Album Review: Lost Society - Hell Is A State Of Mind

Let this be an object lesson to everyone in the music sphere - artists, labels, editorialists, promoters, fans, everyone.  Gather ‘round, kids, it’s story time.

When Lost Society debuted in 2013 with Fast Loud Death, it was easy to see the band’s appeal - a throwback thrash band capable of putting out a lot of wattage, who understood the genre and its essential aspects.  The album was enjoyable for what it was, but mostly functioned as a promise of music to come.

The band followed that up with Terror Hungry the subsequent year, and it was much more of the same - good, solid, back-to-basics thrash.  Fun, fast, talented; but not revolutionary or genre-breaking in a significant way.  Lost Society was another thrash band living in the shadow of the legacy of Lazarus A.D, and the brief but stratospheric rise of Power Trip.

It was easy back then to tacitly nod and say ‘well, that’s what they are.’

Here at BGM, we talk a lot about the evolution of artists - how to ride the nearly impossible balance of sounding like yourself, but not being stale within that sound.  Few artists even attempt to make alterations mid-career, and the bands who have achieved it in the metal sphere are luminary and few - Metallica (for good or ill,) Iron Maiden, Anthrax (during the Bush era)...without wasting undo time ruminating on it, those are the ones who come to mind.

Lost Society has defied the odds.  Not just an evolution, but a complete re-invention.

And so we come to their new record, Hell Is A State of Mind, and for those who left the band behind as settled law after their initial run, make sure to come back and try them again.  Somewhere between 2014 and 2026, the band went back into the lab and cooked up an entirely new affect.  Their new brand is still metal, surely, but more melodic, more accessible, borrows more from rock, and does a superior job of creating a feeling than all their thrash grasping ever did.

To go back into their catalogue now is to see the steps - 2020’s self-released No Absolution, and then 2022’s If The Sky Came Down show the birth pangs of the re-invention, but what they really do is speak to the six-year (and probably more,) meandering, experimental journey to get to the point of this new record in 2026.

First point first - that is not to say that Lost Society is no longer a thrash band.  Halfway down the record is “Kill the Light,” and even with the big chorus and the brittle melody, Lost Society leaves no doubt in the chugging riff that this is still a band who can get down with a buzzsaw guitar and a headbanging anthem.  That’s only the first half, though - the back half of the tune is something else entirely - an anthemic power romp with keyboards, chorused vocals and something approaching stringed instruments.  Thrash, sure, but something indelibly more.

This kind of melding synthesis is present throughout Hell Is A State of Mind, including on what may be the album’s best cut. “Synthetic.”  The band pulls every string they can think of and weaves them together into something dramatic, heavy and dire.  It’s as unique and enjoyable an amalgam of sounds as ideas as any metal band has released in recent years.

That’s the key here - the blending of elements into a greater whole - and the title track, placed last on the record, is the culmination of all nine songs that have come before.  It’s a thrash version of something that would sound at home capping off a Lord of the Lost album, with all the gravitas and rafter-rocking that comes with that comparison.

Okay, there will be a camp out there that says “doesn’t this kinda sound like Avenged Sevenfold?”  And that’s not without merit.  The counter to that, though, is 1) is that so terrible? And 2) never mind the heavy use of synth orchestrals that A7X has never truly dipped their toe in, the undercurrent of true thrash chops that Lost Society brings to bear and builds this album on, gives it an edge, a grit that few other modern, melodic bands can readily compare to.

Not every song on the album is perfect, that goes practically without saying - but there’s an awful lot of admirable songcraft here, as it seems every second or third song makes the listener go ‘huh, didn’t see that coming.’ And when a band can do that, can make the listener guess at what’s next when they’re already more than a dozen years into their career, that’s cause for celebration.  Let that be the object lesson - never assume you know all that a band can be.

Take Two: Neal Morse Band - L.I.F.T.

It doesn't happen very often, but every now and again a review I write will ring hollow as I spent more time with an album. Every piece we write is merely a snapshot in time, expressing how we are thinking and feeling in that moment. As we know, life does not stay static, and our relationships with music change as much as anything else. Some records will grow into unexpected favorites, while others will lose their luster as the banality sets in with repeated listens. We do our best to extrapolate how we think the curve is going to develop, but the truth of the matter is that we're not going to be right every time. This is one of those times.

