The Cold Places of the Universe: "The Moon and Antarctica" Review

Album: The Moon and Antarctica
Artist: Modest Mouse
Genre: Alternative / “Indie” Rock
Length: 59:43 (72:02 reissue)
Release Date: June 13, 2000 (March 9, 2004 reissue) (2008-09-12)
Label: Epic
Producer: Brain Deck (Simon Askew reissue)

Somewhere in the life of every successful and long-lived group of musicians comes a time when they must make a crucial choice; to vegetate in the same style they have developed and loved from the beginning, or to take the deep risk of mending and experimenting with it. By the former path, bands may stagnate to the point of irrelevancy; by the latter, they risk alienating the fans of all that had come before and thus put their reputations on the line. And by the excessive degree to which fans can take hold of a particular band, seeing them either change or rot away is often an unbearable transition. Such results in a polarized following, one side composed of former disciples who swear by the old works battling against another of those who jumped on the bandwagon with the new. And in the process, it’s the band themselves who end up in the crossfire.

Enter Modest Mouse, the indie darling sextet that has earned accolades and praise amongst underground critics since 1993. In recent years, the band has begun to stir up fury within the more experienced loyalists as they have made the transition into mainstream attention (if somewhat limited in scope). Suddenly the band who had once recorded an EP in a garage had hit #1 on the Billboard 200 with 2007’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, and those who felt the band had sold its soul were out for blood. Its such massive transitions that make one question the nature of past albums, as its sometimes possible to trace the gradual evolution of the band into the states they finally arrive in. Such was the purpose when I – a veteran of perhaps the most heated fan-war stalemate of all time, the on-going In Flames debate (though that it is a story for another time) – was parachuted deep into the strife to review Modest Mouse’s supposed magnum opus, The Moon and Antarctica, to see how it held up outside of a fan perspective.

Now as far as I can understand, The Moon and Antarctica was the band’s attempt to expand off the broad base cemented by their previous breakthrough release, The Lonesome Crowded West. Blame the experimentation on either a desire for greater variety or Isaac Brock’s broken jaw if you will, but ultimately for every critic who showered the album in gold stars there was another who thought Modest Mouse was edging into commercial territory; quite frankly, when a band starts licensing songs to Nissan Quest minivan commercials it can be difficult to think otherwise. Yet I can’t help but feel like the commercialization argument has gone the way of a horse that has been beaten one too many times; the glossier production values and major label status aren’t necessarily strikes against TMaA, merely differences. In fact, they often help amplify the more spacious, spacey sound the album develops, which in the land of the Indie City resides on the corner of Mature Street and Engaging Avenue, only occasionally striding into Pretentious Lane to pick up its groceries. To put it in a much less metaphor-laden way, it’s as good a representation of the indie scene as your going to find this side of the decade.

Indeed, the band’s attempts to tinker with their formula resulted in making it much more distinct. The blend of classic folk, alternative song structure and delightful synthesizing in a powerful one indeed that will usually leave the listener immersed up to his or her eyeballs. Though it doesn’t offer too much room for technical chops, that’s hardly what the record is about. Instead, it’s quite keen to manipulate this mellow, laid-back foundation into a variety of different moods throughout the setlist, from sullen and plodding (Perfect Disguise) to bouncy and joyful (Life Like Weeds), and even moments where these moods are exchanged frequently (3rd Planet). The twangy guitar-sound does, however, remain roughly the same throughout, which makes most songs blend together. It also makes the longer tracks like The Stars Are Projectors outlast their welcome, even if the addition of some moderate tempo changes does manage to shake things up. Fortunately, plenty of other moments, like the swooping keyboard dips and dives in Dark Center of the Universe and the surprisingly aggressive opening to A Different City, stand out.

Strangely, the member of the group whose contributions I am least enthusiastic for is the one who practically drives the band, Isaac Brock. His singing style is very unique, for sure, but it sometimes stands in stark contrast to everything else in a song, and eventually becomes rather grating as the album wears on. He’s more of an acquired taste than anything, and due to the aforementioned broken jaw his appearances are actually somewhat limited by alternative standards, so for most it won’t even be a factor. Yet I also have a bone to pick with the lyrics; a lot of people cite them as being exceptionally clever and insightful, and I would agree to an extent, but simply can’t muster the same enthusiasm. Most are open to interpretation – hardly an issue on its own – but without some kind of binding context, many of them could be about…well, anything. Not to mention that many tracks take it into themselves to repeat the same redundant lines several times over; if you don’t know what it means the first time, the next few times will only be bound to reinforce that notion. With enough studying, however, some personal meaning for each song should fall right into place (*winkwink*) for you. Oh, and a special shout-out has to be made to Wild Packs of Family Dogs, which put the dainty little images of dogs eating people and “crying dust blood” into my mind’s eye. A happy album, this is not.

By this token, TMaA personally falls into the little niche of strong, yet sometimes flawed, curiosities. While there are plenty of nitpicks to be made, the overall sound of the album is powerful enough to warrant praise without trespassing previously tread territory – the very definition of a successful experiment. This was certainly not a diversion to be forgotten, either, as traces of the more airy, calmer sound still exist in the songs of newer fare from the band. And for those out there hooked on the atmosphere but not the presence of Mr. Brock, this album will likely provide your best escape. Respectable lyrics and a moody environment combine to make TMaA worthy of attention, both back in 2000 and now.

