VK Lynne Searches For "Stable" Ground

Life is a series of steps; some we take of our own accord, and some we find ourselves taking because there is no other path to follow. What we don't always stop and remember is that the very act of moving forward is one of losing control only to regain it, repeated to the point we lose our ability to sense how tenuous or grip is. As we walk toward that new exciting thing, or run away from our latest fear, we are falling toward the ground until we catch ourselves to make the next step.

Stability is a bit of an illusion that way. Whether we are looking for things to remain as they were in a hectic world that sometimes seems hell-bent on testing us, or we are trying to feel grounded in our own emotional state, stability may or may not be the best thing for us. Perhaps it is instability that will tip us toward something beautiful we would not have uncovered on our own, but when we are fighting to make it from one moment to the next, what we need most is room to breathe. That's what stability offers us.

On this month's song, VK Lynne sings us a torch ballad pleading for just that moment to pause and catch herself. As she mentions not being able to see the answers she is looking for through glasses of wine, we are treated to a powerful reminder of how much music can be the saving grace we are looking for. In telling our stories, in giving them the beauty only a human voice can convey, we connect with something bigger than ourselves. It is that sense of community with others who have been through the same thing, or the sense of understanding there is far more to this universe that we will ever know, that puts into perspective how we need to be able to let certain things go when they aren't healthy for us.

I know I have failed at that my entire life, and continue to fail at it, but making peace with our demons remains the rock we push up that hill.

It's not easy to be vulnerable in song, to paint a blue portrait with your voice. Softer tones only cut through when you put your everything into them, slowly pushing the knife until the surface finally gives way. Perhaps this will not sound as much like VK is bleeding her truth for us, but that's because this is something far more intimate. The sparse arrangement lets us hear the piano notes echo, and gives only a tight-wire for VK's voice to make this journey across.

That she does it with aplomb should come as no surprise, but the feat is impressive no matter how many times it is achieved. As I have sometimes slipped from my own stability over recent times, what brings me back is the emotional power of music. It has been all too rare to find singers who are able to truly connect with the listener through a recording, to push their entire soul through the speakers, but it is nearly the only thing I look for anymore. It's no wonder why I'm so often disappointed, but never by VK.

Feats of instrumental prowess are impressive, but not in the same way a song like "Stable" is. The best art of any kind makes us feel from the depths of our own souls, makes us feel like we know the same place the inspiration came from. It doesn't matter if we are right or not, just that we feel, because that is the very essence of what it means to be human. What makes us unique creatures is our ability to understand the world around us, to see the ways is which it is designed to beat us down, and yet to still fight back and believe we can find the place where none of that matters anymore.

What I can say is that I hope this song has helped VK find that stable place, and it will certainly speak to those who find themselves similarly reaching out. Making music like this, there will be a community there to catch VK if there is ever another time when it feels too hard to stand tall and proud. We should all be so lucky.

"Stable" releases on April 30th. Pre-save it here.

Album Review: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department

The cliche about artists being tortured souls is tired, but that doesn't stop there from being drips of truth leaking through. There is something about art that requires good artists to mine their souls for inspiration, to be willing and able to slice off thin sashimi of their own hearts to present to the world. Pain often fuels art, but making and sharing that same art is a different kind of pain. It is an existential terror to strip yourself down to your strongest emotions, put yourself on display, and hope the audience is drawn in to give you a hug.

If there's an audience at all.

Taylor Swift doesn't need to worry on that point, having just completed one of the greatest years in pop culture history. Her 'Eras Tour' was so massive it shifted economies, her presence was able to balloon the already gigantic ratings of NFL games, and oh yeah, she was also named 'Person Of The Year' by Time. And she did all of that while finding love.

Have I ever mentioned that I kind of hate people who are happy?

This record, though, was the way she was able to get to that point. These songs are the end of her last relationship, and the segue into this new phase of world domination. Even though a tv character once joked that he could use his greedy money to buy "happiness, and stop trying to cheer me up," all the success in the world doesn't prevent Taylor Swift from hurting like anyone else when relationships fall apart. And unlike most of her peers, she has the lyrical prowess to put us in the room like one of those true crime documentaries.

