Two free albums worth paying for

As readers of my essays know, I've been listening to free music recently. That's not to say that I participate in file sharing of otherwise for-pay music. Rather, I enjoy music which artists choose to share for free. I've even donated a bit or bought for-pay albums as a result.

This month, I've found two new items that really tickle my fancy. The first is Commence, the second free album from Paul Lisak & After the Ice, the first being It Happens All the Time.That album's clear and nearly hypnotic rifs and commanding vocals were my first taste of free music that I could actually love. Commence doesn't live up to this standard, but it's a solid rock/pop/alternative album which far surpasses the bulk of the free music I've been listening to of late. It's a bit bluesier than Happens which can definitely be nice if that's what you're in the mood for.

The second is the instrumental/ambient album, Shedneryan by Roger Subirana Mata whose work was covered in 2008 on Free Albums Galore (I've also linked to one of his CDs on Amazon, to the left, if you're not ad-blocking), an excellent blog for finding free music. This new album was released last month and I'm not sure that I agree with one poster to Jamendo who said that it was on-par with Tubular Bells, but it's an excellent atmospheric piece that I'd compare favorably with Tangerine Dream (especially the first track), Vas (the second track) and many of my other favorites. There's even what I think is a little bit of dark soundtrack ala Danny Elfman and John Massari thrown in for good measure.