Recently, my review for this new Neal Morse Band album was trying to balance the relief and comfort of hearing something that reminded me of the Neal Morse music I've loved with the distraction and angst of some choices Neal makes when putting these albums together. Nothing I said wasn't true, but I didn't have enough time to let the scale come to a stop before judging which side weighed down the other. I'm not taking that review down, but I'm adding this one for better context.

A recent project I was undertaking for myself brought me into my past, and reminded me of strands of psychology I was talking about with a layer of dust on my memories. While I understood the theory of the message in "Shame About My Shame", I had lost some of the visceral emotion from when that lesson was learned. Getting that back, the album began to unfold for me as something more important than another preaching prog record. This one hit on thoughts and doubts that have haunted the back of my mind for decades, just as I was trying to emerge from an existential crisis about the very kinds of "hurt people" hurting me the band sings about.

The five years that have passed since this collection of musicians has released anything was spent mostly ignoring Neal's output. The break means that now I'm hearing the familiar choices and sounds with fresh ears, and I'm finally ready to dive in and embrace their particular brand of excess. There had been the occasional song like "Breath Of Angels" that cut through, but Neal had put out so much so quickly that keeping up with his releases wasn't that different from doom-scrolling.

The key to this is the psychology, as I found a piece of myself in "Shame About My Shame". Hearing the lyric echoing in the memories I was writing about was the entry point, while Neal's epic and emotional guitar solo was the hook that pulled me back in. So much music comes and goes, dismissed before it ever gets a chance, that I can sometimes forget how much a great moment can affect us. That's what the two dramatic ballads here, the other being "The Great Withdrawal", do. I haven't had that kind of reaction to Neal's music in years, largely because his writing usually is coated in such a thick layer of preaching schmalz that I can't take him seriously.

This record focuses on pain, regret, and the ways people treat us leave lasting scars we have to learn how to live with. That's the through-line of my memories, so we are dealing with a moment of serendipity where the person I would perhaps least expect to offer words I relate to has put out a record that absolutely speaks to the hope I'm still struggling to find. I still take issue with the theological ramifications of Neal's declaration on "Love All Along" that suffering is for a purpose, though now I can hear the joy at the end not so much as a thumb in the eye of those who haven't gotten to that point, but rather as a lacking I can feel shame about that is more healthy than hating myself for being myself.

It helps that this album features the most consistent songcraft the band has put to tape yet. While they've done plenty of good things in the past, it was always fragmented in packages that held way too much music for the cream to rise to the top. Presented with albums too long to have the patience for, Neal was inadvertently sending me on a journey to other musical avenues, which I might not have been ready for this album without. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say, and I feel that is what happened here. 

While my initial review was positive with plenty of caveats, I can throw most of those aside now. Nit-picking can still be done, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts in cases like this.

As I learned from telling my stories again, there is a lot of the past that carries through the present. Sometimes, we forget how to look past the scars to see that whatever good we have in this life, as it wouldn't be there without having been through what we have. I don't consider that a gift the way Neal does, but accepting that fact, and choosing to focus on those few good things, is the message I needed to hear.

I suppose all of that that makes "L.I.F.T." the front-runner for Album Of The Year, which is not a bet I would have taken.

Singles Roundup: Arch Enemy, Foo Fighters, & Masterplan

We've got some news to talk about in this batch.

Arch Enemy - To The Last Breath

Once again, we find Arch Enemy beginning a new era with a new vocalist. And once again, the band is not going to be making waves with their pick. After they set the standard and found their fame with Angela Gossow, they have done nothing to rock the boat. In fact, there were even rumors going around that Angela might be returning to the band in the wake of Alissa's departure, but that turned out to be fever dreaming from the online community. Instead, we see Arch Enemy welcoming Lauren Heart into the fold, which comes with an admission that must be made; both because of the nature of harsh vocals and the band's adherence to formula, there really isn't much of a difference between Angela, Alissa, and now Lauren.

That's good news if you like Arch Enemy, because nothing has changed on this first taste of the new era. Michael Amott is still writing the same style of anthemic extreme music I have taken to calling 'arena death metal', and this is one of their better examples of it. The verses thrash with fury, leading to a chorus that begs to be screamed by a stadium full of sweaty metal fans. It's perfect Arch Enemy, if that's the sort of thing you like. Personally, I admire the craft of the music, but I can only stay interested for small doses. This being one, I'm rather impressed. It reminds me a lot of Angela's version of "Pilgrim", which remains my favorite Arch Enemy song by a mile.

