...Well, this is the second time I have to discuss the closure of a forum connected to Queensryche...and, sadly, it is the very same forum that was formed by ex-members of The Breakdown Room after that closed down.
Earlier today, I had realised that I hadn't visited The Open Road for about a week (in my defence, I was in Scotland for most of that time), so I opted to go back to it. I hadn't really said anything on the forum for a while, but I found it a very enjoyable place to visit and was looking forward to getting back to chatting with some of the old members.
The first thing I noticed was a small announcement in the upper right corner of the screen saying that the forum would be closing. Somewhat concerned, I took a read of the announcement and, well...yeah, the forum will be closing on the 1st of October. Not only that, but it will not even be archived, so every comment on the forum will be wiped from the internet on the 1st of October.
While it feels like a huge shame that the forum has only lasted about six months, I can truly sympathise with the mods of the forum about the difficulty of keeping a forum running (lord knows, whenever I have a bit of writer's block, I feel like crap because I know I'm letting everyone down who reads my blog through being unable to provide regular content) and the decision to close a forum, while never a decision made lightly, is ultimately a decision which I will respect far more than keeping a forum open for far longer than it has any right to even exist for. And The Open Road, while not really fulfilling a role beyond being a new home for the old folks from The Breakdown Room, was a wonderful forum to visit, with some excellent discussions being had on the forum and, while I will say that I found the moderating a bit on the strict side at times, it was ultimately a very good forum to visit. With the end of the forum, however, comes the official end of The Breakdown Room and the vibrant community that that forum provided. While most people on the forum will no doubt have the email addresses of the members they wish to keep in contact with, I feel that the end of The Open Road is also the end of the chance for the vibrant community of Queensryche fans to get together and talk properly.
So, to all members of The Open Road, whether formerly of The Breakdown Room or purely new to The Open Road, I must say a thank you for being a great bunch of people to chat to! You guys are all awesome and I only wish I'd spent more time chatting with you guys over the course of the last six months.
Wednesday, 24 September 2014
Friday, 12 September 2014
The Singles Collection: Sonata Arctica "Kingdom For A Heart" Review
...Wait, WHAT?! Didn't this album come out 15 years ago? Heck, "Kingdom For A Heart" wasn't even a single for the original release! Have I missed something?
...Oh, wait, this is from that re-recorded version of Ecliptica that Sonata Arctica mentioned they'd be releasing late this year! Oh joy, another crappy re-recording by a band that I really like...
...OK, time to be serious.
Sonata Arctica are a band who I have a odd relationship with. On the one hand, I have every single one of their albums (with the exception of Pariah's Child from earlier this year...and that's only because I've kept forgetting to pick it up! I might try and do that tomorrow, now I think on it, as I'm planning on going to a gig in Newcastle and can always pop up a bit early to do that...) and there are quite a few songs by them which I would call stone cold (pun not intended) classics of the power metal genre. On the other hand, with the exception of Ecliptica, I find the band a bit too inconsistent with their songwriting to really impress me enough to want to become one of their fans. I'm not saying that I'm one of those people who loves the band for their first four albums (Ecliptica, Silence, Winterheart's Guild and Reckoning Night) and hates their other four albums (Unia, The Days Of Grays, Stones Grow Her Name and Pariah's Child): I like songs across their whole discography, but, for some reason, I don't really think they've managed to put out an album (again, apart from Ecliptica) which I'd have said was a strong album. Maybe it's because I know Ecliptica so much better than the rest of Sonata's discography (Ecliptica was one of the first power metal albums I ever listened to), but I just feel that the band, while still very good, have never successfully managed to capture something for a whole album that they had nailed down perfectly on their debut.
So this re-recording is something that I looked to with a HUGE amount of concern when I heard about it. I even started working on an article where I tried to break down exactly why I was concerned about this, but I had to stop because I just felt that it was all boiling down to the same points: I was concerned Tony's voice isn't going to handle doing the album any more, I failed to see the point of re-recording the album from a production standpoint (it's going to have had more or less the same production techniques done to it that it did the first time, so why bother if it's not going to improve the album's production at all?) and I just knew in my heart that it wasn't going to be as good as the original album. I wasn't declaring Ecliptica ruined forever because of the re-recording (I have the original and the original will always be available, so why would a re-recorded version of the album affect the original album in the slightest?), but I was certainly not convinced that the re-recording was necessary at all. That said, I decided to give the album a fair chance to impress me and so politely opted to wait for the release for the first single from the album.
...And they picked one of my favourite songs from Ecliptica to be the first single (no, seriously: "Kingdom For A Heart" is one of my favourite songs from Ecliptica. I do love the album, but "Kingdom For A Heart" has always had a place in my...erm, heart, since I first heard it).
...Well, on the plus side, if they fucked this one up, I know I have no reason to care about the rest of the album, so that makes this review far easier to write, I guess!
Before I start, let me say one thing in the re-recorded album's favour: the cover art for the re-recording is just GORGEOUS! I know I should save this comment for a review of the actual album rather than the single for it, but I just love what the band have done with the artwork for it: it's a wonderful update of the original artwork that makes it look like the passage of time has, indeed, occurred on the artwork for the original, but it's done in a way that is also nicely paying tribute to it. I normally don't buy albums just on the strength of the artwork alone, but, in this case, I would gladly make an exception! And maybe a poster and t-shirt of it, too...
Anyway, before I start making my bank panic, let's get on with the review! If you want to check out the song for yourself, then just follow the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnhNPM1A4t8
The first comment I have to make is that Tony Kakko is singing in his more modern lower voice than the higher voice he did on the original. Now, I understand that the guy's older than he was, so expecting him to hit notes that he could do when he was in his 20's is a bit unreasonable, but I don't think his lower voice really works for this song very well (for the most part: I do like his way of singing the quiet chorus in this version more than in the original version). It's not a terrible mismatch, but it just seems a bit off for this song. I can't quite place why, but the original version had something in the vocals which Tony doesn't capture here. I imagine his lower voice might work for some of the other songs on the album, like "Replica" or "Letter To Dana" (which has been re-recorded in the past, incidentally enough: a re-recorded version of the song was included on the 2008 remastered version of the album), but here...not really. That said, he still gives a very good performance that shows his voice is still very good (and, like I said earlier, I feel his voice now actually works better for the quiet chorus than it did when he recorded it in 1999): I just think that his lower voice doesn't quite work for this song overall.
