Quick Reviews: Elton/Brandi, & Smith/Kotzen

A pair of pairs. Sounds fitting, eh?

Elton John & Brandi Carlile - Who Believes In Angels?

I not only commend Elton John for being an artist who has continued to make albums even as the casual audience no longer pays attention to them, but for making some of his best albums during that period. I absolutely adore "Peachtree Road" and "The Captain & The Kid", even if the majority of people don't know they even exist. So what I'm going to say is not reflexive of older artists attempting to stay relevant in their late-career years: This collaborative album with Brandi Carlile is hugely disappointing.

That stems from two things; 1) Half of the songs are too swampy/bluesy to fit in their shared wheelhouse, and 2) The modern production ruins what could have been. The title track and "Never Too Late" are the best of what this could be, sounding like a true blend of classic Elton and Brandi. The problem is there are also songs like "Little Richard's Bible" that are mired in the earliest days of rock, cranked to the point of sounding unintelligible.

The album can never find its footing, because the production is distracting at every point. The more rocking songs are swamped (pun intended) in crushing compression and guitar tones that are so fuzzed and brittle the vocals almost disappear into the mix. There are too many times when the band drowns out the vocals, and even when they don't, Elton and Brandi don't quite feel like they figured out how their voices best blend. The bits of magic are too few and far.

They said this album was an experiment and a challenge to quickly produce... and it sounds like it. They really should have taken more time putting this together, because this is not a proper representation of what they are capable of.

Smith/Kotzen - Black Light/White Noise

I loved the debut album from Richie Kotzen and Adrian Smith's unexpected collaboration. It was a bluesy bit of rock packed full of great harmonies and guitar solos. I didn't expect it, but that's part of what made it so great. When they followed that up with an EP of songs that was disappointing by comparison, I started to wonder if keeping the partnership going would prove it to be a fluke. We now have the answer.

In every way, this record is inferior to the first one. The songwriting and melodies aren't as sharp and don't land with the same force, the guitars don't sound as clear and heavy, and the entire production sounds a bit muddy and dull. When moments like the chorus of "Life Unchained" come around, rather than hearing the blended harmonies sparkle atop the crunchy guitars, it's all a jumble of sound that's hard to hear. I feel like I've been saying this about at least half the albums I've heard this year. What the hell's going on with production?

There isn't a single song on here that caught my attention the way nearly everything on the debut did. This record comes across being too laid-back, where it never actually feels like it rocks, which saps the energy from the already slow and bluesy nature. It turns the record into a bit of a slog to get through, and trying to find the gems in the haze of the sound isn't an enjoyable proposition.

If you look up the album on iTunes, it will say "a second album of anthemic rock and metal from two icons of heavy music." Well... the 'second album' part is at least true.

"Some Flowers Bloom Dead", & So Do Some People

Spring is the season of hope and renewal, the time when we look to the rising sun as a beacon of better days just beyond the horizon. Those days have always been there, merely shifted further south during the cold of the winter. The position of the sun has no bearing on the mechanisms that unlock our lot in life, but we like to tinker with the gears of an astrolabe, because there is something calming in the belief that the right sequence of pins and cogs can grant us that which we have long dreamed of.

The equinox is the moment of equilibrium, where the light and dark are balanced out upon the world (as a whole). It is a moment when we can take stock and try to feel ourselves steady on our feet as the tilt shifts from one side to the other. We can in theory, but not all of us can do so in practice. For some of us, Spring is a reminder that some land is fallow, some dreams will never germinate, and some faith has been salted like Carthage.

I was seventeen the first time I heard The Wallflowers' song "Some Flowers Bloom Dead". That means I was not yet old enough to be considering the philosophical and psychological damage done by remaining hidden from the light. While I loved the song for other reasons, it was much later on that it became woven into my mind as a statement of everything that has afflicted me.

Though the song is one about a relationship, excising the verses turns it into a meditation on self-loathing, a mantra that tears down rather than builds up.

"In another world I could learn to forget/But 'til then I'm here making room for new regrets"

Regret is as much a part of life as oxygen and water, and perhaps science will one day break atoms down so far we find regret is the true basis of all matter in the universe. Often, it feels as if it is the main component in my construction. Regret is the autobahn in my mind, the path where thoughts are able to speed from brain to heart to soul and back again faster than any other. Every decision ever made comes with the potential for regret, and unless you are fortunate enough to know you have made the right ones time and again, regret is fed with a constant supply of fuel.

