Typical, isn't it? You wait for ages to find a new single that you want to talk about and then two come along at once.
...Eh, it's been a while since I've been able to do a double feature and it was either this or start talking about Hearthstone (which I've recently started playing). By comparison, I'd say this was the more interesting for most people!
Anyway, before I start this, let me remind you of one thing: I DO NOT HATE NICKELBACK!
I might be overreacting a tad by doing that, but I don't want people automatically saying that this song is a 1/10 just because it's by Nickleback. I've already given my thoughts on Nickelback in a blog article a while back (which you can go read here, if you want to), so you should know my stance on them by now.
With that said, let's get started with this article!
"Edge Of A Revolution" Review
Nickelback are one of those bands who seem to draw either ridiculous amounts of hate or ridiculous amounts of love, depending on who you ask, and with little in between. For some, they are the worst band of all time and promote so much concentrated shit that they are a sign of everything that is wrong with the music industry...and, for some, they are one of the best modern rock bands to have formed for a good while, as they refuse to do pretentious bullshit, focus on having fun and write catchy stuff.
Honestly, I think both sides have valid points when it comes to the band, but both sides have exaggerated their viewpoints on the band so far that it's only when you boil the points down to a less vocal perspective that you notice how accurate they are. In favour of the band's detractors, it is very true that Nickelback are hardly the most creative band from a songwriting perspective, none of the members are ever going to win awards for their musical ability, their range of songwriting topics is limited enough for even death metal to be more varied by comparison and it is somewhat bemusing as to how Nickelback have become one of the faces of the post-grunge scene...but, in favour of the band's defenders, those same criticisms can also been seen as strengths if you look at them from another perspective, as it shows a desire to just play something the band likes to write anyway and with no real desire to necessarily do anything different just because they can do it. On top of that in favour of Nickelback, it IS fairly true that there has been a surprising lack of bands who have gotten big while writing stuff purely with the intention of it being fun to listen to: a distressingly large amount of post-grunge forgets the actual fun factor of music and, as such, write about a wider range of topics that actually mean nothing to a lot of people and can be perceived as the lyricist being caught up in their own misery.
In a way, I'd say Nickelback have a surprising amount in common with AC/DC, Motorhead and Slayer: all of those bands tend to rely on songwriting that is not exactly complex, has fairly limited lyrical themes and the members of the bands (with the possible exception of Tom Araya and Lemmy in their vocalist roles) aren't exactly known for being technically amazing musicians. The big problem with Nickelback, I guess, boils down a bit to overexposure (if you're hearing the same thing multiple times a day, it does stop being interesting) and the fact that, even considering their songwriting isn't especially complex to start with, you do tend to notice a bit of a formula with their sound. Yet, as I've just highlighted, there are many bands who rely just as heavily on a formula as Nickelback do who somehow escape the criticism Nickelback does. I'm not going to say that history will judge Nickelback kinder than they are being judged now, but I have a feeling that a depressingly large amount of the negative press they receive is VASTLY exaggerated, often to levels that is flat out impossible to accept as being made from anything other than a desire to try to keep Nickelback as the internet's favourite punching bag.
So yeah, my take on the band is basically "the detractors and fans have valid points on the band, but neither side is doing themselves any favours by screaming their opinion like it's the only one which matters", if you're really interested in having a detailed explanation of my take on the band for future reference (or didn't bother to read the article I linked you earlier...not that I'd blame you for doing that, as I'm not so fond of the article myself now!)...
But we're not hear to talk about all of that. We're here to talk about their new single! And, while I would love to go into detail about Nickelback's history (did you know their first two albums (1996's Curb and 1998's The State) are actually NOT in the radio friendly sound the band are know for now? They're actually darker albums than Nickelback's most well known discography would have you believe!), I have a feeling most people reading this don't even WANT to know more about Nickelback, so I'll cut to the chase and provide the link to the video to Nickelback's new single if you want to listen to it, since I can't get the actual video up on here for some reason. Sorry if that's not convenient for you guys reading this, but it's the best option at the minute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBIBjb63W-U
So, one of the first things you'll notice is that...well, it sounds like Nickelback, which means it sounds like average post-grunge.
...Honestly, I could literally end the review here and I don't think you'd be missing anything from me. If I wanted to sum it up just now, I could just say that it's a song with a fairly decent hook and lyrics that are not great, but are at least somewhat serviceable, it's not especially complex on an instrumental level, but is well performed in any case, Chad Kroeger's voice is not bad, it's produced too loudly for my taste (with a lack of bass) and it'll appeal to people who are already Nickleback fans while giving those who don't like them more fuel for the fire that has now probably burnt for long enough that it should be classified as a hazard to the environment due to how much smoke it is putting out.
However, I feel I should give you a more detailed review. So I will.
