Album Review: Adam Jensen - Hymns For The Damned

"I hate myself," Adam Jensen sings before the chorus in the opening song, "Cellophane". It's a bold statement to make on the first song of your debut record, which if you're like me is the first time you've heard anything from him. To set the stage of your record as being one of working through your self-loathing, you're telling the audience that this is not a record traveling down the arc toward the end of a rainbow. We're going to be digging further into our psyches, not our bag of self-deluding tricks.

The soundtrack to these thoughts is not of the more predictable, gothic sort. There is no gloomy melancholy of shimmering darkness, but rather a sound I would describe most accurately as 'grungy power-pop'. The guitars bristle with a thick fuzz of distortion, but the songs settle into catchy melodies that turn this record into, if you pardon the pun, fitting music for a pity party. There is an almost upbeat sense of fun to the suffering contained in many of the songs, which is something you can only understand if you are of a certain mental disposition.

"All my friends are dead or in my head," he sings on the second track. Most people have no idea what that feeling, metaphorically speaking, is like. I am one of those that does, and the spirit of that song carries a lot of weight with me. The mere act of writing these words is in a way proof of that, as I am more or less talking to myself about all of this. We who are so afflicted either write songs that become like friends, or we write characters that stand in for the people who are no longer around. I was recently commenting to someone that characters from sitcoms are a more constant presence in my life than most of the people I've ever known, so I understand where Adam is coming from.

As the record continues on, I'm torn on whether it more resembles Andrew WK's party rock filtered through the misery of we who possess social idiocy, or if it is the ultra pop-ified version of Nirvana that Kurt Cobain was fighting to prevent. When "Champagne Vein" opens with a riff that sounds like an inverted "Smells Like Teen Spirit", that connection was impossible for my brain not to grab hold of. In either event, there's something unique about this record that is hard to explain to people who don't see the world the same way.

Perhaps the best way is to say that with Adam's voice resembling that of Ryan Adams, this record is what Ryan's attempts at rock and roll would have been if he thought himself to be a piece of shit, rather than him being the only one who didn't realize it.

One of the interesting aspects of this record is that with so much fuzz on the guitars, this is a record where fidelity doesn't matter much. Listening to a pristine stream is powerful, but there's a gritty realism if the quality isn't quite there. It's almost like watching a restored version of an old movie, enjoying all that you couldn't see in the version you grew up watching, but still finding comfort the experience of the blur.

There has been a bit of a theme this year where my favorite albums have been dealing with how we process and persevere through the difficult times that are difficult to get out of our heads. We can be our own worst enemy, and often we think what Adam sings on "I Will Only Bring You Down". This record is not going to be for people who are happy, or who only want to be exposed to positivity. This record is thirty-three minutes of self-reflection that doesn't try to paint over the fact that things are not always what we want them to be.

But if you're one of those people who remembers all of the bad times more vividly than the good ones, why not remember them in the form of some memorable rock songs?

Album Review: Coyote Man - "Prosthetic Memories"

There’s a whole bunch of music exploding out of Chicagoland lately, up to and including our previous review of the Afrofuturistics.  One can only hope that there will be more and more, and that this becomes a new developmental scene, the like of which we’ve not had since the eruption of Montreal, circa 2009.  

As for Coyote Man, the (largely) instrumental power prior from the Windy City, they’ve dropped their new full-length on the world, Prosthetic Memories. It promises to carry the freight for artistically-leaning instru-metal through a combination of creative blending and well-practiced sensibilities.

Cutting to the quick, I wish there was more to this record.  To come to the band’s defense in some regard, it’s hard enough to write one instrumental, let alone an album full of them, which is likely why we see so few artists attempt it (John 5 and Mountain of Wizard notwithstanding.)  It’s a tricky enterprise, trying to tell a story without words, often best left to the Tom and Jerry’s of the world, which can lean into the visual medium to help move the narrative along.

And all that is to say that Prosthetic Memories starts off with great promise - lead single “Coping Mechanism” begins something like an irradiated “Baba O’Riley,” as though the 45 single of the latter song were played on 78 (kids, ask your parents, or possibly, sigh, your grandparents, what the hell we’re talking about.)  The aural similarity is complete and convenient enough that it must be intentional, yeah? A lovingly tongue-in-cheek tribute to one of the most distinct album openings of all time.

From there we go into “War Hatchet,” which moves with a nice pace, and then the central chug that might as well serve as the refrain for the piece rocks with the same cadence and thump of Static-X’s “Push It.”  To the degree that it’s uncanny.

Sigh…therein lies the rub with Coyote Man’s new album - they’re at their best when they sound like somebody else.  

The remaining tracks are fine for what they are, but as discussed, it’s damn hard to write an album’s length of compelling instrumentals, especially in the absence of a true hook or gimmick.  To use the artists referenced above, John 5 has his obvious virtuosity, and Mountain of Wizard is catchy and creative, stretching into all the corners of blues-based rock with a clean guitar tone and memorable licks.  

