Fanboy Review: "And We'll Sing" by Runrig

This is far, FAR too late to do a Singles Collection article on (this song came out as a single on the 28th of April 2013), but, well, Runrig are working on their fourteenth album at the moment and the only other stuff that I have by Runrig is their albums from 1987 to 1995 (The Cutter And The Clan, Searchlight, Big Wheel, Amazing Things and Mara), so this is about the most recent thing by the band that I can talk about short of ordering their most recent live DVD, which I can't do due to not having the money to do so before I have to go to Scotland for a week (so yes, you'll almost certainly be reading this as something that I've scheduled to be posted, not posted directly by myself!) and not being that familiar with the band's material outside of those albums.

So, with that said, I should answer the burning question most of you are no doubt asking: "Who the fuck are Runrig?"

Well, Runrig are a Celtic rock band from the Isle Of Skye that formed in 1973 (then under the name The Run Rig Dance Band). They were originally a three piece dance band (think ceilidh dancing and you're probably not too far from the mark) before switching to Celtic rock (although not before releasing their first album, Play Gaelic, in 1978 under their old sound: their second album, 1979's The Highland Connection, is apparently a transition between their old sound and their more well known sound) and they've pretty much stuck with that since then. Two of the band's founding members, brothers Rory Macdonald (the band's bassist) and Calum Macdonald (one of the band's drummers), are the band's main songwriters and also have a solo project (or a duo project, if you want to be technical) called The Band From Rockall (...go look up Rockall if you've not heard of it, I am not going to be a geography teacher for this one due to the fact I don't have as much time to write this as I'd like!) which has an album out. I'm not entirely sure why they have a solo project, since the music they had done for it is apparently pretty much the same as what the band have done with Runrig, but, as I've not actually heard the album and I'm going purely off of guesswork here, I'll not complain!

Anyway, moving back to Runrig, the band got big when they released their fifth album, The Cutter And The Clan, and pretty much have remained fairly popular among fans of Celtic rock in the UK, Denmark and Germany. They have an established fanbase in Canada as well thanks to them adding current vocalist Bruce Guthro to the band in 1999. Yet their albums with Guthro (all of the ones after Mara) haven't exactly caught on, which I feel is a real shame due to Guthro actually being a pretty good vocalist in his own right!

Yet 2013 was a special year for the band, as it marked their 40th year as a band. And so, to celebrate, the band released this single on the same date that they had played their first ever concert (in Glasgow...so I'm surprised that wasn't their only concert, considering how tough a place Glasgow can be!).

And...I only learnt about it a few months ago.

No, seriously: I had heard a bit of stuff by Runrig growing up due to my stepmother having a CD of their greatest hits, but I'd not bothered to look deeper into their history up until about February or March this year. When I found out more about them, though, I was hooked! Maybe it's because I grew up loving folk music (and still love the music now, I just tend to stick with metal these days), but, every time I hear Runrig, I just feel like I've found the perfect fusion between what I like now and what I loved as a kid. Runrig, to me, are a band who understand folk music so well that they can add rock elements to it and know how to strike the perfect balance between the two sounds: they can make even their heaviest songs have noticeable folk roots while avoiding the trap of making the rock elements feel like they were just added for the sake of adding a rock edge. I suppose my only real complaint is that Runrig doesn't really have guitar solos for their music, but hey, folk music doesn't have instrumental solos much, so I'm not going to complain about them taking their roots from folk over rock on that aspect!

So yeah, this review is likely to not be especially neutral. Fanboy alert!

Anyway, before you get bored by me talking about the ins and outs of folk music, let's get started with this! I sadly cannot provide a official video for the single, as no official release of it was made for YouTube and I don't think it's available to stream online. That said, there IS a video which has the song as part of it, so, if you want to hear the song, you can listen to it via the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOiCRA--Bq8

With that done, let's talk about the song!

One of the things that I really like about this track is that it's one of those songs that works on so many levels. Since I'm sure most people won't want me to rave about this song for a long period of time, let me break down every way in which this song works:

1. There's an atmosphere in this track through some more subtle instrumentation that brings this song to life in a way that just screams of the beauty of Scotland. I'm not saying every good song has to have an atmosphere, but, when you do styles of music with connections to folk music, you will earn a lot of praise for making a song atmospheric in a way that brings the song to lift in a way that you couldn't do without it. Runrig manages this nicely with this track: it has a somewhat mystical edge that shows just how magical good folk rock (and, in this case, Celtic rock) can be.
2. The instrumentation across the whole track, while fairly simple, has a restrained edge to it that shows the band is restraining themselves because they know the song calls for simplicity. While I did tear Sixx:A.M.'s new single a new one for doing the same thing (which I reviewed here, if you would like to read it), the difference between the two is that the simplicity here isn't a case of only being there to give Bruce Guthro something to sing over: it's supporting the song by providing a memorable listening experience in and of itself, but still letting Guthro take up his place in the spotlight and doesn't try to upstage him while doing it. If you were to take Guthro out of this song, it would still be a good listen, while "Gotta Get It Right" would have been forgotten even as it was playing.
3. The vocal line and lyrics of this song are so strong that you could perform this song unaccompanied if you wished and it would still be an enjoyable song. This is one of the strengths of good folk music, so I'll admit that Runrig probably have an advantage over a lot of bands in this regard, but, for the benefit of those who are wondering what makes folk one of my favourite styles of music even now, it's the fact that you can take a folk song and perform it in any way you want to. You can make it a sprawling epic with instrumental battles that would make Dream Theater blush, you can sing it over a loud heavy metal soundtrack, you can sing it unaccompanied...you get the point, I'm sure! Folk music is strong music because you can take any folk song and perform it in whatever way you wish, because that's what folk asks for: a strong melody line and lyrics that appeal to people who did those tough jobs that most people nowadays know nothing about or lived those lifestyles that most of us today simply couldn't do. A good folk song can be taken out of an accompanied music style and performed unaccompanied without losing anything, and this song is honestly pretty good for that!

Now I've finished gushing about this song on how it works on the levels it does, let's start looking at the performances. Well, none of the members are really doing anything that complex musically, but I feel it's a case of them knowing that the song doesn't need anything especially complex and are running with that fact rather than playing slowly because they weren't up to playing it faster.

Huh...that was short.

Bruce Guthro, as I mentioned earlier, is a pretty good vocalist in his own right, managing to replace Donnie Munro very nicely. I don't know whether long time fans of Runrig would rate Guthro over Munro by any measure and I will admit that I feel Guthro lacks a certain something that Munro could pull off flawlessly, but he does a fine job here! I guess I'm missing the Scottish accent in the singing a bit here as well, but it's nothing major and Guthro's voice is still pretty good here! The guy has an active solo career when he isn't singing for Runrig, but I unfortunately know nothing about his solo material beyond a quick glance at the genres it is under in wikipedia (country/folk for his first two albums, pop/folk for his later ones), so I'm going to have to defer to anyone with more knowledge about Guthro if they're willing to get in touch when I'm back from my time in Scotland.

So...actually, do you really need me at this point? This is just a brilliant song and is one that, to me, shows that Runrig still have some gas left in the tank. Even when I look at this critically, my complaints are minor at worst. If Runrig's next album has songs that are on this level at average, I imagine Runrig's next album will be really good, so, if you've never heard of Runrig before now...go pick up The Cutter & The Clan, as it's one of my favourite albums of all time. Then go pick this up and enjoy what I consider to be one of the finest Celtic rock bands in the world.

Final Rating: 9 Out Of 10

An outstanding track that is really worth a listen if you have any interest in folk music or rock music. If you don't like either of those styles, I'd still give it a listen, as it's just a brilliant track on so many levels that I'm sure you'll really enjoy it.

The Singles Collection: Sixx:A.M. "Gotta Get It Right" Review

Well, this is marvellous.

I woke up this morning thinking I can quickly film a VLOG and have a quiet night before heading off to Scotland tomorrow...and then I end up having to put it off to later due to insufficient time because I overslept, so I start talking about Runrig instead so that I can have something to cover myself while I'm up in the land that forgot the sun.

Then I go to have a contact lenses lesson and go to to my local radio...whereupon I find myself doing an interview at the last minute despite having no interview experience and having not heard of the artist I'm interviewing before then which means I get back home nearly an hour after I should have done.

And then, just when I think I can finally go film my VLOG in peace, I find this and realise that I really have to talk about this before I disappear for a week, as I'm not going to be able to talk about it when I get back and I know that people will want to hear what I have to say about this song.

...Fuck it, I don't need sleep, do I? It's not like I'm doing anything important tomorrow...and I can pack at the last minute if necessary!