So what have I now to say to the fanboys of each faction of the Modest Mouse debate? Well to be honest, I probably didn’t even need to hear the album to tell all of them to stop their futile actions before they all give themselves brain hemorrhages. To the newer recruits, I sayeth now that TMaA is a fine album that needs no disrespect, even if you prefer the more widely known, two most recent releases. I have even less comforting things to say to the other group, who will simply have to deal with whatever changes the band has felt are best for them, be it for reasons of nobility or greed. In either case, the past is irreparable, and in this case for the better.


P.S. : Apologies about the delay. My computer seems to have attained some kind of nasty Adware virus that’s slowing down my entire computer, and even preventing me from using some programs whatsoever. I’ve been trying to work my way around it, and hopefully my computer will be clean and running at full speed again by next week.

A Totally Serious Review, I Swear: "Appeal to Reason" Album Review

Album: Appeal to Reason
Artist: Rise Against
Genre: Melodic Hardcore / Punk Rock
Length: 48:23
Release Date: October 7, 2008 (2008-09-12)
Label: Geffen
Producer: Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore

When I got asked to review a Rise Against album, I ran back home and grabbed my iron helmet and wooden shield, because I was about to run the gauntlet. Rise Against hails from the same line of punk-rooted protest bands that have been running rampant across corporate America ever since the Bush administration started shooting itself in the foot (that’s 2,345,670 bullets fired into the big toe and counting!) and there’s hardly a demographic I hate more; the smug half-baked philosophy, the restless complaining, the same four or five chords and drum beats recycled over and over and over until you want to run for Congress, work your way up the ranks, and finally submit and authorize a bill that forbids the little pricks from coming within 500 miles of freedom. So Rise Against had the tall order of trying to change my cold, steel-plated cynical beast-mind into thinking they could possibly be any different. The result…

…is that they totally did. Wow. I couldn’t have believed it until this album had arrived before me, but I was wrong about the entire pseudo-punk movement from day one. In fact, Rise Against is the most valuable of music bands because it taught me an amazing lesson: that you can sell five figures within the first week of a release and even have your own line of shoes purportedly manufactured by slave labor and still pretend to be a pot-smoking, Molotov-tossing anarchist rebel. How inspiring!

The magic begins with Collapse (Post-Amerika), which in no way resembles anything ever done before, not even American Idiot...hell, not even themselves on past albums. The single-tempo, emotionless riffing, and generic hardcore shouts would sound utterly monotonous and repetitive from any other band, but Rise Against makes them work. How? Alas, their genius is far too much for me to describe in simple man-words. And behold, for when the next track begins, so does the exact same pattern and song structure! Such is their brilliance that they repeat the exact same formulaic compositions a grand total of 13 times…and with 13 being an unlucky number, the act serves as flawless testament to their bravery. Only rarely do actually interesting leads or notable bass lines ever appear to fuck things up, but the producers were so brilliant as to edit them out to their last breath as not to spoil the perfection. The lone exception to this ever-so original formula is an acoustic song entitled Hero of War, so originally titled and so not made up from the remnants of discarded Bob Dylan B-sides that it would make the likes of Leonardo da Vinci and Wolfgang Mozart cry. Why, so great is this beautiful track that it could very well rise those fallen geniuses from the dead, officially making Tim McIlrath the second-coming of Jesus Christ. No wonder so many people rabidly worship these awe-inspiring musical heroes!

But if there is any reason to bow down before the likes of this ground-breaking band, it is their lyrics, whose majesty and truth ring like the bells of Heaven’s highest, most ornamented towers. They speak of a terrifying fascist government that will in no way disappear a mere three months after this album’s release date, and one that has in no way been spoken of by any other musical act. Nope, not even Green Day. And how, you may be wondering, can such beaten-to-death lyrical clichés such as “fall[ing] from grace”, “desperate eyes”, and “the strength to go on” possibly combine to make these inspiring call-to-arms messages? Again, I could not possibly explain it, but totally not because they couldn’t. Because they could. In fact, they do it so well that they don’t even need to create solutions to the political problems they so desperately claw at like merciless, blood-thirsty kittens. Thus, these songs will ring throughout the back alleys of all the greatest organizations of protest and resistance, such as Hot Topic and McDonalds, from now until the end of mankind. Only the greatest musicians could create music as such that it will never become dated, certainly not in, as aforementioned, three months from now. You know, when the man they are trying so hard to condemn is replaced by a liberal reformist who the country so strongly supported in a fairly recent election. Oh no, certainly not then.

And so I sayeth to you, in the spirit of the mightiest revolutionaries of our time – from Lindsay Lohan to Justin Timberlake – let your voices of pre-pubescent confusion and conformism be heard by purchasing this downright irreplaceable masterpiece. And as you half-heartedly pound your fist in the air, pretending to fight an evil that has already been fought by people whose actions actually matter and whose criticism is not just limited to needless whining, remember that you support a band whose music is definitely not just a clone of a million other bands who came before, whose imagery is completely and totally unique, and who honestly, undeniably, unsarcastically, doesn’t suck balls.

