Genesis - Genesis

Release: October 3, 1983
Genre: Let's call it "art pop" and be done with it.
Label: Charisma Records (UK), Atlantic Records (US)
Length: 45:59

Nick's Rating: 3.5/5

I'm gonna do something different this time and basically take the mick out of the majority of this album instead of giving it a proper review. That score up there does say 3.5, yes, but I'm spending a review taking the piss out of this album. TV Tropes would refer to this with "Four Point Scale" -- I, however, am just doing what I do best, and nowhere did I say I was wiping myself with the whole album.

Okay. Quick question: are you a fan of pop Genesis or prog genesis? BUZZ! Time's up! You're still gonna hate "Second Home by the Sea!" This "song," if you can even call it that, being the tail end of "Home by the Sea" is basically just a long instrumental, although with piss-poor arrangement and a generally anemic sound, which is not thanks at all to the instruments the band is using at this time (whatever gave you that idea?). It's not even like a matter of not knowing where to go; they just didn't blend the prog and pop sides together right. Or rather, they did, but they left it to sit for a few days and they separated back into separate layers. And then they BOTH got moldy, and they just said "screw it" and went ahead. The end result is not the worst song in the Genesis canon (and if you honestly believe that, uh... God help you if you buy a copy of We Can't Dance, is all I'm saying), but a six-minute drag-a-thon that, were it the only Genesis song I'd ever heard, I think I might snap and kill Tony Banks with a shovel. Mike and Phil can stay alive, and why would I bother with the two guys who weren't even in the scene anymore.

Pleasant surprise, though: "Home by the Sea" was released as a single in some territories! Hopefully not with that dreadful second part on, though.

The only two other truly bad songs on the album are the last two ones on the album. I mean, a lot of people talk about "Illegal Alien," which technically is a bad song with its doofy faux Mexican accent, unfortunate implications, and the-less-said-about-it-the-better type video, but I find it strangely cute, probably because it's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Har, stupidity from Genesis? I'll take it over pseudointellectualism from Tool, at least.

So, before I get completely sidetracked, "Silver Rainbow" and "It's Gonna Get Better" do literally nothing for me. I've mentioned my love of George Starostin, and he praised the vocals on "Silver Rainbow" all those years ago when he reviewed the album, and I don't blame him -- but one thing doesn't a good song make. A friend of mine even noted that "Second Home" has a hook. True. "It's Gonna Get Better," then, has pretty much literally got nothing going for it. It's not even lyrically interesting or snarky. Fine, I can accept a truly optimistic song, yes, but I've heard so many of them after twenty one goddamn years of listening to the radio that another one will just leave me cold and be ignored.

Oh, and then there's "Taking It All Too Hard." Which is so unremarkable that I completely forgot about it. It's a sleepy, go-nowhere type of tune with, uh... I don't want to say no redeeming qualities. The electric piano is cute. But I wouldn't call it a really good song by any means whatsoever; it's just there. It's single material. Also known as filler. Those sound like they should be mutually exclusive, right? Nope. Not in this genre. It's kind of undortunate, too.

"That's All" just doesn't do much for me either, but it's quick moving and harmless, really. It's pure simplicity, but I don't find it much fun to listen to, probably because I still like prog Genesis more than pop genesis. But it is nice to hear the natural drums actually come out rather quickly. I think there's still a drum machine in some parts with those, but that's okay. Like I said, this one's a matter of taste; you might like it, but I don't. I mean, I do, but I don't like listening to it.

What I do like listening to, though, now that we're done with all the negativity, are the other three songs. "Mama" is one that probably everyone knows, from its distorted, jagged, I'd even say pseudo-industrial, drum machine opening down to Phil's evil as hell laugh. To some people, it represents the worst of Genesis' pop dreck. To me? I'd point you to "Taking It All Too Hard" for that. "Mama" is actually a cool song, even if not the best of Genesis' work (no matter what chart positions will tell you). The song has something that most of the rest of this album lacks -- an actual mood other than "cold drum-machine-based pop" (which is more a genre than an actual mood, but who cares?). It's dark, sinister, and almost throws you straight into the malevolent cityscape that Phil sings about, particularly as the song draws on and the explosively booming natural drums come out. Dear lord. I thought I'd hate this song way back when I started listening to this album. But, no. This truly is "art" in popular music. You thought that "art pop" thing was just a joke 'cause I couldn't let go of Genesis as a prog band? You fool!

I think the other two songs, though, are actually my favorites here, probably because they ease off the drum machine and are a little more "rock" than "pop." "Home by the Sea" is probably my longtime favorite from this album. I couldn't really say what it is about it -- I think it's really just the fact that it's as simple as it is, to the point that it belies the band's true identity as art rock, no matter how poppy they try to become (until We Can't Dance, anywway, which actually is the band's worst album, not Calling All Stations). Avoid, of course, "Second Home by the Sea," which has all the artistic content of a case of hammer toes and all the listenability of getting shot in the ear.

"Just a Job to Do" is cool, too. A bit generic, really, but it has energy to spare, which is something I can't say about most of the other languid crap on this album, and it's kind of funny in its own way -- because the lyrics speak of a P.I. chasing down a target, and could you ever think of Phil Collins being that bad-ass? A man whose mind is a dark place separated into smaller, darker places, yes, but actually bad-ass? That would require some serious convincing, and I think that "Just a Job to Do" comes about as close as it possibly could. Which is to say, it's still not very good. Phil shouting "BANG BANG BANG! and down you go!" is kind of funny, instead. Thankfully, the song is still pretty good, if, as I said, generic -- but that's a problem with all the other pop songs on the album, too. This isn't an album about doing anything new.

That's probably why it's enjoyable. Not that Genesis were truly bad when they were experimental, but it was kind of hit and miss sometimes.

I probably am doing this because I hate myself.

Lyriel - Leverage

Release: February 24, 2012
Genre: Some kind of metal with female vocals. I don't know what genres are anymore anyway, why are you asking?
Label: AFM Records
Length:

Nick's Rating: 3.5/5

I'm really not at a point where I'm anticipating albums much anymore, at least, not for the year. There's a new Diablo Swing Orchestra forthcoming, and new Rush, but otherwise, most of my favorite bands are either defunct or have released an album in the past two years and take long enough crafting their works that it's unfair to expect an album this year. In fact, in some respects I almost wouldn't be surprised if Clockwork Angels, currently set for a May 29th release, got another delay. (Okay, not really; they're far enough along with the album that another delay would require tapes be destroyed in the middle of the night.) So far, also, there's only been one album this year that I've really given a good listen to, that being Glass Kites' debut (which I might review eventually).

That said, I was outright shocked to hear about Leverage, considering Paranoid Circus was as recent as 2010. It wasn't an unpleasant surprise, but thanks to America being a little too ready to keep me from getting hold of a decent album, I had a bad feeling I'd have to wait for a hard copy. I won't comment on that, suffice to say that I, sadly, was saddled with a downloaded copy at release day. Yeah, I can't get ONE damn copy of this album weeks later, but most of the now limited options I have out where I live for actually picking up hard copies of albums sure did have a ton of copies of Megadeth's TH1RT3EN, the biggest disappointment of the year, at release day.

In short, this isn't actually a review of Leverage, but rather a lamentation about how FUCKING BACKASSWARDS the brick-and-mortar element of the music industry is in America. Is it because Dave Mustaine is a squeaky clean, Santorum-backing Christian who does this just to troll the metal community, while Jessica Thierjung is a strange blend of Siouxie Sioux and Tarja Turunen whom, people would assume (probably for all the wrong reasons), thinks present-day American politicking is a festering Gordian knot of raw psychosis? (Not that I would likely have a chance of picking this up in a German record store, anyway.)

Okay, I need to cut that out. I'll start to hate looking at this crap. Anyway. To some the Siouxie Sioux comparison might seem odd, but in what is perhaps the exact opposite of a surprise, I think I can reason this out. Think for a few moments about just how wide of an area the Banshees covered musically, even though they were mostly confined to that "goth" sound or group of sounds. Compare "Kiss Them For Me," a pop song, to "Melt!" -- which... is in a genre all its own, really (well, it's kind of post-punk, so). In some respects, this is the comparison between this album's title track and the last album's. Leverage's title track is an arena-ready creation that could probably have been written and performed by any number of talented bands (albeit still keeping a bit of the artist's signature on it). "Paranoid Circus," instead, was comparatively unique, something that only a band in the same genre could make, and probably not most bands in the same genre. (Also, I feel that Thierjung could probably cultivate a similar "obsessed with the era of black and white film" look to Siouxie -- perhaps taking inspiration more from Polaire? Oh, I'm overthinking this.)