Around this time every year, I start to think about what the warmth of the summer could bring, what hope I could find that emerging from hibernation will not lead me straight into the mouth of another cave. I have told myself these stories for years, enough of them that I know the words by heart, so much so they have lost all meaning and dissembled into gibberish.

"Now some flowers they never bloom/And some flowers they just bloom dead"

We look upon the beauty of nature without giving much thought to the law of averages. While we see the vibrant colors and the rainbow of life, there is a percentage of seeds that never sprout, a proportion of those plants that never grow properly or blossom as they should. It is through no fault but ignorant fate, but being forgotten only serves to further constrict the pain of never spread petals.

Each year that passes, I know the chances of being awakened from this wretched slumber move closer to zero. Much as there is a time to stop breathing life into a body that has expired, there is also a time to stop feeding the delusion that there is any color to be found if the shadows are to be illuminated.

Then, in the last verse, we are told:

"Now when I think of me/I think I somebody else instead/As if it wasn't hard enough"

Regret comes in many forms, but in one of the more extreme we regret the very fact of being ourselves. It is a refrain I have sung many times, and one that has only grown louder as the pieces have started to fit together. People will often give the advice to 'love yourself', which they mean with the best of intentions. What they don't realize, however, is that sometimes the things we hate about ourselves are immutable, they are baked into the very fibers of the plaster we are cast from. We can no more pull upon them and stay together as you can remove the base of a house of cards.

When you are faced with that kind of regret, the thought of blooming is not merely a longing that will never be realized, it's a fear of what is revealed if it does. Perhaps the reason some flowers don't bloom is because they are sparing the eyes of the world a sight they do not want to see. Perhaps that is what I have been doing all along.

Either way, you cannot pry the petals of a flower open and expect it to thrive, nor can you cut through the sinew to expose your heart to the open air.

There's too much regret in the way.

Singles Roundup: Miley Cyrus, Ghost, & Volbeat

It's been a while, so let's see what bite-sized stories we have to tell.

Miley Cyrus - Something Beautiful

I'm already concerned by the phrase 'visual album' being thrown around, because the idea that the music needs a visual component does not bode well. That is borne true with this first song, which takes the basic sonic template of "Flowers", and slows it to an absolute crawl. Miley's voice has plenty of room for her tone to shine, but the melodic component of the song is rather lacking. The music has hints of jazz, but mostly serves as background sound that does little to stand out. That puts the emphasis on Miley, which is fine, except for the fact that she doesn't have anything interesting to sing.

She croons her way through the song, showing that perhaps she could be a chanteuse if the fancy struck her, but better material will be needed. Her last album featured a couple of tracks that could fit into the category of 'torch song', which were exceptional. I wished she would have made the entire album in that mold, because it would have been a contender to be one of the best of the year. Perhaps I was wrong, because expanding beyond those couple of songs appears to show they were a fluke of time and happenstance.

I will not be holding out hope that this record is going to be the one that makes Miley into a great artist. This song tells me we are probably looking at another case of someone who thinks that making 'mature' music means stripping away everything engaging.

Ghost - Satanized

The last Ghost album was controversial for the singles being the worst Ghost songs to date. While the good songs were still good, I couldn't call it a good album due to just how bad "Twenties" was. So to say I'm wary of Ghost's inconsistency is an understatement. The first taste of their upcoming album is not giving me much more reason to have faith. While it is better than that song, it doesn't have the best elements of Ghost. Both the music and the melodies are rather jagged, with the start-stop bits feeling awkward in how they are randomly integrated. The one bit of melody at the end of the chorus is nice, but by that point it isn't enough. The section that is supposed to be our big refrain starts out not standing out at all, so the chorus is over by the time we realize it has even hit.

What I'm sure of is that the record will have a handful of trademark Ghost songs that give me all the melody and pop hooks I could ask for. Why those songs are being shunted aside for their weaker efforts as singles is something I don't quite understand. The huge swell that "Dance Macabre" or "Square Hammer" gave the band feel like a lifetime ago, and the band is now treading water because they don't need to grow anymore. That's sad.

