Filed under: On-Campus Artists, Releases of the Week | Tags: Brandon Linn, Kevin Hegedus, Michael Jackson, Mouth's Cradle, Releases of the Week, Show Me Off, Sleigh Bells, The Next Big Thing
20 Watts Reviews Mouth's Cradle's The Next Big Thing and gives it 17 out of 20 Watts
PREVIEW: Mouth’s Cradle’s MySpace
WE GIVE IT: 17/20 Watts
DOWNLOAD: The Next Big Thing on iTunes
LISTEN: “Show Me Off” by Mouth’s Cradle
These days, greatness seems to come in pairs. Enter Mouth’s Cradle and the final product they’ve been sweating over for months, The Next Big Thing.
The album starts off with a song with a great story, “Ghosts.” Brandon Linn, Mouth’s Cradle’s DJ half, says he thought of the song the exact day before Michael Jackson died when he dreamed he saw a ghost in his room. You can’t make this stuff up. “Ghosts,” secretly Linn’s and Kevin Hegedus’ favorite track on the album, sets the tone with hard thumps and catchy ring tones. Linn’s a master of stringing odd noises and flipping them into head-banging beats, and “Ghosts” floats and rips catchy beats alongside Hegedus’s trademark high-pitch rhymes.
Very smoothly, Mouth’s Cradle takes it down a few notches with their famous “Princess of the Beatz,” which loops several vocal tracks all from Hegedus and a strumming acoustic guitar. The iconic sounds in this album don’t stop there though, as the single “Honey from a Stone” picks it up with fast-paced drum and piano keys.
One thing you can say streams from track to track is unique style. Hegedus is a presence live and his voice has that hip, auto-tune-esque, white-boy feel about him. Linn’s chillwave beats and Hegedus’ hilarious flows make for a hip and fun experience. You don’t get a badass feel about them, but that’s not Mouth’s Cradle–they’re upbeat and unshallow. It’s cliche, but what you see is what you get—and they just want you to dance hard and high-five them after the show.
Out of the all the new songs on The Next Big Thing, my heart floats to “Show Me Off.” It’s an incredibly catchy beat that encompasses whirling synth notes, rolling bass beats and Hegedus’s rapping works completely in sync with Linn.
It’s pretty startling how well-rounded this album is–every track offers a different kernel of Mouth’s Cradle hip flavor. Nothing is stopping these boys from taking their show on the road and raising the bar. They have a high-ceiling of potential, and have the most promise of any Syracuse University act I’ve seen in years. In the mean time, watch them turn some heads shake some hips at the Sleigh Bells show on Thursday.
–Jett Wells
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[…] for setting the tone, as the band celebrated their first show since releasing their debut LP, The Next Big Thing. Kevin Hegedus and Brandon Linn rocked the red suit jackets and flourished under the spotlight with […]
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