Though it does look like she's getting to style her looks after Florence Welch.

The lone problem I have with the song "Leverage," really, is that it's almost devoid of personality. More so than the aforementioned Banshees tune that I drew the reference to (which is, in terms of style, nothing like this song, before anyone says anything). It's one of those songs that a band like this would make to sell records (not that it'd help). At this point, you need an identity in this industry, and Lyriel has a perfectly good one. Why throw that away just to, supposedly, get listeners? (For all I berate this song on the matter though, it probably did help; Barnes and Noble allows me to order it off their online store, when they haven't got any of the other albums and stock only maybe one or two Threshold albums -- Threshold being, if last.fm is anything to go by, a far more popular group, albeit also nearly unknown in America).

At least they seem to gather up personality again on some of their other songs, like "Parting" and "White Lily." The album, overall, is a little more energetic and loud than I remember Paranoid Circus being, but I remember only a little of that album, which is probably a massive travesty. I couldn't really say because I don't remember. I also am not sure how this measures up as "folk metal," since I guess I don't really know what that's supposed to mean, but I will say that it's really not the Nightwish rip-off that people on Youtube keep talking about. Which I think I mentioned last review, but it needs to be said again.

Geez. I've spent a lot of time complaining in this review. Really, though, the album is far more solid than I act. The only thing here that I could live without is "The Road Not Taken," adapted from a famous Robert Frost poem, but a large reason for my distaste for it is from having the poem crammed down my throat. I went to Northside College Prep, a reasonably famous Chicago public high school known for being smart. They basically wore Frost's "The Road Not Taken" on their sleeves, possibly even by its incorrect title "The Road Less Traveled," wearing it as some badge of honor that you, student, took the road less traveled. And they paraded their high end standardized test scores around the school like that were some kind of actual accomplishment! It was a little distressing, to be polite. I guess it's a little silly, my reasoning, but I don't want to hear the words ever again. I probably could recite them from memory, but I'd have to do it while sucking a jezail and flailing for the trigger.

Ugh. I tried to stop, okay? Also, "Wenn die Engel Fallen" makes me glad for the program function of CD players and the capability to make playlists. It's not that it's not pretty, as it really is meant to be -- it's just that it's not very interesting unless you're in the mood for pretty things, and by that point, the album has basically ground away your desire for that. I'm using "pretty" in a rather generic sense, here, since even the noisier bits of this album could be considered pretty if you're predisposed to it.

I think that's one of the major downfalls of this album; it does try to be too things at once. In the end, it suffers immensely for that. Much like Lyriel's previous album, the result feels less than the sum of its parts. But some of its parts are good. Or at least fun. I kinda hope that "Leverage" brings this band a bit of actual airplay. This is one of those groups that I'd love to see go places, honestly.

"Appalling" just isn't strong enough.

Rammstein - Liebe ist fuer alle da

Release: October 16, 2009
Genre: Neue Deutche Härte
Label: Universal Records, Vagrant Records
Length: 46:07

Nick's Rating: 2/5


Earlier today, I was listening to Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Black Moon, wondering why "Paper Blood" from that album and "Knife Edge," its obvious ancestor, from their self-titled, didn't get covered by many bands. Then I found a cover of "Knife Edge" by a doom-metal band and learned why. The use of doom tones and death metal vocals killed the whole thing. Bands like Dream Theater seem like they could really make it come to life. Or maybe Lyriel. I'd suggest Nightwish, but no. Lyriel could probably handle that better. They do use legitimate stringed instruments and not Disney-inflected keyboards. I kind of thought about the idea of the song in the hands of Rammstein, then, who might be able to pull it off with a little more temperance in the vocals. You know things are bad when you think of Till Lindemann as the more tempered, refined, restrained, etc. voice of two voices.

So, uh, Liebe ist fuer alle da. Except for this album.

So, I guess I'll get right down to it. Two out of five is more than enough for this album. If this were a proportion of songs I like vs. songs I don't, that'd be a massive overestimate. Okay, not really massive, but you get the idea. This album sucks out loud (please wait to shoot me until after the review).

I think I'll tackle this in list form, since it'll be more fun that way. The appropriate place to start is with #1, which brings us straight to almost the end of the album.

My favorite song on this record is "Mehr" -- those playing the home game may recognize this as being German (no shit!) for "More." I dunno what the lyrics mean or have to do with anything, and don't really have it in me to look up what they say or what they mean. I think it's generally the arrangement and vocals on this song that make it enjoyable for me -- after having spend much of the album, and even my favorite songs, comparatively monotone, Till proves that he does actually have some vocal range in him! A tiny, insignificant amount of vocal range! Isn't it a cute little vocal range? As far as the rest, the song is drenched in keyboards, and very obvious keyboards at that, harking back to earlier albums a little, albeit not entirely (because, of course, that would be REGRESSIVE and that's not cool for a band like Rammstein -- I consider them "stealth prog," or I would had I not just made up that term right now). Is Till showing some emotion in the song's lyrics? Maybe he's just trolling us. Rammstein seem like the closest thing to a band of trolls in some time while (probably) not actually being one.

Really, it's the two (to my ears, which are pretty shoddy, I guess, probably from listening to this album too much in headphones -- it is mastered loud, which makes sense, but it's just painful) most-keyboard-heavy tracks are my favorites, because, while you can accuse the rhythms of "Haifisch" of being too poppy, it does have a sound that reminds me more of my childhood glimpses of Rammstein (which I may or may not have described in my review of Porcelain and the Tramps' quasi-real EP: English, if I recall correctly, and imported in the era of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson), which is food enough as far as I'm concerned. "Haifisch" means "Shark" in German. The lyrics basically state, if I recall correctly (the chorus, anyway; the verses are just a bit odd and slightly posturing-focused), that even sharks cry, but nobody notices this because they live in the water (and I think that the rest says something about this being where the salt in the ocean comes from). Another fun note: those chorus lyrics are based on the lyrics to "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" from The Threepenny Opera! No, really! I think this makes Rammstein's lyrics more "Brechtian" than the Dresden Dolls', but I'm not much of a Brecht expert, so I don't know worth a crap. I should try explaining this to my mother, who once described "Du hast" as resembling "a wedding march for the Third Reich," but I'm not sure what she'd say. I would call this somewhat intelligent in its own way (with a fair bit of bullshit philosophy thrown in for good measure), even if it's not to the point of borrowing from writers/etc. like Ayn Rand. In fact, let's not have them do Rand; Rammstein honestly don't need more shit piled on them after the infamous "music to invade Poland to" jab and everything else.

So, on the rockier side, there's "Waidmanns Heil" and the title track to cover that. Despite how overly energetic and noisy the former is, it's actually one of the less noise-encrusted rockers on this album, which is pretty depressing. Just so we're clear, I'm okay with noise music sometimes. However, it doesn't fit in Rammstein's Œuvre very well, as in songs like "B********" -- which apparently means "Buckstabu," some made-up word by the band, which is the first step to turning into a shittier version of Magma.

To be fair, this may be an improvement.

But, anyway. The title track is more stropped-down and a lot less noisy, but still loud and, now that I think about it, also with a fair bit of keyboard to it and is just generally very catchy, something that every other song on here lacks, because most of that is buried in noise out the ass. Which is unfortunate, because most of them could probably be rearranged into something slightly decent if they weren't plagued by so much horrific crap.

I guess, besides those, there's only one notable track, that being called "Pussy." That should already bring up red flags. The song had a pornographic video released for it and featured perhaps easily the bands raunchiest, least subtle, and dumbest lyrics ever. Is this a parody or something? I was always led to believe that parody needed to be a little smart.

I guess "Ich tu dir weh" is a little important, too, but it's not a very good song. I like the single cover, though.