Another vocal related issue is one that has me wondering how much time was spent recording the vocals is that there are a few cases in this re-recording when vocal lines which were multi-tracked on the original due to them overlapping haven't had that done here. It feels like Tony recorded most of the vocals in one take (which is not likely to be the case, but it's what it feels like to me) and didn't bother to think "hey, I have to multi-track these lines to help them match up with the original". It's technically a minor thing to complain about, I know, but you can tell words are missing in this version due to it happening, so I do have to bring it up.
The rest of the stuff I have to bring up on a performance level is me mostly going "this doesn't sound too different" or "this doesn't bother me": the rest of the performances are fairly good and are on par with the original (or, at least, not noticeably below the original recording in that regard) and I think Elias Viljanen's solo, while sounding a bit different from the original to me, is still very much in line with the original one by Jani Liimatainen. While Jani fans will no doubt be livid with Elias for not replicating the solo note for note, I think this is a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't", as I imagine most of them would have been unimpressed had he replicated the solo perfectly anyway. I think the re-recording might be a TINY bit slower than the original recording, but it's not that noticeable unless you do a side by side comparison, and it's close enough to the original speed that I think anyone complaining about it would be being a bit unfair.
The next thing I'm going to bring up is, believe it or not, a positive: I think the mixing of this version of this is more balanced than it was on the original album. The bass is still as audible as you'd expect from a metal album, but the balance between the keyboards and the guitars is much better on this version. The original version of the album was VERY keyboard heavy, which made it rather distinctive sounding, but also meant that the guitars could be nigh on impossible to hear properly when the keyboards were playing and some of the subtleties of the drumming would require ridiculously good hearing to make them out (or playing the album at a really loud volume). This fixes that issue by pushing the keyboards back a fair bit...maybe a tiny bit too much, in fact, as I found the keyboards a bit hard to hear at points! I'm sure a lot of people will not be impressed with the album for that reason, but I think the mix just sounds a bit more balanced, as you have less instruments fighting to be heard than you do on the original album.
The rest of the production is...well, nothing special, in all honesty. A lot of people say Nuclear Blast's albums all sound overproduced and, while I normally would counter by saying that "overproduced" is a term that not a lot of people seem to use properly (it doesn't mean "it sounds too cleanly produced for my liking", guys! It does have a lot of factors that make it up (as you can see here), so there is a lot of understandable disagreement as to what does qualify as "overproduced", but I'm pretty sure a clean production with no effects over it is NOT what counts as overproduction!), I think I do have to agree that there's something about the production of the re-recording that doesn't sit well with me. It does seem a bit too...well, the best way I can think of putting it is that it sounds like the drums were recorded too loudly and it has affected the quality of the drum recording enough to put me off how it sounds compared to the original album. I've done a few bits of post-production on my YouTube videos whenever I've spoken too loudly on them and the result of the drums is not too far removed from what I notice whenever I have to turn the volume down in my videos: you can tell the sound has been smoothed down and is hitting a sort of invisible wall that shouldn't even be there. The rest of the recording sounds fine, but the drums...I can see this as being the reason that so many people throw the comment about plastic sounding production and, surprisingly, I do think they would have a fair point in this case. It's tough to record drums properly due to how loud they are without literally recording every drum separately (which is rather time consuming), but, if the drums sound like they're hitting an invisible wall, that might be a sign that you need to re-record them. The mastering is...well, I've not been able to compare the mastering to the original album, but I think it's fairly typical of modern mastering in metal, albeit not to an unpleasant extent.
So, overall, how do I think this sounds? Well, compared to the original, there's no contest: the original is almost completely better than the re-recording is and proves that my concerns about it were justified, for the most part. As a recording in and of itself, however, I can't say anything is really bad about it. Sure, there are things about it which I feel don't completely work compared to the original, but what is there is certainly not bad. If you really can't find a copy of the original (for some reason), then this is enjoyable enough and gives a very fair representation of what the original sounds like today. While I personally don't think this re-recording is really going to be worth picking up for anyone except for the people who insist on getting everything Sonata Arctica put out, it's definitely not bad and, if the original Ecliptica had never been made, I imagine this would be one of the best things Sonata Arctica had released since the release of Reckoning Night...or Pariah's Child, I've still not heard that and, as such, can't say how that sounds compared to Reckoning Night.
The tough thing here is really how to rate this re-recording: on the one hand, it's hardly an essential listen and is undeniably flawed due to it being a weaker version of the original song, but, on the other hand, there's nothing wrong with the song in and of itself and, when it isn't compared to the original, it's still very good and well done...stuff it, I'm going to rate it as if the original album didn't exist and as if this song had only just come out for the first time today. If you don't like me doing that, then mentally dock 3 points off of my final rating: I was strongly considering a 5 out of 10 before I opted to go for the viewpoint of the original album having never existed for rating purposes.
Overall Rating: 8 Out Of 10 (pushed up to 8 because of improved mix compared to the original: would have been a 7 otherwise)
While this will not impress anyone who has heard the original version of the song and is definitely a step down from it, it is still a very good song and the version presented here, when not compared to the original and mentally treated as a completely new song that the band have released instead of being a re-recording, is one of the best songs Sonata Arctica have released probably since "My Selene" or "The Boy Who Wanted To Be A Real Puppet" from Reckoning Night. If you've wanted to check out Sonata Arctica before now, you really should get the original recording of this album, but, if you can't do that, I think I can safely recommend the re-recorded album (which comes out on the 27th of October in the UK) on the strength of this single.
