Dancing On Broken Glass

Track: Dancing On Broken Glass

Artist: Poets Of The Fall
Album: Ultraviolet

Year: 2018

Genre: Indie Rock

A friend introduced me to my first PotF songs at a bitter-sweet time in my life. Having never heard or seen anything about them, my initial word association skills always linked the band name to Pirates of the Caribbean. Hey, did I say it was a weird time as well? No? Okay.

Just like fall (or autumn as most of us call it) caresses the heat and brightness of summer away, and kisses you with cool breezes and drops of rain, the songs from this band ushered in a new era in my life. They left me fresh and energized, happy and optimistic.

Though I wasn't a big fan of their last album, Clearview, I am relieved to see Ultraviolet as a sure-shot return of the Poets into my playlists. They say the songs on this album are inspired by the facts and events in this world that aren't necessarily publicized and that remain hidden. That it, until you look at the world with an Ultraviolet light to reveal all the secrets- good and bad, happy and sad, beautiful and ugly. What a concept!

Kick back, and enjoy this song with a video that tugs at your heart. If you like this, you might be interested to listen to Love Will Come To You (Jealous Gods, 2014) that is set in the same cinematic universe as this song.

Fall is back, and with it, back are its poets.

10,000 days in the fire is long enough; you're going home.

Track: Wings For Marie (Pt 1) & 10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)

Artist: Tool
Album: 10,000 Days

Year: 2006

Genre: Progressive Rock

A rollercoaster of emotions. A musical piece in the uppermost echelon of epicness. I do not have words that can do this journey any justice.

If a music video lasts 17:26, and still garners almost 2 million views on YouTube, I do not need to convince you of anything. I'll let some handpicked comments on the video do the talking.

"The line '10,000 days in the fire is long enough. You're going home' will always bring chills to my bones and a tear to my eye. "

"This is why it takes a decade to make a new album.  Masterpieces aren't easy to make"

"No song destroys me quite the way this one does" 

 "I actually cried sitting next to my sleeping mother, happy to still have one, and you know, big men also do tend to cry."

"I sent this to my 68 year old mom who just lost her mother at 93. She's never heard Tool. She sent me an email saying, 'I cried so hard. For a boy to love his mother like that is why we are all here'. I cried a bit too and told her that even though I can't express myself the way he can she should know that no mom has ever been loved more than her."

"10:54 is when I start crying whenever I sing aloud this song, up until the vocals end.

God damnit. My mother is not even dead."

These are not songs that are radio-friendly. These are not songs you would sing in a car with your friends. But these are the songs we need to make sense of our life on this Earth, and make sense of everything we endure. We need these songs to retain our sanity and keep us going.

Maynard grapples with emotions ranging from guilt and denial to anger and acceptance, to wishing his mother well for the roads untraveled. But it seems like we are a passenger on this journey too.

Tonight Is For Our Ghosts!

Track: Ghosts

Artist: Mike Shinoda
Album: Post Traumatic

Year: 2018

Genre: Hip Hop

Sometimes you just need a fun song in your life. Maybe after a long Friday at work, or maybe to wake you up smiling on a Monday. Maybe when you're a little sad, maybe when you are having fun with your friends.

That's where 'Ghosts' comes in. It is impossible to not bob your head to the beat, or even begin to dance, I daresay. It has a vocal progression that is as old as music itself, and a bridge pattern that has been raided, exploited & plundered in Pop music. There is not a lot of new information for our brains to process in terms of instrumentation or lyrics, which makes it one of the best songs to be just a soundtrack to your life.

And the video makes it better! It features Boris & Miss Oatmeal, sock puppets controlled by Mike and his wife Anna. The animation is created entirely by Mike. What a genius! If it wasn't enough to compose 16 new songs and perform all the instruments on them.

Kick off the 2018 summer in style by adding this track to your commute & pool party playlists, and thank me later. Stay hydrated!

Hold on, hold on! We're barely alive

Track: Torn In Two

Artist: Breaking Benjamin
Album: Ember

Year: 2018

Genre: Hard Rock




Well, let's not pretend. Ember was every inch the quintessential Breaking Benjamin record. We've all heard those progressions, vocal tricks and heavy riffs before. But hey, I guess if that's what the diehards want, who am I to complain?

Though nothing revolutionary, this album has several massive sounding anthems like Red Cold River, Feed The Wolf & Blood, and the ballad, Dark Of You. But I really recommend the track that should be auto-playing on this page now, if everything is working the way it should. Hah!

It has the signature BB sound, but it has a distinctive flavor of its own- the vocal harmonies, the rare two-part guitar riff that breaks up the monotony and the heavy as s#!t outro with the double bass pounding. Good times!

And as they keep telling us fans through social media, let's show the world that Rock is not dead.

Escalate The Sense

Track: Inis Mona

Artist: Eluveitie
Album: Slania

Year: 2008

Genre: Folk Metal



Stumbling through my college years with tastes and interests that the flock of sheep couldn't relate to, I was surprised to come across a hidden coven of metalheads in (this is where it gets surprising) the music room. We would end up talking about, listening to, and in some cases covering a few of our favorite songs. What a beautiful feeling it is to belong, yet not to the majority.

Anywho, one of these guys introduced me to this cracker of a song. Filled with references to Celtic land and pagan elements (no, this is not Satan or the Devil. Pagan simply relates to the natural elements like the Sun, wind & land).

'Inis Mona' starts off with a bang and never lets up! The song has the punch of hard rock and the intricacies of western classical with several wind and stringed instruments colliding to create harmony and beauty. This opened me up to other Scandinavian and European acts over the years.

The video always reminds me of scenes from Game Of Thrones. This is a straight to playlist song, and it stays there!

There doesn't seem to be time for me to be polite

Track: Sucker For The Chemistry

Artist: Ghostfeeder
Album: World Fameless

Year: 2016

Genre: Electro/SynthRock



On a typical San Francisco evening (read cool and cloudy, haha), three friends meet at a nondescript club in SoMa for an evening of alternative and electronic rock. We enter the first level of this club, which is an unpretentious pizza & wings place. As we order and settle down at a table, I look at the walls stuffed and crammed with flyers and posters of electronic acts that have performed at this venue in the past.

I gain quite a bit of respect for DNA Lounge. It seems to be a faithful and scrappy supporter of underground, electronic music. As we begin devouring our first slices, a strong bass and drum rhythm resonates from the ceiling, walls and the exposed pipes in this industrially styled place. "These are probably the opening acts", we figure. "Still some time for Julien-K to come on".

The beat just gets stronger. It gets better. I really want to check the artist out. I finish stuffing my face and urge my companions to do the same. We rush upstairs, and are greeted with a dark, half empty room. At one end, there are a couple of guys on a self-fashioned stage making amazing electronic music, coupled with guitars. I instantly think these guys will one day be bigger, they will command a far larger audience than this.

They were Ghostfeeder, and the song they had just started was Sucker For The Chemistry. I don't know, maybe it was the chemistry between the different musical elements that sucked me in. The resilient beat impeccably supports the vocals and the electronic elements as we flow into a standard verse, pre-chorus and chorus structure. This song just works. It's just exciting to listen to and gets you pumped up. It was a great start to what would become a memorable evening.

Check these guys out and show them some love. Follow them on Spotify, Facebook, YouTube & Twitter !