As you may have guessed from the title, all is not well in the Queensryche camp.
...OK, enough with the understatements and the politeness. The Queensryche camp at the minute is a fucking shambles, with what people are claiming to be a fan war happening every time the band is mentioned. And what does it all boil down to?
People not accepting that other people have a different opinion, basically.
...Yeah, it's not such a big deal when put like that, is it?
Well...I'm sorry to have to say this for the non-QR fans reading this, but, what with everything that is happening in the camp, it actually IS kind of a big deal. The current band situation (to leave out a HUGE amount of details: if you particularly want to catch up with everything and don't mind reading legal documents, I recommend following the link I'm going to provide at the bottom of the page) is basically two band line ups, both claiming to be the official Queensryche when booking gigs. While Tate is MEANT to be calling his line up Queensryche Starring Geoff Tate the Original Voice, bookings only refer to the band as Queensryche, with the only thing meant to tell them apart being the band picture provided at the link. Except that sites which sell tickets for the gigs have managed to mess THAT up, as they keep putting the wrong band picture up for each line up. So, there are multiple people who will either end up getting tickets for the wrong line up or end up not getting tickets for the line up they want to see purely because they aren't getting the right information.
...Yeah, kind of a big issue, isn't it?
But I'm not here to take a side in this argument (although, for the record, I support the side without Tate) and sling mud at either side. I'm here to just say one little thing.
STOP WITH THE FIGHTING, FOR GOD'S SAKE! IT'S DRIVING ME UP THE FUCKING WALL!
*cough*
I get that there are high stakes at the minute and that people will support the band for different reasons. Some will have always thought that Tate was the most important member of the band and, as such, can't enjoy the band without him. And that's fair enough: back in his prime, Tate could have potentially put Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson to shame (and I'm saying this as a huge Judas Priest fan and an appreciator of Iron Maiden). And there are some who will have loved the band for their music and, as such, can appreciate the band without Tate. And, again, that's fair enough: Queensryche wrote some of my favourite songs to date.
But there's no need to act like someone else saying they prefer a different line up of the band has committed an unforgivable sin. Putting aside my own dislike of Tate's version of the band and of Tate himself for a second, what would happen if you were to just say "I respect your opinion, although I do not agree with it" to someone who expressed their support for the other line up of the band (providing they do so respectfully)? Would anything of any real value be lost? Of course not!
This attitude of "Yell down any dissenters" is, unfortunately, not a new attitude across the Internet. Part of it is because, well, trolls will always be the ones with the controversial opinions and it's so easy to spot them that it's possible for people to become overly vigilant against them and accidentally shoot down someone who was not trying to troll, but was being serious, and another part of it is because, with the anonymity the Internet provides us, it's a lot easier to say or do something than ever before. And, because it can potentially be seen across the Internet if you look for it, a lot of people seem to get the feeling that any dissenters run the risk of reaching the ears (well, eyes) of those on high, who might act as if any dissension is an indication that it is time to pack up shop forever. Those aren't the only reasons, of course, but they are the two that are focused purely upon the fact that we're talking on the Internet.
To the first of these, I advocate trying to ask the person making the controversial opinion whether they are trying to be controversial or not (although in a more polite way than I've put it). To the second, I say "...And?"
Yeah, as much as fans like to act as if any dissension among the fans will make an entire band split up, the truth is that most bands probably have seen a lot worse than someone simply going "I think this band sucks" on a small forum that might only appear if you look for it directly. Heck, some members of bands have probably had to cope with receiving death threats simply for not releasing an album the person making the threat thinks is perfect. Does that stop them? No.
(And yes, there are people that weird out there. I think it says a lot that I consider myself more than a bit eccentric in the real world and I would still say that those people are completely nuts...on the off chance that someone reading this does consider death threats to be a valid thing to throw out there just because an entertainer isn't meeting your every expectations, I think you might want to reconsider what is important to you in life!)
And the thing that is really annoying me about the Queensryche case is that I know it's not going to end when the court case does. This fighting among the fans is just going to go on and on and on and on and on and on and...well, you get the picture. Realistically, this isn't going to end until the band breaks up (and probably not even then, considering how die hard some Queensryche fans seem to be...).
So, what I'd like to request, to ANY Queensryche fan reading this, is this: if you meet someone who prefers the other line up of the band, try to be polite and friendly to them. Let them have their opinion and, instead of flaming them, try to find a meeting point between the two of you which you can talk about with each other. If you can't find that, then just accept that you have no meeting point and move on. If everyone took the time to not flame each other and tried to talk with each other, you might find that you make a new friend and that the fan base won't be the way it is at the minute. Plus, at the end of the day, we're all fans of the same band. Do we really want the band to disappear completely just because we as fans can't talk to each other reasonably any more?
Think about that...
(And here's the link to the Queensryche court room documents. If you want to chat to me on the site, I'm ShadeInTheShadows, although you might want to PM me if that's the case, as I rarely post anything on the site these days...http://www.anybodylistening.net/breakdownroom/index.php?topic=2906.0)
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Saturday, 8 March 2014
New Device "Here We Stand" Review
Time to dig into the UK hard rock underground! Since I will be spending some time waiting for the album that I want to do a review of to arrive in the mail, I figured it might be a good idea to dig into the underbelly of the UK hard rock scene and bring to your attention a few bands that you might be interested in looking out. The two bands I'm definitely going to review are The Treatment and New Device, although I might look at Heaven's Basement and Jettblack depending on how long I have to wait for my order to arrive. I also might take a look at local pop punk band Epilogue's debut, although I will only do that if I get through everything else and still am waiting...
New Device are a pretty new band to the hard rock scene, forming in late 2007 and releasing their debut album in 2009, with then-drummer for Funeral for a Friend Ryan Richards doing the drums for the album. After that, the band pretty much toured and replaced members until February 2011, when the band decided to start work on material for their third album. After a new line up was announced in April 2012, the band recorded their second album, which was released in May 2013. This is that second album.
The band's sound is probably best summed up as hard rock with a bit of sleaze and traditional heavy metal thrown in and (dare I say it?) a hint of post-grunge for flavour (before anyone starts packing their bags and running, it's largely restricted to Daniel Leigh's vocals: although I don't think he's trying to go for a post-grunge voice deliberately, his habit of singing in a powerful bellow is very reminiscent of a lot of post-grunge vocalists and will probably be a factor in making or breaking the band for you if you dislike post-grunge...). When you consider that post-grunge is a style of hard rock (and one that has more influence from glam metal than you would think, too...), you would think it shouldn't be too hard to combine it with hard rock and sleaze metal (or even glam metal, if you don't mind the odd looks you'd inevitably get...). Do New Device do it well? Well...yes and no. Like with a lot of the UK hard rock from the underground that has reached my ears, it does sound a tiny bit too similar to what other bands are doing to get me wanting to triumph them over other bands, but I can't deny that they do a good job at it!
*Rant alert: skip this paragraph if you want the actual review and don't want to read me deconstructing the UK hard rock underground and why I don't think it's going to amount to much.*
As much as a lot of people like to say that the UK underground hard rock scene is a haven of brilliant hard rock that will one day cause a supernova of talent, the truth is that a lot of the bands that I've heard don't really get beyond being just good. Don't get me wrong, there ARE good bands in the UK underground hard rock scene, but even the best received bands from the scene that reach my ears just leave me wanting a more original take on the scene. Considering Volbeat are a highly successful band and have a rather unique style (I like to refer to it as metal n roll, personally...), I feel letting bands who do hard rock that sounds similar to everyone else get as much praise as them is not really fair, as it doesn't really encourage other bands to try to find their own sound. And that, to be honest, is the big issue I have: I know that bands CAN find their own style (as much as a lot of people like to say that you can't in this day and age...) if they put the work in to making sure they do it (case of point, how many of the original members of the Bay Area thrash scene sounded particularly similar to each other during the heyday of the genre (the 80's and 1990, for those who aren't sure when that is...)? Beyond the fact they're all playing thrash, I'd say the answer is "none"!), but next to nobody is really putting in that effort. And that's partially why I think the whole scene is unlikely to amount to anything at the minute: nobody is trying to find their own spin on the genre (either by mixing in influence from the genres that influenced hard rock in general (like blues, folk, rock n roll and classical music) to give the music some more quiet twists to keep you interested beyond the first listen or by combining influences from appropriate metal genres to create a darker take on it...), which tends to mean that, once you get past the excitement of "OMG, IT'S HARD ROCK FROM THE UK! HARD ROCK ISN'T DEAD, BITCHES!!1!!1!!!1!!!", you're not left with anything to really keep you wanting to return to it, as you'll usually find someone else doing the same thing, only slightly better. Maybe I'm over-thinking this all a bit, but I honestly think that the scene needs a band to take a good look beyond the hard rock genres and incorporate influences from other genres and start to become a major player in the music scene before the scene will take a hint and then will start to become a major player in the music scene. If you will, so many bands take influence from the hard rock and metal aspects of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath that they miss the fact that those bands wrote songs that didn't focus purely on being the genres they are, but had songs which aren't purely hard rock and metal (and even their biggest hits had influence from other genres: "Changes", anyone?). Take doom metal, for example: it's mostly people trying to be Black Sabbath. How many have really captured that sound perfectly? Not a lot of people, as they miss the underlying subtleties Black Sabbath had to their music and, in their efforts to be doom metal, they accidentally cut out the inner blues subtleties that make Sabbath so iconic. I could go on, but I think most people are wondering where the review is and why I'm ranting about all of this, so I'll get off of my soapbox and get on with the actual review.
*Rant alert deactivated. You may now breathe a sigh of relief, if you wish, and I apologise for going so far off topic!*
Now, I'm not going to say that just playing a style of music you like is a bad thing. Heck, I like hard rock as much as the next guy and I'd love to be in a hard rock if I was given the opportunity. It's just that, as I mentioned in my rant, it's harder to write deeper music if you don't do your research into the influences of the genre and take notes, as a lot of inner subtleties can be found in the music of the big bands of the 70's and 80's if you look closely. And that's the thing that I think New Device have to do before they do their next album, as it'll help them to step up their game significantly. HOWEVER, putting my rant aside (and not a moment too soon...), what they present to us on their second album is still very strong in and of itself and, if you just want to enjoy the music and expect to get a good album at the least, you'll not go wrong picking up this album.
If you've listened to any modern hard rock albums over the past few years and heard any post-grunge, you probably know what to expect here: riffs powerful enough to get you excited about just rocking out, vocals that focus on having a lot of power (at the expense of some subtlety, but New Device do at least have their moments of it) and ballads that will be heavily in love or hate it territory, depending on how much you like ballads in general. Nothing really wrong with all of that, but it does mean that, if the band doesn't have strong hooks, it can blend together and leave you bored. While it does blend together a bit, New Device do manage to avoid falling into this pitfall enough that you do at least have some highlights from the album and you don't feeling like you're stretching to find them: these are highlights that would still be highlights on a better album, they aren't the best of a bad bunch!
The songs that stand out to me as highlights are the title track, which has a pretty cool riff, a strong chorus and gets the album off to a very good start, "New York", which is a very enjoyable ballad that I think works very well, "Another Life", which has a nice chorus and is another really nice ballad overall, "Feel The Wrath", which has a really cool chorus that will have you singing along very quickly, and "Save Your Life", which has a strong sing along chorus and a really neat riff. None of the other songs are necessarily bad, but I find that these are the songs I return to the most from the album. Instrumentally, all of the guys are at least competent musicians, but I have to say that Daniel Leigh's vocals will wind you up the wrong way if you don't like post-grunge.