Coyote Man is shooting for something more ethereal and cerebral than that, a sound more akin to the (probably forgotten by most,) progressive metal band Prototype, but in the absence of a vocalist to convey a central theme, Prosthetic Memories finds difficulty holding attention.

Just when you think damn, this needs a singer to push the narration, one appears for the final song “Faith in a Burning Room”…but it doesn’t really make a difference.  The die have been cast at that point.

To circle back, Prosthetic Memories isn’t a band record - it just needs more. There’s a lot of meat still on this bone that Coyote Man could have explored.  Their talent and capability are unquestionable, but for this record, they’ve not found an inspirational footing.

EP Review: Afrofuturistics - The Enigmatic

Do we here at BGM know the first damn thing about jazz?  I don’t want to speak for Chris, but I’m going to say the answer is a resounding ‘hell no!’ (Although despite what some fans may say, I know enough to say that Angine De Poitrine is jazz, thereIsaidit.) Now, do we here at BGM know the first damn thing about hip-hop?  I’m gonna throw Chris under the bus here (sorry,) but while I’m sure he’d say no, I’m going to say yes!  While not as well-versed in those arts as I am in metal, I can say I have supped at hip-hop’s bounty.

Why the hell are we talking about this at all?  Isn’t this the space where I normally would talk about some gore-soaked overdrive fest, with art and themes about human depravity and the wanton destruction of the universe? Yes, it is! (Is that a raincoat?  Yes, it is!)

But not today.

It’s important to get outside the comfort zone.  To that end, today we’re taking on the debut EP The Enigmatic from Chicago jazz-hip-hop fusion combo The Afrofuturistics.  And man, is it fun.

The EP has a bunch of novel features to talk about, all of which add up to a cohesive whole.  As mentioned, jazz may not be the strong suit around here, but groove sure as shit is, and The Enigmatic has groove in spades.  The beat of opener “These Things Happen” is catchy enough, but dig down and tune into the rhythm, and there’s a saucy, thick bass line in there that subtly establishes the hook and never deviates while the vocalists above it create.

The low tones featured throughout the twenty-eight minute runtime of the EP are the central star, which means yes, as thoughtful as the lyrics are (more on this in a minute,) the music is really the focal point, which just goes to remind that this is a jazz album first, and everything else second (never mind the instrumental pieces.)  There’s an additional twist, though - conventionally, brass tones are used to brighten a piece, to make it prouder and more bombastic, but in the case of the title track, The Afrofuturistics make them sound uniquely dour and almost threatening.  This only serves to highlight the airy, ethereal saxophone interlude all the more.

The lyrics, and their delivery, are thoughtful and well-parsed.  This is more Saul Williams than DMX, with references sprinkled through both modern (DraftKings) and dated (Alanis Morissette and Calgon, which I’m not sure they make anymore.)  Still this is part of the novelty of the EP as well, as briefly discussed before - the lyrics are nearly secondary, or at least companion to the music, rather than the fixation of the exercise.  Even so, the bars we get to enjoy are a refreshing change from the false bravado and repeated cadences so pervasive in modern hip-hop, and they’re delivered in a slow-burning style similar to…well, does anyone remember Camp Lo?  They’re the closest analog.

There you have it, then.  If you’re looking for a different flavor to get you through the rest of the summer, try out The Afrofuturistics.  And if you’re unwilling to expand your own horizons and try something new…well, I don’t know what to tell you.  Must be a boring life.

"Falling Apart" Requires Having Been Whole

Great songs are the ones that echo through our lives, so connected to our thoughts and emotions that we never hear the pulses fading as the particles begin to slow. Those songs become a part of us, forming pathways between the head and heart that define the ways we think, the ways we feel, the very ways we are. Great songs are rare, because few things can weave themselves into the fabric of our souls without the colors beginning to clash. These songs stitch us up when we are bleeding, they hold us together when we have come undone.

I felt that connection with Dilana's song "Falling Apart" the very first time I heard it through the artifacts and distortion of low resolution video. Like most things in my life, I knew there was something special slapping me to grab my attention, but it would take time before I could understand what it was, or explain it to myself. My life is a history of seeing things only in the rear-view mirror, as the inverted images make more sense to the tangled wires in my head than reality does as it unfolds.

In the first verse, Dilana sings, "one day I'll repair broken thoughts in my head/I pinch my skin, there's no feeling". Around the time this song came to be, I was convinced I had no feelings of my own. This was not stoicism in holding down what was stirring under the surface, but a perceived lack of the emotions I knew were supposed to be present. That was made evident during an episode in college when someone noted my lack of reaction to our 'near death experience' that was nothing of the sort. I realized then that I was quite different than everyone else, although I did not know the extent or reason just yet.

My thinking was broken, and remains broken, but with new and unique cracks keeping the pieces from holding together. Being an unintentional contrarian is not easy, as people begin to turn away when you can't experience life the same way they do. Most don't have the time or patience to try to understand the alternative, which creates a distance difficult to overcome, if those people don't outright deny my experiences are real at all. Being told my memories and feelings don't exist has been a mind-fuck I have struggled with, because I already struggled to believe myself.