Nickelback's brand of post-grunge is not exactly unique sounding, even among fellow post-grunge bands. While it's fair to say that they don't sound like the Foo Fighters, they don't really do a lot musically to distinguish themselves from most of the pack. While this probably isn't a huge problem if you're into post-grunge, it rubs me up the wrong way as someone who mostly finds post-grunge to not be especially interesting. However, they've been working with this sound now since 2005's All The Right Reasons (possibly even earlier: I've not bothered to check when they first did start playing this style of post-grunge, as I've not had the time to dig into Nickelback's whole discography before writing this), so I can't really suggest they shake up their sound at this point: they're content with their sound and, while it doesn't do anything for me personally, I can't exactly get angry about that, as it's not like it's a sudden change or anything.
The song itself is kind of the perfect post-grunge song in that you'll probably have forgotten the song once it's stopped playing. The chorus has a fairly decent hook, but it's not one that really sticks with you on a casual listen. Case of point, I wrote this article with the song on in the background and yet I still couldn't hum the song back to you if you asked me, despite multiple listens to it! The lyrics, from what I remember of them, are your somewhat typical call of arms for a revolution, hitting a lot of the cliches that you can think of for that kind of subject matter, but, despite this probably being something that will wind a lot of people up, I think that it'd be unfair to call something terrible just because it indulges in the cliches of what it is known for (heck, most action movies have a lot of explosions, guns, killings and stuff like that, but you don't see most people complaining about THAT, do you?), so I'll let it slide. I also cannot shake off the feeling that a lot of the song sounds like it's from another Nickelback song, but I can't place which one it is at the minute...
The instrumental performances aren't anything special: most of what the members are doing is not especially complex. However, it's fairly obvious that they're not playing just simple music because they can't play complex stuff: it seems like they're keeping it simple because that's how the members of the band like their music and they just want to play that. And I'm OK with that, personally: I'd rather see musicians playing simple music because they like it that way over them playing complex music horribly just because they want to make a foolish attempt at trying to demonstrate their instrumental proficiency.
Chad Kroeger's voice pretty much fits into the post-grunge scene so well that you can't really imagine the guy singing anything else. I don't see him having a voice capable of singing "Happy Birthday", if you see what I'm getting at. That said, I feel fairly confident in saying that a lot of vocalists in hard rock and metal music have voices which suit that style of music and not a lot else, so I'm not going to slate the guy for that. What I CAN slate him for is the fact that, even in the post-grunge scene, he's not exactly an exceptional vocalist. Sure, he can hit some surprisingly low notes in the backing vocals (go listen to "This Means War", if you don't believe me!), but his overall range seems somewhat limited in terms of what he sings in the main vocal lines for Nickelback's songs and he spends most of his time singing in a bellow that lacks any real subtlety. This song is no exception to that, so make of that what you will.
The production on this song is far, FAR too loudly mastered. Now, to be fair, this is a problem with Nickelback's stuff in general and I'm going by YouTube, which isn't exactly a place to make a strong opinion on a song's production, so I might as well be commenting on the colour of the sky (incidentally, it's black at the minute...because I'm typing this in the middle of the night) but, even on YouTube, it sounds far louder than any other song by Nickelback. It also seems to lack any bass presence to my ears, which is rather annoying. This is the state of modern production in music in general and it pisses me off every time it happens, as someone who has tried to learn bass in the past: how the hell am I supposed to learn how to play my favourite songs on the bass guitar IF I CAN'T FUCKING HEAR THE BASS GUITAR ON MY FAVOURITE SONGS?
So yeah...overall, if you're a Nickelback fan already, this is going to be right up your alley, as they don't change their sound at all with it and it's what you expect them to put out. If you're NOT into Nickelback, however, skip this one: they don't change their sound at al; with it and it's what you expect them to put out.
Final Rating ("Edge Of A Revolution"): 4 Out Of 10
A forgettable song by a band who most people expected nothing interesting from. For fans only.
"Mask Machine" Review
Flying Colors is ANOTHER of Mike Portnoy's post-Dream Theater projects, alongside The Winery Dogs (which, I'll admit, put out a rather enjoyable album last year) and, until he left it in June 2013, Adrenaline Mob (who put out their debut in 2012...which I have only not reviewed yet because I know most of the review would consist of variants of "bored", "dull", "snore" and "DEAR FUCKING GOD, WHY?!". Also, I will NOT look at their second album from earlier this year: I feel that horse has already been beaten to death!) and a few others which I can't be bothered to list and research because you'd otherwise still be reading this the day after you find this page. They formed in 2011 (although the idea for the band had apparently been around in the mind of executive producer Bill Evans since 2008) and released their debut album in March 2012. It must have done fairly well, as their second album is due to be released in late September/early October.
Now, Mike Portnoy is a musician I have a love-hate relationship with: on the one hand, he's an amazing drummer who deserves every accolade he has gotten and who has established himself as one of the best drummers in the world, but, on the other hand, I don't like the fact that he is still so bitter about leaving Dream Theater (with an incident in the last few weeks even cementing that he might be potentially as bad as Axl Rose is with Slash stuff) and a lot of what I've heard about him as a person has convinced me that he's not a person I'd especially like to know as a person. Throw in the fact that the band's first album apparently has aspects of alternative rock to it (a style of rock which I tend to have a low opinion of) and I was already approaching this with some apprehension. However, part of me was curious to see how this would sound, so I gave it a listen.