Volbeat - By A Monster's Hand

I already got in trouble in another forum for discussing my thoughts on this song, but here goes; the new Volbeat single is good, but defies a basic tenet of good songwriting. There's a solid groove and a decent hook through the first half of the song. Everything is going fine, and then the song suddenly shifts feel and tempo for the solo, only to shift right back for a final chorus. Why? The impression it gives is that they had random ideas sitting around, and stuck these together because they were all that was left. What should have been done is to either slow the thrashy riff down so the tempo didn't shift, or bump up the tempo of the final chorus so the entirety of the song sped to the finish. In either case, the logic of the songwriting would work. As it stands, we're left with a track that sounds stitched together, that veers from one thing to another without giving us reason or context.

But apparently I'm pedantic and too cerebral, so pardon fucking me for not swallowing whatever music gets thrown at us.

Album Review: The Darkness - Dreams On Toast

Here's a sentence I never thought I would write:

The Darkness' new album features a song about trying not to shart on your significant other during sex.

I could stop talking right now, and you would have a full picture of just how awful The Darkness have become. I'm in a bad mood, though, so let's carry on. Last year, I thought quite a bit about the (personal) legacy of "I Believe In a Thing Called Love", where one of the things I noted was that The Darkness is one of those bands that makes me question why I ever liked them at all. "Permission To Land" is a fluke of an album, the one moment in their history where their stupidity did not land the punch with enough force to piss me off.

Ever since, they have gone through breakups and rehab stints, only to come back with more terrible 'humor' that mocks the very idea that they were a mocking band. The tongue-in-cheek love for classic rock they showcased on their debut became terrible slapstick, as limp and flaccid as the genital reaction to the stereotypical British teeth. That's a cheap shot, but we're talking about The Darkness here. I can't exactly go low enough to express the inanity of listening to them continue to be idiots for the third straight decade.

Back to the point; writing a song about farting (dear lord, I hope it was only farting) on your lover is not funny. Or, it's certainly not funny the way Justin Hawkins writes and sings it. Rather, it's a moment in time that makes me glad physical media is not easy to get a hold of, because I would be tempted to snap the CD in half and use it to draw blood and remind myself I'm not dead and in Hell yet. As if that isn't enough, it's also a lousy pastiche of a country song with a lifeless melody, so it's not even an annoying earworm. It makes you cringe, and then disappears... much like the aforementioned fart.

That is by far the worst song I've heard this year, but it is not alone. The Darkness long ago lost their ability to have fun, despite turning everything into a joke. The music is no longer rocking, no longer catchy, and requires the equivalent of toothpicks holding your eyes open to get through. They fail as comedians, and they fail as a rock band. In that way, they're exactly like Spinal Tap. As an aside, I'll use this as an excuse to give a hearty "fuck no" to the upcoming Spinal Tap sequel. It is not only too late, and wholly unnecessary, but no joke they could write will ever be as funny as treating Spinal Tap as a real band over the last forty years. Maximum absurdity was already reached.

Unfortunately, The Darkness treat it as a blueprint, not a cautionary tale.

The album gives us an opening track called "Rock And Roll Party Cowboy", which just so happens to not be rock and roll, nor a party. It is a song as weak, pointless, and forgettable as I have ever heard. In fact, the only thing I remembered about it between its release as a single and writing these words right now is that I hated it. That is apropos, as the very next song is called "I Hate Myself", which is what I said to myself as I listened to more of this album. The Darkness has long thought of themselves in terms of being Queen, but they lack everything Queen ever had; songwriting chops, a vocalist who doesn't elicit snickering when he opens his mouth, charm, etc.

I will sum it up thusly; The Darkness is not a good thing anymore, but the darkness is, because in the latter you can't find the button you have to click to listen to this album.

And just for the record, given how much I hated this experience, let me say this; I hope the story in that song is indeed true. The Darkness literally shitting the bed is too apropos to consider it a metaphor. We deserve this win, right?

Album Review: BRKN LOVE - "The Program"

This one takes a little while to get the hang of, but the payoff is worth it.  BRKN LOVE’s “The Program” is an exercise in reality versus expectation, but if the latter can be suspended, the former will provide reward.

It is easy, and often wise, to take pre-album press statements from an artist with an enormous hunk of salt.  Words like ‘darker,’ ‘heavier’ and ‘emotional’ could be safely slotted onto a sardonic bingo card and marked with casual consistency.  Justin Benlolo (who, no matter how many people BRKN LOVE puts in a band photo, IS BRKN LOVE, for all intents and purposes,) made a statement in the run-up to this record along the lines of expanding the parameters of the band, pushing the boundaries, and the usual tired cliches that every genre is rife with to the point of nausea.

