Hey Stem Crew,

For those who enjoy reading about us: Vs. Them, our debut CD that we released in May of this year, was recently reviewed by Musikreviews.com, which does what their name implies and reviews albums from indie as well as major artists.

Check it out…

Stem Vs. Them

Few bands can mix rock and rap well. Rage Against The Machine was great at it, Linkin Park is ok at it, and Limp Bizkit was terrible at it. The challenge for any rock/hip-hop band is to avoid the stereotypical sound established by the likes of Limp Bizkit in the late 90’s. Boston based band Stem attempts to prove that they can mix the two styles on its debut album Vs. Them with varied success.

Stem does make use of several different styles well on the CD. Much of the guitar playing on the album draws directly from the sounds of reggae and ska. Guitarist Matt Smith uses smooth, upstroke riffs on many of the songs, most noticeably on “Dig My Own Grave,” and “Stuck.” Smith combines these reggae riffs with heavy, grunge style ones in the vein of Alice In Chains and Nirvana. The resulting sound is a catchy and unique one that will have you bobbing your head.

Vocalist AJ Butler switches between rapping and singing throughout Vs. Them. While he’s not a great rapper, he manages to put together some decent raps. Since most of the songs don’t rely solely on rapping, when it does happen it makes for a nice change of pace. However, the songs that are entirely rapped, like “And It Goes” and “The Philosofists”, are pretty generic and not that interesting.

Butler’s real appeal comes from his singing ability. He uses the raspy vocals favored by 90’s alternative rock bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Alice In Chains with great success. On “Franky,” a catchy number about a pot smoker, Butler’s vocals are identical to Layne Staley of Alice In Chains. “Lord Don’t Givith” also draws this comparison. If you’re a fan of 90’s alt-rock these songs are right up your alley.

Bassist Tony Hollums also makes a strong contribution to Vs. Them. His funky bass playing sounds similar to Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers.  Hollums provides a solid rhythm behind every song, which gives the album a funk-feel that gets inside your head and makes it hard not to enjoy.

Over all, Vs. Them is a good debut album. Stem avoids the pitfalls of rap-rock, and does a great job of replicating 90’s alt-rock. The band adds its own style to supplement, resulting in a sound that totally belongs to them.

Check out the original article here.

More news coming down the pipe, and some more exciting stuff in the works from your boys in Stem.

If you weren’t there for the CD Release Show then maybe you haven’t seen them, but when we were recording and mixing the CD I started to make drawings for all the songs. It took about 4 to 5 hours per drawing but what I did was a series of black and white pen and ink. Varying in size and based off a lyric, an idea, or the energy of a particular tune, I tried to capture some kind of essence of each song. Now we tracked about 23 songs, and I made about 20 drawings. But only 19 of those songs were mixed and only 13 hit the CD, so you may not recognize all of the drawings but I hope you enjoy.

Some of these drawings have already been sold, but just email me if you are curious about purchasing a print or an original. They run anywhere from $100 to $200 and 8 x10 limited framed prints for $25.

- Tony

The Vs Them album is the crowning achievement for the the Band to date. Last year we spent 10 days at Underground Sound Productions working about 12 to 15 hours a day. We went in with a list of some 50 some odd songs and ideas of varying completeness and styles, and after a long hard run we narrowed it down to about 23 tracked songs. Some we already wrote, and some we wrote that week.

We then went to get it mixed, after raising some money from friends, fans, and family, at Lakewest Recording and the mighty Jack. Well worth the cost, we then narrowed it down to 19 mixed tracks. Then sent it off to be mastered at Bongo Beach with the help of our investor friend Nate Shrone. After a few tough choices to make on picking what songs would be on the album we narrowed it down to 13 tracks, the other 6 we put on a B-Sides disc.

The CD design was done with Hypothesis Inc, our good friend Eugene, who slapped together a sweet design. We wanted to go all out so we got some nice sleeves, and added a Poster (designed by Tony Hollums) and a sticker. All included in the CD.

If your interested in buying the cd check out the Store. Share with a friend or listen here