Foo Fighters - Your Favorite Toy

I have to think long and hard to remember the last time Foo Fighters weren't disappointing me. That would be "Wasting Light", which is further in the past than my memory would like to admit. Since then, the band has gone through terrible gimmicks, a songwriting drought, and personal tragedies. Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise they have struggled to maintain an identity through all of that. Every time they pop up again, they seem to be putting on a new mask, a new persona, something that tries to kick them back into a creative state. I thought their previous album, which was the return-to-form after Taylor Hawkins' death, would start a second period of remembering just who Foo Fighters are... but that was an illusion.

This song finds the band trying to be a dirty, lo-fi version of themselves, but that's not who they are. Foo Fighters are mainstream. Hell, Foo Fighters are the very definition of rock in the mainstream. For them to pretend they're still playing in a garage somewhere is ridiculous, and it actively insults the millions of people who turned them into the stadium sized band they are. They tried something similar on "Wasted Light", but back then Dave Grohl still had a few good songs left in him. Those songs were less polished, but they were built with hooks upon hooks. This song is grit and nothing else.

An identity crisis is not an easy thing to go through, especially not in the public eye. I have sympathy for that, but Foo Fighters have essentially been going through this same thing for over a decade. At this point, if they haven't figured out what the next chapter is for them, it might not exist. The fact of the matter is this song, along with everything that has come before it, might just be evidence the band is running on fumes.

Masterplan - Chase The Light

Speaking of comebacks, Masterplan is returning for the first time in years, but with a completely different story to Foo Fighters. Rather than being in crisis, Masterplan is trying too hard to be who they used to be. The band is so dedicated to the original template of their power metal that it feels as if time has stood still, which only highlights the ways in which it hasn't. This first song from their upcoming album sounds like classic Masterplan, while sounding nothing like classic Masterplan.

The guitar tones and the pacing are right, but the ideas are not there. The song lacks the memorable hooks their first two albums had, falling flat even before we get to the disappointing chorus. What's worse though is that the weaker songwriting exposes the fact that the band's main appeal was always Jorn Lande, who took all of the band's cache with him when he left years ago. Rick Altzi is a capable singer for some things, but this kind of power metal is not that. His rasp is not the smooth and powerful one Jorn possesses, instead venturing into strain and a bit of ugliness.

Masterplan was born out of the wake of Helloween, and both bands have embraced their past to find their future. I didn't like Helloween's efforts, because they are too clean backward looking to feel vital in the current day. I don't like this Masterplan effort either, because it doesn't actually sound like the band they are trying to be.

Singer might get too much credit or blame, but there's a reason. When you lose one who is definitive, you can't recover. Masterplan took time away, and they didn't figure out how to get over that hump.

Album Review: Rob Zombie - "The Great Satan"

Okay, deep breath…I think what we’re about to engage in is an earnest exercise in damning with faint praise.  Here goes.

Much like the collaborative work of John Carpenter and Kurt Russell, there’s an untouchable trinity of Rob Zombie musical efforts - Astro-Creep 2000 with White Zombie, Hellbilly Deluxe, and The Sinister Urge.  Not before, and not since, has anyone produced music that sounds quite like those three, and it’s a niche that the market has been failing to fill ever since, with apologies to the early works of Rob’s brother Spider and Powerman 5000, and if we’re being generous The Sickness. (Sidebar: The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China and Escape From New York, for those trying to wrack their brains.)

Then for a while, Zombie kind of wandered in the woods musically.  In his defense, he was embarking on a bankable film career, and how much creative juice does a person really have at any one time?  Anyway, what we got in the interim was the up-and-down (mostly down) Educated Horses (though I adore the excellent The Scorpion Sleeps.) The various and sundry albums that followed are numerous and immemorable.

And so we get to The Great Satan, Zombie’s newest offering.  It pulses with promise - the cover art is a needed throwback to the days of some of Rob’s best imagery, the  carnival-turned-twisted-pop-art that’s worked well for him for so long.  The early singles and accompanying videos promised a balance between Rob’s bombastic costumes of the past and the overdriven punk rock that propelled him to superstardom.  If Zombie needed a comeback, and if it was ever in the cards, The Great Satan held the most concerted promise of it.

There are…glimpses…of Zombie’s great potential on the record.  “Heathen Days” is the first cut that seems like it could have come from the same universe that produced “Superbeast.” Would that the mix were more guitar-forward, as the riff is simple but hooking, and leads into the chorus with an aggressive bite that deserves more space amidst the trademark Zombie morass.