The difference here, is that Justin, as it turns out, actually meant it.  Written across a couple of months on an impromptu trip to South Carolina, Justin guides BRKN LOVE and “The Program” through some territory that will feel unfamiliar from the Canadian, even as it rings close enough to be recognizable.

And this is where expectation comes into play.  When one thinks of BRKN LOVE, it’s nearly impossible to separate the mental image of the band from two distinct sounds - the chunky, gloriously over-distorted fuzz of “Shot Down,” and the biting hook of “Like a Drug.”  BRKN LOVE, at their best to this point, has been defined by tone and by the inspiration of Benolo’s instantly catchy riffs.

“The Program” takes a few full listens to grasp, because some of that has gone by the wayside.  Not entirely, of course.  The guitar tone is still syrupy thick, albeit not as thick as on the band’s eponymous debut, and not even quite as gooey as the follow-up “Black Box.”  The focus on this album is less about single, memorable moments and more about a long, uninterrupted ride of music.  To that end, “The Program” seems more focused on melody and accessibility than on punishing moments of rock ferocity.

To call an album ‘poppy’ is a cardinal sin in some circles, but take the epithet for what it is - BRKN LOVE has composed an album that, in a different era of popular music, would have found a home in consistent radio play, more so than either of its predecessors.  It’s hard to imagine a song like “Pulling Leeches,” with a central riff that has vague overtones of INXS, could dodge radio exposure, or have felt at home on either BRKN LOVE album to this point.  Same goes for the bright beat of “Callous” and the proto-ballad “Cruel,” at least as far as the latter point is concerned.

The key to the entire experience is “Unholy,” which is in the middle of the record, and is the first song that really bridges the gap between expectation and production.  Yes, it’s a little muted relative to the fury of “Bad Blood,” but the riff feels right, and Justin’s borderline indifferent, moderated vocal line helps sell the melody.  “Unholy” in turn, serves as the Rosetta Stone for the rest of “The Program.”  Once the listener understands that this album is focused on flow and melody and accessible pacing, the album opens up and the skill starts to shine through.

There is a fair criticism to be levied here that in alignment with this compositional shift, BRKN LOVE have put themselves in the nebulous middle ground of rock, somewhere between the jagged edges of Dead Poet Society, and the high-gloss perfection of The Warning.  And so long as we’re here, outside of “Unholy,” there are many very good songs on “The Program,” an album’s worth as a matter of fact, but it’s hard to point a prospective listener to a “holy shit” moment, as opposed to the revelation of some of BRKN LOVE’s past singles.

In either case though, those criticisms are immaterial and don’t really matter unless the listener allows them to.  It’s been discussed many times on this site, in many ways, that there are two pathways to success in music, especially rock music - either do something no one has heard before, or do something familiar really well.  BRKN LOVE, specifically on this new record, falls into the second camp, and that’s totally fine, especially in light of how Benlolo stays true to most of his band’s hallmarks.  Good music is good music, and however simple that comes across, that’s what really matters.

Album Review: W.E.T.- Apex

The reality of the music business these days is that unless you are in a fairly massive band, many musicians are going to find themselves involved in multiple projects. While that can leads to interesting combinations, and more music for the devoted fans, the downside is that it can burn out songwriters. From my own experiences as both a listener and writer, I fully believe that each of us only has some many songs in us before we start falling back into note patterns we have already used. So when a writer is putting out albums with multiple projects, and in rapid succession, I get worried that the quality is going to drop.

Erik Martensson is in that category of writer who has put out a huge amount of music in recent years. Between his own band Eclipse, his Nordic Union project, and W.E.T., there has been no shortage of songs he has penned. And with Eclipse coming off a double album, that feels even more acute right now. So yes, I was certainly a bit worried that W.E.T. was going to suffer the effects, even though he is not the sole writer in this group, especially given that I was not all that fond of either half of that Eclipse record.