On a production level, I think this might JUST be outside of what I'd consider acceptable mastering. While it does have a powerful sound to it and it works for this album, I think it might be a bit too loud overall. While post-grunge and hard rock are generally genres which do demand a loud sound, there's a line between "a powerful master" and "ear fatigue inducing" that a lot of producers involved in the loudness war seem to not be aware of and I think this is just stepping over the line into the latter. Thankfully, it's not to the level where I would consider it unlistenable, so less picky people will not have the same complaints that I do with it. The mixing is very solid, although I think the bass could have done with maybe being turned up a bit (and no, I will not stop making this complaint until producers take a hint!).
Overall, I'd say the album is a very good album that, if you don't have the same complaints I mentioned in my rant, will be worth a listen. It probably won't blow you away, but there's enough good stuff on the album to at least keep you interested in it for a bit.
Final score: 7 out of 10
Personal favourites: "Here We Stand", "New York", "Save Your Life"
(...Oh yeah, and the album I'm waiting for in the post? Well, let's just say that building a city on rock and roll won't mean anything if you don't repair it for a good while!)
New Device are a pretty new band to the hard rock scene, forming in late 2007 and releasing their debut album in 2009, with then-drummer for Funeral for a Friend Ryan Richards doing the drums for the album. After that, the band pretty much toured and replaced members until February 2011, when the band decided to start work on material for their third album. After a new line up was announced in April 2012, the band recorded their second album, which was released in May 2013. This is that second album.
The band's sound is probably best summed up as hard rock with a bit of sleaze and traditional heavy metal thrown in and (dare I say it?) a hint of post-grunge for flavour (before anyone starts packing their bags and running, it's largely restricted to Daniel Leigh's vocals: although I don't think he's trying to go for a post-grunge voice deliberately, his habit of singing in a powerful bellow is very reminiscent of a lot of post-grunge vocalists and will probably be a factor in making or breaking the band for you if you dislike post-grunge...). When you consider that post-grunge is a style of hard rock (and one that has more influence from glam metal than you would think, too...), you would think it shouldn't be too hard to combine it with hard rock and sleaze metal (or even glam metal, if you don't mind the odd looks you'd inevitably get...). Do New Device do it well? Well...yes and no. Like with a lot of the UK hard rock from the underground that has reached my ears, it does sound a tiny bit too similar to what other bands are doing to get me wanting to triumph them over other bands, but I can't deny that they do a good job at it!
*Rant alert: skip this paragraph if you want the actual review and don't want to read me deconstructing the UK hard rock underground and why I don't think it's going to amount to much.*
As much as a lot of people like to say that the UK underground hard rock scene is a haven of brilliant hard rock that will one day cause a supernova of talent, the truth is that a lot of the bands that I've heard don't really get beyond being just good. Don't get me wrong, there ARE good bands in the UK underground hard rock scene, but even the best received bands from the scene that reach my ears just leave me wanting a more original take on the scene. Considering Volbeat are a highly successful band and have a rather unique style (I like to refer to it as metal n roll, personally...), I feel letting bands who do hard rock that sounds similar to everyone else get as much praise as them is not really fair, as it doesn't really encourage other bands to try to find their own sound. And that, to be honest, is the big issue I have: I know that bands CAN find their own style (as much as a lot of people like to say that you can't in this day and age...) if they put the work in to making sure they do it (case of point, how many of the original members of the Bay Area thrash scene sounded particularly similar to each other during the heyday of the genre (the 80's and 1990, for those who aren't sure when that is...)? Beyond the fact they're all playing thrash, I'd say the answer is "none"!), but next to nobody is really putting in that effort. And that's partially why I think the whole scene is unlikely to amount to anything at the minute: nobody is trying to find their own spin on the genre (either by mixing in influence from the genres that influenced hard rock in general (like blues, folk, rock n roll and classical music) to give the music some more quiet twists to keep you interested beyond the first listen or by combining influences from appropriate metal genres to create a darker take on it...), which tends to mean that, once you get past the excitement of "OMG, IT'S HARD ROCK FROM THE UK! HARD ROCK ISN'T DEAD, BITCHES!!1!!1!!!1!!!", you're not left with anything to really keep you wanting to return to it, as you'll usually find someone else doing the same thing, only slightly better. Maybe I'm over-thinking this all a bit, but I honestly think that the scene needs a band to take a good look beyond the hard rock genres and incorporate influences from other genres and start to become a major player in the music scene before the scene will take a hint and then will start to become a major player in the music scene. If you will, so many bands take influence from the hard rock and metal aspects of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath that they miss the fact that those bands wrote songs that didn't focus purely on being the genres they are, but had songs which aren't purely hard rock and metal (and even their biggest hits had influence from other genres: "Changes", anyone?). Take doom metal, for example: it's mostly people trying to be Black Sabbath. How many have really captured that sound perfectly? Not a lot of people, as they miss the underlying subtleties Black Sabbath had to their music and, in their efforts to be doom metal, they accidentally cut out the inner blues subtleties that make Sabbath so iconic. I could go on, but I think most people are wondering where the review is and why I'm ranting about all of this, so I'll get off of my soapbox and get on with the actual review.
*Rant alert deactivated. You may now breathe a sigh of relief, if you wish, and I apologise for going so far off topic!*
Now, I'm not going to say that just playing a style of music you like is a bad thing. Heck, I like hard rock as much as the next guy and I'd love to be in a hard rock if I was given the opportunity. It's just that, as I mentioned in my rant, it's harder to write deeper music if you don't do your research into the influences of the genre and take notes, as a lot of inner subtleties can be found in the music of the big bands of the 70's and 80's if you look closely. And that's the thing that I think New Device have to do before they do their next album, as it'll help them to step up their game significantly. HOWEVER, putting my rant aside (and not a moment too soon...), what they present to us on their second album is still very strong in and of itself and, if you just want to enjoy the music and expect to get a good album at the least, you'll not go wrong picking up this album.
If you've listened to any modern hard rock albums over the past few years and heard any post-grunge, you probably know what to expect here: riffs powerful enough to get you excited about just rocking out, vocals that focus on having a lot of power (at the expense of some subtlety, but New Device do at least have their moments of it) and ballads that will be heavily in love or hate it territory, depending on how much you like ballads in general. Nothing really wrong with all of that, but it does mean that, if the band doesn't have strong hooks, it can blend together and leave you bored. While it does blend together a bit, New Device do manage to avoid falling into this pitfall enough that you do at least have some highlights from the album and you don't feeling like you're stretching to find them: these are highlights that would still be highlights on a better album, they aren't the best of a bad bunch!
The songs that stand out to me as highlights are the title track, which has a pretty cool riff, a strong chorus and gets the album off to a very good start, "New York", which is a very enjoyable ballad that I think works very well, "Another Life", which has a nice chorus and is another really nice ballad overall, "Feel The Wrath", which has a really cool chorus that will have you singing along very quickly, and "Save Your Life", which has a strong sing along chorus and a really neat riff. None of the other songs are necessarily bad, but I find that these are the songs I return to the most from the album. Instrumentally, all of the guys are at least competent musicians, but I have to say that Daniel Leigh's vocals will wind you up the wrong way if you don't like post-grunge.
On a production level, I think this might JUST be outside of what I'd consider acceptable mastering. While it does have a powerful sound to it and it works for this album, I think it might be a bit too loud overall. While post-grunge and hard rock are generally genres which do demand a loud sound, there's a line between "a powerful master" and "ear fatigue inducing" that a lot of producers involved in the loudness war seem to not be aware of and I think this is just stepping over the line into the latter. Thankfully, it's not to the level where I would consider it unlistenable, so less picky people will not have the same complaints that I do with it. The mixing is very solid, although I think the bass could have done with maybe being turned up a bit (and no, I will not stop making this complaint until producers take a hint!).
Overall, I'd say the album is a very good album that, if you don't have the same complaints I mentioned in my rant, will be worth a listen. It probably won't blow you away, but there's enough good stuff on the album to at least keep you interested in it for a bit.
Final score: 7 out of 10
Personal favourites: "Here We Stand", "New York", "Save Your Life"
(...Oh yeah, and the album I'm waiting for in the post? Well, let's just say that building a city on rock and roll won't mean anything if you don't repair it for a good while!)
Tuesday, 4 March 2014
Good Charlotte "The Young & The Hopeless" Review
Yeah, this one might seem a bit out of place for the guys who've been reading my blog since I started out. However, there is a valid reason behind looking at this album, as this is one of the albums that pretty much defined my teenage years. And I figured it'd be an interesting idea to return to this album to see how it stands up now, considering my taste in music has moved on from Good Charlotte's style of music and become more...well, if you've read this blog more than once before now, you probably know what my usual taste in music is.
Anyway, Good Charlotte are a pop punk from Maryland (which is also where All Time Low are from) that formed in 1996. They've had a fairly consistent line up since then, only replacing their drummer twice since forming and adding a guitarist (who also plays keyboards) a few years before they released their debut album. For this album, the band were using a session musician, Josh Freese (who you might recognise for later playing in Nine Inch Nails between 2005 and 2008). The rest of the band's line up (lead vocalist Joel Madden, guitarists Benji Madden and Billy Martin and bassist Paul Thomas) were still searching for a drummer after the departure of Aaron Escolopio, who left to join his brother in Wakefield (another band from Maryland who are believed to have broken up, as no information by them has been found since 2012), but they would later find Chris Wilson, who would leave the band in 2005 to join Summer Obsession (who broke up in 2010: hilariously, one of his predecessors in that band was Josh Freese!) and is now playing for Matt Toka (former lead singer of Cherry Monroe) in his solo project. He would be replaced by current drummer, Dean Butterworth, who you might know for drumming for Morrissey on his 2004 album You Are The Quarry.
For the most part, the album relies on short songs (the longest tracks on the album being only a bit over four minutes long) with fairly simple arrangements (in some cases, mostly being carried by Joel's vocals), catchy choruses (although I wouldn't say any of them really get to the highest levels of catchiness, like with All Time Low's "Time Bomb") and a lot of energy. So, fairly typical pop punk, at first glance. The thing that will ultimately make or break the band for you are two or three little details (aside from, you know, whether you like pop punk to start with).
Firstly, the lyrics of the band's songs can be more than a alienating when the Madden twins start to focus on their past and talk about that. Now, some artists can talk about their pasts in ways which are cryptic enough to appeal to people who haven't gone through what the artist has, but will strike a chord with those who have. Unfortunately, this isn't a gift Joel and Benji Madden possess, as they don't tend to pull any punches when they do this. Whether this is enough to label the band as emo or not will depend on what you consider to be emo and what you don't. I'd say that calling them emo is MAYBE a bit inaccurate, as it's not a topic they exclusively talk about in their music, but it's definitely there and your ability to take this kind of thing will depend on how view the band. Possibly the most blatant example is "Emotionless", which is an open letter to the brother's father who abandoned them as a kid. It's a very emotional song and you get the feeling that there's no anger intended behind it, but it's definitely a song that will annoy more than a few people and may be justified with the use of the skip button. The topic of their father walking out on them is also fairly noticeable in "The Story Of My Old Man" and, possibly to hammer home the fact that they are not making up what happened in their past, one of the lyrics in the title track is "When I sing about my past/it's not a gimmick, not an act". I personally don't have a huge problem with the guys talking about their past (heck, I didn't have the best childhood myself...), but a bit more subtlety would probably go a lot further for the guys for people who normally don't like this kind of thing.
