tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79421535923558231062024-03-19T04:24:06.945-07:00Bag Of Rabid BadgersPJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-62838413520878096822017-01-19T20:59:00.000-08:002017-01-19T21:17:55.629-08:00Top 10 Favorite Albums Released in 2015:<span lang="">I don't always listen to albums when they're released. It's not that I don't get around to it - it's just that most times a flavor is best savored for a certain time of the year. Moons align, winds change, seasons whither - everything has it's soundtrack. In turn, sometimes that leaves a two year window for which to satisfy my sonic palette, especially when a record is released just after it's most appropriately designated epoch. So consider this a list in arrears. These are my favorite ten albums that were released in 2015:<br /><br />
<span lang="">10. An Autumn For Crippled Children - The Long Goodbye</span></span><br />
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<span lang=""><span lang="">An Autumn For Crippled Children has a wickedly high treble sound that takes some getting used to, even for a genre considered Post Black Metal…? The production buries the drums, vocals and bass in the mix, pushing lighter-than-air guitars and atmospheric keyboard melodies up front to fight for the listener's ear. It skews the kvlt bullshit that likes to try to weigh it’s artists down and instead follows the path becoming more traveled by injecting inspirited melodies within it’s traditionally cold, bleak sonics. Confine it all wisely into shorter more average length songs and you’ve got a unique concoction that's more pleasant than it is pummeling - sharing table space with similar but not the same acts like Botanist's latest effort <em>VI</em>, and to a more produced degree even Deafheaven.</span></span><br />
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<span lang=""><br />9. Gnaw Their Tongues - Abyss Of Longing Throats<br />
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In the broad assemblage of music from which I know of, there is no other band/composer that punctuates it’s sound with such overwhelmingly vile and distressing atmosphere than Gnaw Their Tongues, and it is in this extreme that "they" continue to lure my interest. <em> Abyss of Longing Throats</em> is the most dynamic of the last couple of releases (<em>Le arrive' de la erne mort triomphante</em>, <em>All The Dread Magnificence of Perversity</em> ), yet remains as merciless, ominous, terrifying and claustrophobic as anything that came before it. The genius of it goes beyond the fascinatingly ghastly cacophony of sounds that swirl about in magnanimously lugubrious and chaotic layers, pushing the tracks along to actually create a poignant structure that becomes the sum of it’s parts. It is more the fact that <em>Abyss of Longing Throats</em> seamlessly combines so many extreme genres into it’s melting pot without coming across as pretentious or asking to be more than what it is, which in truth is nothing more than a labor of love (and wanting the listener to be forever scarred by what they hear). If you go into it as a black metal album, then that is what you get. If you go into it as an industrial album, that is what you get. If you think it is either the genre of noise or simply noise itself, that’s what you get. But make no mistake, it will conjure the kind of fear and wonder that leads people to want to solve the puzzle box to see what’s on the other side if you let it. Below is the most accessible track on the record. And with so many people praising Leviathan’s <em>Scar Sighted</em> as one of the best records to capture all the aforementioned qualities above in 2015, let me just say – with all due respect – <em>Abyss of Longing</em> <em>Throats</em> makes it sound like a happy little Sunday drive to Dairy Queen and nothing more. * Side note: I have yet to listen to the Dragged Into Sunlight/Gnaw Their Tongues split also released this year.</span><br />
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<span lang="">8. Marriages - Salome<br />
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Imaginatively sharp, reverb drenched guitar riffs weave in and out of tribal alt-rhythms and very sparse dream-pop like keyboards, creating a surprisingly dark musical atmosphere for to which vocalist Emma Ruth Rundle sings devotedly over. The whole thing teeters on the edge of toying heavily with shoegaze notions but never comes close to committing, retaining a very organic and indie rock feel for what it is. Upon first and repeated listens my brain went right to not being able to shake how much they seemed to sound like A Perfect Circle should Maynard James be replaced with, um, er – Emma Ruth Rundle, and if that’s the void it wants to fill in my niche’ then have at it. Each song on <em>Salome</em>, though retaining a constant sonic calling card of sound throughout, still stands out on it’s own – making the record feel diverse yet comfortable in it’s palette, while retaining a singular dark, almost bleak beauty throughout. Top notch stuff here.</span></span><br />
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7. Napalm Death - Apex Predator<br />
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Considering their style in the grand scheme of anything played with distortion, ND still eviscerate without an agenda. <em>Apex Predator</em> is yet another evolutionary step towards an unknown destination within the band's impressive catalogue; how the fuck do you manage to remain so vital, invigorated, and fresh sounding in such an infested space? Especially when one of the biggest adversaries to overcome is your own discography? Dissonant chords, goth-like reverberating vocals, industrial percussion, all added to a familiar formula of rabid barking over blurring riffs that toy with comprehensive song structures and - hooks! I can always argue that 90% of every song on every album in the second half of this band's career has parts that could be cut out to bring each piece's over all running time to a more handicapping punch to the gut; but given that that glaring issue is easily ignored because of the quality of the song itself speaks volumes to this band's talent. The fact that <em>Apex Predator</em> arguably out does every album that's outdone every album they've done before it in the last 20 years is impressive and awesome. And that last riff...that closing stomp of 'Copulating Snakes'...c'mon.<br />
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6. Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss<br />
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I'm sorry to say that I ignored Chelsea Wolfe for far too long despite the universe continuously offering up roads to her wonderful catalogue which I still have yet to fully explore. It wasn't on purpose you see, it was simply because my feeble little kidney bean of a brain saw the name Chelsea Wolfe and immediately replaced it with the mediocre paint-by-number deathcore sheep show Chelsea Grin. And while I think she shines brightest - or maybe I should say rots grimmest - through more stripped down and lo-fi filters, <em>Abyss </em>offers up a very clean and beautiful albeit bleak (though juxtaposingly layered) and haunting serving of songs that flutter with ghostly despair and melancholia - all the while presenting the listener with the swollen artery that throbs throughout, begging to be punctured. While the over-all volume seems to have been turned up to 11, it accentuates both the more powerful passages with a rattling distortion as well as the quieter, withdrawn moments by countering that overwhelming-ness like a reprieve from an all-encompassing panic attack. The subtle industrial under-tones that lurked beneath a more organic sound on albums like<em> Apokolypsis</em> and <em>The Grime and The Glow</em> are displayed here way more front and center, sometimes so much so that it feels like blatant Trent Reznor worship in spots - however Wolfe's reverb soaked haunting trademark croon keeps it in her niche', and the low rumble and polished grit of it all remains constant and slow enough to make the listener feel all that further away from the sun, unlike the illusionary more up-tempo pace of this album's predecessor <em>Love Is Pain</em>.<br />
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5. Deafheaven - New Bermuda<br />
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Deafheaven could have taken the easy route and made the same album twice in a row, 2013's <em>Sunbather</em> was an amazing piece of work, inveigling fascinated ears outside of more extreme genres that may not normally have given a record like that a chance. It won over doubters, critics, and turned away just as many more familiar with the Black Metal genus and it's kin with it's against the grain experimentation in sound and imagery. <em>New Bermuda</em> is a darker album in both of those qualities. The heavier parts are heavier, the dreamier parts are dreamier, and the parts where they combine the two into a Black-Gaze cyclone of majestic desperation and triumph are fewer and more far between - a wickedly bold move for a band whose very moment in the lime light was owed to such genre bending alchemy. Never-the-less, the songwriting on <em>New Bermuda</em> is better than the device, thusly moving this band's sound boldly forward in an almost more traditional direction, which as odd as it sounds works as a fitting next chapter in a very impressive ongoing discography. It's always nice to see a band get heavier in their delivery as their success grows.<br />
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4. Myrkur - M<br />
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Man oh man - Deafheaven <em>and</em> Myrkur on my end of year list? Perhaps I am nothing more than a Black Metal hipster. In a ludicrously elitist, territorial, and close-minded genre rises this wonderful one-member (for the most part) martyr, merging essences of traditional multi-instrumental folk, lo-fi tremolo-distorted black metal, and somber more classical-leaning balladry to create a brief but effective opus best indulged in the dark final quarter of the year. Mending these distant familial genres, is the native Scandanavian songwriter/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Amalie Bruun, whose serene and angelic voice - when not the centerpiece of the melody itself- soars through rustic, natural folk instrumentation and stretches of jaggedly dark distorted swirls of cold guitars before occasionally mutating itself into the shrill reverb-laden shriek of traditional Black Metal vocals, it all too often casts that image of an angel released from the Ark of the Covenant in that moment it's visage demonically contorts and the face melting that follows. The melodies within are contemplative and beautiful, the patches of sharp, blackened pummeling are malevolent, the juxtaposition is transcending, and demanding of an open-minded, dare I say progressive listener.<br />
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3. Boduf Songs - Stench Of Exist<br />
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Through the course of six albums and a large handful of splits and 7" limited releases, Matt Sweet - the singer, songwriter, and sole member of Boduf Songs - has gradually progressed his creative child so piecemeal that the change is damn near imperceptible from album to album, and yet from first to last the music feels barely related. Slowly infusing longer and longer passages of ambient drone, full-band dynamics like live drums and actual electronic guitars, as well as the imbue of other heterogeneous instrumentation, Boduf Songs' latest album <em>Stench Of Exist</em> runs the gamut as a culmination of everything that came before it, thusly flaunting both a discography that is dark folk traditionalism, as well as all things experimental and introspective. Yet with all that, the lyrics and vocals never get above barely a monotone whisper, which makes everything pull you in even further. For me the experience is a warm blanket in the isolated dark, with a sound still distinct despite it's widened boundaries, and a voice that has become to feel like a friend who visits every Fall. What most who lack depth would see as nothing more than filler, I often find to be the tracks I revisit most, particularly the more droning pieces and weighted field recordings. Somewhere out there is a 36 minute unedited version of "The Witch Cradle" that I have yet to get my hands on. <br />
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2. Bell Witch - Four Phantoms<br />
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Goddamn monstrous in it’s tone, epic and grandiose in it’s being, chasmal and introspective in-between, Bell Witch’s <em>Four Phantoms</em> is a sonic monolith of all of the stages of grief, sans acceptance. This behemoth of beautiful suffering plays out like a biblical testament, both in it’s context and length. With four tracks (2 full tracks actually, broken down into four and separated by each other) clocking in at over 65 minutes, and rarely ever getting over 10 beats per minute, start to finish this record is a commitment worth it’s cathartic reward. Cascading roars of grief are stifled with solemn voids of clean singing and subtle instrumentation throughout – making the simplicity of it’s sound palpable and ingestible. I swear, the riff that breaks loose just after the 17:25 mark of "Suffocatioin, a Burial: I – Awoken (Breathing Teeth)" is the definitive soundtrack to the sound of an all-life consuming, dimension destroying Hell-Demon weeping his fucking eyes out.<br />
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1. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie and Lowell<br />
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I kept up with Sufjan Stevens for a stretch of albums in the early to middle part of the man's career, and barring the <em>Seven Swans</em> record, and occasional more morose gems like the songs "John Wayne Gacy Jr." and "Holland" that appeared sporadically on full lengths - I've always felt that while I both admire and respect the artist's experimentation and individuality, most of his music always leaned a bit too much on the whimsical side for me. His brief flirtations with quieter, darker moments - as few and far between as they often felt - were so damn good that they kept me coming back for some time. It is in this practiced convention that makes <em>Carrie and Lowell</em> sound like such a long time coming, and so well worth the wait.<br />
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<em>Carrie and Lowell</em> plays like a record that is so unabashedly confessional, and painfully personal that I can't help but question if there was a hesitation to actually release it once the catharsis had been completed and realized. With his recently deceased mother as his muse, Sufjan gently cradles fragile and jagged memories of joy fleeting beneath a shadow of harrowing dysfunction, blurring the lines of autobiographical self-abuse and parental neglect. Aching with questions and regret, Sufjan's soft and vulnerable vocals contemplate and attempt to justify so much, that there is a sad, convoluted lucidity of twisting the branded memories of his mother's inadvertence and laxity into moments of nurturing and love. And beneath it all, as the stories and memories unfold in moments of childhood naivety, and confused, drug addled adulthood, there is a genuine love that guides the listener through, an unconditional love specific for a mother from a son. In place of grandiose choirs, whistles, horns and other forms of whimsical instrumentation there are atmospheric compositions swaying beneath, and guiding us seemingly into and out of memories. There are moments on this album that hit wickedly close to home for me - probably more so in my own interpretation than what is literally presented, but isn't that what great art is supposed to do? Whether it's an active dialogue with a terminal parent, or the running through of the few good times you've shared as you watch them slowly die in front of you, the realization of mortality comes calling clear as a bell, even for an eight year old boy, marking the end of childhood; if a song like Fourth Of July does nothing for you or to you, then you haven't lived it, and good for you.<br />
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PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-73867380591281114442017-01-13T13:51:00.000-08:002017-01-13T13:51:10.235-08:00Album Review: Superjoint - 'Caught Up In The Gears Of Application'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Superjoint Ritual has returned after a 13 year hiatus, minus two original members, the second half of their moniker, and an all consuming drug and alcohol addiction. The Superjoint discography prior to this latest effort has always been for me - a person who has passionately followed all of Anselmo's many projects since my nosedive into <em>Cowboys From Hell</em> and <em>Vulgar Display of Power</em> circa 1992 - a snapshot of his rock bottom. Unfortunately, at the same time that was one of my favorite eras of his career - starting with 1996's<em> The Great Southern Trendkill</em> - there was a caustic looseness to his vocals, often times slipping into indecipherable - there was also a darkness in both his delivery as well as his lyrics, dwelling on addiction, and all of the vile side effects and trauma to the psyche that go along with it. He was a fucking mess, on stage, on record, and in interviews. I'm sorry to say it, but those demons only added to everything the music was trying to be. The tension in Pantera due to all the aforementioned during this time is well documented; It was still three against one, but Superjoint Ritual was (per guitarist/bandmate/longtime best friend Jimmy Bower) pretty much all Anselmo - as he wrote "70 - 80%" of the songs. <br />
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Much has changed in the 13 years between this album and the last however. Veins are clean, consciences are clear, and the physical prowess all the more elder. As kind of goes the same for me, and possibly a large majority of the original SJR fanbase. 2002's <em>Use Once And Destroy</em> was catchy as fuck, eeeeeasily digestible in it's straightforward d-beat to breakdown riffage and damn near groovy at parts to boot. The band was conceived as far back as 1994 so the record had some decent time to marinate in the creative nit-picking of any long conceptualized idea - that's not to say that it's their best. 2003's <em>A Lethal Dose Of American Hatred</em> was sonically, lyrically, and thematically a darker record. It got a tad more grimy than it's predecessor and a lot more experimental - almost at times felt occultish. An overall reflection no doubt of the personal struggles a few of the members were having with addiction, and perhaps it's straightforwardness a reflection of the short amount of time between albums.<br />
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<em>Caught Up In The Gears of Application</em> feels almost mechanical in it's final output, I don't mean that it's being phoned in, rather that the guitars tend to lock in with the beating quite often here more than on previous efforts, and at that the riffs come at you almost angularly, with jagged and unexpected changes in rhythm. When you think something is going to repeat an octave lower, it stays the same - when you think something is going to break down it completely changes itself into another riff, when you think the band is going to come at you with something so killer in a synchronicity that would be reflective of their 2002 effort they get more technical than anything you could have expected. If it weren't for the crust-like surges that fuse these almost Hardcore-progressive jump-starts, or the sparce, very subtle twinge of southern metal founded thinly throughout the songs this sounds like it could be another Phil Anselmo & The Illegals record - but duh, it's in the amalgam of those qualities that Superjoint basks in it's identity. This sounds like the next logical Superjoint Ritual album, instead of taking the left hand path and getting darker, grainier, and blacker (as in black metal-er), they've taken it up a notch - a little better production, a little bit more technical, and a tad cleaner - more sobering if you will - all of which works to the group's benefit. Absolute bottom line, if you dig the old shit, you're most definitely going to dig the new shit. <br />
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Personally, I don't visit this band very often any longer - in fact; except for the entire Down catalogue,<em> The Great Southern Trendkill</em>, and <em>Far Beyond Driven,</em> I don't find myself having any kind of urge with regularity to indulge in Anselmo's projects. And so, <em>Caught Up In The Gears Of Application</em> never sunk it's teeth in, and I've given it a number of chances, as I did with the Phil Anselmo and the Illegals album <em>Walk Through Exits Only</em> with the same result. He's right at that fuckin' cusp, and it's driving me nuts. Not heavy enough to make me want to jam screwdrivers in my eyes, and nowhere near chill enough or interesting enough to make me want to listen in other aspects of my day to day living. Both <em>Trendkill</em> and <em>FBD</em> will always hold a special place in my heart, for their efforts as a mainstream band tapping into underground energy and pushing the spotlighted envelope, testing mass appeal metal audiences instead of just giving them what they want. And Down is it's own animal completely. I appreciate Phil's absolute love of extremity in music, and I don't just mean in terms of sonic weight and speed, but bat-shit experimentation and noise - I just wish he'd make the jump, and do something insanely heavy, insanely fast - taxing on all of the senses. For me, he's always come up short there. And if it's never going to happen (and let's face it, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_--UqA7IWtA">Scour</a> was the best chance of that) I'd rather he focus only on Down all of the time. But that's not fair and not logical, and my tastes in heavier music are more intense than most. <br />
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<br />PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-70623298529191688132017-01-13T13:45:00.001-08:002017-01-13T13:45:47.481-08:00Top Five Grindcore albums of 2016:Grindcore - and all it's offspring and brood - has a very special place in my heart (here's my other page dedicated to it: <a href="http://you-will-move.blogspot.com/">http://you-will-move.blogspot.com/</a> ) I listen to "heavier" music primarily as a catharsis. The visceral purging of emotion takes priority over how complex or creative a riff has to be to play, this music delivers said purging in jaded spades. Though many top-tier Grind bands flourish at both aspects, like any genre there are thousands of worse-than-mediocre bands trying to do it or utilizing the extremity of the sound as a bad joke, thusly overshadowing truly fantastic bands who dedicate their livelihood to a musical niche' that will never be successful nor catapult them to any sort of sterilized albeit prosperous and rewarding spotlight. It's truly a labor of love, and one that has negatively changed my opinion about a lot of the other genres of Heavy Metal out there, I mean - by comparison, aren't bands like Anthrax, Lamb Of God, Fear Factory, Pantera, Sepultura, etc. just distorted, downtuned, pop-music with strained vocals? All traditionally structured with choruses and pre-choruses, guitar solos, intros and outros, that post second chorus breakdown - never giving in to the frenzy and always keeping that snappy little groove for you to bop your head to? Not to say that it's bad, it's just - predictable... So, now that I've pissed you off:<br />
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<strong>5. Venomous Concept - <em>Kick Me Silly - VC III</em></strong><br />
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I've often theorized and bullshitted about just how much I believe Grindcore is truly the not-so-new Punk music - extreme demands require extreme responses, and with internet and media outlets precipitating a systematic anesthetization to all things violent and depraved, we need a genre that martyrs it's very being as music by succumbing to it's own frenzied passion. While most Grindcore bands syncopate punk rhythms around the prioritized blast beats, Venomous Concept flips that equation, coming across more as a modern day punk band that occasionally leans on the very essence of it's members' collective roots in the Grindcore genre to punctuate it's sound. It works as both an anti-numbing agent to the beat down, as well as a possible gateway for those on the edge of the Punk tier who may in fact be intimidated by something even more extreme than that with which they are passionate about. <br />
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On <em>Kick Me Silly - VC III</em> the "supergroup" sounds like the perfect amalgam of it's parts. Herrera, Embury and Cooke (who has been playing live with ND for the past two years in Harris' unexplained absence) bring the latter day Napalm Death sound while the now defunct Brutal Truth-half utilize Lilker's feral bass and Sharp's incomparably recognizable roar to round out the band's d-beat focused punk fueled attack. While I'd still love to hear this troop get as batshit as they possibly can, it's the restrained doses of the full possibility of VC's frenzied vitriol that keep this thing coiled and popping from start to finish.<br />
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<strong>4. Wake - <em>Sowing The Seeds Of A Worthless Tomorrow</em></strong><br />
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On <em>Sowing The Seeds Of A Worthless Tomorrow</em> Wake don't give a hoot about dynamics, the stop and go strike, or anything that constitutes a casual listener's grasp of rhythm. It's all one constant, blasting dirge into dark hopelessness. The sound here throughout these eight tracks feels almost hypnotically monochromatic, which only adds to the feeling of being piled onto. It's as if somebody nasally force-fed Gaza with a half-ton of PCP (referencing one limited exposure band with another - nice). The infrequent lighter chords that are struck throughout the belligerent stampeding of blasts that provide a limited bubble for which to gasp for air in add such a depth to the music without sacrificing any of it's claustrophobic characteristics. One second longer and it would have felt like too much, one second shorter wouldn't have been enough - this tester of souls is just right.<br />
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<strong>3. Wormrot - <em>Voices</em></strong><br />
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<strong><br /><em> </em></strong>It took two full lengths and an EP for Wormrot to really turn my ear. With time and exposure I've gained an appreciation for the raw straightforwardness of their delivery, and though that is an easy quality for to which find yourself blending in with the rest, Wormrot continue to surprise me with sporadic surges of brief experimentation in their sound. Their influences can be easily identified, but the fact that there are so many songs on <em>Voices</em> that dedicate their entire being to said influences and in turn different aspects of the genre, stepping away from the finality of the record deposes a dynamic and versatility in writing that really makes <em>Voices</em> a fun experience. The production is the best they've had yet, and I think that's a big cog to really making each instrument stand out on it's own here, giving it a very organic, plug-in-and-play feel without sounding too raw or muddled. I always thought the hype of Wormrot in the scene was focused on the wrong things, more the geographical origin of the band than anything else - the <em>Noise </em>EP made my dumb ass pay closer attention, but <em>Voices</em> has me proclaiming that the threat is real.</div>
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<strong><em><br /></em></strong><strong>2. Nails - <em>You Will Never Be One Of Us</em></strong><br />
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Nails continue to astonish me in how they can produce music so tonally fucking heavy that moves so incredibly fast, I think Kurt Ballou may have had something to do with it. <em>You Will Never Be One Of Us</em> is a fitting third offering from the band, upping their own game in fact. Careening consciousness with sledgehammering power-violence and dizzying, Venturi-effect like blasts that succumb only to thick, slabs of crawling rhythms where strategically appropriate. Considering they're wisely sticking to the short-but-sweet M.O. of final running times under roughly 12 - 13 minutes (contractual obligations be damned), you'd think that those aforementioned qualities would make <em>You Will Never Be One Of Us</em> a forced, possibly contrived, convoluted mess. Instead however, the bombardments of sound are so well composed that the songs in fact seem longer than they are, and gratifyingly complete. Even the eight minute-plus closer doesn't feel out of place. Oh, and it's catchy as hell too!<br />
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<strong>1. Gendo Ikari - <em>Unit 1</em></strong><br />
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What the? Who the? Huh? Yes, I stumbled onto these guys whilst prowling the seedy underbelly of Bandcamp some time in early October, and in the time since - to my delight (thru no influence of my own) - have seen other blogs and social media sites begin to sing their praises. Hailing from Glasgow, UK, Gendo Ikari's 7-track debut does everything right for me. It's got the jagged, unpredictable blasting that isn't too above itself to break into wonderfully brief, groovy strides - all along maintaining a singular aural onslaught. The tones are sharp but still weighty, with a shitload of jarring, sudden brake application before projectile-like surges of straight up Grind come violently tumbling forth. It's awesome, and maybe it's because they seem so off the radar right now, or the production standard comes across as somewhat DIY (I do wish it was louder), but there is an antagonistic virulence driving behind it that feels just slightly more palpable and genuine than most right now to me, and I just can't ignore that. They ain't the first to do it, and admittedly it's not breaking any new ground, but Gendo Ikari have taken almost all of my favorite aspects of the genre and managed to put them together comprehensively into a short and caustic exhibition of appreciation for the fundamentals of the millennium's new wave of Grindcore.<br />
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PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-86107023592671851672016-09-28T13:55:00.003-07:002016-09-28T13:55:59.357-07:00Album Review: Foo Fighters - Saint Cecilia EP<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've made it no secret here that when it comes to the Foo Fighters I'm a fan of their older, simpler, more straight forward stuff - I continue to invest in their output because quite honestly there is a nostalgia factor with this band conceived around the time of their first album that I still rings true in their current output though admittedly way more sporadic and way more muffled in it's impact. That's not to ignore the idea that the music they do now isn't good to me, it's just lost the charm of their early material. <em>Sonic Highways</em> is a good rock record, but for me it's the worst thing they've ever done. Too big, too elaborate, too bombastic, and too epic. No matter how loud you turn up <em>Foo Fighters</em> and <em>Colour and The Shape</em>, they still sound quiet - and though that may seem oppositional to everything a band like this stands for as possibly the last arena rock band of our lifetime, it's in that juxtaposition that I find that aforementioned, and for lack of a better term, charm.<br />
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<em>Saint Cecilia</em> is a reckoning back to those days - and although it doesn't mirror the kind of production value that may have been a defining characteristic of their first few albums for me, the song writing and the energy behind the recorded tracks feel like a direct wormhole to the sessions of the mid to late 90's. Turns out, the band has admitted to utilizing riffs, ideas, and old unreleased demos that never saw the light of day (a feat in and of itself in this day and age) that ranged back as far as 20 years ago. The title track manages to palpate the arena-easy dynamics of some of their later work but never dips into becoming too pretentious, and instead harkens back to vibes of "Learning To Fly" and "Generator" - probably because they didn't have the time to throw on a whole bunch of other superfluous instrumentation. "Sean" is a quick and somewhat whimsical pop-punk driver that seriously sounds as though it was ripped directly from the tracklist of<em> Colour and the Shape, </em>and most would slap me for saying so, but it's also quite possibly my favorite thing they've done in some 15 years. "Saviour Breath" is cut from the same cloth as a juiced up "Weenie Beenie", "Iron Rooster" is<em> Nothing Left To Lose</em> era Foo balladry, and closer "The Neverending Sigh" stands alone as what I hope represents a band stepping back as a step forward - as it subtly morphs from a drive to a glide in it's momentum throughout. <br />
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In all it's glory <em>Saint Cecilia</em> sounds like the lost stepping stone between <em>Colour and the Shape</em> and <em>Nothing Left To Lose</em> - and while it seems as though that's all I'm dwelling on here, even standing alone from everything else they've done it's a damn fine album - of course I've always been a sucker for the not-wearing-out-your-welcome glory of the Extended Play format. I can't be comfortable in whether or not the album turned out the way it did on purpose or not; I mean, I know some of the ideas were more than two decades old, but how much of it's sound was also the result of the album being a free EP? And possibly a sit down and knock it rush recording before finally getting to take that extended hiatus? Either way, they've earned some of my trust and heart back with this one, and that's saying a lot. Do yourself a favor and download it (it's free!), and while you're add it throw "Empty Handed" from their<em> Songs From The Laundry Room</em> EP onto it as an opener to create a nice little half an album's worth of material that feels like a new them when they were at their best. That song sounds in every way like it should have been on the self-titled debut. Keep it up, stop "evolving" and stop trying to "save" rock 'n roll.PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-37770070917417003232016-08-17T13:26:00.002-07:002016-08-17T14:02:35.698-07:00'Why You Do This' - a documentary of life on the road as an extreme musician.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://www.myspace.com/carbomb"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Car Bomb</span></a>. For those of you unprevy to this two-albumed loogie of hate, know that they are a musical force to be reckoned with. Spawned in the wake of the emergence of the ridiculously pigeon-holed genre-term "Math Metal", this four piece created albums' worth of controlled yet spasmatic ferocity the likes of which raises them above the visionless <em>Calculating Infinity</em> Clones pissing all over the creative original sound. Sure the influence can be heard, but Car Bomb abandons anything even close to resembling a hook or rhythm and instead comes off as a very jagged, very large pill to swallow, arguably more difficult to absorb then even some of the most unhinged Grindcore - arguably. The sound is so sharp, and so combustible, that instead of resembling 11 different tracks it's almost just one long compilation of fits and seizures. A soundtrack to the spewing forth of schizophrenic hate.<br />
