Author: WashiestNebula

This week’s album review is for the fifth studio album by metal band Otep (also written as OTEP). Being a band that usually deals with political lyrics, this marked a change, as they used more religious based lyrics, and lyrics revolving around facing one’s fears. Most of the lyrics did, however, continue using the spoken word poem format of front-woman Otep Shamaya (who more often than not writes the songs out as poems before putting music to them).

The album, titled “Atavist” gets its name from the word atavism, or “the tendency to revert to ancestral type”. Think people in the modern age acting in the same manner of their ancestors. Steampunk is a good example actually. This ties into much of the lyrical content of the album, specifically the song “Atoms To Adam” (Adam being of biblical fame, and supposedly human kind’s oldest ancestor).

Usually on Otep’s albums, there are a few melodic style songs that are released as singles, and are more often than not “catchy” (examples being “Confrontation” and “Smash The Control Machine”). This album did not have such melodic songs, and was in itself a throwback to the band’s earlier albums, “Sevas Tra” and “House Of Secrets” most notably (this is yet another example of atavism used by Shamaya).

Instead of being melodic, the album brings a sense of brutality (which was actually really awesome) and anger (which is used quite well to fuel the brutality), mostly directed towards the lyrical themes (religion and fear). However, the one constant that “Atavist” does continue is the inclusion of spoken word poems on the album, namely “Baby’s Breath”. The album also has a solid length, coming in at just short of an hour, which is becoming more and more rare.

However, even with the clever musical ideas and continuation of what makes the band itself, the album was, as a whole, simply “meh”. It was hard to tell when one song was over and when another began, and only a few songs stuck out, one being a cover of “Not To Touch The Earth”, by The Doors.

So though it was a creative album, and held to what makes Otep “Otep”, the album wasn’t nearly as good as it could’ve been, and I’d have to say it ranks about third best out of their five albums, sitting behind “The Ascension” and “Smash The Control Machine”.

Overall rating: 2.5/5

Top picks:
“Drunk On The Blood Of Saints”,
“Remember To Forget”,
and “Fists Fall”

Forgetting to remember,
-JC

This week’s review is for the sophomore album from California based Rapcore band, Hollywood Undead. Titled “American Tragedy”, this is a much more serious and political album than their first (which was ironically titled “Swan Songs”). Says vocalist Johnny 3 Tears about the album’s title, “The “American Tragedy” refers to the concept that many American youth grow up believing in certain ideals which are discovered to be false upon entering adulthood”
 
Their reasoning for the album’s growth in style is quoted by Johnny 3 Tears as “”When you write songs, you’re very sensitive to what is happening in the world, and I would say that we have incorporated into the song much more than what we see around us at this time. It is hard to write happy, cheerful songs, when 14 percent of the population [is] unemployed.”
 
This is the first album without former vocalist/bassist Deuce, who was kicked out in early 2010, and features more of a rock oriented feel than the humorous rap that was on the first. Critics have compared it to “Downward Spiral” era Nine Inch Nails, but I believe it falls more into the early Linkin Park style due to its balanced mix of both rap and rock, its hip-hop beats layered over metal-ish instrumentals, and just the overall feel of the album.
 
The album opens with one of the heavier songs on the album, “Been To Hell”, a song that’s a great example of the style change, and just one of the many songs that stuck out. However, just because they’ve gotten more serious doesn’t mean that they haven’t left the old Hollywood Undead behind. For those of you who were fans of that style, “Comin’ In Hot” and “Gangsta Sexy” are the songs for you.
 
Also, this album features many guest spots, including guitar work from John 5 of Rob Zombie, and drum work from Will Hunt of Crossfade/Black Label Society and former Drummer for The Used, Dean Butterworth.
 
Pluses for the album? Great example of positive style change, they kept their sound while getting heavier, the album actually has a decent amount of tracks (14!), and it keeps the listeners on their toes. Very much worth a listen or two.
 
Downsides? The slower songs, “Pour Me” and “I Don’t Wanna Die” are a bit dull, and a bit angsty, and the vocals don’t flow as smoothly as they could’ve.
 
One other notable point on the album is the track “Bullet”. It doesn’t have any of the elements they ever used before, and I found it to be a very…odd track. It might just take time to grow though.
 
Overall rating – 4/5, just barely missing out on the 5
 
Key Tracks: As hard as it was to narrow it down, I’d have to go with “Been To Hell”, “Hear Me Now”, and “Coming Back Down”.
 