The good news is that the rest of the crew involved in W.E.T. picks up the slack, and smooths out anywhere the songs could have found themselves struggling. The added texture of Jeff Scott Soto's voice is the key to this, but the ability to layer harmonies adds to this as well, letting the sound of W.E.T. expand to a bigger sense of scope than Eclipse is capable of. The larger ensemble sounds exactly that, and picks up right where the last two excellent records left off.

These guys know their way around a hook, and how to sell it. That actually raises some questions about why this project is able to do that more than their other bands, but not every question needs to be asked. We can sit back and enjoy this record for what it is, which is a collection of melodic songs that bridge the rock/metal gap by way of massive choruses that are sure to get stuck in your head.

The difference this time is the band is focusing on the heavier end. There are more cranked guitars and metal riffs, and less balladry this time around. That will appeal to a lot of people, but oddball songs like "Elegantly Wasted" or "How Do I Know" off the previous records are some of the best things W.E.T. is capable of. The diversity of sound meshed with the diversity of their talents in a way this record is missing a bit.

The other difference is that Erik takes a few more lines of lead vocals than in the past. It's another matter of perspective, where you could say it shows the band operating as a collaborative unit, or you could say a band's lead singer should do all the lead vocals. Personally, I fall into the latter category, unless the band's gimmick is a 50/50 situation, which this is not.

Those are minor points. This is as well, but it does gnaw at me a bit. The song "Pay Dirt" spends its verses juxtaposing opposites, like devils and angels, truth and lies, etc. There is a line in the song saying "one man's mistress is another man's whore." Are they implying those are the only two options for what a woman can be to a man? And why pejorative terms for the women, and not for the 'men' who cheat on their wives and/or insult women for making money from their bodies? They move on to something else in the next line, so they clearly were not thinking about the implications of that language, but it stood out to me immediately as the sort of thing that we overlook so often. It would have taken nothing away from the song to tweak the line, just so the chance of it being taken the wrong way was removed, but that didn't happen. Intentional, or oversight?

The band is calling this album "Apex", but that's a bit of wishful thinking. It's a very good record of hugely melodic songs, but I don't think it's as complete of a package as "Earthrage" was. This one is an example of how diversity within a sound is a key component to an album's greatness. You want a band to sound like themselves, but you also want them to do more than deliver the same song a dozen times in a row. This record delivers the goods, but it's closer to being the same thing again and again than they have been in the past.

This is clearly one of the best records so far this year, but it's not W.E.T.'s best. That's all I'm saying.

Album Review: Warbringer - "Wrath and Ruin"

It’s hard to know what to think about Warbringer.  The band is rapidly closing in on twenty years as a going concern, but the road has been tumultuous and rocky.  If the band’s breakthrough effort was 2009’s “Waking Into Nightmares,” then the band has rotated ten different members through the lineup in the intervening time, including every position except for the singer.

Given all of that, Warbringer should be praised for their consistency.  All of their albums bristle with the same kind of modern thrash that seemed a lost art when the band debuted with “War Without End” in 2008. Which, as far as it concerns this new record “Wrath and Ruin,” means that it’s easy to make the editorially lazy argument that if you like Warbringer, you’ll like this album, and that the opposite is also true.

Yet, isn’t that damning with faint praise?  Unfortunately, what comes part and parcel with that is that “Waking Into Nightmares” remains the band’s gold standard, and none of their albums since that time have lived up to that high bar.  To listen to that instant classic again, is to hear both the shredding and creativity of guitarist John Laux, but also the extraordinary percussion of Nic Ritter (RIP,) who was without question the best drummer the band ever had, and that’s also the only album he’s on.

Absent those pieces has come a parade of capable and talented musicians, but the pieces are too uniformly emulsified now.  There’s the capable solo of “Neuromancer” on this new record, but overall, the songs are fine…but that’s what they are.  They don’t stand out from the Warbringer pre-existing music, and most of them don’t truly stand out from each other.

At the risk of copping-out by making an easy parallel, “Wrath and Ruin” feels something like Warbringer’s version of “...And Justice For All.”  There are only eight cuts, there are three over six minutes and another at five and a half, and the band is clearly putting pieces together and experimenting with new bridges and sections (“Through a Glass, Darkly” is on the border of black metal, for instance.) Tempo seems to be a big part of “Wrath and Ruin,” as the band tries their hand at different speeds in different sections, trying to find a comfort zone that feels novel and yet still recognizable as Warbringer.