...Oh, wait, this is from that re-recorded version of Ecliptica that Sonata Arctica mentioned they'd be releasing late this year! Oh joy, another crappy re-recording by a band that I really like...
...OK, time to be serious.
Sonata Arctica are a band who I have a odd relationship with. On the one hand, I have every single one of their albums (with the exception of Pariah's Child from earlier this year...and that's only because I've kept forgetting to pick it up! I might try and do that tomorrow, now I think on it, as I'm planning on going to a gig in Newcastle and can always pop up a bit early to do that...) and there are quite a few songs by them which I would call stone cold (pun not intended) classics of the power metal genre. On the other hand, with the exception of Ecliptica, I find the band a bit too inconsistent with their songwriting to really impress me enough to want to become one of their fans. I'm not saying that I'm one of those people who loves the band for their first four albums (Ecliptica, Silence, Winterheart's Guild and Reckoning Night) and hates their other four albums (Unia, The Days Of Grays, Stones Grow Her Name and Pariah's Child): I like songs across their whole discography, but, for some reason, I don't really think they've managed to put out an album (again, apart from Ecliptica) which I'd have said was a strong album. Maybe it's because I know Ecliptica so much better than the rest of Sonata's discography (Ecliptica was one of the first power metal albums I ever listened to), but I just feel that the band, while still very good, have never successfully managed to capture something for a whole album that they had nailed down perfectly on their debut.
So this re-recording is something that I looked to with a HUGE amount of concern when I heard about it. I even started working on an article where I tried to break down exactly why I was concerned about this, but I had to stop because I just felt that it was all boiling down to the same points: I was concerned Tony's voice isn't going to handle doing the album any more, I failed to see the point of re-recording the album from a production standpoint (it's going to have had more or less the same production techniques done to it that it did the first time, so why bother if it's not going to improve the album's production at all?) and I just knew in my heart that it wasn't going to be as good as the original album. I wasn't declaring Ecliptica ruined forever because of the re-recording (I have the original and the original will always be available, so why would a re-recorded version of the album affect the original album in the slightest?), but I was certainly not convinced that the re-recording was necessary at all. That said, I decided to give the album a fair chance to impress me and so politely opted to wait for the release for the first single from the album.
...And they picked one of my favourite songs from Ecliptica to be the first single (no, seriously: "Kingdom For A Heart" is one of my favourite songs from Ecliptica. I do love the album, but "Kingdom For A Heart" has always had a place in my...erm, heart, since I first heard it).
...Well, on the plus side, if they fucked this one up, I know I have no reason to care about the rest of the album, so that makes this review far easier to write, I guess!
Before I start, let me say one thing in the re-recorded album's favour: the cover art for the re-recording is just GORGEOUS! I know I should save this comment for a review of the actual album rather than the single for it, but I just love what the band have done with the artwork for it: it's a wonderful update of the original artwork that makes it look like the passage of time has, indeed, occurred on the artwork for the original, but it's done in a way that is also nicely paying tribute to it. I normally don't buy albums just on the strength of the artwork alone, but, in this case, I would gladly make an exception! And maybe a poster and t-shirt of it, too...
Anyway, before I start making my bank panic, let's get on with the review! If you want to check out the song for yourself, then just follow the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnhNPM1A4t8
The first comment I have to make is that Tony Kakko is singing in his more modern lower voice than the higher voice he did on the original. Now, I understand that the guy's older than he was, so expecting him to hit notes that he could do when he was in his 20's is a bit unreasonable, but I don't think his lower voice really works for this song very well (for the most part: I do like his way of singing the quiet chorus in this version more than in the original version). It's not a terrible mismatch, but it just seems a bit off for this song. I can't quite place why, but the original version had something in the vocals which Tony doesn't capture here. I imagine his lower voice might work for some of the other songs on the album, like "Replica" or "Letter To Dana" (which has been re-recorded in the past, incidentally enough: a re-recorded version of the song was included on the 2008 remastered version of the album), but here...not really. That said, he still gives a very good performance that shows his voice is still very good (and, like I said earlier, I feel his voice now actually works better for the quiet chorus than it did when he recorded it in 1999): I just think that his lower voice doesn't quite work for this song overall.
Another vocal related issue is one that has me wondering how much time was spent recording the vocals is that there are a few cases in this re-recording when vocal lines which were multi-tracked on the original due to them overlapping haven't had that done here. It feels like Tony recorded most of the vocals in one take (which is not likely to be the case, but it's what it feels like to me) and didn't bother to think "hey, I have to multi-track these lines to help them match up with the original". It's technically a minor thing to complain about, I know, but you can tell words are missing in this version due to it happening, so I do have to bring it up.
The rest of the stuff I have to bring up on a performance level is me mostly going "this doesn't sound too different" or "this doesn't bother me": the rest of the performances are fairly good and are on par with the original (or, at least, not noticeably below the original recording in that regard) and I think Elias Viljanen's solo, while sounding a bit different from the original to me, is still very much in line with the original one by Jani Liimatainen. While Jani fans will no doubt be livid with Elias for not replicating the solo note for note, I think this is a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't", as I imagine most of them would have been unimpressed had he replicated the solo perfectly anyway. I think the re-recording might be a TINY bit slower than the original recording, but it's not that noticeable unless you do a side by side comparison, and it's close enough to the original speed that I think anyone complaining about it would be being a bit unfair.
The next thing I'm going to bring up is, believe it or not, a positive: I think the mixing of this version of this is more balanced than it was on the original album. The bass is still as audible as you'd expect from a metal album, but the balance between the keyboards and the guitars is much better on this version. The original version of the album was VERY keyboard heavy, which made it rather distinctive sounding, but also meant that the guitars could be nigh on impossible to hear properly when the keyboards were playing and some of the subtleties of the drumming would require ridiculously good hearing to make them out (or playing the album at a really loud volume). This fixes that issue by pushing the keyboards back a fair bit...maybe a tiny bit too much, in fact, as I found the keyboards a bit hard to hear at points! I'm sure a lot of people will not be impressed with the album for that reason, but I think the mix just sounds a bit more balanced, as you have less instruments fighting to be heard than you do on the original album.