Anyway, Sixx:A.M., as you might have guessed from the name, is a band which formed in 2007 and has Nikki Sixx as part of it, in his ever dependable role (and not especially technically demanding) role as bassist. Making up the rest of the members of the band are lead guitarist DJ Ashba (who you're most likely to know for also being part of Guns N Roses at the minute (or Axl Rose's solo project which is pretending to be Guns N Roses, if you want to be completely accurate), although he's also been part of BulletBoys and Beautiful Creatures and is also a solo artist) and rhythm guitarist, vocalist and drum programmer James Michael (who is mostly known for being a record producer and songwriter, although he has done a solo album). There are some sources which say there is a drummer on this track, but I'm in a bit of a hurry at the minute with writing this, so I'm going to assume the drums are programmed for now and apologise to whoever did the drumming on this track for not crediting them and mentioning where they came from if there is an actual drummer on this track. The band originally came together to record the album The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack, which is connected to Nikki Sixx's autobiography titled The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star and is clearly intended to musically represent the same thing that the book covers. You could argue that Motley Crue's 2008 album Saints Of Los Angeles is pretty much a Sixx:A.M. in all but name, as just about every track was written by everyone in Sixx:A.M. (and Marti Frederiksen), but that's probably not the point of what they were going for, so I'm going to move on. Sixx:A.M.'s second album was 2011's This Is Gonna Hurt and the band have since then been rather quiet apart from an acoustic EP, 2011's 7 (presumably because some genius could count and thought it would be clever to name the EP after how many tracks were on it), due to everyone else focusing on their main projects.

So this single being the first new song by the band would be absolutely brilliant news if it weren't for the fact that I've never listened to Sixx:A.M. before now. Just never bothered to hunt their stuff down, sorry!

So, what do I think of this track? Well, let's find out.

If you want to listen to the track, you'll have to stream it from the link below: there's been no official YouTube release of the song yet. There are YouTube videos up with the song, but I think I should stick with official channels due to the fact that those can't be taken down very easily.

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/sixx-a-m-new-single-gotta-get-it-right-available-for-streaming/

So, my first thoughts can be pretty much summed up as this: "I didn't know fun. had a new single out!"

...Well, OK, that wasn't actually my first thoughts, but you get the point, I'm sure: this sounds like it could have come off of fun.'s 2012 album Some Nights...which, because fun. sound so much like Queen, means that Sixx:A.M. sounds a bit too much like Queen for my liking. It's not so much the vocals (which don't sound like Freddie Mercury, Brian May or Roger Taylor: bizarrely, my best comparison is actually of a lower voiced (and nowhere near as gifted with falsetto) Justin Hawkins), but the music just makes me have to double check that I've not put the wrong band on by mistake. I don't necessarily have a problem with the Queen worship (I actually rather liked fun.'s Some Nights), but I can't say that I would like a lot of bands trying to sound like Queen because, well, Queen had a versatility to their songwriting that I don't think most bands could pull off properly. Sixx:A.M. is pretty much a shining example of why sounding like Queen isn't a sign of quality: the overall music is actually not especially memorable, as the whole song is basically supporting James Michael's (admittedly, very good, for the most part) voice. The melody line that Michael is singing is fairly memorable, but it feels like the only thing in the song that is aiming to be really memorable.

And that's really the big problem. The only performance that is really worth writing home about is the vocals, as nothing is especially complex on the performance front and nothing is especially memorable due to playing support for the vocals. Heck, I'll go further: the only thing that's really worth paying attention to IS the vocals. You could feasibly do this song completely a cappella and I don't think most people would think the song had lost anything through you doing that because there pretty much IS nothing else to the song.

So, after ranting about how this is only supporting the vocals, do I think this is a bad song? Well...not really, no. The performances, despite not being memorable or complex, are at least controlled in this fact: you're not feeling like the members are only playing their instruments to a fairly basic level because they can only play to this level, you feel like they are consciously playing fairly simply because it's what the song calls for and could easily step it up if they wanted to. Personally, I like artists who recognise that a song doesn't need to be complex and let the song be only as complex as it needs to be, so I don't really have a huge problem with the band doing this, but I still can't shake off the feeling that it's a bit TOO simple, even by the standards of letting a song be as complex as it needs to be. I'm not asking for the band to suddenly throw in a Joe Satriani influenced guitar solo or anything like that, but I feel like most songwriters could write a song like this without too much difficulty. The vocal line and the lyrics, maybe not, but the rest of the music is definitely simple enough that I imagine most people who have songwriting experience will be going "I could have written that in my sleep!"

So, overall, what do I think of this song? Well, the big issue for me is the fact that the only thing that's worth paying attention to is the vocals: if there was anything else to the song, I'd be OK with having the vocals be the predominant thing on it, but there's just not enough there for me to really want to give this a free pass. The vocals, to the band's credit, are very good and, if you like a catchy single, this should be fine with you, but I feel that the only thing which had any real effort put into it was the vocal line for the song, with the rest just being what the rest of the members threw together to not do an a cappella track. On that basis alone, I feel like this song is musically pretty weak. It's an enjoyable song, don't get me wrong, but, being critical, there's very, VERY little to it that's really worth bringing up and getting given a whole lot of nothing is just not really acceptable from a bunch of professional musicians. So, while I do like this song, I feel I have to give this song a negative score just because there's so little substance to it. It's definitely not a bad song, but, for the standards of the style of music the band are playing, there's so little to it that I almost feel offended, as a fan of this style of music, that the band think they can get away with releasing something with less substance than a prawn cracker. You can't do that guys, you just can't!

Final Rating: 3 Out Of 10

While definitely an enjoyable song when viewed from a listener's perspective only and with no frame of reference on what Sixx:A.M. usually sound like, so little is on offer here when looked at critically that it's almost insulting. A good vocal line and a strong vocal performance stops this song from being a throwaway, but, for everything else, you might as well not bother.

Also, give Queen their sound back: they need it for their upcoming compilation record thing!

The Singles Collection: Slipknot "The Negative One" Review

Let me make one thing very, VERY clear: I am not a nu-metal fan. When I was getting into metal, there was maybe FOUR songs I knew from growing up that could be placed in the metal genre, none of which were by Slipknot. I also did not bother to look into nu-metal because, well, I didn't pay a lot of attention to popular music as a kid and, as such, managed to miss the rise and fall of the genre in the popular eye. When I did try to check out nu-metal, though, my overall thoughts were "boring" and "overly depressing", so I didn't bother to check it out further. Throughout my time being a metal fan, this has not changed and, though my initial distaste of metalcore has been worn down enough for me to accept it, me and nu-metal have remained at great odds with each other, but peacefully so: I have let nu-metal be and, in exchange, I've only let nu-metal cross my path when it comes to stuff I actually like from it.

And then Slipknot announced their return with a new album and put out a new single.

...Well, I never bothered with Slipknot in the first place, so who knows, maybe this might be the thing which makes me like nu-metal?

...Yeah, I suspect Israel and Hamas will have peace before I become a nu-metal fan.

...Huh, topical reference. That isn't going to date this article in the slightest, is it?

...Actually, considering who I'm talking about, I have a horrible feeling this article will not be dated for a LONG time. God, that's depressing...

Anyway, let's start with...actually, do I even NEED to give Slipknot's history? They're one of the most well known nu-metal bands, for goodness sake!

...I do? Ugh, fine.

The roots of Slipknot were formed in the town of Des Moines in Iowa in September 1995, when then-drummer Shawn Crahan and bassist Paul Gray formed a band together called The Pale Ones, along with vocalist Anders Colsefni and guitarist Donnie Steele. Joey Jordison joined the band as their drummer (Shawn Crahan moved to percussion) very soon after their foundation and the band mostly jammed together under that name until late 1995, where they changed their name to Slipknot. They started to record their first demo in December of the same year, but lost Donnie Steele in February 1996. He was originally replaced on guitar by Craig Jones, but the band realised that they couldn't replicate the samples they had added to their sound, so he moved to being the band's sampler and Mick Thomson became the band's guitarist. The band's first demo, Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat., was finally released on Halloween 1996 and...um, went nowhere in terms of record label interest, so the band decided to add melodic vocals to their sound by add Stone Sour (heard of them?) vocalist Corey Taylor to the band. This pushed Colsefni to backing vocals and percussion (which leaves me wondering just how much percussion and samples Slipknot need...), who eventually decided to leave the band in September 1997. He was replaced by Greg Welts (only on percussion). The band's second album was released in early 1998 and was far more popular among record labels. Ross Robinson (who is a very well known producer in the nu-metal scene) offered to produce the band's debut album in February 1998, the band added DJ Sid Wilson to the band soon after that, the band received a $500,000 seven album contract from Roadrunner Records (a label who you should know for being big on metalcore and nu-metal in the 90's and a fair bit of the 2000's) in late 1998, the band fired Greg Welts for undisclosed reasons on the 6th of July and publicly signed their deal with Roadrunner on the 8th of July.