Mediocrity Magnetic: "Death Magentic" (Delayed) Album Review

Album: Death Magnetic
Artist: Metallica
Genre: Thrash / Heavy Metal
Length: 74:46
Release Date: September 12, 2008 (2008-09-12)
Label: Warner Bros., Vertigo, Mercury, Universal Music Japan
Producer: Rick Rubin



Forget the Year of the Rat…2008 has so far been the year of metal. Aside from the innumerable releases from many of the genre’s top acts, we’ve seen long dormant metal bands choosing this year as the time to make their big comeback. Cynic has returned to the studio after a 15 year hiatus; AC/DC has stepped back into the limelight with a new album; and other bands that have been long out of commission like Atheist and Wintersun are working on new material early into 2009. Hell, if all goes to plan then Chinese Democracy might actually be released this year! But I have no doubt that it is the recent return of Metallica that will have earned the most attention and sales by next year. Granted, they may have been gone for only a five-year gap, but since the last record they released was St. Anger, considered by many to be a utter travesty of chaos, muddled confusion, and making absolutely no sense whatsoever, the world definitely wanted to know whether or not the band could possibly make the saving throw and restore their former glory. So now that Death Magnetic has been out for a couple of months now, we can finally ask the ultimate question: has Metallica made a comeback?

Unfortunately, that still isn’t a very easy question to answer, as the definition of comeback isn’t very clear for a band such as Metallica. Keep in mind, this is a group of individuals whose in-fighting and apparent hatred for each other caused wave after wave of horrible decisions, both inside and outside the recording booth; undoubtedly that was part of the cause of St. Anger’s wretchedness and the infamous Napster incident. Now, they seem to have overcome the hurdle of growing older, come to grips with their themselves, and generally kept a level-headedness that is expected of good musicians. So when looked at in the terms of whether or not Metallica has salvaged the semblance of a successful career, then yes, Death Magnetic is a glorious revolution. When looked at musically, it is considerably less so. Granted, it fixes all the mistakes of the past release…but seemingly does so by retreating deep into the rusty catacombs of their old works, with little in the way of innovation. So if it’s not a failure and not a complete success, then we are left with a single word left to describe Death Magnetic, one that still serves as a painful blow to such a famous band: average.

Yes, for all the hyped shouts of glee that Metallica had finally become themselves again, they are still just average. And the key factor in that mediocrity is that the album is just plain dull. Dull, dull, dull, so very dull. Most riffs resemble watered-down versions of those we heard on Master of Puppets 22 years ago, the bass is practically inaudible (bringing flashbacks of …And Justice for All’s insipid production to out ears), and, as always, Lars Ulrich is an utter joke. In their attempts to reclaim the thrash metal throne, the basic and uninteresting drum beats just can’t help back drag down their efforts. If there’s anyone worse than Lars, though, it’s Hetfield; while he’s finally made the excellent decision to actually sing in tune again, the country-tinged yelps he makes just don’t fit here as well as they would on something like Load, and become annoying extremely quick. Oh, and forget about the lyrics; they’re useless. To cap off this ensemble of pain, we have a banal production that seems wafer-thin and tries to make up for it by compressing and distorting everything up to eleven. If you can believe this, the re-mastering of the tracks for Guitar Hero III actually doesn’t have this issue. And when the man behind the original mix is Rick Rubin, who once defined the sound of fellow thrash-legend Slayer on Reign in Blood…well, that’s just pathetic.

The real icing on the cake – with the cake being made of concrete and the icing made of sewage water, of course – is that Metallica has gone ahead and made all of their songs way too long. Again. The song structures sound like they would feel more at home on something like “The Black Album”, something succinct and catchy but never overly extensive. This isn’t Dream Theatre, you guys, and it certainly isn’t the best way to pretend like your living in the 80’s again. As a matter of fact, a lot of the worst aspects of this album feel like clip-ons designed to fool old, jaded fans into coming to their concerts again, the solos being a good example. They almost make me believe that the lack of solos on St. Anger was a good thing, now that their newest efforts of extended soloage feel incredibly sloppy and needless. In metal, they are usually there to form a climax to the song, to provide a reward for sitting through a long, tense build-up. Here, they plop them down before us, with no satisfaction to gained, as if they were only there because, well, they have to be.

The one exception to that rule is The Day That Never Comes, a song that brings back fond memories of Fade to Black and One…but only because it’s practically the same damn song. The quiet intro that segues into the heavy chorus, a machine-gun riff that pops up after two verses, and a long solo-heavy segment to wrap things up...sounds awfully familiar to me. Granted, it’s a formula that still works, but it’s also a good representation of how little Metallica desired to re-invent themselves on this release. There’s a fleeting glimpse of advancement on the The Unforgiven III, which opens with some mournful piano-playing; unfortunately the interlude is quickly forgotten, and the song becomes a basic ballad (which, thankfully, doesn’t really try at all to sound like Unforgiven I or II…why on Earth either song would need another sequel is anyone’s guess).

Then there’s an instrumental towards the end, because, well, you need one of those for a comeback album too. Now it is certainly the longest song on the album, clocking in at almost exactly 10 minutes, but it’s also the only song that varies enough to warrant such a time frame. It’s not quite The Call of Ktulu, but it will do. The rest of the songs are mostly full-speed-ahead, riff-tastic monsters, with mixed results. The opening track is notable, kicking things off with a heart-beat and an acoustic segment that slowly builds up into a trademark Metallica guitar explosion; there’s no denying that they worked hard to make the first impression memorable. By contrast, you have songs like The End of the Line and The Judas Kiss that really don’t do anything memorable, and fall flat on their faces. All Nightmare Long stands tall among these because it cops a few phrases straight from Slayer’s playbook; but hey, if they needed to copy someone for some maniac thrash moments, at least their stealing from the right pages. Finally, My Apocalypse (bearing no similarity to the Arch Enemy single of the same name…oddly enough) is perhaps the most bearable track on here because it is by far the shortest, at a mere 5 minutes. It also packs the most intensity and speed, making it a great way to close this highly anticipated effort.