The rest of the production is...well, nothing special, in all honesty. A lot of people say Nuclear Blast's albums all sound overproduced and, while I normally would counter by saying that "overproduced" is a term that not a lot of people seem to use properly (it doesn't mean "it sounds too cleanly produced for my liking", guys! It does have a lot of factors that make it up (as you can see here), so there is a lot of understandable disagreement as to what does qualify as "overproduced", but I'm pretty sure a clean production with no effects over it is NOT what counts as overproduction!), I think I do have to agree that there's something about the production of the re-recording that doesn't sit well with me. It does seem a bit too...well, the best way I can think of putting it is that it sounds like the drums were recorded too loudly and it has affected the quality of the drum recording enough to put me off how it sounds compared to the original album. I've done a few bits of post-production on my YouTube videos whenever I've spoken too loudly on them and the result of the drums is not too far removed from what I notice whenever I have to turn the volume down in my videos: you can tell the sound has been smoothed down and is hitting a sort of invisible wall that shouldn't even be there. The rest of the recording sounds fine, but the drums...I can see this as being the reason that so many people throw the comment about plastic sounding production and, surprisingly, I do think they would have a fair point in this case. It's tough to record drums properly due to how loud they are without literally recording every drum separately (which is rather time consuming), but, if the drums sound like they're hitting an invisible wall, that might be a sign that you need to re-record them. The mastering is...well, I've not been able to compare the mastering to the original album, but I think it's fairly typical of modern mastering in metal, albeit not to an unpleasant extent.
So, overall, how do I think this sounds? Well, compared to the original, there's no contest: the original is almost completely better than the re-recording is and proves that my concerns about it were justified, for the most part. As a recording in and of itself, however, I can't say anything is really bad about it. Sure, there are things about it which I feel don't completely work compared to the original, but what is there is certainly not bad. If you really can't find a copy of the original (for some reason), then this is enjoyable enough and gives a very fair representation of what the original sounds like today. While I personally don't think this re-recording is really going to be worth picking up for anyone except for the people who insist on getting everything Sonata Arctica put out, it's definitely not bad and, if the original Ecliptica had never been made, I imagine this would be one of the best things Sonata Arctica had released since the release of Reckoning Night...or Pariah's Child, I've still not heard that and, as such, can't say how that sounds compared to Reckoning Night.
The tough thing here is really how to rate this re-recording: on the one hand, it's hardly an essential listen and is undeniably flawed due to it being a weaker version of the original song, but, on the other hand, there's nothing wrong with the song in and of itself and, when it isn't compared to the original, it's still very good and well done...stuff it, I'm going to rate it as if the original album didn't exist and as if this song had only just come out for the first time today. If you don't like me doing that, then mentally dock 3 points off of my final rating: I was strongly considering a 5 out of 10 before I opted to go for the viewpoint of the original album having never existed for rating purposes.
Overall Rating: 8 Out Of 10 (pushed up to 8 because of improved mix compared to the original: would have been a 7 otherwise)
While this will not impress anyone who has heard the original version of the song and is definitely a step down from it, it is still a very good song and the version presented here, when not compared to the original and mentally treated as a completely new song that the band have released instead of being a re-recording, is one of the best songs Sonata Arctica have released probably since "My Selene" or "The Boy Who Wanted To Be A Real Puppet" from Reckoning Night. If you've wanted to check out Sonata Arctica before now, you really should get the original recording of this album, but, if you can't do that, I think I can safely recommend the re-recorded album (which comes out on the 27th of October in the UK) on the strength of this single.
Thursday, 11 September 2014
U2 Giving Away New Album For Free: Insanity Or Genius?
Now THIS is something that I never thought I'd have to speak about: U2.
Seriously, U2 are a band that I normally avoid like the plague. I know them for literally one song ("Vertigo", which I thought was OK) and that's it. I don't dislike the band, but I never had a reason to care about them.
So this bit of news (that they had a new album out which they were releasing for free on iTunes from the 9th of September to the 13th of October) really surprised me...and also had me absolutely convinced that the band had gone completely mad. Let me try to sum up my thought process on this whole thing for you guys.
...Yes, I only knew this happened today. I don't pay attention to U2 at all, so this didn't even cross my radar until just now.
The reason I think the band are completely mad to have made this move is due to an analysis of the financial loss the band would be making to do this. Let us assume that the band's 18,080,827 Facebook likes all represent the band's fanbase number exactly (it's probably short of the actual number of U2 fans by a large number, but I'm doing basic maths here) and the album would have been available for £10 (I imagine it would have been a bit less, but, again, basic maths here). If we assume that about two thirds of the fans downloaded the album for free on iTunes, that's about £121 million which whoever gets the money from the iTunes download isn't going to get. Now, I know all of the money wouldn't go to the band, but, even if you work on the assumption that the band only gets 1p from the overall download (that's probably far too low, but, again, I'm working with simple maths here), that's still about £121 thousand that won't go to the band. To an artist that is as large as U2 is, that might be a tiny amount, but it's still a noticeable loss to most people. Throw in the fact that there are people like me who aren't U2 fans who will pick up the album out of curiosity due to it being free and that amount goes up even more. Now, I'm working from the context of a person who isn't in the same position that a member of U2 is, so I don't know how much the members get per year from royalties, tour amounts and all that, but, to a member of the general public, that's still a lot of money which the band are basically throwing away with this move.