Secondly, due to the fact that the arrangements can be very simple (even by punk standards), it's likely that people with a fondness for more complicated stuff than punk will be left wanting at best. And I'm not going to lie: when I look at this album critically and not in my usual mindset of just enjoying it for what it is, I do feel disappointed that there's not more to the songs than there is (although, in my case, the fact that I've recently developed a slight appreciation of progressive metal might have something to do with why I'm probably trying to look deeper than I should be for this type of record...). However, I would fairly say that, well, if you are playing pop punk, you're not really expected to try to go for especially deep lyrics or music with hidden complexity, as you're basically combining punk music (a genre not exactly known for musicians who are brilliant on a technical level) and pop music (which is mostly about writing the catchiest hooks you can, which CAN be very tough (as much as a lot of people like to claim otherwise...) to do well, but usually doesn't require a lot of technical ability to do well). Anything that is deep lyrically can probably be fairly considered a bonus if everything else is there. Which...leads me to my third issue.
The third issue is that a lot of the band's hooks are not the strongest ones you could ever hear. So, if you like your songs with very strong hooks, this might not win you over even if the other two issues I've highlighted don't strike you as a problem. You're not going to find anything with a hook on the level of "I Am The One And Only" by Chesney Hawkes (which I heard once and could remember for days, and still enjoy listening to it every now and then due to how cheerful I tend to get after hearing it!), if you get what I mean. This DOESN'T mean that there aren't any hooks in the band's songs, as they definitely have them, it's just that it might take a few listens to really start to enjoy the songs on the album.
All of the guys are definitely at least able to play their instruments (although, in the drummer's case, would you expect a guy who would go on to drum for NIN to be a bad drummer?). None of the guys are likely to win awards for their ability to play them, but they don't sound like they're struggling to play the songs on the record to me. Joel and Benji (who sings lead on "The Day That I Die" and the second verse of the title track) are decent vocalists, but aren't likely to be anyone's favourite vocalists by any measure. From a technical perspective, I'd say Joel is probably a better vocalist than quite a few pop punk vocalists, as his vocals are clean (if not especially powerful and still with roots in punk). He doesn't have an amazing range, but he definitely has one, as he sings noticeably lower at the start of "Say Anything". Benji's vocals are more punk based, but he's mostly restricted to backing vocals most of the time (except for the moments I've mentioned earlier), so you can miss him if you're not looking for him. The album is pretty well produced, although I do think that the bass could have maybe done with being a bit louder at point. It also is reasonably mastered, as it's loud enough to have some punch to it, but not so loud that you're going to want to turn it down for the sake of your ears.
So, putting my nostalgia aside for this album and looking at this album critically, I have to say that it's a good album. It doesn't really rise above being a good album, which stops me from saying that this will get people who have no interest in pop punk suddenly loving the genre, but, for the genre it is in, it's an enjoyable album that fans of the genre will at least come out of feeling satisfied. If you just want to pick up a pop punk album to listen to get an idea of what the genre is like, you could do far worse than pick this up. It's not the best example of the genre by any measure, but it's certainly not the worst example of the genre. I wouldn't say this album stands up well compared to how I remember it, but I still enjoyed reviewing it!
Final rating: 6 out of 10
A decent album that won't win over those with no fondness for the genre, but fans of the genre should enjoy.
Personal favourite tracks: My Bloody Valentine, Riot Girl, The Young & The Hopeless
I'm trying a slightly different writing style for this review, as I feel my reviews used to be too long without any real justification. If you like this shorter style, let me know!
Anyway, Good Charlotte are a pop punk from Maryland (which is also where All Time Low are from) that formed in 1996. They've had a fairly consistent line up since then, only replacing their drummer twice since forming and adding a guitarist (who also plays keyboards) a few years before they released their debut album. For this album, the band were using a session musician, Josh Freese (who you might recognise for later playing in Nine Inch Nails between 2005 and 2008). The rest of the band's line up (lead vocalist Joel Madden, guitarists Benji Madden and Billy Martin and bassist Paul Thomas) were still searching for a drummer after the departure of Aaron Escolopio, who left to join his brother in Wakefield (another band from Maryland who are believed to have broken up, as no information by them has been found since 2012), but they would later find Chris Wilson, who would leave the band in 2005 to join Summer Obsession (who broke up in 2010: hilariously, one of his predecessors in that band was Josh Freese!) and is now playing for Matt Toka (former lead singer of Cherry Monroe) in his solo project. He would be replaced by current drummer, Dean Butterworth, who you might know for drumming for Morrissey on his 2004 album You Are The Quarry.
For the most part, the album relies on short songs (the longest tracks on the album being only a bit over four minutes long) with fairly simple arrangements (in some cases, mostly being carried by Joel's vocals), catchy choruses (although I wouldn't say any of them really get to the highest levels of catchiness, like with All Time Low's "Time Bomb") and a lot of energy. So, fairly typical pop punk, at first glance. The thing that will ultimately make or break the band for you are two or three little details (aside from, you know, whether you like pop punk to start with).
Firstly, the lyrics of the band's songs can be more than a alienating when the Madden twins start to focus on their past and talk about that. Now, some artists can talk about their pasts in ways which are cryptic enough to appeal to people who haven't gone through what the artist has, but will strike a chord with those who have. Unfortunately, this isn't a gift Joel and Benji Madden possess, as they don't tend to pull any punches when they do this. Whether this is enough to label the band as emo or not will depend on what you consider to be emo and what you don't. I'd say that calling them emo is MAYBE a bit inaccurate, as it's not a topic they exclusively talk about in their music, but it's definitely there and your ability to take this kind of thing will depend on how view the band. Possibly the most blatant example is "Emotionless", which is an open letter to the brother's father who abandoned them as a kid. It's a very emotional song and you get the feeling that there's no anger intended behind it, but it's definitely a song that will annoy more than a few people and may be justified with the use of the skip button. The topic of their father walking out on them is also fairly noticeable in "The Story Of My Old Man" and, possibly to hammer home the fact that they are not making up what happened in their past, one of the lyrics in the title track is "When I sing about my past/it's not a gimmick, not an act". I personally don't have a huge problem with the guys talking about their past (heck, I didn't have the best childhood myself...), but a bit more subtlety would probably go a lot further for the guys for people who normally don't like this kind of thing.
Secondly, due to the fact that the arrangements can be very simple (even by punk standards), it's likely that people with a fondness for more complicated stuff than punk will be left wanting at best. And I'm not going to lie: when I look at this album critically and not in my usual mindset of just enjoying it for what it is, I do feel disappointed that there's not more to the songs than there is (although, in my case, the fact that I've recently developed a slight appreciation of progressive metal might have something to do with why I'm probably trying to look deeper than I should be for this type of record...). However, I would fairly say that, well, if you are playing pop punk, you're not really expected to try to go for especially deep lyrics or music with hidden complexity, as you're basically combining punk music (a genre not exactly known for musicians who are brilliant on a technical level) and pop music (which is mostly about writing the catchiest hooks you can, which CAN be very tough (as much as a lot of people like to claim otherwise...) to do well, but usually doesn't require a lot of technical ability to do well). Anything that is deep lyrically can probably be fairly considered a bonus if everything else is there. Which...leads me to my third issue.
The third issue is that a lot of the band's hooks are not the strongest ones you could ever hear. So, if you like your songs with very strong hooks, this might not win you over even if the other two issues I've highlighted don't strike you as a problem. You're not going to find anything with a hook on the level of "I Am The One And Only" by Chesney Hawkes (which I heard once and could remember for days, and still enjoy listening to it every now and then due to how cheerful I tend to get after hearing it!), if you get what I mean. This DOESN'T mean that there aren't any hooks in the band's songs, as they definitely have them, it's just that it might take a few listens to really start to enjoy the songs on the album.
All of the guys are definitely at least able to play their instruments (although, in the drummer's case, would you expect a guy who would go on to drum for NIN to be a bad drummer?). None of the guys are likely to win awards for their ability to play them, but they don't sound like they're struggling to play the songs on the record to me. Joel and Benji (who sings lead on "The Day That I Die" and the second verse of the title track) are decent vocalists, but aren't likely to be anyone's favourite vocalists by any measure. From a technical perspective, I'd say Joel is probably a better vocalist than quite a few pop punk vocalists, as his vocals are clean (if not especially powerful and still with roots in punk). He doesn't have an amazing range, but he definitely has one, as he sings noticeably lower at the start of "Say Anything". Benji's vocals are more punk based, but he's mostly restricted to backing vocals most of the time (except for the moments I've mentioned earlier), so you can miss him if you're not looking for him. The album is pretty well produced, although I do think that the bass could have maybe done with being a bit louder at point. It also is reasonably mastered, as it's loud enough to have some punch to it, but not so loud that you're going to want to turn it down for the sake of your ears.
So, putting my nostalgia aside for this album and looking at this album critically, I have to say that it's a good album. It doesn't really rise above being a good album, which stops me from saying that this will get people who have no interest in pop punk suddenly loving the genre, but, for the genre it is in, it's an enjoyable album that fans of the genre will at least come out of feeling satisfied. If you just want to pick up a pop punk album to listen to get an idea of what the genre is like, you could do far worse than pick this up. It's not the best example of the genre by any measure, but it's certainly not the worst example of the genre. I wouldn't say this album stands up well compared to how I remember it, but I still enjoyed reviewing it!
Final rating: 6 out of 10
A decent album that won't win over those with no fondness for the genre, but fans of the genre should enjoy.
Personal favourite tracks: My Bloody Valentine, Riot Girl, The Young & The Hopeless
I'm trying a slightly different writing style for this review, as I feel my reviews used to be too long without any real justification. If you like this shorter style, let me know!
Saturday, 1 March 2014
Reckless Love "Spirit" Review
Considering how dull the last album I reviewed was, I figured it might be a good idea to ensure my next review was of an album that was easy to talk about, genuinely enjoyable to listen to and not by a completely unknown band.
...Well, two out of three ain't bad!
Yes, we're digging in to some glam metal this time, specifically from Finland. Now, Finland has a history for glam metal from Finland in the original era of the glam scene thanks to Hanoi Rocks, but it's probably best known today for Nightwish. However, Finland has given one of the best vocalists in the glam metal revival at the minute and one of the forerunners of the scene in one fell swoop, thanks to Reckless Love. While frontman Olli Herman (who has a wide range, but mostly sing in a high tenor) is probably better known by Crashdiet fans for replacing Dave Lepard after the latter's suicide, Reckless Love have been around since 2001 (originally forming as a Guns N Roses tribute band, incidentally enough), yet only got to make their debut self-titled album in 2010. Since then, they released their second album (Animal Attraction) in 2011, an EP of unreleased material in 2012 (which included a pretty cool acoustic cover of Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back In Town") and, in 2013, their third album, Spirit.
Well, the first thing you'll probably notice is the artwork. And, I have to say, when I first saw it, I wasn't impressed. I mean, does this really inspire confidence in a good album?