But despite all the good moments Death Magnetic can muster, none of them are anything we haven’t heard before and better…and none are good enough to save this album. If the hype is pushed aside – and even as we acknowledge just how much an improvement the album is from the past decade of Metallica bloopers – we still see a work whose only worthy footnote is that it comes from Hetfield and crew, who once ruled the world and conquered the stars. Of course, if you haven’t picked this up already, I myself was never too interested in the band’s music itself, but more so the social stigma that followed them like a pestilence since the 90’s. It was truly enthralling to see their members devolve into whiny rock-pop babies, to hear their fans whimpering and futile cries while they softly cuddled their old copies of Ride the Lightning in the corner of their parent’s basements…now those days are largely gone, and the music can just hardly hold itself up better for the effort.

Funnily enough, I can’t help but feel like this is the album that should’ve generated the dreaded “sell-out” label that they’ve been such good poster-boys for up until now. St. Anger may have been poor, but it was also different, and while the music sucked, the passion was there. Now there is no life left in the poor souls down at Metallica headquarters, just aimless attempts to regain a triumphant feeling of world domination they once had. And if that’s exactly what you wanted or expected, then Death Magnetic will have you squealing with delight. If you wanted an epic on par with their early works, then you’re left out in the cold. If you wanted a continuation of the style defined on St. Anger…well then nothing quite compares to the miserable, hollow shell of a life you live. My point is that the album satisfies many, but can't please the more hardened or caring of music connoisseurs, meaning that it is safe but ultimately nothing of significance. Give your attention to the better metal releases that have been so harshly ignored these past few months instead.

Sunshine, Lollipops, and Backstabbing: "Rumours" Album Review

Album: Rumours
Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Genre: Classic Rock
Length: 40:03
Release Date: February 4, 1977
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Fleetwood Mac, Ken Caillat & Richard Dashut

Perhaps you haven’t yet heard the little fable that goes along with Rumours, an album that ranks among one of the best-selling and most critically-acclaimed of all time. As the story goes, every one of the band’s five members was going through a romantic issue of some kind during the song writing process, prominently involving break-ups between the band members themselves (Lord only knows why any of them thought that an inter-career love interest would be a good idea). Subsequently, as each one started independently crafting lyrics for the next album it became apparent that they were all writing about each other, hence the album’s name. In the end, the realization that their deep, burning hatred for one another had resulted in what they considered a good piece of music somehow alleviated the tension, and everybody was happy. Rainbows were painted into the sky by magic purple unicorns while Stevie Nicks and the gang soared into the glorious sunset on their fantastical enchanted sailboat to buy delicious ice cream. THE END.

Now, all of that makes for a decent marketing blurb or at least a notable Wikipedia factoid, but it doesn’t confirm or deny the presence of actually decent song-writing on here. As it turns out, one of the features of this album that seems to stem from that little feud is neither a strength nor a weakness, and that’s in how divisive the songs are from one another. With all but a scant few tracks being almost entirely associated to a single individual, most of them tend to exert a slightly different feel from the rest, usually by highlighting certain elements while removing others. Compare the bouncy acoustic-driven tune Second-Hand News to the slow piano-laden ballad Songbird, for instance, and you’d hardly think there was any relation. The since-beaten-to-death prospect of having two vocalists of varying Y-chromosome levels furthers the idea by rarely having the two work in tandem, either by awkwardly switching between them or by omitting one or the other from a track altogether. Granted, you can interpret the frantic switches of style as either a lack of balance or an abundance of variety, so for the most part it won’t detract from the experience if you listen to the album on a song-by-song basis.

What does detract from the experience are some rather boneheaded and suitably predictable song-structures that prevent it from being elevated to the highest levels of the art form. Most tracks have respectable core ideas but attract clichés like bears to honey-covered babies, namely in the basic verse-chorus architecture that occupies the majority of the album. And if the aforementioned back-story implied to you that the lyrics, fueled by friction and hostility, would be very intricate or unique, then you may want to get your head re-examined. The mainstream music industry’s attempts to flirt with truly deep reflections on love-once-lost are almost always utterly horrific, and a quick flip to your local radio station is usually enough to prove it. And while the Fleetwood gang’s assortment of poems are hardly as bad as the modern dribble that passes for music, it’s hardly art, which is something you might expect from the sort of Shakespearian-tragedy the band members went through. There are exceptions, but perhaps not enough to list “lyrical and structural ineptitiude” as some of the album’s flaws.

So yes, Rumours does suffer a bit for being the product of a band under duress and, more importantly, for being draped in the clothing of commercialism despite the cries of its subject matter to represent quite the contrary. Yet despite all the hateful things I’ve managed to point out so far about it, there is a certain aura around Rumours that is – dare I say it? – oddly compelling.