“Out of Sight” is a virile rock romp that comes across like the logical evolution of where Zombie’s sound could have (and evidently did,) go after 1998.  The track is a little more muted than the explosiveness Zombie so often exhibits, but the changing beats and descending scales only serve to make the chorus pop all the more.

Then at the end we get served “Unclean Animals,” and there’s a song like this on all Zombie records - think “Blood, Milk and Sky” or “Return of the Phantom Stranger” or “House of 1000 Corpses,” or “Lords of Salem,” and you’re on the right track.  It’s big, it’s brooding, it’s dark, it shambles along with re-mixed vocals and appropriate dread.  It does the job.

Maybe that’s the real takeaway here - The Great Satan does the job.  That’s about it.  It has some pitfalls - for only having twelve real songs (there are some throwaway interludes, as one is wont to do,) and for having none that are longer than 3:46, the record feels too long.  Whether that’s because it simply runs out of gas, or because there’s a thematic and aural similarity between many of the tracks is to be determined, but it drags in the back half.  Also, no one would ever say Zombie was a particularly erudite lyricist (“Demonoid Phenomenon / Get It Out / Get it On”)  but he had a way of creating a bizarre, fun, otherworldly vision that seemed spooky but attractive.  If there was ever any nuance there, it’s been replaced on this record by Zombie’s heavy reliance on profanity, and as we all know, profanity is the crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker.

Again, back to where we started - damning with faint praise.  This could be Zombie’s best album since The Sinister Urge, certainly on par with Educated Horses, but as discussed, that’s a low hurdle to clear.  Only “Heathen Days” rings with the kind of energy that demands to be listened to again and again.  The Great Satan can’t consistently carry the energy and aggressiveness that Rob is, or was, capable of, and while it’s not a terrible record that reminds of Zombie’s halcyon days, it’s also a disappointing one, because it reminds of Zombie’s halcyon days.

Album Review: Neal Morse Band - L.I.F.T.

Not merely because Valentine's Day just passed by recently, I had been thinking about the very concept of love. It's one of those words I use, but I'm not sure how much I actually know about the subject. I listen to other people talk about it, and experience it, and it always makes me wonder if there need to be more words to explain the spectrum of feelings that exist for normal people... and for people like me.

There was a time I loved Neal Morse's music. When I first discovered his brand of prog, I went down the rabbit-hole, and his interpretation became what I expected prog to be. Whether it was the whirlwind of epics like "Seeds Of Gold", or using Transatlantic's talent pool to make the most of "We All Need Some Light", Neal was establishing himself as one of my favorite songwriters. I say was, because while I still love that period of music up to either "Momentum" or "Kaleidoscope", the last decade has found me feeling cold toward everything he has attempted.

Of those attempts, it is NMB I am warmest too, if perhaps because it felt more like a continuation of what I loved. But as each album came, I couldn't muster the energy to be excited anymore. The flaws and nit-picks were at the front of my mind, and the music wasn't distracting me enough to push them down. Perhaps a few years away from this particular combination of players will make a difference, although seeing the way Mike Portnoy's return to Dream Theater played out for me, I wasn't getting my hopes up.

This record is conceptual in the way "The Whirlwind" was, leaving behind the need for a half-hour epic to justify things. These thirteen songs are stitched together as more of a singular piece, although I've never actually liked that way of thinking about these albums, especially when the writers (and this goes beyond just Neal) later admit at least one of the tracks wasn't actually written to fit the concept. Between that, and the need to still include filler instrumental 'interludes' that don't further the story, I sometimes think concept albums are more the concept of making an album than truly conceptual.

The band has been vague enough about the theme/concept that they claim the title means something different to each one of them, which reminds me (in a bad way) of the ridiculous decision Neal and Mike made to put together two different versions of the last Transatlantic album. There's something about hearing an artist not know what their own work means, or what form it takes, that raises serious questions. Perhaps that is on me, or maybe we shouldn't be told that a band only spent a couple of days together writing the whole of an album.

I mentioned those nit-picks before, and they are hard for me to ignore as I listen to this album. The one that bothers me the most is the one Neal is perhaps the biggest offender of among the music I listen to; masking vocals with unnecessary layers of studio crap. Nearly every single vocal line on the record has effects turned up too much, distorting the natural sound of their voices to the point I hear the artificiality more than anything else. And when the album is about the trials and pains of life, taking the humanity out of the vocals is a cardinal sin. No matter which of thm are singing, the vocals are a distraction. In fact, I hate to say this, but I've heard plenty of AI music where the vocals sound more authentic and emotional than what these guys are able to deliver with this intentional distortion. Sorry, not sorry.

