The Chainsaw Buffet

Lordi review went up today. Really fun stuff, 80s arena metal with a monster theme. Another highly recommended release. (click here for review)

I'm very confused. Several Echoes of Eternity reviews went up this week. No, I'm not confused that they went up. I'm confused at the fact that they were very positive! For those unfamiliar with the band, they sort of sound like what Lacuna Coil would sound like if Lacuna Coil were American, and really boring with no songwriting ability. I saw them live, and reviewed their debut album for the upcoming issue of Outburn, and both experiences were beyond underwhelming. Live, they had no real stage presence or interesting musical dynamics, and were buoyed only by the fact that their singer is quite attractive. On record, the lack of dynamics and riffs and anything really memorable at all presented an even bigger handicap. Maybe their sophomore effort will be better, but they aren't there yet. I know I'm not the only one -- consensus on a critic message board I post on seemed to range from indifference to outright hatred. However, a sampling of the first four online reviews I came across, as you can see above, seem to have been far more impressed by their listening experience. Am I just cynical from hearing tons of bands that sound like that? Is my quality radar that far off? Am I the only one that can see past the hilarious publicity photo of the singer baring her cleavage like it's under inspection or something? Or is this simply a matter of differing tastes? I would say it was the last one, but I generally like that sort of thing! As Dio once said, it's always a mystery. Being fairly confident in my own taste and opinion, I would be remiss if I didn't warn you: it is not a good record. Stay away.

Dominate the Human Strain

Novembers Doom review is up. General gist of it: fantastic death-doom. Highly recommended. (click here for review)

Meanwhile, went to the Lamb of God/Trivium/Machine Head/Gojira tour last night. Gojira were good, although the crappy Wiltern sound sucked out a lot of the nuances, leaving it just sort of a rumbling din. Machine Head were fantastic as usual. No surprise there. Lamb of God still fail to interest me much. I like the idea of the band. I just don't like their music. Good energy, but nothing grabs me.

The really illuminating performance belonged to Trivium. Now, I've seen them live before, touring off their last record. Seeing them play stuff from The Crusade live, though, crystallized my thoughts on the band's new direction: they're basically like a bunch of kids playing "thrash band." They ran around on stage like excited puppies, wanting the audience to love them. The new songs were a lot of fun, retarded lyrics aside (DRAGON!), but it struck me as sort of like going to see an 80s metal cover band. However, after seeing the songs live, I do like the album more now that I've sorted that out for myself. Unless there's someone obvious I'm not thinking of, it seems like they've basically invented pop thrash.

Dead As You Die (REVIEW)

Mendeed - The Dead Live by Love (Nuclear Blast):
Mendeed's first one was a blatant Shadows Fall rip, but their latest is more of the Children of Bodom/Dragonforce speed power-death/Nintendo-Thrash/ADD-overdrive variety. So much so, in fact, that the 99-track copy protection on the promo makes it difficult to tell when one song ends and the next one starts. Pretty well done, though, and they avoid Dragonforce's biggest problem, in that the vocals actually fit with the music by alternating between growling and singing and Mustaine-whining when the tempo calls for it. The band's ambition only occasionally over-extends its reach, so most of the wankery isn't too embarrassing. The songs themselves, however, hew closer to the Dragonforce "wow that was cool and fast and I don't remember a damn bit of it the second it's over" style than the Bodom catchiness-first approach. Mendeed do try for big vocal hooks. The hooks just don't stick. "Gravedigger" probably comes the closest, with its "Reap what you sow!" chant. Not particularly original or memorable, but a very enjoyable listen. Fans of Children of Bodom or Dragonforce should dig this, big surprise. It makes great workout music!

You've Got Another Thing Coming

So, new Judas Priest record is not only a concept album about Nostradamus, it might be a twofer! That pretty much means that that thing is doomed to horrible flaming failure. Very few bands have successfully pulled off concept albums, even fewer double albums. Pink Floyd, who caught the great white whale and made an excellent two-disc concept album, are the obvious exception here, but Pink Floyd understood something that a lot of modern bands just don't: the story is always subordinate to the music. If you have a truly great, fascinating story that you absolutely must tell, and it isn't served best by setting it to music, write a damn novel. Musicians are obviously most comfortable working within the realm of music, so when they have the need to get these epic stories out, they go with a medium that just might not be the correct one for their vision. The Wall works because it's about, you know, a musician, so setting it to music was the right choice. Same with Ziggy Stardust. And, even though those have stories, the stories don't get in the way of the music. You can enjoy the songs individually without ever hearing the entire record. Hell, you can hear the entire album without even knowing that it's supposed to be a concept album. As much as I love Priest, and as great as their individual story songs are, I just don't think they're approaching this concept album with the right attitude. But hey, I would love to be proved wrong.

Tonight We Ride

So, for my first actual post about music, I figured I would tackle the title and address of this blog. Alert Blue Oyster Cult fans will recognize that said labels both come from, well, Blue Oyster Cult. Why the fascination with azure mollusk fanatics? Well, they were one of the first bands that I sort of stumbled upon following the inevitable "wait, Dave Matthews Band and Hootie & The Blowfish sort of suck, I wonder what else is out there" revelation. I mean, besides the obvious stuff like Black Sabbath and Guns and Roses. This was a band that I found myself! Well, I probably found it through hearing the song "Godzilla" in a great music video on the late, lamented TNT show Monster Vision, but you get the idea. That lead me to believe that they were a joke band, but I purchased the excellent two-disc anthology Workshop of the Telescopes on a whim, and loved it. Hell, by this point I've worn out the second disc, the one with all their poppy stuff on it. Basically, what I love about Blue Oyster Cult is that they were probably the smartest 70s hard rock/proto-metal band. Alice Cooper was clever, sure, Black Sabbath were scary, Deep Purple more overdriven, KISS bigger dumber fun, Led Zeppelin just more, but BOC were the most articulate and intelligent lyricists. Plus, they had great tunes and hooks, definitely a bonus. It probably helped that they had music critics and brilliant sci-fi/fantasy author Michael Moorcock writing for them. Unfortunately, they were probably too smart for their own good, to the point of obtuseness. They should have put on makeup and sung about girls instead. Probably would've been much bigger.

Relatively recently, Columbia started re-issuing their albums, so I decided to start with Agents of Fortune, i.e. the one with "Don't Fear the Reaper." I don't have much to say about this record that Chuck Eddy didn't cover in his essential book Stairway to Hell: the 500 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe, but I highly recommend it. Spring for the reissue, which has an extremely catchy early version of "Fire of Unknown Origin," and a pre-cowbell, hippie-dippy demo of the megahit mentioned above. The cowbell was, indeed, an excellent choice.

(And please don't leave "More cowbell!" comments. They are neither clever nor funny.)

Music, Music, I Hear Music

So, first post in what's supposed to be my respectable music blog. I have a live journal, but there's a lot of stupid personal stuff on there that nobody cares about. So, I made my way to blogger for my music journaling needs. For those unfamiliar with my (not) vast body of work, I write for Outburn magazine, Transform Online, Metal Eater, Campus Circle and soon Lambgoat. Recently, I've decided to embark on a project to familiarize myself with, for lack of a better phrase, groups that I should be familiar with. One of my friends remarked that my CD collection was embarrassing, and while I wouldn't go that far (if I was reviewing Britpop, I would hang my head in shame, but as far as hard rock/metal goes, it ain't bad at all), it never hurts to expand your horizons. So, I will be reporting on my discoveries here, and talking about music-related stuff that I don't have a forum for elsewhere. I'm sure you're looking forward to it.