However, there is a bit of a genius move behind all of this which I feel more than makes up for this loss. See, let's look at this from the viewpoint of the person who isn't in U2's situation: most of us have bills to pay, jobs which we have, money's tight due to the economy being pretty poor...it's not exactly an easy time for most people. So this move is actually a rather cool move from the band: they have saved us the worry of not being able to afford the album without having to fail to meet a bill or living requirement. For a fan of the band, this move is practically a godsend: you get the album for free and you still support the band. For someone who ISN'T already a fan of the band, however, this move has a potential benefit which I've not mentioned: if people get this album for free and like it, they might go on to pick up other albums by the band, go see them live or go on to become fans of the band. This is a risky move, on some levels: it's relying on the natural curiosity of people who want to get stuff for free, so, if the album is one which a person in a position of some authority and persuasion (like a popular online critic) does not like, they might put out a very negative review of it which will put off people from even getting the album for free. It also is taking the risk that there are people out there who haven't listened to U2 before, but would be willing to do so: if there aren't anyone who fall into that criteria, then there's no people to potentially go on to pick up the rest of the band's discography and go see them live who aren't already their fans. It is also risky in that, if the album itself is simply not a good representation of the band's usual sound (or is a poor album in general), people will get the wrong idea about the band from the album and will not go on to enjoy the band's discography, either due to dislike of their other albums or through the logic of "well, this sucks, why should I check out the rest of their stuff if I don't like this?" However, the benefits of this move are that people who hadn't bothered to check out the band due to financial reasons (which is a VERY tough thing to say, considering we now have Spotify and YouTube to make it easy to find and listen to new stuff) have no excuse not to do so and iTunes have caught on to the "if someone likes this, they might go on to listen to the rest of the band's stuff" logic by making U2's other material available on a limited time cheaper price (almost all of their studio albums are £4.99 at the minute, with the only exception being Rattle and Hum at £5.99). So, you could get U2's entire discography (while the offer is on) for £60.88. Which isn't exactly cheap when put that way, but, if you're just picking up one or two albums, that's £11 at most (Rattle and Hum and any other U2 album) out of your pocket.
So yeah...I think there's a lot of impressive logic behind this move. It's a bit of a risk, but I think it could potentially pay off for them in the long run if it works out. Even if it doesn't, the fact that the band apparently have a follow up album that they're working on which should be ready soon means that I think they've potentially mitigated any real damage that they could suffer from if the risk doesn't pay off. The acceptance of new media by U2 is really an impressive sign in a time when so many of their contemporaries (and most record labels) seem to consider new media to be a huge risk to them and leaves me with a lot of respect for them on a business level.
Does that mean I'm going to be a fan of them from now on? I doubt it, but I'll give their new album a few listens and do a review of it to see how it stands up. If I like it...then who knows?
...Incidentally, I have never studied accountancy, only got a C in my GCSE maths and didn't even pass my first year of A-level maths. Try to wrap your head around that if you think my maths and logical deduction here are rather good!
Seriously, U2 are a band that I normally avoid like the plague. I know them for literally one song ("Vertigo", which I thought was OK) and that's it. I don't dislike the band, but I never had a reason to care about them.
So this bit of news (that they had a new album out which they were releasing for free on iTunes from the 9th of September to the 13th of October) really surprised me...and also had me absolutely convinced that the band had gone completely mad. Let me try to sum up my thought process on this whole thing for you guys.
...Yes, I only knew this happened today. I don't pay attention to U2 at all, so this didn't even cross my radar until just now.
The reason I think the band are completely mad to have made this move is due to an analysis of the financial loss the band would be making to do this. Let us assume that the band's 18,080,827 Facebook likes all represent the band's fanbase number exactly (it's probably short of the actual number of U2 fans by a large number, but I'm doing basic maths here) and the album would have been available for £10 (I imagine it would have been a bit less, but, again, basic maths here). If we assume that about two thirds of the fans downloaded the album for free on iTunes, that's about £121 million which whoever gets the money from the iTunes download isn't going to get. Now, I know all of the money wouldn't go to the band, but, even if you work on the assumption that the band only gets 1p from the overall download (that's probably far too low, but, again, I'm working with simple maths here), that's still about £121 thousand that won't go to the band. To an artist that is as large as U2 is, that might be a tiny amount, but it's still a noticeable loss to most people. Throw in the fact that there are people like me who aren't U2 fans who will pick up the album out of curiosity due to it being free and that amount goes up even more. Now, I'm working from the context of a person who isn't in the same position that a member of U2 is, so I don't know how much the members get per year from royalties, tour amounts and all that, but, to a member of the general public, that's still a lot of money which the band are basically throwing away with this move.
However, there is a bit of a genius move behind all of this which I feel more than makes up for this loss. See, let's look at this from the viewpoint of the person who isn't in U2's situation: most of us have bills to pay, jobs which we have, money's tight due to the economy being pretty poor...it's not exactly an easy time for most people. So this move is actually a rather cool move from the band: they have saved us the worry of not being able to afford the album without having to fail to meet a bill or living requirement. For a fan of the band, this move is practically a godsend: you get the album for free and you still support the band. For someone who ISN'T already a fan of the band, however, this move has a potential benefit which I've not mentioned: if people get this album for free and like it, they might go on to pick up other albums by the band, go see them live or go on to become fans of the band. This is a risky move, on some levels: it's relying on the natural curiosity of people who want to get stuff for free, so, if the album is one which a person in a position of some authority and persuasion (like a popular online critic) does not like, they might put out a very negative review of it which will put off people from even getting the album for free. It also is taking the risk that there are people out there who haven't listened to U2 before, but would be willing to do so: if there aren't anyone who fall into that criteria, then there's no people to potentially go on to pick up the rest of the band's discography and go see them live who aren't already their fans. It is also risky in that, if the album itself is simply not a good representation of the band's usual sound (or is a poor album in general), people will get the wrong idea about the band from the album and will not go on to enjoy the band's discography, either due to dislike of their other albums or through the logic of "well, this sucks, why should I check out the rest of their stuff if I don't like this?" However, the benefits of this move are that people who hadn't bothered to check out the band due to financial reasons (which is a VERY tough thing to say, considering we now have Spotify and YouTube to make it easy to find and listen to new stuff) have no excuse not to do so and iTunes have caught on to the "if someone likes this, they might go on to listen to the rest of the band's stuff" logic by making U2's other material available on a limited time cheaper price (almost all of their studio albums are £4.99 at the minute, with the only exception being Rattle and Hum at £5.99). So, you could get U2's entire discography (while the offer is on) for £60.88. Which isn't exactly cheap when put that way, but, if you're just picking up one or two albums, that's £11 at most (Rattle and Hum and any other U2 album) out of your pocket.