The band brought in Chris Fehn to fill in the percussion gap left by Welts and went to California in September to record their debut album. Part of the way through the recording process, the band went back to Iowa for the Christmas period, during which guitarist Josh Brainard decided to quit the band and he was replaced by Jim Root. The band's self-titled debut was released in late June 1999 and was rather popular, which meant that expectations for their follow up was rather large. This follow up, Iowa, came out in late August 2001 (distressingly, about a fortnight before 9/11 occurred) and is regarded by many as a masterpiece of nu-metal (let's ignore the obvious snarky remark of "There's a nu-metal album that's even good?" for a second). However, tensions within the band caused the band to go on hiatus in mid-2002. The members of the band were not quiet, however: Corey Taylor and Jim Root revived Stone Sour (releasing their self-titled debut album in late August 2002), Jordison formed The Murderdolls (which released their debut album, Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls, a week before Stone Sour released their debut album, interestingly enough, Crahan formed To My Surprise (which released their debut album in October 2003) and Sid Wilson went solo under the name DJ Starscream.

It was in mid-2003 that the band reunited and began work on their third album, along with producer Rick Rubin (who is on my blacklist, so I will not say anything more about him for the rest of this article). The result was Volume 3: (The Subliminal Verses), which managed to peak at position 2 on the Billboard 200. That band proceeded to tour for the album, took part in the Roadrunner United project (the album of which, The All-Star Sessions, was released in October 2005 and included members of the band on eight of the tracks on the album: specifically, "The Enemy", "Annihilation By The Hands Of God" (which had Joey Jordison co-writing the music for the song), "Tired 'N Lonely" (which had Joey Jordison writing the music for the song), "The Rich Man" (which had Corey Taylor writing the lyrics for the song), "No Way Out" (which had Joey Jordison co-writing the music for the song), "Baptised In The Redemption", "Constitution Down" (which had Joey Jordison writing the music for the song) and "Enemy Of The State" (which had Joey Jordison co-writing the music for the song)) and...went on hiatus again in the end of 2005 after they had finished touring for it.

Huh...world's shortest reunion ever.

Anyway, the members were, again, not quiet: Stone Sour reunited AGAIN and released their second album, Come What(ever) May, in late July 2006, Jordison toured with several bands and produced 3 Inches Of Blood third album, Fire Up The Blades, Crahan formed Dirty Little Rabbits (which released their debut EP, Breeding, in August 2007) and Wilson became DJ Starscream again.

Slipknot began work on their fourth album in February 2008, finishing work on it in June 2008. The result was All Hope Is Gone, which debuted at the top of the Billboard 100. They then proceeded to tour for the album and...went on hiatus AGAIN on Halloween 2009.

...Seriously, do these guys have a hiatus addiction or something? I've seen bands with FAR more inconsistent line ups go through less hiatuses (or is it "hiati"? I don't know what the proper word for having more than one hiatus is...) than Slipknot have!

Anyway, the band's third hiatus was, again, not spent with the members being quiet: Corey Taylor founded Junk Beer Kidnap Band (which sounds like a lost R.E.M. lyric...) and returned with Jim Root to Stone Sour (which released their third album, Audio Secrecy, in September 2010), Crahan continued work with Dirty Little Rabbits (which had released their second EP, Simon, in January 2009: they released their self-titled first album in July 2010), Jordison returned to The Murderdolls (which released their second album, Women And Children Last, in late August 2010), Fehn joined Will Haven and Sid Wilson formed the band Sid.

Tragically, it was during this hiatus that the band's bassist, Paul Gray, died on the 24th of May 2010. The band remained off of the live stage for the rest of the year, deciding whether they should continue with Gray, before finally deciding that they could carry on...and, in a move that I think is actually kind of sweet, in a way, brought back Donnie Steele (...their founding guitarist? Honestly, do you people even read these things? I've spent over an hour writing and researching this so far, and I still think I've been skimming some of it!) to fill in for Gray on the band's live gigs. It was during 2011 that Will Haven's first album with Fehn on bass, Voir Dire, was released. Slipknot released their first greatest hits album, Antennas To Hell, in July 2010. It was also in 2012 that Stone Sour released House Of Gold & Bones - Part 1 in October 2012. The second part of Stone Sour's album came out in April 2013, which is also the last Stone Sour album to feature Jim Root, who was fired in May 2014 after originally sitting out from the band's tour to help finish writing the Slipknot's fifth album. 2013 was also somewhat controversial among Slipknot fans, as Joey Jordison was fired from the band on the 12th of December...yet, apparently, Jordison was also surprised by the news of his departure from the band, which leads me to suspect that someone in Slipknot has grown an ego or didn't want to speak with Jordison any more.

Oh yeah, and Joey Jordison also formed Scar The Martyr in 2013, which released their self-titled debut in October 2013.

So, as we stand, Slipknot are currently without a drummer (although they have two percussionists, one of whom is a drummer, so I imagine he'll be the band's drummer for this track), have no actual replacement for Paul Gray (but have a live replacement for him), the members have as many side projects between all of them that Mike Portnoy has on his own and they have released a new song.

...You got all of that? Good, because I'm NOT going to refer to this again. I already feel like I've learnt more about Slipknot than I even wanted to know...

So, next up is the track for you guys to listen to...EXCEPT it's not actually got officially released to YouTube by the band yet. FUCK!

Ah well, you can stream the song from their website, so it's not all bad. If you want the link, then click here.

So, before I start talking about this, let me remind you that I am not a fan of nu-metal, nor have I ever listened to Slipknot before now, so my opinion on this is likely to mean nothing to people who are nu-metal fans or Slipknot fans. However, I will do my best to judge this track as fairly as I can, considering my bias against their style of music and my ignorance of the band's typical sound.

So, with that out of the way, let's move on to talk about the song!

First of all, let me admit this: yes, this SOUND like nu-metal. No question about it. However, something I have to point out that I've only just noticed now is how much Corey Taylor sounds like Robb Flynn with his vocals. I actually have no problem with this here, but it does give me another reason to not like Machine Head's The Burning Red and Supercharger, so add that onto the long list of reasons why I am trying not to admit to having heard those albums by the band.

...Wait, did I just say that out loud?

Anyway, the best way to sum this song up (without resorting to the very dismissive and not especially helpful comment of "it sounds like nu-metal") is that it sounds somewhat like a combination of groove metal (with a few hints of thrash metal) drumming, heavily downtuned (as in, "groove metal" levels of downtune) and fairly simplistic guitar riffs, sound effects that give the whole thing a somewhat unsettling air to it (...oh yeah, and turntables. For some reason...) and vocals that are best described as "yelled". It's actually a rather interesting listening experience, coming into this without any real knowledge of nu-metal: I can see how this style of music developed and I can get the appeal behind it. I suppose my big issue is that, without any real knowledge of nu-metal, I can't really fairly say exactly how this sounds compared to most nu-metal because I have no real frame of reference for it. However, comparing this to groove metal, I would say that I still find myself saying that I prefer groove metal over nu-metal, albeit in a "lesser of the two evils" kind of way: the downtuned nature of the guitars seem like they're trying to find the lack of complexity in the riffing while the samples and turntables just add nothing to the style of music for me. That said, what IS here is actually not that bad: the vocals, while not really my cup of tea, are actually rather good if you don't mind what sounds like a person basically yelling angrily, the drumming and percussion is very solid and, if you don't mind the use of turntables and samples, I imagine they would give this a sound which is actually rather interesting to listen to. The guitars are also not badly played, although their simplicity does wind me up a tad. The bass...I can't hear it, so I can't really comment on it.

I know this review is rather short, considering how much history you just had to trek through to get here, but, really, all I can say is that it's not bad. If you don't like nu-metal, this will not do anything to change your opinion, but, if you've not heard nu-metal and have a fondness for alternative rock, less melodic styles of metal and hip hop, I imagine you'll quite like this. As for me...well, I don't HATE it, but I wouldn't say this is my kind of thing either. If this is what Slipknot typically sounds like, you can count me out of liking them in the future, but it's still a decent enough listen, in my book. I wouldn't go search out more stuff like this in the future, but, if someone were to play this near me, my first reaction wouldn't be "TURN THAT FUCKING SHIT OFF!" I can understand why a lot of the die hard metal fans aren't fond of this kind of music and I will admit that I would probably be sick of this kind of music very quickly if I heard it a lot on the radio, but, for the occasional listen which I have willingly subjected myself to, I don't think it's that bad.

So yeah...still not a nu-metal fan, but there's no angrily roasting this song over an open fire because I think it sucks. There's some performances on here that are at least decent and most of what I dislike about it is something I can fairly put down to me having different tastes compared to what the style of music is aiming for. I just don't think it's something I would get hyped up about, personally. If you're a nu-metal fan, I do encourage you to at least check this out, since Slipknot are one of the flagship bands of the nu-metal genre. If you aren't familiar with nu-metal, then I'd suggest you ask a nu-metal fan for a good starting point rather than just going for this, but I don't think this is too bad a representation of the genre. If you don't like nu-metal...yeah, I'm certain this isn't going to change your opinion on it in the slightest, so don't bother with it!