How does a band like this survive? Well, seeing as how they hadn't released anything in over 5 years I wasn't sure that they had, until I stumbled upon a documentary titled 'Why You Do This'. Just over an hour long, this short little film (put together by Car Bomb vocalist Michael Dafferner) follows the band on the road as they tread on and continue playing their undigestible brand of music despite what seems to be only a continuing series of disenchanting pit-falls and realizations. It's the usual run-of-the-mill kind of things any underground band has to deal with - playing to crowds of three or four people, automotive difficulties, being ripped off by club owners, continuously losing more money than you make - but for those who've never had the experience it makes for an interesting watch. The narraration throughout the film is mostly pessimistic, as though the whole project itself came to fruition as a result of half a decades worth of being jaded. If you don't take it as tongue-in-cheek halfway thru the doc you may find yourself telling your monitor to "just fuckin' quit then", but by the end you'll see it's not the answer that you're sticking around for but really the search for the answer. The film also uses Lamb of God and Gojira as examples of two groups who were able to claw their way 'tooth and nail' out of the underground to headline their own tour and earn an opening slot playing for Metallica. Poor examples in my opinion as both those bands earn their living on the other side of extreme music's line in the sand due to their sound being so accessible in comparison to a group like Carbomb. Lamb Of God is par for the course with a band like Slipknot, damn good at what they do, but still just a rehash of riffs and ideas that worked years before when Meshuggah, Sepultura and Slayer carved their paths (Phil Anselmo called and said he wants his tough-mumblings-over-tougher-riffs act back Mr. Blythe), but I digress. They were probably the only ones willing or available to contribute interviews and without them there would be an air of hoplessness throughout the film. The doc also includes interviews with members of Bella Morte, The Chariot, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47kcWvvF5jo"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Soilent Green</span></a>, not to mention a spot-on 'why I do this' summarization about playing extreme music from ex-Death/current Charred Walls of the Damned drummer Richard Christy. The film is an eye opener for anybody that hasn't tried traveling across the country in a shit-box van w/trailer, and makes you thankful that groups like this don't toss their gear into the Ol' Miss while driving over it and call it a day. Can you imagine a world without<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0kxQ-1cppM&feature=related"><span style="color: #f1c232;"> violent basement shows where the fuse blows every song</span></a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gayvjq7ND3k"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Hepatitis C</span></a> creeps like grave moss through bloody knuckes and abrased skin in mock-jungle temperatures? As I type this from the comfort of the home I own and live in comfortably I tell you that I cannot. So god bless those cursed with the passion for playing extreme music, and sacrificing their own comfort to tread across this country and scrape by with no expectations of ever seeing a light at the end of a tunnel or a multi-million dollar record contract not to mention even a mere 2 minutes on the radio. The film doesn't break any new ground, nor does it necessarily draw you in - but much like the Discordance Axis novella 'Compiling Autumn', the fact that it exists is a bonus. Fans of the scene and the band should consider themselves fortunate that someone was passionate enough about what they do to compile the resources and take the time needed to create it and make it available without profiting. So you should take the time to watch the doc if you're into the scene at all. Check it out below and order yourself a copy <a href="http://www.whyyoudothis.com/"><span style="color: #f1c232;">here</span></a>.<br />
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PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-32266684074903829362016-03-07T12:37:00.002-08:002016-03-07T22:03:12.247-08:00Hidden Gems: Part 1 - Career Highlight B-Sides<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've always been positively fascinated with B-sides, tracks that just didn't make the cut for one reason or another. Either because of time constraints or maybe not fitting in with the theme of an album. Sometimes it's the band trying something experimental they think just won't cut it on an album, or may piss off fans. It kind of feels like you can get away with more with a B-side. A group can try something different or simply not overthink a song; if it gets flack you can shrug your shoulders and say "eh, it's a B-side". Or it's for something more specific. Often I think a one-off in a studio to record a song for a soundtrack or tribute album is just an awesome little snapshot of your art between phases.</span><br />
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In this day and age B-sides are kind of becoming a thing of the past. Casual listeners don't need singles when you can purchase a single song off any album on ITunes. And pretty much anything can be dug up with an ample youtube search. The following is a not-too-thought out list of bands whose B-side track - not available on any of their own regular discography (including Greatest Hits albums and B-side collections) - is arguably one of the best things they've ever done. I tried to stay away from the independent bands ripping up the underground because who can even keep track? Splits, demos, independent compilations, a burnt CD of new material only being circulated at shows... Sure Agoraphobic Nosebleed's 'Assault Rifle' is one of their catchiest and most sonically crippling and can only be found on the vinyl only split with Insect Warfare, but at that point where do you draw the line? For the most part I kept the following list to the more mainstream acts that actually got asked to contribute to something or had a single to sell: In no particular order:<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>Silverchair - Ramble</strong></span><br />
<strong>Album: Without You Single</strong><br />
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<em>Diorama</em> is one of the best albums I own. Silverchair ripped themselves from the herd with that one, even with the weight of a couple of really sappy ballads that record is still amazing. 'Ramble' is one of the best pieces from those sessions, and I've always thought it could easily replace either 'Luv Your Life' or 'After All These Years' and only add to that records greatness rather than possibly run your ears down with more symphonic balladry by album's end. And while both 'Hollywood' and 'Pins In My Needles' are other b-sides from those sessions most definitely worth mentioning, Ramble stands above them both with it's uplifting vibage and over-all composition. (The shitty quality version of the song above was the only vid I could find). Unfortunately, as it turns out the label told Johns to write a radio friendly song for <em>Diorama</em> after hearing the finished product. By this time the record as we know it was done and the band's vision was completed, this song remained a B-side due to Johns' resentment of it being forced on him.<br />
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<strong>Anthrax - Poison My Eyes</strong><br />
<strong>Album: Last Action Hero Soundtrack</strong><br />
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As a huge fan of the Bush-era of Anthrax back in my early twenties this track was king. Sounding like it was recorded during or around the <em>Sound Of White Noise</em> sessions, the slow-burn intro and outro help this 7-minute hard rock-fest reach near epic proportions. While most late-80's thrash dudes who haven't listened to anything outside of the Big Four in the last 20 years pine on about how much better the albums were with Belladonna on vox, I can't help but feel like the group stood out more and better as a hard rock / heavy metal band away from the watered-down thrash rat race their peers were all involved in. The Anthrax of today are nothing more than money-hungry sell-out iconoclasts cashing in on nostalgia tours and shitting down the throats of the fans that lifted them up. Also check out their B-side to the 'Nothing' single from the criminally under-rated <em>Stomp 442</em> sessions 'Grunt & Click'.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>Korn - Proud</strong></span><br />
<strong>Album: I Know What You Did Last Summer Soundtrack</strong><br />
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Goddamn... What a great example of how awesome these fuckholes used to be. The song speaks for itself, written and recorded before they became the clichéd rock n' roll joke they are now. No! I'll keep it positive! Still speedballing, methed out, and dealing with a whole shitload of childhood abuse issues, 'Proud' is an unplayful, ditch-the-hip hop twinge, straight up purging; bolstering possibly the best build-up to climax they've ever done in a song - and considering that that was kind of their thing back then is saying a lot. There are many complicated questions we may never know the answers to with which this tracks existence only adds to as parabola: What happens after we die? What is Stonehenge? Who really murdered Teresa Halbach, HOW DID THIS SONG NOT MAKE IT ONTO AN ALBUM!?<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>Pig Destroyer - The Octagonal Stairway</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>Album: Adult Swim Singles Soundtrack</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bookended by ominously industrial tones that fade in and out, 'Octagonal Stairway' presents itself as truly a stand-alone track amongst a genre whose short controlled bursts of belligerence often depend on the collective momentum and strain of an album's worth of material to deliver it's summed blow. 'Octagonal Stairway' also bolsters a much more visceral production style than it's closest peer session for 2012's <em>Book Burner</em> - whose much cleaner sound was a castigation point for Grindcore elitists. In the grand scheme of the band's discography this song is epic in terms of it's straightforward battery of the senses as well as it's length; at almost four minutes long, it retains it's Grind traits while defying traditional durations by extending itself with thrash like breakdowns and dizzying guitar riffs - basically an all-encompassing stamp of everything PxDx has evolved into and continue to masterfully execute. </span><br />
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<strong>Radiohead - True Love Waits</strong><br />
<strong>Album: Unreleased</strong><br />
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This one is kind of interesting because it sort of breaks my own rules for this time around. The original version of 'True Love Waits' to be released was on the live E.P. <em>I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings</em>, which contains a version of Yorke singing the ballad acoustically by himself. This version here is the unreleased studio recording of the same song. It's fairly straightforward considering the late paths into electronica Radiohead have taken in the latter half of their career. Those of you jonesing for more material that harkens back to the days of <em>The Bends</em> may find this off-the-radar song some kind of wonderful.<br />
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<strong>Foo Fighters - A320</strong><br />
<strong>Album: Godzilla Soundtrack</strong><br />
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This was released somewhere between <em>The</em> <em>Colour and the Shape</em> and <em>There Is Nothing Left To Lose</em>, and guessing from both the sound, songwriting and most definitely the budget, I can assume it was recorded closer to the former. This was a flash of things to come from the Foo, but at the time it was something so seemingly out of their league that it became one hell of a hidden gem and a half. A gentle monologue that builds to a soaring instrumental latter half, sonically painting it's theme onto our imaginations as our narrator's plane comes gently plummeting to the ground, disappearing into the clouds below during the fade out. A mature and well written number that scoffs at mainstream rock song structures and actually includes, strings? Are those strings I hear from the band in 1998? I typically wave the flag for this band's earlier, simpler efforts, but while this kind of thing is just another spoke in the wheel for Foo Fighters now, back then it was, in their catalogue, a beautiful and epic movement - and remains so for me. This may not be my personal favorite B-side from the Foo, but it is the most agreeable of their non-album works in terms of it's awesomeness. <br />
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<strong>Chris Cornell - Sunshower</strong><br />
<strong>Album: Great Expectations Soundtrack</strong><br />
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I suppose I can understand how some may roll their eyes at this song, voiding it pretty high on the possible cheese factor - it's inclusion and role in the movie that presents it doesn't help it's case any. A steamy scene where a young adult Ethan Hawke bangs the young adult Gwyneth Paltrow for the first time after longing for her for most of his childhood. For me it's a five star track. The melodies, lyrics, sound and over-all flow of the song just seemed to come along at the right time and add to the perfect storm of self-induced feelings of worthlessness I once got off on and being 20 years old. Having never seen the movie until 2013 may have also helped me enjoy 'Sunshower' for what it is as a stand-alone track and not a relation to the format of it's source. Following the acoustic version of 'Like Suicide' that floated around (another gem found on the <em>S.F.W. soundtrack</em> as well as amongst Soundgarden B-side collections) and 'Seasons', which slept on 1992's <em>Singles soundtrack</em> - 'Sunshower' seemed to be the final and most verifiable promise of a phenomenal solo career for Cornell. Unfortnately nothing that followed on 1999's <em>Euphoria Morning</em>, 2007's <em>Carry On</em>, or the utterly abominable<em> Scream</em> (2009) compared to this or anything he scarcely did before. <br />
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<strong>Pantera - Avoid The Light</strong><br />
<strong>Album: Dracula 2000 Soundtrack</strong><br />
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Pantera was a band that prided themselves on not having B-sides. Typically, when a song didn't work that shit was flushed or the pieces that did work were worked into another song (see 'Piss' and 'Use My Third Arm'). 'Avoid The Light' is a song that really is it's own animal. Experimental guitar tones and riffing that could pass on a Meathook Seed album teeter over a tripped-out soft to heavy structure reminiscent to the kind of stellar shit that helped lay the foundation for the bandwagon killing <em>The Great Southern Trendkill</em>. More akin to <em>TGSTK's '</em>Living Through Me (Hell's Wrath)' than anything else they'd done previously or since, 'Avoid The Light' is a very uncommercial effort that remains a sleeper amongst fans today. That being said it's a difficult song to fit on an album without bringing momentum to a damn near halt. The occult-tinged lyrics indicate that the song may have even been recorded specifically for the soundtrack itself. There's not a lot of info out there about this one, except that it's arguably one of the best things they've done.<br />
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<strong>Nine Inch Nails - The Perfect Drug</strong><br />
<strong>Album: Lost Highway Soundtrack</strong><br />
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I'm not a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails, I dig them alright but I haven't followed so closely the last decade or two - though I will say 2013's Hesitation Marks sort of brought my attention back. That's not to say I don't think that what Reznor does isn't great. I can think of a handful of tunes that are actually better than The Perfect Drug - 'Something I Can Never Have', 'A Warm Place', 'Hurt', and 'The Frail' all come to mind - but they're all also more along the lines of slower, more orchestral, closer to the heart types of movements. A niche' I believe he burns the strongest in. 'The Perfect Drug's frantic energy and pace, however, puts it more akin to his faster, more metal-tinged staples like Wish, and Head Like A Hole - only better - and for me makes this one of the few NIN songs that actually makes me want to move.<br />
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<strong>Type O Negative - Haunted (Per-Version)</strong><br />
<strong>Album: Life Is Killing Me (Bonus CD of European Import)</strong><br />
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The original version of Haunted had always been my favorite Type O Negative song; the idea that it could be improved upon seemed like an effort in futility to me; the "Per-Version" version showcases the same slow-moving titanic rhythms draped in the soliloquy of a desperate man in love and lust with a ghost. The vocal patterns are different and arguably improved upon with an almost Gregorian Monk-like delivery, and ear-wettingly eerie keyboard effects are sparsely added to the composition amongst other very subtle changes here and there - including a much more appropriate fade-out to the song rather than the abrupt Beatles-esque stoppage in the original. I can only imagine the soul-tearing creative decision making process singer/songwriter Peter Steele must have endured in determining which version would make the <em>October Rust</em> LP... Who am I kidding, it was probably just a flip of the coin.<br />
<br />PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-73954385106467657302015-12-05T12:16:00.003-08:002015-12-05T12:37:25.881-08:00Top Ten Favorite Albums of 2014I don't always listen to albums when they're released. It's not that I don't get around to it - it's just that most times a flavor is best savored for a certain time of the year. Moons align, winds change, seasons whither - everything has it's soundtrack. In turn, sometimes that leaves a two year window for which to satisfy my sonic palette, especially when a record is released just after it's most appropriately designated epoch. So consider this a list in arrears. These are my favorite ten albums that were released in 2014:<br />
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10. Big Wreck - Ghosts<br />
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It wouldn't take much for Big Wreck to become a ridiculously annoying mainstream rock radio act, ala their Canadian country-mates Nickelback, prob. just a right place right time sort of scenario; I can only assume the career long tenure of intelligent riffs and eclectic influences taints the almost sickening catchiness of some of the melodies singer/songwriter Ian Thornley has been spinning since 1997's 10/10 <em>In Loving Memory Of</em>. B-dub's fourth magnum opus (and I mean that as <em>Ghosts </em>clocks in at an hour and ten minutes) hands that equation over in spades. <em>Ghosts</em> does a fantastic job of incorporating a little bit of everything they've done in their discography thus far, as well as exploring new territory - a fantastic formula for fans who have been listening since their inception (me), and were still thirsty for more after the 13 year hiatus breaker <em>Albatross</em>. I have a soft spot for Big Wreck; so while most may feel <em>Ghosts</em> is a bit uneven and hit-or-miss I blame nostalgia and a lack of similar acts in my collection for my sway. The "heavier" songs groove in all the right places and soar in their melodic chorus', so much so that the sugar would be almost too sweet in spots if it wasn't peppered along the way with more exploratory, sometimes near-brooding journeys that remind you why you haven't seen them play on the Super Bowl Halftime show - because despite the ridiculous radio catchiness in places, Big Wreck never dial back in lengths, or experimentation just off-the-mark enough to keep them off of the radar of impatient FM drifters. <br />
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9. Down - Down IV Part 2<br />
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The second EP in the four part series that will total <em>Down IV</em> is the least likely of anything they've done to win over any new fans. That being said, it gathers both it's strength and it's appeal from the group's back catalogue as both this EP and the one that preceded it seem an animal all their own, yet a fitting piece in the evolving totality of the body of work; as any seasoned Down fan will testify, as is each release, but <em>Down IV Part 2</em> is easily the most raw and visceral of it's bretheren. It's the sound of a band that's completely stripped itself of the bells and whistles, there is a grainy salt to it that isn't easy to rub against; especially for the close-minded Douche-lords still clinging to <em>NOLA</em> as a work unrivaled. This is Down weathered and beaten, showcasing the seasoned veterans they've become, and the pioneers of a sound they've evolved from since emerging as a third-generation Black Sabbath influence, plugging in and just fucking going for it - and the album does an amazing job of capturing that vibe. It's dark, groovy and as heavy as a really heavy thing. At near 40 minutes long this feels less like an EP and more of exactly what it's supposed to be, another cog in the damn wheel of the big machine; listeners would be crumbling under the weight of both EP's as one album like Atlas if they released them more traditionally. Yet <em>Down IV Part 2</em> ends it's marshy tread in a warm and hazy acoustic passage that feels like a proper closing to a first half, an intimation of clearer paths ahead, and perhaps a promise to be fulfilled in the form of the unplugged record Down has been talking about for nearly twenty years.<br />
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8. Pallbearer - Foundations Of Burden<br />
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<em>Foundations Of Burden</em> is a fucking mammoth of an album, this low-tuned slab of Candlemass-like doom is like a slow moving leviathan laying waste to landscapes as it slowly treads forth, and yet in places in grooves...interesting. I typically limit myself in most of the more sub-sub genres of heavy metal so as not to water down what I already enjoy, at the risk of sounding too much like a Mountain Dew commercial, I typically gravitate to the more extreme of these; which means I like my doom weepy with church bells and at 0.5 beats per minute. While Pallbearer sounds more like a direct descendant of Warning, or dare I say a great, great grandchild of Black Sabbath, it still delivers right where it's supposed to every time. 'Watcher In The Dark' makes you move when it starts to roll - whether you want to or not, the latter half of 'Foundations' ties your heartstrings to an anvil before kicking it over into a chasm, and I've never heard a better, cooler or more subtle riff transition than the 5 to 7 minute mark of the fantastic 'Worlds Apart'. Not to mention the new dimension of sound that 'Ashes' exhibits, never previously heard from Pallbearer, for to which I'd love for them to expound upon in future endeavors.<br />
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7. Gridlink - Longhena<br />
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While most modern more moderate to major label (budget) Grind bands like to power forth like a jet-fueled bulldozer through a landmine field, Gridlink harnesses their art like a swarm of carnivorous locusts swirling high above and collectively dive bombing their target audience in a high-end, flesh-lacerating assault. Gridlink had announced that <em>Longhena</em> would be their final effort whilst they were hashing it out - thusly making it's initial digestions upon release an almost religious experience to their rabid fan base, myself included. While both of this album's predecessors, <em>Amber Grey</em> and <em>Orphan</em> were fantastically frenzied fits of pure-Grind-blurring madness - the second showing an impressive progression from the first - the pattern continues and unfortunately ends with <em>Longhena</em>. Almost longer than the first two albums combined, at 23 minutes <em>Longhena'</em>s penchant for injecting an almost uplifting foundation amongst the trademark six-string hurricane fury makes the album feel like an exhausting Grindcore epic. Sans the blueprint-defying violin heavy third track 'Thirst Watcher' (which adds incredible scope to the album rather than breaking it's momentum), <em>Longhena</em>'s remaining 13 tracks pin you helplessly against the wall like a giant centrifuge and pulls you along for the ride. Kudos to Jon Chang for also recruiting <a href="https://joeymolinaro.bandcamp.com/album/the-inalienable-dreamless">Joey Molinaro</a> to contribute, who's violin cover of Chang's previous band Discordance Axis' <em>The Inalienable Dreamless</em> was one of the coolest tributes to have ever made it's way to day.<br />
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6. Beck - Morning Phase<br />
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<em>Sea Change</em> was one of those albums that just came along at the right time under the right circumstances and bore itself into my spirit and left a scar. A phenomena that seems to happen a whole lot more when you're a twenty something borderline alcoholic shut-in, living alone with questionable social anxiety disorder. The only other thing I own from Beck is the <em>Loser</em> single because I thought the B-side 'Fume' was goddamn dope - and I may have downloaded 'Chemtrails' somewhere down the line. The point is that while I totally respect the guy's Ween-like ability to do whatever he wants I'm not a huge fan. So it was always a hard pill to swallow that <em>Sea Change</em> very well could have been a once in a career kind of album for him. Enter <em>Morning Phase</em>; a reunion of the <em>Sea Change</em> session musicians and an unofficial sequel to that album.<em> Morning Phase</em> harkens back to it's kin strongest in songs with strong and slightly morose string arrangements, 'Cycle', 'Wave' and 'Phase' could easily be placed anywhere on <em>Sea Change</em>'s tracklist and only have made that album stronger than it already was. The other songs all bear the obvious resemblance: heavily acoustic songs with southern twinges, the subtle electronic flourishes that peppered <em>Sea Change</em> are not exactly glaringly absent, but noticeable to a guy who played the shit out of it. The comparison is always going to be there, I can't talk about one without the other as I consider <em>Sea Change</em> to be one of the best albums I own, and even the artwork of <em>Morning Phase</em> strikes a resemblance - so this can indeed be construed as a sequel, if not sibling. Unfortunately head to head <em>Morning Phase</em> is slightly more than disappointing - but mind you I only said slightly, which means it's still a damn good album. Despite the stellar songwriting on here I can't help but feel that some of the emotion feels a bit manufactured, but <em>Morning Phase</em> is also a more uplifting effort than it's better half - of course I'm also a very different person than I was which leads me to wonder how I would have felt about it if this was the year 2003.<br />
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5. This Will Destroy You - Another Language<br />
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This Will Destroy You's 2011 album <em>Tunnel Blanket</em> was the first time in the band's career that they didn't sound like they were trying to be Explosions In The Sky. The second rate formula of climactic inspirational guitar movements was abandoned for ebow heavy, keyboard laden ambience that really didn't stress itself out if it didn't go anywhere - and it was awesome, because I'm kind of really into that sort of thing if it's done right. 2014's <em>Another Language</em> injects that formless beauty into their previous more traditional songwriting thus creating a congealed and atmospheric record that is grandiose and cinematic in it's scope. Each track brandishing new sounds between beautifully understated melodies gives every cut it's own character and chapter place. I enjoyed <em>Tunnel Blanket</em> more than this record, but with Explosions In The Sky busy wasting their time collaborating on movie soundtracks there is a gap in my collection that TWDY is slowly beginning to fill with their ballsy and improved upon experimentations in sound.<br />
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4. Cloud Rat - Blind River<br />
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On <em>Blind River</em>, Cloud Rat dilute their dark, claustrophobic grind with desperate melodies that hint of hope beyond the glimmer of light so far away that is the surface of normalcy. That filthy feeling of raging disgust in the face of relapse and withdrawl in a home that lets in no light. It's a formula that doesn't stray far from what the band has always done, but with each effort Cloud Rat seem to be chiseling down the shapeless effigy into something more beautiful despite it's hardened and bitter mold. The strict confines of the Grindcore genre always prove a challenging channel to navigate and be original in without losing ones vision or identity or just sounding like you're trying too hard. The emotive and vitriolic purge of <em>Blind River</em> builds intersections and options in that channel - all the while maintaining the minimalistic simplicity of the plug-in-and-play sound.<br />
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3. Life And Times - Lost Bees<br />
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After the not-as-good-as-the-rest-of-their-records 2012 release of <em>No One Loves You Like I Do</em>, Life and Times return to the front waving the bright and honorable banner of new-millennial space grunge colored to the same shade as their phenomenal mini-opus (EP) <em>The Magician</em>. Forgive the god-awful pop-culture reference here, but <em>Lost Bees</em> is all about dat bass. With a tone that cuts through butter, and dialed in to the mix so goddamn perfectly, it is the groovy-as-fuck anchor that keeps the songs moving along whilst vocalist/lead guitarist Alan Epps finger dances up and down the frets and punches in and out of different effects pedals creating high-end audio explosions of colorful sonic confetti that rain down upon the core until everything occasionally locks into a rhythm. This formula serves to amplify the sonic wallop you may be expecting in a crescendo but are never prepared for (i.e. the chorus of 'Again' and 'Passion Pit') even after the first couple of listens. It's like a handjob to the ears. Ever since the perfection of the all-too-short<em> Magician</em> EP, I've been longing for Life and Times to do something as similar and consistently awesome; a difficult feat for an LP - but <em>Lost Bees</em> comes very close to that notion. Extracting the five best tracks from this album: 'Again', 'Ice Cream Eyes', 'Bored To Death', 'Passion Pit', and 'King of the Hive'; to go toe to toe with the 22 minutes of alt-rock glory that is <em>The Magician</em> may result in a controversial split decision in the end. Add to that the fact that <em>Lost Bees</em> is indeed a full LP with arguably no filler (maybe 'Eyes and Teeth') and gives us five additional tracks on top of those may be cause to tip the scale in it's favor. That's not to take anything away from the rest of their discography, as it's all very good - it's just nice to experience a selfish desire come to fruition. And truth is there is no competition here, in the end <em>Lost Bees</em> is just a stop at a wonderfully cohesive and rockin' oasis in the Life and Times musical journey.<br />
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2. Opeth - Pale Communion<br />
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<em>Pale Communion</em> is everything you'd expect from modern day Opeth, which means you're not quite sure what to expect at all other than something cleverly progressive, which includes all of the trademarks that <em>Pale Communion</em> nails on the mark: eclectic instrumentation, organic sound and phenomenal songwriting. Everything else is the journey that this album feels like from the first song to the last. The pensive groove of 'Moon Above Sun Below' that takes a turn for the sinister in the latter half. The playful 'Goblin', which sounds as though it was directly inspired by the (specifically <em>Roller</em>-era) 70's/80's Italian progressive rock ensemble of the same name that scored such classic horror films as <em>Suspiria</em>, <em>Zombi</em> and the European version of <em>Dawn Of The Dead</em>. The soaking-in-rain sadness of 'Elysian Woes', the surprisingly uplifting 'River' (which sounds like it could have been on a Foo Fighters album - in a good way), and the bleak and wintery 'Faith In Others' are all valleys, mountains, and deserts to cross. I've always said that Opeth sounds like what a Death Metal band would have sounded like in the 70's had Death Metal existed in the 70's (especially 2002's spectacular <em>Deliverance</em>). They may have completely abandoned their Death Metal roots, but their new straight-forward progressive approach isn't something as out-of-the blue as the jean jacketed long-haired hard-ons stuck in that phase whine about (hello? <em>Damnation</em>?). Both <em>Pale Communion</em> and it's predecessor <em>Heritage</em> pull from that era's progressive bands as influence, most notably old Genesis and the aforementioned Goblin. This is actually <strong>the best</strong> album on this list, however - it's not my favorite - so....<br />