The attempt is laudable, but nothing here truly catches hold - the riffs don’t bite, the drums don’t snap, and there’s no single moment or performance that makes the listener’s eyes (or ears) widen in admiration.  It’s more Warbringer, to be certain, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of about that, but that’s all it is.

Of course, historically, after “...And Justice For All” came the Black Album…

The High Impact Of "High Fidelity"

"Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable, or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

Those words were spoken by the character Rob Gordon in the movie "High Fidelity", which celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary this week. In those intervening years, I'm not sure there has been a better interpretation of just what it means to be a music fan than the scenes set in Rob's record shop.

Being a music fan is not merely listening to music and enjoying it, but rather an exercise in discovering yourself through the voice of others, and trying to use those songs to communicate your character to others in ways words do not allow. I have written before about the limitations of language when it comes to discussing complexities such as our emotions and sensory experiences. For those of us who are not entirely what would be called 'normal' in those regards, the failure of words becomes all the more apparent.

Sometimes, the best way we can comment on the way we're feeling is to point to a song that evokes that feeling, and then hoping other people have the same reaction to it that we do. It is no more assured a system than crafting metaphors of intense honesty, but it opens new doors that we might not be able to unlock on our own. That is why we obsess over music, why we craft lists of our favorites in countless categories. By doing so, we are diving into the depths of who we are as people, and trying our best to share ourselves with the people we are wanting to do so with.

"High Fidelity" is a romantic comedy by structure, but I have always seen it more as a movie about friendship, and the relationship we have with music. Rob's journey through his top five break-ups is the catalyst of the narrative, but it is the less important aspect of the movie for me. If I'm being honest, which is sort of the point here, the reason for that is clear. If I was to write my own version of the movie about my own life, I would be unable to do so, as my list would exist solely in my own head. That doesn't necessarily mean they were fantasies, but they were connections whose meaning was mine alone, and confined to my mind.

In that light, it is the scenes set at the record shop which become the focal point of the movie. They might not tell a story in the traditional sense, but they are scenes of life in the way many live it; searching for things only tortured artists can understand, arguing when no one else understands what we are thinking and feeling, gate-keeping to prevent people we know would be wrong for us from getting too close.

For some people, music is the great love of our lives. I'm not saying that is true for me, since love is one of those concepts I rarely claim to have even the slightest understanding of. What I'm trying to say is that music can be more important than people, because so many of them drift in and out of our lives, while the records we love are always going to be there for us. Is a night spent with someone new better than a night spent with a favorite old record? I can't say.

Circumstances likely have a lot to do with the answer to that question. What I can say is in my younger days, I certainly had better times spent listening to my favorite albums than I did being dragged out to bars. Records seldom disappointed the way that people did, and thinking back on them is still a better option than remembering certain episodes.

When the conversation in the shop turns to the top five side one/track ones, it is more than a question about some of their favorite songs. It is a question that gets to the heart of how we introduce ourselves, how we define what is most important for people to know about us. Barry jokes about picking Beethoven's fifth symphony, which is more than a joke about Rob's obvious taste. He is commenting that giving the answer everyone already knows and expects is akin to saying nothing. We don't learn about ourselves by following the expected path. It's when we dig in and share the pieces others might not know about is when genuine connections are made and deepened.

Watching the movie, there's an argument to be made that Rob didn't love Laura so much as he thought he loved her. What cannot be argued is that Rob loved music, because music was never going to find flaws in him and end things. Music would always be there, music could be counted on. Music would not complain if it ever found out about the top five lists the way people certainly would object to being itemized like a grocery list.

The other thread to the movie is that of living in the past. Rob spends the majority of the movie obsessed with his past, trying to figure out everything that went wrong, and led to him being in his predicament. That is a dangerous place to be, which I can speak of from experience. The past is dangerous not just because it doesn't exist anymore, but because it may not have existed as we now think it did. Our memories are faulty, our narratives unreliable, and how we remember our lives is not the actual story. Rob learns to look to the future, and live in the moment, but only when he's tortured himself with the past to the point of bleeding out.

My heart barely beats, so I have not drained my reservoir just yet. I'm talking about a movie from the past, because that is where my head still spends most of my time. I am still staring at blank spaces on my top five lists when it comes to people, but music lets me write to my heart's content.

I don't have to ask the question of whether pop music made me miserable, because I know it wasn't the cause. What may be more interesting to contemplate is why I love a movie that reminds me of my own failings. Perhaps it made me miserable...