"Midnights" had a very specific sound, and this record is the sound of the hours that follow. The chiming of the clock again and again cracked things open, and what poured out became these songs. The production is the same chill, cold pop that we heard on "Midnights", which is an interesting commentary on how the very idea of breakup albums has changed over the years. When "Blood On The Tracks" set the standard, Bob Dylan was an angry man using his voice to tear through his poetic rantings. Conversely, Taylor cuts with her words, using her voice as a detached statement of how she's leaving this era behind. It isn't anger, it's a resignation of how much time she wasted on a past that is now a relic.

I understand the sentiment, and it's probably a healthier option than spending the months it takes to make a record wallowing in a seething resentment. What I don't understand as much is the way the production fits in with heartbreak, as the electronic nature of the quiet songs doesn't resonate with me in a way that stirs my own feelings. The layer of artificial sound clashes with the authenticity of the lyrics, feeling a bit like a laminated diary where the lamp glares across the words as I'm trying to understand what Taylor is saying.

The other thing is that while her head was spinning with the various ways she was reliving the end of that period of life (as evidenced by the last-minute revelation of a second album of songs), she once again packs her album with a few too many songs. Between the density of her language, and the deep well she is pulling from, a full hour-plus of this dilutes the impact of each great song. You can forget about me speaking eloquently on two full records worth of these songs.

There are great songs on here. "Guilty As Sin?" sounds like a hit to me, and "But Daddy I Love Him" slithers into my head, but there are also songs that wallow a bit too much to pick up that kind of killer instinct. The same thing happened with "Midnights", whereas the more organic nature of "Folklore" could feel honest even when it was telling fictions. I appreciate the endless torrent of creativity Taylor possesses, but a record like this demands a level of attention I'm not sure it repays.

The lowest moment is undoubtedly "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart", where the programmed drums are so loud and incessant it reminds me of my worst days before I outgrew nausea-inducing headaches. It is a pounding that doesn't need to grow tiresome, because I'm ready to unplug the machine after the very first four bars... or find an open bar to numb myself to the point I can't hear them.

This era of Taylor Swift's career is difficult for me because she is playing with sounds I don't fully understand. She is the greatest pop lyricist of this generation, and her knack for writing songs that are hard to shake is the only connection I have to pop music anymore. I want to love this record, and I want to be able to say my own sadness finds spaces in these songs to resonate, but I'm not sure I can quite do that. Like "Midnights", there is half an album of truly mesmerizing music I don't think anyone else in the mainstream could make, but there is also half an album of songs that fly over my head. Perhaps in time I will come around on those tracks, and the full hour spent with Taylor will be a therapy session for me.

I hope so, but I'm feeling doubtful.

My Top Ten Songs... Ever

Thought experiments are interesting, because tracking the way our beliefs and opinions change through time is a clear example of how we are never the same people for very long. Biologically, we are entirely new people every seven years or so, but yet our mind and soul carries on unchanged. Or does it? Every experience we have teaches us, and changes us, and sometimes it's worth taking note of that fact, because it's easy to get stuck thinking whatever once was is what must always be. That simply isn't true.

For this thought experiment, I took up perhaps the hardest challenge yet. Listing my twenty favorite albums isn't easy, and picking ten for a desert island can be difficult, but that is nothing compared to trying to pare down an entire life of music listening into just ten songs that are irreplaceable.

This list is a combination of songs that I've listened to the most, loved the most, and been most affected by. They are the songs that serve as the markers showing the path I have been down, and that may have pointed me in directions without being aware of it. I won't try to rank them one-through-ten. Just let it be known they are the first-ballot Hall Of Fame songs in my memory palace.

Blues Traveler - Hook

Does one become a cynic, or was one always a cynic? That seems an odd question to ask when we're talking about an upbeat pop song, but what has kept "Hook" from ever leaving my mind these last thirty years is not just a harmonica solo I put above everything I've ever heard played on a guitar. True story. No, what makes this song an undying echo is that it opened my eyes to cynicism, and did so by proving everything it said was true. It's actually genius if you think about it, and I'm not sure I've ever heard a better example of a 'screw the audience' joke in song.

Dilana - Falling Apart

If anyone ever asks, this is what I say is currently my favorite song. From the very first time I saw a grainy video of it being performed live, there has been something about this song that hit me like nothing else. The combination of my favorite voice in the world, and a message that resonates with someone who often feels broken, is a balm nothing else can quite match. Some songs are like a warm hug when the world has given you the cold shoulder, and that is what this song means to me. We may all be "bloody fucked up", but moments like this let us know we're not alone in feeling that way. If the stereotypical image of Heaven turns out to be real, this is what a certain angel will be playing, at least within earshot of me.