This is a really tough one for me to provide a final score on. On the one hand, I don't really like this song that much and feel that, for my taste in music, it's a bit below what I would hold to be an average song. On the other hand, however, I recognise that, if you don't have the same issues that I do with the this style of music, you will no doubt find that this is actually an above average single. So, for the sake of fairness, I will divide my score up between what I feel I should score the song as, factoring in my dislike of nu-metal, and what I recognise the song to be when I factor out my dislike of nu-metal.

Personal score: 4 Out Of 10

My personal hang ups about nu-metal mean that a lot of what this song does simply does nothing for me because it reminds me too much of what I dislike about what I've heard of this style of music and the fact that the performances don't reach a level where I feel they get beyond merely making the song well played means that, from a personal viewpoint, this is not a song I would want to recommend to anyone who isn't already a die hard nu-metal fan. I don't hate this track by any measure, but it does everything that puts me off this style of music and doesn't do enough to win me back over enough to care about it.

Critical Score: 6 Out Of 10 (only missing out on a 7 Out Of 10 because of the lack of audible bass guitar)

When looked at while ignoring my dislike of nu-metal, the stuff that I don't like about the genre is still fairly well done as part of this song and the performances are strong enough for me to at appreciate that actual effort was put into this. If I look at this critically and push my dislike for the genre aside, I would say this is a fairly solid song that is at least worth checking out if you've got any fondness for nu-metal. People who do not like nu-metal in the slightest should, of course, stay far away from this, but there's enough here that's at least enjoyable that I imagine there are a lot of happy Slipknot fans out there, which I guess is the important thing at the end of the day! If you have avoided nu-metal purely because of the bad reputation it has, you might find this worth a listen and you'll probably find it somewhat enjoyable, but I doubt you'll come away loving this enough to want to become a Slipknot fan and I doubt this will ever be your favourite Slipknot track if you do become a Slipknot fan.

My Thoughts On Wonder Woman's Costume

Well, due to doing editing work and a lot of other stuff, I've basically not had a chance to do a review.

So, I figured I'd look at the news which has no doubt set geeks angrily ranting and try to provide my take on this subject. The short version, for those who don't want a long winded article: I don't like it much, but I'm going to wait until I have context on the character's backstory in the film before I get angry.

The long version, for those who do want my usual brand of long winded rambling? Read on...

Wonder Woman has been one of the few DC superheroes who has never quite made the transfer over to film. While attempts have been made to bring Wonder Woman to the big screen, the first film with a theatrical release to feature the character is actually The Lego Movie: while a Wonder Woman series did come out and ran from 1975 to 1979, all other projects have either been TV movies or animated projects, so there's understandably a lot of pressure to get Wonder Woman right because, well, this is likely to be the first time that your average everyday person who isn't necessarily knowledgeable of comics is going to have seen the character in action. Part of this is arguably the challenge of finding an actor (I know most people use the word "actress" to describe female actors, but I'm sticking with actor for this article because there's actually been steps in the acting industry to use the word "actor" as a gender neutral term) capable of both capturing Wonder Woman as a character properly and having the right physique to portray her without the inevitable fanboy rage due to her not having the right sized...um, "assets".

Honestly, I can understand the fanboys getting angered about the former not being done right, but the latter seems like it sends completely the wrong message about comic book fans when you think about it. To a non-comic book fan, such rage over an actor not having the appropriately sized "assets" to portray a character is actually kind of daft when you realise that a lot of the female superheroes have figures that are actually kind of unfeasible to have in real life. I doubt I need to go into a whole of biology details involving the female figure, but I'll give the basics for those who are REALLY curious. I will stress, this is all second hand knowledge (I'm a guy, I can't exactly mention this from personal experience!) and is strictly based from what I've heard from online sources (I don't have a girlfriend with large breasts to ask to confirm these details...heck, I don't even have a girlfriend or a large breasted female friend who I can ask about this without accidentally coming across as a pervert!), so these details are not necessarily going to be 100% accurate, nor do they represent what every woman in the world will say.

Breasts (let's keep things simple and only talk about natural breasts: if we factor in implants, we're going to be here all day and I'm already writing this when I should be considering going to bed!) are made up of breast tissue, which we all have (which, yes, does mean that you can be a man and still get breast cancer, although it's a very rare thing), and fat (among other things: I'm not going to be a science teacher and go into all of the exact things that make up breasts, as I'm sure most of you probably are too busy spacing out over the fact that I've mentioned breasts five times in a paragraph so far to pay much more attention), which is partially why women with very large breasts usually tend to not have especially thin figures (there are other factors involved, of course). However, muscle is not made up from fat: indeed, when you exercise your muscles, you'll usually find that you burn up fat and carbohydrate reserves to give energy to your muscles. So, women who are physically fit tend to not have especially large breasts. Wonder Woman is noted for being physically fit (let's ignore the super strength for a second), but has fairly large breasts, as do a large number of female superheroes. Since Wonder Woman comes from an island which obviously does not have breast implants, the only way you could feasibly represent Wonder Woman accurately on screen would be to get an actor with large natural breasts who is physically fit enough to portray her...and that's before we get to the more important things like acting ability! That's not an especially large talent pool...no offence intended to actors with large breasts who might be reading this, but most physically fit actors with large natural breasts usually tend to be found in the porn industry, which isn't exactly an industry known for having especially talented actors from the viewpoint of being a dramatic actor (and you'd not believe how many pitfalls I had to dodge just writing that one sentence!). Since I think most people would prefer an actor who can actually act over a porn star who clearly can't in a big budget movie, that means that the most important point for a lot of people will be acting ability, not necessarily the size of her breasts and her figure!

...Most of you are probably still shocked that I've said "breasts" so many times in a single paragraph, aren't you?

Anyway, moving on from that and ignoring the casting choice before this page potentially becomes a place where people start listing porn stars who are better dramatic actors than Gal Gadot (...No, I don't want a list. Not even if it's just of their dramatic performances and doesn't involve their porn work at all!), the thing that had a lot of people worried is that Wonder Woman's costume wouldn't be represented properly. And, sure enough, when the photo came out of Wonder Woman's costume, all hell broke loss among A LOT of fans of the character (although, to be fair, there are more than enough reasons to want to avoid Batman VS Superman: Dawn Of Justice as it is).

And I'm not gonna lie: from my limited knowledge of the character, I can see why they are complaining. My first thoughts were not "Wonder Woman", but "Xena Warrior Princess". I also can't help thinking that her boots look like those of Sif from the Thor films, for some reason. Also, I can't help thinking that Gal Gadot (I'll not comment on her acting ability, as I've not seen her in any films before now, although what I've heard doesn't point towards her being a great actor...although it's not impossible she was always working with a bad script, so I'm withholding judgement for now in case she turns out an amazing performance!) looks a bit too thin to strike me as an intimidating figure. I don't intend this to come across as insulting to Gadot if she ever reads this, but I just don't feel she looks like the strong figure I'd expect Wonder Woman to be. In this photo, she doesn't look like an intimidating character who strikes me as a very confident figure to me: my honest thoughts are that she is trying to look intimidating and not pulling it off very well.

So, this means I feel this costume is a horrible representation of Wonder Woman, right? Nope! All it does is mean that I have different expectations of what to expect from the film. This might require some time, so let me try to break down my thoughts for you guys in as fair a way as I can.

One of the things that I try to do when it comes to adaptions or reboots of stuff is that I try to look at the adaption as it stands on its own. See, the way I view it is that just because something has been replaced by a new version of it or has been adapted into a new media doesn't make the original is automatically invalid: it still exists and can be enjoyed, so decrying something as "now being shit" strikes me as a serious overreaction, as there's no reason why you can't simply keep enjoying what you liked about it and just politely go "I don't like [x] much of the franchise, but [y] is really good!" when someone brings up that which you hate the most. So, when fans start screaming "BETRAYAL! THIS WILL SUCK!" for a costume being completely different from the well established costume, my thoughts are "Wait until the film comes out: there might be a valid reason in the costume to be different in the film." For this one, the brown costume (I'm assuming this is the final costume: this is the only photo of the costume I've been able to see which I trust to be accurate) could well be explained in the story that Wonder Woman hasn't actually left Themyscira yet, so she will naturally not have taken up her famous colours because, well, they don't mean anything to her yet. To compare to the Robocop reboot for a second, I wasn't aware of Robocop beyond the fact that he had silver armour and could have been fairly summed up as a robotic version of Judge Dredd, so I was able to look at the Robocop film and his black armour and go "This is actually interesting!" While I will admit that there are more logic issues with Robocop in the reboot having black armour over the fan preferred silver at first when you remember that he actually starts out with the silver armour, I was willing to give it a chance rather than write it off just because it wasn't accurate to the original design. Was it worth it for me? Well...I liked the film, but I can understand why others wouldn't, so I'll leave it at that for now. However, I feel the fact that the film actually ended with Robocop back in the silver armour means that there was a valid story arc throughout the film and that, by finishing by putting him in the armour he was known for, the filmmakers had left behind the seeds to make the new Robocop into the Robocop everyone knows and loves, so I'm keeping my hopes up in case a sequel comes out for it. For this case, I do know more about Wonder Woman, so I can tell this costume isn't QUITE right, but I'm still going to let my issue with the costume slide because, if it turns out in the film that Wonder Woman hasn't left Themyscira and, as such, isn't the Wonder Woman we know and love yet, then I'll feel that's a fair enough reason for her not to be wearing the colours of her well known costume (again, assuming that this is a picture of the actual costume as will be seen in the movie).