Ten Years of Bloody Good Music - Part II

 A couple months back, when Chris mentioned to me the prospect of ten years of BGM and if we wanted to mark the occasion, I was enthusiastic but admittedly a little stuck on how I wanted to celebrate.  I didn’t want to write something that would come off as bloviated or self-important (first time for everything, I know.)  I was trying to think of a way to encapsulate what this journey has meant for me, in the context of the music that’s been the medium which enabled me to have so many experiences over the years.  Naturally, I started thinking about the last decade as we embarked into the cold void boarded on the good ship Bloody Good Music…but then, that was just the largest benchmark on what’s truly been a longer journey, dating all the way back to 2008 or so, when we began on another website with a similar name.

Since I couldn’t begin to assemble words that felt like they would do that journey justice, and definitely couldn’t do it in a way that celebrated all the bands and musicians and relationships that have gotten us here, I decided to cop out (sorry, Chris!) And as we all know, everybody (me) loves making a good list.

A brief aside - first, I’d like to take a moment to thank all of the generous labels and promoters and press folk who have helped Chris and I get this far.  Without all of you, we might literally have had nothing to write about.  Many (perhaps even most) of them prefer to remain anonymous, so I won’t take the time to list them here.  But if you’re reading this, thank you.

To make a list of all the bands I’ve studied, explored and contemplated as a result of these many years of music editorialism (if I dare ascribe myself to so lofty a position,) would have been a fool’s errand.

So, instead, here’s a list (alphabetical) of all the bands I now consider myself a fan of as a result of my time spent wandering down this extraordinary, unusual and thoroughly enjoyable path:

6:33, The 69 Eyes, A Pale Horse Named Death, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, Alestorm, Alien Weaponry, Anti-Mortem, Arch Enemy, As They Sleep, The Ashers, Battlecross, Beartooth, Blackguard, Blood Ceremony, Blues Pills, Bokassa, BRKN Love, The Browning, Cancer Bats, Cave of Swimmers, Combichrist, Cradle of Filth, Cripper, Crowned By Fire, CueStack, Dampf, Darkthrone, Dead Poet Society, Deadlock, Destrage, Destruction, Devil to Pay, Diamond Plate, Ego Fall, Emigrate, Escape the Fate, Evile, Exumer, Fear of Domination, Finntroll, Galaktikon, John Garcia, Goatwhore, Graveyard, Gypsyhawk, Halestorm, Hammers of Misfortune, Hatriot, The Hawkins, The Heavy Eyes, Hell Within, Hellevate, The Hellfreaks, Indestructible Noise Command, John 5 & The Creatures, Kiberspassk, Kontrust, Kreator, Lazarus AD, Lord of the Lost, Mayan, Meldrum, Midnight Dice, The Midnight Ghost Train, Mollo Rilla, Monster Truck, Mothership, Mountain of Wizard, Nachtblut, Nim Vind, Nothnegal, Orphaned Land, PAIN, Power Trip, Powerwolf, Priestess, Pro-Pain, Prototype, Red Dragon Cartel, Red Eleven, Red Fang, Royal Republic, Royal Thunder, Rxptrs, Scorpion Child, Selfish Needy Creatures, Shawn James & The Shapeshifters, The Showdown, Shroud Eater, Sick Puppies, Spit Like This, Static-X, Sundrifter, Taking Dawn, Tengger Cavalry, Texas Hippie Coalition, The Tossers, Toxic Holocaust, Transit Method, Troubled Horse, Turisas, Unearth, Vaelmyst, Vampires Everywhere!, The Veer Union, Viking Skull, Volbeat, Warbringer, The Warning, We Butter the Bread With Butter, Within the Ruins, Wolfmother, DJ Zardonic

To say that my life has been enriched is a dramatic understatement.

Ten Years Of Bloody Good Music

Time is not a flat circle, but like a pane of glass it is more fluid than we can often see and sense. Time will pass by in a flash, or drag on for an eternity, depending on our perspective. We measure time in part because we cannot accurately gauge our lives without the objective units to justify our feelings. If we relied solely on our own interpretation of life, time would become irrelevant and incomprehensible. Life may be that way anyhow, but we at least give ourselves the chance of speaking with some degree of certainty about the issue.

