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I know it’s been a while; I’m very aware. Call it laziness, call it writer’s block, call it procrastination. I call it all of those. However, I’m back. Yay.
It was in my full intentions this past Thursday night to go to The Spot, see a friend of mine perform in a burlesque number, and get as many beers as possible for my open-bar-fee. Once I’d had…however many I’d had…and my friend performed, I was just killing time as a band started setting up. I wasn’t really expecting much, seeing as we were in a small upstairs bar with a small upstairs stage in the midst of a small upstairs drunk audience. However, the venue matters not in the case of genuine art, and I was reminded of such a fact as the band started playing. I, in my drunken yet excited state, listened to the first song for a while, then yanked out my planner, grabbed my notepad, and started jotting. I would soon find out that this band’s name was Blah Blah Blah and their music would be right up my alley.
Normally, especially while imbibing alcoholic beverages, I listen to unfamiliar music and nit-pick at it, finding any and every aspect about it I don’t find in my favor so that I won’t have to bother with it. Pessimistic? Yes. Not with Blah Blah Blah. Their carefree approach to their music turned on me and I couldn’t help but bob my head along with the sun-soaked guitar strings laying out a plethora of flitting sounds from the amplifier.
“It’s as if someone opened your soul and poured sunshine in it,” replied band manager JA Powell when I asked him how he would describe their sound. Read more »
Regardless of their pleasing-to-everyone quality and the fact that I disliked it as first, old-school Panic! had me bobbing my head after 3 or 4 listens. So, in listening to this album, I expected to be pleasantly surprised by a song or two. After stomaching as much as I could, my sentiments are: Why the fuck do people bother? Why must the music industry be plagued by so-so, vomit-inducing, drabble, hand-job pop bullshit? Money talks, that’s why, and it’s frighteningly apparent on this drink-coaster of an album.
Don’t worry, folks. There’s no need to Panic! Just relax and exit quietly. I don’t even think they’ll notice. Back in the ! days, these guys actually had some kick to them. On Pretty. Odd., along with the famed exclamation point, everything Panic had going for them dissolved. It seems to me that they stopped panicking and started accepting their imminent demise. This stuff isn’t catchy pop like Yellowcard or Kelly Clarkson (I’m not saying that’s good), it’s pop in the predictable, rice-cake-bland, “blah, blah, blah, we’re famous musicians and we’re going through the motions” pop (I’m not saying that’s good either).
Scary brain-freeze fact of the day: this album was recored in Abbey Road Studios. Pull all of your flags to half mast.
Pretty. Odd. What a name. Other possible names could have been: Shitty. Period., Dumber. Because. Of., Money. Wasted., Blandly. Spectacular., Mindless. Non-Entertainment., We. Sold. Out…Even. More., Sadly. Predictable., No. Worth.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the “meh” feel of this album is going to matter in overall record sales and Billboard charts. People will still buy it and Panic’s concerts will still sell out. It’s a shame. I think something in me just died.
Album: Pretty. Odd.
Release Date: March 25th, 2008
It’s been since ‘97 since Portishead put out new stuff. They succeeded in watering our plants when they put out the recording of Roseland NYC Live in ‘98, but then all was quiet on the Western Front. Now. Finally. New stuff from Portishead, recorded and ready for the eager ears of the trip-hop band’s many fans. Where’s the weed?; let’s go. Kick ass, right? Kind of.
The first couple of songs light my fire with their classic elements. “Hunter” does the trick of old-school Portishead with Beth Gibbons’s haunting droning and that trapped-in-a-vast-dark-open-room sound; that slow melody with little hints of percussion that I love so much. However, with the exception of 3 or 4 other songs, this album is a swing and a miss in Portishead standards.
Most of the songs start off on the right track, but last way too damn long without anything changing. Songs like “Deep Water,” “The Rip,” and “We Carry On” are okay, but they don’t fit in with the rest of the repertoire the ‘head has given us in the past…virtually at all, especially “Deep Water.” They sound like they should be on attempts by other projects of Gibbons, Barrow, and Utley, not a Portishead album.
The worst part of all is that there is almost a complete absence of disk scratching. That was half the fun on Dummy and Portishead. Some samples are present, but sound distant and are few and far between.
The saving grace of this album is “Plastic.” It reeks of old-school stuff, so much so that it could be thrown into the mix of the two previous albums without a notice. Plus, the “boomerang” sound in the fray just kicks ass. All in all: One thumb up, one thumb down. It’s Portishead alright, but not as much as the one we all know and love.
Album: Third
Release Date: April 28th.
In light of the interest I’ve seen lately in the total awesome-ness that are metal album covers, I’ve decided to compile 10 from memory and collection for the sight-thirsty public. These covers are a mix of favorites, most brutal, most metallic-ly artsy, most gruesome, etc. Enjoy.
