Thanksgiving Song Review: Pornography In Stop - Motion by Elephant Pill

First time doing a song review so I hope I do this justice. Anyway Elephant Pill is a Trip Hop project by Erie musician Alex Wilson (one of the members of Ghost Embryo) and the song is a track from the album Slug Trails to the Lemon Kid.
Alex described t
he sample in the song as the doodle at the end of a stop motion Santa Claus movie. After doing some research I assumed Alex was referring to the Rankin Bass jingle at the end of the 1970 stop motion film Santa Claus is coming to town. Regardless what the sample is or where Alex got it from the beat of the song brought me feelings of familiarity and not quite knowing why (this was before I read the Facebook posts that were promoting the song, so I literally had no idea where the sample came from but knew I heard it before). With that feeling of familiarity I found that I would easily get lost in the song's instrumentation.
 I also got a vibe that the song was influenced by the sound of Massive Attack, especially the vocals. Alex described in the Facebook post that the song had a Tricky influence so I was close on guessing the musical influence due to Tricky being once a member of Massive Attack. However, I thought Alex's vocals were more like Massive Attack member's 3D's than Tricky's, but that just shows what I know and I'm no expert.
The lyrics I have a hard time analyzing, not because they're cryptic or hard to hear due to them being lost in the mix, it's mainly because as stated before I get lost in the instrumental and so in short I get distracted away from the lyrics, which in my opinion is fine, it doesn't make me enjoy the track any less. From what I could gather the song name drops and references musicians (examples Robert Smith and Beck) that I assume influence Alex's music to a degree, either that or he just likes those musicians. Despite me at first only picking up the name drops and references in the song due to my ADHD haze, the lyrics I assume tell a personal story that involves emotions and certain life challenges that the narrator of the song has faced or still faces (the song could be autobiographical, but it is not my place to assume anything)
In short the song is great, the sampling is better than anything I have done or can do, the vocals are really tight and has a nice flow. I can't wait to listen to the rest of the album

Link to the song
https://soundcloud.com/alex-wilson-465158726/pornography-in-stop-motion

Link to Elephant Pill's Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/elephantpill/

Surf Doom Madness: Survivors

Ok another band showcase and this is Survivors from Lakeline Ohio (so Cleveland area). This band consists of the duo Ammo (guitar, lead vocals and drums) and Zilla St. Cornell (keyboard and backing vocals) and they actually played one of their first shows in my home town of Oil City Pa. Their sound they describe on their facebook page as surf doom and that is really the best way to kind of explain it. The sound has a cheesy spooky vibe to it due to the keyboards and King Diamond-esque vocals. Definitely a great live act, with the unique sound that the band has (and the fact they use pre-recorded live drums as opposed to just using a drum machine) can even make the most jaded music fan to take notice. Plus they do an awesome cover of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. If you have a chance to see them live, do it.

Link to their facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/weSURVIVEtheyDIE/

The Death of Warped Tour: 2018 seems promising.

Just for those people that remember the old warped tour when it was decent and had bands like NOFX headlining, I never really experienced that warped tour while growing up. Instead I was exposed to the bullshit hot topic mallcore bands that invaded and hijacked what was a good music festival. While typing this article I will be refering to the "emo" (those bands were never emo or screamo just pop punk with eyeliner) and scene bullshit mecca era warped tour. So now that warped tour is ending, I hope this is one of the nails in the coffin that kills hot topic punk and metal for good and we can finally start celebrating music that is actually good creative and innovative. Hopefully Hot Topic will be the next thing to go down.