Dilana is the person who has lit the torch with which the depths of my soul have been explored. Without her, I might still be that person going through each day letting life bounce and slough off me. Perhaps that would be better than the way things often are, but it would be less authentic, and less of the truth. Dilana has performed miracles in helping me to understand the person who hides behind the snark and flattery I protect myself with. Through these songs, yes, but also as a dear friend.

She goes on to sing, "chasing after what's never been real/tell me why do I feel un-together". Our stories are as divergent as possible, but we both feel that same sense of longing to believe happiness is more than bait tempting us from inside a trap. Love and dreams are prayers we have, but they are answered by people and not God, and only by those few who can see and hear the same frequencies of life we do. What is real are the people who know your heart and soul without needing every detail of the story, the ones who ask nothing but to be a source of support. Feeling together comes from being with those people who see the broken shards not as shrapnel, but as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that creates a beautiful visage.

The second verse brings the lines, "I'd burn the sky so you could find your way/you'd leave me here in the dark, pleading". Her imagery is evocative, and if that flame is St Elmo's fire guiding our way to each other, it is very much akin to a line I wrote once about the sun being the reason to chase the horizon. Dilana is that light for me.

Being able to sing with your soul is a special quality few vocalists possess. Dilana is one of them, her voice bleeding truth with every note. The weariness and pain of life are evident in her hushed tones, and her defiance to let that define her powers her earth-shattering belted notes. Her stature compacts her soul in a fusion reaction so it can explode from her in a burst of cosmic magic. If Dilana is a star, her voice is the stardust that shines in both the light of the sun and moon. Those different colors show the yin and yang, the light and dark, how there is as much beauty in wiping a tear off your love's face as there is in making them smile. I've had the fortune of achieving one of those.

Then we reach the song's chorus:

"I'm not falling in love/I'm falling apart
Am I getting confused/Because I'm losing my heart
I'm so bloody fucked up/I don't know where to start
Sick of hurting/I tried so hard..."

The crux is contained in these words. Many of us are fucked up, because fate and fortune do not bless us with every gift. Some people are given love without effort, others the inability to tell the difference between love and proximity. Both can be better than wanting love and knowing it hasn't come along, knowing how rare a discovery it is. We try our best to be authentic people, and to love ourselves for who we are, but there comes a point when we need someone else to see us the same way we hope to see ourselves. That isn't selfish, it's a search for confirmation we aren't delusional about who we are and what we are capable of. To be loved is not just a feeling of affection, it's a feeling of acceptance as the people we are. That can mean more to us than any other form of success.

But sometimes we reach a point where we feel so broken down and bruised that we can't see how someone else will ever love us as we currently exist. The light in our eyes is dimmed and shielded by the dark circles, so all that remains is, as I wrote in a song, "the echo of the sun". When that point comes, trying again feels as if we are condemning ourselves to be Sisyphus pushing our heart up the mountain, only to watch it collect dirt as we have to gather it up again.

The answer is sometimes as simple as having one person who sees this not as a flaw, or a problem to solve, but as a fluke of the universe. When you have someone who accepts the totality of you, and loves you for it rather than in spite of it, you don't have to try. That doesn't always happen, but when it does, the questions don't seem to matter anymore.

That is who Dilana has been, and what this song has meant to me. For these years, "Falling Apart" has been a song that has let me feel seen and accepted. That would be enough, but the fact Dilana has become a person who has done the same is the best evidence I have seen that love does in fact exist. I have doubted it, and I still doubt it, but that is what "Falling Apart" lets me think I have felt.

What song could have done more?

Ranking The Edguy Albums

After nearly a decade of silence, we recently got word that Edguy is returning, at least to the stage. They will be playing in their hometown next year in what sounds like a goodbye performance. What isn't clear is if it is a one-off show, the beginning of a small farewell run, or if there will be some amount of new music to coincide with the event. Edguy is the band that started me down the road of all the European rock and metal I've covered over the years on these pages, so it's bittersweet to think they could be done before I am.

With them on my mind, today seems as good a time as any to look back at their catalog and try to assess how they fit together. I'm surprised I never got around to doing this before, so let's see just how divergent from the consensus opinion my rankings are going to be.

1. Tinnitus Sanctus

This one is an easy choice, and a controversial one. The fans were not kind to this record when it came out, and I fully understand why. This was Edguy taking a heavier and darker turn, perhaps trying to keep pace with how power metal was starting to evolve, and it didn't work for everyone. I think it was brilliant, as the tones played well off Tobi's penchant for absurdist humor, to the point where you hardly notice one song is about God creating the aardvark. I'm not sure if the poor reception led to Edguy being shelved in favor of Avantasia, but this is the record I keep coming back to. 