Graham Colton - I Can't Stand Here Waiting

If you ask me what's so great about this song (at least the version I'm talking about - which I believe is still unavailable online), it's hard to figure. It doesn't have a nifty guitar riff, nor is the hook the pop gem that will get sampled over and over by desperate artists. No, this is a case more of honesty, where Graham's vocal as he talks about not being able to wait while the lights fade around him is something that hits me hard, because I feel like my life has been nothing but waiting, only mine is for the lights to come back on. It almost serves as a song warning people about where I am, and maybe that's enough of a rope to climb back up.

Guns N Roses - November Rain

As mentioned, I'm not the biggest fan of guitar solos, despite being a guitar player. The biggest exception to that is this song, where all three of Slash's solos are burned into my memory. This song is the perfect balance of pompous ass-hattery from Axl, and glorious rock coolness from Slash. Neither side would work without the other, and I think what I love is that it showed the formula of the Meat Loaf music I first fell in love with was actually timeless. Like it or not, this was a glam version of that same thing. Obviously, I love it.

Matchbox Twenty - Bent

Returning to that familiar theme, a song about being damaged goods always stands a strong chance of resonating with me. This one came out at a time when I was particularly unsure of myself, as defining who you are is difficult when you are doing it disconnected from anyone who can tell you that you're wrong. This song came out while I was in high school, and perhaps the sad resignation of it is the perfect memory of that chapter of life. It's hard to remove a memory once it's been etched, so turning it into beautiful music is easier.

Meat Loaf - I'd Lie For You (And That's The Truth)

While it's easy to think of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman as inseparable, the truth of the matter is that my favorite Meat Loaf song was actually written by Diane Warren. Sure, it's a pastiche trying very hard to mine the same territory, but it is an imposter, and yet I have adored this song for nearly thirty years. Maybe it has to do with how often I lie to myself, maybe I find Patti Russo to be the best duet partner Meat ever had, or maybe it's just that the drama hits the slight bit harder without Steinman's penchant for sarcasm and sex jokes. I love the bombast, I love the guitar solo (which I don't get to say often enough), and the false ending is just perfect. The two years between "Bat Out Of Hell II" and this album were just enough where I was old enough to 'get it' more this time. That might still be true.

Meat Loaf - I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)/Jim Steinman - Bad For Good

I am going to cheat here, because I'm not sure how to choose between the song that gave me love for music, and the song that most defines the man I've looked to for inspiration more than anyone else. As I have said countless times, I believe much of my personality was formed around the music written by Jim Steinman, and the enigmatic lyrics of "I'd Do Anything For Love" are a perfect example of that. The self-pity is a part of my core, the blue humor I don't think a lot of people heard at first bubbles under in my own comedy, and the fact he was able to say something important about the character's desires without nearly anyone understanding the truth is a skill I put to use with regularity. That said, Steinman's confession to the rock and roll gods on his solo album is every bit as important, because it is the realization and embrace that we're never going to change. We're going to be who we are, because that's all we can be.

Natalie Imbruglia - Torn

When this song celebrated it's 25th anniversary, I made the controversial statement that it is the sexiest song I have ever heard. Yes, I know how terribly lame that sounds, but it happens to be my truth. Seeing the video play on VH-1, and hearing Natalie's breathy voice sing about being naked on the floor, was a moment of awakening. I didn't know it at the time, but I do now. Great songs give us feelings we can't get from anything else in life, and that's what I take from "Torn". It is a glorious bit of music that wraps up sadness, passion, ennui, and everything else into a package that burrows into my head. It sounds simple when you hear it, until you know how hard it is to strike gold.

Tonic - If You Could Only See

The first time I decided I had a favorite song, it was this one. There was something about the dynamics that caught my ear, and even though my young mind was initially wrong about what the song was trying to tell me, it stuck with me. It ate away at my subconscious, and slowly convinced me that music was more than something I listened to for amusement. Music was more important than that, it was something deeper, it was a part of me. I picked up a guitar to learn to play this song, and I started writing songs to see if I could replicate the magic I felt in this one. Maybe I never got quite there, but any song that changes the trajectory of your life is held close to the heart.