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1. Lantlos - Melting Sun<br />
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What is it with pink albums from bands with Black Metal roots always making my #1? Produced to the nines, volume pushed to the tens, layered, layered, layered and lush, lush, lush - <em>Melting Sun</em> is an atmospheric Black Metal band gone beautiful and bombastic. Towing a line somewhere between Hum, Isis (the band) and Jesu, we're presented here with six giant bejeweled movements that damn near sound like the Summer time version of Type O Negative's <em>October Rust</em> (in atmosphere and overall vibe specific to the season, not baritone or style - nevermind). Unafraid to develop slowly, or not develop at all - such as the droning of 'Oneironaut' and the simplicity of closer 'Golden Mind' - we're allowed to go for the ride and sonically soar with gigantically beautiful birds of prey - and by that I'm inferring to the big shiny brilliant melodies here - as they fly too close to the sun and actually evolve from it. Honestly there is nothing <em>really</em> new happening here, and it's all so cosmetic. Strip this fucker down to four or five instrument tracks, and give it a way more modest production value and I can't really say that it would be as impressive to me, but that's not the way it is. It still tweaks and combines those Post-Metal and Shoegaze traits enough to present the listener with something fresh and never <em>quite</em> heard before. Just like it's chromatically gloaming pre-twilight packaging, this album is as sweet as candy.<br />
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PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-24796641564302297052015-11-02T12:57:00.001-08:002015-11-02T20:31:03.777-08:00Book Review: Soul On Fire - The Life and Music of Peter Steele by Jeff Wagner<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Type O Negative's enigmatic singer/songwriter/leader Peter Steele was truly unique, in both what he contributed to music as well as a human being. Though a majority of his catalogue is genre-bending if not isolated as it's own unparalleled flagship - the bands that he has fronted were often categorized in/or as a subgenre of Metal Music, and even there his views of lawfulness, government, and structure were more against the grain than the subject matter of a majority of even the most extreme offshoots of the genre. He was also a complete contradiction of what he appeared, often being referred to as a gentle giant, the icon's near 7 ft tall frame and menacing appearance (complete with incisors filed down to fangs) demanded attention in whatever environment it monolithically lurked, his physical presence was a walking contradiction of the withdrawn, introverted, kind man behind the murk. He died suddenly on April 14th 2010, and with that Type O Negative ended with the momentum of a jet car versus a 50 ton steel I-beam, and there was nothing more. No unreleased B-Sides, no live albums, no demos - just the wringing of the dead, dried up teet that was money-grubbing best-of albums that the band had no involvement with and a vinyl box-set release of all the old shit.<br />
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<em>Soul On Fire</em> is Jeff Wagner's tribute to the man, it is not a biography. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the read, and I fully applaud Wagner's efforts towards the project. Unfortunately, it was slightly doomed to be nothing more than a fan's tribute than anything more from day one, when the band members themselves refused to participate in the project. Wagner makes this clear in the introduction; also describing his own God-like projections onto the man that was Peter Steele, thusly churning forth the realizations from the reader that the book is being written by a man that really has the same relationship with it's subject that a majority of the fan base has; which is no relationship at all, except for through the music (and maybe one interview). I couldn't help but feel a disappointed comparison to Benjamin Nugent's Elliott Smith biography <em>Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing</em>; which basically consisted of acquaintances, producers, and an occasional barista's point of view on the mess of the man that was Smith and his music.<br />
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Wagner is quick to defend his work right from the beginning, defending his motives against the closest of Steele's companions, TON keyboardist and pseudo-fraternal companion Josh Silver, whom was most vocal about the project being unnecessary and disrespectful (I'm paraphrasing here). But Wagner kept on down the line; eventually recruiting ex-Carnivore bandmates, label representatives, neighborhood friends, and ex-girlfriends. I followed this project from the start, as a rumored inception through it's blossoming into an actual physical book; periodically checking in on Wagner's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/petersteelebio/?fref=ts">Facebook</a> page which he dedicated to it's chronicling. Having heard all of the aforementioned speed bumps he encountered as they were happening kept my hopes low. It was only until the confirmed involvement of Steele's sisters that I became interested, shortly before it's release the Estate of Peter Steele (that being his surviving sisters) withdrew their endorsement of the book, based on their perception of a distortion of truth, and the work not being a celebration of the man's body of work. This also peaked my interest, as perhaps a reaction to a side of Steele that the family did not want revealed post-mortem - which is understandable, but it's also the foundation of any good biography, that and your subject matter still being alive enough to be involved. I'm not going to read something that I already know everything about. Unfortunately, for the most part that's what <em>Soul On Fire</em> is.<br />
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I've been pretty fanatical about this band for the past 20 years, they are my number one amongst a pretty damn diverse and large collection of musical acts. So, sadly, I've made an effort over the last two decades or so to read/watch every article, interview, review and so forth that made it's way into public media in whatever form. Actually it wasn't an effort at all, as I didn't even realize the encyclopedic knowledge I'd acquired of the band and their music that was made available to me until some of my peers began showing an interest in their music. And so, unfortunately I didn't really walk away from <em>Soul On Fire</em> with a whole lot I didn't already know, in fact I found myself asking 'what about this, or what about that' more times than not - to which Wagner usually got around to addressing at some point in the book. Except for Chapter 13, the final chapter - which actually enlightened me on so much I had wondered about for years following the last days of, and days after, Peter Steele's untimely demise. Any of the quotes coming from the members of Type O Negative themselves were acquired from past interviews and publications, and I recognized 90% of those and in some cases could even tell you the source without perusing the bibliography. That's not me bragging, merely showing you how pathetic my personal life is.<br />
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I can't help but feel like the Carnivore years, both in their original inception as well as their reincarnation in 2006, got a whole lot more coverage than was needed, and I feel like this is mostly because of the willing contributions of the Carnivore band mates, and the glaringly absent involvement of the rest of TON. This is most evident in the glossing over of the creative processes for each album; although, admittedly Wagner did a nice job of summarizing how each album came to be. I did enjoy the insight on some of the 'tricks' they used to capture the unique sound on <em>Bloody Kisses</em> as well as how a majority of<em> Life Is Killing </em>Me<em> </em>'s seedlings were initially composed by keyboard. I may be the only one out there who really wants to hear more about the concepts and how they came to fruition when it comes to each monstrous opus the drab four shat forth, but I think the majority may get bored with another 100 or so pages of that sort of detail. I guess I'm just funny that way. <br />
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I also couldn't help but roll my eyes and/or take with a grain of salt any quote from anyone involved on the Roadrunner label. Steele had made it quite abundantly clear how he felt about Roadrunner and the contract he believed he was a slave to in interviews over the years; a point of contention noticeably absent in the book. It addresses and sugar coats how they basically stole his work from him when the band recorded the demo that became the album <em>Slow, Deep and Hard</em>, as well as manipulating some of the band's catalogue without their permission in an attempt to produce more radio-friendly singles and necro-fuck their discography after the band had left the label in an un-permitted 'Best Of' album; and for those of us in the know that was only the tip of the iceberg. I understand business is business, but don't regale us with stories of the friendship you had with a cash cow you had chained up and were pumping. Yes, you supported <em>Bloody Kisses</em>; but after the next couple of albums didn't sound exactly like <em>Bloody Kisses</em> that support noticeably dwindled into just another act. I wonder if they only agreed to contribute to the book if Wagner agreed not to include any of Steele's ravings about his negative views on everything he felt Roadrunner had done to he and his bandmates over the years.<br />
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Wagner is a good writer, and his perspective on the music shares a kinship with my own. TON were fantastic at creating an entire world with their music; and it's not until you become familiar with said world and all the things referenced behind the scenes that you begin to truly admire the genius that the band was. When you know about the wet Red Hook roads, where the D-Train is going to take you, or you can make out that name being screamed behind the wall of lush sound in 'September Sun' because you know who it's about, it can reach you on a more personal level despite it's subject matter being intensely personal to someone else specifically. Wagner's relationship with the music and it's subject matter feels like a palpable dimension, much like the universe The Beatles created to their diehard fans; much like Type O's catalogue does for myself. His descriptions, comparisons, and analogies of albums nearly mirrors my own, and his theories of certain songs - spanning a chronological distance of albums away - being extensions of each other are both interesting and personally relatable. Readers should utilize these ideas as a guide to what you should be getting out of this band. <br />
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His personal theories and perspectives unfortunately also creep into theoretical motives of what drove Peter to do some of the things he did, like become addicted to drugs, and return to a faith he loudly vocalized as being ridiculous later on in life - with a loose summarization of third party commentaries to go on he bases a every downward turn in the man's life on what he thinks the subject could have been thinking. Early on it's alluded that Peter made it a habit of never giving the same answer to a question in an interview twice, because he hated interviews, hated being misinterpreted, and wanted to keep it interesting for himself - so right there how do we know anything as valid from the horses mouth?<br />
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<em>Soul On Fire</em>, to me, is more a written documentary of one fan trying to piece together the enigma that was Peter Steele than it is an appropriate biography. There were a handful of moments of the man's life that were unveiled that I had no idea about prior to reading the book. The fact that this book even exists is awesome, because despite it's many short-comings; all of which were a result of a lack of cooperation from people who knew Steele best (including Steele - because, you know; he's dead again), it's still awesome to sit down at the end of the day and let the mini-series unfold in your head of the Brooklyn sheep-in-wolf skin's roller coaster ride of life, because it's still an extension of Type O Negative, despite their non-involvement; as funny as that sounds some of us need that closure after the sudden impact with which it all just fucking ended, and we're not going to get it from anyone in the band, as they've all seemed to appropriately moved on. For die-hard fans of TON it's still a good read, but it's real purpose to me would be to serve as a 101 for casual listeners who want a quick catch-up to those of us who have been listening and immersed for the last 24 years; and maybe help elevate them to the next level of appreciation for this truly unique, and phenomenal band. Oh, and there are a lot of really cool candid photos. You can order it here: <a href="http://www.petersteelebio.com/">http://www.petersteelebio.com/</a>PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-62906246048865799952015-10-07T13:06:00.000-07:002015-10-07T13:11:47.216-07:00Seven Artists/Albums to Help Legitimize Your Gloomy October SoundtrackLet's face it, our reverence for holidays is spun from the elated mysticism each one harbors so strongly at us as children. Christmas, Halloween, The Fourth Of July all seem to plant their seeds in our beings as impressionable youngsters and then germinate in us as we grow. They all seem to amplify the characteristics of the season they act as the pinnacle of, and for most create fond memories of what it is to be care free and still believe in their indelibly magical characteristics each presents to us before the anchor of science keeps our logical minds from flying so freely. Remember when the moon followed <em>you</em>?<br />
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This fondness of pre-adolescent tradition evolves as we grow older; but make no mistake about it - the semi-adult versions of all of these holidays: Mistletoe and eggnog, slutty costume parties at bars, barbecues and keg stands; only became and continue to become because of the experiences and magic - for lack of a better word - that we try to subconsciously recapture from those nostalgic memories of childhood as we fasten our seatbelts for the turbulence of the foreboding and inevitable grown-up years; where those of us who have spat forth larvae are allotted the opportunity to relive our own experiences as little ones through our children's excitement. The moon is simply so large and so far way that it plays on the shape of your eye to create the optical illusion that it is always in your presence.<br />
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There are plenty of songs about Summer and America - and a disgusting boiling over of Christmas jingles and Winter Wonderlandy serenades that start to get shoved down your throat as early as October. But those of us who have evolved to appreciate all of the Autumnal season are often shortchanged in the sonic representation of a crepuscular soundtrack that can act as a sort of diegetic sound to the images of a rainy late fall afternoon or evening. And what do we get for the actual holiday of Halloween? The hokey-dokey sounds of 'The Monster Mash', or a generic commercial re-imagining of John Carpenter's <em>Halloween</em> theme - no thanks. And so, in another insomnia-induced fit of frustrated boredom I have compiled a subtle list of selections and artists who do a bit more for the unflinchingly morbid vibe of the Fall season than some cheese-ball musical succubus trying to churn out the first pop-Halloween classic in an effort to live the rest of his days sipping margaritas, beating his Czechoslavakian wife, and collecting royalty checks. Hopefully some of these may tickle your twilight zones enough to open your mind more than it already is. yay.<br />
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<strong>7. DEADSY -</strong><br />
It's a hard way to start a list, with a band that got their break being signed to the lead singer of Korn's god-awful Elementree label back in the late 90's, thus being marked with the leprous stamp of being a Nu-Metal band and opening for the likes of Orgy and Videodrone, but let's just get past all that shall we? I really dig Deadsy, mainly because I think they were doing something different and so in-your-face simple that it was a hard thing to soak up for a lot of people, and I have yet to hear another band imitate them or use their formula properly in an effort to exploit the potential of being labeled a pioneer in what could be a really cool new genre. Deadsy is not a Nu-Metal band, and if you really take band images seriously or use it as an excuse to shit all over something before tasting it (which I certainly do) getting over their physical appearance and presentation may be like swallowing that razor-bladed snickers bar first out of the bag. I can be that close minded, so luckily for me I was so impressed with their dark little new-wave 80's serial-killer sound before I ever even saw them that I never paid much attention to their colored suit assignment / elemental goth make-up thing. But I guess in their defense, with this much androgynous synth-laden early 80's pop worship in their music, a little mascara and over-tone may really put a pretty little bow on the total package for listeners who want the whole kit and caboodle, and they never really plastered themselves all over their own album art to really try and exploit it - well, maybe a little bit.<br />
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Deadsy is really simple and easy to pick apart, but it fucking works. A sonically may-as-well-be single down-tuned E-string guitar sound laying the floor for a New Order bass guitar to white-guy dance on top of and a very creepy up-in-the-mix keyboard playing the prime melody in most of the songs. The drums sound like they were recorded from a 1986 Casio finger-drum pad complete with hand-clap sample and there is even an occasional robot voice that makes a cameo where appropriate (but really is it ever appropriate? Ask Styx). Over it all is the Peter Steele possessing Peter Murphy-on-Barbituates crooning of vocalist Elijah Blue. Remember that scene in Silence Of The Lambs where Buffalo Bill puts his lipstick on, tucks his schlong between his legs and then starts boogying the fuck out to Q Lazzarus' 'Goodbye Horses'? - Deadsy's first album <em>Commencement</em> kind of feels like the soundtrack to a whole movie of that scene, only a tad more disturbing. I'd cringe too at the thought of somebody trying something like this, taking that already uneasy drug induced androgyny of the seedy 80's new wave underbelly and trying to make it feel even more uneasy - but what makes it rise above eye-rolling "they're trying too hard" cheesiness is the stellar song writing and melodies throughout. Even when it turns into something uplifting and beautiful within itself, it still lingers in a kind of eerie gloom, and I guess that characteristic alone kind of almost makes <em>Commencement</em> more of a goth-album than anything else, despite it's wonderful originality. <br />
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From the twisted sludge balladry of songs like "Future Years" and "Flowing Glower", to the danceable synth-laden trippiness of "Mansion World" and "She Likes Big Words", this album covers the gamut of known and unknown 80's new wave influences and drenches them in a neon-colored creepiness. There are a couple of times on <em>Commencement</em> when the music shifts gears from it's own serial killer-transvestite - dark new wave trappings and becomes full on Dark Carnival of Souls rolling through town.<br />
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Deadsy only has two albums under their belt, (not to mention an out-of-print limited demo/debut) and a 7 year gap between them at that. And with absolutely dormant activity at the headquarters and a whole bunch of side projects going on one can all but assume the band is done. While <em>Commencement</em> in my bass-ackwards opinion is a landmark of an album in it's own right, the group's second effort <em>Phantasmagore</em> leans more toward mainstream rock than the charming little niche of sonic glow-in-the-dark grave moss that it's predecessor bloated, but is still arguably worth owning for the fantastic 'Better Than You Know' alone. If you've never heard of them and give it a shot I think you'll find that there is no middle ground here, as you either really dig it or I've completely lost all my credibility, not that I had any to begin with - because people would actually have to be reading this to lose that. But if you find the charm that I did and want a little more than two releases be advised that there are an ass-load of fantastic B-sides and covers the band recorded that got released on various compilations or never actually saw an official light of day that are floating around the internet like chunks of space feces in Zero-G. So if any of the aforementioned over-use of the words new-wave, dark, and 80's appeal to you, put down your lipstick, grab your skin-suit and give <em>Commencement</em> a whirl before you get all coked up and head out to the mandatory work costume party.<br />
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Recommended Album: Commencement<br />
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<strong>6. BODUF SONGS -</strong> Hard words and violent imagery whispered through beautifully soft melodies is the summarized modus operandi of the one-man haunted folk project Boduf Songs. Singer/songwriter Matthew Sweet weaves eerie tales of suicide, homicide, isolation, decapitation, and torture from a minimalistic pulpit of acoustic guitars and ambient drone. While the band's early works are a much more traditional one man/one guitar affair, each release is a subtle step forward into something darker, incorporating peppered electronic effects and keyboards, and even an occasional power chord just to get a point across. <br />
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The band's latest offering <em>Stench Of Exist</em> has taken so many small steps from the simple beauty of the group's debut <em>Boduf Songs</em>, that it's almost unrecognizable as the same band. But like watching a child grow every day, the artistic change is seamless and logical when you take the journey, and the change barely noticeable when you grow with them. The emotion conveyed behind the monotone hushed vocals of Sweet is impressive within it's limited context, a testament to the lyrical content and melodies that carry the words atop a bed of gloom. The music is a still lake on a cold day, quiet and reflective - with the invisible ravages of nature stirring beneath the surface.<br />
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Recommended Album: How Shadows Chase The Balance<br />
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<strong>5. MATT ELLIOTT -</strong> Such epic and grandiose Victorian misery has never sounded so wonderfully ominous than when sung from the wine-stained lips and played from the thorn-pricked fingers of the morosely talented Matt Elliott. The singer/songwriter pens hauntingly self-loathing tales of love and loss, illustrating an atmosphere within the music so literal you'll feel as though your reading a novel rather than listening to a record. Acoustic guitars that are sickly plucked evolve into dark waltzes accompanied with violins and ghostly Theremins, pianos and tubas - you begin to feel as though you yourself are a spirit within the ballroom. Beautiful and elegant melodies come to an end only to be resurrected as doomy, baroque multi-layered vocal hums. Half dark folk, half cinematic score for a French vampire film - the music and context is deadpan in it's delivery and goes beyond ridiculous right back into genius.<br />
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Every song in this man's catalogue hides textures within itself, and every song takes multiple listens to truly digest and remember. While each record sounds the same as the one before it to an untrained ear, further commitment and open mindedness will reward the listener with the subtle nuances of beauty wrestling with the drunken beast deep within the muck. Elliott's 2012 offering <em>The Broken Man</em> is his most epic and complete work in my opinion. Hauntingly beautiful songs dripping with misery, complete with Funeral Bells in the distance and the occasional chorus of howling wolves from afar, the songs are small in their stature - but magnanimous in their atmosphere.<br />
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Recommended Album: The Broken Man<br />
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<strong>4. Lurker Of Chalice - </strong>Black Metal's origins are firmly and proudly rooted in the pagan folklore of Nordic culture. Thusly making any U.S. native Black Metal band very difficult to take seriously for quite some time. It's only been recently that the genre's themes have expanded enough to be able to shed those xenophobic qualities and showcase a more worldly perspective on the style. Jeff Whitehead's one man U.S. Black Metal band Leviathan is arguably the primogenial of these to be respectfully accepted into the cult-like scene. When the woman he loved tragically died as a result of an inoperable brain tumor, Whitehead eviscerated his catharsis into a separate project from Leviathan called Lurker Of Chalice.<br />
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From start to finish<em> Lurker Of Chalice</em> is a harrowing descent into the sublevels of human despair. Part whirlwind-like buzzsaw guitar riffing, part droning sludge, part atmospheric avant-garde, all stitched together with the tortured bellows, cries, and demonic groans of a man emotionally torn to pieces in the dark. From the hypnotic speed and dissonance of the more traditional Black Metal 'Piercing Where They Might', To the almost triumphant strumming of 'Vortex Chalice', to the slow wade through the bile duct of an ocean of grief that is 'Minions', <em>Lurker Of Chalice</em> offers such a variety in it's torture that it's different enough to enjoy without owning a single other Black Metal album. The traditional low production level causes all of the instruments to occasionally congeal in all the right places here, creating sonic vortexes of abysmal gates into the psyche, and murky, almost orchestral movements of ugly endurance; such as the middle section of 'Fastened To The Five Points', which likens to Chopin's classic Piano Sonata No 2 "Op. 35: III. Marche funèbre: Lento" aka Funeral March. Lurker Of Chalice's one and only album is both immensely sad, and don't-listen-to-in-the-dark scary.<br />
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Recommended Album: Lurker Of Chalice<br />
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<strong>3. THE CLASSICAL HALLOWEEN COLLECTION: CLASSICAL MUSIC OF DOOM, DREAD, AND ALL THINGS WICKED! -</strong> I'm fairly certain you can only find this gem on iTunes, but with 50 amazing songs at $6.99 this is arguably the best deal out there (as far as getting 50 songs for $6.99 goes). These are all the classical classics that you've probably heard hundreds of times around this time of year since you were a sapling but never knew the names of. They are the true-blue soundtracks to the Halloween season, as traditional as Silent Night is to Christmas. If I say 'In The Hall Of The Mountain King', or 'Funeral March of a Marionette' and you can hum the tune, then you know and enjoy it well enough to do yourself the favor of downloading this hidden treasure. <br />
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There are as many more familiar songs on here like 'Night On Bald Mountain', 'Danse Macabre', and 'Toccatta and Fugue', as there are off the map movements I'd never previously heard like 'Carnival Of Animals', 'Peer Gynt's Op. 9 Planets', and 'Syrinx'. The collection also respectively stays clear of the more modern film compositions that usually get thrown on generic Halloween compilations, so there is no 'Tubular Bells' or 'Theme From Nightmare On Elm Street'. Though there are a few passable cuts from 'Psycho'(did you see what I did there), and a phenomenal version of the theme from the movie <em>Halloween</em> that includes an additional little string segment on top of the already familiar composition that adds an impressive additional layer to the previously one-dimensional work (sorry John). As is thus far a reoccurring theme on this list, the music walks the line seamlessly between the light and dark, painting a world of fear and wonder around you if you're as vulnerable to atmosphere as I am. This is top notch introspective-appreciation-of-the-season music to throw on whether you're going on a midnight fog walk in late October, or simply sitting on the porch watching the leaves fall into the rays of the sun.<br />
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<strong>2. TYPE O NEGATIVE -</strong> Of all of the music that's out there from all of the generations that have left there fingerprints in the art form, none make me more grateful to exist as a young adult in the prime era of their music than Type O Negative - It makes me believe in predetermination to be alive in the very short window of time that they had been purging sounds. While I consider their entire body of work to be nothing short of phenomenal, I'd have a difficult time defending that same opinion to someone who scoffs at the very notion of it. How do you argue the greatness of a band whose vocalist occasionally rolls his R's in a mock vampiric lingo? Or pens a song titled "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend". It also doesn't help that the most fanatical of Type O fans are often stereotyped as chubby thirty-something Goth chicks who claim to practice Wicca and touch themselves to the chorus of 'Be My Druidess'. Unfortunately anybody that's ever been to a concert or two of the group would find that generality to be alarmingly valid - which also gives reason as to why the heavier, darker, more dirge-induced albums tend to be their least well-received by active listeners, but that's a whole 'nother rant completely (maroons). <br />
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Flying the flags I've flown for bands that seize in more extreme venues of sound coming out here and telling you I how much I adore Type O Negative is a bit like telling my asshole jock friends back in highschool that I think I may be in love with Katie Wilshmalski - the black haired, white faced, midnight eye-lined queen of darkness who wore spider-web veils to school and wanted everyone to call her Cruella Darkwidow. I've never tried to push Type O onto anyone because it's not until you immerse yourself enough into their body of work to realize that everything they do is layered in this thin smegma of self-deprecating tongue-in-cheek humor, and without that the band would crumble under the weight of their own depression or flame out in a ridiculous fizzle of complete gayness. So to simply hear it for what it is superficially and not entertain the notion that it does both flaunt it's amazing melodies, strong structures, and originality as well as make fun of itself all in one bombastic psychedelic dirge is to remove yourself from a situation that could better you because you just don't want to put the effort in. Or you just think it sucks, and without that aforementioned shmegma I would too.<br />
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Unlike the rest of the majority of music on this list, Type O are a bit more blatant about the motives and inspiration, citing Halloween and it's themes directly multiple times throughout their discography. Personally, I think the band and the season are symbiotic - there is a totalitarity going on there that only amplifies the experience of both if you're as passionate about music as I am. No two albums are the same in either their sound or delivery. From the raw Black Flag meets Black Sabbath hardcore dirge of <em>Slow, Deep and Hard</em>, and the lush and beautifully layered autumnal textures of <em>October Rust,</em> to the sonic anvil sinking into the abyss of <em>World Coming Down</em>, the psychedelic pop-rock of <em>Life Is Killing Me,</em> and the dark dicography-spanning melting-pot jams of the very under-rated <em>Dead Again, </em>TON leave a creepy green trail of original sounds that have never been successfully duplicated, nor ever will. While the styles from album to album may alter, the general sound does not. Distorted guitars and bass play over processed drums and gloomy to grand keyboards that create melodically lush soundscapes or underneath-everything funeral dirges.<br />
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Singer/Songwriter Peter Steele baritones his songs of fucking girls, getting fucked by girls, losing loved ones, and hating himself - sometimes channeling Lurch, sometimes channeling Tears For Fears, sometimes channeling the congealed spirit of every Brooklyn cab driver that ever got short-changed a tip. Amongst it all are subtle and not-so-subtle innuendos of Vampirism, Druidism, Lycanthropy, Necromancy, Murder, Suicide, and Drug Abuse all romanticized or mourned over in 5 - 15 minute epics of Pink Floyd meets Black Sabbath meets The Beatles meets The Munsters gothedelic-hard rock bliss. Throw in some Gregorian Chants, rattling chains, pipe organ, and occasional woman screaming as she gets violated by a piece of machinery and these son's of whooors will become your best friends from this Halloween until the one you almost make it to.<br />
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Recommended Album: October Rust, World Coming Down, AND Dead Again<br />