2. Theater Of Salvation

The first Edguy album I heard might be their magnum opus. This was when they had mastered the art of traditional power metal, but were about to grow restless with the conventions of the genre. "The Headless Game" was a signal of the more straightforward groove some of "Mandrake" would take, while the title track pointed toward Tobi's desire to make something bigger than the standard. You can't have Edguy without "Babylon", and you can't find a better example of where Edguy started, and why they needed to evolve.

3. Rocket Ride

Another controversial choice, I realize. This album was when Tobi laid bare any pretense of Edguy being serious, instead filling the album with lyrics and performances that felt more like a parody than an artistic statement. The comedy doesn't all land, but it's wrapped up in a set of songs that revealed Tobi's mastery of the craft. He delivers a diverse set that is unrelenting in their infectious melodies. Even as ridiculous as "Trinidad" or "Fucking With Fire" are, the melodic writing was a step above all Edguy's peers.

4. Mandrake

This could have been Edguy's best album, if Tobi had restrained himself. The quasi title track is a metal anthem for sure, while "The Pharaoh" is Tobi's best epic, and "All The Clowns" is the prototypical song that works even when it shouldn't. The problem is that Tobi shrieks his way through "Nailed To The Wheel" in a way that becomes painful, and "Save Us Now" takes the cringe to a level I can't tolerate as he writes about his drummer being an alien. The good is as good as Edguy ever was, and I prefer to focus on that.

5. Age Of The Joker

This album goes under the radar, because it doesn't have any true highlights of Edguy's catalog. It also doesn't have any of those moments that make you turn away in horror, which makes it the most... boring of their albums? Perhaps so, but it is a consistently enjoyable trip that delivers plenty of songs that got overlooked among their earlier classics. I'll challenge most any power metal band to write a better song than "Fire On The Downline". For that to be Edguy's middle ground proves their worth.

6. Savage Poetry

I'm counting the re-recorded version of the album, which is one of the few times a band actually made an album better by doing it over again. This record is power metal to the core, but it showed Edguy understood melodic writing in a way many others didn't. Despite being so early in their career, they were writing the best ballads in the genre, and even the epic swing hits harder than it should. If any Edguy album has been rising in esteem for me, it's this one.

7. Vain Glory Opera

The three song run of "Scarlet Rose", "Out Of Control", and "Vain Glory Opera" might be the best in the entire catalog. Those three songs are amazing, and only highlight how the rest of the album can't match that level. The rest is good, but not quite as good, and the buzzy guitar tones makes the album sound dated in a way their others don't. Things are also hurt by the ending of the record, where we get a weak ballad and an Ultravox cover, which doesn't leave the best taste in my mouth.

8. Hellfire Club

I loved this album when it came out, but it hasn't aged very well. "The Piper Never Dies" is still one of Tobi's best songs, and "King Of Fools" still crushes, but some of the traditional power metal feels too trite, and the song written about 'morning wood' is a joke taken too far. I let a lot slide because of my fondness for Edguy, but that one isn't a good enough song to abide by the inanity. What's worse is there was an EP that came out at the same time, and it had a few songs that absolutely should have been on the album instead. I still remember that disappointment.

9. Space Police... Defenders Of The Crown

The last Edguy album showed the band running out of gas. It had a few great songs like "Do Me Like A Caveman" and "Realms Of Babayaga", but it also had a few weak attempts to write standard power metal, and a god-awful cover of "Rock Me Amadeus". That is the absolute nadir of their career, I do not apologize for saying. But I'm still glad the album came out, because the closing "The Eternal Wayfarer" would have made a fitting end to the Edguy story, as it is one of my favorite Tobi songs. Unfortunately, it stands alone on this album.

10. Kingdom Of Madness

But the worst Edguy album was always going to be this one. Their first released album, this came too early for Edguy to have found themselves. The writing was not yet developed, and the band was so young the guitars and vocals hardly even sound like themselves. I can understand that it's a rough draft of the band Edguy would become as they figured themselves out, but that doesn't mean I ever want to listen to it again.

Singles Roundup: Tony Iommi, Sailor Hunter, Sheri Moon Zombie, & Kelly Clarkson

Let's just jump straight in today: 

Tony Iommi - World Alone

After the passing of Ronnie James Dio, Jorn Lande sang with Heaven & Hell at the tribute show, which led to much speculation that he would be the perfect singer if Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler wanted to carry on. That didn't materialize, but the chatter must have made an impression, because Tony has recruited Jorn to be the voice behind his upcoming solo album. It's an interesting choice for him to work with someone new at his age, rather than team up with a familiar partner like Glenn Hughes or Tony Martin once again. Jorn has the voice, obviously, but is the combination going to have the same spark as with Dio?

This song doesn't really answer that question. Once the initial surprise of hearing Tony and Jorn working together wears off, we're left with a song that doesn't feel like what I would expect of a first impression. There isn't one of those immediately memorable and singable Iommi riffs to power the song, and Jorn doesn't provide a melody that is easy to grasp onto. What we have sounds like a song from the album Heaven & Hell made before Dio's passing, only without Dio's personality to add more color to the dark atmosphere.