The Wallflowers - One Headlight

I don't like to make the simple picks, but sometimes they are inevitable. While "Bringing Down The Horse" is not my favorite Wallflowers album, nor the one that has influenced me the most, it is "One Headlight" that stands above everything else as the defining song of my relationship with the band. There is something about the slightly ominous tone of the guitars that wraps itself around Jakob Dylan's voice, fitting perfectly with the story of death and hopelessness. It was the details about cheap wine and engines that wouldn't start that pushed lyrics to the forefront of my mind. While the next album was the one that set me on the path of being a writer, I can't deny that "One Headlight" lit the way. And yes, I fully embrace how bad that pun is.

Quick Reviews: Bayside & Vanden Plas

Bayside - There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive

What does a mix of emo and nearly metal sound like? That's what Bayside is offering us an example of. Their sound is based in the emo/punk world, but some of the chugging riffs borrow as much from modern metalcore as anything else. The appearance of Ice Nine Kills on "How To Ruin Everything" is a good indicator of what I'm talking about. That makes the album interesting, as it adds a heft to the music you don't always get in these genres, and it plays well with the plaintive vocals belting out the choruses.

The key to making this work is having the hooks to bridge the gap, and Bayside is able to deliver them. With only one exception, they have more pop appeal than what we hear referred to as pop/punk all the time, which only underscores the weakness of that genre, given how Bayside is attacking it from the heavier end. They fit in a unique spot as being more melodic than the metal the guitars pull from, but heavier than the melodic influences the vocals are pulling from. It's a difficult balance, but they mostly pull it off well.

The only negative I can say is that while Bayside is delivering on all of these things, their attitude has elements of the laid-back variety of punk. That means that while the band is heavy and catchy, they also can sound a bit soft and lackadaisical at times. A bit more energy in the performances might have elevated these songs even higher, as the short running time doesn't feel like the sprint it needs to be. This is a good record, but it falls a bit short of reaching excellence.

Vanden Plas - The Empyrean Equation Of The Long Lost Things

It's an interesting experience when a band is promoting a new member, and the best thing you can say is thank heavens he didn't have any impact on the sound. The band is now joined by Alessandro Del Vecchio, who you might know from writing half of the albums the Frontiers label puts out, but he joined Vanden Plas too late to take part in the writing process. I can only call that a good thing, because blanding out the band's sound with the same melodies and note choices as all those other bands and projects would only serve to make Vanden Plas more boring. What is the point of being progressive if you wind up sounding like everyone else?

That means this could be the last Vanden Plas album worth paying attention to, and it sums up everything I've experienced with the band over their career. There is a load of great playing, some solid melodies, and choices like starting out with nearly eight minutes of purely instrumental music that leave me scratching my head. The band doesn't do much to make the music accessible if you aren't already inclined to love prog metal.

Vanden Plas is certainly good at what they do, and I appreciate how they try to lean into adding drama into their songwriting, but the emotion doesn't come through. Between the technical playing, and the histrionics of the vocals, it's a performance that sounds more perfunctory, as if they are going through the motions. I know that any emotion besides anger is difficult to carry through in metal, but music that doesn't have much to grasp onto is harder to enjoy on a deeper level. Vanden Plas is the kind of music that is impressive, but doesn't leave much of an impact beyond that initial nod of the head.

Album Review: CLEARxCUT - "Age of Grief"

Boy, metalcore can be an unforgiving genre, can’t it?  Many have tried, and few have succeeded, to truly find the proper balance that can cater to the stringent, fan-imposed boundaries of metal and hardcore and furthermore produce some art that appeals on more than an academic level.

The Germans CLEARxCUT, here embarking on their third album, make one of nobler attempts in recent years to bridge all gaps and still sound idiomatically their own.  This new effort, “Age of Grief,” makes a lot of mileage by slowing down the pace, which seems counterintuitive to the fashionable blast beats of modern metal and the time-honored tradition of hardcore songs not overstaying their welcome.  

“Burial Shroud,” despite being the second song we’re presented with, is truly the launching point of the offering, as it extols the virtues of the careful pacing referenced above.  CLEARxCUT doesn’t make the song into something it shouldn’t be – it moves not carefully but comfortably, easy in its movements and accented by a clean guitar tone that separates from the buzz of the rhythm and slurred beat of the percussion.

The record’s third cut, “Against Leviathan,” is the album’s best and where CLEARxCUT shines brightest both in the study of their own craft, and in the fusion of seemingly alien elements into a whole that forms strong chemical bonds.  Where CLEARxCUT excels is in simplicity; it would have been easy, and dare we say creatively lazy, for the band to simply crush a bunch of overdriven notes into a small suitcase, press it to a digital track and walk away feeling accomplished.  Instead, the band does more by doing less – the guitar riffs, such as they are, are single-note affairs, played at a walking pace, and never is this more apparent than in “Against Leviathan;” as the song shifts into a second gear, the riff is already familiar and embedded to the listener.  When it ultimately recedes into the background, its echoes still influence and color everything that happens after.