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<strong>1. GNAW THEIR TONGUES -</strong> After the trick-or-treaters all go home, the candy is all but gone, and the last Jack-O-Lantern slowly burns itself out and succumbs to the bitter frost of the beckoning winter, we're left with the cold charmless nights of old. The cuteness of things that go bump in the night fades, and the fun that comes with fear when it's all wrapped up and commercialized suddenly fades away. Horror changes it's definition back to the dreadful thing it used to be that you never want to have to face. If all the other bands on this list were movies like <em>Friday The 13th</em>, and <em>Nightmare On Elm Street</em>, Gnaw Their Tongues is the untitled torture-porn snuff film you've only read about that got banned in 194 countries. This is one of those bands I honestly dare you to listen to in the dark. Zero fun, zero melody (though 2010's opus <em>Le Arrivee De La Terne Morte Triomphante</em> bleeds an occasional glimmer of hope from beneath an ocean of bile and excrement), an extreme audio journey into what feels like all-to-real violence, perversion, and ritualistic terror. I actually even once read a critic liken the music (if you can call it that) to seeing something you can never un-see, being 'marked' if you will. <br />
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Rumbling horns, thunderous percussion, clattering hardware, shrill strings, scraping metal, and screaming from both the vocalist and the victims paints dimly lit soundproof cellars with metal drains straining gore. This is generally categorized as black metal but Gnaw Their Tongues is really a one-man grandiose sonic experiment in the sounds of vile torture and human suffering - there is very little sonic pleasure to the ears here, but still a curiosity within it all that strokes the same synapses that make you slow down and look when driving past a fatality on the expressway. With album art as gruesome and disturbing as the sonic massacre within it you'll feel like your name has gone on some government list somewhere after you've ordered it and given it a listen. If you should ever find yourself falsely accused of some grisly crime, an album or two of Gnaw Their Tongues pulled from your library to be used as Exhibit A may in fact seal your fate with any jury, so tread lightly and stay out of trouble. Probably one of the most extreme bands I own, the mood strikes to listen to Gnaw Their Tongues few and far, far between, still sometimes you just want to saw your own arm off without actually sawing your own arm off. Make no mistake, this is a terrifying sonic purging to test the boundries of oneself with - and you've got to respect that, and dig it a little too.<br />
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Recommended Album: All The Dread Magnificence of Perversity<br />
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PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-24751294009365859342015-09-28T14:40:00.002-07:002015-10-06T13:01:16.191-07:00Album Review: The Toadies - Heretics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the nineties I always ran The Toadies parallel alongside Foo Fighters as just a straight-up fun rock n' roll/pop-punk band that emerged from the early rotting stages of the flower that was Grunge. Only difference being a lack of true commercial success on their part in comparison to those which I deemed their wingmen, which either forced them to stay the course, or their staying the course forced commercial success away from them. Mind you I don't have a very deep pocket of bands I pull from when it comes to this kind of music, because to be honest I don't indulge in it all that often, so for me these two are the heavy hitters and that's about it for that niche'. But just like their aforementioned contemporaries (Foo Fighters - if you're not following along here) released a retrospective acoustic album spanning their career thus far in 2006<em> (Skin and Bones</em>), which included the infusion of new, more eclectic instrumentation into old songs reimagined acoustically as well as brand new songs written specifically for the performance, Toadies - twenty years into their career - have done the same.<br />
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The band took it upon themselves to celebrate their two decade existence by recording a studio version of an annual acoustic weekend that the band hosts in their native state of Texas called 'Dia De Los Toadies'. But don't let that light-heartedness fool you - if there is one thing the Toadies have always had a knack for it's spinning very dark first-first person narratives into bouncy and accessible feel good rock music: 'Tyler', 'Jigsaw Girl', and their calling card 'Possum Kingdom' are all prime examples of this - all of which appear on <em>Heretics</em>. And all of which almost seem darker and more emotive when stripped away from their red-level volumes and slowed down to a more sinister, and plotted thought (though 'Possum Kingdom' in it's original form still feels superior in my opinion). Low brass and keyboards accentuate the acoustic skeletons, thickening up the bones with swampy southern chunks of mud and re-visioning some songs with angles of lounge-like slipperiness ('The Appeal' and 'Dollskin'), and infusing others with back-alley jazz grooves and bluegrass ('Backslider', 'Beside You').<br />
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There are also a handful of new songs here, one of which being a down-tempo cover of Blondie's 'Heart Of Glass'. The almost-danceable 'In The Belly Of The Whale' opens the album, while 'Queen Of Scars' sounds like such a trademark Toadies song that you'll forget you're listening to a specifically acoustic record, as it's hard to imagine the track any other way. The closer, 'Send You To Heaven', fantastically carries on that serial killer-in-the-sun knack of darkly spun trains of thought all gussied up as accessible pop that I adore from the band. I was hoping the final notes would be the ravenous ending of the song that the group recorded but never <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAgdqC7QNG0">released</a> (heavier than any moment on any Toadies record) as an anvil-like juxtaposition to the softness that preceded it. Yet the riding out of "The Beatles and The Stones" sung so melodically begins to feel less like a pretty little hitchhiker's musical predilection that will wind up signing her death warrant only twenty miles down the road, and more like the overwhelming submission to a dark and primal instinct from our narrator's point of view as he frantically digs past "the beetles and the stones" after the deed is done. Maybe I'm revealing a bit too much about my own fucked-upness here.<br />
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<em>Heretics</em> comes off in it's totality as a deeper perspective on a band that's often seemed to toy in musically shallow waters (not that their music <em>is</em> shallow - it's a euphemism), it's an unfolding of new dimensions from the group. Some songs stand on their own even though other versions of them exist on other albums, and some seem inferior to their original counterpart. I'd definitely recommend to any Toadies fan as both a retrospective to their career as well as an appreciation to the subtle nuances and textures they add here that propel them to another level in a different genre than the one they seem the most comfortable in. If you be a new-comer to the Toadies this probably isn't the place to start, as this batch of songs without the knowledge of how they were just doesn't have the strength to make you want to hear the originals, or may just lead you to bands who specialize in this sort of thing and therefore probably do it better. The fact that the band toys lyrically with themes of obsession, homicide, and self-defeatism does add a uniqueness to the over-all product here as this is something that's typically rare from bands who may specialize in this kind of music and always adds a ying to the yang when the right rock band pulls something like <em>Heretics</em> off. So if that <em>is</em> your cup of tea, I recommend it - otherwise, check out <em>Hell Below/Stars Above.</em><br />
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5/10PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-67520867178751840832015-09-22T12:40:00.001-07:002015-09-22T12:49:34.768-07:00Foo Fighters: Top 12 Favorite B-SidesA Warning: I still dig the Foo Fighters, I cringe a little bit as their career moves on - every documentary that's released, every arena they play, every guest spot on an album from some rock icon, and every new theme that a record is built around feels like they keep moving farther and farther away from me. I'm not mad at them for it, if I were as much of fan now as I was in the 90's it would be the greatest thing ever, but it's a hard truth to face that an album like <em>Foo Fighters</em> will truly be a one-of-a-kind from them. <em>Foo Fighters</em> still reeks of that fuzzy 90's alt-punk nostalgia, even in it's heaviest moments it's still kind of soft, and at it's loudest it still remains quiet. A testament to the apprehension and lack of confidence in Grohl putting himself in the center of things after being in the background for so long. A quality you can hear in his restrained vocals throughout the entire album. The record feels ridiculously personal, like a warm closet. And I feel like a bit of that carried on into the next album, and a little after that, until there just wasn't enough of that charming uncertainty left to sprinkle here and there. I'd never have pegged them to be selling out Wembley Stadium in 15 years back in 1995.<br />
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These days there are no restraints - no emotional, no personal, no financial. They still sound like the Foo Fighters, just out of the closet and galloping in wide open spaces, like so many other mainstream rock bands out there. They just seem to ever-so-gradually blend a bit more into the herd with each record that gets released. That foundation of thought is what the following list is built upon, FYI. The Foo Fighters have a shit-ton of songs out there floating about that never made it to an official album. These are my favorites of those:<br />
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12. <strong>The Colour And The Shape</strong> <em>(Colour And The Shape</em> French Limited Edition, <em>Monkey Wrench</em> single CD 1): I don't particularly get off when the Foo try to get all heavy-as-fuck, but this being probably the most heavy-as-fuck thing they've ever done amongst a very thick catalogue of poppy punk rock whoopee definitely stands it by itself and far away from the rest of the herd. Not to mention that it is a bit off-the-wall and bad ass. Aaaaaand I always think it's kind of cool for a song that an album is actually named after (in this case the band's "seminal" album) not to be released on said album and instead rear it's ugly head as a back alley B-side; see also Elliott Smith's "Figure 8".<br />
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11.<strong> Normal</strong> (<em>Times Like These</em> single CD 2): Ironically enough 'Normal' plays the role opposite of it's predecessor on this list, as it's a pretty straightforward by-the-numbers Foo Fighters track. That being said it feels like it embodies almost all of the qualities of their songwriting in one fell swoop, a little bit of rock, a little bit of pop, a touch of balladry, kind of singing, kind of screaming, stellar melodies. 'Normal' sounds like it can be thrown into the tracklist of any album after 1995 without fuckin' up the mix, which kind of makes it classic Foo Fighters.<br />
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10.<strong> Baker Street</strong> (<em>My Hero</em> single, <em>Next Year</em> single CD 2): Swapping the brass for a guitar as the main spine of the song gave it the grit that the original unfortunately never had for me. All the while it stays subtle and never gets as over the top as a song like this has the potential of getting when it's being covered by a rock band - probably more because of the production than the performance, but Grohl's quieter vocals keep it grounded too. The Foo's music has always been composed for a sunny fall day for me, this song always was too: combining the two was a lightning strike that just made sense.<br />
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9. <strong>World - demo </strong>(<em>Resolve</em> single CD 2): A couple of months ago at the time of this writing, somebody released the "Million Dollar Sessions" onto the internet. These were the scrapped demos of a batch of songs that would later appear on <em>One by One</em>; essentially the writing on the demos doesn't differ too much from what was presented on the album. The demo's quality is, well, demo quality - for a band as big as the Foo Fighters that's still better than most, but it's still a whole lot more straightforward and a whole lot less bombastic than what was released in it's finality, and to me it sounded more like the Foo Fighters than what came out. 'World' is a demo, I don't know if it was recorded by an entire band or just Grohl, but it has the simple-but-good, less polished, less dynamic approach to it that reminds me of the early, lo-fi, less confident days of Dave by himself, which makes it feel all the more personal.<br />
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8. <strong>Petrol CB</strong> (<em>The Pocketwatch Demos</em>): The most Nirvana-esque of anything Grohl did by himself or with the Foo, it actually plays out like a photo-negative of any of the more manic songs on Nevermind or Bleach - pulling a switcheroo by distortedly screaming the verses and melodically singing the chorus. It's not on the list because it lacks it's own identity, it's on the list because it drips with the nostalgia of 90's guitar fuzz and the juxtaposed shoegaze-like melodies in the vocals during the chorus. It's insecure and awesome for it.<br />
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7. <strong>Dear Lover </strong>(<em>Scream 2 soundtrack</em>,<em> My Hero</em> UK single): So damn sappy it may in fact be completely tongue in cheek. It is Foo balladry ripped right from the Colour And The Shape era, only it never succumbs to power chords or the grand finale the way the aforementioned's 'Up In Arms' and 'February Stars' do - and serves as a full platter rather than the appetizer 'Doll' wound up being, which is the closest thing it relates to. They never came back to do anything like this again, and they couldn't without taking huge steps backward, which is tough for an arena band to do.<br />
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6. <strong>Milk</strong> (<em>The Pocketwatch Demos</em>): This is the epitome of all of the great things that Foo Fighters used to be, lo-fi guitars strumming with the momentum of Sonic Youth, the basement production, the straight forward unsure vocals floating on top of it all, simple lyrics, love it. <em>Foo Fighters</em> and <em>The Pocketwatch Demos</em> kind of share a space all their own in the band's discography, this track is one of the best on both.<br />
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5. <strong>The Sign</strong> (<em>In Your Honor</em> UK and Vinyl editions): This song fucking rocks - it's got that leaning forward keep-going-till-you-fall-into-something momentum that songs like 'Everlong' and 'Generator' flaunted. It sounds like late nineties Foo Fighters filtered through mid-2000 Foo Fighters. Actually, it sounds a whole lot like 'Fraternity', primarily it's chorus "give me a sign I'll come for you" / "I'll never be fraternity". That similarity is the only reason I can think of as to why this one never turned up an A-side. Like maybe he wrote it, recorded it, did everything they needed to do to it, then one night at 3 a.m. he shot up from bed like "FUCK!! Did that already....B-side.". This song is the reason Fraternity isn't on the list, I know it's kind of bullshit but with this I just don't need that. Dig?<br />
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4. <strong>Floaty</strong> <strong>- BBC Session</strong> (<em>Big Me</em> single): The alternative version of what appears on the self-titled debut is a softly strummed, lighter than air take whose fragility feels palpable. As though the whole song could dissipate completely at any moment like putting your hand through a vapor cloud hanging stagnant in the air. A better alternative version of any song in the catalogue that was remixed or reimagined acoustically.<br />
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3. <strong>Down In The Park</strong> (<em>Songs In The Key of X, Monkey Wrench</em> single CD 2): Yeah, it's a cover, but it's such a bad ass cover. Kind of dark and ominous (for the Foo), like I can smell the rubbish burning inside the garbage can as I stroll past in slow motion. The performance is straightforward but the tone and sounds are like melting yellow starburst on the pleasure zones of my brain. For me it is a perfect sonic representation of what the songs lyrics are about, more so than the original.<br />
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2. <strong>A320</strong> (<em>Godzilla soundtrack</em>): This was released somewhere between <em>The</em> <em>Colour and the Shape</em> and <em>There Is Nothing Left To Lose</em>, which means it was recorded closer to the former. This was a flash of things to come from the Foo, but at the time it was something so seemingly out of their league that it became one hell of a hidden gem and a half. A gentle monologue that builds to a soaring instrumental latter half, sonically painting it's theme onto our imaginations as our narrator's plane comes gently plummeting to the ground, disappearing into the clouds below during the fade out. A mature and well written number that scoffs at mainstream rock song structures and actually includes, strings? Are those strings I hear from the band in 1998? I know it seems a tad hypocritical to put this track so high on the list given my penchant for the simpler more stripped down approach that I hold the band in high regard for, but while this kind of thing is just another spoke in the wheel for the band now, back then it was, in their catalogue, a beautiful and epic movement - and remains so for me.<br />
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1.<strong> How I Miss You</strong> (<em>Winnebago/Big Me/I'll Stick Around</em> singles): I know it's ridiculous, but this weak-ass, soft and simple little whimper to yowl is arguably one of my all time favorite songs from the band, for all of those reasons. <em>Foo Fighters</em> is my favorite album from this group, for all of the reasons I've sporadically listed above, but especially because of how personal it feels - this song is everywhere he didn't go in so many spots on that album all congealed together, in the end it's an extension of it. A final purge from a place he'd never go back to again.PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-66981162100222822032015-08-15T14:10:00.000-07:002015-08-16T14:18:28.831-07:00Stone Temple Pilots - End of an EraI love a group to carry on despite line-up changes, it sometimes forces a band to maybe progress in a direction they may not have had things all stayed hunky-dory within the dichotomy of the artists. Sometimes, depending on who is replaced, that shift is more radical than it needs to be. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Stone Temple Pilots have taken, in my opinion, a huge step backwards by replacing their very versatile vocalist Scott Weiland with the fuckin' guy from Linkin Park. Unfortunately, this is only compounded by the fact that they're also doing their best to not only retain their classic sound, but harken back to the glory days of their success by writing songs with similar structures to their first two (and coincidentally) most successful albums. <br />
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Mind you, this is all only based on a 5 song E.P. release that came out in 2013, which to be honest - still wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would turn out. So I can't write them off completely; but never-the-less it feels like the end of an era. Stone Temple Pilots got a bad rap as being both clingers to the wave of alternative rock that swept through radio land in the first half of the nineties, as well as writers of rock-radio friendly songs that gave them no merit. Unfortunately, while the first half of that statement may have credibility, the second has none. Here is my list/eulogy of my favorite/best Weiland-era STP albums; perspective....<br />
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#6 - Core (1992)<br />
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Not what you expected eh? <em>Core</em> is solid no doubt, it's got an instantly identifiable sound and the songs are really well written and drip with trademark characteristics of a little bit of everything that tickles your fancy about the golden era of Grunge. It rocks, it grooves, it contemplates and at times charmingly makes no sense to the listener at all. This album is a classic to most, and unfortunately mostly for the wrong reasons. Following in the wake of newly revealed heavy hitters in the genre like Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Alice In Chains, looking back <em>Core</em> could be construed more as an L.A. chapter's strategic attempt to strike while the iron was hot using a hammer with the most comfortable grip than a watermark in the genre that helped propel it's popularity to a self-imploding apex. It's only upon the gift of hindsight 20 plus years into the band's catalogue that we experience what they're capable of, and how <em>Core</em> falls short of anything really inspiring and in it's true reflection is simply paint-by-numbers rock n' roll for the 90s. <br />
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That's not to say that I don't lose my shit when 'Dead and Bloated' kicks the fuck in, boogey the F out to the beginning of 'Naked Sunday' everytime it comes on, or yarl like a ninties rock god all the words I think I know to 'Plush'. On it's own away from the other children in the discography <em>Core</em> is still a good/great record, god bless the restraint of the mid-paced Grunge waltzes like 'Where The River Goes' and to a degree 'Sin' - complete with mandatory acoustic breakdown three fourths the way through. Call it a foot in the door for the group, or perhaps the early stages prior to their evolution, <em>Core</em> is still fairly one dimensional - as is most obvious in Weiland's singular vocal delivery from front to back, a type of Vedder-like deeper sing-style he would all but abandon by the time the group released their final album as a whole. I would wager this album is a lot of people's favorites more for it's nostalgia and accessibility than anything else, which I can be guilty of as well no doubt, the key is to make sure you're not confusing a favorite work of a group, as opposed to their best. Never-the-less, had STP come out of the West Coast gate pumping an album like <em>Tiny Music</em> to the masses back then, none of us may have ever heard of them.<br />
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#5 - Purple (1994)<br />
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For a long time after this album's release - well into the rest of the group's catalogue - I made the mistake of dismissing this album as nothing more than a sort of <em>Core</em> part 2. It was only a few years ago that I came back to it appropriately and was forced to applaud it as a proper evolutionary step in the band's career. Everything here minimally hints at what's to come, and also pays maybe a bit too gratuitous tribute to what already had gone. If you were to tell me that this was the best thing they've done I couldn't really argue it because I'd understand. It retains the thick grunge rock of it's predecessor ('Meat Plow', 'Vaseline', 'Lounge Fly') while also utilizing that sound to write different kinds of songs ('Interstate Love Song', 'Still Remains') thus in effect beginning to conceive a sound and style all their own. All of the songs however display a more versatile range in Weiland's vocals that wasn't present in the monochrome <em>Core</em> and add a very enjoyable looseness to the tracks which in turn helps in perceiving this album a bit more multi-dimensionally.<br />
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All that being said <em>Purple</em>'s formula still doesn't stray from it's predecessor, and in turn does wind up sounding a bit more like a big budget sequel to their debut in it's totality. 'Meat Plow' takes the place of the lumbering 'Dead and Bloated', 'Vaseline' flaunts the rock of 'Sex Type Thing', 'Lounge Fly' arguably mimics the pattern and structure of 'Sin', 'Pretty Penny' is the mid-album acoustic interlude that 'Creep' acted as (though the former is superior), 'Big Empty' is the anthemic radio song that 'Plush' was, 'Army Ants' vs. 'Crackerman', and 'Kitchenware and Candy Bars' serves up the same kind of closure that 'Where The River Goes' did - and for the most part they're all located geographically in the same spots on the tracklist. So maybe I wasn't too far off on my initial generalization. <em>Purple</em> feels like baby steps out of the shadows of the peers in the scene that may or may not have influenced them, but they ended up sounding a whole lot like anyways - for that reason alone I appreciate a movement in any direction rather than standing still, and <em>Purple</em> raises the stakes by having better written songs than their debut. But in the grand scheme of things I could argue that <em>Purple</em> is merely a roided up, more conditioned version of<em> Core</em>.<br />
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#4 - Shangri-La-Dee-Da (2001)<br />
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<em>Shangri-La-Dee-Da</em> has always felt like the most epic, bombastic performance from the band to me. A characteristic I attribute to the huge production sound on the record, not to mention the more subtle yet lush instrumentation that fills in the less layered spots here and there that you may be privy to miss if you're not tuned into it. It's an interesting perspective considering the whole middle of the album is very chilled back. It's also bookended with a pair of thick-ass swinging anchors almost giving the batch of songs a sort of harkening back to the early days, the album's writing and pace feel like an almost back-to-basics approach, comparable to the formula of <em>Purple</em>. The opener 'Dumb Love' is arguably the heaviest thing the band has ever spat forth, possibly rivaled only by <em>No.4's</em> 'Down'. Followed up by the juxtaposition of the up-beat radio anthem 'Days Of The Week'. I'd go out on a limb and say <em>Shangri-La-Dee-Da'</em>s four opening songs are as a batch the best first four opening songs on any of their releases. Nearly everything after the opening gallop never manages to get passed mid-pace, which is a slight unbalance that's evened out with each song's near-grandiose presentation. 'Bi-Polar', 'Regeneration', 'Coma', 'Wonderful', and 'Hello It's Late' all feel magnanimus to me, and longer than they actually are (in a good way). I still can't decipher whether or not it's a testament to the production on the album or a misconstrued first impression that I never got over. Here's something else I can't get over, unfortunately: 'A Song For Sleeping' - I absolutely can't stand it when a band, or perhaps more specifically a lyricist pens a song on an album specifically to his child/wife or whatever; utilizing a name drop in the lyrics and thusly negating any relation that could be conceived from an objective listener; especially considering how beautiful both the instrumentation and melody are with that song. Save that shit for home, nobody else cares except for the handful of listeners with kids of the same name. Staind's fucking 'Zoe Jane' is the same shit. <br />
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It's a fantastic record none-the-less, and a shame I have to put it so seemingly low on the list - but it's just a testament to everything else the band has done in the rest of their catalogue because <em>Shangri-La-Dee-Da </em>is still a beast of a rock record. I also think it's got some of the best compositional melodies going on in the background of the songs and is Scott Weiland's best vocal performance. Perhaps I'm a bit biased towards the seemingly less calculated approach, less produced sound the two albums that preceded it set as a standard. I actually like this record better than 2010's epononymous album, but can't sit here and tell you that it's better than it in terms of all the songs both individually, and packaged together as a whole.<em> Shangri-La-Dee-Da</em> was originally planned by the band to be a double-album, until the record company quickly refused to back that idea, I'd still love to hear twice the album this could have been; probably would have wound up pacing a whole lot better and truly been a monster of a sonic journey. Placing the raw, Seattle grunge-influenced rock of <em>Core</em> on one end of the spectrum, and the 60's influenced alt-pop trip of <em>Tiny Music</em> on the other, I'd say <em>Shangri-La-Dee-Da</em> would land you somewhere in the middle in terms of the evolution of their sound, yet still retains an identity and discernible vibe all it's own.<br />
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#3 - Stone Temple Pilots (2010)<br />
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The band never reached the pinnacle again the way they did in the couple of years that followed <em>Purple</em>; the last couple of albums prior to their self-titled were a bit under the radar in comparison to how they came out of the gate in the early nineties. Tours cut short due to the singers substance abuse issues and the problems with the law that ensued restricted the proper support to keep them on top. When they reformed in 2008 and confirmed that they were in fact working on new material for release I got really stoked, mostly because I had the opportunity to truly appreciate the body of work they'd done up to that point and had come to realize that you'd never really be able to put your finger on what exactly new material from STP would sound like, and that's an excitable trait for me. By this time I'd begun to view them as the 'Grunge' version of Faith No More; songs like '12 Gracious Melodies', 'So You Know', 'I Got You' and 'Atlanta' were evidence of a group with really progressive ideas that didn't mind experimenting a bit and throwing the listener a curve ball that may or may not go over well, all the while retaining their identity and sound beneath it all. A lofty perspective on my part considering the new trend of 90's bands reforming after extended time away and trying to replicate the 'glory days' of whatever the most successful album was in their catalogue through the medium of a new album.<em> Stone Temple Pilots</em> did not disappoint.<br />
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<em>Stone Temple Pilots</em> was damn near as ninety degree an angle in their style as <em>Tiny Music</em> was upon it's release. While the first two tracks are the absolute embodiment of what had become the traditional STP sound ('Between the Lines', 'Take A Load Off'), the rest of the album was peppered with songwriting that went beyond showcasing influence and felt more like paying tribute to the bands that motivated them at their roots. 'Huckleberry Crumble' felt like the channeling of Aerosmith (whose guitarist Brad Whitford was an admitted influence of Robert Deleo), 'Dare If You Dare' seemed latter day Beatles-esque (a track not surprisingly written during the Talk Show sessions), 'Cinnamon' borrows from the pop-side of Cheap Trick's body o' work, and 'First Kiss on Mars' sounds like Bowie. You can throw 'Peacoat' in any tracklisting after<em> Core</em> and not bat an eye at it's fluidity, and everything in between is the band continuing to stretch their sound. The whole thing comes off as a stained-glass mosaic of styles and influences, making for one hell of an enjoyable listen.<br />
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Considering the praise I give <em>Tiny Music</em> for a lot of the same shift in effort, you'd think this would end up even higher on the list than it is. This is, to me, a stellar record - but the hold up I have with it is that some of the songs just don't feel as strong as past practice in my opinion. Both 'Bagman' and 'Hickory Dichotomy' could be plain fuckin' annoying to a casual listener, an opinion I shared for a while there upon the early few ingestions of the album. And while I love the fact that 'Cinnamon' is a track that more than a few would be (or were) hard pressed to identify as an STP song on first listen without prior knowledge, the lyrics just seem a bit underwhelming to me, even though upon recent listens it feels like they're simply reflecting the simple pop sensibility that the song was written to represent. In the end it is, especially considering the 9 year hiatus, a strong and ballsy four-star record, that keeps you excited to hear what's to come on first listen, and a yearning to hear it all again on subsequent indulgences. I will say that while 'Maver' is per their tradition a fantastic final track on the album they should have kept 'Samba Nova' on as the closer and not regurgitated it as a bonus track - that shit is butter.<br />
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#2 - No.4 (1999)<br />
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Following a failed tour, legal problems, the drastic sonic variation that was <em>Tiny Music</em>, and a side project that was basically STP minus Scott Weiland (Talk Show), not to mention the thick wake of Nu-Metal's rock popularity sweep, STP's fourth album - appropriately titled <em>No. 4</em> - slipped into the scene with barely any fanfare. Perhaps both the tribulations that came before it, as well as it's low profile in the mainstream subliminally added an element of pleasant surprise to it's presentation, because <em>No.4</em> winds up being a complete consolidation of all of the band's musical strengths, in turn showcasing everything that STP was and was to be in a blueprint of sorts. <br />