Jorn has spent so much of his career putting himself in the mold of Dio that to hear him singing with Iommi is almost too on-the-nose. There are songs on some of Jorn's solo albums that sound like him writing his own versions of Iommi/Dio tracks, and that's what this also sounds like. Because Jorn has spent so much time as a Dio acolyte, copying this very style, it makes this first-time pairing already sound too familiar. Don't get me wrong, I like this song, and I love Jorn's voice (for the most part - but I'll get into that when the album comes out), but he's hard to get excited about hearing these days.

Sailor Hunter - Error

On their latest single, Sailor Hunter return to their blend of crushing guitars and dynamic vocals, punctuated with bits of symphonic grandeur. With lyrics that talk about fighting against the control the forces of the world try to cage us with, the band is in full control of their power. The playing is tight as the guitars chug the deep riff under the expanded sonic rainbow. It's a controlled fury that gives Dimitra a canvas to explore the range of her vocal abilities. She belts the choruses with just a hint of grit, jumps into classical notes to highlight the melody, then unleashes a passionate scream toward the end. Metal, when not careful, can sometimes be one-note, but she ensures Sailor Hunter has layers to explore on every song.

There are days when it feels like every aspect of our lives is being sold off to the highest bidder, so they can use data and algorithms to herd us into the mold that makes them the most money. To be human is to resist that shepherding, to embrace the lack of control anyone else has over our own lives, and that we sometimes lack over our own as well. Being human is making mistakes, is finding our way through the chaos, is making our own path regardless of what others recommend for us. That is what "Error" is reminding us, namely that as long as we survive, we are winning the battle. Songs like this definitely help.

Sheri Moon Zombie - I Love My Robot

I find it rather funny that as the world digitizes and catalogs the entirety of existence in storage, finding information only seems to be getting harder. I say that only because I don't know if Rob Zombie is still a big enough act to justify the existence of this song. I hear almost no discussion about Rob anymore, so I would be inclined to think his time as a musician of note has come and gone, but it wouldn't be the first time I am out on an island when it comes to these things. I suppose I'm just trying to figure out how much I blame everyone involved for thinking this was a worthy pursuit.

I don't want to pile on Sheri too much, since I wouldn't be surprised if Rob was behind this whole thing, but it is her name on the song. Rob has been engaged with horror concepts and horrible comedy for years, but this takes it to new levels of annoyance. Yes, it's only two minutes, but it's two minutes of the same kind of annoying claptrap pop that birthed "ABCDEFU" and "Apt", and plenty of other songs that think "Mickey" was the highest form of musical composition. It's repetitive, annoying as all hell, and the sort of song that a notable label should be embarrassed to be promoting.

Worst of all is that it is yet another song about AI, written about not wanting to turn everything over to AI... but sounding like it was written by a fairly poor AI. The 'story' of the lyric is the conflict between not wanting to give AI control over the choices we make that fuel and entertain us, but still wanting a robot vacuum to clean the floor. It's not a thrilling concept to begin with, but it's written with no depth at all, which leaves it as flat and vapid as the 'horror girl' trope who gets killed off early in movies like the ones Rob makes.

"It goes a zoom," Sheri sings of her Roomba. I'm not sure I can express how much I hate this. It's even worse than when Rob massacred The Munsters. Ugh.

Kelly Clarkson - I'd Be Lyin'

My days as a pop music fan are far enough in the rear-view that I'm not sure I can name a single song that has been a hit in the last decade other than "Flowers" and the Taylor Swift catalog. We moved in different directions, and I'm not necessarily complaining about that. I'm from a different generation than who that music is aimed for these days, and I shouldn't relate to it. That would be as weird and creepy as when people my age are trying to find dates at high school graduations.

The only time I'm really bothered by the shift is when I hear someone I was honestly fond of who has tried to keep up with the trends, and doesn't exactly sound like themselves anymore. Kelly Clarkson made perhaps the best pop album of my lifetime with "Breakaway", and slowly drifted toward the more generic and manufactured sounds that dulled my interest. That makes it interesting that this new song, while not a return to that particular era, does bring back enough of her older sound to remind me of better days. This is less "Breakaway" and more "All I Ever Wanted", which is still a-ok in my book.

I've always loved Kelly's voice, and hearing it put back in a context with more organic instrumentation highlights all of the texture and color in it. She sounds as good as ever singing this song about getting over an unhealthy relationship, either with or without the help of alcohol. This is a sound that matches our ages, and feels more authentic than adopting whatever the youngsters are doing. For that reason alone, this is my favorite Kelly song in many years. I can only hope it means something bigger in this style will be coming our way. I would honestly love that.

Album Review: Combichrist - The Venom In The Mouth Of God

Today, class, we’re going to use an exceptionally nerdy analogy to help define what Combichrist’s new album The Venom In The Mouth Of God both is and isn’t.  Bear with us - the analogy is painfully arcane, but works in the context of dealing with an industrial record.