This theme of careful note selection and sparse, open-space riffing continues through the duration of the record, from “Unwritten” to “Privilege” and all the way at the end with “The Eternal Demise.”  It makes for a record for which the simple sobriquet of “metalcore” feels inaccurate, if not deceptive.  Not to say that “Age of Grief” isn’t a metalcore record, but only that there’s more to it than that, a greater sense of craft and artistic expression.

CLEARxCUT’s new album doesn’t steer entirely clear of rocky trails, however.  In a way, the album is a victim of its own best features, as the pace and simplicity which so capably set it apart from its contemporaries also results in a feeling of sameness as the record runs its course.  It took multiple listens to get to the point where anything besides “Against Leviathan” stuck in the memory in a significant way.  The other eight cuts are all permutations of a theme; a successful theme, to be sure, but a repetitive one.  When listening, the nuance of “Age of Grief” is likely best experienced without the intrusion of cumbersome outside distractions, but moments like that feel hard to come by in our modern, hectic lives.

“Age of Grief” should be lauded for its profound, anti-Newtonian discovery of the idea that the best way to blend two fast-moving objects may be to slow down and allow the pieces to breathe and find synergy.  The best moments of the album are highly enjoyable, but in many ways, we are still at best left with the taste of an album that is interesting mostly from an academic perspective.

Too Little Of A Good Thing?

Everything is cyclical, trends come and go, and music is no different. For the longest time, you could point to a period of time and be able to draw some decent conclusions about what you would hear from any random record you pulled out of mothballs. Trends might have less power than they used to, but culture doesn't allow us to completely forget we are subject to the whims of collective psychology.

What you might call the 'Tik-Tok-ification' of music has become one of those trends. On the pop charts, it is easy to see the influence, as hit songs now barely break two minutes at some points, with barely two verses and choruses serving as the entire structure. The shorter format of the platform has changed the way people are writing songs, and if we in the less popular areas of the music world think we are immune from that, we've got our heads in the sand. It isn't exactly the same, but the shorter attention spans of the listeners is impacting us as well.

I have noticed this year that so many of the albums I've been listening to are getting shorter and shorter. Sure, there have always been your "Reign In Blood" or "Green Album" that treated half an hour as a hard cap, but they were exceptions to the rule. Albums were distinct from EPs for the most part, which is getting harder to say in the here and now.

It used to be that 40 minutes was the rough guideline that divided the two, with anything less feeling incomplete to count as a full-length. Today, though, almost half of the records I've reviewed clock in on the lower end. Albums that are only 35 minutes is so normal, I hardly notice anymore that I have more open time at the end of a listening session to fill with the next thing.

Here's the rub; short albums are an art form unto themselves, and I'm not sure the artists of today quite know what to do with them.

While there is certainly a law of diminishing returns in which an album gets too long for its own good, there is also a law of inadequate supply in which albums don't linger long enough for them to make the impact they want. The shorter an album is, the better is has to be. That might sound counter-intuitive, but it's because of what we would consider the 'grace period'. If you're listening to a 45 minute album and there's song you don't like, there's still a full album's worth of other music to make up for it. When that same song is on a record that's 33 minutes long, all of a sudden a clunker means the remainder feels like it's an EP, not an album.

It's something that ruined Ghost for me. "Prequelle" made such an impact when it landed those hit singles, and I really enjoyed the album, at least until I did the math. Minus the instrumental songs, I counted only 28 minutes of true songs that were winning me over. No matter how great they were, it couldn't feel like a complete album with so little to offer.

What I'm wondering is whether this is entirely due to bands playing into the shorter attention spans of listeners, or if there is also a calculation that it means they can get away with writing less songs. Yes, the argument could be made that we're merely returning to the pre-CD days where albums were routinely shorter. That was a necessity of the vinyl age, but it also meant that bands were making albums more often. Releases would often come every year, sometimes two before you would turn the calendar. Today, though, these short albums are still coming with the three-to-five year wait, which feels like an equation getting unbalanced.