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<em>No.4</em>. fronted a bass-heavy lower tone in the thicker songs here, an arguable influence of the aforementioned popularity of Nu-Metal at the time (let's not forget Scott Weiland's guest appearance on Limp Bizkit's 1997 album <em>Significant Other</em>), most notably in the slow-swinging wrecking ball that is the album opener 'Down'. While the band has always been able to flaunt a fantastic low range, on<em> No.4</em> it sounds so much more organic and not overproduced than anything else they've done, a huge trait that keeps this album's tone magnificently palpable and almost dirty. The over-all sound is a perfect congelation of the thick power chords that dominated early albums, and the thinner more natural production reminiscent of <em>Tiny Music</em>. And with that perfect concoction of sound they run the gamut of their capabilities here. The thick stomp of 'Down', the heavy gallop ala 'Sex Type Thing' of 'Heaven and Hotrods', the art-rock of 'Church On Tuesday', the punk rock of 'Sex and Violence', the trippy folk swirl of 'Sour Girl', the soaring melodies of 'Glide', lounge-influenced 'I Got You', and closing with the phenomenal sunset serenade that is 'Atlanta'. In the end this record winds up sounding like a greatest hits of Stone Temple Pilots without actually being that; all of their best qualities and styles spread across 11 fantastically versatile and eccentric songs.<br />
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#1 - Tiny Music... (1996)<br />
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STP was virtually on top of the radio world with the success of Purple and more specifically songs like 'Interstate Love Song' and to a lesser degree 'Big Empty'. Remembering that lofty positioning only serves to amplify the greatness that is <em>Tiny Music</em>, as it not only presents as a ballsy experimental shift in sound, but also a kind of push back against all of the big business execs and mainstream hangers-on that were most likely trying to convince the band to rest on their laurels. Instead of going bigger and more bombastic, STP thinned out their sound, toned everything down - including the production, and even added more eclectic instrumentation into their songs in the form of organs, electric harpsichords, vibraphones and clavinets. The end result is a trippy little rock gem that feels like it does whatever the fuck it wants, including two idled down instrumental pieces ('Press Play', 'Daisy'), a trumpet solo ('Adhesive') and a borderline lounge samba number ('And So I Know') which I believe to be one of the best songs in their catalogue (which most in my limited experience tend to skip right over, dummies). Weiland completely changes his primary vocal style for this record, only distancing themselves further from their previous trademark sound and it works on every level. <br />
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Written, produced and engineered to sound like the influences it's cut from which is 60's rock, but filtered through a mid-90's alternative rock conduit, <em>Tiny Music</em> sounds timeless. It ultimately has no edge to it (barring the aforementioned against the grain attitude by which it was conceived), even the "heavier" tracks on the album feel like they just sort of float about on a cloud, a bizarre juxtaposition to the real life events paralleling the records creation; which was the chronic substance abuse problems that led to the singer's multiple arrests and cancellation of a tour. Never-the-less <em>Tiny Music</em> flows wonderfully from start to finish and with it's highs and lows feels like the end of a fun little journey when it's over (maybe it parallels more to the effects of being high as a fucking kite) - and oh how it ends. Arguably the best song the band has ever done, 'Seven Caged Tigers' ties the bow like a syrupy rock epilogue, it's final dissonant, reverberating chords drift off in such a beautifully haunting way; reminding me of the end of Led Zeppelin's 'Over The Hills and Far Away' - a procession I often wish would go on for another 10 minutes or so. <em>Tiny Music</em> is genius; it has the ability to give me comfort in it's sounds without ever losing any of it's muster, even after all these years. The saddest part about this record - besides the fact that it only resonates the awful truth that Stone Temple Pilots as we know it is done, is that I was only allowed to hear it for the first time once. <br />
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*If you dig this record as much as I do, and haven't checked out Talk Show yet maybe do so. It's a one-off album that's basically STP minus Weiland, and was written at the same time as <em>Tiny Music</em>. The Deleo brothers even admitted to splitting up the thirty or so songs they had done as either going to be an STP song or a Talk Show song by writing the singer's name on each track's demo tape. Barely compares in my opinion, but is still an enjoyable chapter to experience.<br />
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<br />PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-48040830539719890032015-06-11T12:51:00.000-07:002015-09-28T14:41:47.940-07:00Album Review: Faith No More - 'Sol Invictus'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There are a few top-shelf magazine critics out there who gave this album a less than mediocre review upon the eve of it's release, from the ones I read they were all expecting and/or hoping for an album's worth of material that sounded like a modern day version of the band's most popular records <em>The Real Thing </em>and <em>Angel Dust</em>. To put it bluntly, they are fucking idiots. One of them even went as far as to call the groups last two releases prior to <em>Sol Invictus</em>; <em>King For A Day...,</em> and <em>Album of the Year</em> "nigh unlistenable". That guy shouldn't be a critic, obviously has no grasp of the concept of what Faith No More is about - and is a fucking idiot.<br />
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Before you read the rest of this you should know that prior to <em>Sol Invictus</em> I'd rate FNM's albums best to worst in the reverse order of their release. Which means I think <em>Album of the Year</em> is the best thing they've done and so forth down the line. Yet <em>Sol Invictus</em>, while feasibly sounds like the logical next step in the audio journey of Faith No More's discography, fails to better the two albums that came before it. This record is as acceptable today some 19 years after their last release as it is/would have been in the year 1999. I didn't have the hype built up for it that others may have had because its Faith No More, and you have no idea what to really expect - the whole thing could have wound up being a cover of German folk songs done in spoken word over Polka music and I'd have shrugged my shoulders and thought 'whadda ya gonna do?'.<br />
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It succeeds in what it is as it is it's own self-contained monster, just as all of their other albums can be perceived. <em>We Care A Lot</em> was the New Wave / 80's Punk - Funk answer to the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the time. <em>Introduce Yourself</em> wasn't much different in it's being. <em>The Real Thing</em> held onto the monotone synth heavy bottomless end from start to finish. <em>Angel Dust's</em> musical mosaic-like dichotomy was it's own incomparable characteristic at the time.<em> King For A Day</em>... stuck to it's faster, more rock-oriented roots, and <em>Album Of The Year</em> was as everywhere as <em>Angel Dust</em> only serving more as a Greatest Hits album by being a consortium of everything they'd done up to that point delivered in a brand new bag of goods. <br />
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<em>Sol Invictus</em> feels like the most grandiose of their albums in each songs presence and as a whole collection of songs. The song writing here is fantastic, the unmistakable totality of the instruments harkens back to the unique sonic presence of the group's first four albums. Patton pulls from his bag of a thousand voices several times in each song without ever sounding contrived. It is in all angles of it's being a solid Faith No More entry - so in that aspect this is a four star album.<br />
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On a personal level, I would have loved to have heard a lot more variation between the songs. While the first track serves more as an intro than anything else, "Superhero" truly starts the album off perfectly as a near epic rock song, borrowing from the pensive determination of "Last Cup Of Sorrow" and the free-wheeled drive of "Get Out". Its a fine kickstarter to massage your ears in prep for the sound of FNM some 19 years later.<br />
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It becomes a bit formulaic for Faith No More after that: "Separation Anxiety", "Cone Of Shame", "Rise Of The Fall", "Matador" and even "Sunny Side Up" to a point all feel very similar in their structure (though I dig "Matador" the best). They all seem to follow a fuse to a climax, even teasing at it after the first verse before letting it give way after the second. Granted their methodology and writing is top notch, but 'formulaic' and Faith No More shouldn't be two words married together often. "Motherfucker" sticks out here like a sore thumb, in a good way - but put it anywhere on <em>Album Of The Year</em> or <em>Angel Dust</em> and it would feel a whole lot less like a square peg and even add to those efforts' fluidity.<br />
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The acoustic guitars that drive "Black Friday" help keep that song from blending in too much with the others, even though it's structure feels just as similar as it's surrounding peers, and album closer "From The Dead" is a nice change of pace too, sounding damn near like Faith No More covering a Stone Temple Pilots number - also in a good way. I really enjoy the album, it definitely feels like the biggest thing they've ever done, like I said - grandiose, but the extreme music asshole in me kept wanting them to take it further, waiting for an 'Ugly In The Morning' or a 'Got That Feeling', but I suppose that's what Fantomas and to a degree Tomahawk is there for. Never-the-less I'd be a hypocrite if I said I expected anything with any degree of confidence from Faith No More, which is the monolithic characteristic of this band that's always made them great.<br />
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6/10PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-23428574464656985172015-04-10T14:12:00.000-07:002015-04-10T14:12:37.212-07:00You Make The Call: Wrong - 'Stop Giving'They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but that old adage can often and arguably rightfully be dismissed as unoriginality in the art world. There is a fine line between being inspired by an artist and simply trying to ride that gravy train. But what about when a really distinct and genre-defining band falls apart? When they stop putting out new music or worse yet just start to really suck? Is it appropriate for a group with no personal affiliation with said defunct band to blatantly attempt to fill the gap? Or can the argument be made that attempted torch carrying is truly an end result of inspiration and nothing more, I mean - isn't that how genres are spawned? Obviously motives vary. Everything is inspired by something else. <br />
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Vertigo Index make no effort to hide the direct influence Discordance Axis had on them by naming their band after one of DA's songs, and the small army of Carcass clones that were exhumed after that group went tits up only solidified them as the seed to the over-saturated (and ridiculous) gore-grind genre that's still expanding today. There's a whole generation of people out there who respond to the word <em>Godsmack</em> with a reference to a shitty hard rock band that thinks they're better than they really are and not the bad-ass palm-muted withdrawl-trip that slaps you in the face halfway thru Alice in Chains' Dirt!<br />
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So what's wrong with indulging in something that sounds exactly like something else if that something else is done being? Nothing I suppose, you could argue it's sort of an easy way out - like covering a song note for note that was already popular once. But you could also argue that it's throwing a bone to a whole group of fans longing to hear something new that sounds like something old, and then letting them decide if they want to chew on it. That's what Wrong have done.<br />
<br />
Helmet - lets face it, Helmet just isn't the formidable figure that they once were, and it isn't necessarily because they've been ripped off to oblivion by a genre of lemmings. They're still active and putting out music, but from what I can gather most people just can't get over that holy trilogy that is <em>Meantime, Betty,</em> and <em>Aftertaste</em>. Wrong offers you the option to go back to that in their debut E.P. <em>Stop Giving</em>. The catch here is that you need to get past the pneumatic roof nail in the eye that that isn't Paige Hamilton singing, and these aren't his songs, and this indeed isn't Helmet... So the question is, can you indulge?<br />
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<a href="http://wrongriff.bandcamp.com/releases">http://wrongriff.bandcamp.com/releases</a><br />
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<br />PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-36214148838202356832015-04-06T12:47:00.001-07:002015-04-06T12:51:16.385-07:00Under The Radar: Electronic PhantasmagoriaI really do appreciate low budget 60's and 70's horror flicks: the grain, the psychedelic imagery, heavy shadow, the lo-fi synth laden tribal soundtracks - an unsettling yet nostalgically comfortable experience that yearns for the Cthulu-like tendrils of late night UHF to embrace it like a prophesized apocalyptic spawn.<br />
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I also appreciate the ambient noise genre and some of it's offspring. Drawn out movements of droning keyboards or walls of warbling feedback - awkwardly patched together and balled up within an atmosphere all it's own. Journeys of sound that can draw you down tunnels in the dark if you close your eyes and let it.<br />
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So it stands to reason that I really appreciate the efforts of an unsung internet hero who took the time to record and compile specific soundscapes from his favorite films of the golden years of grindhouse exploitation horror, clean them up and present them as a bad acid trip into the dark woods of ritualistic virgin sacrifices and witchcraft conjuring up bad things from the demonic fathoms of blood orgies and unexplainable neon lights in the fog. Run-on sentence and I don't even give a hoot.<br />
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The tracks aren't marked, so it's unclear as to when one piece begins and another ends, but forget about all that. These kinds of spooky dirges into noise are best experienced as a congealed whole anyways. <br />
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Per the author/creator/aforementioned unsung internet hero:<br />
<br />
"A collection of commercially unavailable electronic soundtracks from the 60s and 70s. All taken from low budget sleazy horror films. I ripped my favourite pieces of Moog madness from the audio tracks then mixed them together into a one hour long phantasmagoric soundscape.<br />
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None of these pieces of music have ever seen an official release. <br />
<br />
As these are ripped from the audio track the sound quality varies. Expect some hiss, crackle, sound drop outs, distortion, abrupt editing and freaky dialogue. "<br />
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and here is his site:<br />
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The Ghost of the Weed Garden<br />
<a class="yt-uix-redirect-link" dir="ltr" href="http://theghostoftheweedgarden.blogspot.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="http://theghostoftheweedgarden.blogspot.co.uk/">http://theghostoftheweedgarden.blogsp...</a>PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-27334715583741221572015-03-28T12:06:00.000-07:002015-03-28T12:06:05.961-07:00Under The Influence; Episode IIf you've ever spent time trying to write a riff or come up with a melody chances are you've had to sit and ponder whether or not the first few things that made their way from your cortex to your fingers to your 4 track have already been used - because a lot of that stuff we pump into our conscious likes to bury itself in there to the point that it plays on repeat in the background of everything we do and we don't even realize it, or I'm just borderline schizophrenic. I don't necessarily think anybody ripped anybody off here, nor may have been directly influenced - sometimes coincidence is just that, and sometimes the familiarity is purely accidental and probably not even realized until the record is on the shelves, but it's still fun to point out:<br />
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Gwar: 'Pussy Planet' (1992) & Nirvana: 'Rape Me' (1993)<br />
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Burnt By The Sun: 'Dracula With Glasses' (2002) & Pig Destroyer: 'Baltimore Strangler' (2012)<br />
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Mad Season: 'I Don't Know Anything' (1995) & Silverchair: 'Slave' (1997)<br />
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Biohazard: 'Cornered' (1994) & Type O Negative: 'All Hail and Farewell To Britain' (2007) - specifically the 3:43 mark...<br />
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Eyehategod: 'Blank' (1993) & Dr.Doom: 'Prophesized Disaster' (2012)<br />
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Temple Of The Dog: 'Times Of Trouble' (1991) & Pearl Jam: 'Footsteps' (1991)</div>
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PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-44960149832373043692015-03-08T13:55:00.001-07:002015-03-08T13:55:57.845-07:00Jumped The Shark - Anthrax<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sometimes I feel like the only one who is really unhappy with where Anthrax have gone. I'm used to it - I'm alone on a lot of things, and it's shockingly not to just simply be the guy who goes against the grain with what your opinion is. I'm certain every musical example of this will be brought to light here somewhere down the line, but in the meantime lets stay right here, or better yet let's go back to 1989...<br />
<br />
I made a cassette copy of all three versions of 'I'm The Man' from the EP of the same name after hearing it from my brother's room because I liked all the swearing in it (I was in fif grade). Sometime not-so-shortly after that, Megadeth's 'Take No Prisoners' sired me from a giggly little spectator who borrowed his mother's Walkman for the long bus trip to Catholic School to a wickedly curious and budding fan of the genre who was beginning to feel as though he'd found a niche in something that tapped into a part of him that wasn't so giggly. Naturally, from my previous brief exposure and access to my older, more jaded and mad-at-the-world brother's (man I miss that guy - no, he's not dead - he just smoked so much weed in College that it permanently morphed his temperament from the pissed off psychofuck Buzz Osborne-looking bad guy in the original<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37BMplDzJPE"> Mad Max </a>to Jeffrey Lebowski on a Quaalude drip) thrash-heavy cassette collection, I gravitated towards Anthrax's <em>Persistence Of Time</em>.<br />
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<em>POT</em> was an amazing record, and to be fair, still is an amazing record all things considered I guess. That led to the back catalogue, and I indulged in all of it (except for <em>Fistful of Metal</em> and <em>Armed and Dangerous</em> - just never did anything for me)... <em>Spreading The Disease</em>, <em>State Of Euphoria, Attack Of The Killer B's</em> had just been released, <em>Among The Living</em> - which rivaled the amazingositousnessessess of the aforementioned <em>POT</em>. My brother, reveling in a new found kinship with his previously fucking pest of a brother saw the flower opening and stuffed it with a whole bunch of other goodies, including S.O.D.'s <em>Speak English or Die</em>, which he thought I'd enjoy seeing as he was always having to remove his Anthrax albums from my deck when he wanted them. I was a fan of the band.<br />
<br />
I still have a very vivid memory of a phone call that took place between my then-friend-now-brother-in-law Jeff, that took place on May 25th 1993. It was the day <em>Sound Of White Noise</em> came out - Anthrax's first album with a new singer. The new single 'Only' had been out for a few weeks and was pretty fuckin' good, but we were all a bit apprehensive about the final product and what to expect. This new Anthrax certainly didn't sound like old Anthrax. Neither of us had the album yet, we were waiting for our Moms or siblings to free up to drive us to Sam Goody to buy it, but it was a deep conversation between two fourteen year olds about the unavoidable miasma of doubt and disappointment that lay dormant in our senses of uncertainty that ebullient spring afternoon - "what do you think it's gonna be like?" "I don't fuckin' know, man".<br />
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Well without getting too much into it let me just say that it was really good. Yeah, they changed - and looking back they changed with the times. What do we call that when you change your sound to stay relevant? Selling out? I didn't see it that way then - probably because my tastes had already changed to the stuff that <em>was</em> relevant. Pantera, Prong, Biohazard, Fear Factory - I was soaking in the groove-laden heaviness of 90's metal, and Anthrax was too - and it worked. The new sound was so much less monochromatic than anything they'd previously done. Actual emotions were actually being conveyed! There were more dynamic to the songs during the years that Bush fronted them as a band, songs like 'Catharsis', 'Black Lodge', 'Burst', etc wouldn't have had the power, emotion, and inspiration in their beings had the formula remained what it was prior to 1993... Before <em>Sound Of White Noise</em> anything that was released outside of it's one-toned thrash element was a B-side or just something completely silly - and it was never anything that Belladonna sang on: 'Startin' Up A Posse'? 'Bring The Noise'? (Dallabnukifesin is an exception) Even as far back as 'I'm The Man'. Belladonna is a singer, not a vocalist. When did he ever sound like he was even remotely desperate or pissed off? And isn't that what heavy music is really all about? I don't know - I guess it really is all subjective, my argument wouldn't hold water in a sewing circle with hardcore Belladonna advocates... For me personally, there was no going back after Bush - because I just kept imagining what those songs would have sounded like with his little bit of rasp and lack of range (which he more than made up for with a certain amount of realism behind his vocals) - a little grittier, a little more emotional, better (and which I got in 2004 with the live studio re-recording of the 'classics' in <em>The Greater of Two Evils</em>). Somewhere along the second half of the band's existence I just came to realize that stylistically in the genre Belladonna was a fossil, whose delivery just seemed too caked in the over-the-top bullshit cock rock singing of some of the 80's more popular 'Heavy Metal' bands.<br />
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Granted, my tastes were getting heavier... And by the time <em>Volume 8: The Threat Is Real</em> (1998) had come out Anthrax wasn't a go to group to get my hair standing on edge and my vessels dilated. Instead they'd become a really fun hard rock band that was consistently making enjoyable records start to finish. I started to realize I was almost never going back to visit those older albums, because they didn't have a place for me any longer. If I wanted speed, groove, thrash and moshable rhythms I had a shitload of other bands that were doing it better as a whole package than what Anthrax had done back then. To feel all those aforementioned qualities come rolling at you like a stomping boot, that introduction and build up, letting the catharsis swarm onto your conscious like flies on shit in a mass grave - and then Injun Joe comes bouncing in with his fuckin' hair and his falsettos "Paranoia time!", bleeargh.<br />
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Sometime after 2004 Bush decided that he didn't want to tour anymore, he had a kid at home whom he just wasn't seeing grow up and felt as though he wanted to take a break from music. Anthrax moved on. They hired Dan Nelson, from a band called Devilsize as the new lead vocalist. Years went by and eventually new songs began to make their way onto social media in live form. I gotta tell you, I wasn't missing Bush one iota when I <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juiP1uPph90">heard 'em</a>. This guy even felt like a step up! But it didn't work out, in less than a year Nelson was already out of the band, reasons unknown (and it sounds like a settlement out of court will make it reasons unknown forever). Anthrax went back to Bush who had a new found fire lit under his ass and played a few shows that the band had committed to, he was ready to come back full time from my understanding but wasn't ready to just sing over the songs that were already written with Nelson in mind, which is what the band wanted him to do. So Bush flew the coup again...Anthrax called up Joey Belladonna, who had been sitting at home the last 26 years curling his hair in anticipation of this moment....<br />
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This is where I stopped listening and paying attention. The record hadn't even come out yet and I could give a shit. It had been snowballing for some time unfortunately - especially considering that the group had released a ridiculously underwhelming four studio albums of new material in 21 years. Even if I had been on the fence about whether or not I was still interested in Anthrax, this little ditty from an interview with Scott Ian circa 2010 pushed me to the other side:<br />
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<em> "I don't think people should worry so much about what's going on in the band. I understand being a fan and I understand loving a band and being dedicated to a band, 'cause I'm a huge fan of many bands. But I don't have any control over whether or not FAITH NO MORE's gonna make a new record. I want FAITH NO MORE to make a new record, but I can't control that, [so] I don't worry about it. There's bigger things to worry about in life. So if you're a fan of the band and you like what we do, just have faith that eventually we're gonna make a record and it's gonna be a great record. I don't think we've ever let anyone down in the last 26 years of making records and touring. Yes, I understand it's taken us a while to get to a new album, because we've been through some crazy circumstances, but that's just the set of circumstances we're in, and there's no reason for us to rush anything. That would be the biggest mistake, 'cause if we rush something now, then we risk putting something bad, and then the fans would really be upset."</em><br />
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I don't know, I just kind of felt like he was telling all the people that put him there to fuck off. I mean, it had been 7 years since the last album; maybe for your fans that's a legitimate gripe Scotty.<br />
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Belladonna came back with his stupid fuckin' nightstick microphone and gladly sang over all the songs that became 2011's <em>Worship Music</em>. I can totally understand the excitement here for a lot of folks, I mean I'd say welllll over half of the band's fan base were spawned from the early days when Joey was the front man, so hearing that he's coming back after over two decades and then some was probably a really cool notion for those peeps. At the time, for me however, I felt like the ulterior motives were being ignored. Metal bands from the 80's and 90's had been following this fucking bullshit trend of stopping their forward motion and going backwards. There were so many groups who had begun playing their best - and by that I mean their top selling - albums in full front to back totality as a tour package. There were bands like Slayer, who got their original skinsman Dave Lombardo back into the fold, recruited the guy who did the art for their early albums, and then released a record that tried to look and sound like the shit they put out in 1986 (this was after a tour of playing <em>Reign In Blood</em> in it's totality) because that was the pinnacle of their career and that's what the "fans wanted". It's what your fucking wallet and ego wanted. Remember Metallica going back to their roots for <em>Death Magnetic</em>? Oh you fucking assholes. Megadeth's 'Rust In Peace' tour? Fear Factory making amends with Dino Cazares after they eviscerated each other in the press and getting <em>Demanufacture</em> producer Rhys Fulber back in the fold for 2010's <em>Mechanize</em>? <em>Korn III</em>!? Is that really what the fans want? To watch these bloated, fifty year-old creatively dried up fucks striding purposefully backwards to their glory days to inflate the narcissistic longing to hear those ballrooms chanting their names again before the encore? I guess you gotta put food on the table. Anthrax's reunion with Belladonna felt like a move in that direction to me. And hey, it even got them on that Big Four bill! <br />
<br />
And then, all those now forty-something year old patched jacket dudes who set up camp in 1987 with their arms folded and scoffed at anything that pushed outside of the realm of Thrash suddenly felt their dicks move for the first time since 'Unforgiven Too' hit the airwaves. They were all into it again, Anthrax was back and the new album was Amazeballs. But why? Admittedly, I was wrong. <em>Worship Music</em> wasn't the total wanna-be nostalgia trip that I thought it would be, and how could it be? The songs were written with a different vocalist, somebody new who would help the band's sound move even further forward. Musically, <em>Worship Music</em> was what I would expect, and even be impressed with as, the follow up to 2003's <em>We've Come For You All</em>. But as I listened to it every song just got filtered through my brain with the distant sounds of how much cooler each track would be with John Bush singing, or even that peon Dan Nelson. Yet those aforementioned thrash dudes chained to a tree in 1987 who hadn't turned an ear to anything after<em> Attack Of The Killer B's</em> were now singing the praises of Anthrax's latest release, despite the fact that it's still kinda sorta a Bush-era album, just sucked of all it's life by Injun Joe. <br />
<br />
It makes perfect sense, as both an artistic move and a business move I suppose. The new guy is out, John Bush is out, why not take advantage of the aforementioned trend and kill a few birds with one stone (though I do recall strong rumors of Slipknot's Corey Taylor being in serious talks with the band as a fill-in before Belladonna got the call). In my naïve and stupid little world, if circumstances had been the same after Nelson's premature exit stage left routine, I would have loved to see Anthrax do something different than reach for the third stringer with dollar signs in their eyes. They've always been good at pulling off really cool shit for the fans (4 albums in 21 years - not one of those things): Dimebag filling in in the studio when Dan Spitz quit, the cool re-recording of the old shit with Bush, the B-sides album before B-sides albums were really a thing, even the 'Ball of Confusion' track with both vocalists singing together. The band had an album done and no vocalist - how cool would it have been to just have a compiled work of their peers stepping up and singing on different tracks. Corey Taylor, Phil Anselmo, Max Cavalera, Tom Araya, Mike Patton, shit even John Bush would contribute for a song in that fashion - the guy's not an asshole, and throw Belladonna a bone too. Yeah, it would be different, and may not sound wholly like an Anthrax record - but what a cool and unprecedented move for an established band like that. Also probably a contractual nightmare with an ocean of red tape to cut through so it would never work, not to mention scheduling conflicts and label drama, but that was a scenario I was childishly clinging to before they dropped the bomb about whathisface coming back. Fuck it why didn't Ian just fuckin' yell the whole album? Schnarf.<br />
<br />
I just don't like Joey Belladonna's voice. I could have saved us all a whole bunch of wasted time and just typed that. Am I the only one? Because it certainly feels that way out there in internet land. I only listened to <em>Worship Music</em> maybe twice, minus the un-excusable and horrendous Refused cover they did as a bonus track - I'm fairly certain every time somebody plays that god-awful piece of shit butchering of a song a child's puppy turns inside out and dies slowly somewhere. So maybe I didn't give it a fair chance, but I think my Belladonna days are just over. You know how you just love Chinese food, like it's your favorite food and you always look forward to eating it and then one day you're just done with it - but everyone still thinks you like it so they keep fuckin' ordering it, and then you grow to actively, maybe even passionately dislike it? Belladonna. Nails on a fuckin' chalkboard. Shit, maybe worse than Fred Shneider...You get the point.<br />
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I will say this, I'll put my big hobbit foot in my big stupid mouth and say this: I went back as I was writing this and listened to those old Anthrax records with Joey properly for the first time in probably like some 12 years or so. God that songwriting was good, and his voice does offer a very unique take to that kind of thrash music, it's definitely a combination of sounds that is identifiable as it's own thing - and filtering it that way in my brain may offer the ability to rekindle an ember deep in there somewhere, so maybe I owe it to myself to stick my toes back in the pool in an effort to fan the flame. I mean a man can change and then change back in a matter of 12 years - scientists say with the constant shedding and re-growing of cells our body does as an act of homeostasis that technically we are physiologically a completely different person every 7 years. Look it up. So I guess I also owe it to myself to give <em>Worship Music</em> a proper listening to as well I suppose, another chance as I <em>am</em> starting to like Chinese Food again. Respectfully, I should do it before I post this to be fair, ahh fuck it....<br />