For all the angst and bitterness you might expect to come from such a strained group of individuals, Rumours has to be one of the most overtly optimistic albums I’ve ever heard. Songs like Dreams and Gold Dust Woman provide a bright outlook for dreary events through their lyrics, which are just as linear as aforementioned, but the music itself is what makes the album such a shining beacon of hope. Whether it’s the jazzy bass-lines of You Make Loving Fun (just ignore the cheese-flavored title, please) or the deliciously folksy Never Going Back Again, the actual music is genuinely good at generating happiness, which is something I thought I’d never say about any piece of music, ever. If you can ignore the majority of what comes out of their mouths, the two singers reflect this good-spirit just as well, and ignoring what I said about the awkward transitions between them, both Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks have phenomenal voices. It’s when things start to get a bit more layered, when the talents of all the band members are proficiently and simultaneously shown such as in The Chain, that the album’s coherent weaknesses can be overshadowed by these strengths…which is kind of ironic, if you think about it.

All in all though, my reaction is mixed. It’s no doubt an album that treads the fine line between accessibility and complexity, and while it leans into both categories at some point or another there’s a lot about the album that feels rather indecisive and conflicting, fittingly enough. Altogether the songs sound a lot better when less focus is put into analyzing them as a musical depiction of themes and worse when framed into the context of being technical and elaborate, as I have the rather obsessive habit of doing. That being the case, you get out of Rumours what you put into it. Walk in expecting a casual, colorful romp into floaty and loose song-writing and you’ll walk out believing that this really was worthy of all its fame; listen to it expecting brilliance and you get a kick in the face. If the former is what you expect, or in fact need, from your music, then you could certainly do a lot worse than Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

Full Circle: "The Way of All Flesh" Album Review

Album: The Way of All Flesh
Artist: Gojira
Genre: Progressive Death Metal
Length: 75:07
Release Date: October 14, 2008
Label: Listenable (Europe), Prosthetic (America)
Producer: Joe Duplantier

I’m not going to lie and say I have the most “believable” taste of music in the world. For all I complain about band X or praise artist Y, I usually find myself at the losing end of most debates because of the giant schism between me and the average (read: sane) consumer. However, I’m not going to blame anyone for not liking Gojira; they are the kind of artist with a learning curve as steep and impenetrable as a canyon wall, even for genre fans. But just as the most accessible tunes often possess the depth of a tablespoon, so does Gojira present an ocean of opportunities by being so dense and original.

Gojira (whose name is the rōmaji spelling of “Godzilla”, fittingly enough), first truly made a name for themselves on 2005’s astounding From Mars to Sirius. It was a brilliant concept piece that established everything that makes the band unique, talented, and, well…difficult to accept. Their goal is not as much to satisfy their listener as it is to punish them, not quite unlike the progressive death-jazz idols Atheist. But while Atheist overwhelmed listeners with a mixture of blinding speed and bizarre time signatures, Gojira simply bashes their heads in with the kind of raw power you wouldn’t think four guys could create alone. The riffs are thick, the drums precise with blast-beats galore, and the vocalist produces a strange new sound somewhere between a hardcore shout and death-metaller’s growl. They provide the occasional breathing room in the form of instrumentals and experimental noodling, but rest assured the majority of the Gojira experience is claustrophobic, melancholic, and perhaps even frightening, so much so that you would never believe these guys were French.

Yes, it’s a progressive death metal band from France. I wouldn’t lie to you here.

Understandably, when one goes about creating a new style, it comes with a great burden. Thus, the immediate question to ask is whether or not the band’s most recent release, The Way of All Flesh, can possibly compare to the album that defined their careers just three years ago. And if you had asked me a mere few days ago, I would have answered “no”. But with enough time and patience I have come to understand all the subtleties and experiments that make this album every bit as excellent as From Mars to Sirius, if not more so. Not only does it provide a more versatile thrill-ride, it’s the perfect entry point for anyone who wishes to subject themselves to their impeccable brutality.

It immediately succeeds to a certain degree merely by sticking to the principles outlined above; it’s powerful, extreme, and technical the way we expect. But it’s the subtle points that make The Way of All Flesh a transcendent experience: the peculiar mix of synths and vocoder vocals on A Sight to Behold; the surprise guest vocals on Adoration for None; the atmospheric and haunting, atmospheric, four-minute ending to the title track (try listening to it at night, trust me); and most importantly, The Art of Dying. This amazing song opens with a mix of tribal instruments that perfect matches the album’s Aboriginal-esque cover art and ends with a riff that resembles a section of the next track in the set, Esoteric Surgery…played backwards. In between are some of most suffocating moments in Gojira’s history (and remember, that’s a good thing here). And while a few moments on the album feel a tad samey after the big jump in quality that was From Mars to Sirius, the album’s general innovation makes it stand out. Even were that not the case, certain songs on TWoAF represent both the fastest (Esoteric Surgery) and slowest (Vacuity) extremes in music, saving it from feeling anything less than truly special.

If any of this attempts to imply that Gojira only works on the technical and instrumental front, that would be quite the lie. Yes, Joe Duplantier’s growling is easily the biggest obstacle to enjoying the album, but there’s no denying it matches the rest of the ensemble perfectly. And while TWoAF lacks the conceptual storyline that tied all of the songs on the previous album together, it also possesses a much stronger theme: the band’s personal beliefs in life and death. The previous album cemented the band's skill in evaluating tough global issues, namely those relating to mankind's atrocious treatment of the environment; thus, Gojira does not dissapoint in tackling this prickly and bold topic. The subject permeates everything on the album, even the song titles: Oroborus refers to the cyclical, never-ending property of existence associated with Buddhist beliefs, and Yama’s Messengers refers to the Japanese lord of death. Likewise, each song's lyrics are all remarkable pieces of poetry, thanks mostly to their phenomenal imagery. In addition, the album’s biggest musical innovations, as mentioned above, seem to have an other-worldly mannerism themselves, which makes the brutality of the music much more emotive.