All throughout culture, we seem to be seeing an attitude that the old ways are impossible. Bands can no longer make albums within a one-to-two year span with regularity, just like TV shows talk about what a struggle it is to make 22 episodes for a season. We even have some of the 'premium' shows that need well over a year to produce 10 episodes or less. In the classic days, shows used to make 30 episodes per year, and plenty of those are classics that will be remembered far longer than the latest boring artistic drivel. The same thing is true of old albums. We still talk about Beatles and Led Zeppelin records, and look at how quickly they were coming out.

For all the talk about how our attention spans are shorter, and how things come and go in a flash, the opposite is also true wherein we are taking longer and longer to make the things we enjoy. It's difficult to reconcile the two thoughts, and I'm not going to try.

The only point I'm trying to make is that we're in an odd time where I'm not sure we know which direction we are trying to go as a culture. Are we focused on artistry, and letting ideas brew as long as necessary for them to be at full-strength? Are we focused on speed, and feeding our insatiable need for something new each and every day?

We're caught in-between, and I don't think it's helping anyone.

Album Review: Setyoursails - Bad Blood

Just last week I was talking about the new Venues album as being part of a specific sound prevalent in modern metal. Setyoursails is another band doing pretty much the exact same thing. They marry heavily down-tuned grooves with screamed verses and hooky choruses. It's a version of metalcore that has grown slicker, a bit more 'core', and decidedly more pop. If we think about life as being a bit bipolar, this style of music is the short cycle variety. The mood swings wildly from one minute to the next, and perhaps if we drew a picture of the highs and lows it would turn out to be a sound wave.

The big difference between Venues and Setyoursails comes in the energy level. While I liked Venues, I didn't find the melodies quite enough to overcome the bits I'm simply too old at this point to quite embrace like the younger crowd. Setyoursails music has just a bit more energy, which really pops through in the choruses. These songs have stronger hooks, more passionate vocals, and the combination is enough to propel me through the bits I'm less interested in.

Some of this comes down to vocalist Jules, who is able to scream in a way that has more personality than a mere bark, and whose clean vocals often have a gritty tone that sounds remarkably like Jaycee from A Light Divided, who happened to put out one of my favorite songs of last year. Obviously, that will start the band off on solid footing. Also, the variety of the harsh tones Jules uses is a boon, as the monotony of screaming is broken up with a wider range of tones. It might sound like a little thing, but it makes a huge difference.

Only one of the ten songs on the album hits the four minute mark, so the band is wasting no time in getting straight to the point. They cut out the extraneous bits, focusing on delivering their soaring choruses in between heavy hits of guitar. The brevity works to their advantage, not just because of the listening trends to today, but because the compact nature lets it hit hard. While it might be an easy complaint to say the record needs an extra song or two to feel complete, there's great skill involved in leaving the audience wanting more. This is the perfect amount of Setyoursails to feel satisfying, but leave a hunger that will come back in short order.

Whether we're talking about the title track of "T.F.M.F.", the hooks are so good I could easily hear them being staples of modern rock radio. The band has a knack for these moments, and it really is an evolution of classic metalcore. I remember what it felt like to see the audience singing along to the cathartic melodies on Killswitch Engage DVDs, and Setyoursails has that same kind of ability, just with a sound that leans more into pop. That's a good thing, by the way. It's the right music for this time, and certainly grabs my jaded attention.

Every few years, I like to step back and look at what bands have the potential to grow into the big new thing, the bands that will keep me interested as my old favorites slow down or stop completely. There is a short list of them, and with this album, Setyoursails is definitely on it. "Bad Blood" is the modern metal blend that throws everything into the pot, and somehow comes up with the perfect color to paint with.

Quick Reviews: Venues & The Divine Vanity

Slow week, so let's do this quickly:

Venues - Transience

There's a vein of modern metal Venues fits in that both pulls me in and pushes me away. I love the heaviness and crushing tones Venues is capable of, and they have a great ear for melodic hooks that give every song something strong for me to latch onto. As a thoroughly modern melodic band, Venues is great. That's not the whole of the story, though.

To get to those great moments, we have to get through the verses to most of these songs, which feature harsh barking. I know it's a trope that started back in the days of metalcore, but as I get older, I find myself less and less able to put up with that approach. It's frustrating to hear a band doing such good work, only to spend the run-up in so many songs barely treading water. Aquatherapy might help in physical rehab, but it's a poor metaphor for making your songs better.