So, in the end, that's four decent songs, one that's a TRUE piece of shit, and six that are so shoddily produced that I can't tell if they're good. Even the four I like don't really stack up among Rammstein's best. But when that list includes songs like "Sonne," "Moskau," "Spring," "Der Meister," and "Spiel mit mir," how can they? In my very first review of this, never published, written aroung the time of the relieas,e I'd suggested, jokingly, that listeners invest instead of Love Is All Around, an LP by War recorded in the late 60s and featuring Eric Burdon on lead vocals. Now that I get a chance to really think about it, I was being completely serious then. By the way, at the time of the release it was somewhat common to compare the album to Mutter. That's complete bullshit. Even though Mutter took the longest time for me to get to like, I can absolutely recognize that album as great, and having a very different sound from, this abomination -- it has quality, where this... doesn't. To say the very least. What's worse is hwo this album seems to get really good reviews. This thing is almost more overrated than Skyrim!

Lastly, here's a picture of a singer whose band released a way better album in the same way that was, by an "amusing" coincidence, that band's worst album ever, too.

You could have spent the time reading this review listening to "The Glass Prison."

To be honest, it actually feels good to be wrong.

King Crimson - The Power to Believe

Release: 2003
Genre: Progressive rock, things that kill Nick's faith in modern music
Label: Sanctuary Records
Length: 51:11

Nick's Rating: 3/5

I had a really shitty day today when I wrote this... so I ask in advance that you all please excuse me if I'm being more of a jackass than usual. But really, now. I'm a fan of King Crimson, too, and this album just makes me want to bash my head into a bank vault's door.

I am a big fan, by the way, of the reviews of George Starostin. In the old version of his site, he had separate little pages for every band whose music he reviewed. Each would have a series of some albums marked with headers like "Best album ever," or "Most underrated album." If he had it, surely The Power to Believe would get King Crimson's "Most overrated album" title. I don't get how this album can be called a massive slam dunk when The ConstruKction of Light gets shit upon relentlessly. They. Are. The. Same. Fucking. ALBUM! About the only difference is that Power is significantly more confident. Better quality, though? Not on your life.

Let me immediately sort out every unnecessary song from this album. "The Power to Believe I" is a throwaway, as is the "Facts of Life Intro" that is indexed as a separate track on what remains of my copy (I sold it back to the used shop I bought it from, just so you know, I was that fucking disappointed in it -- but I still have the MP3 rip because the album sports some nice tunes.). Worthless throwaway, too. "Power I" is pleasant enough, I guess, but it's not something you'll come back to. "Eyes Wide Open" fares much better... but I wouldn't notice it if it were gone. It's an attempt to milk the beauty of "Walking On Air" from THRAK for all it's worth.

Next on the chopping block: "Happy With What you Have to Be Happy With" -- fun, yes. Fun once. After that it's the musical equivalent of a child saying "Are we there yet?" every three seconds in the car. Is it a parody on nu-metal? It sure is awful enough for it. But, parody or not, this is way too repetitive for the Crim I know. Even then, why? What does this band need a nu-metal parody for? Is Robert Fripp that jealous that he doesn't get radio airplay that he needs to resort to smarmy quasi-fuck-the-man posturing? I guess there's a reasonable amount of power to it, but with the sound of the album, replete with near brickwalled masters and electronic drums, of course there's power. Everything has power (or at least faux-power), even "EleKtrik"'s flute opener.

"EleKtrik," by the way, is a good song. Saving grace of the album? Hell no. This eight minute instrumental juggernaut does not leap out and grab you, unless it's to drag you to the skip button. At least, the first few times. The reason for this is a mix of the Two Ps of why early-2000s Crim suck so much -- Production and Pat (Mastelotto, the lone drummer for King Crimson as of their ConstruKction-era reconstruKction). The production, like many modern albums, is such that you could commit a war crime with the contents of the disc. It's yet another hapless victim of the "loudness war," albeit not on level to fight with Vapor Trails or similar. However, it makes the already crappy-sounding electronic drums sound even crappier. Pat Mastelotto, credited with "drums, traps and buttons" played basically just these. I guess the traps and buttons are like vampires and bit the drums somewhere along the way, turning them into more crappy electronics to invade all of the songs that didn't already have non-electronic drums. I have nothing against electronic drums. I'm a big fan, for instance, of Kraftwerk, Rammstein, and Depeche Mode, all of whom use electronic drums extensively. The difference is, they make them sound good because they mesh with the band's sound. They don't mesh with King Crimson, though, so they sound hopelessly out of place and drag the album down.

"EleKtrik," though, is still a good song. It's very well-arranged, which is about all you need out of King Crimson. Well-performed? That goes without saying. Even on a bad day, King Crimson can outplay 99% of bands if all they had to play with were their big toes. "Facts of Life" is easily the best of the vocal songs, but the lyrics do tend to err on the dippy side. "Six billion ants / crawling on a plate / none of the them give back / as much as they take?" Ixnay on the Ooltay, guys. If I wanted crappy post-grunge quasi-punk teenager-friendly "social commentary," I'd listen to bands who actively specialize in it. Mostly facts, indeed, of life, though, so I can't knock them for possibly passing off bullshit as truth to the gullible. Someone said the arrangement is bluesy? My experience with the blues is a little limited, but if you put Pat Mastelotto into a box somewhere far away and let him not play electronic drums, I might give it to you (after you replace the drummer, that is. I hear Vinnie Colaiuta is busy recording an only half-decent album for Megadeth ca. this time. Sic 'em, boys!). Still a cool song despite the sheer sonic ugliness.

"Dangerous Curves," then. Interesting. A high-tension, electronic, dark instrumental with a great buildup. It doesn't go much of anywhere, but who cares anymore? The song is definitely good, and going nowhere seems to be customary for a lot of King Crimson extended dick-arounds. Is it my favorite song on this album? Uh, I'd rather you didn't ask that. That would require me to actually think about this more, and probably go find the used record shop where I sold the album and re-buy it again. It would probably still be there, too. Even if the store had been demolished two years ago. Look up at the cover art: would you want people to know you bought something that looked like that?

So, final count: Three good songs (all long), three pieces of pointless shit (all short), and a lot of middleground (longer). Even if this album were unequivocally bad in terms of arrangement and production, it's King Crimson. It's still pretty good. But it's not worthy of the praise piled onto it by some of the fanbase. It'd make an okay addition to one's CD collection and is an interesting curio. It's not worth the $16 that it's being sold for on the band's site. For a dollar more you can get the far superior Absent Lovers (a 2CD live album from 1984) and get your Fripp/Belew fix. And really, I think I'd be least distressed by the existence of a Steven Wilson-remastered version of this album.

I seem to have gotten off-track, but. Buy it used, I guess.

The worst part is that it took me three years to form a solid opinion on this.

Metallica - Death Magnetic

Release: September 12, 2008
Genre: Thrash metal
Label: Warner Bros. Records
Length: 74:48

Nick's Rating: 3/5

It's hard to believe that this record is this good if all you do is listen to cranky metalheads who lament about selling out and just generally hate on Metallica for doing it so often, as if they're implying that popular music is bad. It doesn't surprise me that they believe this way, considering how they seem to make a contest of listening to the hardest-to-listen-to song. But why are we hating on Metallica for releasing a "throwback" record? You'd get more accomplished by giving Hosni Mubarak grief for stepping down as President of Egypt. Fans had been clamoring for a return to thrash for years!

Well, to say it's a complete return to thrash is bullshit. The album is far too heavily informed by alternative rock and, at times, nu-metal (gag! vomit!) to be a real return to the thrash of yore... but at the same time thrash fans pretend it has no worthwhile musical ideas. Nonsense! The album is actually not half bad, as far as the arrangements and performances go. Another thing entirely, though, is the production; this album sounds like a cat turd after being digested by a dog. It's really not all the fault of Rick Rubin, who finally produced a Metallica album after producing at least one album by every other band ever; by some reports, the tapes arrived to sound engineer Ted Jensen brickwalled already. Translation: recorded too loud. Sounds like shit and would have sounded like shit anyway without some serious work, the kind of thing that Rick Rubin doesn't seem capable of, going by the sheer dryness of his Red Hot Chili Peppers productions.