Part of the American Tragedy,
-JC

This week’s review is for “Disguises”, the follow-up album to post-hardcore/horror-punk band Aiden’s 2009 hit, “Knives”.

Now I loved their last album, and just from the demos and previews that were released, I was excited about this release. This marks the bands fifth studio album, and eight release overall (six of those coming from Victory Records).

Recorded in Seattle, Washington by lead singer WiL Francis at his personal recording studio, “Disguises” continues the fast, raw, evil sounding style of “Knives” and shows Aiden doing what they do best: Making an Aiden record. They don’t sound like any other band, they use their own style of horror-punk mixed with angsty (in places) and religion-based lyrics (in other places).

Since such little info was made available about the album (aside from some lyrics), I was unable to do my usual background gathering, and therefor have to go off of listening alone. And that listening brings me to believe that because of the fact that each song has similar themes and often repeated words and subjects, this album tells a story. But that’s not to say that it’s a concept album, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see Aiden do something like that.

Starting off with the album is the short track “The Devil’s Eyes”, and even though it has an Atreyu-style riff, immediately launches into the haunting group vocals that has given this band their well-known sound. From that point on, it’s speed and creepiness all the way til the ending track, “Radio”,  which sees the band veer off and play something slow and calm, which is unusual for them. But the way it sounds reinforces the story idea, mostly because it SOUNDS like something that would be used to end a story.

As a whole, the album doesn’t show any evolution from the band, as it’s the same style they’ve always played. However, it DOES take elements from all four of their previous albums, and that’s a definite plus. The punk instrumentals of “Our Gang’s Dark Oath”, the speed of “Nightmare Anatomy”, the powerful lyrics of “Conviction”, and the catchy, upbeat feel of “Knives”.

Downsides from the album would have to be the amount of background noise on a few of the tracks, often making the vocals hard to hear, and another common theme in today’s music: short album lengths. “Disguises” clocks in at just under 31 minutes long. Such a short album leaves the listener wanting more. My solution? Listen to this and “Knives” back to back.
In the end though,even these points aren’t enough to make me think less of the album.

Where would I put rank amongst the rest of their studio albums? I honestly can’t say.

Total rating: 4.5/5

Key tracks:
“Horror Queen”
“A Portrait Of The Artist”
“Walk Among The Dead”

Yours evilly,
-JC Stade

When You’re Through Thinking, Say Yes

This week, I’m reviewing the seventh studio album from Pop-Punk band Yellowcard. The album, “When You’re Through Thinking, Say Yes”, gets its title from a text message sent from lead singer Ryan Key to a girl, and is the band’s first album since their reformation a few months back. The band had put themselves on a hiatus in mid-2008 until the individual members could figure out their personal lives.

This new album marks not just a new beginning for the band, but it also marks Yellowcard’s debut on Hopeless records, most of their previous releases being through Capitol Records. Capitol released 3 of their studio albums, including their break out albums “Ocean Avenue” and “Lights And Sounds”, the latter being arguably their most well known.

Enough background though, let’s get on to the review.

“When You’re Through Thinking, Say Yes” starts off with the band going back to their punk-ish roots, the opening track opening with super-fast drumming that don’t allow the singing even a chance of catching up and sounds very unlike Yellowcard, and then in the same song, changes to them playing slow and melodic. Most people would find the transition interesting, however, I found it boring and sloppy. Luckily for them, this is the only spot like this on the rest of the album.

However, that’s not to say that the rest of the CD is “flawless”. To be brutally honest, it doesn’t even sound like a studio album. To me it sounds more like a Pop-Punk mixtape, with the band trying to see how many different styles they can play in 37 mins (The answer is quite a few). They manage to play a bit of blink-182, Simple Plan, Plain White Tees, Less Than Jake, Green Day, and some Sum 41, with a little of their own music thrown in along the way.

Since they DO include their trademark violin use (if in only 2 or 3 songs), there’s another way to describe the album, and that’s as a B-Side compilation from throughout the band’s career. But that’s not to say it’s not a good album, just not a GREAT one. Yes, it lacks originality. Yes, it sounds as if they were trying too hard to make a comeback. But at least it’s decently catchy, and in the Pop-Punk genre, that’s really all you can ask for.

Would I have liked them to stick to what they’re good at? Yes. Am I glad that they were actually willing to try something new? Yes and no. But at least the band’s back together, and that means there’s more to come in the future!