Yeah...bit too colourful to really expect it to be a metal album, isn't it? I mean, colourful face paint creating the imagine of a skeleton is more likely to bring up the image of a younger, more cheerful Meat Loaf (or Meat Loaf if he was a brony) than it is to bring up images of Iron Maiden or Judas Priest. Or, hey, maybe a more cheerful My Chemical Romance! Anyway, before this blog turns into a message board for bronies and My Chemical Romance fans (which seems like a terrible idea...although I don't mind My Chemical Romance and have seen (and enjoyed) a few episodes of the show recently!), back to the artwork. While I don't think it really brings metal music to mind, I don't mind it now! It's not the most creative artwork you could find out there by any measure, but it's very different from what you'd expect from a metal band (whether in a good way or not is ultimately down to personal opinion) and is still well executed from a technical level. I do have to wonder whether the guys have vaguely heard of the Mexican holiday Dia de Muertos (translates to Day of the Dead) and were wanting to do a more cheerful take on the usual skeleton representations that you see during that time, but I might be reading too much into that. If they did want to do that, however, then I have to say it was a nice touch! If they didn't...then I have no idea what was the brainchild behind this idea beyond a thought that it would look cool.
Anyway, the first track is the first single from the album, "Night On Fire". And it starts with what sounds a bit like synthesised African music. Before you start wondering whether you've accidentally picked up Now That's What I Call Modern African Music or something weird like that, the actual song starts. And, well, it's a solid track, with a catchy chorus and some neat verses. There's a cool guitar solo as well and is all built upon a strong riff. I suppose the lyrics could have done with some work, but Reckless Love aren't a band known for the quality of their lyrics and, well, if you're looking for deep lyrics in a glam metal song, you're not really looking in the right place (seriously, about the deepest lyrics I've seen in glam come from Styper...and that's because they try to make it ambiguous as to whether they're singing about God or the more typical topics of glam metal, so that's still not saying much!). Good stuff, overall, and gets the album off on a pretty good note (pun not intended)!
The next track is "Bad Lovin". This track has a chorus that you'll be singing for a good while once you've heard it (assuming you can reach as high as Olli can, of course!) and a really solo main riff holding the song together. While it might be a bit of a stretch to say that this song is reaching out to the LGB community (they don't mention transgender or asexual people in the song...which leaves me vaguely wondering why they next to never get mentioned in music in general, let alone in glam metal, but hey, back to the topic at hand!) due to the fact it's mostly subtly talking about how everyone feels the desire to have sex (to which I again point back to asexuality...), it's certainly a nice gesture, as it says it doesn't matter what your sexuality is (to which I...oh, never mind, I'm starting to sound like a broken record now!). It's just a song that's a lot of fun to sing along to, not to mention it's got a really neat guitar solo that will vaguely bring to mind Eddie Van Halen (which makes sense when you consider that Van Halen (specifically, David Lee Roth's outfits and bits of the band's music) had a big influence on glam metal...).
We continue with the rather unsubtly titled "I Love Heavy Metal". I gotta be honest, this song has always struck me as a bit of a dud for some reason. It's got some great guitar playing and the vocals are good, but it just doesn't seem to blend together to make a strong song to me. The lyrics are also in the same camp as Sabaton's songs about referencing heavy metal, with the end result that it feels like a fusion of "Metal Machine" and "Metal Crue"(with a bit of "Metal Ripper" thrown in at points) with none of the subtlety and mostly including glam metal bands, most of which are likely to be familiar to anyone who has a bit of knowledge of the original glam metal scene of the 80's. There are a few references which will require being familiar with more than glam metal to really get, but, for the most part, you'll probably recognise most of the bands being referenced if you've ever looked up glam metal on wikipedia. I also have to ask why they didn't mention Hanoi Rocks, as it feels like a serious omission when you remember that both bands are Finnish! Anyway, while this is still a serviceable song (and the chorus is still pretty strong), I do have to say that this song is probably going to get skipped by quite a few people. There's enough to it that it could still be enjoyed by people, but I don't see this being a highlight for anyone unless you think that more metal references equals a better song (in which case, you might want to rethink your criteria for how to judge metal songs, as more metal doesn't equal better...see Manowar.).
Next up is "Favorite Flavor" (which is the annoying American spelling of it, for some reason...why do you Americans have to insist on spelling things wrong and driving on the wrong side of the road, anyway? Just kidding, love you really!) and...well, I don't think it's a complete dud, but it's never come together to form a complete song for me, like with "I Love Heavy Metal". That said, it does provide more than a few surprises, such as Olli's rather low voice during one part of the second verse and a (possibly unintentional) reference to Ratt's album from 2010, Infestation (the wording and melody of "Eat you up alive" brings to mind "Eat Me Up Alive" from the Ratt album I mentioned...although most people probably don't care about Ratt, so that might just be me talking!). I also think I pick up a faint musical similarity at one point to something from a Good Charlotte album, although I can't quite place which song it reminds me of...anyway! The chorus is rather good (although, considering it's glam metal, expecting anything less would be an insult!) and the riff is still very solid, but I just don't think it comes together enough to really recommend it when you put it under a microscope. When you don't, it's still an enjoyable song, but I can't not do that when I'm criticising the album, can I?
The first ballad and next track is "Edge Of Our Dreams". Now, I gotta be honest, I have a soft spot for ballads in my cold, cynical heart (...I'm not fooling anyone there, am I?), so you're probably not getting the most neutral opinion on this track. That said, I'll try my best. Well, it has a very nice chorus, some emotional singing and some very solid guitar playing, but I have to say that the drummer and the bassist seem to be on autopilot on this song. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting them to do something on the technical level of Dream Theater in a glam ballad, as it would be ridiculously out of place, but they don't really do anything that exceptional on this track. Guitar solo is pretty neat and surprisingly fits the mood of the song very well, although I do wish it had had some space to shine without fighting against Olli's voice at the end. It's not the best glam ballad by any measure (it certainly doesn't top Warrant's "Sometimes She Cries", Cinderella's "Don't Know What You Got", Skid Row's "I Remember You: or Stryper's "Honestly"...all of which are locked in a long and protracted fight to be my favourite glam metal ballads, if you're wondering!), but it's a very enjoyable one.
Next up is "Sex, Drugs & Reckless Love", which opens with a riff that will have all Judas Priest fans going "Hey, that sounds very familiar!" Yes, the main riff to the song bears more than a resemblance to "You Got Another Thing Coming", which will annoy people familiar with the Priest song (and does have me wondering how the guys could have missed how similar it sounds: it's not like we're talking about an under-appreciated Judas Priest classic like "Hard As Iron" here, we're talking about Priest's biggest chart success here!), but doesn't detract from the fact that, as a song in it's own right, it's still very enjoyable! I tend to find that the song picks me up when I'm feeling down (and often inspires some dancing that even the 80's would laugh at...I'm pretty confident at ceilidh (basically, traditional Northumbrian dancing with bits of Scottish (not highland) dancing thrown in for good measure. And it's pronounced KAY-lee, for the benefit of those looking at that and thinking "How the fuck do you pronounce that?") dancing, but me free-styling is a recipe for disaster and maybe some comedy, depending on how much I've had to drink!), so, again, another song that you're probably not going to get a completely neutral viewpoint on. But, it's got a strong chorus, some excellent singing and, despite the unoriginality of the main riff, it's still a great song that's really worth a listen if you can ignore that elephant in the room.
Next up is ballad number two, "Dying To Live" (which, from the title, sounds like it should be a lost Linkin Park song...). This song, to me, is a bit dull. The chorus is really nice, but most of the song seems to built upon a bass riff (which isn't really that exciting, but is still pretty nice) and some fairly uninteresting drumming. The guitar solo is very nice, but I think saying this song feels a bit underwritten is not too far removed from the truth. It's nice to have a good focus on Olli's vocals, but it feels like the rest of the song got ignored in favour of that, which really drags the song down. I'd probably recommend skipping this track, but, if you like Olli's voice, it's worth a listen at least.
Next up is what I'm already calling Reckless Love's version of "Slave To The Grind", the bit of impressiveness called "Metal Ass" (yes, that is the actual title of the song...you can tell English isn't their first language, can't you?). This is probably the fastest song that Reckless Love have done to date and certainly takes more than a bit of influence from speed metal. I have to be honest, this is probably the highlight of the album for me, despite the title sounding like it should be on a Steel Panther album (seriously, would you expect a song titled "Metal Ass" to be a song with any seriousness to it?). Some impressive guitar playing, some enjoyable drumming, Olli's impressive vocals (and one of the most falsetto happy songs Reckless Love have done to date)...if you like your metal fast and loud, this should be right up your alley!
...Which makes the placement of third ballad "Runaway Love" right after it feel like you're getting whiplash. I mean, why place a very fast song between two mid paced ballads? That's a horrible bit of track placing for quite a few reasons! Anyway, moving to the song itself and my personal rant about the track list aside for now, this is another very enjoyable ballad. The chorus is very strong, the guitar is very tastefully played (although the guitar solo gets covered by Olli's voice again, so it's hard to really get a chance to appreciate it), the drumming suits the song and Olli gives the song a nice bit of vulnerability that is greatly appreciated. Still not a real highlight of the album, but a nice listen nonetheless.
...And we get hit with another bit of whiplash by the start of "So Happy I Could Die", as we again get hit by a solid dose of speed that bears more than a slight resemblance to Motley Crue's "Kickstart My Heart". Honestly, I think that cutting "Dying To Live" and putting this where it was might have been a better choice for the track list, but that's me nitpicking about the track list again. Anyway, the song itself is very good, despite the fact it will remind you a bit of "Kickstart My Heart" if you get bothered by that kind of thing. It's full of adrenaline, has a very strong guitar solo and a neat riff to keep the song together (and the drumming sounds very inspired here: was Hessu Maxx hyped up on coffee when they recorded the drums for this track?). I have to say, however, that the star of this song is definitely Olli. His vocals on this are brilliant and yet, at the same time, he doesn't let his vocals dominate what everyone else is doing, like he has done on some of the other tracks. Another highlight of the album, for definite. It was also the second single and there should be a video out there which includes the guys getting covered in paint...
And thus we reach the final track on the main album (there is a bonus track on the UK version which I have on my copy of the album which I will still review, but I'm not counting it for the purpose of judging the final album's score), "Hot Rain". I have to be honest, I think this is the best ballad on the album, yet I can't really find words to describe just WHY I think this is the strongest ballad on the album. The guitar is very understated (outside of the guitar solo), like with "Dying To Live", but I think it works nicely on this one. Olli's vocals are the main aspect of this song, like with "Dying To Live", but he manages to sell it in a way that he didn't quite succeed with on "Dying To Live" (although he does put have a more emotional tone to his voice for this one, so it might be that...). The chorus is just wonderful on this track, which probably gives it a slight advantage over "Dying To Live", yet the verses are also very strong on this track. Is this my favourite song on the whole album? No, it isn't. However, I'd still recommend checking this one out, especially if you want to know how to write a strong glam ballad in this day and age!
So, for the main album, we're done. But what about the UK bonus track? Well, it's a nice song and certainly worth looking out, but it feels like a weaker closer to the album after "Hot Rain". The chorus is pretty solid and the guitar solo and main riff is very nice, but, after "Hot Rain", it feels out of place to close the album. It does feature Olli doing his best Alice Cooper (or Axl Rose singing in his lower voice, which is probably closer, but not the immediate first thought when you bring up his name in reference to singing voices, hence why I didn't go for it...) impression, though!