So, what are the good songs? "That Was Just Your Life," "All Nightmare Long," and "Cyanide" are the obvious ones. "That Was Just Your Life" is fast and strong, complete with slow-moving intro like the band's other album-opening thrash masterpieces, although it is significantly slower in pace than songs like "Battery" or even "Blackened." It still is pretty quick with nice riffs, and features lead singer James Hetfield singing fast. Maybe this is borrowing a little from nu-metal and trying to resemble rapping? Although it's not quite there... which is part of why I can look at this as not being complete ham. Sure, it is hammy, but it's sung by James Hetfield. Of course there's going to be some ham, especially post-...And Justice for All.

"All Nightmare Long," then, is quite similar arrangement, but much different in vocal style (much slower with the words actually being enunciated!) and with, in my opinion, more interesting riffs. Right at the beginning: bass. Heavy bass. So much for this being a successor to Justice. Either that or the Metallica guys have gotten older and more mellow with age and don't feel like fucking with Robert Trujillo, the band's new bassist. So, the intro excites me for pointless reasons, but it does introduce a very cool theme that doesn't get reused as much as it should in the song. The riffs in the vicinity of the chorus remind me of battle music or something -- pretty appropriate, then. The lyrics don't make sense, but this is Metallica, they don't need to make sense. They make the Beatles' "Savoy Truffle" look not-silly and about something resembling a weighty philosophical topic by comparison. I'm still wondering how "zombie apocalypse" became the theme for the video, then. Joke must be on us.

"Cyanide" is different. Cyanide is legitimately catchy, one of the shortest numbers on the record, based around actual hooks. It even feels like they were thinking about funk during initial writing (eventually probably just said "funk it," though). The lyrics are trite, though, unsurprisingly. I guess it has something to do with depression and being near suicide? Metallica aren't good with this subject. Shock, I know. You could get more interesting lyrics from a sleepng garbageman. But I'll take it over generic death-growl crap any day. Like I said, the riff is an excellent one. Probably comes alive in concerts nicely. I should note, though, that I really hated the song at the time of release, so tread lightly.

But what else is left? None of the rest is that interesting... but I can't say I hate any of it, save "The Judas Kiss." Did any ideas go into this song at all? Because, if so, I cannot find them. At all. At... all... Add to this that it drags on for eight minutes and is totally forgettable in every way, and you have good cause to be deeply disappointed in this gilded turd. I guess that "Suicide & Redemption" isn't too great, either, but in the end it qualifies, even if it drags on forever.

The rest? Average all over. "The Day That Never Comes," a "One" knockoff, would probably have been better had it not been run into the fucking ground by radio before the album's release. Not to mention, the guitar solo seems to really drag on. The lyrics are a tad lame, though. "Love is a our-letter word?" Very clever, Little Jimmy. This may be why people say your songwriting sucks.

"Day" is eight minutes long. There, we've found the main problem that's not the abominable production -- the length! Every song needs to have a few minutes cut off. We get it, Kirk Hammett is a good guitarist. But really, now, there is a limit. A good guitarist knows when he's broken it. Unless he's Kirk Hammett, apparently. The album is just too bloated to be called anything other than average-good. End of story.

Kill me now.

Lyriel - Paranoid Circus

Release: 2010
April 1, 2011 (re-release)
Genre: Female-fronted folk/symphonic metal
Label: AFM Records (re-release)
Length:

Nick's Rating: 3.5/5

For those of you following my "project," consider the Cage the Elephant review a Monday post and this a Tuesday post.

So, for my second review this week... I chose this. Quite the departure from Cage the Elephant, huh? (And why not? They say variety is the spice of life.) Compared to that album's hard-edged alternative rock, Lyriel's Paranoid Circus is a series of metal songs that I... suppose are folk metal? That's what I'm told, anyway, but I don't know what that means. I guess it would be a struggle to turn "Electric Light Orchestra and a carnival's metal-ish third wheel" into a real genre name. But there you are. Lyriel, to me, share more in common with carny-rock acts like Vermillion Lies, Rasputina, or, God forbid, Emilie Autumn than they do with... Sol Invictus, or something. (Not like The Dresden Dolls, though, who are too Hot Topic-ready to really be carnies, if you get what I'm saying.)

Though, at the same time, what's in a genre or even an artist comparison? Someone posted a comment on the title track's video calling them out (I assume it was a call-out) for being like Nightwish. I don't see it. I guess if your band is metal and you have a lead singer with no Y chromosome and even think about string instruments that aren't guitar or bass, you're like Nightwish. (If you think about bass, though, you're a pussy for not mixing it out and making your music ear-ravaging.) Of course, this is stated with derision. Which is utter bullshit. I'm a bit cold toward Nightwish, too, okay? Let's not pretend they're my favorite band. But this comparison is like saying that the Rolling Stones are similar to Vanden Plas because both feature guitars, drums, bass, and a male lead singer. To be sure, Lyriel have a few things in common with Nightwish, but they are not close enough on the genre level to make this a legitimate comparison.

Speaking of the title track of the video and female-fronted "opera metal" (which is a plenty bullshit saying in the same way that saying that Liz Phair's music is meaningful or saying that Liz Phair's music is meaningless is a bullshit saying), I'm honestly surprised that the lesbian fanservice is rather... new to the genre's videos. How was this not thought of before? Was it so the bands could remain goth-friendly by depicting the world as, by and large, claustrophobic and loveless? Which is really what the video does. The sexuality is only minor and uncomfortable, not so much superbly erotic. Slightly sexual, yes, but only enough to briefly distract you from how discomfiting the thought of being captured by two strangers who live in your mirror (which is a severe paranoia-inducer) is. So, uh, it's pretty possible to have something like that, which seems like a natural fit for the genre, and still preserve the goth-friendliness of the music.

Which it has in spades, by the way, but in more of a way of borrowing from The Cure than neo-goth things. There are occasionally thunderous drums and electronically-treated sounds throughout; really, to me, the title track is the most natural song on the album... and definitely my favorite, and not even just for the video. To be fair, this isn't much of a dose of capsaicin compared to most things in the genre, and I guess that it's even pretty low on the Scoville compared to their other material, from what I've read? But I've never heard any of it to verify myself, so I guess skip that for now. There are no great revelations to be found in the music, sure, but this isn't Diablo Swing Orchestra or whoever. As ever, originality is at a premium, in a way. Better that they be unoriginal and unknown, I say.

But really, that is what stops me really caring about this record: the lack of any really original ideas. There isn't much to say about this record that you can't say about another one, and little that it says that another record doesn't say better. There is just not enough to comment on here; nothing stands out anywhere near enough save the title track to save it from being just slightly above average. There is, however, one thing that weighs it down: the beginning track. The first track of the album is an intro, featuring a spoken word welcoming the listener to the Paranoid Circus. Unfortunately, there is little to no need to have this stupid thing in there. So, why is it there? It's not like this is a concept album as far as I can tell, so it's just some kind of dippy joke that's not funny at all. They could have at least tried some kind of Emerson, Lake & Palmer thing. "Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends" could actually be less a goofy intro and more a legitimate threat in the hands of this outfit. I guess bonus points to the the man who narrates for also inserting a Hesse quote in the middle of the album.

But beyond that, so what? The songs are all decent, but not interesting enough to make the album anywhere near great. It's an interesting listen, yes. Many albums are. Could I recommend it? Sure. I'm just not sure I'd be any good at that. It's really kind of a strange album to look at... probably because enough people seem interested in tarring it with epithets like "Nightwish knockoff" because it has female vocals. Yeah, okay, I am sort of saying "the world is not quite ready for this." Well, at least not the metal world, which is still full enough of arrogant elitist scumbags that this will get flak for being something it's not.

How many times can I say "This sounded like a good idea at first..." anyway?

Cage the Elephant - s/t

Release: June 23, 2008 (U.S.)
May 19, 2009 (U.K.)
Genre: Alternative Rock
Label: RED - An Artist Development Company (U.S.)
Relentless Records (U.K.)
Length: 37:53

Nick's Rating: 4/5

Sunday was the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. I didn't know about this until just the day of (for reasons that should come as no surprise whatsoever). As such, I'll spend the entire week reviewing one album from the 21st Century a day. I decided to start with this one and will probably work my way down in quality as the week goes, which is a pretty accurate reflection of my usual moods; happy at the beginning of the week, full of rage by the end and ready to garrote myself with my own intestines in protest of oh who needs anything to fucking protest when you're that mad at the world that you'd actually come up with something that goddamned wrong. I considered ending the week with a review of Prince's 1999, a significant high water mark in popular music, which turned twenty-eight this year and remains as awesome as it always was... and would take the length of the week for a full-length review of the bloody thing to gel. Ooh-we sha-sha coo-coo yeah!