Leviathan by Mastodon. This album rocks on its own, but the cover is unbelievable. All of Mastodon’s album art is like this, but this one just wins. It just wins.
Whoracle by In Flames. Pay attention to detail on this one; there’s so much going on. I, for one, feel rather bad for the little girl on the lower right hand side.
Deliverance by Opeth. It embodies creepy. It’s got all of the classic elements of eerie: old bed with smiling doll on it, dark lighting and lots of shadows, and some dark figure in the reflection of the mirror to the left of the clock to the left of the bed.
One Kill Wonder by The Haunted. How about that.
Versus The World by Amon Amarth. How epic is that? In the context of the picture, I don’t think it possible to be more epic.
Master of Puppets by Metallica. It’s my favorite album by them and it’s got some serious artwork. It should be in a museum.
The Great Cold Distance by Katatonia. I dig the red lighting, the shading, and the melancholy of this cover. The album emits exactly what the cover conveys. I just like it.
Metal Magic by Pantera. How cool is this cover? If southern metal would have existed in 1975, this is what a typical record sleeve would have looked like.
Reign in Blood by Slayer. The album itself has been deemed “The heaviest album of all time” by Kerrang! Magazine. Quite satanically explicit for 1986, huh?
Tomb of the Mutilated by Cannibal Corpse. Truth is, there isn’t one cover by these guys that isn’t violently grotesque and eye-popping. This one just…just…just somehow stands out in the mix. I mean, had you ever thought about a half-rotted zombie going down on another before seeing this?
So that’s that. Metal rules.
I bought this album completely by mistake. I thought I had clicked on another album on my trusty Amazon (come on, I can’t find anything anywhere else and Metal Haven moved from Lakeview to the West Side). It wasn’t until the package finally came in that I realized my fatal mistake. “Eh, fuck it,” I mused to myself, opened it, and tuned in. I was pleasantly surprised.
It’s good stuff in the sense that it feeds that craving churning inside of you to have heaviness pounded into your ears. In reality, Divine Heresy is just another version of Killswitch Engage, complete with the ripped African-American vocalist. Heresy is heavier, though, with darker intent and angrier mood. That’s what I would expect, though, from former Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares, who’s big Mexican frame birthed the Divine Heresy brain-child. The guy lives for crunching metal, having been a “team leader” of Roadrunner’s anniversary compilation Roadrunner United in 2005.
Listening to this stuff with good headphones is like being relentlessly kicked in the head by one of your best friends. It’s that damn double-bass drum. Sometimes, drummer Tim Yeung goes a bit too slap-happy on the blasted things, making it sound too sporadic. All in all, the guitars are unrelenting, the bass is from the pit of the gut, and Tommy Vext’s vocals are fierce…up until he breaks out of the grind and slides into the singing. The band is at times extreme, at times light-hearted, and at times downright poppy. Wanna branch out and discover new sounds? Skip this one. Wanna get lost in crunching metal riffs and ultra-fast drums? Listen to The Haunted…then pop this one in.
This shit’s out there. I don’t know whether to like it or hate it, to be honest. This gray area is in a gray area of its own.
It’s stupidly obnoxious! I’ll be loving a song and then something Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard do with their sometimes live, sometimes sampled vocals will make me abhor the whole thing. Then, out of nowhere, a part of the song will become some odd variation of what sounds like a Russian folk-dance song and I’ll like it again.
Things that are downright embarrassing to listen to are songs like Shake A Fist. The song starts off well enough. It tosses its likable qualities at you like coins from a wishing well. Then, for no reason, in the middle of the song, a little do-dad from a band member pops up about a “little game” he invented called “Sounds of the Studio.” Apparently, we’ll need our headphones for this one, folks, so it’s gonna be intense. Some may call what follows “super fun” or “playful.” I call it masturbatory. The deejaying is great. The random hawk-like nerd screams mixed in are pro-wrestling-quality greatness. That level of “greatness” could be avoided if the odd-ball samples could be cut.
Obviously, there are losers on this album. However, much like any high school in history, there are winners that stick out like sore thumbs in the bunch. Interpret that from any standpoint that fits your fancy. I like a good portion of the songs, regardless of the fact that I probably wouldn’t listen to them more than once a random glance on the iPod or so. Hold On is a stand-out.
There’s a hefty amount of songs to try out. Made In The Dark fits right along with the other Hot Chip releases. I’ll wander a guess that when you’re stone cold sober, it just doesn’t work. Stoned, it works fine. My take on these guys is that they are to British indy music what Monty Python are to British humor. What you do get, you love, but what you don’t get just confuses the shit out of you.