The production on this album is very solid. You can hear the bass fairly well a lot of the time (although it doesn't really do much across the album, which is why I didn't bring it up...) and the drumming, while maybe a tiny bit on the loud side, is not overbearing. Olli's vocals are also a tiny bit higher in the mix than they probably need to be, but, really, the guy's such a good vocalist that it's hard to really complain about that! The guitar is also fairly well mixed. In terms of the loudness war (which is not something I'm normally hugely interested in, but I figured it'd be interesting to examine it for once), I've given it a quick test in comparison to Hell's Curse And Chapter (which was released about about two months after this was) and Death Angel's The Dream Calls For Blood (which was released about a month after this was) and I'd say it's a bit louder than Curse And Chapter, but is a bit quieter than The Dream Calls For Blood. While I don't know how loud that means it is in terms of dynamic range and whatnot, it would be fair to say that this might be a bit on the loud side of things if you're not used to metal music (and will certainly feel loud if you compare this to the originally released 80's glam albums: the loudness war is something that really started after Oasis released What's The Story (Morning Glory)). If you are used to it, this will feel fine to your ears.
So, overall, this is a solid listen. Nothing that'll really win over anyone with a low tolerance for glam metal, but will get glam fans grinning! A few weaker tracks drag this down a bit, but there's enough strong stuff on here to keep you interested. The production does suffer from the typical volume issues you get with albums involved with the loudness war, but it's not the worst example you can find from an album released in 2013. Give a listen to the two singles ("Night On Fire" and "So Happy I Could Die") and decide whether this is likely to be your kind of thing. Even if it isn't your kind of thing, you gave it a shot and, well, I commend you for giving it a go!
Final Rating: 7 out of 10
...Well, two out of three ain't bad!
Yes, we're digging in to some glam metal this time, specifically from Finland. Now, Finland has a history for glam metal from Finland in the original era of the glam scene thanks to Hanoi Rocks, but it's probably best known today for Nightwish. However, Finland has given one of the best vocalists in the glam metal revival at the minute and one of the forerunners of the scene in one fell swoop, thanks to Reckless Love. While frontman Olli Herman (who has a wide range, but mostly sing in a high tenor) is probably better known by Crashdiet fans for replacing Dave Lepard after the latter's suicide, Reckless Love have been around since 2001 (originally forming as a Guns N Roses tribute band, incidentally enough), yet only got to make their debut self-titled album in 2010. Since then, they released their second album (Animal Attraction) in 2011, an EP of unreleased material in 2012 (which included a pretty cool acoustic cover of Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back In Town") and, in 2013, their third album, Spirit.
Well, the first thing you'll probably notice is the artwork. And, I have to say, when I first saw it, I wasn't impressed. I mean, does this really inspire confidence in a good album?
Yeah...bit too colourful to really expect it to be a metal album, isn't it? I mean, colourful face paint creating the imagine of a skeleton is more likely to bring up the image of a younger, more cheerful Meat Loaf (or Meat Loaf if he was a brony) than it is to bring up images of Iron Maiden or Judas Priest. Or, hey, maybe a more cheerful My Chemical Romance! Anyway, before this blog turns into a message board for bronies and My Chemical Romance fans (which seems like a terrible idea...although I don't mind My Chemical Romance and have seen (and enjoyed) a few episodes of the show recently!), back to the artwork. While I don't think it really brings metal music to mind, I don't mind it now! It's not the most creative artwork you could find out there by any measure, but it's very different from what you'd expect from a metal band (whether in a good way or not is ultimately down to personal opinion) and is still well executed from a technical level. I do have to wonder whether the guys have vaguely heard of the Mexican holiday Dia de Muertos (translates to Day of the Dead) and were wanting to do a more cheerful take on the usual skeleton representations that you see during that time, but I might be reading too much into that. If they did want to do that, however, then I have to say it was a nice touch! If they didn't...then I have no idea what was the brainchild behind this idea beyond a thought that it would look cool.
Anyway, the first track is the first single from the album, "Night On Fire". And it starts with what sounds a bit like synthesised African music. Before you start wondering whether you've accidentally picked up Now That's What I Call Modern African Music or something weird like that, the actual song starts. And, well, it's a solid track, with a catchy chorus and some neat verses. There's a cool guitar solo as well and is all built upon a strong riff. I suppose the lyrics could have done with some work, but Reckless Love aren't a band known for the quality of their lyrics and, well, if you're looking for deep lyrics in a glam metal song, you're not really looking in the right place (seriously, about the deepest lyrics I've seen in glam come from Styper...and that's because they try to make it ambiguous as to whether they're singing about God or the more typical topics of glam metal, so that's still not saying much!). Good stuff, overall, and gets the album off on a pretty good note (pun not intended)!
The next track is "Bad Lovin". This track has a chorus that you'll be singing for a good while once you've heard it (assuming you can reach as high as Olli can, of course!) and a really solo main riff holding the song together. While it might be a bit of a stretch to say that this song is reaching out to the LGB community (they don't mention transgender or asexual people in the song...which leaves me vaguely wondering why they next to never get mentioned in music in general, let alone in glam metal, but hey, back to the topic at hand!) due to the fact it's mostly subtly talking about how everyone feels the desire to have sex (to which I again point back to asexuality...), it's certainly a nice gesture, as it says it doesn't matter what your sexuality is (to which I...oh, never mind, I'm starting to sound like a broken record now!). It's just a song that's a lot of fun to sing along to, not to mention it's got a really neat guitar solo that will vaguely bring to mind Eddie Van Halen (which makes sense when you consider that Van Halen (specifically, David Lee Roth's outfits and bits of the band's music) had a big influence on glam metal...).
We continue with the rather unsubtly titled "I Love Heavy Metal". I gotta be honest, this song has always struck me as a bit of a dud for some reason. It's got some great guitar playing and the vocals are good, but it just doesn't seem to blend together to make a strong song to me. The lyrics are also in the same camp as Sabaton's songs about referencing heavy metal, with the end result that it feels like a fusion of "Metal Machine" and "Metal Crue"(with a bit of "Metal Ripper" thrown in at points) with none of the subtlety and mostly including glam metal bands, most of which are likely to be familiar to anyone who has a bit of knowledge of the original glam metal scene of the 80's. There are a few references which will require being familiar with more than glam metal to really get, but, for the most part, you'll probably recognise most of the bands being referenced if you've ever looked up glam metal on wikipedia. I also have to ask why they didn't mention Hanoi Rocks, as it feels like a serious omission when you remember that both bands are Finnish! Anyway, while this is still a serviceable song (and the chorus is still pretty strong), I do have to say that this song is probably going to get skipped by quite a few people. There's enough to it that it could still be enjoyed by people, but I don't see this being a highlight for anyone unless you think that more metal references equals a better song (in which case, you might want to rethink your criteria for how to judge metal songs, as more metal doesn't equal better...see Manowar.).
Next up is "Favorite Flavor" (which is the annoying American spelling of it, for some reason...why do you Americans have to insist on spelling things wrong and driving on the wrong side of the road, anyway? Just kidding, love you really!) and...well, I don't think it's a complete dud, but it's never come together to form a complete song for me, like with "I Love Heavy Metal". That said, it does provide more than a few surprises, such as Olli's rather low voice during one part of the second verse and a (possibly unintentional) reference to Ratt's album from 2010, Infestation (the wording and melody of "Eat you up alive" brings to mind "Eat Me Up Alive" from the Ratt album I mentioned...although most people probably don't care about Ratt, so that might just be me talking!). I also think I pick up a faint musical similarity at one point to something from a Good Charlotte album, although I can't quite place which song it reminds me of...anyway! The chorus is rather good (although, considering it's glam metal, expecting anything less would be an insult!) and the riff is still very solid, but I just don't think it comes together enough to really recommend it when you put it under a microscope. When you don't, it's still an enjoyable song, but I can't not do that when I'm criticising the album, can I?
The first ballad and next track is "Edge Of Our Dreams". Now, I gotta be honest, I have a soft spot for ballads in my cold, cynical heart (...I'm not fooling anyone there, am I?), so you're probably not getting the most neutral opinion on this track. That said, I'll try my best. Well, it has a very nice chorus, some emotional singing and some very solid guitar playing, but I have to say that the drummer and the bassist seem to be on autopilot on this song. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting them to do something on the technical level of Dream Theater in a glam ballad, as it would be ridiculously out of place, but they don't really do anything that exceptional on this track. Guitar solo is pretty neat and surprisingly fits the mood of the song very well, although I do wish it had had some space to shine without fighting against Olli's voice at the end. It's not the best glam ballad by any measure (it certainly doesn't top Warrant's "Sometimes She Cries", Cinderella's "Don't Know What You Got", Skid Row's "I Remember You: or Stryper's "Honestly"...all of which are locked in a long and protracted fight to be my favourite glam metal ballads, if you're wondering!), but it's a very enjoyable one.
Next up is "Sex, Drugs & Reckless Love", which opens with a riff that will have all Judas Priest fans going "Hey, that sounds very familiar!" Yes, the main riff to the song bears more than a resemblance to "You Got Another Thing Coming", which will annoy people familiar with the Priest song (and does have me wondering how the guys could have missed how similar it sounds: it's not like we're talking about an under-appreciated Judas Priest classic like "Hard As Iron" here, we're talking about Priest's biggest chart success here!), but doesn't detract from the fact that, as a song in it's own right, it's still very enjoyable! I tend to find that the song picks me up when I'm feeling down (and often inspires some dancing that even the 80's would laugh at...I'm pretty confident at ceilidh (basically, traditional Northumbrian dancing with bits of Scottish (not highland) dancing thrown in for good measure. And it's pronounced KAY-lee, for the benefit of those looking at that and thinking "How the fuck do you pronounce that?") dancing, but me free-styling is a recipe for disaster and maybe some comedy, depending on how much I've had to drink!), so, again, another song that you're probably not going to get a completely neutral viewpoint on. But, it's got a strong chorus, some excellent singing and, despite the unoriginality of the main riff, it's still a great song that's really worth a listen if you can ignore that elephant in the room.
Next up is ballad number two, "Dying To Live" (which, from the title, sounds like it should be a lost Linkin Park song...). This song, to me, is a bit dull. The chorus is really nice, but most of the song seems to built upon a bass riff (which isn't really that exciting, but is still pretty nice) and some fairly uninteresting drumming. The guitar solo is very nice, but I think saying this song feels a bit underwritten is not too far removed from the truth. It's nice to have a good focus on Olli's vocals, but it feels like the rest of the song got ignored in favour of that, which really drags the song down. I'd probably recommend skipping this track, but, if you like Olli's voice, it's worth a listen at least.
Next up is what I'm already calling Reckless Love's version of "Slave To The Grind", the bit of impressiveness called "Metal Ass" (yes, that is the actual title of the song...you can tell English isn't their first language, can't you?). This is probably the fastest song that Reckless Love have done to date and certainly takes more than a bit of influence from speed metal. I have to be honest, this is probably the highlight of the album for me, despite the title sounding like it should be on a Steel Panther album (seriously, would you expect a song titled "Metal Ass" to be a song with any seriousness to it?). Some impressive guitar playing, some enjoyable drumming, Olli's impressive vocals (and one of the most falsetto happy songs Reckless Love have done to date)...if you like your metal fast and loud, this should be right up your alley!
...Which makes the placement of third ballad "Runaway Love" right after it feel like you're getting whiplash. I mean, why place a very fast song between two mid paced ballads? That's a horrible bit of track placing for quite a few reasons! Anyway, moving to the song itself and my personal rant about the track list aside for now, this is another very enjoyable ballad. The chorus is very strong, the guitar is very tastefully played (although the guitar solo gets covered by Olli's voice again, so it's hard to really get a chance to appreciate it), the drumming suits the song and Olli gives the song a nice bit of vulnerability that is greatly appreciated. Still not a real highlight of the album, but a nice listen nonetheless.
