the play button of all the videos and soundsnippets.

Zombie Shark Records has found a far better way to give a comfortable overview to you with just one click. The label features Alternative Metal, Nu Metal, Hard Rock and Industrial.

They've uploaded a video to YouTube showcasing and zapping through all the combos that are currently active at the record label's home. In just around 4 minutes you'll quickly get a entertaining idea what they offer.

You can contact the label through their website or give them a shot on Facebook.

Chasing Dragons show new video of Faction: Prologue EP

In the recent months it became a bit more silent in the Chasing Dragons camp. They spoke about a upcoming teaser EP as well as a album that's in the making but nothing concrete was to be seen or heard.

That has come to the end. The band has put out a brand new track and video for "Bare Knuckle Lover" on their Youtube channel. The new video single has the classic trademarks the band is so well known for but also has a good potion of finetuned development of their style in it.

There are not too many new things to be found in the sound but those that are in make the track worth listening to it. It's the combination of old classic melodies with the fresh attempt in songwriting like it can be heard in the refrain that make's this female fronted band such a joy.

The track is taken of the new EP "Faction:Prologue" which is available as a very limited physical edition in the band's webshop. Here are the tourdates for the next months:

May 13 Upload FestivalSnooty Fox Club
Wakefield, ENG UK

May 26 Dumfries, UK

July 01 The Bobbin
Lancaster, UK

Jul 22 Amplified Festival
Gloucestershire, UK

Sep 16 Redemption Festival 
Wakefield, UK
with In Search Of Sun, Falling Red, and 7 others

Make sure to check their homepage or Facebook or Twitter site for updates. The homepage streams one more new track at the bottom of the page so head over there to hear more of the new release.

Awaken The Shadow look on the darker side of relationsships

These days Facebook is often a source of food for thought for me. One of those pictures that was shared there a while ago said:

"So many people that are together are not in love
so many people that love each other are not together."

Thinking about it this painfull reality first came to my mind. As ever so often I moved on with the daily stuff to do but just recently this topic came back to me when I heard the new single of the New York based band Awaken The Shadow.

Singer Taylor Paul pointed out about the meaning of the track: “The Hunter is from the point of view of someone who may or may not realize they are in an abusive relationship, be it mentally or physically. The idea that you’re so in love with this person that you can’t see yourself ever leaving, but at the same time knowing this person could be poison. All the while your significant other is always on the hunt looking for their own self-gratification, and doing whatever is necessary to keep their partner mentally caged."

In addition to the lyrics I feel that the production on this one is somewhat special. The vocals as well as all the instrumental parts in the song go through so many variations that it needs some time to get through the many song layers and moods they represent completeley. It's massive what band's put inside of their music these days. It's becoming more dedicated than ever.

The cover of the debut record "Life Beyond The Curse", (c) by Awaken The Shadow, used with kind permission

"The Hunter" is taken from Awaken The Shadows debut album "Life Beyond the Curse" which has been released on March 11th. The 12 track full length was self recorded, self produced and mixed by Ali Hassan (the bass player of the band) and mastered by UE Nastasi at Sterling Sound. If you'd like to buy the album head over to the band's mech store for a CD or click on to iTunes for a mp3 download.

Make sure to follow the band further on via their website, Facebook or Twitter.