So my expectation when going into the film isn't "I'm going to see Wonder Woman as she should be", but "I'm going to see the woman who will become the Wonder Woman we know and love at least a film or two down the line." If you will, I'm giving the film a chance to show that it isn't going to try to claim all of the heroes were always around and just weren't noticed by Superman and actually give the characters meaningful introductions that show these characters starting out on the paths to become the heroes we know and love. If you will, I'm expecting this film to focus on Batman (who hasn't been introduced in this incarnation, so I am almost expecting some exposition: remember, it's a new Batman, not the one from Nolan's film trilogy, so they can't justify just going "It's Batman, you know who it is!" this time!) and Superman (who has been introduced in Man Of Steel) while also giving these other heroes minor roles to show them starting to find their feet to become the heroes we know and love, possibly even mentoring some of them to learn some of the rules of what it means to be a hero. If they do that (keep the focus on Superman trying to defeat Batman and have the other characters be genuinely introduced in the film as new heroes who haven't any real idea of what it means to be a hero rather than already established heroes trying to share the spotlight), I can maybe see this film working, as it can use this film to set the characters up, the second one (since I know DC is determined to rush out a Justice League film without taking the time to set up the characters first) to have these new heroes learn from Superman and Batman the important things to remember when being heroes and learn how to function as a team (think of it like them tutoring these other heroes of the importance of being a hero while facing off against a threat that is so dangerous that them not learning it could destroy the whole world) and then follow that up with individual films for ALL of the new heroes as they try to find a way to become more well rounded as they learn what they can do on their own when they don't have the other heroes to back them up (and ones for Batman and Superman as well). This option has the potential to even allow hints towards the other films for those heroes, as they could contact the other heroes in an attempt to get help only to be informed that the other heroes are busy dealing with serious issues of their own, as well as allow an excellent way to set up a second Justice League film by having the characters meet back up to discuss what happened and learn that all of the attacks were connected through things they find and bring back with them to show everyone else. Maybe I'm proving that I'm no better than the people who are making the films, but I can't help thinking that this way of doing things MIGHT be able to springboard the DC universe properly, as it gives a lot of options to do stuff while also setting up the flagship heroes in ...but, at the moment, I don't know what they're doing, and that leaves me concerned that no proper thought has gone into this course of action.

Since most of you probably are bored of reading me ramble, let me conclude here. While I have a HORRIBLE feeling that this film is going to be a train wreck, my biggest concerns are not involving Wonder Woman's costume: if that has a valid explanation in the story for looking different from the already established costume (which also has the counter point that, well, "already established" costume could cover a HUGE number of costumes by the character: her iconic costume itself has come and gone multiple times in comic history, so what might be an iconic costume for a comic book fan might not be the iconic costume of your everyday joe who only knows Wonder Woman in passing!), then that's fine, but that won't mean anything if the film is a bad film, at the end of the day. That's the hurdle this film has to cross first, and I have a horrible feeling that the huge amount of stuff that's been announced for it is pointing towards a film that is going to be far more crowded than it needs to be and laden with enough exposition to fill an entire novel. But, until I actually see the film for myself or have some word of mouth regarding the finished film from trusted sources (AKA my friends and family), I will let this film carry on doing what it doing and will keep my pitchfork and torch stored and locked away safely. I might sharpen the pitchfork and have my batteries on standby for if things get much worse, but I do not intend to write this movie off completely just yet.

The Single's Collection: The Madden Brothers "We Are Done" Review

I know what most of you are probably thinking: "Why are you reviewing a single that came out in May? I thought this series of articles was for reviewing songs that came out recently?"

Well...this managed to slip past my radar when it came out and I only heard it yesterday. Sorry, I'm just one guy doing this at the end of the day and sometimes stuff slips past me that I normally would be all over like a bad rash! It happens: some artists just get forgotten to check back on for months at time and, in that time, some of them have stuff happen to them which has completely passes me by (heck, I didn't realise La Roux were (or is it "was" now, considering there's only one member of the band left now? Answers on a metaphorical postcard!) releasing a new album until THE DAY IT WAS RELEASED IN MY HOME COUNTRY! And it still nearly passed me by: I only found that out because I felt like listening to "Bulletproof" and found myself going "I wonder what else this artist has done?"...). Also...well, I have to be honest, when I heard the mixtape the Maddens released in 2011, my thoughts weren't "Awesome!", but "Meh, it's not bad, but this isn't my kind of thing..." (outside of "A Million Tears", which was one of my favourite songs of 2011...and no, I'm not kidding there!), so I wasn't exactly excited about this. Yet I couldn't help being intrigued when I noticed that the wikipedia page for the album had it listed under the genres "pop rock" (which was not anything that surprising for me: Good Charlotte are a pop punk band and Benji and Joel have been part of the band for nearly twenty years now, so a step up from punk to rock was a rather understandable step up due to the basic logic that Benji has now been playing guitar for more than long enough to be capable of stepping up to that level) and "folk rock" (which was VERY surprising for me: I'd never have thought the Maddens were into folk from listening to Good Charlotte's music, with about the closest link to the genre I can think of being "1979" from Cardiology, and with the mixtape from 2011 being closer to hip hop music...), so I gave the song a listen after noticing a friend had posted a link to it on his Facebook wall (cheers, Steven! If you're reading this, drop me a message some time, it'll be great to chat, I don't think we've had a chance to chat since Halloween!).

And...I was struck by two BIG questions, but I'll get to those in a minute.

First up, if you want to hear the song first, then here you go!

The first thing that struck me is that this does NOT sound like folk rock in the slightest. To be fair, that one was probably my fault: I didn't check what genres the song was listed under on its own page, so my expectations were probably completely wrong (I quite enjoy folk rock, so I feel disappointed that it wasn't folk rock). If I had taken the time to check the page, I would have found my hopeful expectations diminished a bit by the mention of alternative rock (a genre of music which I find boring, for the most part), although the mention of pop rock and psychedelic pop would have stopped those expectations from completely disappearing (both of those genres are ones which I've found some pretty enjoyable stuff from, despite not listening to them a lot in my free time).

So, now that you know that my first thoughts on this was tainted by my expectations for it, you're going to expect me to trash this song, right?

WRONG!

*tumbleweed*

Wow, that reference must have stopped being funny a while back...remind me to go update my files on internet memes when this review is over!

Anyway, my opinion on this song grew when I got over my initial "WHERE'S THE FOLK ROCK IN THIS?!" reaction and actually started to look at it for what it was instead of hating it for what it wasn't (which was a more complex Good Charlotte with folk elements to their sound...hmm, that actually would be rather cool, now I think on it!). Sure, it strikes me as one of those songs which will be forgotten in a few months (case of point, how many of you could honestly claim to remember this song when you saw that I was doing a review of it?), but hey, I'll take a song which leaves no long term impact over something so bad that I'll be hating it for the rest of my life!

*Glares at Dracula 3000 DVD sitting in the corner of the room*

When I figure out the formula for Greek fire, I will destroy you! You will burn, motherfucker, you will be destroyed by the unstoppable fires of the most terrifying weapon of the Byzantines!

...Sorry, what was I talking about?

Oh yeah..."We Are Done" has a really catchy chorus, but, in all honesty, that's the only thing that really stands out about it on first listen. I am not kidding when I say that the song was literally saved from being ignored by me due to the chorus being just a strong and catchy chorus. I also notice that Joel sounds uncannily like Gotye (who you might know for the 2011 hit "Somebody That I Used To Know") in the verses of the song. I don't want to throw out the accusation that he sounds like he's trying to rip off Gotye, as I don't think his voice sounds noticeably different compared to usual outside of that, but the resemblance is still a bit of an issue with me. In fact, now I think on it, this whole song sounds uncannily like it actually could have been written by Gotye...granted, a far less weird Gotye than the one we actually have, but still Gotye! Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but, now I notice it, I can't help feeling like Benji and Joel Madden were basically trying to write the 2014 version of "Somebody That You Used To Know" and did so by basically taking the formula of that song and tried to replicate it.