As stated earlier, almost none of these magical attributes may be noticed on the first spin of the disc. Perhaps more so than any other album I’ve listened to, TWoAF requires time and patience, almost like watering a dried-up plant with the promise of delicious fruit. Guaranteed, most people will just give and walk away…actually, most people will probably run away and cower in the corner for a few minutes trying to recovery from the pure intensity of it all, but that’s hardly the point. All in all, those of you out there with a taste for pure power and a tolerance for some initial whip-lashing will walk away with something truly memorable, full of substance, and one of the best metal releases of the year.

Youtube Links:

Oroborous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v50wkoofl-4&feature=related

Toxic Garbage Island: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAw5nWJBNrM&feature=related

A Sight to Behold: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXfdRLPA9is

The Art of Dying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xEYz74bMHA&feature=related

Vacuity Music Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gv7fo6mefo (WARNING: this is probably one of the most disturbing music videos ever made. Don't say I didn't warn you)

Daysed and Kunfoozed: "Midnite Vultures" Review

Album: Midnite Vultures
Artist: Beck
Genre: Alternative / “Indie”
Length: 58:24
Release Date: November 23, 1999
Label: DGC
Producer: Beck Hansen, Tony Hoffer, Mickey Petralia, The Dust Brothers

A stage name. Intentional misspellings. More oversaturated neon colors than a 80’s nightclub. And worst of all, the prominent depiction of tight leather pants…pink ones, I might add. Yep, I think it’s safe to say this album’s cover art couldn’t make me want to listen to the music less if it were covered in thorns and had a shrieking, carnivorous maw. But by no means was that going to prevent me from giving it a decent and equitable shake to the best of my ability. Turns out, however, the cover’s aesthetic actually does point to an attribute of the music that I so greatly fear: overt pretentiousness.

Now, before you decide to force-feed me my own words, I should note that this is my first exploration into the musical enigma known as Beck. From what I could initially gather, the man is some sort of alt-rock idol, and he clearly possesses the eccentricity to receive such a nomination. Alas, idiosyncrasy does not a great musician make, at least not by itself. So I walked into Midnite Vultures, purportedly one the most upbeat Beck releases, expecting bizarre genre transfusions, liberal sampling, and lots of electronica influences. What I didn’t expect was for all of this to be true, but not at all more engaging for the efforts. In fact, for all this man does to keep the wool over my eyes from start to finish, Midnite Vultures is unbelievably shallow.

Many would claim Beck’s style isn’t too readily defined, but I’ve got one word to do just that: schizophrenic. Indeed, so insistent is he to mix so many different genres and instruments under a single album that whatever magical recipe he could have created is quickly soured. Ironically, the core traits of each track – tempo, tone, and even length – don’t vary much at all, so we are forced to rely on his cheap tricks and gimmicks just to keep pace. Take the starting track Sexx Laws for instance; it kicks off in a much more engaging manner than most of the other songs by mixing together repeating keyboards with a soul-flavored jazz ensemble, but repetition already starts to sink in by the bridge and my attention starts to wane off accordingly. That’s when, from seemingly no logical location in space or time, a full-blown banjo riff kicks in. Raised eyebrows not-withstanding, the cocktail of soul and bluegrass just doesn’t flow or make sense…but it’s here anyway, because Beck said so. And it’s only one of many “WTF?” moments that randomly pepper the album, from the laugh-worthy beat-boxing in Pressure Zone to the sudden appearance of below-average hip-hop in Hollywood Freaks. Yeah, it’s great to be diverse, but such a trait must be managed and controlled, not splattered all about like the paint on a monkey’s self-portrait.

And on the subject of inconsistency and incompetence, we come to Beck’s lyrical capabilities, which is indeed where the aforementioned pretentiousness is showcased to a spit-shine polish. I truly went into this album perceiving Beck as a potentially intelligent individual, but from his music I would guess that he’s either very confused about the way the English language works or he advertently has his face crammed right up where-the-sun-don’t-shine. To put it bluntly, they defy reason and intellect in favor of a working rhyme scheme, something that is usually associated with much more mainstream acts than this guy. The result is that any chance of comprehending them from a listener’s point of view is locked up, caged away, and sealed within a cube of building bricks bathed in cement. The first verse from Nicotine and Gravy, for example, sounds like it could be the arrangement of lines from other random songs that in no way relate: “I'll be your chauffeur on a midnight drive / It takes a miracle just to survive / Buried animals call your name / You keep on sleeping through the poignant rain”. What?! Please, someone inform me if you can find any lucid meaning to that jargon. Then, by contrast, you have a song like Mixed Bizness (what did I say about intentional misspellings, huh?), that has “linear” and “dull” written all over it. In other words, it’s a single, and you’ve actually probably heard it before; I know I did. Sadly, it’s also a syrupy, mindless rant about dancing and sex, which is hardly new. Between these two extremes, it’s hard to walk away from this album feeling any sort of emotion, almost like an hour-long elevator ride.