In recent years, electronic music has become pervasive in the mainstream as well as on the fringes - both in the sense that digital programming and electronic sounds are being incorporated into compositions at an increased rate, and that in some cases, electronic entities themselves are writing the music (see the current controversy with AI artists breaking through the country music charts.)  With that comes a sense that the music should be brighter, springier, more energetic, as electronics so often take us into higher registers and up-tempo beats.

Here’s where the analogy starts - there is a sense that electronic music is a late-era Gundam - agile, accurate, festooned in bright colors and blazing across the sky at a nigh-unbelieveable rate.  Combichrist, by virtue of being an industrial band from back before the proliferation and ready access of electronica, is a lumbering OmniMech; a seventy-five ton Mad Cat (or Timber Wolf,) of teeth and forward-facing visceral power, painted in unforgiving gunmetal gray. 

Ever since the band composed the soundtrack for the video game DmC: Devil May Cry, there’s been a theory that the band has slowly moved more toward metal and away from the straight industrial they cut their teeth on.  The culmination of this was 2024’s excellent CMBCRST, which one writer on these pages named the Album of the Year.

The Venom In The Mouth of God, slams the gears into reverse, and takes the band back to thundering basics.  It is not until halfway into the album with “Rise” that the band even hints at the metal that forged so much of the three albums before (we remain convinced that it was coded into the Geneva Convention and Vatican II that every industrial band has to write a song called “Rise” or “Risen” or “Rise Up” or some such.)  

While those metal hammers get dropped now and again, that’s not really what The Venom… is about.  The album wants to be sparse and haunting and deadly, a brooding monster with a fission core that threatens with every ponderous stride and shadow of presence.  While the songs at the outset prove the attempt, it’s in the back half where the record really flashes its jagged fangs.

No song on the album more proves Combichrist’s (and ideaman Andy LaPlegua’s) skill at composing in this vein than the questionably mature “S.T.F.U.” (not just a John Cena maneuver anymore!) This is one of those rare songs that shouldn’t work, but does - it is, ironically, kind of a strange cousin of Fear Factory’s ill-conceived “Back The Fuck Up” from 2001, a stream-of-consciousness quasi-rap that has no business being as well assembled or catchy as it is.

It sets the stage for the rest of the album, where, as odd as this sounds, Combichrist composes a series of beat poems on steroids, with LaPlegua as the cybernetic Allen Ginsberg.  Again, should this work?  Maybe not, but listen to the venomous undercurrent of “The Way We Want To Be Seen,” and try to find a crack in the armor.  LaPlegua has always had this in him; the ability to set introspective missives on personal anguish and impermanence to a cinematic beat (thinking of “Bottle of Pain” from One Fire,) but he really takes the chains off for this album and leans into the style.

What the listener takes away from The Venom In The Mouth Of God, will really come down to what side of Combichrist is preferred.  Those who exclusively believe the band’s best material has been in the their last three albums may well find this a harder journey, where those who lament the band ever straying from their roots will rejoice.  Either way, the fact remains that the album’s final eight songs will take the listener on a journey of steel and fire and discontent, with nary a beam saber in sight.

King Diamond: Give Me A Break... Please

If you've paid any attention to the news over the last decade-plus, you'll be familiar with the concept of distraction as strategy. When you have not lived up to your promises, you throw out anything you can to distract people before they reach their breaking point. People engage in that behavior because it works, as our attention spans have become too short to hold a grudge any longer. Case in point; look at how many 'canceled' celebrities have managed to come back into prominence without actually having a moral reckoning.

We are getting one of those moments right now from King Diamond. It was recently announced that guitarist Andy La Rocque has left the band after forty years, being replaced by Gus G. A lineup change on its own would not be a big deal, except for the fact that King Diamond notes he and Gus have been working on a cache of new material. Um... what about that album that has supposedly been close to done for years now?

Something smells fishy here.

Let's think about this for a moment. If the album was in any stage of completion, Gus would not be in a position to contribute much if anything to it. King writes concept albums, so the songs have to not just exist, but be structured and ordered in a way that fits the narrative of the album. To throw in a random Gus riff, or song, would be to destroy the flow of what has been written merely to include the new guy.

Unless... the album has never been close to being finished, and King Diamond has been lying to us for years.

When the first promise came and went, a delay was understandable. But when those delays went on year after year after year, it became harder to see it as an honest run of bad luck. The final straw came, I believe, when La Rocque put out a record with his side project Lex Legion just a bit ago. That record felt and sounded enough like a King Diamond album, and came together quickly enough, that it was a slap in the face of King Diamond not being able to put an album together over all these years.

That record laid bare the delay was entirely on King himself, as the band was ready and able to put together music at any moment. In response, not only is La Rocque no longer in the band, but King is giving the impression an entirely new album is going to be put together without him. None of this makes sense, does it?

Unless, as I said, we revert to the reason I'm talking about this at all today; honesty.