...And we get hit with another bit of whiplash by the start of "So Happy I Could Die", as we again get hit by a solid dose of speed that bears more than a slight resemblance to Motley Crue's "Kickstart My Heart". Honestly, I think that cutting "Dying To Live" and putting this where it was might have been a better choice for the track list, but that's me nitpicking about the track list again. Anyway, the song itself is very good, despite the fact it will remind you a bit of "Kickstart My Heart" if you get bothered by that kind of thing. It's full of adrenaline, has a very strong guitar solo and a neat riff to keep the song together (and the drumming sounds very inspired here: was Hessu Maxx hyped up on coffee when they recorded the drums for this track?). I have to say, however, that the star of this song is definitely Olli. His vocals on this are brilliant and yet, at the same time, he doesn't let his vocals dominate what everyone else is doing, like he has done on some of the other tracks. Another highlight of the album, for definite. It was also the second single and there should be a video out there which includes the guys getting covered in paint...
And thus we reach the final track on the main album (there is a bonus track on the UK version which I have on my copy of the album which I will still review, but I'm not counting it for the purpose of judging the final album's score), "Hot Rain". I have to be honest, I think this is the best ballad on the album, yet I can't really find words to describe just WHY I think this is the strongest ballad on the album. The guitar is very understated (outside of the guitar solo), like with "Dying To Live", but I think it works nicely on this one. Olli's vocals are the main aspect of this song, like with "Dying To Live", but he manages to sell it in a way that he didn't quite succeed with on "Dying To Live" (although he does put have a more emotional tone to his voice for this one, so it might be that...). The chorus is just wonderful on this track, which probably gives it a slight advantage over "Dying To Live", yet the verses are also very strong on this track. Is this my favourite song on the whole album? No, it isn't. However, I'd still recommend checking this one out, especially if you want to know how to write a strong glam ballad in this day and age!
So, for the main album, we're done. But what about the UK bonus track? Well, it's a nice song and certainly worth looking out, but it feels like a weaker closer to the album after "Hot Rain". The chorus is pretty solid and the guitar solo and main riff is very nice, but, after "Hot Rain", it feels out of place to close the album. It does feature Olli doing his best Alice Cooper (or Axl Rose singing in his lower voice, which is probably closer, but not the immediate first thought when you bring up his name in reference to singing voices, hence why I didn't go for it...) impression, though!
The production on this album is very solid. You can hear the bass fairly well a lot of the time (although it doesn't really do much across the album, which is why I didn't bring it up...) and the drumming, while maybe a tiny bit on the loud side, is not overbearing. Olli's vocals are also a tiny bit higher in the mix than they probably need to be, but, really, the guy's such a good vocalist that it's hard to really complain about that! The guitar is also fairly well mixed. In terms of the loudness war (which is not something I'm normally hugely interested in, but I figured it'd be interesting to examine it for once), I've given it a quick test in comparison to Hell's Curse And Chapter (which was released about about two months after this was) and Death Angel's The Dream Calls For Blood (which was released about a month after this was) and I'd say it's a bit louder than Curse And Chapter, but is a bit quieter than The Dream Calls For Blood. While I don't know how loud that means it is in terms of dynamic range and whatnot, it would be fair to say that this might be a bit on the loud side of things if you're not used to metal music (and will certainly feel loud if you compare this to the originally released 80's glam albums: the loudness war is something that really started after Oasis released What's The Story (Morning Glory)). If you are used to it, this will feel fine to your ears.
So, overall, this is a solid listen. Nothing that'll really win over anyone with a low tolerance for glam metal, but will get glam fans grinning! A few weaker tracks drag this down a bit, but there's enough strong stuff on here to keep you interested. The production does suffer from the typical volume issues you get with albums involved with the loudness war, but it's not the worst example you can find from an album released in 2013. Give a listen to the two singles ("Night On Fire" and "So Happy I Could Die") and decide whether this is likely to be your kind of thing. Even if it isn't your kind of thing, you gave it a shot and, well, I commend you for giving it a go!
Final Rating: 7 out of 10
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Jester's Funeral "Labyrinth" Review
So, you might remember me mentioning in a previous post that I was wanting to do a review of all of Death Angel's albums after their reunion and that it'd not take me long to get the review done?
Well, I'd reckoned without my own ability to get curious about stuff. However, this one has a valid reason behind it! See, I was bored and decided to look up the history of Van Canto and these guys happened to appear in the previous bands of the members of Van Canto (specifically, of Stefan Schmidt). Being curious, I looked them up and I happened to notice you could get their fourth (and last) album for free on bandcamp. So I went there and, upon noticing that all of their albums were available for whatever you wanted to pay for them, I opted to get all of them for free (partially because I have no spare cash). And I'm going to review all four of them to see whether they're worth checking out or whether it wasn't worth getting them, even for free! Also, considering how unknown these guys are compared to Death Angel, I figured it would be worth giving these guys some publicity. Do I think they'd reunite after these reviews? Considering Schmidt is now doing his Heavatar project in between his work with Van Canto and I'm very much a small voice on the Internet who does this in his free time, I highly doubt it, but that's not going to stop me from giving these guys a review! If this gets a particularly positive reaction, then I might just dig into the other bands with connections to Van Canto, like Deadly Sin and Fading Starlight, and maybe even dig into Van Canto themselves after I've done that!
Anyway, Jester's Funeral were a German power metal band who formed in 1996, were signed before 1999 (at the very least, that's when their first album came out) and disbanded in 2006, having released four albums. Stefan Schmidt was the band's vocalist and guitarist, and another face that you might recognise if you're a Van Canto fan is their drummer, Bastian Emig. For this album, the band's line up was completed by keyboardist Nic Kobold (who played on the rest of their albums as well), bassist Holger Wies (who played on the follow up album QuickSilverLight as well) and guitarist Heiko Höhn (who also played on QuickSilverLight). None of these guys, to my knowledge, have played with any other bands since they left Jester's Funeral, but Kobold was one of the guitarists of Solitude (not the more famous metalcore band that were formed in 2006) between 2001 and 2005 and possibly played on their 2005 album Alteration (nothing I've seen says whether he did play on it or not).
The album artwork for their 1999 debut album, Labyrinth, is...interesting, to say the least. The jesters look like they want to kill you, which is actually a bit of a terrifying thought if you have a fear of clowns, and they remind me a little bit of the artwork for Tank's album Filth Hounds Of Hades. The colour combinations are interesting, but I have to comment that the colour combination reminds me more than a bit of the artwork of Felipe Machado, who seems to have this thing for blue and orange that is starting to wear thin on me today. I don't know whether he did this artwork or not, but the popularity of this colour combination has really started to bug me, as it's being used everywhere and it's stopped feeling exciting or new now to me. However, since the artwork is from before this trend really took off, I can't really complain too much about it.
Also, the jesters on it reminds me of Fergus from the second Pandemonium game, for some reason.
Well, I'd reckoned without my own ability to get curious about stuff. However, this one has a valid reason behind it! See, I was bored and decided to look up the history of Van Canto and these guys happened to appear in the previous bands of the members of Van Canto (specifically, of Stefan Schmidt). Being curious, I looked them up and I happened to notice you could get their fourth (and last) album for free on bandcamp. So I went there and, upon noticing that all of their albums were available for whatever you wanted to pay for them, I opted to get all of them for free (partially because I have no spare cash). And I'm going to review all four of them to see whether they're worth checking out or whether it wasn't worth getting them, even for free! Also, considering how unknown these guys are compared to Death Angel, I figured it would be worth giving these guys some publicity. Do I think they'd reunite after these reviews? Considering Schmidt is now doing his Heavatar project in between his work with Van Canto and I'm very much a small voice on the Internet who does this in his free time, I highly doubt it, but that's not going to stop me from giving these guys a review! If this gets a particularly positive reaction, then I might just dig into the other bands with connections to Van Canto, like Deadly Sin and Fading Starlight, and maybe even dig into Van Canto themselves after I've done that!
Anyway, Jester's Funeral were a German power metal band who formed in 1996, were signed before 1999 (at the very least, that's when their first album came out) and disbanded in 2006, having released four albums. Stefan Schmidt was the band's vocalist and guitarist, and another face that you might recognise if you're a Van Canto fan is their drummer, Bastian Emig. For this album, the band's line up was completed by keyboardist Nic Kobold (who played on the rest of their albums as well), bassist Holger Wies (who played on the follow up album QuickSilverLight as well) and guitarist Heiko Höhn (who also played on QuickSilverLight). None of these guys, to my knowledge, have played with any other bands since they left Jester's Funeral, but Kobold was one of the guitarists of Solitude (not the more famous metalcore band that were formed in 2006) between 2001 and 2005 and possibly played on their 2005 album Alteration (nothing I've seen says whether he did play on it or not).
The album artwork for their 1999 debut album, Labyrinth, is...interesting, to say the least. The jesters look like they want to kill you, which is actually a bit of a terrifying thought if you have a fear of clowns, and they remind me a little bit of the artwork for Tank's album Filth Hounds Of Hades. The colour combinations are interesting, but I have to comment that the colour combination reminds me more than a bit of the artwork of Felipe Machado, who seems to have this thing for blue and orange that is starting to wear thin on me today. I don't know whether he did this artwork or not, but the popularity of this colour combination has really started to bug me, as it's being used everywhere and it's stopped feeling exciting or new now to me. However, since the artwork is from before this trend really took off, I can't really complain too much about it.
Also, the jesters on it reminds me of Fergus from the second Pandemonium game, for some reason.
 |
| Fun fact: this game came out in 1997. |
Anyway, I've chatted about the artwork long enough. Let's start reviewing this album!
First up, we have a somewhat atmospheric intro track, with the title of "Intro" (how imaginative...). If you've heard a power metal album before now, you know what to expect here. I will say that there's some nice keyboards on it, though. Nothing especially technically demanding, but it fits the atmospheric sound that you'd expect from an intro and is also quite a nice build up to the next track on the album.
The first actual track on the album is called "The One Worth Dying For". I know it's the first actual song on the album, but I'm already getting the impression that these guys are basically Edguy without the humour, a less theatrical vocalist and generally weaker songwriting. That's not completely a bad thing, but it doesn't really leave me with much to say beyond maybe "Eh, it's OK" if you pushed me for something. They also don't have quite the same catchy hooks that Edguy do, but I can let that slide for this album, as it's only their debut and the band would have been still finding their feet on it. I do like the keyboard riff at the beginning and the replaying of it on the guitar sounds pretty nice, but the rest seems like it doesn't translate very well on the record. I can imagine this going down very well live, but, on record, it's nothing special. I also think Schmidt's voice could have done with being a bit higher in the mix, but that's probably nitpicking, as he's still understandable. The song just seems to be one that goes in one ear and out of the other, with the only thing that really sticks in your head being the chorus of the song, which doesn't even last that long!
Next up is "Shadowtaker". While it does have a solid main riff that is quite enjoyable, I'm sorry to have to say that the song mostly feels like "The One Worth Dying For" all over again, only the chorus isn't even that catchy. While some artists can come up with hooks that you'll be singing from your first listen and some artists can come up with hooks that, once you let them sink in, will never leave your head, it seems that Jester's Funeral don't have either gift, at least at this point. They just plod along, hoping to stumble upon a catchy hook to give the song a great chorus. Which, unfortunately, leaves me wondering whether to break out the coffee...