So yeah...I think there's a lot of impressive logic behind this move. It's a bit of a risk, but I think it could potentially pay off for them in the long run if it works out. Even if it doesn't, the fact that the band apparently have a follow up album that they're working on which should be ready soon means that I think they've potentially mitigated any real damage that they could suffer from if the risk doesn't pay off. The acceptance of new media by U2 is really an impressive sign in a time when so many of their contemporaries (and most record labels) seem to consider new media to be a huge risk to them and leaves me with a lot of respect for them on a business level.
Does that mean I'm going to be a fan of them from now on? I doubt it, but I'll give their new album a few listens and do a review of it to see how it stands up. If I like it...then who knows?
...Incidentally, I have never studied accountancy, only got a C in my GCSE maths and didn't even pass my first year of A-level maths. Try to wrap your head around that if you think my maths and logical deduction here are rather good!
Wednesday, 10 September 2014
The Singles Collection: Exodus "Salt The Wound" Review
...I have to be honest, I had my misgivings about this album even before it was finished being recorded. I was disgusted with the way that Dukes was apparently removed from the band after about nine years in it (although I will concede that there aren't a lot of ways that the band could have fired him without seeming heartless), I felt that bring back Souza was a blatant attempt for the band to try to win back the stubborn "Souza or nothing" crowd (despite the fact that, you know, Souza was doing Hatriot for the last two years, so he wasn't exactly sitting around doing nothing...HINT HINT) and, on top of that, I was confident in saying that Souza simply could not do the Dukes era of the band justice, which is technically what this album is part of (it was written while Dukes was in the band and likely would have been recorded with him on vocals last year had Holt not had to continue doing Slayer). Throw in the fact that I didn't like the Dukes era of Exodus much myself (although I think blaming Dukes for the poor material is ignoring the crucial fact that Gary Holt is Exodus' main songwriter) and I was ready in my heart to hate this with a burning passion. As much as I wanted this to be good, part of me wanted this to fail so badly that the Souza diehards would realise that their determination to hound Dukes for something that wasn't even his fault had ruined the band through their refusal to accept that times had changed and would make them learn that past experience doesn't necessarily mean the future will be anywhere near as good than it was.
...Putting aside my livid fury at the Souza diehards and listening to this song with an open mind, I'm surprised. But why? Well, let me break it down for you guys. If you want to listen to the song to get a measure of what you think of the song before you read my take on it, then follow the link below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMs9yNlBp4c
One of the overwhelming things I notice about this song is that it sounds suspiciously like a rewrite of a song from Tempo Of The Damned (the last Exodus album that Souza sang on, for the benefit of those not in the know). I can't quite place it, but I swear it sounds somewhat like "War Is My Shepard"with a bit of "Scar Spangled Banner" thrown in to try to shake you off. Now, I get Exodus have their own distinctive sound post-reunion, so I can't really complain about this too much, but I got this impression literally from the first listen! If your first song that you're releasing with a returning vocalist sounds like a rewrite of a song from your last album with that vocalist, you've already got me unimpressed with you. To be fair, Exodus do have a rather distinctive style within the thrash metal scene, so you could fairly make a case that this is just Exodus being Exodus, but here's the thing: as much as I don't like the Dukes era of the band, I could trace a development musically in the music from that era (compare "Nanking" and "Class Dismissed (A Hate Primer)" to "Impaler" and "Blacklist" and you'll spot it). Here, it feels like that development has completely disappeared. While I do welcome the band going back to their thrash roots more with "Salt The Wound", I feel like the band have gone too far back and have instead regressed their sound by stripping away the stuff that made the Dukes era...not necessarily to my taste, but still rather interesting to listen to.
The second thing I notice is that Souza sounds like he's singing vocal lines which weren't written for him. Now, this is strictly a nitpick, since I know the circumstances behind the making of Blood In, Blood Out and I think he does a great job with what he has to work with, but the guy still doesn't feel completely comfortable singing this song. I think this is partially to do with the VERY different singing styles of Souza and Dukes. See, Dukes grew up with a lot of hardcore punk, so, when he sings, it's raw, pissed off fury that would make every threatening line sound like it's coming from a guy who is going to do it to you in a blind rage, but Souza has a somewhat nasal voice that I always liken to a sadistic killer whenever I've heard the guy sing a threatening line: I always imagine that Souza's singing as if he's a man who knows that he's going to commit a horrible act against someone and loves what he's going to do to them. So, when I heard Souza singing on Tempo Of The Damned, his way worked (for the most part) because he sounded like he wasn't angry at all, but had coldly calculated his every move. Here, however, you hear him having to do what Dukes did and...well, it kind of falls flat due to the fact that Souza's voice simply doesn't work for this kind of thing. His nasal tone is just a bit too strong for his anger to come across as anything except somewhat comical. It is to his credit that he still sounds fairly good, however: his overall performance on the song is fairly strong.
The third thing is the guest guitar solo by Kirk Hammett. Now, I know most people will be going "Oh look, another guy who's going to trash Kirk just because he's part of Metallica", but I'm seriously not in that position: I like Metallica a lot (although I don't listen to them a lot these days due to the sheer amount of other stuff out there that I have to keep up with) and feel that a lot of the hatred Kirk gets is somewhat exaggerated (there are other guitarists out there who do what Kirk does and don't get the same level of criticism that he does). However, I feel that his solo adds next to nothing to the song. It's not necessarily bad, but I think you could be forgiven for not even realising he was on the track. It's cool to see him on a thrash metal album for the first time in over 25 years, though...(that is the only Metallica joke you'll get from me, metal fans who want me to make them. If you want another one, you're reading the wrong blog.)