Amongst their seven albums, I’d put it as third or fourth best, mostly because I don’t know a lot of their early stuff.

As for an overall rating, 3/5 sounds about right to me.
Key tracks: “For You, And Your Denial”, “With You Around”, and “Soundtrack”.

Still thinking,
-JC
 

Stealing Fire

Released: March 15, 2011

This week’s review is for the 4th studio album by Los Angeles based punk (or “lovecore” as they call themselves) band, Boy Hits Car.
 
Out of all the reviews I’ve ever done, this band is probably the least known. To the fans they DO have, they are most notably known for their songs “As I Watch The Sun F*** The Ocean” and “Lovefurypassionenergy”, the latter being used as the entrance theme for former WWE Diva Amy Dumas (aka Lita).
 
Often criticized for their unique vocals and mixture of styles, modern punk fused with Middle-Eastern, Boy Hits Car has used that adversity to consistently put out listenable albums. Are they fantastic albums? Not really. Are they different? Very much so. Does this one break the mold for this unique group of musicians? We shall see.
 
The new album, entitled “Stealing Fire”, was released through Nuclear Blast Records, a label that more often than not deals with death metal bands. As far as I can recall, this is the only non-metal album they’ve released. I could be wrong though, so don’t take that as fact.
“Stealing Fire” continues the band’s ongoing musical theme of “blending soft and passionate lyrics with hard-hitting music, often having lyrics about the elements of nature, and how one can possibly attain ascendancy by becoming one with such elements”.
 
This was their first album in 6 years, with vocalist/guitarist Craig Rondell being the only remaining member. The first new track from the album was titled “Dreams” and was released a couple years prior to the albums release, much like the same thing Industrial-Metal band Dope did with their song “Nothing For Me Here”. The single release of “Dreams” and the album release contain almost no noticeable difference (other than name change), creating an interesting “what-if” situation for listeners. “What if that song received such positive feedback that they decided to stick with that style and perfect it til they were 100% comfortable releasing it?” In this listener’s opinion, it’d make a lot of sense, and be one hell of a good move on their part. The question though, is did it pay off for the rest of the album?
 
There are very few stand out tracks on the album, making the time effort seem almost pointless. Perhaps the band should have focused more on specific songs rather than all of them, seeing as it didn’t work out as well as it could have. As much hatred as this is going to bring me, Axl Rose’s “Chinese Democracy” comes together as another example of this situation.
 
Should they have striven for excellence? Yes, always. Is there a point where it seems as though they’re trying too hard? Also yes.
Exceptions on this album ARE there though, it does in fact have some decent songs, and one GREAT song. And the mixture of sounds is something that never hurts either, seeing as though most bands are seemingly afraid to try something different.
 
However, none of this should deter listeners from giving this band a chance. If you want something different, something unique, give them a try. Maybe not this album (I’d say it’s their 3rd best overall), but definetly their 2001 self-titled release.
 
What’s my rating for the album? I’d say 2.5/5
(I decided to stop rating things out of 10, seeing as though it was getting to be a bit too difficult).
 
Key Tracks:
“A Madness Called Love”
“Stealing Fire From The Sun”
“Dreams (of Foreign Metabolic Circumstance)”
 
Wondering how you’d steal fire from the sun,
-JC

“Going Out In Style”

Released: March 1, 2011

Everyone knows that St. Patrick’s Day is in March, and as a result, I chose to do a review for the new album by Boston based Celtic-punk band, Dropkick Murphys. If you’ve never heard of Dropkick Murphys, you’ve at least heard their song “I’m Shipping Up To Boston”, If this hasn’t rung a bell yet, well I’d say it’s safe to assume that you live in a bloody cave.

With that said, it’s best to move on to the review. So I’ll start with general background info.

“Going Out in Style” is the seventh studio from Dropkick, and the release of it marks the longest gap between two Dropkick albums, the last being 2007’s “The Meanest Of Times” (Arguably their second best album, the first being “The Warrior’s Code”, obviously).

This album also showed a change for the band, seeing as how it was a concept album, and for once, that wasn’t the main drawing point for me (The main drawing point was the fact that I’m a big Dropkick fan…). Aside from being a concept album, “Going Out In Style” featured HUGE guest-spots in the form of the one and only Bruce Springsteen on the band’s cover of “Peg O’ My Heart” and NOFX’s Fat Mike on the title track.

