Niki N. Phaser

                Since they first started, Dogstar members knew that this will always be ”that band that Keanu Reeves plays bass for”. (“in his spare time, by the way”). With this in mind, these guys decided to cut the bs and instead of going through all the compromise-rollercoasters of a starting band, they concentrated on the simple pleasure of making music together. They haven’t changed the face of rock’n'roll forever and they do have stuff that one could ignore without making the biggest mistake of one’s life, but there is also music by Dogstar that does the trick: you hear it, you like it, you wanna hear it some more. Enchanted is one the songs that prove this, at least to me. Singer-guitarist Bret Domrose describes their music as “pop-aggressive” and the mentioned song exemplifies. Ok, it might sound like a Danielle Steel kind of rock, played by male models in jeans, and there is a nice nit little guitar solo in the middle part, but somehow it works. And you don’t have to be a Keanu Reeves fan to like it.

Enchanted

Spanish band Amphetamine Discharge are not an easy band to find, in every sense of the word. Like most people who have heard the combination of these two words, I first encountered this band while watching Abre Los Ojos and I guess, in a way, I should be grateful to Alejandro Amenabar for making this band and this song, Glamour, known to me, as well as for inspiring Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky. The heavy-phasered bass that opens Glamour will instantly make you wonder “what famous band that is not one of my favourites did this song ?”. It’s a song that will make you jump, not pogo-like, but more in a jump-wait-jump tempo. Glamour is rock, no doubt about it, but it’s the bassline that leads the song, not the guitars, even though there is well-done guitar solo for the bridge. Aurora López Moreno’s vocals will also bring you in an art-punk mood, her voice being quite Kim Gordon-esque in some parts. I will not go into the lyrics, because they aren’t too intelligible, but this is one of the cases where the music will make you forget the words. Just remember that on an album (the Abre Los Ojos soundtrack), where this song is joined by the likes of Massive Attack and Sneaker Pimps, Amphetamine Discharge’s Glamour rules. Totally.

LISTEN TO THE SONG HERE