Doing my research into the musicians in the band aside from Portnoy (vocalist and rhythm guitarist Casey McPherson, keyboardist Neal Morse, lead guitarist Steve Morse and bassist Dave LaRue), I was surprised to learn that the members have all been around for a while: McPherson is also the vocalist of alternative rock band Alpha Rev, Neal Morse (who, it should be noted, is NOT the brother of Steve Morse) was one of the founders (the other being his brother, Alan Morse) of Spock's Beard (which is something that actually is from Star Trek: go look up the episode "Mirror, Mirror", if you want proof!), had previously played with Portnoy in the band Transatlantic and also has an active solo career, Steve Morse was a founding member of Dixie Dregs, has played with Deep Purple since 1992, spent a small period of time in Kansas (the band best known for the song "Carry On Wayward Son", not the US state!) in the 80's and even was the leader of a band under his own name (well, technically: it was called The Steve Morse band) for a period of time which later became his solo career and Dave LaRue has played in Dixie Dregs and The Steve Morse band (along with a few other things.
Yeah...this is a heck of a lot better than what I pictured the band was going to be on paper already! I was expecting something like Adam Levine fronting Dream Theater...crap, that might actually be a rather good idea! Seriously, if you could get a vocalist with a lot of soul and RNB influence in their voice to front a progressive rock or metal band, I imagine it would actually sound rather interesting, especially if the band add those influences to their sound...OK, OK, moving on before I get angry purists flaming me to death!
Again, apologies for only providing a link to the video: I can't find it when I do a video search in my blog's video finder thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdnKddL9giw
The thing that I have to start by pointing out is that you can definitely hear the alternative rock influence that was mentioned earlier here: the whole thing feels somewhat like a more progressive version of alternative rock due to how it's done. Yet, surprisingly, I have no problem with this when I actually hear it! It actually sounds rather interesting to listen to. It's not something I would regularly listen to, but it's not a bad sound, if I'm completely honest!
On a performance level, I have to say that the whole thing feels rather simplistic when you consider the talent in the band, yet I think it KIND OF works in the song's favour: there's an atmosphere to this song which is actually rather effective, so more complex performances might not have helped it in the slightest. Unfortunately, the whole song feels too long, so this relative simplicity makes the song less interesting on repeat listens and makes it a surprisingly difficult song to remember much from. On one hand, it feels like the members of the band are being criminally underused with their talents, but, on the other, I can't really think of any way I could have asked them to up the complexity without potentially destroying the song. It's funny: normally, I'd be happy for a band to go for a less complex sound, but, in this case, I'm torn between going "this should have been more complex" and going "this should have been shorter". I know doing both won't do much good, but I can't decide which of the two I would have honestly preferred, since both still have potential issues with them. It's really weird to try to describe this to you if you haven't heard the song yourself, but the best way I can think of putting it is by asking you to imagine a world class pianist playing a piano concerto which is clearly not a challenge for him to play and which goes on longer than it needs to: you would like to have heard a more challenging concerto that would have showcased the pianist's skills better, but, at the same time, you can't escape the feeling that a piece which didn't feel like it was too long would also have been a better move, but for a different reason. Yet you know that the shorter, more complex piece wouldn't have the same magic that either of the other two options separately would have provided. That's kind of what I feel like here: I want either a shorter song or a more complex song, but not a shorter, more complex song!
The vocals...well, alternative rock vocals were never my kind of thing, so I'm probably not the best person to sum up McPherson's voice here, but, to be fair, I think he's at least a decent vocalist. He does still suffer from some of the more typical features of alternative rock vocalists (albeit with a more pop influenced take on it), but I have no real problems with his singing voice aside from that.
The production...I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'd have liked LESS bass on this track! It literally powers through everything, to the extent that I can imagine it would probably go through every wall in your house if you played it even on a fairly quiet volume. This isn't necessarily a huge issue, but everything else seems a bit too quiet compared to the bass, which is NOT what I like to hear: I like to be able to hear the bass clearly, but not to the extent where everything else has to suffer! It's a fine balance to strike, but this is definitely going too far with the bass! Aside from the "bass is too loud" complaint, though, I think the production is fine!
So yeah...it's not something I would normally listen to, but, for what it's worth, it's actually not bad! I would hesitate to call this an essential listen for anyone, but, if you're into progressive rock and would like to hear a more atmospheric take on it that combines influence from alternative rock as well, then this is definitely worth a shot!
Final Rating ("Mask Machine"): 6 Out Of 10
A fairly enjoyable (if not especially memorable) track that suffers from a bass mix that is too loud and being a bit too simplistic from what you'd expect from the musicians in this project. Worth a listen if you like progressive rock and alternative rock (or like one and don't mind the other), but not likely to be your kind of thing if you're not a fan of either style of music.
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