A quick note before we get anywhere: Americans are fucking insane. If you need more proof, head to the Mall of America and witness the existence of a Bettie Page-related store. That's all. The contents are significantly more "safe" and not really that much related to her, if I recall correctly, but her face and name is associated with the store. There you go. Over time, I've become convinced that some people (especially Americans) will spend money on anything. It's about the only accounting for Lady Gaga's extreme popularity. I have nothing against her as a person (and certainly not the kind of bile I reserve for politicians); she has some great ideas and can write some good songs, but she is by and large mediocre-at-best as far as the Trade goes, chained by the need to create popular music... something designed specifically to be sold. It's a narrow, narrow place that just feeds into American insanity.

Why am I going off on this tangent, when this is about Cage the Elephant's self-titled album? Well, the Bowling Green, Kentucky-based alt-rock band had become significantly popular in America, so I was significantly skeptical about the contents of this disc, but I was pleased to see that the American insanity occasionally produces positive results. Cage the Elephant's self-titled album is like the BioShock of alternative rock; a redemption for a hit-and-miss genre that has endured some serious mediocrity before and after its release. It's not elegant, of course -- savage music for the American neo-savage.

That starts right away from "In One Ear," which was my first exposure to CTE, via the song's first video, showing off lead singer Matthew Shultz acting in a particularly insane way as he sings the song's... truly boisterous lyrics. He lashes back at critics who would talk shit at him about his drug use (which I don't know about), his being "another Generation X-er [that] somehow slipped up through the cracks," et cetera. "I'm only playin' music 'cause you know I fuckin' love it," he sings, and he's definitely got the right idea, then. He suggests that a critic might say rock-and-roll is dead, but the music makes clear that this is a load of shit. The words aren't even needed, and sadly, they don't so much endear me to the band, but it's still a very nice song.

The intensity doesn't let up much throughout the album. Unfortunately, it's just not much fun to talk about the rest of it, but the songs "James Brown" and "Soil to the Sun" are both great, as is, really, the rest of the album. The intensity is reduced on two other popular songs, "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" and "Back Against the Wall." The former seems to be the most popular song on this album, and why not? It's an entertaining song and not too harsh for the sanitized alternative rock radio airwaves. It's kind of lightweight, in my opinion, with a bit of a Southern sound to it, I guess. The lyrics are more entertaining to me, though, than those on most other songs on the album, while Shultz questions the lifestyles of prostitutes, robbers, and... what I suppose are meant to be televangelists? as they work to make a living. It's presented in a reasonably amusing way, which is just what CTE do: sing entertaining songs in the alternative rock genre. So, a definite success.

"Back Against the Wall," though? Yeah, that's good, too. It's a restrained hard-rock number, a bit different from "No Rest," but also a lot less fun. Give them points, though, for this song; it's absolutely not bad and has every right to be well-known. Good on you all. Boys, I respect what you're doing as I respect Emilie Autumn's attempts to be Rammstein-meets-Tori Amos -- which is to say, I respect it a great deal even when the results are bad (are they bad anywhere on this CD, though?).

The other songs, though, range merely from pretty good to average. The two that really stand out for me are "Tiny Little Robots" -- a strange but very energetic (and noisy!) song. "Lotus," meanwhile, has a very spiritual quality to it, as would be expected of something with that title. It's not at all a bad song, but the one thing that really bugs me about it after a while, is when the music stops when the singer sings the word "Stop." It's cute the first time, but entirely too played out by the second time, and he does it more times. Is that trip really necessary?

But hey! Even with every knuckleheaded detour and every boisterous critic-baiting exercise, and even the forgettable things, Cage the Elephant's first album is a stone-cold success which deserved to sell every single disc it has sold and ever will. Unfortunately, though, a whole genre can't be (re)built on the back of one band; more bands need to take after them to help the ailing genre. Hopefully this album will inspire a few more good bands to pick up their influences and muddle the mixture with some R.E.M./Nirvana/whatever sensibilities and start rescuing this genre from standing on the backs of the bruised and get ti on solid ground. It's a venerable genre that's produced its own fair share of brilliant moments.

I swear, fandom will kill music.

If this title, and anything said in here, sounds really extreme and less-than-sane, please understand -- I am in an exceptionally bad mood right now. Over one of my favorite bands of all time, Queensryche.

But not for the reason you think. It is, though, related to their new album, Dedicated to Chaos. Again, not for the reason you think. By now, you've probably heard everyone pissing and shitting themselves over the fact that the album does not sound like the Queensryche of old. So, in short, here is my two-step advice for people who want to hear Rage for Order or Operation: Mindcrime again.

1. Listen to Rage for Order or Operation: Mindcrime.
   
2. Shut the fuck up and go the fuck away.

Very simple. Your opinions on what a band "should" be doing do not matter, and they never will. A band "should" be doing what they think is best. In this case, the songs on Dedicated to Chaos, which are very different from most everything they've done before. This is not Queensryche as we knew them in 1988. This is a good thing.

Queensryche are a progressive metal band. For those of you who don't know, "progressive" is a word meaning "favoring or promoting progress." In short, something that changes. Stagnation can work for some bands. For a progressive band like Queensryche, it absolutely cannot. Yet the "fans" continue to whine about how much the band has changed and how much they want the old sound back. It's natural. I love Rage for Order and Operation: Mindcrime too, because of what they were: whip-smart, technically accomplished, and not boring. The songs on Dedicated to Chaos are exactly this. So maybe the Rage for Order comparisons are pretty acceptable. "Progressive" metal has stagnated. The Dream Theater school is the big one now -- that or the Opeth school. Both bands have produced and continue to produce great albums, don't get me wrong. But they are not progressive anymore. Nor are they backward-looking enough to be called retro, revivalist, or any of those other words that signify a different kind of progress. Let's call it samsara. Endless death and rebirth. Even this is not stagnation. This is the angle Marillion took in the early 80s. This is an angle few bands are willing to truly take anymore. Even those that don't are usually in the alternative rock genre and they reinform themselves with grunge or Nine Inch Nails-class histrionics. Not quite what we're looking for, but a valiant effort.

Dedicated to Chaos could be the breath of fresh air that progressive metal needs, if people could get off their high horses about what genre X or band Y are "supposed" to sound like. But they won't. And they'll keep puking out whatever words come to mind about what they want, when it's right within reach, and it has been for twenty-five years. To be honest, this reminds me of Metallica's Death Magnetic. Fans who managed to cling to the band for all those years wanted a new album of thrash music after all of the "shit" on Metallica, Load, ReLoad, and St. Anger (many of which were subpar, but due not to the genre but the band themselves). When Death Magnetic finally came out, they were lambasted as has-been sell-outs trying to relive former, out-of-reach glories. What would happen to Queensryche if, say, they tried to record an album in the vein of Rage for Order without being updated for the modern world? They would probably be lambasted as has-been sell-outs trying to relive former, out-of-reach glories.

You can see what the problem here is. The fans don't want anything -- except the exact thing over and over again. In which case, do what I do and listen to the old albums over and over again. Listen to your copy of Rage for Order until it dies. I won't consider you a fan of the band if you're only in it for one album or two. Youre a fan of those albums. You mean well, but so does a preacher. Like preachers, some of you mean well but are doing something truly awful for that which you claim to speak for. Cut the crap. Accept that Queensryche as they are now are not Queensryche as they were in 1988, Queensryche were only that, at latest, until 1990. By then, the band woke up and realized that advancing was what they needed to do.

Before anyone says anything about how Chris DeGarmo would have made the album better, shut the fuck up and learn your 'Ryche history. Know what other albums DeGarmo played on? Hear in the Now Frontier and Tribe, both of which are regarded as polished turds or worse in the fandom. DeGarmo is not the nonexistent "problem" -- it's the stuck-up fans.

Understand, though, that I am not saying this album is as good as Operation: Mindcrime. Little is. But it's at least as good as Promised Land, and produces a sound expansion at least as fertile. And for fuck's sake, that's gotta count for something.

Okay. I'm done now. In short: fuck people.

It's pretty disappointing that this is the first post of the new year.