The story behind the album is that of an Irish immigrant named Cornelius Larkin, who the band created through the band’s own personal experiences and family folklore (all members of the band are descended from Irish immigrants). According to bassist/vocalist, Ken Casey, “Cornelius has passed on to the other side, and the album becomes a retrospective of his life”. The album is unique in the aspect that the story can be examined from two points instead of one: the Irish immigrant’s first person account of his own wake, and the band’s in depth interpretation of his life and lineage.

As for the review of the album’s sound, it’s really hard to actually do a review for an album like this, since it sounds almost exactly the same all the way through. At times it was hard to determine which track I was listening to, with the exception of the key tracks (which I’ll get to later). I hate to have an album rely on it’s story alone, but in places it feels that’s exactly what “Going Out In Style” has to do, which really draws points away from the album. The story itself isn’t exactly “weak”, but it doesn’t exactly keep the audience’s attention.
What the album does WELL though is never letting up, not having any slow songs, and in my opinion that’s how a punk album should be. The different vocal styles that give Dropkick their part of their sound are done well, and the guest-spots do a nice job of spicing it up a bit.
I think hardcore Dropkick fans will enjoy it thoroughly without a second thought.

If I had to rank it amongst all of their albums, I’d prolly have to place it in 4th, 3rd going to 1999’s “The Gang’s All Here”
As for a rating for the album, I’d feel bad giving it anything below a 7, so I’m gonna have to go with 7.5/10. I was hoping for more, but after the last 2 albums being such a huge success, it just came down to the pressure being too much. At least that’s MY opinion. Listen for yourselves friends.

Key tracks were…
“Going Out In Style”, (which to me was one of the best songs Dropkick has ever recorded),
“Take ’em Down”,
and “Peg O’ My Heart” (The mixture of Dropkick and Springsteen is to die for, seriously.)

Attempting to go out in style,
-JC

“Downtown Battle Mountain II”

Released: March 8, 2011

This week I’m reviewing the new album from post-hardcore band Dance Gavin Dance, “Downtown Battle Mountain II”. This is their first album with their original line-up since 2007, and I have to say that hearing lead singer Jonny Craig once again with DGD is absolutely wonderful.

Jonny Craig had left DGD due to personal issues with the band members, and has since found success both on his own, and in post-hardcore group Emarosa.

For those of you who have never heard of DGD, they are a very unique band, with a very unique sound. Not a lot of bands can mix the amount of styles/genres they use and still sound great. The genres include (but are not limited to) jazz, funk, soul, metal, progressive, and obviously post-hardcore. This was the first album to include a bit of hip-hop into the mix, if only on one or two tracks.

The easiest way to describe their sound is this: Take Fall Of Troy, throw in some At The Drive-In, and add just a dash of Protest The Hero. So if you like any of those bands, this is something you should definetly check out.

This fourth album continues of from where they left off on their second, four years ago. It has the same sound, the same feel, just not as catchy.
Starting off the album is a pretty upbeat track, “Spooks”. It’s not as heavy as the rest of the album, but the moment when you first hear Jonny Craig’s vocalizing is almost unforgettable. Mixed together with the screams of Jonathon Mess and the rapping of Will Swan, it sends a message to the listeners: DGD is back.
Following “Spooks” are another 10 songs that are (in their own ways) just as amazing. The only time the album lets off the gas is on the last track, “Purple Reign”. Nice wordplay, right?

There’s really no easy way to review this album except to use really simple terms, such as “not their best, but not their worst either”. If I had to place it among their 5 releases (Yes, I’m counting the first EP in this), I’d have to say it’s the third best, behind “Downtown Battle Mountain” and “Dance Gavin Dance”, simple due to the fact that none of the songs have the same feel as those albums, and aren’t nearly as catchy as classics like “Uneasy Hearts Weigh The Most” and “Turn Of The Lights, I’m Watching Back To The Future”.

The most common metal-head question is, of course “is this album heavier?”. And in places, it is, but not so much that it draws away from unique soul-style of the clean vocals.

All in all though, it sounds more like a crossover between them and Fall Of Troy than anything else, though it is good to hear the original line-up once more.
A great album? No. A terrible album? No. A Dance Gavin Dance album? Yes. Even if it does remind me of Fall Of Troy.

Rating: 7.5/10

Top picks:
“Pounce Bounce”,”Thug City”, and “Elder Goose”

Off to watch the battle,
-JC