Musicians owe us nothing, except for honesty. They can make whatever music they want on whatever timeline they want, so long as they aren't conning us. I know the creative process can be slow, or there might not be inspiration at all anymore. If it takes longer to make an album, that's fine. If there aren't going to be more albums, and you tell people, that's fine too. I have plenty of respect for Billy Joel saying his heart wasn't in it anymore, and not making another album to this day.

Where I lose respect for people is when they lie to us. Plenty of bands have lied to us about retiring, only to come back, and it pisses me off. Motley Crue made such a show of their retirement that I can't believe how quickly people were willing to forgive them so they could see Vince Neil sucking oxygen as hard as his voice sucks these days. Candlemass announced they were never going to make another record, only to come back as soon as the other projects never took off in a way that would make money.

This announcement, and the implication it has been in the works for a while if King and Gus already have a batch of material in the works, feels like King has been lying to us, and he's trying to distract us from that fact. Now that the lineup has changed, and he has to write a different album, we'll excuse another five years of delaying. We're going to forget just how long it's been that he has failed to deliver on his promises. That's the key to this whole thing.

Enough time has passed that any album King Diamond releases has the "Chinese Democracy" problem of not being able to justify the amount of time it took to make. The simplest answer to that issue is to never release an album. Voila! As I said, if King Diamond had said he wasn't interested in making a new album, we would have understood. Plenty of other bands are out there as touring nostalgia acts, and there's not really any shame in it. The difference is that those bands aren't pretending to be something else. KISS made it clear in their last years they had no interest to make another record, nor any need to. If KISS can be honest, the people who grift their fans out of more money than any other band in history, how the hell can King Diamond not be?

Whether any new music actually comes of this pairing is something I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for. To take my own advice and be honest, I don't care if there ever is a new song or album. I've been writing about music for fourteen years, and King Diamond's last album came out five years before I started. "Give Me Your Soul... Please" is a legal adult at this point, so forgive me if I've passed the point of giving a single, solitary fuck about this.

The only reason I'm talking about this at all is because I'm sick to death of King Diamond being in the music news when there's nothing newsworthy about it.

King Diamond, give me a break... please.

Singles Roundup: Green Day, Cold Years, Anthrax, & Nickelback

Summer is in full swing, and there has not been a 'song of the summer' to my ears as of yet, or at least not one that isn't on the melancholic/depressing side. I don't think this week's collection of new songs is going to change that, but let's see what has been offered to us.

Green Day – I'm Never Gonna R.I.P.

I haven't had much of anything positive to say about Green Day since "American Idiot" came out, and today is not the day for that to change. This song comes from the soundtrack to "Nimrods", and harkens back to the "21st Century Breakdown" days, when the band was accused to being to obvious about 'borrowing' from their influences. The difference here is that neither The Stray Cats nor the blues are obvious influences of Green Day that we've ever heard before, so jumping into an old-time rock n roll blues groove is not at all what we would expect from the band.

It doesn't help that they aren't doing it in any particularly interesting way. The riff is all too standard, the vocal line is pure blues cliche, and Billie's vocal is buried under fake distortion so we don't even get the human element that makes the blues interesting... to people who like the blues. Instead, this is two minutes of pastiche that doesn't sound particularly good from a production standpoint, and doesn't offer any musical idea that sticks with you after hearing it. I'm not exactly sure what the point of it is.

Cold Years – Dread

I loved "Goodbye To Misery", but found "A Different Life" to sound almost like an entirely different band. This new song is the first piece of their next step, and it straddles the two in a way I'm not quite sure how to feel about. The guitars have a bit more body and bite to them, which reminds me of "Goodbye To Misery". The vocals still sound thinner and high-pitched than they did on that record, which gives it some of the sound of "A Different Life". It's a bit of the 'uncanny valley' effect, where it sounds enough like the Cold Years I love to be recognizable, but just different enough to still sound 'wrong', for lack of a better word.

Maybe I would be more forgiving if the song itself had a bit more to offer. When the chorus comes along, and it settles into "whoa oh" territory, I find myself losing some interest. It feels to me like the song needs something more substantial to use those wordless vocalizations as a palate-cleaner, but we don't get enough of that. Instead, it feels more like a placeholder melody that didn't get filled in between the demo and the final recording. Those sorts of bits are difficult to pull off, and this pattern of notes just doesn't quite get there for me.

Anthrax  - Edge Of Perfection

Raise your hand if you want your classic thrash bands to be introducing black metal influences forty years into their career? Yeah, my hand is not up. Look, I have never found Anthrax to be all that interesting a band, but I recognize why they got popular enough to be one of The Big Four, and why people find the John Bush era to be underrated compared to the downfall of the other bands at the same time period. That doesn't mean taking the tact Testament did is a good idea, especially as they don't have the same degree of metal heft in the band to pull it off. (Not that I like "Low" or "Demonic", but they at least executed what they attempted.)