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<br />PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-13527017428137350962015-02-12T19:24:00.000-08:002015-02-12T19:24:39.112-08:00Album Review: Vision Of Disorder - The Cursed Remain Cursed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I don't know why it always takes me so long to sink my teeth into a Vision Of Disorder release, they always seem to deliver once you give it a chance. I remember first hearing 'Element' on some Road Runner sampler release and being really impressed with it. That first self-titled record was the only album from them that I never really dug, file it away as finding your footing I guess, or my own. Two years later I bought 'Imprint' on a complete spur of the moment and was completely blown away by it, five star fucking album. Those raw, swirling guitars and that relentless momentum throughout the whole thing - such a unique and identifiable sound. It was a seizure happening somewhere between NY Hardcore and West Coast Skater Punk - kind of sounded like something those five guys you knew down the street growing up could have bulls-eyed with after decades of garage rehearsals.<br />
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Their third official LP 'From Bliss To Devastation' was a leap away from it's predecessor, fronting a more polished sound and a more hard rock direction; I bought it hoping for another 'Imprint' and needless to say shelved that fucker after a couple of rotations. It was a good three years until I came back to it, and when I did I was able to embrace it for what it was, genuinely. It's really a hell of a hard rock album, still wielding their unique sound, but a bit more dynamic and clear enough to really see all the dirt underneath the fingernails. Slower and with a way more structured and traditional songwriting approach, but still wielding sharp enough of an edge to cut you, balancing a sonic and thematic line somewhere between the sleaze of Appetite-era Guns N' Roses and the dark of Alice In Chains' 'Facelift' (not comparing, just combining) - and once I kind of observed it in that light I wound up really getting off to it.<br />
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From what I understand from internet sewing circles, that change in sound not only drove away a number of fans, but also ended up splitting the band. Bassist Mike Fleishmann and drummer Brendan Cohen went on to form a band called<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uny6vs1GtFs"> Karnov</a> (best...band name...ever), and vocalist Tim Williams and Guitarist Mike Kennedy became Bloodsimple, whose two releases front a similar sound to the writing style on 'From Bliss To Devastation', only a bit more commercial (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHJAnXc-tQ8">this song</a> rocks though).<br />
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Well, 11 years later the band got their shit together and released 'The Cursed Remain Cursed', and I gotta say it's pretty fuckin' good. All those layered little dynamics that made 'From Bliss To Devastation' seem so polished are gone again. This record sounds like five guys plugged in, hit record and started playing the shit they just wrote and rehearsed an hour ago - in a good way. Compared to their previous full lengths the sound is thin on 'The Cursed Remain Cursed', and admittedly it takes a couple of tracks to get used to - kind of like when Biohazard's<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-BSGFbauwA&list=PL8SHCsW3JO4sW2aDyVo113ScFeZrYi-yw&index=3"> 'Mata Leao'</a> first came out - but once you start <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MdlyM7w8PM">breathing that fluid</a> this album is a blindfolded roller coaster ride jumping the track. VOD are amazing at zigging where you expect a zag, and that's one of the characteristics that made 'Imprint' so memorable, well there's a lot of that here. There's a song on 'Imprint' called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHxlI9fOIW8">'Jada Bloom'</a>, and in it the band pieces together something kind of beautiful made completely out of ugly parts - VOD really hone in on that on TCRC - but not so much so that it becomes tired or predictable, the opposite in fact - something comes along amongst the spit flying hardcore/thrash frenzy that really rises above everything else, and then it's gone. You'd like to hear it again, but in order to do so you have to manually go back - so it leaves you impressed and wanting more.<br />
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This is one of those records where, except for a couple of watermarks here and there, on the first couple of listens all the songs kind of blend in together. There's not a whole lot of effect pedal wanking going on (but when there is it's awesome - check out a third of the way thru 'Annihilator') and I dig that from a band like this, because it just makes the whole thing seem like letting the song writing speak for itself. It can also be a bit exhausting, by the time track 9, 'New Order Of Ages' plays through I felt myself starting to get a bit numb to the whole experience, but VOD save some of the best for last in both 'Beat Up On It' (were those gang vocals!?) and the closest-thing-to-not-a-ballad on the album 'Heart And Soul', which dangles you in the air for a bit before swinging you into a brick wall - spoiler alert.<br />
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That being said, I also feel that TCRC is a front to back listen. Sampling a track here and there was the mistake I was making for the last two years, every song on here lends energy to both the tracks before it and after, a sum of the whole if you will. Nothing on here is a ball-crusher by itself (maybe 'Annihilator'), but together they serve as a concussive buckshot to the temporal lobe. <br />
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'The Cursed Remain Cursed' is a nice mix of their two previous efforts - and by that I mean it feels about 65% Imprint and 35% From Bliss To Devastation - you can figure out which parts when you hear it (though 'Skullz Out' feels like it came almost directly from the latter's sessions). After the hiatus I'm pleased to hear them come back this way - with a thousand little cuts rather than trying to steamroll over you, because it's what they do best. Once you're in and going you're slapped with the realization of that unique Vision Of Disorder sound, and you can't help but feel that this is it stripped away of all it's bells and whistles. 'Imprint' to me is a hard record to top, but I gotta admit after just a few listens this fucker lasts the rounds. Ask me in another 11 years and I may have a different answer for you.PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-5099656057141752182015-02-03T13:01:00.001-08:002015-02-03T13:19:33.275-08:00Top Ten Fav's of 2013:I don't always listen to albums when they're released. It's not that I don't get around to it - it's just that most times a flavor is best savored for a certain time of the year. Moons align, winds change, seasons whither - everything has it's soundtrack. In turn, sometimes that leaves a two year window for which to satisfy my sonic palette, especially when a record is released just after it's most appropriately designated epoch. So consider this a list in arrears. These are my favorite ten albums that were released in 2013:<br />
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10. Jesu - Every Day I Get Closer To The Light From Which We Came<br />
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With each Jesu album sole member Justin Broadrick seems to step further into a comfort zone of post-metal electronic shoegaze - and consequently the material he continues to release keeps getting better. Like a chromatic butterfly emerging from the putrid papal sac that was Godflesh, Jesu takes the cold industrial tones of it's previous form and sheds it of it's chains, carrying the sounds to places where the sun can reach, and it's never in a hurry to get there - which is a good thing. EDIGCTTLFWWC stands out from it's previous releases by sounding like more than just a man and his computerized audio interface. Broadrick adds what sounds like genuine organic instrumentation to some of his pieces here, including the piano intro on "The Great Leveller", a flying Woolly Mammoth of a song that is so magnanimous in it's presence it makes the rest of the album sound as though it was written around it.<br />
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9. Blood I Bleed - split w/ Lycanthropy<br />
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Sometimes (more times...), I just need that primal, unhinged surge of recorded-in-one-take, go-for-the-throat Powerviolence/Grind, and Blood I Bleed is pretty much the Slayer of that. They do what they do and you know what it's going to be, and that it's going to cut. Like being dropped into the center of a turbulent hive, with 11 songs in less than 10 minutes Blood I Bleed's half of the split is an insane barrage of crazy little fists pummeling you faster than your senses can maintain. The band sounds like the title of this blog. Music with this kind of frenzied ferocity has it's best effect in this kind of format - being either a split or an EP - where it can get in, rattle the brain, and then blast through it's exit wound leaving you dazed and confused and not overstay it's welcome or allow your Central Nervous System to adapt to it's poison. Too many of these kinds of bands are unfortunately at the mercy of their labels, requiring them to put out something over a certain time limit and forcing the album to possibly draw itself out, not allowing the artist to strike hard and strike deadly. Plug this fucker in and you'll swear you can feel that spittle hitting your face. Oh, and the Lycanthropy half ain't a bad grind either... Wouldn't let me post the vid: so here's a link...<br />
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8. Palms - Palms<br />
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Sounds exactly like you'd think it would, Chino Moreno singing with the dudes from Isis - because that's what it is, but it still works. To me the music sounds like the album's artwork (job well done), painting sonic palettes of fading sunsets and the expansive oceans that lull them to their edges. 6 to 10 minute glides of lush atmospherics undulating beneath gently plucked guitars and occasional power chords that soar hand in proverbial hand with Moreno's wonderfully unique crooning. It's hard to separate this project from either of the entities' full time gigs at times (and the criminally under rated Team Sleep), but with enough repetition and heavy meditation in it's swaying melodies you may find yourself letting go of all of that and simply watching your shadow barely keep up with you on the water far below.<br />
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7. Matt Elliott - Only Myocardial Infarction Can Break Your Heart<br />
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Elliott's latest output is his most stripped to the bones body of work yet, probably the logical place to go after the absolutely phenomenal and potentially unsurpassable 'The Broken Man'. There are very little of those subtle and haunting atmospherics lurking in the shadows this time around, as are usually present deep within the muck of elegance on previous efforts. OMICBYH showcases more of a straightforward early 19th century no frills acrobatic flamenco as is toned in the album's 17+ minute opener 'The Right To Cry'. While violins and xylophones do sparsely pepper this album in all it's right places, and Elliott's trademark multi-layered low hums do occasionally come sweeping in to carry us to a climax here and there on the record, it still sounds almost sunny when compared to the rest of his body of work as a solo artist. Well, maybe partly cloudy. And more importantly it still sounds like Matt Elliott, and nobody else does. The last song on the album, 'De Nada', is in my opinion one of the best things he's done to date.<br />
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6. The Dillinger Escape Plan - One Of Us Is The Killer<br />
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TDEP continue to tear faces off with creatively spaztastic riffs fighting against stuttering time signatures and occasional lurches into mainstream rock hooks and melodies. Unfortunately it's their fifth album, and the first one to feel like it's rehashing old formulas in it's totality. For a guy whose been listening to the group since their inception and still finds Calculating Infinity to be their least exciting record, I'd love to hear a whole lot less of the hooks and a whole lot more of the seizures. One Of Us Is The Killer is the first album DEP have released that sounds like they're standing in the same place as the record before. That being said, nobody really comes close to touching the palpable energy these gents translate onto their bodies of work on anything they've done, so it's still pretty fuckin' awesome and still wickedly creative.<br />
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5. Pearl Jam - Lightning Bolt<br />
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Ever since George Dubbya Bush got pushed out of office PJ's sound seems to have eased it's grip on itself and become a whole lot less tense. Lightning Bolt - while still an evolutionary step for the band - sounds like a sequel to a movie that takes over right where it's predecessor left off, and that's alright by me because Backspacer was a breath of fresh air in the band's catalogue. Despite the heavy theme of the inevitability of aging and the consequences of reason, wisdom and ultimately the death that comes with it, PJ sound like they're having a lot of fun on Lightning Bolt. I must admit I was never drawn to this band for the harder rocking songs they put out, and always enjoyed the slower, seemingly more crafted efforts they write - so Lightning Bolt may be a bit more up my alley than for most. But I'm getting older, they're getting older, and the route they're taking sonically in the last decade is a parallel line for me to travel along as I go. Dig a little deeper into some of the songs on here and you'll get a lot more out of it - always a trait of a really good album.<br />
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4. True Widow - Circumambulation<br />
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True Widow continue to creep along in their dark and engaging vortex of smokey reverb and distortion, a sound I hope they never try to do anything new with. I'd honestly be hard pressed to tell you what album what song came off of at completely random listening to their discography, but it doesn't matter when it's as sonically infectious as this. Circumambulation, however, showcases the band incorporating - dare I say - a bit more of a groove in their stalking rhythms. I don't think I'll ever tire of new material from True Widow, especially if it continues to sound like everything they've ever done before it.<br />
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3. Bleeding Rainbow - Yeah Right<br />
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What sounds like well produced, free-spirited Grunge-Punk straight out of 1994 turns into a layered haze of Shoegaze at the drop of a hat on 'Yeah Right'. When the band combines the two you end up being served a thick and fuzzy dose of chromatic sugar pop rock that is both driving and hypnotic at the same time. It's the kind of thing you'd think would congeal from the afterbirth if Sophia Coppola and Kevin Shields sonically procreated. It's a fun album to listen to in it's spirit, and a pleasing album to listen to in it's sound. Picked it up completely on a whim with no preconceived notion and was very pleasantly surprised. It is both nostalgic and forward thinking in it's delivery.<br />
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2. Mazzy Star - Seasons Of Your Day<br />
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I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite Mazzy Star album; though I can say 'She Hangs Brightly' is easily out of the running, the fact that the group's first release in 17 years stands as tall - if not taller - than both 'So Tonight That I May See' and 'Among My Swan' is impressive, and all the more so if you consider the two grand Hope Sandoval releases that floated about during their hiatus. Which means it wasn't necessarily an album that was 17 years in the making. Mazzy Star sticks to the formula of snow falling on strummed guitars and warm, fuzzy, soft power chords reverberating under what has become one of the most iconic female voices in alternative rock (despite the imitators beginning to surface - I'm talking to you Widowspeak). The nuances that separate this album from the rest of the group's discography are subtle to say the least. Unseasoned ears will tell you it's more of the same, but like most bands on this list you don't need to prove yourself when you're king of the mountain - especially when you're a band who's less is more and a whole lot more than the people trying to pull your flag. 'Seasons Of Your Day' does echo from a sort of 'Welcome home' vibe considering the aforementioned hiatus, meaning the traditional and original sound that Mazzy Star have etched is always nice to hear in the manifestation of new material especially when it's been so long. But I'd like to think that even a casual fan of the band, which I consider myself to be, would be forced to admit that this album would be just as good today as it would be if it were released in 1999.<br />
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1. Deafheaven - Sunbather<br />
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Gripping the buzzsaw speed and dissonance of traditional Black Metal, and twisting it out of it's fixed distorted positioning in the dark recesses of bleak coldness and forcing it upward towards the sky, Deafheaven are spearheading the evolution of a yet-to-be-named subgenre and thusly pissing off thousands of corpsepaint donned, spiked-gauntlet wearing, Dark Lord worshipping virgins across frozen tundras worldwide. There has always been an appealing ambience to even the most decent yet still purposely under-produced Black Metal, that merging of speed and tremolo guitar that turns itself into something more than it's simplistic parts, but Deafheaven actually use that formula to drive riffs and (dare I say) melodies that are already uplifting in their original form. The end result winds up sounding something like Marduk covering My Bloody Valentine. While the band's previous record, 'Roads To Judah' leaned more towards Explosions In The Sky-esque canoodling as the juxtaposition to the dark shredding, Sunbather's movements are much more cohesive, giving a subtle element of winding shoegaze shimmering beneath it's surface. Throw in a couple of strategic, ambient droning pieces that could easily be mistaken for anything from Godspeed...You Black Emperor, and in it's entirety you have an epic, exciting, emotional and introspective journey into sound that has Black Metal elitists quivering in their bullet belts at the whiplashed cracks of Hipster heads turning a listening ear. Whether or not you can file this record and/or this band away as Black Metal is a whole 'nother discussion (and probably not one worth having), but there is one thing I am certain of - This album alone has the potential to send waves of imitators into the studio to pump the very vitality of it's essence from the veins of it's amniotic sac and into an ocean of diluted run-of-the-mill mediocrity. And when that begins to happen we musn't lose sight of how it once was, and who it was that honed it's craft best.<br />
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PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-42648983449775425372015-01-21T14:15:00.001-08:002015-01-21T14:37:37.139-08:00Guilty Pleasures (?): Nine "Nu-Metal" Albums I Own That Only Have A Little Bit Of Dust On Them<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the timeline of "metal" music and amongst all of the subsequent branches of subgenres that run parallel with it, Nu-Metal has become the Disco of it's age. Most traditionalists that never indulged are quick to turn their noses up at it, and many who did jump in looked back and cringed years later. There are all kinds of theories on the alchemy of genres and bands that assisted with it's spawning in the mid-90's, some going as far back as Aerosmith's 'Walk This Way' as the initial catalyst, others citing Anthrax's 'I'm The Man'. What most of those theorists fail to realize is that Nu-Metal is more than just the influx of a Hip Hop influence into the Groove Metal sound. In fact as I sat down to dish this out I realized that the lines are quite blurred when it comes to blue-printing the characteristics that identify this genre from the Alternative Metal sound that came after it and the more groove oriented thrash that was before.<br />
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Who gives an ass anyways right? Why the need to characterize things into genres like that anywho? Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' came out of nowhere overnight and buried Hair Metal faster than a rat in a Scorcese flick. The record companies scattered like a buckshot to the garages of Seattle and the West Coast and signed hundreds - if not thousands of bands that never stood a chance of being heard outside of their zip codes prior to Nevermind's release. The market was flooded with honest to goodness bands playing for the love of music, not for the fast lane life of booze, poon, pills and popularity. The guy working at your gas station could have been somebody's John Lennon. It was good ol' rock and roll, but because it hadn't been in the spotlight for damn near a decade it was labeled Grunge. It wasn't called Grunge in the 70's, with the likes of Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen up there just being honest with themselves and their audiences. I guess we just do it to segregate a group so they're easier to target. Whether we shower it with praise or piss, we do it with people, we do it with art, we do it with music. It's just a simpler way to make brash generalizations about something without giving forth the effort of finding it's individuality, and I'm guilty as hell of doing it too.<br />
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While the more groove orientated metal bands of the early 90's like Pantera, Prong and even Chaos-era Sepultura shared more with the honest to goodness music-first-everything-else-second values of "Grunge", their thrash-as-a-backseat hook-laden heaviness had a major impact on the up and commence of Nu - Metal. As did the emergence of bands like Biohazard and Rage Against The Machine, whose talent for meshing rap and heavy metal was still a very rare thing, thus making it wickedly fun, interesting and unabashedly awesome. Unfortunately most Nu-Metal bands also borrowed from the gimmicky fashion nonsense of Hair Metal, utilizing colored hair, rubber masks, piercings galore, and Hip Hop fashion as an added dose of theatricality and identity in their genre.<br />
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I have a soft spot for Nu-Metal, I was only 16 when it started to congeal itself into the heavy music scene so I was still foaming for anything accessible yet different in the metal genre. I had a foundation in the likes of bands like Slayer, Anthrax, and Testament, but a strong passion for the brazen and emotive heaviness of groups like Pantera, Face-palm-era Napalm Death, and Fear Factory. I was drawn to the emerging of Nu-Metal's fresh sound of drop-tuned seven string guitars, and the schizophrenic and emotionally purging scats of some of the genre's better frontmen. I even identified with and enjoyed the naked and in your face lyrics - why dress up the idea of hating a girl you want to bang in symbolism and innuendo when you could just fucking say 'I love you slut', that felt real to me - and as a painfully shy and introverted 16 year-old shut-in it was also very identifiable.<br />
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I never went ape shit about the whole thing to the point where I found myself pawning the likes of Methods of Mayhem albums 5 years later or anything like that, so I was still pretty selective about what I was buying (though I did recently come across an Ultraspank CD that I have no recollection of ever listening to let alone purchasing). What I think gets lost on most people who blush and back peddle when you find their Limp Bizkit collection in the back of the closet behind their yearbooks is that every genre only has a handful of really good bands in it, and the rest is just this ocean of shit or legion of lemmings you're sometimes forced to wade through. Black Metal, Death Metal, Thrash, Grindcore... To find a band like Discordance Axis you have to sometimes tolerate recockulousness like Prostitute Disfigurement and Throatplunger - not to mention the legions of clones that want to be the <em>next</em> Discordance Axis, like Noisear, Asterisk, and Vertigo Index. Manowar anyone?<br />
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Nu-Metal was a pit stop for me on the way to the niche of the more extreme ventures of sound I have found myself nuzzled in for the last decade or so. There are aspects of it that I enjoyed then that I look for in my music today - such as the multi-facets of a non-monosyllabic vocalist and the occasional sonic experimentation of noises as riffs. Not to mention the exploration of other emotions in the spectrum of the dark side of the human experience besides just anger and hate. I think there are a whole lot of elitists out there who aren't too honest with themselves or the people they look down on when it comes to flashing back to the latter half of the nineties and what they may or may not have indulged in at the time. So below is a little overview of some of the albums that were spat forth when Nu-Metal was the thick of it that I still come back to every now and then and still get my bud plumping - since I told you I never really went ape shit about the whole thing, I never delved too deep into the underworld of the genre to see what it had to offer, so most of them are the heavy hitters you'd expect. Now that I'm considering it I don't think I'd go so far as to call any of the following records guilty pleasures, as I openly believe they are each respectable in their own right and have no qualms about their appropriateness in anybody's collection. But it's probably <strong>not</strong> a conversation I'm going to start on the floor at next months Napalm Death / Exhumed show.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: yellow;">Korn - Korn</span></strong> <br />
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<strong><span style="color: yellow;">Korn - Life Is Peachy</span></strong><br />
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Korn is kind of tricky because they did their best work outside of the scene, meaning they kind of started the whole ball rolling. So while so many other bands were so impressed with Korn's sound, it still took them years to get their shit together and put something out that sounded exactly like them. In the meantime Korn had plenty of time to bask in the glow of being an insanely original concept in the metal world. So how can you consider them part of a movement that hadn't started yet? Because they unwittingly started it? To file these two albums as part of the same Nu-Metal scene that spawned the likes of Nonpoint and Powerman 5000 is flat out fucking wrong. Because there was no scene. They weren't riding any waves, they were making them. They were the quake that sent the Tsunami waters crashing into and flooding the land. People forget that unfortunately.<br />
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Close your eyes (actually wait till you're done reading this) and imagine a parallel universe where Korn never got popular. A world where 'A.D.I.D.A.S.' never caught on and Follow The Leader was never recorded. Where all we had were these two albums from this band and we never heard from them again. Living in that world would be aggravating, the wonder, the longing to know what just one more album from them would have ended up sounding like. Acid Bath's amazing blackened swamp blues/thrash never caught on, probably never would have, they left us two phenomenal albums and then disassembled, never to play together again. It fuckin' pisses me off, but those two albums - When The Kite String Pops and Pagan Terrorist Tactics - and the paradigm of what could have been, and what my imagination conceives it would have been, makes the aura of that band all the more great. That's what Korn should have been, and if that's what they had been nobody would have a problem with them. Horrible clones wouldn't have come oozing out of the musical woodwork in their wake watering down the genre until it was insipid and intolerable. They wouldn't have become cliche' fucking clowns of themselves in ridiculous attempts to stay both original and relevant. They simply would have been an insanely amazing stamp in the timeline of heavy music, having come and gone and left their respected mark.<br />
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On the album inserts they appeared as dirty, dreadlocked, abused meth-heads. Their music was dry and loose, so low you could hear the bass strings rattle and snare drum vibrate. The vocals were completely bent, ferocious, guttural one moment and then innocently quivering the next. Ranting, raving, crying and yelling about abusing yourself and being abused, drug paranoia, isolation, all between the occasional fit of incoherent schizophrenic gibberish. It was dark, and demented. I was 16 years old when I bought 'Korn', and I remember the off-putting feeling after having listened to the album in it's entirety for the first time in my room that night. From the first cymbal ride to the moment you hear the door hinge squeak at the end of 'Daddy', no record had ever made me feel that uncomfortable before, it seemed absolutely genuine in it's delivery - and I listened to it again. I'd never heard anything like it. <br />
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Even 'Life Is Peachy', which sounds more like a bunch of B-sides that didn't make the cut on the band's debut than an actual body of work in and of itself, still has a dark genuineness to it that when compared to the rest of the band's later discography was often duplicated but never replicated. Get rid of 'Low Rider', 'Wicked', and arguably maybe even <a href="mailto:'K@#0%!'">'<a href="mailto:'K@#0%">K@#0%</a>!' (despite that fantastic riff) and you have another original and dizzying trip into the dark funk of drug induced dementia. </a><br />
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But it unfortunately didn't end there, and we all know how it turned out after that. On later album inserts they would appear in their eyeliner and sponsored Puma get ups, tough guy posturing for the camera, maybe an occasional Calvin Klein ad. Kilts, MTV Cribs, specially designed microphones, rap star cameos, porn star wives, finding Jesus, dub step...oy veh. I listen to a lot of really off-the-wall heavy shit, and I still think that 'Korn' is both sonically and thematically one of THE heaviest records out there. These guys did something real that hadn't been done before (a co-worker of mine at the time who claimed to once live near Bakersfield and once smoked a tampon in front of me told me that Coal Chamber actually pioneered the sound first, but that claim still remains unrequited to this day), and at the time I'd have bet my secret stash of Victoria Secret catalogues that it would have never caught on the way it had, let alone ripple through the metal community the way it did and influence damn near the entire genre - it was just too different for people to grasp and way too inaccessible. But while I HATE the fact they broke out and it all went down the way it did, I do admire the populous that flocked to it the way they did. I was happy to see that there were more fucked up kids out there like me foaming at the mouth for something to push the boundaries at the time.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: yellow;">Deftones - Around The Fur</span></strong><br />
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I almost wasn't going to put this on here because truthfully I don't throw this on all that often these days. In my opinion Deftones are one of the most exciting bands out there and they just keep getting better with each release. It's awesome to see a band change their sound so gradually and so gracefully, so much so that they've shed damn near all of the stigma that most people place on the roots of where their sound came from. But in a yang to the ying that is Korn, Deftones' later catalogue makes their early work sound all the more mediocre to me. Maybe mediocre is a horrible word to use, because you can't deny the unique sound this band has had since day fuckin' one, and 'Around The Fur' still holds water today. The crooning, the lyrics, that meat-cutter riffing with a staggering organic beat - nobody else really sounds or sounded like them.<br />
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I wore this CD out when it was released. I dug 'Adrenaline' when it came out, but the lack of bottom end in the production <strong>at the time</strong> (I ain't like that anymore) left so much to be desired for me. I probably may not have even bothered picking up 'Around The Fur' when it came out if it wasn't for me absolutely loving the sound and more unhinged direction they were heading in on the track 'Teething', which appeared on the Crow 2 soundtrack damn near a year and a half before 'Around The Fur' was released. Needless to say the album didn't disappoint. <br />
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With a penchant for pummeling the listener before soaring with them through the open air, a sonic trait they continue to hone in on and masterfully improve with each new release, Deftones always make you wonder what's going to come next. From the pensive release of 'My Own Summer', to the dirty dark summer-in-a-basement sounds of 'Mascara', to the uninhibited open road ahead of 'Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)' to the bouncy fuck-you-upness of 'Head Up' - 'Around The Fur' runs the gamut and feels vibrantly chromatic in it's experience. Even the hidden track 'Damen' is arguably the best thing on the album, and yet buried in the aftermath making it such a pain in the ass to get to. Yeah, this record was an arrow splitting the arrow of things to come.<br />