Bloody Good Music began ten years ago this month. We had already been writing about music at our former home, but it has been ten years since we decided it was more important to have editorial independence than a built-in audience. Perhaps we have missed out on some opportunities to have more eyes on our writing, or to work with some artists/labels who deem us too small an outlet, but that is balanced by our ability to do what we want when we want. That freedom is what has made this endeavor last as long as it has.

In this past decade, I have probably written a million words about music, and I don't know if that would have happened had I been forced to put myself in a box in terms of what we were covering. As time has unfolded, I have realized the old creases are far deeper than the new ones, and the music we started out being known for covering is not what is truly in my heart anymore.

Contained in those million words are countless opinions, but also countless thoughts on philosophy and self I can't say would have come to mind had I not been using music as a filter to sift through the clutter of my mind. This past fall, I went on a bit of a tangent writing essays that talked about philosophy and psychology as partners with music in explaining elements of both life and myself. Those pieces were inherently selfish, but also the most rewarding work I have done here in quite a while. Reviewing the new albums that find their way into my inbox is its own kind of satisfaction, but figuring out how to explain something that has remained a mystery even to me is exactly the sort of experience thinkers spend their time hoping to find. That I have done so with this blog is a source of comfort when it is needed most.

That isn't to say the music I have covered over these last ten years is inconsequential, but one of the ways I am typical is in the music of my formative years remaining unchallenged as what I cherish the most. In compiling a list of my fifty favorite albums ever, the number that have come from these last ten years is rather small, but I don't consider that a failure. Instead, I am heartened by the continued hunt for music that can grab at that brass ring even as I lose hope that it will ever be plucked from the string that holds it. Music is still my currency of thought, but the end of this decade-long experiment comes with the reality that the love of music has been waning.

Just as time inevitably moves forward, so too does music. The world today is not the same as it was ten years ago, nor are the people who make the music we are listening to. Even within the same band, the paradox of cellular replacement means that literally we may not be the same people we were. To expect music to continue speaking to us in the same way is not a logical assumption to make, but keeping the faith is the sort of illogical absurdity we should nevertheless be proud of. Giving in and giving up is easy, which I know from other areas of life. Wading through the swamps because you know a gem sits at the bottom is a righteous dedication, even if it isn't the most elegant metaphor for this situation.

When I look back at these ten years, I could focus on the records I still pull out to transport my mind to a calmer place. I could, but I actually don't. While there will be time to re-examine the personal legacies albums like Halestorm's "Vicious" or Jorn Lande's "Dracula: Swing Of Death" retain, what I focus on more as the real legacy of Bloody Good Music comes in the form of friendship.

This blog has served foremost as a catalyst for D.M and I to maintain the ties of our friendship, which stretches back over twenty years at this point. Discussing the releases we share interest in, or even just the schedule of our publishing, is reason to check in and keep up on our lives. I have enough friends who have drifted away because we lacked any such impetus to stay connected over the distances that I do treasure what this has meant.

Additionally, there are at least two musicians I have become friends with through these writings my life would have been empty without. While there have been periods of frustration, with recent days being chief among them, they have been closer to me than virtually anyone I have met in 'real life' during the same stretch. Not only is music a communicator, it is my communicator. Music has given me a gift I struggle with in other contexts. To think that an email sent to a voice I saw on television, or someone who appeared as what seemed like a background collaborator at the time, would evolve into meaningful relationships is exactly the sort of mystery of the universe that keeps me wondering what else is possible.

The answer to that question is usually 'nothing', and I spent more than a modicum of time cursing the very ideas of fate or a 'plan', but I cannot be arrogant enough to completely dismiss the concept of hope. There are many days I wish I could, and I probably do right now as I write these words, but these few small gifts are things I cannot otherwise explain or understand. They are ethereal in their own way, and justification of the very idea of dreaming.

All of this is to say that these ten years have been as much about me as they have the music, at least from my perspective. Writing has been my connection to people and the world, and music is the reason any of it was possible. I don't know if we will gather here again in another ten years to see how much has changed, but regardless of when the ride ends, it will have been worth taking.

I spend a lot of time contemplating the past, and regretting nearly every decision I have ever made. I regret the things I did, and I regret the things I didn't do. I can honestly say I have never once regretted our move to start Blood Good Music. That might be the one thing I know was right.

What else is there to say?