...Surprisingly, I'm OK with that. Hey, if you're going to re-write a song by another artist, I won't complain too much if you pick a good one to do that with and you'll get less complaints from me if it's a song that I liked, is recent enough for me to not feel old having to remember when the song came out AND was rather popular as well! The only problem is that I think the Maddens forgot to actually give the song's verses and the pre-chorus a proper think about, as they feel a bit like all they are doing is linking the chorus to itself again. I will have to mark the song down for the suspicious resemblance to Gotye, but it's only because I don't think I should let unoriginality be given a free pass: I would actually like to hear more music like this getting popular, speaking without being a critic for a second!

In terms of the performances of the instruments, I can't help feeling that the only performance that's really noteworthy for any reason on this song is the drums...and even that's only because it seems to be the only performance to show some proper variety to it. Unfortunately, they seem a bit under-utilised throughout the song, which is a bit of a shame. The rest of the performances...eh, they're OK, I guess. Nothing special, but what is there is certainly not badly performed.

Moving to the vocals...well, I've already pointed out the suspicious resemblance to Gotye (quite a few times now...), but the performances are otherwise typical for the guys: if you like Joel as a vocalist, he mostly sticks to what he does best and Benji sticks with doing backing vocals as per usual. I'm not sure exactly which of the two it is who does the highest backing notes in the chorus of this song, but, whichever one of them it is, I have to request they not try to go for them again, as I thought they were struggling to hit them!

The production on this song, if my research is correct, is handled by Eric Valentine, who co-produced Good Charlotte's The Young And The Hopeless (which put him in my good books already: that album was the sound of my childhood!), produced Good Charlotte's The Chronicles Of Life And Death (which...I was ambivalent on) and Slash's first two solo albums (which I did not like, surprisingly enough...although that's not his fault, as my issues are with the material, not his production work!). Well, he does a good job. My personal nitpicks about mastering and bass mixing (which isn't an issue on this one, surprisingly...I'm now wondering if some higher ups in record companies have been reading this blog? I hope not: I don't want to be blamed for changing something if everyone else doesn't like the change!) aside, he gets everything mixed to a decent level and everything sounds about right. I do have an issue with the drums, but that's not something I can really blame him for beyond MAYBE sending off the final results. I don't know who did actually mix this song (yeah, if any record companies ARE reading this, could you do us internet critics a favour and give a complete list of everyone who is involved in making a single, details about what their jobs require them to do and the names of the people involved when releasing a single so that we know who is the sensible bet to place the blame on for stuff that we don't like? That way, we're not blaming the producer for every little thing that goes wrong, especially when it's out of their control!), but I think that guy could have done with turning up the drums a tiny bit more in the chorus, as they get suspiciously quiet when everything else starts up.

So, final thoughts? Well...it's a decent enough listen, I guess. It's got a decent enough chorus to make it worth a listen, but the rest of it just feels a bit undercooked, lacking a real hook to bring it together. The strong reminder of Gotye's signature song, while something which I do actually like, is something which I still feel I have to mark the song down for because a lot of people will get annoyed by it. The whole thing just feels kind of mediocre when I look at it critically. I do like it, so, on a personal and non-critical level, I do recommend checking it out, but, looking at it critically, there isn't a lot to it that will appeal to Good Charlotte fans and I suspect that is going to be a big failing of the album when it comes out: Good Charlotte fans are not going to get it because it's too far from what Good Charlotte sound like (which is arguably the reason why they're NOT releasing it under the Good Charlotte name, when you think about it...they're exploring a new style of music, so it's not really appropriate for the Good Charlotte name!), most people who aren't hugely familiar with Good Charlotte are going to not want to pick it up because their first impression of it is likely to be "it's just a rip off of "Somebody That I Used To Know", so why bother with it?" and people who hate Good Charlotte...well, I've no idea why they'd have bothered to check out this song in the first place, but I imagine this wouldn't be their cup of tea at all!

And that would be a shame. Sure, when I look at this critically, it sends up a flag that basically says "This is not going to be a great album", but, when I take my critical thinking hat off, it's not that bad. Nothing to get excited about, sure, but still not that bad! So, in a break from professional reviewer etiquette (not that I consider myself a professional reviewer, but that's not really the point...), I'm going to say that, although I am going to give this a fairly low rating, you should still check this out to see what you think of it for yourself. I mean, it's three and a half minutes of your time (maybe four, depending on the ad you get before the video) and I have provided the video in this article anyway, so why not take advantage of that fact if you can?

Final Rating: 4 Out Of 10

A somewhat underwhelming song with performances that are mostly typical of what you'd expect from the musicians making the song that also suffers from a noticeable bit of unoriginality. From a critical perspective, there's not a lot to this that's really worth getting excited about and it's probably going to be forgotten by most people before the start of 2015.

(Post-writing note: when I was listening to this song while writing this review (which I literally wrote on the same day I heard this song: that's how I try to roll with this series, aim to write and release an article summing up my first impressions of a song due to how quickly I have to try to put this kind of article out if I still want it to be a relevant article by the time I release it!), it wasn't sticking in my head that much, but, today, I was singing the pre-chorus and chorus of it very happily without having put it on again. So yeah...be aware that this song will likely leave a bit more of an impact on you than just an immediate first impression would have you believe it would!)

Good Charlotte "Cardiology" Review

This is an album that I've been wanting to cover for a while now: I've been meaning to talk about Good Charlotte again for a good while now and this album is one that I've been meaning to revisit for a good while now. So, two birds with one stone!

I don't think there's a lot of point in me covering Good Charlotte's career, as I covered that briefly in my review of The Young & The Hopeless (which you can read here, if you want to read it), but, to recap, Good Charlotte formed in 1996, released their self-titled debut in 2000 and, since then, released four more albums, the most recent being 2010's Cardiology. In the great tradition of Spinal Tap, the band have had difficulty holding onto drummers, as they are currently on their fourth official drummer (the drummer on their second album was a session drummer), although he has been with the band since 2005. The band went on hiatus in September 2011, but have been back together for a while now and are currently working on a sixth album, although, at the time of writing, no details involving it have been released, which has me thinking that we're more likely to get a 2015 release for it at the moment when you factor in the length of time the album would need to be advertised for and the fact that twin brothers (and two of the founding members of the band) Joel and Benji Madden have an album together due to be released in September under the name The Madden Brothers (which...you know what, I think being snarky there might be unjustified when you consider that it's what it says on the tin, so I'll leave that alone!).

So, that's the band's basic history. But how does Cardiology sound to my ears now? Well, let's find out!

First up, the cover art. It's...hmm, I can't really say why, but I like it. There's just something about it that I can't really dislike about it, but I can't put into words what it is that I like about it. I know this is going to be a huge anticlimax, but all I can say is "I like it" without providing any real context on what I like about it.

So, after a surprisingly short and not especially detailed summing up of the cover art, now it's time to look at the music on the album.

If you're only familiar with Good Charlotte from their second album, then the best way to sum this is up is "the same, but different at the same time". It's got a solid base in the band's style of pop punk, but with a sense of maturity (for the most part) and a willingness to occasionally take some influence from the band's dance punk style on Good Morning Revival. To an extent, I would say that Cardiology is a good way to sum up Good Charlotte's career, as you can spot influence from all of their previous albums. For example, "Harlow's Song (Can't Dream About You)" and, to a limited extent extent, "Sex On The Radio" sound a bit like they could have come off of Good Morning Revival, while "Introduction To Cardiology" and "Interlude: The Fifth Chamber" sound like they were cut from the same cloth as "Once Upon A Time: The Battle Of Life And Death", the intro track from The Chronicles Of Life And Death. For the most part, however, the band sticks with the pop punk style from their first two albums and do it fairly well, if not really doing anything that unique. The only song that I feel really shakes things up a bit is "1979", which is built upon an acoustic guitar. However, this isn't really a huge shake up overall. While I appreciate the band for mostly sticking to their guns, I can't help thinking the band could have done with a bit more experimenting with their sound or maybe better incorporate the influences into their sound, as I feel that there was a bit of a missed opportunity with this album to get a better mix between the sound of Good Morning Revival and The Young & The Hopeless. That said, I think they got a decent enough mix here that my complaints feel more like nitpicking than anything else.