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I didn't put any of their other albums on the list because I really don't feel like they have any other links to the Nu-Metal genre, not even sure this record should be tied in with it, but since it is so close to 'Adrenaline's rant/rap fueled poop storm of dissonant So Cal punk/funk metal I figured maybe most would look at it that way - not that it's a red 'A' on a band's history or anything like that, I just appreciate a shedding of the skin when it happens successfully. 'White Pony' was enough of a departure from their peers for me to realize that what they've been doing since then is a genre that's yet to be stamped. Evolution done right.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: yellow;">System Of A Down - System Of A Down</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="color: yellow;">System Of A Down - Toxicity</span></strong><br />
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By 1998, Nu-Metal - comprised mostly of it's generically titled subgenres 'Rap Metal' and 'Alternative Metal' (eye rolling and apologies for the ridiculousness of the genre profiling here) was charging forward full steam ahead as a whole goddamn scene in itself. And per se, I was ready for something new, different, and a tad more off-the-wall / boundary leaning. System Of A Down's self-titled debut couldn't have come out at a better time. This was some exciting shit. It was like somebody mainlined spaz juice into an ADD riddled Rage Against The Machine with the shock collars over-charged and malfunctioning. Don't agree with that comparison? Both spatter forth intelligent and researched testimonies about the atrocities of current global policies and the conspired wars and big business profiteering that comes in the end result of human suffering. Both deliver these in palpably pissed off sermons behind music that is wildly successful in both it's function as the messenger as well as it's undeniable ability to make you want to fucking move. And both transcended what were established modern traditionalist ideas in the often near-sighted genre of heavy metal in which their sound is based. Even their names, bra - Rage Against The Machine? System Of A Down? Damn the man...<br />
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I'm not even sure if SOAD can be filed away as an offspring of Nu-Metal or not, but the scene's momentum at the time more than likely was a huge catalyst to their popularity. Their debut was a wickedly clever and infectious hail storm of bouncy thrash-tastic rhythms and heavy-as-a-really-heavy thing riffs on top of a subtle classical Armenian musical influence. Lead vocalist Serj Tankian sounded crazier than a shit-house rat, singing, screaming, grunting, whining - and he looked the part too. And the performances on both 'System Of A Down' and 'Toxicity' are razor sharp, with just enough slop here and there to make it truly feel organic, a testament to the talent of each individual in the group. Only recently did I put the pieces together and realize that these guys were an obvious step for me in the direction of bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan, Car Bomb, and Botch.<br />
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Every song has it's own character in these first two records. It's unfortunate how mainstream media beat the song 'Chop Suey' to absolute death and then defiled it's corpse over and over again. Cause it's a great song, and is arguably the best track to really showcase everything this band does so well, probably the exact reason it happened I guess. I need to go back and give the albums that came after these two another listen, unfortunately for me, from what I've heard there's just too much of that whiney little shit-stick guitarists voice up in the mix on all of the melodic parts, it tends to get like nails on a chalkboard pretty quickly, but maybe that's just me. And live that guy is as annoying as anal leakage, too much 'look at me I'm crazy!!!' posturing - but I suppose there's just too much of that in all of heavy metal and it's off-shoots. <br />
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I also think that by the third and fourth album, 'Hypnotize' and 'Mesmerize' (or is it just one double album released separately at different times?) their formula started to become somewhat predictable(though admit I never gave them much of a shot when they were released).... Which isn't always a bad thing, wasn't I the one wishing Korn would have just kept pumping shit out like their first album? I don't have a problem with that though, if you've got something so cleverly original, and you're by leaps and bounds the best at doing what it is you do, so much so that nobody else could even gets close enough to rip you off somewhat obviously (I personally don't know of any groups off the top of my head that blatantly sound similar to SOAD) - then keep on truckin' you crazy Armenian bastards...<br />
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<strong><span style="color: yellow;">Slipknot - Iowa</span></strong><br />
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When Slipknot made their major label debut I didn't stand a chance of turning my nose up at them, even with those ridiculously gimmicky costumes. They were like this stitched together PCP addled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rewLjr7VY4o">Frankenhooker</a> of so much of the music that had helped mold me in my formative teen years. The speed of Slayer, Sepultura's percussive rhythms, the brazen and against the grain 'Fuck You' attitude and groove of Pantera, Fear Factory's (played-out) soaring good cop to bad cop singing, all down-tuned to the key of Korn, with their emotionally writhing stigma to boot as well as their penchant for turning random guitar squeals into twisted riffs. You'd think that in theory that sound wouldn't work, that it would turn out like a big budget superhero movie where the studio tries to cram 6 villains with 6 different storylines into a 2 hour stretch, not the case. Slipknot flaunted a speed and danger that was noticeably absent from other fresh faces in the genre. The debut was a cathartic purging of visceral angst, but the occasional rapping and too occasional record scratching only served as slightly misplaced cartoonish reminders to maybe not take this band too seriously. By 1999 those characteristics in metal music were already way played-the-fuck-out.<br />
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In 2001 the band released it's sophomore major label release simply (and awesomely) titled 'Iowa', and this fucker ripped. The aforementioned played-out qualities were dialed down severely, their DJ now playing more the role of a noise man. Slipknot took all of the other characteristics of the debut and doubled down, layered them - bigger, louder, thicker, more pissed off. The fast songs occasionally push past Death Metal levels and flirt with blast beats, admirable traits to inject into your music for a mainstream band on their second album flirting with serious success. I think that may be one of the reasons I dig 'Iowa' as much as I do, there are only a handful of groups I can think of who actually made an effort to be heavier while they were basking in the lime light, 'Iowa' was an example of this.<br />
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True, some of the lyrics can be eye-rollingly sophomoric, especially with the use of profanity as syllabic filler, but on some level - if you're willing - you can get past it by simply assuming it's a another representation of getting frustration across even in the frustration of not finding the right words. And they are still wearing those fucking costumes. But this record is passionate, and it feels passionate. Maybe it's just one of those albums that came along at just the right time for me.<br />
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'Iowa' was released after Nu-Metal had already had it's hey-day, so maybe it's not fair to put it on this list. It really is an excellent straight-up metal album. It's unfortunate that so many of the traditionalist Slayer and Vulgar-Display-of-Power strokes were so quick to shun these guys when they came out and never gave this record a chance. I mean, I know the costumes don't make it any easier, but I'll put myself out there and say that as far as straight up between-the-lines heavy metal/thrash albums go, I'd put this sucker in the late middle to end of the same list that starts with Sepultura's 'Arise', Pantera's 'Far Beyond Driven' and half of Slayer's discography. It's a beast. Except for 'I Am Hated' - that song fucking sucks, doesn't belong, it's a B-side and it weighs the album down.<br />
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The whole album is an amalgam of constant tension-to-release, and the intro, '515' does a great job of setting that tone. Sometimes it's so small you don't notice that it happened, there are about 5 or 6 purges throughout 'Disasterpiece', sometimes it's god-size, like the entire track 'Skin Ticket' or 'Gently'. Slipknot have always been amazing at the burn in some of those slower, more pensive and seemingly directionless pieces. Listening to the record from front to back is like being balled up in a giant closing fist, exhuming every last ounce of energy and strength to keep it from crushing you - until 'Metabolic' winds to a close and the hand opens...and you lay there exhausted - the title track 'Iowa' is your post-coital strychnine-laced cigarette celebrating your survival. The album itself, from start to finish, is a purging and within it are separate purges of synapses you never even realized had the ammunition to still fire. <br />
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'Iowa' is a fierce, passionate, and strangely primitive feeling record, a credit I give to the additional percussive elements they infuse. It's not tribal in the traditional sense of that word in metal, as when describing a really shitty Max Cavalera side project, but it's tribal by it's original definition, as in that there is a solidarity there. Except for a few flaws, and a major one being 'I Am Hated ' (that song fucking sucks, doesn't belong, it's a B-side and it weighs the album down), this is damn near a perfect metal record for me. The songs, the vibe, the title of the record, the way the band actually got more extreme as they were getting more popular, the infusion of taboo genres in mainstream metal like Death and Grind, even the awesomely simple and cryptic cover of a goat utilized as the album's artwork. 'Iowa' to this day is a force to be reckoned with. Everything this band did after this just felt.....safe. And those stupid fucking costumes....<br />
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<strong><span style="color: yellow;">Nothingface - Pacifier</span></strong><br />
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In his sixth year of college my brother DJ'd a late night Heavy Metal radio show for the campus station in the duodenum of Illinois. That little gig exposed us to some really cool shit at the time through promotional CD's and of course the stock that was already there at the station, mind you this was long before digital tracks and not too long before the internet really took off. This is how I came across Nothingface, and probably the only reason I ever came across them at all.<br />
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It was still pretty early in the Nu-Metal game, all things considered - I had the first two Korn albums and Deftones' 'Adrenaline' and that was pretty much it from that scene. When I came upon Nothingface's 'Pacifier' it was the absolute beginning of the crest of the wave of the Nu-Metal horde that had been well on the way for the last year or so. In the few weeks to months after 'Pacifier' was officially released debut albums from Coal Chamber, Limp Bizkit, Snot and a very rappy Incubus all hit the shelves along with Deftones' 'Around The Fur'. Big business was starting to pay attention. I think that because of the lack of personal over-saturation at the time, Nothingface sounded really fresh and exciting to me, and to be honest, if they hadn't gotten to me then I'd probably have never given it a chance after that influx of the first tier of the budding genre.<br />
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I can't stand here and tell you that the album is ground breaking, because it's not, but the heavy influence of both the Nu-Metal genre and the more groove-oriented metal of the early to mid-nineties is portrayed pretty well here. The Korn envy plays a bit strong, with everything from the cover of the album, the lyrics, about half of the vocal performance, this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgc2Lv8K-6o">video</a>, and most of the riffs. But there is a brazenness to it as well, a more testosterone fueled light-on-the-Far Beyond Driven quality if you will. For me personally, and this feels spot on - always has - Nothingface sounds like early Slipknot if early Slipknot only had four guys - and by that I mean a vocalist, a guitarist, a bassist and one drummer. It's basic and stripped down with very little studio magic, but the sound and delivery is uncannily similar. The production on 'Pacifier' by todays standards is dated, and probably pretty far from top-notch back in 1997 - but I'll tell you what, I threw this record on for the first time in quite some time the other day and it still got my fists all pent up into little balls. <br />
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Vocalist Matt Holt has a pretty identifiable voice and when he's all riled up it comes across pretty effortlessly, which you can take as either good or bad, but for me that lack of palpable strain sometimes feels damn near like phoning it in believe it or not. I feel like even when the vessels in his eyes should be popping and the veins in his neck protruding it just sounds like he can't get past the green into the red, or at least never tries. But never-the-less there are some emotional moments (at least for an 18 year old) on 'Pacifier' that you never really hear coming on first listen, that are still engrained in me to provoke an appropriate reaction all these years later - the last minute and ten seconds of 'Lipsdick' is still one of the most punch-yourself-in-the-face-over-and-over-again moments in all of the genre.<br />
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Is it better than Slipknot's 'Vol. 3' or even something like Korn's 'Issues'? I can't sit here and tell you that you'll think it is, so then why is 'Pacifier' on my list and those albums not? I'll be honest, there is a lot of nostalgia to this record for me, I used to listen to it a whole bunch when it came out and I was flying the flag for these bros pretty aggressively upon it's release. Maybe I still come back to it because nobody else that I knew of at the time was listening to it, so it never got overhyped or overplayed when the genre was it's most saturated. Or maybe it just felt honest, like they got it out just ahead of the herd enough to come across as a genuine effort in making a genuine album.<br />
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Their next two records, 'An Audio Guide To Everyday Atrocity' and 'Violence' are basically the same blueprint and sound, but I never enjoyed them as much as I did 'Pacifier'. Probably because by then Slipknot had hit the scene and gave me that fix with a bit more to it. Though I will admit that their final album 'Skeletons' is arguably the best thing they've done if you're coming into it cold. Well written with good production, and some of the most dynamic stuff they put on record, but with twice as much melody than previous efforts it's closer to the likes of Staind than any of their original influences (maybe a bit of a stretch there but you get the point).<br />
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<strong><span style="color: yellow;">Mudvayne - L.D.50</span></strong><br />
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Korn already had 4 albums out by the time Mudvayne's debut full length was released, so the shit was getting thick by then, and the sound of the genre was beginning to evolve (in a really shitty way). That being said, Mudvayne's first single "Dig" still turned my head pretty hard. With a driving heaviness and creative riffs, not to mention an occasional flirtation with funk buried deep within the tantrums of unpredictable time changes and ugly melody, Mudvayne found themselves a cozy little niche somewhere between the likes of Korn's downtuned groove and Slipknot's toying with speed influence. <br />
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But alas, these jerks went the route of gimmicky make-up and costumes along with ridiculous stage names to help get noticed. Which works if you're going to play that angle up in your music I suppose, like GWAR, but doesn't if it's an obvious ploy to separate yourselves from the pack without the confidence of just your music to do it. Still however, the songs were good enough to get me to listen, and still tune in from time to time as I really think Mudvayne had a thing going on here kind of all there own within the genre to a lesser degree. Singer Chad Grey's voice really didn't turn on and off the way most vocalists in the genre would switch good cop to bad cop in their singing then screaming dynamic. His voice kind of fluctuated from screaming to screaming melodically occasionally idling down to a grainy kind of singing but the change in style was barely noticeable until the whole thing was over. And the music accentuated that ability fantastically.<br />
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L.D.50's songs twist through the gauntlet showcasing a technicality within the musicianship that I hadn't heard from other bands emerging in the scene. Could this be, Progressive Nu-Metal?! The 1-2-3-4-5-6 punch of the first half of this album - from 'Dig' to 'Nothing To Gein' (dissolving the intro and interlude into the attack) - is unrivaled by any of their peers' efforts including the albums on this list except for 'Iowa' (I'd argue 'Korn''s 'Faget' as a fracture in the fault). In fact I've probably listened to the first half of this album more in recent years than any of the records that I own within the genre. L.D.50 kicks balls like an unhinged Asian woman flailing in a feeding frenzy. And it's in touch with it's pulpy side as well, occasionally breaking the song in half to press the warm moist innards of a dark ballad against the skin that always loses itself back to the primal nature of it's being before it unfurls completely, a common trait amongst the bands on this list but Mudvayne seem more successful than most in adding a layer of ferocity to the ferocious parts.<br />
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My big complaint is that the album is too long. At almost 70 minutes it wares you down if you're invested in it the way you should be, and if you're not then you're just not getting it. By the time I reach the final third of the album I've pretty much tuned out because it's all starting to sound the same (says the guy who owns the entire <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FqUJF_galE&list=PL07C70BB65323301B">Nasum</a> discography). I think they could've chopped those last 5 or 6 songs off of the end and put out a real nail to the lobe if they wanted to. Fine tuned those last less memorable tracks and put out a whole 'nother album. Even when I start the record half-way through to give the latter end it's due properly those songs just don't stick to the ribs. <br />
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Though I don't dig it as much, I enjoy Mudvayne's second album 'The End Of All Things To Come' as well. They made a conscious effort to do something different and it actually kind of worked for them a little bit. Though it does sound a bit more conventional and dare I say accessible, it's sonically unique in it's guitar tones and definitely stands out of the crowd. Later efforts were a bit more mediocre from my brief perusing. The singer joined a band with the guitarist and bassist of Nothingface and Pantera skins-man Vinnie Paul called Hellyeah. Sounds like it should tear right through the skin and be amazing doesn't it? It's not. Steaming pile of shit.<br />
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<span style="color: yellow;">Staind - Dysfunction</span><br />
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I've never really considered these guys part of the Nu-Metal scene. There was that surge of rock that happened just after it's pinnacle that was really inspired by the "Grunge" and Alternative Rock of the mid-90's. Creed trying to sound like Pearl Jam. Staind trying to sound like Alice In Chains. Puddle Of Mudd trying to sound like the rest. I guess there were some traits that were similar between those really blurred lines that I never really deciphered of what made Nu-Metal what it was, but for the most part it felt more like a moving of what passed for Modern Hard Rock those days up to the forefront of the airwaves. Staind was "discovered" by Fred Durst, and on the Limp Bizkit front man's label at the time Dysfunction was put out, he also appeared on the live version of the song that broke them into the mainstream and even more-so the Adult Contemporary stations. They also toured on THE quintessential tour for bands within the Nu-Metal genre, playing alongside Korn, Limp Bizkit, DMX and Filter. And they also did this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcfSAXksePc">cover</a>.... So I guess just to not leave anyone out and cover my own bases I'll add them to the list because I can see where stones may be thrown, and I'm in the blur again.<br />
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Dysfunction was a great album. A very drab yet emotional balancing act between a permeating sadness and a bitter volatility at said sadness that actually felt fresh and genuine upon the record's release. This one touched a nerve for me, and the aforementioned pendulum of emotion made the record feel like more than just another venture into the superficiality of being pissed off, it kind of cut deeper than that in it's song structure and delivery. Being the first of it's kind in a new emergence of an old sound and evolving down a different linear path than it's ancestors in the mid to late 90's made it all the more enjoyable - I mean, er - all the more absorbable in it's sulk.<br />
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The softer side of this group was the highlight, and - if comparing them to the likes of the rest of the bands on this list - it was also a characteristic that didn't feel forced or unfortunately alien in it's palette. These guys sounded like they were genuinely stuck in the fucking muck, and it was great. The resurgence of traits of a sound that had burnt out from the populous over a decade ago was great to hear stretched over a sharper, more jagged edge. This album hinted at the budding of a band inspired by one of the greatest albums to come washing ashore in the flood of the 90's Grunge Rock tsunami: Alice In Chains' 'Dirt'. Unfortunately as is par for the course, the legions of lemmings playing melodic hard-sap-rock spread through the industry like an oil spill in a river, and the oversaturation became unbearable and embarrassing in just a few short years. <br />
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I actually bought two copies of Dysfunction when it was released in 1999, one for myself and one to borrow out to people because they "had to hear it" (I hadn't figured out how to burn CD's yet). People seem to misunderstand that the band's second major label release (The album before Dysfunction called 'Torment' was never distributed to a wider market and leaned a whole lot more to the heavier aspect of their sound) 'Break The Cycle' was actually written and 'in the can' when the band got huuuuuge from the release of the track '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc3Za3jfvJg">Outside</a>', which appeared as a previously never-heard song performed live as a duet with Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst on the Family Values CD. So contrary to what most may think, the popularity and success that came after 'Outside' infected radio play had no effect on that second record, which can be heard from the retention of their abrasiveness in some of the songs, a characteristic that was glaringly absent in a majority of later releases that contained shit that was written just to get on the radio and make money, but we'll talk about that another time. <br />
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The involvement of Fred Durst with Staind was the passing of the baton of unoriginal cringe-worthy garbage. Not necessarily in Staind (yet), but in the spotlight of what the people who listen to the radio, and more importantly the same people that had been following what the bands on The Family Values Tour were doing, would listen to next. 'Outside' is no better than the hidden track 'Excess Baggage' - which appears at the end of Dysfunction, but the casual music fans who need to be spoon fed the songs they like hadn't found it yet - it needed to be wrapped up and given to them by a familiar face. Gratuitous self-marketing at it's finest. 'Outside' only set the stage for the unfortunately stellar 'It's Been A While', which became the last shovel-load of dirt on the coffin of the Staind I really enjoyed and identified with. While it is indeed a great song, thus fortifying the band's destiny as a soon-to-be stadium act, it germinated in it's popularity from Modern Rock Stations to The Lite FM, and lost all of it's power in the ridiculousness of just how much that song was played everywhere. I'm just thankful we got Dysfunction before the demons started living in mansions and driving Ferraris.<br />
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PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-89382191113397139372015-01-15T11:49:00.000-08:002015-01-15T11:49:01.901-08:00Book Review: Compiling Autumn - Making Discordance Axis' 'The Inalienable Dreamless' by Andrew Childers<br />
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According to Andrew Childers, grindcore aficianado and master-mind of the acclaimed pack-leading blog <a href="http://grindandpunishment.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Grind and Punishment</span></a>, he was approached by the now defunct Discordance Axis vocalist Jon Chang to pen a short book about the creation of the band's classic benchmark album 'The Inalienable Dreamless'. Per Mr. Childers, Chang offered to financially back the project and the band supported it by contributing their points of view to the fevered sessions that would unforseeably redefine the grindcore genre years after it's initial release on <a href="http://hydrahead.com/"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Hydra Head</span></a> records. Six months later, we have the novella 'Compiling Autumn: Making Discordance Axis' The Inalienable Dreamless'.<br /> The bottom line here is that 36 published pages about this album is 36 published pages more than I thought I'd ever see in my lifetime. It was Boner City in Grindville when <a href="http://www.decibelmagazine.com/"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Decibel Magazine</span></a> did a 6 page spread on the album as it's 'Hall Of Fame' entry for the March 2009 Grindcore Issue (a special issue that I'm pushing should happen every time Napalm Death releases a studio album, am I the only one sick of hearing about how great Mastodon and Skeletonwitch are?). So this thing could have been written by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbYZ2HT9pPk"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Sloth and Chunk</span></a> and I'd still shell out the measly $8 that they were actually apologizing for charging for it. And the cherry on top of the whole thing is that 100% of the book's profits are going to the <a href="http://www.jrc.or.jp/english/relief/l4/Vcms4_00002070.html"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Tsunami Relief Fund for Japan</span></a>. Now just take a moment to think about that would you please? Chang could've used the cash to fund his current blur-grind hybrid outfit Gridlink, or even bought a fishing net full of sci-fi Anime and underground Hentai DVD's, but instead he opted to go the route of helping support relief for the country that he's proclaimed has inspired him through most of his creative career. Any fan would be a fool not to buy this book on that merit alone.<br /> The book is expectedly well written and offers previously unheard insight into the creation of the landmark album, including interviews with first time producer Jon D'Uva and co-owner of Hydra Head Records Aaron Turner, not to mention band members Dave Witte, Jon Chang, and Rob Marton as well as testimonials from peers in the genre. Everything from the writing process, lyrical and thematic inspiration, recording techniques, and even a bit of the origin of DA are all covered in this satisfyingly short, written documentary. <br /> There are moments throughout the book that touch on how the band's first album, 'Ulterior', came to be - inspired by what Chang imagined the album after Napalm Death's 'From Enslavement To Obliteration' <em>should </em>have sounded like. When the author occasionally dips into the early years of the band I kept expecting to hear about the influence that Anal Cunt had on the group's sound (as was touched upon in the aforementioned Decibel article). It was at these moments where I had to remind myself that I wasn't reading a biography on the group and how they came to be, but a book more on the pinnacle of their all-too-short career and eventually how they came to be no longer.<br /> Upon hearing about the book and it's release I pathetically retrograted into the 16 year old fan boy that I used to be about bands and music nobody else really thought mattered. The fact that Chang came up with the idea to do this and funded it himself shows an artist's excitement in his own work that fans of that person and his creativity absolutely love to benefit from. Especially in a genre that is so limited in the merchandise they can offer, because it just ain't popular enough to really turn a profit (I've still got an empty space on the wall in my garage waiting for a Pig Destroyer poster to one day be produced). Kudos to the band and everyone that gave their input to make the book that much more intimate, and golf claps to Andrew for taking the time and putting on the pads to shoulder a project like this delegated to him from a figure that is quickly becoming a Godfather in the scene. If it's still available, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Compiling-Autumn-Discordance-Inalienable-Dreamless/dp/1468110322/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327579850&sr=8-1"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Buy it.</span></a>PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-59837045908230729682015-01-10T13:08:00.001-08:002015-01-10T13:15:36.418-08:00Dead and Loving It: Mindrot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Mindrot was one of the biggest gateway bands for me into the more extreme realms of heavy music, so it's difficult for me to differentiate whether these guys really were as good as I think or I'm just wickedly biased based on both their influence on me as well as my admitted lack of this kind of Death/Doom hybrid material in my own collection. For me, listening to Mindrot is an intensely cathartic happening as I feel they do an amazing job of conveying every negative emotion in the darker side of the human experience, as is the modus operandi for most bands in this genre, but maybe these guys hold a special place in the icy recesses of my heart because they just got to me first. In fact, in the search to fill the void left by their dismemberment in the late 90's I stumbled across a number of bands I still listen to and enjoy to this day including both Nile and Opeth, and while the elitists will shake their fingers at me in disgust as these bands seemingly hold nothing in common with Mindrot, I have no argument but being a slave to the tingly sensation my brain gets when it's exposed to intelligently epic and emotional songs played in the key of DESTROY.<br />
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And speaking of epic, Mindrot sounds it, which is astonishing to me given both the fact that these guys seemed a permanent fixture under the radar even in the underground scene (so where is the budget coming from?) as well as how well it holds up sonically today. I mean, there are parts of Mindrot's 1995 debut 'Dawning' as well as their (only) 1998 follow-up 'Soul' that sound as magnanimous as some of Behemoth's recent releases. A testament to producer Jim Barnes. But as my 6'8" primate of a boss Mark Angellotti would say back in my glory days of working at the local pool, 'you can't make chicken soup out of chicken shit', and it was the writing, dynamics, and palpable emotion in the music that was the weight that pulled you into the abyss. The gutteral, grinding bass and monolithic wall of guitars is leveling. Throated growls piercing the wall of sound then breaking away into the quiet anguish of strummed clean chords and vocal despair, a dark beauty looming underneath it all, occasionally audible when the chaos breaks like the new rays of a dawning sun through winter clouds. I still get lost in and find myself welling up to the title track (and greatest intro to any album EVER) of their debut record 'Dawning'. Lord knows how many mix tapes I opened with that fucker between 1995 and 2008. Yeah, I was still making mix tapes in 2008 - hence my need to identify with despair in my music.<br />
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Mindrot released a few demos, an EP, and two full lengths before they all went their separate ways and began separate projects. Lead vocalist Adrian Leroux went on to do a short-lived project called Nascent and then sang on a Morgion album while percussionist Evan Killbourne became the drummer for Save Ferris. Guitarist Dan Kaufmann and bassist Matt Fischer went on to form Eyes Of Fire, which is truly the only project to feel like it rose out of the ashes of the incarnation that was Mindrot. Much like Bloodsimple came out of Vision Of Disorder or Jesu from Godflesh - Eyes Of Fire toted a similar sonic palette in slightly more accessible song structures, while the anger, sadness and despair were all still present some songs had a lingering undertone of hope weaving in and out of them. The most notable song for me being 'Home', which was released as a limited edition bonus CD on the group's sophomore album 'Prisons', a near 25 minute boil-over that start to finish could be likened to the sonic representation of a building being burnt to the ground, from incendiary flames to the raging inferno to the ashes of the end - a simple yet stunning piece I'd recommend closing your eyes to and letting it take you where it may. Unfortunately for me, though more than decent in it's own right, Eyes Of Fire's body of work still failed to reach the bar set by the two records Mindrot released.<br />