Oomph! - Sandmann (Single)
Release: February 27, 2009
Genre: Neue Deutsche Härte
Label: Gun Records
Length: 15:09

Nick's Rating: 4/5

Let me preface this with a few quick things that have probably screwed my rating of this little single up a lot. First of all, I first heard this song in its English incarnation (which, after my first listen of the German original, I could tell was poorly-translated except in the choruses). Secondly, I really like this style of music for some reason -- which I guess is an instant goodbye to my metal cred. Third, there's the matter of the cover art. I really, really like it. It's very vanitas, without being directly so, as if the German semi-industrial-metal act doesn't know what it is. I don't blame them if the don't. I guess it's not proper vanitas, but it reminds me of the style. Huge plus there; vanitas looks really cool.

Well, who gives a damn about the art when it's the music I'm reviewing, right? Art criticism is something I should just leave for the one remaining expert, anyway, and the fact that I can't get much further than "I like vanitas" is proof. The song itself is basically standard fare for the genre. Neue Deutsche Härte, for those who are unaware, is a hard rock (I won't use the term metal here right now, since a lot of others wouldn't, and I don't want to incite their wrath for... whatever reason...) grounded heavily in industrial and electronic music (it's also German for "New German Hardness," but that's just an extra detail). The song is build on a pattern of loud verse-quiet prechorus-loud chorus-repeat with a rather soft, short bridge. It's modestly fast but probably not fast enough to get out of "midtempo." In short, very simple all around, but that's okay. The song is still very good.

I'd be hard-pressed to choose a specific part I liked most... the prechorus is slightly eerie, considering this genre cuts a lot of the spookiness of classic industrial out. There are a few other minor things I like, like the sudden stop at the end of the bridge before bringing us to the sounds from the intro and the last chorus, and how the riff in the chorus seems like it's going to just repeat (just like in Labyrinth), but then suddenly shifts a little just as the singer shuts up. All said, a lot of little things to like. It's a shame this didn't make it to Monster. It's basically supplanted "Labyrinth" as my favorite track from that era, and it's so energetic that it doesn't get old.

The three extra tracks are pretty okay all around, too, but can't hope to live up to the single's title track. The first is a remix thereof, though, by [:SITD:]. I like the way it starts out (taking the prechorus as an intro is damn effective), but without the energy of the original, I find it hard to like. I guess it's an okay dance number, but it just feels lacking. Then again, I think after the tremendous remix of Megaherz's "Liebestoter" that accompanied some releases of their Kopfschuss CD, I've been ruined for remixes of Neue Deutsche Haerte songs, or something. That, or I just don't get dance music of the modern age.

Next is "Auf Kurs," which appeared on Monster. Basically, this whole song is a slow build-up and very not heavy, which is fine. I don't think I'd easily return to it, but it's inoffensive, and sometimes it is nice to hear heavy bands scale back on the heaviness... unless they're X Japan. Sadly, the song is a bit nondescript, but the continuous adding of elements at the chorus is nice. It's done without the hysterics of Rammstein, but whether or not this is beneficial... hm, good question.

The last song on there is "Du lügst," which, I think, was on another single before Sandmann, but that's okay. This is my first time hearing it, and I really like it. It's slower than the title track by a lot and sounds a bit like "Das letzte Streichholz" Version Two, but that's not much of an argument. The bottom end is synth-heavy, which is perfectly fine. Actually, the electronic-ness of this seems to be the real selling point for me, for some reason. If it were more "natural-sounding" (if you catch my meaning), I would probably just dismiss it as too sappy. I really can't understand this very well myself, but I like the song, and it's a good ending song (as slower songs often are), so I'll definitely take it.

It's so disappointing, though, that this single and pretty much the only source of two of these songs (though "Sandmann" itself appeared on a reissue of Monster that I don't have) and the remix, because it's great all around. Singles of anything are hard to find these days. The single, for instance, is not available on US iTunes (then again, though, nothing from pre-2004-era Oomph! appears to be on US iTunes, either), and I have never seen it in stores. It's not surprising that it can't be found; Oomph!, and Neue Deutche Härte in general, were not that big in the U.S. -- which is no surprised. Translating lyrics from German to English doesn't often work out very well, and it wouldn't sell very well in German. We learned that with Kraftwerk (or at least the first part). It was by sheer luck that I got my copy of the single. I guess that just can't be helped.

Sometimes I'm just happier not understanding.

X Japan - Jealousy
Release: July 1, 1991 (Original release)
February 14, 2007 (Special Edition)
Genre: Speed metal
Label: Ki/oon Records
Length: 51:23

Nick's Rating: 3.5/5

I don't like to brag, but I think I have pretty good taste in music. Or, well, I thought I did until I decided it was time to check out X Japan. I guess this is just part of my "listen to things from all around the world" quest, and I'm afraid to trudge into the territory of Vocaloid songs without at least six guides holding my hands, and I don't feel like being a tug-of-war rope. So, a conservative choice (albeit one that would make political conservatives vomit). I got hold of this album, the special edition version with seven bonus tracks (instrumental versions of the vocal numbers from the album), and gave it a listen.

Shockingly, I liked it. I mean, it was good. It was very good. But not good as in "quirky kitsch" like Porcelain and the Tramps, and not good as in "written by a genius lyrical wordsmith" like Sparks, and not necessarily good as in "masterful instrumentalism" like King Crimson, or even good as in "abstract and demanding" like Cynic. It's more the "immaculately-made mid-level speed metal" of any 'good' third generation speed-metal band (discounting thrash, which is a whole new genre in and of itself). Let's not talk about the visual appearance... this music owes endless debt to Budgie and Iron Maiden. There is no escaping this. NO ESCAPE. NO ESCAPE...

Ahem. If you're looking for musical genius, don't start here, by any means. There are a few more genius musical moments than your average KISS record (they're purportedly big fans, or were), but that's not saying much. To be fair, though, the riffs that populate all of the good-ish five songs are worthwhile. However, maybe to make this as close to "quick and painless" as possible, let's go through the things I hate first, then what I'm lukewarm about, then what I actually like. I'm not even gonna try any analysis here; I can't understand a fucking WORD of this, and I could do without looking at the album cover again.

I utterly despise "Voiceless Screaming" and "Say Anything." Sometimes, ballads work. The minimalistic, acoustic-only "Voiceless Screaming" sounds great at first, like it might be kinda like Elvis Costello's "Little Triggers" (This Year's Model is still one of my favorite albums ever.), but it's not. The problem is that vocalist Toshimitsu Deyama (Toshi) over-emotes and sounds really, really whiny here. Taiji Sawada donates a nice arrangement, but otherwise... "Say Anything" has basically the same problem, but worse. It doesn't even have the benefit of a good arrangement. Sad, because Yoshiki Hayashi donates good songs elsewhere.

The instrumentals... well, it all depends on my mood. Two are introductions, one is just kinda weird. I'm talking about "Love Replica," and I'm counting it as instrumental even if it lists lyrics from deceased lead guitarist Hideto "hide" Matsumoto. I don't hear much in that area except a few abstract French statements. It's too long for being a weird pseudo-experimental mostly-electronic track. I guess it's cool, but it's sleep-inducing. Tomoaki Ishizuka (Pata) contributes "White Wind from Mr. Martin ~Pata's Nap~," which is the intro to "Voiceless Screaming." I like it, but it's really just the expected dicking around with an acoustic guitar. Nothing special. Likewise "Es Dur no Piano Sen" (I had to look that one up), though it does have this nice little break toward the end where everything just stops and there's a brief bit of chaos with the piano. That's Yoshiki's first contribution to the album, and it's the intro to "Silent Jealousy."

Speaking of which, I love "Silent Jealousy." I'm not ashamed. It's actually a decent number. I think the piano really makes it a hell of a lot more interesting than just another speedy riff-based song. At seven minutes long, it had better be interesting. It is. From what I've read, there's something from Swan Lake excerpted in that piano break toward the middle, but I couldn't tell you for sure. I just know that it sounds good, and this is where Toshi's strength as a vocalist lies.

Next in line: "Miscast" -- it's a great title, as if I could use one to sum up everything about the band, it would be that. Or maybe "Drain," but that's another review. The soung is even a little heavier than the last one with no regard for instrumental genius. It just rock pretty nicely, which is about all I need from an X Japan song. That's why I still listen to "Desperate Angel." It rocks nicely, even if it really is nothing special.