While you could be forgiven for throwing the emo claim at the band on The Young & The Hopeless due to the lyrics on that album, I think it's fair to say that the band manages to avoid falling into that this time: the lyrics seem to focus on more typical stuff, although there's a slight air of confession about them. The best way I can put it is that it sounds like Benji and Joel have found themselves looking forward to life in general and not looking back in the past as much as they were, which I suspect can be traced back to the fact that, between the release of Good Morning Revival and Cardiology, the twins found their relationship with their father mended after getting back in touch with him for the first time in about a decade (although I am purely speculating there). This more upbeat feeling in the lyrics is one which I am kind of unsure about: on the one hand, it's nice to hear the guys feeling more content with their lives in the lyrics to their music and the more upbeat sound is a nice change after focusing so much on a somewhat depressing sound, but, on the other hand, it leaves me wondering whether the band are at risk of suffering from complacency in the future due to the lack of something to really fire them up to write in the way they used to and their more depressing lyrics helped them to stand out more than they might have been able to due to making them more relatable to the outcasts of society in a way that a lot of the more mainstream bands couldn't pull off properly. Maybe it's just my nostalgia goggles, as I was one of the kids who loved their second album growing up (and can still recite the lyrics to a lot of the songs on that album off the top of my head), but I just find myself thinking this more upbeat sound is arguably a lean towards a more universal audience, which is not a bad thing on paper, but seems like an odd move to my eyes. Bear in mind, Good Charlotte were arguably the pop punk idols for the outcasts who were bullied by people and people who had had hard lives, so seeing them drop that angle, speaking as someone who was one of those people, is kind of an odd move. Still, I think they manage the transition well enough, so my comments are probably more nitpicking than anything else.

The band's performances...well, they're not going to win awards for being technically great musicians, but they get the job done. The only point where I feel suspicious about the performance on the album is in "1979": the fact that I can't seem to find any mention of the band playing the song live has me suspicious that Benji isn't able to play the song live, which seems odd when you consider how he sounds capable of playing it very well on the album version of the song. I know I normally don't through this accusation out about stuff, but this is one of the rare times where I find myself wondering how much studio magic was needed to make that sound right, especially since the riff basically replays throughout the whole song without any major changes to it that I can notice (it even sounds like it was played the same way every time, for goodness sake!). Anyway, suspicion about that aside, I still have to give credit for Joel's lead vocals and Benji's backing vocals: they can still deliver very well on that front, although I don't think they'll ever be anyone's favourite vocalists by any measure.

On the production front...I'm not sure whether it's because I've become better at hearing the bass guitar in stuff recently or my ears have got so used to feeling like the bass is gone that they're surprised to recognise they're hearing something where they usually hear nothing, but I have to say the mixing of the bass, while still a bit quiet, is actually not that bad. It's far more prominent than I thought it would be from my memory of it! I would have liked it a bit louder, but the fact that I can hear it fairly well with the volume at between a third to a half of my speaker's maximum volume is good enough for me, especially considering it doesn't really do anything that exciting! The mastering, though, is still an issue: it's not bad, but I think it could have done with a slightly more restrained mastering job. Overall, though, the production is fairly good! Credit to everyone who mixed the album and a note to Ted Jensen to tone down the mastering volume a tiny bit. Also, say hi to Adam for me!

...Remind me to get out more and try to find a girlfriend: I clearly have too much free time if I'm able to make references to video games that non-gamers aren't going to recognise! Mind you, I do all of the stuff for my blog in my free time, so having less of that means less content...depending on how you look at this, that's either a good reason for me to save the girlfriend bit for a later date or a good reason to make it an essential priority!

Anyway, what do I think of the album? Well, it's got some solid songs and I will admit that it was nice to revisit it, but I wouldn't call it an album that's going to win over a lot of people who aren't already fans of the band, as there's nothing on here that strikes me as really being excellent. It's a very solid album and there's nothing that I'd really say is bad about it, but the lack of any really amazing songs stops me from really advising this album to anyone who isn't already a fan of the band. I will admit that my nostalgia for the band does mean that I will still listen to them and I will always have a place in my heart for the band, but, speaking critically, if you're not fond of the band, this album won't win you over at all and, if you're not familiar with the band, this album, while still very enjoyable, is likely to leave you going "How did these guys become so big?" That said, it's worth stressing that there's nothing on this album that is really bad: you could put it on comfortably in the background and never feel like you have to turn it off: the problem is that there's nothing that I'd say is really great about it.

Final Rating: 5 Out Of 10

An album that is an enjoyable listen, but with nothing that's really worth writing home about. Fans of Good Charlotte who don't have this should pick it up, but, if you're not into Good Charlotte, it is probably best to skip this one unless you're curious and can keep your expectations to a reasonable level. If you don't like Good Charlotte at all, this will not change your mind in the slightest!

Lordi "To Beast Or Not To Beast" Review

Lordi are a band who most people either really love or really hate. Understandable, considering part of their appeal is that they are well known for wearing monster costumes, but otherwise are somewhat typical hard rock done through a shock rock filter. While most people will have heard of them for "Hard Rock Hallelujah" and their win at the Eurovision Song Contest with it, the band are otherwise surprisingly underground in the UK: if you hadn't seen the Eurovision Song Contest back in 2006, you'd be forgiven for going "Who's Lordi?" when you saw the title of this review (and maybe even if you had: it was over 8 years ago, even hardcore music fanatics would be forgiven for not remembering that!) and assuming from the description I gave of them that they are basically Kiss meets Alice Cooper.

Well...you know what, you're actually not too far from the mark with that one! Although the identities of the members have not been publicly revealed by the members of the band (and I will not reveal the names that have been circulating the net: go look them up in your own time, if you're really curious!), it is claimed that the original line up of Lordi came together after a Kiss Army trip to Sweden and some claims indicate that the lead singer of Lordi was (and probably still is) the head of Kiss Army Finland. So, there's an undeniable influence from Kiss in the band's music. So you could sum up Lordi as a bunch of Kiss fans who also watch a lot of horror movies, if you really wanted to.

And...as much as I don't like Kiss much myself, I'm actually OK with that. Sure, most people will say that Lordi are only original if you've never heard of GWAR, but, even though it is my (unpaid) job to be a critic, I still have to point out that what Lordi and GWAR do for their image, to my knowledge, is actually a rather unique thing in this day and age: you don't get a lot of really theatrical bands doing stuff like this, so, if you ask me, there is room in this world for both Lordi and GWAR due to them being both rather unique.

...Well, assuming that GWAR can continue after the death of Dave Brockie.

Anyway, Lordi's overall history can be divided up into two periods: pre-Eurovision Song Contest and post-Eurovision Song Contest. Before their Eurovision performance, the band were just your typical hard rock band with three albums under their belt (November 2002's Get Heavy, April 2004's The Monsterican Dream and May 2006's The Arockalypse...which, incidentally enough, was released about a fortnight before the Eurovision finals!). These albums, by a lot of people, are generally considered to be decent, but nothing revolutionary and...well, for the most part, I agree with them. None of the albums are bad by any measure, but, if I'd been a decade older and reviewing the band before Eurovision, I'd have probably been inclined to say that the band weren't ever going to break through into the mainstream on the strength of their music alone.

And then Eurovision happened.

Post-Eurovision, Lordi's popularity went through the roof around the world. To many, this was the modern Kiss that the metal scene had been waiting for: the band who were going to be huge and urge in a new era of hard rock music.

Yet...neither of Lordi's first two albums after Eurovision had a huge impact. Don't get me wrong, they weren't badly received, but the general consensus is that they weren't as good as the band's first three albums. I can't attest how Babez For Breakfast sounds, but I feel Deadache was actually a slight step up from The Arockalypse. It had more songs which I return to compared to The Arockalypse, at the very least, which isn't necessarily a sign of quality (I have a surprisingly high tolerance for stuff that most people would call terrible), but is at least a sign to me that there was something about Deadache which I liked that wasn't present to my ears on The Arockalypse. Maybe it's just my fondness for stuff that sounds like it could have come out of the 80's...

Being honest, when I heard the single for To Beast Or Not To Beast, my thoughts were "Dear God, no!" I LOATHED "The Riff". In fact, it put me off the album so much that I didn't even bother to order it because I thought "This is just gonna be a waste of money". Granted, my financial situation was not great at the time either, so it's not like I was turning it down just because I hated it so much...

Yet here we are, over a year after this was released and with another Lordi album being recorded as we speak, about to review it. I must have been higher than a kite being flown on top of a zeppelin...right?

Well, let's find out!

First up, the cover art. One of the things that I will admit that is Lordi had prided themselves with having very cool artwork on their albums in the past...but this breaks that trend by seeming kind of dull. The problems boil down to two major things:

1. The colour pallet is rather limited, mostly going for varying shades of the kind of colour you see when you soak paper in tea. While this works for doing old fashioned writing projects (protip for students reading this: if you want to make a document look like old parchment, soak teabags in water and dab them across the paper!), it doesn't really work here, as everything feels kind of muted and faintly blends into itself. If you were to glance at this casually without looking closely, this would make no real impression on your mind.
2. The overall concept feels rather limited. While I will admit that the play upon Hamlet's famous speech is fairly clever, it doesn't really work properly as an eye catching cover because there's nothing really there to look at. This is more damning when you compare it to the band's previous cover arts, as it only stands out in how unimpressive it looks. It's not even one of those cover arts where you find more subtle stuff when you look closely and, as such, necessitates a close look to really be impressed by it: you pick up everything you need to upon first look.