Anthrax does not have the same cache to be playing blast-beats with tremolo riffing. They have always been the 'party' band of the thrash scene, and hearing them trying to be darker and more sinister does not fit anything we know about them, nor does it fit Joey Belladonna's voice. The band is miscast in this role, which is only made worse by the haphazard songwriting, where the black metal bits come and go with hard transitions, acting more like masks the band is putting on so one person can play multiple characters. It doesn't work for me in the slightest, and it's two songs in a row that make me concerned their record is going to be one of the biggest misfires of the year.

My theory is that all the time spent playing with Pantera has been a bad influence on Charlie Benante.

Nickelback – Rattle The Cage

Since we're in a bad mood today, let's finish things off by talking about Nickelback. Their comeback into ironic popularity has not sat well with me, both because few have ever reckoned with just how goddamn ugly their music got ("Figured You Out" should have ended their career. Sorry, not sorry. Fuck that song.), but also because they aren't the band anymore who was making songs so popular they would become overplayed and hated. Nickelback now is consumed with keeping up their 'metal cred', which puts them in an area where they have no business being. They became Nickelback by playing to mainstream radio, and the heavier version of the band holds none of that cheesy, yes 'ironic', appeal.

The guitars on this are so processed they lose the bits that would make the muted riffs sound massive, which is a mistake made by too many people who don't understand the difference between distortion and playing heavy. Chad's voice has enough grit in it, but knowing how many pop song's he's written, it doesn't sound authentic to have him barking about going to Hell. If they were considered posers back in the day for chasing pop audiences, they're just as artificial today chasing the metal audience.

Maybe some people will find this a refreshing change of pace, but to me it sounds like a band that traded in melodies for amps that went to eleven. Just like how "Spinal Tap" didn't need a sequel, neither does Nickelback's popularity.

Album Review: North Sea Echoes - How To Cast A Shadow

I don't pretend to know the complications and considerations that go into the business of making music, but sometimes the optics make very little sense when viewed from the outside. Fates Warning was not the biggest band in progressive metal, but they had an audience, and they had a legacy. That made it rather difficult to understand how as the band wound their career down, the members have moved on to other projects that keep them busier than Fates Warning itself was. They make different shades of music, but it's all cut from similar cloth, so a progressive band would not have been out of place in attempting to traverse these new influences.

North Sea Echoes finds Jim Matheos and Ray Alder joining forces once again, exploring the melancholy strains of rock they have spent the last three decades trading in. This project has a bit more ambience, and electronic flourishes, but the heart of their partnership will always sound like themselves. As to why the situation seems so odd to me, let's address it this way; despite Fates Warning being in my sphere of knowledge, I'm not sure I knew this project's first album ever existed.

The trouble with melancholy is that there is a fine line between the beauty of sorrow and outright black depression. Plenty of bands have tried to ride that edge, only to find themselves in a bitter slog that shows no light making the trip worth taking. As the opening track on this record unfolds, the four minutes of slow ambience gives the impression we are headed toward the ugly side of the ledger. The song offers little in the way of an immediate musical foothold, traversing on a cloud of sound that struggles to explain why we are listening to it.

First single "Enjoy The View" follows, and paints a very different picture. The guitars enter the mix, which give the song more than enough energy to keep its movement intact. Ray sounds great belting out the chorus, which is able to find that balance I was referring to. This can be mistaken as nothing else but melancholy, but played with a passion that lets us think there is something waiting for us on the other side of it. It's the difference between film noir and simply not turning the lights on at all.

"Good Enough" is another slow build, but Ray's melody has a contour that makes it engaging and enjoyable, and this song builds to a true payoff, which is an essential part of letting the fuse inch forward. When the song is slow and doesn't build, it can feel like a waste of investing our feelings in it. When there is a cathartic moment for our pathos, it makes all the difference. That comes as Ray sings the chorus, "I'll leave a light on in case you come home/But I won't hold my breath". It's a beautiful melody, a lovely delivery, and a message that leaves enough of a cliffhanger to want to hear the next chapter.

The majority of the record follows suit, with enough texture and grit to the music to match the emotional heaviness Ray is singing with. These songs aren't metal, but the roots of their writing can be heard in the softer tones. If you transported Fates Warning back to a time when amps were less saturated, the result could very well sound like this record. There is also a familiarity with Opeth's "Damnation", if that record didn't muffle its sound quite as dramatically.

North Sea Echoes is indeed doing something different than Ray has achieved with his solo albums, or with A-Z. Taken together, the three projects split Fates Warning's personality as if a prism, giving us smaller ranges of the old totality. That makes them interesting distillations, and somehow more interesting than the fuller mixture. This record leaves me with questions I can't avoid asking myself, but know aren't necessarily fair; Is this better than Ray's solo albums, or A-Z? Sharing so much connective tissue, separating them is rather difficult.

What is less difficult is saying that all of these projects are more effective for me than Fates Warning ever was. Ray's solo albums both appeared in my year-end top ten list, as did A-Z's second album, and this feels like a lock to join them. I've heard very little music this year that stirred something in me, but North Sea Echoes absolutely has. It may not be the best album of the year, but it's not far off.