The real fun of this record is listening to "Stab Me in the Back" while you know what it's about. Hint: It's about being the receiving partner in anal sex. The lyrics were written by someone from outside the band (Hitomi Shiratori, according to Wikipedia), so take that as you will. I've also heard that Yoshiki thinks it's his favorite song (though I could be wrong), so tanke that as you will. You have a good night, now.

Oh, right. The song. It's pretty okay. It's the thrashiest number on here, and like most "thrashiest numbers" on records from thrash's heyday (i.e. pre-Black Album), is not always the funnest thing to listen to, unless you can't get enough of the sounds of heavy traffic (not the film, no). It's well-written and well-performed, but also lacks that technical edge that made Master of Puppets so good. "Damage, Inc." this ain't.

That just leaves "Joker." I don't know what to think of this one. It's kind of... not as good as my other favored songs, but I do like it. It's just kind of hard to remember. Maybe it's the vocals? I feel like I can make more sense of them, and I'm not sure I like that idea. Thankfully, the instrumental versions...

Well, there you go. I was probably a little hard on this record, but I don't consider it godlike. It's not really bad, though, either, just... it's not the first thing I'd take down to listen to if I was going to drive back to Chicago. Though, neither is Ghost in the Machine, which is a long-standing favorite of mine. It's well-performed, but not terribly special in terms of arrangement.

P.S. to any fans who may get prissy about fouling up information, please post a comment to this entry if I've gotten something wrong. I had to look a LOT of shit up on Wikipedia, which tends to have this effect... you get it.

From the other end of the spectrum...

Bruce Cockburn - The Trouble with Normal
Release: Unknown date 1983 (Original release)
Unknown date 1992 (Remastered with bonus tracks)
Genre: Post-punk
Label: True North Records
Length: 42:22

Nick's Rating: 4.5/5

A friend of mine was listening to Barenaked Ladies' cover of "Lovers In a Dangerous Time," which was originally written by this artist (pronounced as "Coburn," so you know). He tried to argue with me that Cockburn was not as good as Barenaked Ladies. If he'd only heard the one song by Cockburn, I could understand that. The new wave sound used for Stealing Fire and a few songs here make the messages hard to take. He'd probably heard more, and I... would still argue his point. It's a matter of personal taste, though. There are a few things about many of Cockburn's 80s records, though, that could do anything but endear prospective listeners to him. A lot of his masterful guitar work is gone, and not much separates these songs from Saga's debut, albeit informed with a little more new wave and post-punk. I like this style, but you might not.

One thing about this style, though, is that absorbing the musical skill doesn't feel like a chore. Sure, these are comparatively subtle in terms of displaying that Cockburn was a musical whiz, but when one confines him/herself to the limits of new wave, where's the room for stretching out? The Cars could have been musical gods to rival Hendrix, Bonham, Wakeman and Levin, but you'd never have known it. Listening to the title track and "Candy Man's Gone," though, you do get the feeling of a musical genius being locked into a self-imposed challenge: "I will make you think just like I did when I was just armed with an acoustic, while I cleave through what sprung from the Maels' worshipers." If you need proof, proceed from here. The instrumentation doesn't change much, but "Hoop Dancer" is blatantly post-punk instead of such a specific definition as new wave. So it's not as dark as Joy Division... there's more to life than darkness, which you'd know if you listened to the damn song. There's still light in this dark place. there's still some beauty in a world made ugly.

The words weave in and out between the virtuoso chaos, just as the virtuoso chaos does with itself. The song wears its Lou Reed inspiration on its sleeve like Emilie Autumn doesn't with her Tori Amos inspiration. It's weird, but it's well worth listening to, just because it sounds cool. Sure, it might drag on a while, but that's kind of the point. It can't all be (what he calls) "fashionable fascism!" Fuck the three-minute rule! Cockburn prefers himself a four-minute rule anyway... that's plenty of time to say something! Plenty of people can't say anything in that time, but Cockburn does it with gusto!

Okay, okay. "Waiting for the Moon" isn't ever gonna be cited as a favorite by me, but it's nice and calm after all that chaos, and after all, there's a lot more chaos to come. A dystopia probably isn't your ideal world (in fact, I'm fairly sure it's not), but while Cockburn gives you one, you kind of want to join him there to watch it all... sink. "Tropic Moon" is kind of also in that new wave/post-punk fusion area, but there isn't much else to say there. It's still a good song, I just can't describe it. It's not really that chaotic, either. I could describe that.

"Going Up Against Chaos," though, is chaotic indeed, and it's just weird. It has to be heard to be really described. There's more order to it than a lot of songs here, but that middle eight will continue to screw with your mind for a while (The closest I can come to describing it is a piano falling down the stairs... then the stairs falling on the piano.). It's probably my favorite song, because there aren't many things like it, much as some would like to say otherwise. I think it's because of the (electric) piano sounds, because that instrument's rarer than it should be in the genre. "Put Our Hearts Together" is pretty much exactly what you'd expect, albeit more angry and political. This must be why Wikipedia marks it as pop rock. There's not a lot of pop about much of the rest of this, you know.

The last two songs are not the best but are both okay. "Civilization and Its Discontents" its like a shorter, more staccato-based version of "Hoop Dancer," but with less of a spoken-word base than the aforementioned. At least, during the verses. The chorus, oddly, takes a sudden change. In fact, the song doesn't know what it wants to be, like it's nervous... very nervous. Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime" was probably the most paranoid song I'd heard until I put this one on. It's not directly paranoid, really, but at the same time... aw, fuck, I don't know. However, the best part is definitely that ending when it starts slowing down a lot. Very cool and irregular. The closer "Planet of the Clowns" reminds me of "Waiting for the Moon," so... you know what I think already of that. Kind of a boring way to end the album, but at least it makes it feel less chokingly hopeless... and I guess the line about waves rolling on the beach sounding like a squadron of F-16s is pretty damn vivid.

To be honest, I haven't got much to say about this. No pop culture jokes. No real jabs at anyone, no smarmy nicknames, no I'm-so-clever secret dick jokes... it's too good of an album for that. It manages to be beautiful without being a drag. It presents its views in a not-too-brutal way, and it's actually fun to listen to. Unlike all those Genesis pop albums, you get the feeling that Cockburn is a good songwriter with real musical skill from this disc. My only real regret here is that I couldn't find the newer CD with bonuses anywhere, which is what I get for living in Ugly America.

Okay, I guess a few snide remarks couldn't be avoided.

I'm glad I was lucky enough to find it on vinyl a few years ago. These days, you can't find anything on vinyl in listenable condition without shelling out the kind of money you usually reserve for diamond-encrusted Ferraris. Well... you get the picture. Vinyl is fucking expensive these days.

The ultimate proof that I have to stop trusting people on the internets.

Porcelain and the Tramps - s/t (EP)
Release: Unknown time 2010
Genre: Industrial Rock
Label: N/A
Length: 36:54

Rating: 3/5

Something I've covered before is how the world currently seems to be locked in endless 90s nostalgia in the past few years. It manifests itself in the eruption of praise you might witness being spewed from every critic's mouth about records like Stone Temple Pilots (not a bad album, really, but quite visibly backwards-looking, and can you name anything they did after 1995-ish?), Backspacer, Chinese Democracy, and Opheliac (which owes debt to Nine Inch Nails like you wouldn't believe). Unsuprisingly, several bands are interested in feeding into this as a means of getting a larger audience. Among these are groups like Shinedown, Tantric, and Godsmack, who polish their nu-metal sound with blatant grunge love, occasionally adding a pseudo-spiritual element (which is something that a lot of grunge bands didn't seem to care about).

Meanwhile, there are... other bands, like this, who don't give a shit about spirituality, or newer sounds. In short, the sound of Porcelain and the Tramps' eponymous EP (which is not an official release, and exists only as a fan-made EP of MP3s gathered from bandleader Alaina Beaton's MySpace site for the group.) is the 1990s all over again. Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails-inspired hard pop rock where it's pretty okay, and almost cool, to drop the F-bomb. Alaina uses it like she's trying out to be the female Penn Jillette for an episode of Bullshit!, except that she can't wail with his level of vengeful conviction. She tries at times, but rarely does it ever even show up, let alone seem like she's any good at it, let alone that she ever seems to have a reason for it, except to be nineties.