This record has a lot going for it, and I truly want to say I love it. I can't do that, though, because the flaws are too front-and-center to ignore. When the album is on the short side, the closing ballad is the weakest song of the lot, and on top of it many songs have sections that add little to the mix, it doesn't add up to enough quality moments to carry me through. It's the sort of record you listen to, and you file away as a band to keep an eye on in case they ever move more in your direction. This album is close, but not there yet.

The Divine Vanity - Emergence

It feels like band clones are less common than they used to be. There was a time when anyone who became big would get imitators, but that doesn't happen quite as often. Ghost seems like a hard band to clone, because they exist outside the norm of what the metal world expects. Between the atmosphere, and voice, and the pop affinity, they're entirely unique. Or at least they were.

This new band is a Ghost clone through and through. Put this record on, and it's only a few seconds before you can hear how much this group is pulling from the first Ghost record. It has the same rough production, the same bit of sinister cheese, and a vocalist who is the closest thing to Tobias Forge we're going to get. For commitment to the bit, I have to give them credit.

However, like Ghost, there's something about this style that is too difficult to pull off over an entire record. All but one of the Ghost records have a handful of amazing songs sandwiched between filler. This record is the same, with a couple of wonderful sound-alikes, and then a bunch of songs that try to get by on the charm of the gimmick. It might be enough for a wry smile, it isn't enough to make the record worth listening to in full again and again. If even Ghost struggles, the odds of a clone being better are next to zero. This doesn't buck the trend, even if it is interesting as a curiosity.

The Latter Days Of Dio

We almost take it for granted at this point that an artist's best work is done when they are young, and their older days are spent trying to recapture the magic, and largely disappointing the fans they've made along the way. But is that always true? It seems to me a lot of that falls on us as listeners, because we reach a saturation point where we have heard enough music from certain artists and their style, we begin to tune out the new stuff regardless of its quality.

When it comes to Ronnie James Dio, there is no denying the greatness he exhibited from Rainbow's "Rising" through his own "Holy Diver". It's as good a run of albums as anyone in rock or metal has ever had, and I would never dare to insinuate it isn't his best work.

It's not his only great work, though.

Dio had fallen from the top of the mountain by the time he passed, and now that enough time has elapsed since then, it's easier to look back at the last few records he made with fresh eyes. The results aren't quite the disappointment we might be inclined to believe they were.

Granted, there was a definite slump with records like "Angry Machines" and "Magica", despite that one getting a better reception than some of the others. Dio's one true effort to make a concept album was perhaps the worst album of his career, as it got bogged down in storytelling without much in the way of songs to back it up. The only silver lining that came from his death was that his plan for two sequels didn't come to fruition.

The last record he made with the Dio band is far different. "Master Of The Moon" was another mature record, which most people will use as a synonym for 'slow'. Yes, it doesn't rip with the energy and speed of his early days, but it was a confident record from a storyteller who wanted the extra time to spin his yarns. Dio said he preferred slower songs, and I understand why. There was more room for his voice and melodies, and that is exemplified on this record. Songs like "I Am" boast some of the best choruses Dio ever wrote, and the rest of the record is a definite upswing from where he had spent the last decade.

But it was the reunion with Black Sabbath that really said something about where Dio was in his later years. The group wrote three new songs for their best-of compilation, and they were every bit as good as the material they wrote twenty and thirty years prior. "Ear In The Wall" was the barn-burner people had been asking for from Dio, complete with, pardon the pun, an ear candy chorus. Then there's "Shadow Of The Wind", which is a glorious doom stomper where Dio weaves a tale as only he can. When he bellows "it's a half truth, still a whole lie", it's magical.

 That didn't quite carry over the "The Devil You Know" album, but the differences were slight. "Bible Black" came out of the gates as one of the groups best songs, and the rest of the record was a group of veterans playing to their strengths. I think, especially when compared to the "13" album they made with Ozzy later, Dio's version of the band still had far more left in the tank. The band was finding their feet again after a long time apart, they were killing in on stage, and the momentum seemed to point to one last masterpiece being possible.

We never got that, obviously, but these last few releases Dio was a part of let him go out on a high note. Listening to them now, you can hear age, but you can also hear a craftsman who knows exactly how to achieve his goal. They aren't records that will ever overpower the nostalgia for the classics, but they deserve to be heard on their own merits.

I'll take these final words from Dio over "Sacred Heart" or "Lock Up The Wolves" any day.