Next up is "Fear Of Fear" (which does NOT have any connection to the third Harry Potter book: I just checked their release dates and the album came out a few months before the book did). Again, this has a solid riff, but the rest just doesn't really come together to make a great song. There's some solid drumming on this, though!
...Sorry, I'm taking a coffee break before I continue. I've been listening for over twelve minutes of the album's run time for over forty minutes (all of the songs on repeat a few times on the off chance I've misjudged them and to check whether my original opinions of them still stands...) and I'm bored stiff already. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves or put on this bit of music while I'm gone.
...OK, I'm back. For some bizarre reason, I'm now wondering when there's going to be a millennium item in the shape of a coffee mug...OK, enough digressions, back to the album!
The next track is "Jester's Funeral". And, I have to say, this one starts out very nicely! The riff is, again, very solid and the drumming is solid. I think the big issue that drags this song down is, again, the fact that this doesn't really have a strong enough hook to keep you interested in this song. However, they do manage to capture the mournful tone you'd expect from a song title like that and the nice bit of blues influence in the bass playing can keep you going for a bit if you like that kind of thing. It could have done with a MUCH stronger hook for the chorus, though! I also find that Stefan Schmidt's voice is still not holding my interest much at this point. Don't get me wrong, he's not a bad vocalist, but the guy just isn't keeping me engaged in the music, which is not good news when you consider that power metal is pretty much known for incredibly good vocalists (see Michael Kiske, Khan, Matt Barlow, Russell Allen, Jorn Lande, Tony Kakko and...actually, that's a long enough list to start you off with!) and it kind of shows that the guy isn't capable of standing up to those guys by any measure. Heck, I'd say that Tobias Sammet of Edguy and Avantastia is still in a bigger league than Schmidt, as he can at least be entertaining to listen to because of how over the top he can get!
So, we finally reach the halfway point of the album with "Devil Die". And, to be honest, the only thing that really stops this song from being the best song on the album at this point is the chorus. It's probably the worst chorus the band have come up with yet, as it's just a repetition of one phrase and a lower, harsher voice saying the song's title. Which seems a bit lacking in terms of creativity and is also not especially memorable. Apart from that? It's got solid riffing, enjoyable bass (by power metal standards), great drums and the vocals even start to sound interesting (indeed, as much as the harsher vocals are poorly used in the song, their appearance is welcomed at this point, as it's something new!), so that's a huge improvement from the previous songs. Still not enough to really recommend it, but it's certainly been the best song up to now.
Track seven, "Hands Of Time", suffers from the same problems that "Shadowmaker" did, only it goes on for an extra minute and a half. It's got a great riff, but, if you've got so little to keep your interest going up to this point, it stops feeling like you're listening to something and like you're taking part in a marathon just to get to the end: at the beginning, it doesn't feel so bad, but then it all starts to hit you and all you can do is keep going, hoping that something is going to happen to make you go "Wow, this is looking up!"
"The Assassin" follows up. Surprisingly, this track is not too bad! It doesn't need to stretch to the near five minutes run time it has, but it's mostly a very solid track that, had it been cut down by at least a minute, I'd have called the highlight of the album so far. Sadly, the amount of time it runs on for means that you've usually got bored before it ends. I also think the chorus could have done with a bit of shortening, but that's probably just me. So yeah...overly long, but there was the potential for a great song in here!
The follow up is also the longest track on the album, "Pilgrim's Path". No matter how much I listen to this track, most of it just stubbornly refuses to remain stuck in my head beyond one tiny section of vocals in the chorus. So yeah, not an especially memorable song.
The tenth track is "Graveyard". At this point, you can probably guess what I'm going to say...and you'd be right. It's got a good riff and some strong drumming, but the rest of it is just...there. You could really just sum this album up with that phrase: it's just there. Not bad enough to get any real dislike for it, but not good enough that you could really grow to like the album for the material on it.
Next up is "Mirror". And oh, how I wish that it was as good as Blind Guardian's song "Mirror Mirror". But nope! Same complaints again. Really, do you need me at this point?
And, to finally close on this marathon of boredom, we have "A New Moonrise". Surprisingly, this one DOES have an enjoyable chorus! Not as strong as power metal demands, but it's not too bad. Throw in a strong riff and, well, you get a passable song. Nothing revolutionary and certainly too little too late for me to recommend this album, but enough to at least say that I found something on this worth a listen.
Well...at this point, there's nothing more I really need to say about the music. I've said it all already. However, I really can't carry on without commenting on the musicians. Well, they're certainly capable of playing their instruments, but it seems like they don't really have the songwriting ability (at least on this album) to take them to the next level. Like I mentioned earlier, they're basically Edguy without the strong songwriting and the humour. And with a guy who seems to have a fondness for early Metallica on vocals instead of Tobias Sammet.
In terms of production, I think it could have done with some slightly louder mixing for the vocals and the bass is a bit too quiet overall, but it's all pretty well done. No real complaints there. Unfortunate that the material wasn't up to a particularly high standard...
So, at the end of the day, as much as I would love to say that these guys are a highly under appreciated band who you really deserve to check out, the sad truth is that this just isn't strong enough to really justify purchasing. If you want to get the album off of bandcamp, then you'd probably be best advised to only pay for it if you have listened to it somewhere else and found the album to be worth putting money down. If you are wondering whether to purchase this album...I wouldn't advise it unless you're a HUGE power metal fan, truth be told. There's nothing here that you won't hear done a lot better by a lot of other power metal bands. Maybe you'll find something I didn't in this album, but, for me, it boils down to two BIG issues: as a debut, it fails to deliver strong enough material to really make me want to pay attention to these guys and, as a listening experience, it's far too dull to really recommend. If you're a Van Canto fan, then it's an interesting listen, but not one that I reckon you'll be spinning for more than a few weeks.
Final rating: 4 out of 10
Not a bad album, but a very dull one. Unless you have a lot of patience and determination, I would recommend skipping this one.
(Behind the scenes note: over the course of writing this review (and not just in the actual review itself, although that was actually the point where I gave up in search of coffee for a bit...), I kept getting sidetracked by literally everything else I could get sidetracked by. Master procrastinator at work or so bored that I needed to keep getting something else to keep me going? You make the call!)
Monday, 24 February 2014
Promotions Of Friends Works (You Know, If You're Curious...)
Yeah, you can kind of guess this isn't going to be one of my usual things. However, I figured it might be nice to share what some of my friends are doing on the internet and give you guys a chance to go check them out. If you like their stuff, then give them a subscribe. If not...well, at least you gave them a go!
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzjHNU-wUG6QTwO8u8ZGv-w (who I am currently involved in doing part of the Skyrim LP with, along with the other two guys who run the channels I'm about to link you to: I'm the low voice git quoting "I Am The Walrus" in the test)
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQoEJsTft9M_fHhxyWFgFSg (who helped proofread some of my first articles for my blog and who I may be helping out with some on his reviews in the future, although that's not confirmed yet...watch that channel and I'll confirm what I did with it in the future!)
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChi7AnG4KwHU1JlTXW5uMdA
And yes, I'm well aware that those guys mostly do gaming related stuff and I mostly talk about music. To be honest, it's more because I listen to a lot more music than I play games that this blog is mostly related to music reviews and rants involving it: I'd love to do some gaming news in the future, but I just don't keep up to date with it, as I'm not a hardcore gamer these days! Heck, the most recently released game that I've purchased, as far as I can recall, was AC3, which I found to be pretty enjoyable, for the most part...hmm, maybe I'll do a video review of that one some time in the future, assuming I can figure out how to record gameplay footage off of my PS3 and get a decent sound recording software! Anyone with any tips on that one, feel free to comment!
Oh, and you didn't get those links from me...*wink* *wink*
If you don't want to follow those links and think I need to stick with what I usually do, then expect normal service to be resumed before the end of the week. I've got a few articles I want to get done, including one that is going to review all of Death Angel's albums after their reunion in 2001...might get that one done for next week, actually, as I think it's one that'll not take me a huge amount of time to finish off once I get the actual review parts done. I'm not promising anything regarding that one in case I don't get it done, though!
(Also, as a note in advance, I might be doing a few video reviews in the future. I'm currently working on a script for a review of the Yu-Gi-Oh 10th anniversary film in a style somewhat similar to a typical Nostalgia Critic episode, which I'm hoping to do with the other three guys. While I have the "wonderful" ability to not get something finished once I start it (the words "Judas Priest" are probably going to be etched upon my tombstone at this rate...), I will do my best to get this particular project completely written before 2015 and aim to film it all sometime before the summer of 2015. If you're interested in the project, for some reason, I'd be happy to give updates on it! If you're not...well, at least you know that I'm working on something and it's hopefully going to be a lot of fun to get it done!)
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzjHNU-wUG6QTwO8u8ZGv-w (who I am currently involved in doing part of the Skyrim LP with, along with the other two guys who run the channels I'm about to link you to: I'm the low voice git quoting "I Am The Walrus" in the test)
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQoEJsTft9M_fHhxyWFgFSg (who helped proofread some of my first articles for my blog and who I may be helping out with some on his reviews in the future, although that's not confirmed yet...watch that channel and I'll confirm what I did with it in the future!)
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UChi7AnG4KwHU1JlTXW5uMdA
And yes, I'm well aware that those guys mostly do gaming related stuff and I mostly talk about music. To be honest, it's more because I listen to a lot more music than I play games that this blog is mostly related to music reviews and rants involving it: I'd love to do some gaming news in the future, but I just don't keep up to date with it, as I'm not a hardcore gamer these days! Heck, the most recently released game that I've purchased, as far as I can recall, was AC3, which I found to be pretty enjoyable, for the most part...hmm, maybe I'll do a video review of that one some time in the future, assuming I can figure out how to record gameplay footage off of my PS3 and get a decent sound recording software! Anyone with any tips on that one, feel free to comment!
Oh, and you didn't get those links from me...*wink* *wink*
If you don't want to follow those links and think I need to stick with what I usually do, then expect normal service to be resumed before the end of the week. I've got a few articles I want to get done, including one that is going to review all of Death Angel's albums after their reunion in 2001...might get that one done for next week, actually, as I think it's one that'll not take me a huge amount of time to finish off once I get the actual review parts done. I'm not promising anything regarding that one in case I don't get it done, though!
(Also, as a note in advance, I might be doing a few video reviews in the future. I'm currently working on a script for a review of the Yu-Gi-Oh 10th anniversary film in a style somewhat similar to a typical Nostalgia Critic episode, which I'm hoping to do with the other three guys. While I have the "wonderful" ability to not get something finished once I start it (the words "Judas Priest" are probably going to be etched upon my tombstone at this rate...), I will do my best to get this particular project completely written before 2015 and aim to film it all sometime before the summer of 2015. If you're interested in the project, for some reason, I'd be happy to give updates on it! If you're not...well, at least you know that I'm working on something and it's hopefully going to be a lot of fun to get it done!)
