Singles Roundup: Geoff Tate, Foo Fighters, Rexoria, & American Vanity

No pretext, let's just jump in this week.

Geoff Tate - Power

One of the things we have the 'pleasure' of looking forward to is a third installment of the Operation: Mindcrime storyline. Now, given that the second one was already poorly received, and Geoff Tate has been shredding his own reputation with everything he's released in the last twenty years, I'm not sure what, other than the prospect of the name bilking money from a few sucker fans, gave anyone the idea we wanted another episode.

Still, the first track is now out, and anyone hoping for a return to glory is going to be feeling jilted like someone standing at the alter when their betrothed has fled the scene. These three minutes encapsulate everything wrong with Tate's music for many, many years. The chorus is trying to be an anthem without being memorable. The gang chanted "Power!" sounds pretty weak, his "the world is whatever the fuck I want it to be" is lazy writing, and his vocal gives me pause. When Tate works with Avantasia, he sounds far better than when he works on his own. Interesting, no?

It's definitely more interesting than this song, which just exists. For all the flack "Frequency Unknown" took at the time, it at least gave us one really good song in "Cold". I don't think he has that in him anymore.

Foo Fighters - Caught In The Echo

Dave Grohl mentioned that the upcoming album was the result of finding a thread in the noisy instrumentals he had been recording. Noisy... that is the right word. Dave is getting lost in his affection for fuzz again, with the hazy guitar tone pushing everything about his writing into less accessible territory. He's back to writing more angular riffs, screaming more, and eschewing the charm that made Foo Fighters into as big a rock band as exists. This song is definitely better than "Your Favorite Toy", but they both point to the same problem, which is that Dave has spent too long focusing each album on a theme/gimmick, rather than making one when he has a batch of songs that need to be recorded/released. 

For a long time, Foo Fighters sound like they write songs because they have an idea for how to record, rather than recording because they have an idea for what to write. It's a backwards way of looking at music, and it's led to a long time of feeling disappointing to these ears.

Rexoria - Break The Wave

Power metal is a stale genre, but certain bands are able to cut through that. Rexoria did with their last album, which made my year-end list, and featured "Faded Rose", which is one of my favorite metal songs in years. A new album is coming, and the first single has arrived. What it tells us is that Rexoria isn't messing with what works. Everything about this song sounds like a continuation of what they were doing on "Imperial Dawn". The tempo has just enough kick, the guitars just enough crunch, and the chorus hit hard with  's powerful vocals. They aren't reinventing anything, but they don't need to. When you do it this well, it's clear why the old standards are the old standards.

American Vanity - Poison In Your Cup

What has been noticeably missing so far this year is anything of note coming from the emo scene. Everything I've been hearing has either leaned heavily into screaming, or has taken the post-ironic tact of writing the most boring songs possible, because engaging music isn't sad enough, or something of the sort. What makes this song so great is that American Vanity is tapping into the best bits of emo, alternative, and pop/punk to fuse jaded irony and justified anger into two-and-a-half minutes of fist-pumping elation. They understand how to craft a song that invites us in to join the pity party, rather than ask why we don't want to look at the art they painted with their own blood. A little bit of fun makes it much easier to hide our sinister desires, and maybe the target of the song won't see it coming when it runs them over. Good stuff.