Now, does this mean that the cover art is completely bad? Well...I think there was a potentially good idea here, but the execution let it down. I can imagine that this might have worked better had we the cover art been Mr. Lordi on a stage holding a skull while in a theatre where we spot all of the previous members of the band watching the performance (or looking menacingly at the audience), especially if we'd got a contrast in the brightness of the colour scheme between Mr. Lordi and the audience. Sure, it would have looked cliché, but I'll take cliché that is interesting to look at and analyse over boring any day of the week! Plus, there's no harm in embracing cliché if you're going to use it as part of your signature appearance.

Also, I like the new logo. Just wanted to point that out now.

Before I move on to the album properly, a minor complaint about the liner notes: the liner notes for the songs aren't in the right order when providing the lyrics to the songs. I suspect this is due to a last minute change, but I still have to ask why Amen has the lyrics for tracks 7 and 8 ("Happy New Fear" and "Schizo Doll") next to him when he's after Lordi in the liner notes, yet Hella has the lyrics for tracks 3 and 4 ("The Riff" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes") despite being the fourth person introduced in the liner notes. Everything else is fine, though, which is what leads me to suspect there was a last minute change that simply wasn't handled properly. I know it's a minor thing to get worked up about, but, if the liner notes are otherwise accurate (as they are, in this case), I cannot help pointing it out!

Anyway, that nitpick aside, let's move on to the music!

If there's one thing that "The Riff" did point towards that I was somewhat unsure about, it's that the band were going even heavier on this album then they had with Deadache (again, I can't attest how the band sounded on Babez For Breakfast). Which they did, but, luckily, not the extent that I was expecting: the only major change is that the band seem willing to embrace the more metal side of things, including a CRUSHING song in the form of "Something Wicked This Way Comes" that would have you wondering whether Lordi had been listening to Black Sabbath before writing this album. That isn't to say that the band suddenly sound like an extreme metal act, but it is fair to say that this album is less friendly to people who aren't interested in metal music that The Arockalypse and Deadache are. Personally, I actually like them upping the heaviness of their music on this album, as it reminds me a bit of the material I've heard from The Monsterican Dream, but I can understand why some people might be disappointed: heavier does not automatically mean better. That said, this heaviness doesn't sacrifice any of the recognisable things that Lordi bring to the table: you still have the instantly recognisable vocals of Mr. Lordi (the best way to describe them for people who haven't heard Lordi would be "Christian Bale's Batman with even more grit and singing like that"...although it's worth noting that Lordi pre-date the Nolan Batman films by several years, so this description isn't entirely accurate either!), the higher backing vocals that harken back to the 80's nicely (although they are used more sparingly here, mostly going for the lower ranged gang vocals that most Anthrax fans will find familiar), the keyboards that add a sense of dread to the proceedings nicely despite not really adding much musically and the lyrics which sound like they've been written by a bunch of killer monsters (appropriately enough...). That said, the band throw some new stuff into the mix which left me scratching my head on first listen: there are points when the band sound like they've taken influence from disco (although not in the music: it's mostly restricted to a few moments and the chorus of "Candy For The Cannibal") and some of the heaviness does appear to have sacrificed some of the band's ability to write catchy hooks: a lot of the hooks require a few listens to really catch you, which stands in noticeable contrast with some of the band's earlier material, which had you from the first listen. There also seems to be more of a focus on creating a horror atmosphere on this album compared to usual, which occasionally results in me wondering whether the band are trying too hard with the whole "We're monsters of rock" (terrible pun alert! TERRIBLE PUN ALERT!) thing. The ONLY song where I feel I cannot make this criticism is with the closing track on the album, "SCG6: Otus' Butcher's Clinic", and, even then, that's because I know the band put the track on the album in tribute to Otus (AKA Tonni Lillman, who passed away on the 13th of February 2012): if they'd put the track on the album while he still was alive, I would probably have had some stuff to say about it. In this circumstance, though, I feel it would best to simply let this song stand as a tribute to Otus without commenting on it. So yeah...free pass to that song out of respect to Otus' time in the band. The overall quality of this album is not bad, but, to me, it's no Deadache. It just feels like it's lacking a certain something to make it really great. I wouldn't say the band have lost their way with this album, because they genuinely haven't, but the album seems to be a case of the band not being sure they wanted to go for the heavier sound properly and, as such, they didn't go all out with it. To an extent, I can understand them not wanting to risk alienating fans, but it does mean things have a habit of feeling kind of awkward when they transition from stuff like "Something Wicked This Way Comes" to "I'm The Best". Guys, don't be afraid to go all out with the heaviness next time!

Moving to the lyrics...I will admit that Lordi have never been beacons of lyrical excellence, but some of the lyrics on this album just have me rolling my eyes. Now, I'll be fair, the band are Finnish, so it's understandable that they might not have the same grasp of what works well in English that most native English speakers do, but that still doesn't excuse stop some of the lyrics on this album from leaving me going "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!" Probably the finest example is "We're Not Bad For The Kids (We're Worse)", which has this for a chorus:

Make your mommy cry
Daddy blows his mind
Listen up and learn
We're not bad for the kids, we're worse
Make them take offence
Taint your innocence
The first time always hurts
We're not bad for the kids we're worse.

The worst part? I don't think those are the worst lyrics in that song. That would be the pre-chorus:

All you little children have gone out of your minds
Don't wanna read no history, let's practise some biology

I swear to God that I am not making those lyrics up! Again, I get there's a language barrier, so I can't really be too harsh, but how can anybody with even a vague understanding of English look at those lyrics and not find them to be badly written? So yeah...some pretty bad lyrics on this album. For the most part, though, Mr. Lordi can sing them with enough conviction that it's tough to really dislike them when you hear them. It's only when you actually look at them that your mind starts going "WHAT IS THIS CRAP?!"

The band's performances aren't going to surprise anyone familiar with the band's previous work, but, for the benefit of those not familiar with the band, I'll sum the band up: they're not the best musicians out there, but they're get the job done. About the only member who I would say has any distinctiveness is Mr. Lordi due to his relatively unique voice, but that's not to say the rest of the members are bad: they just don't stand out much when you compare them to other musicians out there. Really, that's the best way to put in: in their genre, they aren't especially unique, but that doesn't imply a lack of talent, merely that they do not do enough to stand out on a technical level above most of the other musicians in their genre. While I'm OK with this (at the end of the day, I just want to hear a good song, I don't particularly care if it's a technically demanding song or not!), I can understand a lot of people not being impressed with this.

Moving to the production...you know the drill if you've read this blog before now. Bass is too quiet for my liking and...wait, the production is not actually that loudly produced?

...Oh wait, my speakers must be down too low.

...Nope, they're the same level as usual. Let's check with something else...

...OK, that definitely sounded louder! But what...

Has...has someone actually been paying attention the loudness war complaints and done something about it?

...Damn. I'm not sure what to say now.

...OK, I guess I can say that this is a rare case of an album that sounds powerful without being ridiculously loud on the production front. This has the power needed for hard rock and metal, but the overall loudness of the album is actually surprisingly restrained! Seriously, the only thing that's really missing from the production to have me declaring this one of the best produced albums I've heard from 2013 is the ever present lack of bass (that must be rather weird to read...) that plagues modern metal albums. Seriously, though, on a production front, I think this album is just great! Complaint about the relative silence of the bass aside, I cannot draw any complaints about this album's production! Kudos to everyone who worked on the album apart from the mixer(s), I guess...and the mixers only don't get credit from me for the bass issue, I otherwise think they deserve a lot of praise!

So, final thoughts? Well, this is a far more enjoyable album than I expected it to be! It's hardly flawless, but, if you don't mind very commercial hard rock with shock rock themes and can cope with some horrible lyrics, this should be right up your alley! It's a very fun listen if you like this kind of thing and, for an album that I was expecting to hate from the single of it, it's hard to deny that there's some really good tracks on it. It's hardly reinventing the wheel (even if Lordi HAD been reinventing the wheel when their debut came out, the fact this is their sixth album means that what was once unique has become typical for the band), but hey, there's nothing wrong with doing stuff that's just fun! While I (and most critics) will want to see bands reinvent the wheel and will be disappointed when they don't, I know that there's nothing wrong with a band doing stuff that, while not original, is still enjoyable, which I think is one of the things Lordi excel at: they're the perfect combination of Kiss and Alice Cooper, and, so long as they keep doing that, I'm OK with that!

Final Rating: 6 Out Of 10

A good album which suffers from a lack of originality, some poor lyrics and some strange decisions in the songwriting, but gets through it all with enough of a sense of fun that it's hard to really dislike it. If you like commercial (if surprisingly heavy) hard rock with shock rock elements and an element of fun to it, this should be worth checking out. If you're opposed to anything which is not completely straight faced, this will not win you over. Lordi fans who haven't picked this up should do so, but, if you don't like Lordi, then they probably won't win you over with this one.

Personal Favourite Tracks: "Something Wicked This Way Comes", "I'm The Best", "Candy For The Cannibal" (although in a guilty pleasure kind of way!)