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So whether or not the die hard Winter and Evoken and Katatonia fans will agree with the merits I praise Mindrot with in their overall style of music, I still feel like they are a band worth knowing about that may have easily passed you by if you weren't looking for it or stumbled upon it the way I did. So next time you're feeling underneath it all go give it a listen, somewhere you can punch a tree or lay down and cry where nobody will see you. Or else you may find yourself all wrapped up in it and wiping tears of self-hatred and guilt from your face at the fitness center just as that hot girl you never stood a chance with comes walking in and gives you that look before quickly looking away.. "WHO YOU CALLIN' A PSYCHO?!!!"<br />
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Here are five of my faves from the aforementioned albums above:<br />
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PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-63951091586041602632015-01-09T22:32:00.001-08:002015-01-10T14:27:38.239-08:00Whose Band Is It Anyway? (The Worlds Longest and Most Inane Precursor to an Alice In Chains Review) / Album Review: 'The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So, whose fuckin’ band is it anyways? That’s the question that has haunted me for years, and I’m not talking Layne Staley vs. Jerry Cantrell or any of that nonsense either (the answer is obvious by the way – but we’ll get into that later), I’m talking the bigger picture. In the last few years – just to cite some recent examples – there have been a few groups who have drastically changed their style and song writing from a sound they’ve been cemented in for years in just one album’s time. No slow musical evolution as a precursor or warning, (not-so) simply a band trying something different. Some fans are open to it, some just absolutely aren’t. <br />
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Cryptopsy drew the curtain a technically impressive, menacing and most importantly – interesting – Death Metal group, and opened it with The Unspoken King as a metal-core act with keyboards and (gasp) clean vocals! Fans bummed hard. Morbid Angel went to the sleep over as an extreme metal outfit whose riffs and signature sound was so fast and so creative that it sometimes morphed itself beyond the trappings of it’s traditional instruments and almost became something droning, beautiful and ambient in it’s buzz. They came home the next morning with electro-ridden dance beats and techno dirges infused in their music on the latest offering Illud Divinium Insanus. <br />
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Opeth offered hints and musings with what they liked to dabble in, probably the most obvious with where it may go as songs became more raindrops on spider webs than black rain breaking down kingdoms as albums progressed. But the band’s latest offering, ‘Heritage’ was all progressive and zero pummeling, no Deliverance to it’s Damnation was ever offered. Fans bummed hard – again. So again I ask the question, whose band is it? While an artist by every right should have the artistic freedom to do what they want with their music, most would never have the opportunity to execute it the way they envision without the previous years of financial support from the fans who were very pleased with the product they’ve been putting out. So essentially, Mikael Akerfeldt, who is the main songwriter for Opeth, figuratively made a record HE wanted to make with people who paid him to put out a record THEY wanted to hear but never got. It’s like paying a Porsche factory $100,000 to make you a Porsche – you wait years to get it and when it finally comes pulling onto your street it’s a Volkswagon. “Well we always make Porsches, we wanted to try something different, here ya go”. Some people drive it and find that it handles better than the Porsche, some people refuse to set foot in the fucking thing, some people figure they spent the money so they learn to like it, and some people just trust anything the Porsche factory is going to spit out. <br />
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Or is it the artist’s right to do what he wants when he wants however he wants it to sound, and it’s going to happen whether we like it or not – take it or leave it. If it sucks we stop buying the albums, if it’s good then everyone wins. They put it out there and we either take it or leave it – a real artist doesn’t give a shit. I loved ‘Heritage’, it’s moments like that album that make me happy that some musicians take chances. I actually respect Morbid Angel for doing what they did with Illud Divinium Insanus – they rolled the dice and took the genre of the extreme and tried to show it’s audience a different aspect of it – that extremity isn’t just fast guitars, growling and blurred blast beats. Unfortunately it reeks more of honeymooning in a phase of fan boy nonsense with a different genre of music than it does as a logical step in the direction that band has always been heading before. Like Korn’s “Path Of Totality” – Wow, I’m happy you twats discovered Dub Step and think it’s fuckin’ cool, but show some fuckin’ restraint would you? Are you that egomaniacal to think that the people that still listen to your music are going to think something is bad-ass just because you do? Well, I guess if you’re still buying Korn albums this long after ‘Issues’ than you may be one of those sheep. It’s like getting shitfaced and pissed off and then posting something on Facebook – save it as a draft and come back to it the next day for Christ sake. You’ll be glad you never hit send. I think Korn and Morbid Angel hit send a bit too soon and now have to not only live with the results, but defend them as well. <br />
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The more mainstream you are the easier it is to pull off – from a fan acceptance standpoint – trying to convince a record label that you’re switching from a formula that’s raked in millions of dollars for them just to bate your brand new affection for Euro-Trance may be a tougher sell, but I guess that’s what contracts are for. Pop music is a steak – season it anyway you want, when you throw it to most dogs they’re gonna eat the fuckin’ thing because it tastes good to them. Casual music listeners who own an entire catalog of a band they enjoy because it’s pleasing to their ears don’t always argue semantics with this kind of thing. Coldplay and Metallica have more money than Guam, so their art form ain’t exactly their lifesblood. Ship a few hundred thousand less because you want to change the foundation of your music into the hottest trend of Dance-Club audios or a more accessible form of alternative rock and the chances are good you’ll make up the difference of the fans you lost with fans you gained by being that much more in the limelight and in tuned with what’s currently selling. The more popular you are, the more ‘die-hards’ you’ll have convincing themselves that the musical turd you just shot out of your ass is just as amazing as anything else you’ve done. But it’s all at the cost of your own integrity – when does it stop becoming an expression and start becoming lifestyle maintenance? Pump out that album and tweak it to the latest pop music trend so you can get that little palace in St. Lucia. The guy cooking your steaks at Outback Steakhouse isn’t all that concerned about making the world’s most delicious steak – he’s just trying to make it through the day cause he’s either got bills to pay or a new Ipad to buy.<br />
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While I understand both sides of the argument, I also think it ain’t your fuckin’ band. Everyone obviously has something to say – and people actually want to hear it, even if it’s about something as personal and subjective as art. The artist should be able to do whatever they want, if I don’t like it I’ll shit on it and move on, people reading what I have to say can roll their eyes and move on. I’d like to say that bad art will take care of itself, people won’t be interested and the artists funds and exposure will dry up – but in the modern music scene it kind of seems to be the opposite doesn’t it? Stone Temple Pilots announced that they shit-canned their long-time crooner Scott Weiland a few months ago, then just recently replaced him with that walking penile wart Chester Bennington from Linkin Park (speaking of bad art…). Fans are bumming hard. Weiland had a trademark voice for that group, instantly recognizable, and honestly it wasn’t until he started really getting involved in the song writing process for STP on ‘Tiny Music…’ that their music stepped out of the shadows of Pearl Jam clones and into something a bit more original and eclectic. From floor shaking alt-sludge, to feel good lounge rock, to uplifting grunge balladry – you really couldn’t predict what was coming next with those last four STP albums with Weiland helping along at the helm, even if they were borrowing heavily from other influences, it was pulling from a source other groups in the genre weren’t – and it made you forget that they were a 90’s “grunge” band from L.A.<br />
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But here’s the thing, I really wish the rest of the band (AKA the DeLeo brothers) would have either gone with a nobody to fill Weiland’s role or gone back to somebody they’ve already collaborated with the last time an STP album was just about in the can but they couldn’t get Scott to pull the needle out of his arm and lay down his vox. I bummed hard when I saw they were getting Ol’ Chester to step into the lead vocalist spot and was extremely skeptical about the end result – but to be honest that new track ‘Out Of Time’ wasn’t the huge ball of shit I was afraid it would be. Now by my own admittance, I don’t know really anything about Chester The Molester’s other bands, shame on me. So I don’t know what kind of vocal range he’s got outside of that kind of annoying high-pitched whine he does but if that’s all there is then it takes out several different dimensions to this band and may make listening to a whole album’s worth of material quite a boring task. <br />
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From what I can gather, based on the news that the Deleo bro’s wanted to tour the Core album and Weiland wanted to move on with new music, the decision to go with Chesty La Roux was based more on keeping their wallets full than it was taking the time to find a truly suitable replacement (St. Luuuuuucia). But that wouldn’t have been smooth either I suppose, as nobody likes to see a nobody just jump right into something as huge as Stone Temple Pilots is, because deep down inside it should have been them, cause they’re a nobody too. Unfortunately the relationship between Weiland and the Deleo’s is symbiotic, as (based on Scott’s solo albums without them) they keep him a bit in check from trying too hard in being so weird to the point of stupid. Personally, I think the best move here would have been to reform Talk Show, the one off side project that consisted of all of Stone Temple Pilots minus Weiland. It was basically the next Stone Temple Pilots album that never happened, as was Army Of Anyone’s one release: which consisted of all of Stone Temple Pilots minus Weiland. <br />
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So why not just do something new again, with all of Stone Temple Pilots minus Weiland – I mean it all sounds pretty much the same with the Deleo brothers writing the music – but here’s the thing: It ain’t my fuckin’ band. And that’s the point. So for once I need to shut the fuck up about it, as I find myself on the other side of the fence with all the other callow, close minded music fanatics who believe they are a piece of something bigger in their favorite band and flood the message boards with their disapproval of the latest decision their group has made. But if that were the last word then their would be no room for criticism in the art world – follow that simple idea down the philosophical branch and into the hearts of man and it would lead you to a world were there was no such thing as perspective, opinion and diversity – only logic, it would be like living on Vulcan. Which brings me to the new Alice In Chains album…<br />
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Lots of folks stopped listening after Layne kicked the bucket. Lots of folks just wouldn’t accept Alice In Chains without him – and for kind of good reason. With such a very unique voice (even on the rare occasion when it wasn’t multi-layered in the production) he offered the distinction of that band’s sound. He also offered it a lot of it’s darkness. Layne was a bit of a weakling – and I don’t mean that in a bad way. The guy couldn’t fight his way out of addiction, but he had money, and in turn all the support systems in the world at his disposal, including a close and loving family (read the book Grunge Is Dead). What made him stand out from the rest of the rock star addicts who were pulled in and drowned was that he was open about it, and he admitted on several occasions to enjoying that lifestyle. The man knew he was going to die, and basically committed to it by never trying to quit, well, never really trying to quit. Layne is a legend in the grunge scene – because he’s dead. <br />
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That’s just the way it is in the art world – people always assume the best of what the rest of your career would have been like had you not died. It’s really a curious juxtaposition of the rest of the human condition and it’s modern pessimism with the world and assumptions. Had Cobain never killed himself and Chris Cornell did people wouldn’t be losing sperm by the gallon over how amazing Nirvana was and comparing them to the likes of bands like the Beatles, it would be Soundgarden’s ‘Badmotorfinger’ making the top ten lists of greatest albums ever between Sgt. Peppers and Saturday Night Fever, well it ain’t like that (did you see what I did there?). I love Layne Staley’s work (or I should say, the work he contributed to), but the truth is that there’s not a lot of it out there, and I think that detail gets muddied up in the long run. Did you know that Elvis Presley, 'The King Of Rock' actually admitted in an interview that he'd never written a song in his entire life?<br />
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In the entire Alice In Chains discography there are only 4 songs written solely by Staley – and there’s only one full album of his lyrics out there (Mad Season’s ‘Above’). You can be a flash in the pan and make your mark, ask Jeff Buckley’s corpse – the key is to speak to people, Layne did. Layne embraced being a weakling. Layne identified the weaknesses in other people. Arguably, Layne died a martyr – in a somewhat warped point of view. So in an even more warped point of view, Layne was the Jesus of Alice In Chains, and Cantrell was the God. So to simply shun the rest of the band’s career after Staley’s death just doesn’t really make sense to me. <br />
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While I respect a fan’s commitment to a band’s sound and message, I think you also need to look at the bigger picture here and embrace the mortality of the whole thing as well – it’s evolution baby, and it still works, but only because of that dark mud-trudge of an album ‘Alice In Chains’. It’s the album that bridges the gap between the old testament and new. Per witnesses involved in the making of that record Layne’s health had declined so much by the time that album was being recorded that he wasn’t really all that involved in the process (again – read Grunge Is Dead). He wrote a couple of tracks on there and laid down his vocals but the album’s genesis evolved from what was supposed to be a Jerry Cantrell solo record. ‘Alice In Chains’ unwittingly helped lay a foundation for the band to build upon without Staley in the mix.<br />
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Two tracks which appear on ‘Alice In Chains’ would become the new Alice In Chains sound with William Duvall as Staley’s replacement. ‘Over Now’ and ‘Heaven Beside Me’. Both contain the formula of Cantrell’s voice as the center piece, and on the last two AIC albums any part of a song that would be written for Staley’s croon would be replaced by the layering of both Cantrell and Duvall singing at the same time, creating an eerily similar likeness (redundant) to Staley’s morose and beautiful voice when singing along with Cantrell, which fortunately for the surviving members of the band was always so layered before that it wasn’t impossible to build a sound around utilizing someone different. It harkens back to the duets of the aforementioned songs on ‘Alice In Chains’ as well as other tracks in the catalogue like ‘Would’ and ‘Don’t Follow’. It’s hard to hear, but Layne was a smaller part of that band than people would really like to admit, and fortunately for the band and it’s true fans, they’ve proven it with their last two albums.<br />
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Formulaically ‘The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here’ is the same album as ‘Black Gives Way To Blue’. They’ve both got that first single with the really catchy and heavy hook (Stone vs. Check My Brain), they’ve both got that wonderfully acoustic rock number as the fourth track (Voices vs. Your Decision), they’ve both got that long drawn out dumpster song that doesn’t start to get really good until you revisit the album three or four years later (The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here vs. Acid Bubble), and they both have that song that flawlessly changes from mediocre hard rock peon to ‘hey this is really good’ at the uplift of a chorus (Low Ceiling vs. Take Her Out). Cantrell steps up to the plate again as the real lead vocalist and Duvall kind of weaves in and out of his words in the background giving them both weight and eeriness as well as that heir of familiarity to the “old” Alice In Chains sound – a conscious and intelligent decision I’m sure as to keep it recognizable and –for lack of a better term – cozy. The two are so woven together that at times it’s difficult to tell whom is singing what, and that can be a good thing. There’s so much going on between the thick palette of instrumentation and vocal melody that it’s almost like this sonic illusion fooling you into thinking you’re actually sitting in the same house you grew up in when in reality you know that it was torn down years ago. Take one thing out of the equation and you’ll probably see it for what it is. So gone are the days of EP’s harboring stripped down gentle acoustics and soft 3 a.m. self-contemplations. The “new” Alice In Chains wouldn’t be able to pull it off without showing the wizard behind the curtain and sounding like someone completely different.<br />
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I can tell you this without getting too into it (too late!), if you enjoyed ‘Black Gives Way To Blue’ you’ll enjoy this enough that it’s worth owning. In my opinion it’s a slightly better album. It harbors a bit of a darker tone in that some of the guitar effects pull from the same sonic well as ‘Dirt’, with that cryptic and somewhat Egyptian tone to the riff writing in places – especially the title track. But what surprised me the most was where the album absolutely stands out, and that’s in it’s guitar solos….seriously, and I’m not one of those guys – I’ve never been. Get rid of them, they’re boring I’d always say. Unless it’s Dime or Morello in there sacking up and doing something really cool I’ve always thought of guitar solos as more-times-than-not expendable wanking-filler, you know? Such is not the case with this album, says the skeptic. A few songs were lost on me until Cantrell turns it around halfway through and does some very cool harmonies that turn the entire track up on it’s head – remember the absolutely incredible little ray of light in the middle of the diseased ‘Junkhead’? Well he almost almost pulls it off again on ‘Low Ceiling’, and he busts out the old voicebox guitar effect on ‘Lab Monkey’, something we haven’t heard from them since Jar Of Flies’ ‘Rotten Apple’. <br />
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The band showcases their ability to take something morosely dragging along and turn it into a beam of hope on a number of songs here, ‘Breath On A Window’ probably being the best example as it fades out to a hopeful chorus and melody which helps flavor the monotonously good hard rock precession. ‘Phantom Limb’ is arguably the best song the line-up has recorded since their re-emergence, as it’s heavy metal riffing grades down into a slightly droned-out and haunting chorus, and then resets to do it again before almost plodding off into Sabbath waters at the end. ‘Scalpel’ is another summertime acoustic number with amps buried beneath in what has become a trademark sound always bound to make it’s appearance on an AIC album. <br />
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It’s a good record, and as a fan of Alice In Chains I probably buy into it, or at least give it a better chance than most, more so because of the nostalgia their sound gives me than anything else. I’m just like every other schmuck out there who burned the candle at both ends after highschool – just longing to get a little taste of “the good-ol’ days” every once in a while, and this album pokes at it enough leak a little bit of it back in in a new way. If I didn’t give a shit about them then this album wouldn’t be the one to change my mind. But it carries the tradition along and that’s it. Doesn’t go anywhere new and doesn’t go anywhere too old. At this point Alice In Chains is just self-maintaining. And for me that’s okay for now, but to be honest I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be listening if the formula stays this way. And stop bitching about the album title, it ain’t your fuckin’ band.PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-78049466119545997782015-01-09T21:51:00.000-08:002015-01-09T21:51:11.546-08:00Book Review: “Official Truth, 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera” by Rex Brown<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Nobody likes it when the band they’ve been enjoying listening to for years packs it up and calls it a day, but you can make a little lemonade out of those lemons by realizing that sometimes this can lead to material that would have normally never seen the light of day being scraped out of a vault, packaged, printed, and presented to you for a purchase price usually a whole lot more than it’s actual musical worth. And the more successful or major label the band, the more that dried up tit is going to be wrought by the legions of leeches pulling the strings. Until you come to your senses some 20 years after the demise of said band and see the racket for what it is when an umpteenth version of their “Greatest Hits” is being repackaged with the same tracks switched around and baited with a never-before-heard live demo version of a song they did before they were who they were. However this isn’t always the case, sometimes band members themselves will release things posthumously that they wouldn’t normally have done while creative juices were still flowing. Or attention is diverted elsewhere and time is precious so it never happens while a group’s blood is still pumping. It leaves the potential for all kinds of things seeing the light of day, live footage, demos, unreleased studio recordings, books etc. Sometimes there just isn’t a market for it until later on down the line, as was the case with Pantera.</div>
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When Pantera was in their prime, the internet hadn’t become a household source of information yet – fans were very limited with what they could see or read about regarding the band, actually that pretty much goes for any group affiliated with heavy metal at the time. Except for the occasional interview on Headbangers Ball, or what was coming out of the monthly edition of Metal Maniacs, exposure was nil. Sure Pantera released 3 DVD’s in the tenure of their existence – but those comprised mostly of drinking, vomiting, blowing up fireworks, and squeezing puss-filled boils off the asses of their road crew. All fine and dandy for the 14 year old fucktard whose only source of jerk-off material was the occasional topless groupie chick on the VHS Cowboys From Hell Home Video, but I’ve done a lot of growing up since then. These days I’d much rather see a candid in studio come-up of how an album came to be, how riffs were conceived, lyrics were inspired, instruments were recorded, etc. I don’t give a shit how humorless it is. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, and there are a whole bunch of people that never paid attention in 1992, or weren’t around to pay attention in 1992, that are paying attention now, let the wringing of the tit begin, I’m talking to you 20th anniversary special edition of Vulgar Display of Power.<br />
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…And let forth the credible stuff as well: Pantera bassist Rex Brown’s recently released biography “Official Truth 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera” (co-authored by Mark Eglinton) offers a very inside look at the band that we were never afforded the opportunity to voyeur into back in the day due to the aforementioned lack of technology and popularity. It’s Rex’s side of the story, from all the way back to when he was a kid to his current status with Kill Devil Hill – centralized around his career in Pantera, the bad-ass, bow-to-nobody, game changers that flew the flag for real heavy metal through the 1990’s. Straight up, if you’re a Pantera fan then read the book, you’ll enjoy it – I did. Though not without some criticism. It was cool to get a deeper insight into the individual personalities of the band, and perhaps some of the motives, if you will, as to why they made music the way they did, but I was definitely hoping for a whole lot more information about the actual songs themselves. The making of each album is pretty glossed over in the first few pages of the chronologically appropriate chapters, and then it’s onto the antics and drama of the road for the next few. Yet you still get to hear how the band approached each album and why each one ended up sounding the way they did, like why ‘The Great Southern Trendkill’ is so (awesomely) abrasive and ‘Reinventing The Steel’ sounds a bit more traditional. He even delves into the Down albums he was involved with and talks a bit about the recording dynamics of those sessions. I did still get a new perspective on how the albums were done and learned some things I hadn’t known about before, so I can’t complain about it too much – it’s hard to jam a career like the one Rex had into some 280 pages and not have to gloss over pretty much everything.<br />
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I was a bit of a Pantera fanatic back in the day, and followed them pretty closely during their existence and for a bit afterwards. During that time I’d sort of gotten the vibe through interviews and whatforth that Rex often fancied himself quite the bad-ass, and the book only amplifies that theory with his lack of humility. It weighs pretty heavily with Rex’s self-horn tooting, and I can’t help but wonder how much of a motive catharsis was in the writing of this book as he more than occasionally has some harsh words about his band mates. He attempts to balance the jabs with occasional praise but doesn’t seem to even out the ratio in the end. This is all fine, dandy and expected with a book like this. You’re going to sell more tickets to a car crash than a birthing. But take the time to laugh at yourself – and enlighten us dammit. Your vocalist is a disconnected, back-stabbing junkie. Your guitarist is an idiot who can’t hold onto his money, and your drummer is a fat-ass, fame whoring poon-hound, yet there’s no skid marks on you? Even when he talks about his drinking problem he seems to be holding back – this is a guy whose organs began shutting down on him from his addiction, and yet there’s no ugly side to it ever really portrayed in detail. The divorce from his wife comes and goes amicably, and he’s always there for his kids, even though he’s a touring musician/alcoholic. By the end of the book the do-no-wrong thing was really wearing thin to me. His idea of letting his guard down is telling the reader that at one point during a show he was so blown away by his guitarist Dimebag Darrell’s playing that he walked over to him and kissed him. If you’re gonna paint the pictures of everyone else’s desperation and darkness, you gotta paint yours the darkest if it’s there – it’s your fucking book and your fucking story, don’t do it if you’re worried about tarnishing your image – but that’s just my opinion.<br />
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In the end however it is a satisfying read. As a fan of Pantera I couldn’t put the flippin’ thing down. Rex was always the out-of-focus guy on the T-shirt so to hear his side of things as more of a spectator to the rest of the band is interesting and believable. It exposed a lot of behind the scenes controversy that I hadn’t realized had gone on and includes interview bits with road crew members, managers, producers, wives, girlfriends, all sorts of people that were intimately involved with Pantera in one way or another, credible sources. He also dishes a bit of inside dirt on some other heavy hitters in the scene appropriately. Rex does a good job of portraying just what a rollercoaster ride the Pantera years were and how appreciative he was of having rode it (ridden it?). While reading it you may be shocked at how much of a ‘brotherhood’ the whole thing actually wasn’t, but in the end realize that all that went on and all they went through only helped to carve what the definition of what brotherhood was to them, and should be to everyone.PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942153592355823106.post-86954618815448327262015-01-09T21:43:00.003-08:002015-01-09T21:45:44.169-08:00Dead and Loving It: VOG<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Deep in the thick foliage of the Virginia woods, some crazy/genius bastard fertilized an Acid Bath egg with ‘Dopethrone’ – era Electric Wizard. The seed germinated, spawned and only lived for a short time as Vog. These guys truly are a hidden gem, ritualistically dancing within the realms of Stoner/Sludge-Jam-band-satanic-voodoo thrash ( what? is that already a genre? dammit.) I seriously cannot describe their music any better than that first sentence. They wear the Acid Bath influence heavily on their sleeve in both their writing as well as the vocal stylings of crooner Steven Kerchner, who at times sounds almost exactly like a less distorted Dax Riggs.</div>
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I stumbled onto these guys a few years ago deep within the trenches of Myspace before it became the Detroit of social networking sites. Even a google search brings up sparse results which in turn need to be even further refined and combed through to weed out the half dozen Japanese Ambient-Electronic acts that share the same name. I was finally able to track down some of their discography on the <a href="http://shiftyrecords.com/" sl-processed="1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Shifty</span></a> Records site. From there I ordered the ‘Colors Of Infinity’ EP which consists of one 23 minute track (which was sent to me in DIY packaging burnt onto a Spykids CD-Rom – fuckin’ awesome.), it’s good but kind of sounds more like a bunch of ideas jammed into one song and isn’t as cohesive as I might have hoped, from what I can gather it was probably a demo the band sent to the label before they were even on it (but then again, what the hell do I know?).</div>
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The real bread and butter from Vog comes in their one and only self-titled full length. 7 tracks (and not a one of them under 6 minutes) of dirty-ass, slightly underproduced Stoner/Sludge/Thrash dynamics, high on the treble and heavy on the Sabbath swagger. Seriously, if Dax Riggs and the boys in Acid Bath took some bad shrooms in the NOLA swamps and then decided to record a jam session pre- “When The Kite String Pops” I can’t help but imagine it would sound alot like this. Yeah I’m an Acid Bath fan, but what I am not is one of those people that tries to find another band in the same realm to latch onto when they’re favorite one goes defunct. While Vog does offer a sliver to help fill the void that AB left when they went tits up, they also infuse enough of their other influences into the music to actually make the end result sound original. And honestly, the more you listen to it the more it begins to sound like it’s own thing. So I guess this recommendation goes out to those people who have reverted to settling on exhausting the Buzzoven dicography as an unsuccessful means to get their caustic-stoner thrash fix since AB called it a day some dozen-or-so years ago (you’re doing it wrong – sludge!). Does it offer a certain average-looking-girl-becomes- all the more – hot-because-she’s-a-libarian kind of aesthetic because it’s so off the map? Sure there’s a little bit of charm there, but it’s honestly cool shit, and when you think it’s going to zig where it should zag it does neither, it zogs (clever).</div>
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In fact, whilst doing a bit of research for this bunch of inane babble I discovered that Vog’s self-titled has been remastered (possibly even re-recorded in spots) and made available on Itunes, I didn’t see that coming. The remaster has an additional track smack dab in the middle called ‘Sad Girl’, which was originally released as a single and was, up till now, the only thing available from them on Itunes. Important note here: If you do decide to buy the album via that route I’d strongly recommend also buying the ‘Sad Girl’ single that’s available as well, as they include an acoustic version of the track that’s not available on the remaster and is definitely worth having. Listening to the acoustic ‘Sad Girl’ into the original version can be an awesomely intense experience ala Pantera’s Suicide Note parts 1 & 2.</div>
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So come and dance within the remains that once was Vog, and long for what once was and what could have been, for such a small, unlabeled and thankfully mostly untreaded genre. Check out the video here for a not-so brief showcase of Vog’s sound: </div>
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PJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16889366076365506821noreply@blogger.com0