So, I must hate this song, right? It's unoriginal, has a vocal performance that is clearly not suited for the vocalist performing it and has a pointless guest appearance.
Nope: I actually rather like this track.
...Yeah, THAT'S why I said I was surprised.
If you ignore the unoriginality of the song, it's actually rather enjoyable. The song is a very solid bit of slower thrash metal (which is not the same as groove metal: comparing this to Five Finger Death Punch and Pantera, you'll spot some very noticeable differences in both styles of music), with a few nods towards a simpler style which can have roots traced towards hardcore punk. The lyrics are honestly dark enough that I imagine they'd fit in perfectly in a death metal song, but they aren't graphic enough to be off putting to people who aren't into that kind of music. The overall performance of everyone is very good on a technical level, with particular praise being warranted for drummer Tom Hunting: the guy's nearly 50, but you wouldn't think he was that old if you had to judge his drumming performance! The production, while VERY much an example of modern album recording, is fairly good, although I think the bass guitar is far, FAR too quiet in the mix for most people to hear it without needing to be able to listen into infrasound territories and it could have done with a bit of a quieter mastering job.
So, overall, what do I think of this song? Well, it's a very good track that suffers from a few flaws that drag it down. While I think it might have actually been a better song had Dukes been singing it due to his voice being more suited for the lyrical theme of the song, I still have to say that Souza did a great job. As much as I hate to give the Souza diehards some degree of satisfaction by admitting I made an error by doubting the band, I have to say that this song is actually a rather good song...but it's still nothing special by Exodus standards. If you're already a huge Exodus fan, this song won't offer you much new, but you should find it fairly enjoyable. People not already familiar with Exodus, however, should find this a much better listen.
Bottom line, if you don't mind the issues I highlighted, this should be worth a listen and will probably be a song that you will enjoy, so go check it out if you're a fan of thrash metal.
Final Rating: 8 Out Of 10
...Putting aside my livid fury at the Souza diehards and listening to this song with an open mind, I'm surprised. But why? Well, let me break it down for you guys. If you want to listen to the song to get a measure of what you think of the song before you read my take on it, then follow the link below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMs9yNlBp4c
One of the overwhelming things I notice about this song is that it sounds suspiciously like a rewrite of a song from Tempo Of The Damned (the last Exodus album that Souza sang on, for the benefit of those not in the know). I can't quite place it, but I swear it sounds somewhat like "War Is My Shepard"with a bit of "Scar Spangled Banner" thrown in to try to shake you off. Now, I get Exodus have their own distinctive sound post-reunion, so I can't really complain about this too much, but I got this impression literally from the first listen! If your first song that you're releasing with a returning vocalist sounds like a rewrite of a song from your last album with that vocalist, you've already got me unimpressed with you. To be fair, Exodus do have a rather distinctive style within the thrash metal scene, so you could fairly make a case that this is just Exodus being Exodus, but here's the thing: as much as I don't like the Dukes era of the band, I could trace a development musically in the music from that era (compare "Nanking" and "Class Dismissed (A Hate Primer)" to "Impaler" and "Blacklist" and you'll spot it). Here, it feels like that development has completely disappeared. While I do welcome the band going back to their thrash roots more with "Salt The Wound", I feel like the band have gone too far back and have instead regressed their sound by stripping away the stuff that made the Dukes era...not necessarily to my taste, but still rather interesting to listen to.
The second thing I notice is that Souza sounds like he's singing vocal lines which weren't written for him. Now, this is strictly a nitpick, since I know the circumstances behind the making of Blood In, Blood Out and I think he does a great job with what he has to work with, but the guy still doesn't feel completely comfortable singing this song. I think this is partially to do with the VERY different singing styles of Souza and Dukes. See, Dukes grew up with a lot of hardcore punk, so, when he sings, it's raw, pissed off fury that would make every threatening line sound like it's coming from a guy who is going to do it to you in a blind rage, but Souza has a somewhat nasal voice that I always liken to a sadistic killer whenever I've heard the guy sing a threatening line: I always imagine that Souza's singing as if he's a man who knows that he's going to commit a horrible act against someone and loves what he's going to do to them. So, when I heard Souza singing on Tempo Of The Damned, his way worked (for the most part) because he sounded like he wasn't angry at all, but had coldly calculated his every move. Here, however, you hear him having to do what Dukes did and...well, it kind of falls flat due to the fact that Souza's voice simply doesn't work for this kind of thing. His nasal tone is just a bit too strong for his anger to come across as anything except somewhat comical. It is to his credit that he still sounds fairly good, however: his overall performance on the song is fairly strong.
The third thing is the guest guitar solo by Kirk Hammett. Now, I know most people will be going "Oh look, another guy who's going to trash Kirk just because he's part of Metallica", but I'm seriously not in that position: I like Metallica a lot (although I don't listen to them a lot these days due to the sheer amount of other stuff out there that I have to keep up with) and feel that a lot of the hatred Kirk gets is somewhat exaggerated (there are other guitarists out there who do what Kirk does and don't get the same level of criticism that he does). However, I feel that his solo adds next to nothing to the song. It's not necessarily bad, but I think you could be forgiven for not even realising he was on the track. It's cool to see him on a thrash metal album for the first time in over 25 years, though...(that is the only Metallica joke you'll get from me, metal fans who want me to make them. If you want another one, you're reading the wrong blog.)
So, I must hate this song, right? It's unoriginal, has a vocal performance that is clearly not suited for the vocalist performing it and has a pointless guest appearance.
Nope: I actually rather like this track.
...Yeah, THAT'S why I said I was surprised.