Okay, I'm a nineties guy. I like Rammstein, so there's a few points there. However, most of the rest of my nineties' culture favorites are Magic: The Gathering, the Nintendo 64, grunge music, Mr. Show, and EarthBound. I'm cool with Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. However, with few exceptions, I don't buy the whole "you swear, you're cool" thing. "Cool" was Contract From Below into a Yawgmoth's Will. I played Magic with my brother where we faked ante, so this was possible. This also won't make any sense to anyone ever. In short, I was a mild-mannered nerd with a modestly clean mouth and who was fed his revolutions by The Man. (Hilarious, by the way, how every revolutionary class of music was claimed by The Man in the end, isn't it?) As a result, in terms of nineties nostalgia, this doesn't thrill me. Nor does it thrill me as an industrial fan; inspired by inspired by inspired by industrial really isn't very industrial at all. Call it scathingly rough-cut, deeply skew versions of Some Great Reward-era Depeche Mode.

That's a good point to bring up, though. The album is nothing if not catchy and kind of kitschy in its half-nostalgic posturing. The subject du jour, unsurprisingly, is sex... which seems out of place when sung by a creepy girl in a gas mask, but that's beside the point. I guess anything can be sexy, and we live in an era of Lady Gaga and Bayonetta and a lot of other weird shit that some people find sexy. Can't "raving psycho bitch" be a class of moe, too? If Vocaloid fandom is any indication, yes it can. Why all these references? I was submitted this item by people who would be able to feign understanding of this same shit. (No, I don't even think I understand it.)

In brief, the matter is this: there is no inspiration here from a lyrical stance besides the trademark "Nineties Guy" scowl and a desire to get laid. It sounds heinous, but it does include a few good songs, as do most concepts that sound bad. Ignore the lyrics; they're trite shit. The arrangements are well-enough-done that you can ignore that those are pretty much worthless, too. They're your basic alternative arrangements but more industrial-rocky. "I Feel Perfect" is probably my favorite, reminding me of "Closer" meets "Mama" (the Genesis song). "Redlight District" was exposed to me by a fan of Pandora Hearts, so I can't stop associating it with a character from that series. Surprisingly, that makes it more amusing. It's so hard to read, though; is it an indictment of the sex-crazed world we live in, or is it a serious, blatant come-on? One last: "My Leftovers" is probably one of the heaviest songs on the album (except maybe "I'm Your Favorite Drug"), which makes it kidn of endearing, proving that, with the right volume and mix, nothing matters in rock except the ROCKING.

Okay, I lied about that "one last" thing, as I have to give credit to one more song. "Fuck Like a Star," the third track on the EP, is oddly cute, perhaps due to its über-vulgar title and lyrics. It's definitely not the arrangement; musically speaking, it's basically just kind of a cheesy pop song, machine music that most people could come up with. It could just be the opening, a joke on censorship and what you can get away with. It's a profanity-laden rant by Alaina, heavily filtered, with all of the words that are directly banned from broadcast blanked out. It's incredibly foul and sounds like the worst of hip-hop misogyny (Alaina DID start her career as a rapper), but it could probably be broadcast... and it makes the ending "Ahahahaha... OOPS!" of the song that much sillier. All in all, it's kind of cute, but largely pointless. At once, I want this to become big and to actually see Alaina release an album already, but at the same time... it's nothing special. No-one woudl be caught dead singing these songs unless they were shit-faced fucking drunk.

Footnote: Alaina now records as just Porcelain. This EP is, again, not commercially available, and it consisted of the following songs: "King of the World," "My Leftovers," "Fuck Like a Star," "You Want," "Sugar Cube," "The Preyingmantis," "Transparent," "I Feel Perfect," "I'm Your Favorite Drug," and "Redlight District." There was no cover for this.

No, really, ONE of us IS still alive!

The Reasoning - Dark Angel
Release: October 9, 2008
Genre: Progressive rock
Label: Comet Music
Length: 51:35

Nick's Rating: 4/5

It was briefly fashionable in the progressive rock world, for those bands who knew what fashion was, to borrow your style from Porcupine Tree. While I have respect for Steven Wilson and all of his projects, as Porcupine Tree the man, as Porcupine Tree the band, producing Opeth or being a King Crimson fanboy, I am deeply disappointed by this fact. The reason why Mr. Tree became so big is mostly because of In Absentia (a good album), Deadwing (even better), and Fear of a Blank Planet (too heavy-handed at times, but pretty cute), especially that first one. At the time, I hated it. I still think it's not nearly the band's best, but their catalogue also includes Lightbulb Sun, so what can you do about that?

At around the same time, metal bands also put out a decent number of "return to form" albums (Voivod's self-titled, Megadeth's The System Has Failed and United Abominations) or made it big (Nightwish's Once). Thank you for mentioning Nightwish, also; Dark Angel borrows enough pieces of gothic-style metal that, at first, you will want to grit your teeth and ask "Where the fuck did I hear this from, and when did it get so damn slow?" A lot of the album is like that, really, but more of it draws from the more obvious progressive influences like Porcupine Tree and Marillion, and thankfully, just because it draws a lot from these bands and is based a reasonable bit on a super-predictable musical model (which may be closer to Epica or early After Forever, if the latter sounds like what I think it does, in that it cares a lot about having male vocals be as important as female vocals. Unlike Epica, though, the male vocals are actually clean.). Thankfully, it's a good one, but it does detract a lot from how interesting the album is.

I can't really say what song is "best," they all have basically the same good and bad to them. Most of them sound too much like someone was listening to Nightwish or, dare I say it, Evanescence, when writing these, and the genre's need for complexity is rarely met (as is basically the case with Porcupine Tree). I guess I'll just go with the second song, "Sharp Sea," which probably is about a vampire tring to seduce her victim, or... something, I don't even want to know, okay? The important parts that contribute to my counting this as good is that it reminded me a lot of Deadwing/Fear-era Porcupine Tree in its general sound, and the melody of the chorus seems to recall the song "Survival" from Yes' very first album. I always loved that song, and trying to replicate its melody is a noble cause. "Call Me God?" is pretty cute, too, for similar reasons as why everything on Deadwing or Fear is. It's strong and sardonic, which is fun ad just right for the modern audience. In fact, this whole album, even at its most average (almost all of it!) is pretty cute, because it could fit just as well into the playlists of a fan of neo-prog and a Twihard. (Defining my opinions on Twilight is a fait accompli, but I still find this adorable.)

Though it's not exactly on-topic, I think I should say it anyway: there seems to be an odd construct about rock music today, that, for the large part, it's still the domain of men, to the point where the presence of a female member of the band immediately is a focal point. Have a look at the pictures for The Reasoning on last.fm and count how many don't focus a fair bit on Rachel Cohen. Almost every picture features her, and many feature ONLY her. For those pictures that don't show her, you'll notice they're usually very low down the list (the images are ordered according to how much they're liked, by the way). It's probably sexual, and I guess I can understand that, but most fans, regardless of whether sex is the point, will focus more on Cohen as the lead singer than the musicality of the album, which is disappointing. If The Reasoning made it big today, it would probably be because people would be trying to focus on how best to compare it to Evanescence or how sexy the lead singer is (if the label was really corrupt), when they'd be missing the entire point, that these are actually good songs.

Okay, so I'm being a little cynical, but this is a good album, shockingly, and one of the proofs that modern music is not dead, but that its vitality lies in something the radio doesn't want to grasp hold of, like this, or Traced In Air, or Voivod. The old mainstays have led us to Linkin Park and Lady Gaga taking home massive quantities of records. My qualms with Lady Gaga are mostly faded, but she's not as good as everyone gives her credit for, or at least unwilling to show that she is, and Linkin Park won't be forgiven for making me think, in my youth, that they were good thanks to their prevalence in AMVs and the like. We all make bad decisions in our life, indeed. Buying Dark Angel wouldn't be one of those. I'm only suggesting you buy it this time because this is an artist in desperate need of support. Mainstream professional critics can't be assed to write about it, there's no singles, and no advertisements for it. How will people who are too lazy to search for things going to discover this album, then?

Yes, I am actually extolling the virtues of mainstream critics and advertising for once. I'm going to go stab myself in the back for you right now. And I guess I didn't go over a lot of the songs in much depth, but there isn't a lot of depth to this album.