Milagres - Glowing Mouth review.

Just prior to kicking off their fall 2011 East Coast tour, Milagres released their full-length LP Glowing Mouth this month. By the time the listener is two minutes into the first track, "Halfway," it's clear this is a band who knows how to write a song.

The title track "Glowing Mouth" is as laid back as it comes, evoking shades of darker Blur throughout its six-minute journey, along with a falsetto croon that would make Bono blush. Some earlier tracks, like "Here to Stay" and "Gentle Beast," would be comfortably at home on a Danger Mouse project or Adult Swim compilation. Throughout the vast majority of the album I found myself hearing an undeniable fun factor and earnest humility in the music and lyrics.

With big drums and tambourines and clean, echoing guitars - and swimming in reverb - it would be easy at first listen to label Milagres as a more energetic Sparklehorse, or The XX's older, cooler brother - they've earned comparisons to Grizzly Bear in the past as well - but anyone insisting Milagres is 'just that' would be committing a crime against a five-man act of beautiful spacepop and thoughtful 21st-century songwriting.

Glowing Mouth is available now on Kill Rock Stars directly from their site as a CD, vinyl and digital download, or from iTunes. Punch that shit!

5a7 review.

Matthew Thomas (alias 5a7 - five alpha seven) is a fellow Valdosta State University alumnus and a graphic designer and visual artist. He set up a shop on zazzle.com - which, as far as I can tell, is like a print-on-demand version of Etsy - and I bought one of his t-shirts this month.

The interesting thing is, you can customize the shirts how you see fit - I could've added an image to be printed onto the original design, or text. Different brands of actual shirts with the same design on them differ in price according to what you want. In fact, another product - a pair of low-top Keds with the same basic logo printed overall on it - goes so far as to allow the customer to choose the color of the base, the sole, the eyelets, the shoelaces, etc. But I stuck with Matthew's original design on a normal American Apparel shirt.

It arrived in a timely fashion. Zazzle under-promises and over-delivers, leading to positive mental feedback. The shirt material was sturdy but comfortable, and the design wasn't a cheap silkscreen by any means. It's tagless, which I love, and fits perfectly. Not only did Matthew's masterful graphic design shine through on this zombie-slaying "battle tee" (his words), but the quality of the print is really up to snuff.

The 5a7 store features a wide variety of goodies all based on the same motif: Zombie Suppression - 147th Task Force, with a skull and crossbones logo - but the crossbones have been replaced by assault rifles and a large blood spatter adorns the top left corner of the logo. There are t-shirts, hoodies, shoes, fridge magnets, buttons, bumper stickers and more. The design and quality are about as good as it gets; I highly recommend stopping by for a visit at zazzle.com/5a7design.