For those of you who know me, I am quite critical of music sometimes. Although, it really just depends on the day; someday’s I drive home listening to the local “variety” station, humming the tunes to the top ten hits they play on loop all day. Other day’s I refuse to listen to anything other than Death Cab or Sigur Ros. Occasionally, I like to browse purvolume.com and have a listen to the top ten artists making a splash there. It seems to follow my taste of genre sometimes, and other times not. Unfortunately, the times that I am disappointed in what I find there has been slowly increasing for a while. Yes, my tastes have evolved over the years, but I still think the site is just loosing integrity. But I still have faith! ‘Why’, might you ask? Well, because I still occasionally stumble on something great that I less likely would have before and that, my friend, can really make it all worth the wait. And thats my introduction….woot.

 

My new most played album as of this month just has to be, To Secrets and Knowledge by Number One Gun. Now, this band has kind of a patchy and unique history. Number One Gun is a band from Chico, California. They self-released their debut EP Forever in 2002, before releasing their follow-up albums Celebrate Mistakes (2003) on Floodgate Records. Now, when they signed to Tooth and Nail and released Promises for the Imperfect (2005), I have to admit–they were pretty good. Good–but not great. The fact is, for the past 5 years or so, I really feel that a ton of Pop/Rock has just sounded the same. Unfortunately, while being pretty talented and well-produced, Number One Gun just seemed only to really stand out on a few riffs and occasional moments. Now let’s have a listen to one of their most popular songs off that first album released by Tooth and Nail Records:

It’s really a pretty solid song and for that matter its a really solid record overall–well written, good performance, and very catchy. Unfortunaly though, if I heard this being played along side any other mirage of pop/rock playlists, my ears would just not perk up…

Now since then, Number One Gun members have split up and gone their seperate ways on seperate projects. From what I understand this was a good clean mutual ‘growing apart’ kind of thing. It’s a good thing it was too because in 2007, Jeff Schneeweis, with the formers members permission took the name, ‘Number One Gun’ and released his solo project under that name. He plays the drums, plays, guitar, vocals, bass, everything. He then tours with a couple of guys during the year between records–basically the same setup as Aaron Gillespie and The Almost. But again, this album was pretty ‘meh’. Still a good decent album though–just nothing that really stood out to me.

And finally, without any warning or explanation. Jeff Schneeweis releases To Secrets and Knowledge and the world just stops and listens…So without any further adue, one of my most favorite track off a the new album, The Victory by Number One Gun:

It’s a fantastic album, guys–really. Buy it on iTunes or here on Amazon. Cheers.


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