Sounds From The Superhighway 5

Island View Drive - A nice little three piece unit from Fenton, Michigan, consisting of the brothers Tower on guitar (Luke) and bass (Alec) with Brandon Maniez on drums. The brothers also share vocal duties. Their new release, What Will It Take, shows a more mature approach to songwriting with the added bonus of an increased comfort level in the studio. The most glaring comparsion may focus on bands such as Rush, Triumph, and Focus, but there is also an element of jazz infused within the sound. Good stuff from a band we can expect to hear more from in the future.

Free Dominguez - Unique first name, unique sound, tons of potential. Free Dominguez is a vocalist who pours everything into her music. The worry is that in the cookie cutter world of Los Angeles, CA, here home base, she may get lost. Still, "freedoming," her only release, is worth finding. Free produced, arranged and wrote the music for this record. I was able to listen to several tracks and came away impressed and wanting to hear more. I'd be curious to see if she can pull off live what she does on record. My guess is that Free will have no problems.

cLOUDDEAD - One might call them the bravest hip hop band. One might refer to them as just plain weird. Does it really matter as longas you refer to them? DIW Magazine wrote "The music of cLOUDDEAD isn't hip-hop, trip-hop, ambient or drum 'n' bass. Instead, it's stylistically schizophrenic, hovering somewhere in the gray area between all those genres." On their latest release, Ten, they are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. This makes for mindbending music that is not for commercial hip-hop fan. This is for person who chooses to experiment and be daring. One guarantee: You won't be able to hit the stop button.