The Black Crowes released Before the Frost in September of 2009. They took this opportunity to do something rather novel. Before the Frost was recorded live (before a studio audience) at The Barn on Levon Helm’s Woodstock, N.Y farm. The Barn was host to Helm’s Midnight Rambles, private concerts held by Levon with assorted musicians like Elvis Costello, Steely Dan, Norah Jones, and Dr. John among many to jam and raise money for Helm’s cancer treatment. Rich and Chris Robinson, who were both guests of the Rambles, seemed to like the atmosphere enough to record an album here. Before the Frost … Until the Freeze are two albums of mostly brand new music recorded where the Crowe’s feel their strongest – in the live setting. … Until the Freeze is a follow-up, 2nd disc available for download after purchasing Before the Frost … The first release from this collection is the flexing, groovy, disco rock song “I Ain’t Hiding” and it’s the Coolest Song Ever! … Right Now.
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I heard their other song “In Love with a Ripper” ad nauseam on Sirius XMU and it kind of irritated me, but their sound was interesting enough for me to check them out at last year’s 
Not since the Judgment Night soundtrack has rock and rap got along so famously. Ha ha, no really, the Blakroc album is solid. This project is the brainchild of bluesy garage rockers, The Black Keys and producer Damon Dash. Together they enlist some hip hop heavyweights to bring a snazzy array of rap tunes with a unique delivery: Raekwon, RZA, Pharoahe Monch, Ludacris, Q-Tip, Mos Def, and even Ol’ Dirty Bastard rises from the dead for a posthumous recording.
The second release from Billy Corgan’s epic endeavor Teargarden by Kaleidyscope is a fun, catchy little rock song. It is reminiscent of ZWAN in it’s looser, more upbeat direction. Mike Byrne gets to flex a little more drum muscle in his journey to fill the biggest shoes ever. “Widow Wake my Mind” is song number two of the 44 to be released over the next three years.
The ubiquitous Danger Mouse has moved on from producer extraordinaire to auteur musician / songwriter by carving himself a cozy niche in a series of baffling yet brilliant collaborations (Cee-Lo, MF Doom, Sparklehorse to name a few). His latest pairing is just as unexpected and equally as glorious. James Mercer took time from being the new Crowded House long enough to join forces with Danger Mouse to create Broken Bells. After announcing their plans in September of 2009, their first official email blast on December 14th 2009 listed a cryptic string of numbers, binary for “The High Road is Hard to Find.” This linked to the Broken Bells site for downloads of their first song, “The High Road is Hard to Find.” Simultaneously, ads ran on various music blogs displaying the URL, 
The word “super group” gets thrown around a lot – so I won’t use it. Them Crooked Vultures is a near perfect union of 3 monster talents: Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), and John Paul Jones (from this little band called Led Zeppelin). Josh’s buzz saw guitar attack and smooth, cocky vocals marry up with Jones’ crushing bass lines and Dave’s pounding drums perfectly. It actually sounds much like a QOTSA album with a little more wiggle room for playing outside the stoner riff-rock that they mastered. Dave Grohl is at his best behind the drum kit and even better when drumming with Queens or the Vultures. Foo Fighters are OK, but bland and mediocre when compared to QOTSA and Nirvana’s best stuff. The Foos are just mainstream, meathead arena rock. QOTSA’s albums are all great, but the most powerful delivery was Songs for the Deaf with Dave playing drums.
Before stem cells were saving lives they were the subject of awesome metal songs. “Dead Embryonic Cells” is from Sepultura’s 1991 album, Arise. It’s¬† a bad ass skull crusher of a song and embodies what I like in metal; Satanic and /or death references, scary voices, vicious guitar, aggressive double-bass drumming and and a teeth-grinding guitar breakdown in the middle. There’s a riff change at exactly 3:15 in the song and if you don’t turn around and punch the nearest person directly in the face, well, then there is something really wrong with you.