Favorite Albums By Decade

We all have our own way of looking at the world, and one of the things that doesn't mesh with my perspective is the fascination we see with 'catalog music'. Older music is as popular as anything new, more so depending on the metric we are measuring with, but I never dove deeply into the past. Once I was interested in music, I was looking forward, I was more interested in what was new and yet to come.

That isn't to say I don't like some music from the older days, but they are things I came to through other means. It isn't music of my time, and I sense the difference. My listening in any of the decades before I became a fan is limited, but some of those records are important. Today, let's see which records from each decade are my favorites.

60s: The Beatles - Rubber Soul
Runner Up: The Beatles - Abbey Road

Pretty much the whole of my listening from the 60s consists of The Beatles. Between the production aesthetic, and the place in the evolution of music, not much from that time speaks to me. The Beatles are inescapable, though, so I have succumbed to them as everyone else has. My taste might be a bit different, however. I don't like "Sgt Pepper" very much, and vastly prefer the acoustic nature of "Rubber Soul". There's an atmosphere to that record that sounds more timeless than their other works, and perhaps it's because none of their other records are quite as melancholy. As for "Abbey Road", it's a wonderful illustration of how sometimes not expanding on every idea can be a good decision. I wonder how much better "The White Album" would have been as a medley, rather than a chore.

70s: Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell
Runner Up: Bruce Springsteen - Darkness On The Edge Of Town

The first album I ever heard from before my own existence was "Bat Out Of Hell", and I wonder what it says about me that it remains my favorite. I'm sure it means I'm soft, and far too impressionable. Whatever the case, few records have ever been as important to defining me as that one has, so there isn't much competition in that decade. Yes, it was the era of classic rock, but I can honestly say most of that music is lost on me. Springsteen's angsty, brooding album is one of the few from that era I am attached to. It's a better record than "Born To Run" in every way, and in some ways I feel like it was a precursor to emo. Weird, huh? I could have also picked one of the Rainbow records, but my taste in Dio has shifted toward...

80s: Black Sabbath - Heaven & Hell
Runner Up: Elvis Costello - King Of America

Dio's time with Back Sabbath was a true moment of the fates aligning. All three records they made together were fabulous, but none were ever better than the first. The spark of something new was in the air, and they made perhaps the best metal record ever. Dio was at the peak of his powers, and this statement from 1980 set a bar the rest of the decade struggled to ever approach. On the flip side, my other favorite record from the decade was Elvis Costello's diversion into Americana. I have learned so much about songwriting from that album, and remain amazed by a genre experiment working this well. Apologies to "Reign In Blood" and "Appetite For Destruction", but they can't win here.

90s: Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell II
Runner Up: Tonic - Lemon Parade

Now we get into the tough ones. The 90s are when I was falling in love with music, and they are how I still define myself. It was Meat Loaf here that led me down this path, and that record is still one of the few that sweeps me up i a feeling of nostalgia I can't escape. It's a journey every time I listen to it, and it's become more than just music to me. Tonic doesn't hit me quite at that level, but not only did they spend decades as my favorite band, but this album is the reason I started playing music myself. So no matter how much I love "Four" or "Yourself Or Someone Like You", or can't get out of the dysfunctional relationship I have with "Pinkerton", they can't compete with those binding ties.

00s: Jimmy Eat World - Futures
Runner Up: The Wallflowers - Breach

For as much as I love the 90s, the top two albums on my most recent ranking of my all-time favorites are these. "Futures" remains my go-to album when I'm feeling blue, and one of the few instances where I appreciate that a favorite is an outlier in a discography. I'm honestly not sure it would mean as much if it was followed by another record that tried to do the same thing. The same could be said about "Breach", but it's less an album than a weird collection of poetic ideas. It feeds a unique part of my soul.

10s: Halestorm - Vicious
Runner Up - Graveyard - Hisingen Blues

This is the toughest decade to pick. Since we first sat down to review the decade at its conclusion, I haven't been able to figure out which of these two album I should put above the other. Part of me loves Graveyard too much for it not to win, because it's the sort of album that reaches across time to tie together the entirety of our musical journey. The other part of me loves Halestorm just as much, because Lzzy is one of the rarest voices who can cut me deeply with just a few notes. In the end, no one loses here, but I feel like the decade was more defined by Halestorm for two reasons; Lzzy being a godsend, but also Graveyard owing so much to the past.

And we'll save the 20s for a few years down the line, when we have a better picture of which albums are going to stand the test of time.