Not much good news to report this week. I know, I know, that's been the norm for this year. Anyway...
Rise Against - Ricochet
A lot of Rise Against fans have not been fond of their recent output. I am not one of those, as "Wolves" was the first album of their I had heard, and I've been very fond of that one, "Nowhere Generation", and especially the "Nowhere Generation II" EP. Maybe the band wasn't as raw and aggressively punk as in their youth, but the rough edges around the clean productions was a perfect blend to me. They were clearly angry and disappointed in the state of the world, but they wanted to make sure we heard the message they were trying to get across.
That sort of fails with this record.
The production of "Ricochet" is more raw, with buzzing guitars that contain uncomfortable frequencies, and vocals that do nothing to assuage the concerns I've seen that Tim McIlrath's voice is close to shot. He sounds more strained than ever; damaged, not angry. It sounds like a band scouring their record with sandpaper to obscure what the polish would reveal.
That isn't helped by the songs, which simply don't have the same hooks as before. The sound hinders things, yes, but no production would make this as energetic and hooky as "Wolves" was. There's too much time spent in slower tempos, too many bits where the guitars don't have power if they were even there at all, and too much aimless shouting.
Now watch, I'm sure because I'm disappointed in this record, it will be the one to win back the old fans who had been complaining all along.
Ellefson-Soto - Unbreakable
As I skimmed through this album, it felt like a perfect mirror to an experience I had on the golf course a few days ago. I almost got hit in the head by a ball, and the person who struck the shot never yelled the customary "fore" to warn me. When I stopped him and told him he had almost hit me, rather than say a quick "sorry" so we could all move along, the first words out of his mouth were "shit happens". No, shit only happened because you failed to do the courteous thing.
Why do I mention that? Because when looking at the track listing to this album, and seeing these two writing songs calling people sons of bitches, singing about hating others, and having backing vocals chanting a refrain of "fuck you", the whole experience reeks of that same kind of immature selfishness. Soto was part of the fantastic W.E.T. album earlier this year, but I continue to be unimpressed when he isn't being handed songs by more accomplished songwriters. I don't know if he or Ellefson is responsible for the parts here that turn me off, but either way he signed off on singing these songs.
These are two guys in their fifties, and they come across sounding like two frat bros who can't find their favorite flavor of Monster down at the 7-11. They're able to record an album with impeccable production, which obviously takes time and talent, but then their lyrics sound like they were scribbled in the margins of a high school notebook. Am I the only person who expects, or even wants, just a little bit of maturity from the middle-aged musicians I'm listening to? I hate when writing a few words about a song or album gives me the impression I've put more thought into what they're saying than they did themselves.
To paraphrase the old line: Am I too old (at heart) for this shit?
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