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Anthrax "Aftershock: The Island Years 1985-1990" Box Set Review
A lot of people will know who Anthrax are. Who could you not, considering they're one of the Big 4 of thrash metal? Yet it would be true to say that they're somewhat trapped in the shadows cast by the other members of the Big 4 (Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer), for Anthrax never really tends to win arguments whenever you get people asking "Who is the best member of the Big 4?" If anything, they'll usually get placed at the bottom of the list, often with many remarks about why some other band should have been in the Big 4 instead of them (which I've already ranted about on this blog, but, for the benefit of those who don't want to read it, I'll say only this: it was never intended as a term to indicate that they were the four BEST thrash metal bands, it was intended as a term to indicate that they were the four MOST POPULAR thrash metal bands. Note the difference between the two...). And...well, I'll admit, I never really got why Anthrax got so big. Yeah, they had a more light hearted (pre-Persistance Of Time) take on thrash and strong melodic vocals rather than the more typical yells you get in thrash, but I never felt that they had the strong music to back them up. However, I did enjoy Worship Music when it came out and I still enjoy giving it a spin every now and then, so I figured it would be a good idea to pick this up, especially since I lost my original copy of Among The Living. Was it worth the purchase? For me, yes, as it made me realise that I'd misjudged the band. For someone else, though? Well...it's gonna really depend on whether you're already approaching this box set as an already established fan or not.
In terms of the set itself (so, focusing on the way the set is arranged and whatnot, not focusing on the actual musical contents), I have to admit that I come away from this feeling a bit unimpressed. The artwork on the front is not really that interesting and doesn't really scream "Anthrax!" at you...unless you count the band name on the cover, of course! I'm probably nitpicking, but I would have expected artwork that was more typical of what you'd expect from the band, not the blue background you get with this. The albums are not in slipcases, which will probably please more than a few people, but...well, the best way to describe it would be to say that, if you've seen the inside of Queen's Platinum Collection, you know what to expect on the inside of the box set. If you haven't, you basically have the discs placed in your usual disc holder thing in CD cases, but you have them inside the case. It's a rather neat idea, but, if one of the disc holder things falls apart, you're doing to have no way to safely store the disc. The liner notes have some grammar issues (some spaces missing and a few letters missing from words) and, annoyingly, do not provide the lyrics to the albums! This is definitely nitpicking, but I hate it when lyrics are left out of liner notes, as it makes me feel like no effort was put into the liner notes! Apart from those issues, you've got everything you could ask for from the liner notes and the casing, while arguably a little bit disappointing, is perfectly fine to store the albums.
We next move to the contents on the albums themselves. Well, you do get the albums as they were originally released (including the Japanese bonus track for Persistence Of Time, which is nice), which is definitely a good start! My issue is with the bonus materials on the album. For Spreading The Disease, you get nothing extra on the disc, just the original album. Erm...why? If there wasn't enough space on the other albums for some of the stuff (there's some missing stuff from that time, apparently), why not shuffle some of it onto this disc? And, if there wasn't anything else that could go onto the disc (which is a lie), then why keep this disc completely free of extras? It seems to be a waste of good disc space to me. You also don't get either of Anthrax's rap metal songs, which is really odd when you consider just how well known those songs are! You do get instrumental versions of them, but why not give us the actual songs? Regarding the sound quality of the albums, they haven't been remastered for this set. Which is a bit disappointing on some levels, but is a bit of a blessing in disguise on others, as they don't have the brick-walling problem that ruins a lot of albums today. They stand up fairly well next to modern metal albums (at the very least, I don't notice a particularly huge difference in volume when I go from Persistence Of Time to Worship Music), but I don't find them uncomfortable to listen to.
So, you probably get the idea from this that the box set is not going to appeal to any Anthrax die hards, as it probably won't contain any material you don't already have and doesn't have the potential advantage of a remaster. For the casual fan who just wants to get the albums and doesn't necessarily care about getting everything? This is worth picking up. I've looked quite a few times on amazon to see how cheaply I can get Anthrax's classic line up albums and, well, this is genuinely the cheapest option. It's also a bit of a steal on some levels if you think about it: you can get this for about £12 at the minute on amazon, which works out to about £3 an album, along with some extra stuff that you might want thrown in. It's not a lot cheaper than ordering the albums separately if you look at their cheapest prices (and factor in postage costs, before people say I can't do maths), so it's great if you don't have the albums already! If you do, then there's unfortunately no reason to pick this up, as the bonus tracks aren't really strong enough to justify a repurchase.
So, once again, I'm going to have to split up the ratings for this box set. It's not something I would normally want to do, but it seems like this might become a thing if I'm reviewing something as a fan of something!
Rating (established fans): 5 out of 10
Rating (non-established fans): 8.5 out of 10
For the die hard fan, there is little reason to purchase this. Nothing really new here to justify purchasing it, but it might be worth it if you want to trade old copies up to CD, as it's fairly comfortably mastered compared to modern standards. If you're not familiar with the band (for some bizarre reason...what rock have you been living under to miss these guys, anyway?) and want to pick up their classic line up stuff in one fell swoop, then get this. It doesn't contain everything the band has done with the line up on the label, but it contains their studio albums, which is arguably the point of the set. Would have preferred the inclusion of the rap metal songs (as much as I'm not a fan of rap in general), as the missing stuff does make it less of an essential purchase, but it's not enough to stop me from saying that a person who wants to explore Anthrax in more detail should pick this up.
As for my thoughts on the individual albums (since I figured that there's not a lot of point of talking about the actual albums and scoring them as part of the review of the box set), I would say that Spreading The Disease and Among The Living are the two that you're probably going to be listening to the most (partially because they are both pretty much the two albums that most thrash fans will say are Anthrax's classic albums and partially because they have Anthrax's strongest material), although I do enjoy Persistence Of Time from my listens to it. State Of Euphoria is a bit dull to me, but I know quite a few Anthrax fans find it a very underrated record, so that might just be me being a grumpy git on that one. If you've never listened to Anthrax before (and you don't want to pick this up, for some reason), I'd recommend you go for either Spreading The Disease or Among The Living. Among The Living is the more better known, due to how much of the material is on Anthrax's live setlists, but Spreading The Disease has the more underrated classics, such as "The Enemy". Persistence Of Time would be good to follow up with if you don't like the more light hearted tone (for thrash standards) of ATL and STD, although I do recommend some patience with the first half of it, as it's all made up of songs over the six minute mark (which is something that normally bores me, since it makes the first half of the album a chore to listen to unless it's very well done...). State Of Euphoria is not an album I'd really recommend to be your first Anthrax album, but you could do far worse than start there with them. So yeah...hope this helps people who aren't familiar with Anthrax's stuff to know where to approach the band from!
In terms of the set itself (so, focusing on the way the set is arranged and whatnot, not focusing on the actual musical contents), I have to admit that I come away from this feeling a bit unimpressed. The artwork on the front is not really that interesting and doesn't really scream "Anthrax!" at you...unless you count the band name on the cover, of course! I'm probably nitpicking, but I would have expected artwork that was more typical of what you'd expect from the band, not the blue background you get with this. The albums are not in slipcases, which will probably please more than a few people, but...well, the best way to describe it would be to say that, if you've seen the inside of Queen's Platinum Collection, you know what to expect on the inside of the box set. If you haven't, you basically have the discs placed in your usual disc holder thing in CD cases, but you have them inside the case. It's a rather neat idea, but, if one of the disc holder things falls apart, you're doing to have no way to safely store the disc. The liner notes have some grammar issues (some spaces missing and a few letters missing from words) and, annoyingly, do not provide the lyrics to the albums! This is definitely nitpicking, but I hate it when lyrics are left out of liner notes, as it makes me feel like no effort was put into the liner notes! Apart from those issues, you've got everything you could ask for from the liner notes and the casing, while arguably a little bit disappointing, is perfectly fine to store the albums.
We next move to the contents on the albums themselves. Well, you do get the albums as they were originally released (including the Japanese bonus track for Persistence Of Time, which is nice), which is definitely a good start! My issue is with the bonus materials on the album. For Spreading The Disease, you get nothing extra on the disc, just the original album. Erm...why? If there wasn't enough space on the other albums for some of the stuff (there's some missing stuff from that time, apparently), why not shuffle some of it onto this disc? And, if there wasn't anything else that could go onto the disc (which is a lie), then why keep this disc completely free of extras? It seems to be a waste of good disc space to me. You also don't get either of Anthrax's rap metal songs, which is really odd when you consider just how well known those songs are! You do get instrumental versions of them, but why not give us the actual songs? Regarding the sound quality of the albums, they haven't been remastered for this set. Which is a bit disappointing on some levels, but is a bit of a blessing in disguise on others, as they don't have the brick-walling problem that ruins a lot of albums today. They stand up fairly well next to modern metal albums (at the very least, I don't notice a particularly huge difference in volume when I go from Persistence Of Time to Worship Music), but I don't find them uncomfortable to listen to.
So, you probably get the idea from this that the box set is not going to appeal to any Anthrax die hards, as it probably won't contain any material you don't already have and doesn't have the potential advantage of a remaster. For the casual fan who just wants to get the albums and doesn't necessarily care about getting everything? This is worth picking up. I've looked quite a few times on amazon to see how cheaply I can get Anthrax's classic line up albums and, well, this is genuinely the cheapest option. It's also a bit of a steal on some levels if you think about it: you can get this for about £12 at the minute on amazon, which works out to about £3 an album, along with some extra stuff that you might want thrown in. It's not a lot cheaper than ordering the albums separately if you look at their cheapest prices (and factor in postage costs, before people say I can't do maths), so it's great if you don't have the albums already! If you do, then there's unfortunately no reason to pick this up, as the bonus tracks aren't really strong enough to justify a repurchase.
So, once again, I'm going to have to split up the ratings for this box set. It's not something I would normally want to do, but it seems like this might become a thing if I'm reviewing something as a fan of something!
Rating (established fans): 5 out of 10
Rating (non-established fans): 8.5 out of 10
For the die hard fan, there is little reason to purchase this. Nothing really new here to justify purchasing it, but it might be worth it if you want to trade old copies up to CD, as it's fairly comfortably mastered compared to modern standards. If you're not familiar with the band (for some bizarre reason...what rock have you been living under to miss these guys, anyway?) and want to pick up their classic line up stuff in one fell swoop, then get this. It doesn't contain everything the band has done with the line up on the label, but it contains their studio albums, which is arguably the point of the set. Would have preferred the inclusion of the rap metal songs (as much as I'm not a fan of rap in general), as the missing stuff does make it less of an essential purchase, but it's not enough to stop me from saying that a person who wants to explore Anthrax in more detail should pick this up.
As for my thoughts on the individual albums (since I figured that there's not a lot of point of talking about the actual albums and scoring them as part of the review of the box set), I would say that Spreading The Disease and Among The Living are the two that you're probably going to be listening to the most (partially because they are both pretty much the two albums that most thrash fans will say are Anthrax's classic albums and partially because they have Anthrax's strongest material), although I do enjoy Persistence Of Time from my listens to it. State Of Euphoria is a bit dull to me, but I know quite a few Anthrax fans find it a very underrated record, so that might just be me being a grumpy git on that one. If you've never listened to Anthrax before (and you don't want to pick this up, for some reason), I'd recommend you go for either Spreading The Disease or Among The Living. Among The Living is the more better known, due to how much of the material is on Anthrax's live setlists, but Spreading The Disease has the more underrated classics, such as "The Enemy". Persistence Of Time would be good to follow up with if you don't like the more light hearted tone (for thrash standards) of ATL and STD, although I do recommend some patience with the first half of it, as it's all made up of songs over the six minute mark (which is something that normally bores me, since it makes the first half of the album a chore to listen to unless it's very well done...). State Of Euphoria is not an album I'd really recommend to be your first Anthrax album, but you could do far worse than start there with them. So yeah...hope this helps people who aren't familiar with Anthrax's stuff to know where to approach the band from!
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