Suffice it to say – and this really should go without saying at all – there will always be an audience for that sort of thing, who will find what I see as superficial to be brilliance instead. And indeed, if you’re looking for an album that carries such a multitude of styles under one roof, you might just have the key that unlocks this album’s potential. Sadly, I couldn’t even lockpick the frickin’ door to said potential because I was too distracted by generic song structures dotted with conceptual and lyrical inconsistencies. I’m sure that in between his song-writing sessions that involve a combination of liberal drug-use and smashing his head against a brick wall, he’d like to refute some of these harsh and perhaps rashly made lashes against his work, but rest assured that if he speaks anything like he writes poetry then he’d probably be better off communicating to me by drawing on an Etch-a-Sketch with his toes.

Great Gig in the Sky, Indeed: "Dark Side of the Moon" Review

Album: The Dark Side of the Moon
Artist: Pink Floyd
Genre: Progressive Rock / Psychadelic Rock
Length: 42:59
Release Date: March 17, 1973
Label: Harvest (1973), Capitol (20th Anniversary), EMI (30th Anniversary)
Producer: Pink Floyd




It’s a sad fact of life – at least in the world of music, anyway – that the greatest and most important creations and developments are often sadly overlooked. I can expect anyone to know who Britney Spears is, but I still get raised eyebrows when I ask someone about Iron Maiden, and I guarantee most people have no idea what a “Grandmaster Flash” is. In such a world, it’s become increasingly difficult for me to take anything that’s remotely popular or mainstream seriously, which has in part lead to my more “alternative” taste.

Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon is, in all respects, a glorious exception to this rule. Once my initial skepticism was pushed aside, I was overjoyed to find it to be one of the elite few truly deserving of its success and praise. And that goes beyond its purely financial achievements; at the time of its conception, DSotM was (and I am not exaggerating in the slightest here) an album destined by its inherent brilliance, creativity, and originality to define its era and deeply influence those to come from here to eternity. Whether that’s a statement that everyone wearing the Pink Floyd T-shirts they bought at The Gap can agree with is beyond me, but against impossible odds the fans and the critics – myself included – seem to agree, and so should you.

What’s truly magnificent about Pink Floyd is that the fame they acquired was due solely to the music they created, as it should be. DSotM is probably the best of their works to represent their ability because it is simultaneously their most experimental, so much so that it went on to define a genre that revolves around experimentation: progressive rock. Unlike their later rock opera classic The Wall, the album wallows in a sort of ethereal state, passing fluidly from one phase to the next, hard to grasp yet impossible not to be sucked into, like a musical vacuum. For this reason it’s hard to definitively break down DSotM into parts and infinitely easier to look at it as a whole, where the division of the album into songs only exists to divvy up the conceptual lyrics.

And conceptual the album is, dealing with some of the broadest and most complex issues: life, death, and that which takes place in between. Speak to Me / Breathe is the embodiment of life, represented by the throbbing heartbeat that ushers in the album, and the brief Eclipse ends it with a bold statement about free will. The remaining songs cover all kinds of territory ranging from religion (The Great Gig in the Sky) to greed (Money) to ethics and moral conflict (Us and Them), and are all delivered beautifully through David Gilmore’s spectacular vocals.

The guitarists and drummers do their task marvelously throughout, never overly technical and always in sync with the rest of the sound, but the real star here is the keyboard, courtesy of (recently deceased) Richard Wright. They are, indisputably, the key that unlocks the album’s almost ghost-like and oftentimes eerie sound, and this is clearly the album to which Wright contributed the most. Apart from that, the album’s atmosphere is accentuated by masterful mixing in of various sound effects and other oddities. The exact reasoning escapes me, but when a metronome syncs perfectly with the starting riff in Time, or when a melody of ringing cash registers and jingling coins kick in Money, it seems to make the song more meaningful.

Of course, the album does have its flaws. If you haven’t inferred this by now, know that it takes a patient and open mind to fully enjoy what DSotM has to offer. For something that has garnered so much attention, it’s surprisingly slow and lacks the focus and immediacy of most other music; many of its greatest second-long moments have buildups that can take minutes, as is the nature of progressivism. On the Run symbolizes this well; its long and repetitive keyboard noodling, accented only by odd sounds that pass in and out, may be as exciting to some as it is coma-inducing to others. Ironically, another potential fault can be found in its ending, which is sudden and lacks the explosive punch you would expect such an epic album to end at. In most other regards, though, DSotM is excellently paced and mastered.

Of course, maybe I’m being overly analytical (not like that’s a surprise to anyone). Bluntly put, The Dark Side of the Moon perfectly captures the time and place of 1973, perfectly summarizes a handful of life’s most vital aspects, and is a blast to listen to, all in one handy package. Beyond being the most important proof that music that impresses the public and leaves a massive mainstream mark is almost always made without the intention to do so (see also: Nirvana), its an album that actually received what it deserved. It’s a pity more albums don’t.

And R.I.P. Richard. We think you and your band may have written your own best eulogy for you: "And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it, you've gotta go sometime."

Failed to Stir Well: "Hybrid Theory" Review

Album: Hybrid Theory
Artist: Linkin Park
Genre: Nu Metal / Rapcore
Length: 37:50
Release Date: October 24, 2000
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Don Gilmore

As much as the past is haunting, it made sense for my first review to be about the first album I ever really liked. It makes further sense in that almost everyone in North America was touched by this album once upon a time, either by the continuous radio airplay or through the early 2000s nu metal trend. Alas, it’s been a long time since the days where I once adored this band, much like everyone else and their dog at the time, so it goes without saying that this album will be written through the perspective of crap-colored lenses rather than rose-tinted ones.