If you ignore the unoriginality of the song, it's actually rather enjoyable. The song is a very solid bit of slower thrash metal (which is not the same as groove metal: comparing this to Five Finger Death Punch and Pantera, you'll spot some very noticeable differences in both styles of music), with a few nods towards a simpler style which can have roots traced towards hardcore punk. The lyrics are honestly dark enough that I imagine they'd fit in perfectly in a death metal song, but they aren't graphic enough to be off putting to people who aren't into that kind of music. The overall performance of everyone is very good on a technical level, with particular praise being warranted for drummer Tom Hunting: the guy's nearly 50, but you wouldn't think he was that old if you had to judge his drumming performance! The production, while VERY much an example of modern album recording, is fairly good, although I think the bass guitar is far, FAR too quiet in the mix for most people to hear it without needing to be able to listen into infrasound territories and it could have done with a bit of a quieter mastering job.
So, overall, what do I think of this song? Well, it's a very good track that suffers from a few flaws that drag it down. While I think it might have actually been a better song had Dukes been singing it due to his voice being more suited for the lyrical theme of the song, I still have to say that Souza did a great job. As much as I hate to give the Souza diehards some degree of satisfaction by admitting I made an error by doubting the band, I have to say that this song is actually a rather good song...but it's still nothing special by Exodus standards. If you're already a huge Exodus fan, this song won't offer you much new, but you should find it fairly enjoyable. People not already familiar with Exodus, however, should find this a much better listen.
Bottom line, if you don't mind the issues I highlighted, this should be worth a listen and will probably be a song that you will enjoy, so go check it out if you're a fan of thrash metal.
Final Rating: 8 Out Of 10
Wednesday, 3 September 2014
HUGE Amount Of Content Incoming Soon!
OK, so I imagine my regular blog readers are probably wondering what's happened to me, considering my last few posts were scattered around in terms of release dates.
Well, honestly, it was mostly due to a stress related issue which I didn't foresee happening. See, I recently started doing a VLOG series on my YouTube channel reviewing two shows and set myself the goal of doing one VLOG a week. It was intended just as a fun thing to do in between working on my blog and, for a while, it was that.
Unfortunately, me going up to Scotland a few weeks ago threw me off so much that I couldn't get back into the swing of keeping up with my schedule, and starting to play Hearthstone just made the issue worse: whenever I was feeling stressed, I would go play Hearthstone, and that would result in me spending hours playing it because I loved playing the game so much. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but, whenever I realised that I had a VLOG that I hadn't done, I would start feeling stressed about having not done it, which would send me running towards Hearthstone. This stress would also happen for when I looked at this blog and found myself wanting to write something and found I just couldn't come up with anything, so...yeah, I was in a bit of a pickle, to put it mildly!
Luckily, I think I've finally got a lid on the issue, albeit due to simply moving the VLOGs to a "when done" basis so that I don't have to worry about stressing out from doing them, and, on top of that, I finally have a set of headphones, so I can listen to albums as frequently as I need to in order to judge them properly for a review. So, I should be back to posting regular stuff for the blog, and I've got a lot of stuff that I want to look at for reviews!
What do I have lined up for you at the minute? Well, I can't promise I will definitely get these all done, but, for now, I feel committed to doing the following reviews (obviously, not in this order, although I might do the first two over the next few days):
Well, honestly, it was mostly due to a stress related issue which I didn't foresee happening. See, I recently started doing a VLOG series on my YouTube channel reviewing two shows and set myself the goal of doing one VLOG a week. It was intended just as a fun thing to do in between working on my blog and, for a while, it was that.
Unfortunately, me going up to Scotland a few weeks ago threw me off so much that I couldn't get back into the swing of keeping up with my schedule, and starting to play Hearthstone just made the issue worse: whenever I was feeling stressed, I would go play Hearthstone, and that would result in me spending hours playing it because I loved playing the game so much. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but, whenever I realised that I had a VLOG that I hadn't done, I would start feeling stressed about having not done it, which would send me running towards Hearthstone. This stress would also happen for when I looked at this blog and found myself wanting to write something and found I just couldn't come up with anything, so...yeah, I was in a bit of a pickle, to put it mildly!
Luckily, I think I've finally got a lid on the issue, albeit due to simply moving the VLOGs to a "when done" basis so that I don't have to worry about stressing out from doing them, and, on top of that, I finally have a set of headphones, so I can listen to albums as frequently as I need to in order to judge them properly for a review. So, I should be back to posting regular stuff for the blog, and I've got a lot of stuff that I want to look at for reviews!
What do I have lined up for you at the minute? Well, I can't promise I will definitely get these all done, but, for now, I feel committed to doing the following reviews (obviously, not in this order, although I might do the first two over the next few days):
- What Have We Become by Paul Heaton & Jacki Abbott
- V by Maroon 5
- Plagues Of Babylon by Iced Earth
- Ashes Of Ares by Ashes Of Ares
- Maximum Overload by DragonForce
- The Quantum Enigma by Epica
- Redeemer Of Souls by Judas Priest
- Rock Your Face Off by Kix
- Phantom Shadow by Machinae Supremacy
- Sacrificium by Xandria
- Light Of Dawn by Unisonic
- Greetings From California by The Madden Brothers
- Paula by Robin Thicke (VERY much just an idea at the minute: I know there's no point in beating this dead horse, but I'm genuinely curious to see how this one sounds and, if I think I have something to say on it, I will!)
...Yes, seriously. I used to be a gamer (and not a bad one, either) before my teens and, based on how I did in terms of gaming skill at a LAN party I was invited to a few days ago, I think I might still have those skills in me, so I'm thinking of shaking the dust off on those nearly forgotten skills and becoming a gamer again. It'll also be a good chance for me and the rest of my friends to game together (most of them are PC gamers), so that's always a plus!
Hope you're all excited about all of this and I hope to be back to providing regular content as soon as possible!
Hope you're all excited about all of this and I hope to be back to providing regular content as soon as possible!
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