Hybrid Theory, the first of the “bad albums with awesome names” Linkin Park trilogy, was also a rather large slice of the infamous nu-metal pie that was all the rage back in the day. The fusion of hip-hop and metal quickly proved to be a quick ticket to fame and success amongst troubled adolescents and was hailed as metal’s antidote to grunge, even if it probably exacerbated the disease in the long run. But while most simply dabbled into the hip-hop cultural stew, Linkin Park’s debut practically fell into the damn pot. The trappings of a distortion-fueled metal band are draped in turntable tomfoolery from beginning to end, but the key aspect to the band’s musical schizophrenia comes in the form of two separate vocalists: one to carry the melodies and another to fill in the gaps with full-blown rapping segments. Mike Shinoda, the latter member, was not at his best in Hybrid Theory, as indicated by his more recent solo project Fort Minor, but the big trouble is that none of the other contributors were quite up to snuff either. For all its gimmicks and musical blends, HT is really just one big mediocrity salad.

Unfortunately, it’s apparent right from when you hit “play” exactly what ails Linkin Park. On Papercut, the guitar, drums, and bass all key in fairly quickly, but none of them seem to really take the song in any direction until the verses hit. That’s when all of the distortion and aggression comes to a screeching halt so that the promised rapping can commence. It continues to flip-flop between the two styles in the basic “verse-chorus-bridge” format as predictably as can possibly be, and then immediately ceases, leaving you to wonder what the point of all of it was. And really, that’s an apt description of almost every song here; the album does provide snippets of both metal and hip-hop (which is where the titular “hybrid” aspect comes in) but fails to capture the magic of either. The riffs of the metal half suffer from a minor case of what I like to call “Fallout-Boy syndrome”, in which they only serve to provide a wall of distorted sound but hardly do anything creative, unique, or notable. Meanwhile, the drums and bass serve very little purpose, seemingly only there because they need to be.

As for the vocals, you’re getting a mixed bag. The aforementioned Shinoda handles his designated segments well enough, with an aggressive but likable voice and a respectable degree of flow, but his partner in crime Chester Bennington is a disaster. His wails and screams are absolutely cringe-worthy, especially when paired with the lyrics he's penned. Summing them up is much like skimming through the pages of a pre-pubescent goth child’s diary; disjointed and banal metaphors, combined with linear and cliché subject matter, make for depressingly standard and inexcusably bad lyrics. Chester points the inspiration for his words on drug abuse and familial problems, but it's just as possible that he threw a chimp in a cage and tasered it through the bars until it started screeching things he could use as writing material.

So can the album even hope to have some high points? Sure, though most of them are simply relative to the rest of the album’s blandness. Its most famous single, In The End, succeeds by focusing on the rap end of the spectrum, largely restricting Chester to the sideline where he belongs while a surprisingly component piano melody and some tolerable electronic experimenting aid Shinoda in his lyrical delivery. Even when Chester does show up for the choruses and to add a couple of harmonies to the verses, he actually manages to carry a tune, at least until the song’s bridge (one of which he should probably consider jumping off of, if you catch my meaning). The following track, Place For My Head, opens with some interesting semi-distorted guitar playing that opens up all kinds of doors for a crescendo, only to have all the energy fall into a pit somewhere when Shinoda takes the mic and the song falls into Linkin Park’s standard tricks. Finally, Cure For the Itch is worth noting because it deviates from basic song writing; it’s a shockingly clever instrumental that makes good enough use of the band’s skills behind a studio mixer. But that’s really all she wrote. Every other track is a mix between the same bland riffs, despicable lyrics, and the desperate cries for Bennington to receive voice training…and some therapy.

If any positive criticism could be given Hybrid Theory to this point, its that it managed to mix together the two polar opposite genres better than most other attempts did, that its best moments would be built upon and polished on the follow-up album Meteora, and that it still beats the stuffing out of the ghastly Minutes to Midnight. But it’s a forgettable and dismissible effort through and through, one that makes me somewhat depressed to think I had wasted so much time with it in my youth. I must send it my thanks for ultimately putting me on the path to much greater forms of music, but suffice to say that this hypothetical thank-you-note also comes with a letter-bomb.

"In The End" YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK73dup3IaY

Greetings to Newcomers, and the Rules 'Round Here

Come one, come to all, to see the opinions that normally stay locked inside my crazy little head! In case you didn't know, this is a place of music evaluation, and all posts created by me will be devoted to reviews of music albums or editorials on the state of the music industry. Sounds fun enough, yes? And you can help!

How, you ask? By giving me things to talk about, of course! If you have a particular nagging desire to see me ridicule (or, on the off chance, praise) one of your favorite albums, or if you have a real stinker you want me to verbally thrash, then let me know! Just post a comment on one of my latest reviews or on this very post, and I'll be sure to find it and take your recommendation to heart. It helps me, it helps you, it helps stop global warming (sorta), everyone wins!


So here's how said reviews will work: I will post an evaluation of an album I listened to on a roughly weekly basis, unless otherwise noted in a post. These reviews will contain specific information regarding each album, and then a in-depth discussion of them. You may notice my reviews don't carry scores; this is because a score-keeping system inevitably leads to numerous conflicts between both my own record-keeping and my viewers, and because opinions are far too complex to represent through simple numbers. Needless to say, if you want to know whether or not to give the album a listen, you may have to read the actual review (or, ya know, the last paragraph).

And that's about it. Let the exploration into unrestricted musical pessimism begin!