Even though the production on the record sounds smaller and flatter than usual, the songs try their damnedest to win me back. There are plenty of moments that are full of the usual Neal-isms, and that comfortable feeling is what works so well. Neal has always had a penchant for big sing-along melodies, and this album has more of that than the last few. This isn't exactly a 'return to form', but it's the closest NMB album yet to feeling like one of Neal's solo albums from the 'glory days'. The more I listen, the more these songs started to dig in. Ok, I still find "Hurt People" tries too hard, but the rest of the material is the kind of prog only Neal Morse can make.

The song that resonates with me most is "Shame About My Shame", which deals with what in philosophy we refer to as 'second-order' thinking. It's one I have found myself with many times, and sometimes it's a bit hard to explain that we can feel just as hurt by our own reaction to something as we are by the thing itself. To use a slightly different word; I have had many regrets, some of which I regret the fact that I regret, and a few I regret regretting my regrets about. In other words, when we have a society that tells us to keep quiet and not share when we are feeling sadness, it stops being a normal chapter of life and becomes something we believe we should be above. That's absurd, but it's the way we have convinced ourselves to talk about what is going on inside us.

Ok, that's enough of a tangent. Back to the music, "Shame About My Shame" is a great song because it's a simple melody with a complex message, and it provides the backdrop for the most emotional guitar solo on the album. It isn't as grandiose as "The Breath Of Angels" was as the centerpiece of "The Similitude Of A Dream", but it fits the same mold. Right now, that's my favorite variation of Neal's music, along with the uplifting power of "Carry You Again". Those work far better for me than the attempts to write songs that are heavier, or more technical, or that bounce between sounds like sketch comedy.

Overall, the album leaves me with a much warmer feeling than "Innocence & Danger" did, and is the closest thing to the Neal Morse albums I love than anything he's done in at least ten years. While NMB have always been good at what they do, their penchant for bloating the running times and not self-editing has made it difficult to enjoy sitting through the albums as full entities. This album is still seventy minutes, but it feels tighter and more self-contained. The biggest problem I have is not musical at all, but comes in the psychology of the ending, where Neal and the band sing of giving themselves to God, and realizing they were "loved all along", because there was "a purpose for my pain". After talking about the anguish and emotional toll of life, we're told we should now worship the very entity that caused us to go through that pain. I'm sorry, but I cannot understand the mindset that gives all the credit for the good things, but none of the blame for the bad things.

To have the album end on that note actually pisses me off, because it reaffirms a belief that there is 'a plan' that involves us suffering. If that's true, it is as cruel as anything the imagination can conjure, and it utterly belies the resolution the album is supposed to be leading us toward. It's also a strand of thought people of faith rarely seem to contemplate, which is just another reason why it should be illegal to proselytize.

That's not a joke.

But still, this is Neal's best album in a decade, and once that frustrations settles down, this could easily wind up being one of my favorite albums of the year. 

Album Review: Michael Monroe - Outerstellar

We have with this album a confluence of two phenomena; one is the law of diminishing returns, and the other is being at the wrong place at the wrong time. When Michael Monroe released "Blackout States", it's sleazy throwback sound and razor-sharp songwriting caught me completely off-guard, and is still a record I go back to. It was a perfect bit of old-school rock that didn't sound the least bit dated, and I would probably say bests anything from the old Hanoi Rocks days. The records that followed were also good, but I could hear in each one the magic slowly leaking out.

The law of diminishing returns came to mind, which put me into alert mode as the rollout for this latest album began. The three singles that were released in advance felt flat, maybe a bit hollow, and with each new one my hopes for the album dropped accordingly. Was I simply tired of the band treading the same water? Well, a listen back to "Blackout States" told me I still love that one just as much as I ever did, so I'm not sure that's the answer.

To paraphrase Hamlet; Ah, here's the rub. Michael and his band continue to make sleazy rock and roll songs that remind us of the dirty stories of the filthy streets of the old days. That is so quaint, and honestly antiquated, when we're faced with existential crises every time we look at the headlines. I'm not saying artists like Michael should be writing songs that sound like preaching the gospel of modern times, but the wistful feeling about the days when we praised rock stars for being addicts and assholes doesn't play as well when we're all just trying to survive.

But again, none of that would matter if the songs were still as sharp and hooky, which they aren't, at least on the first half of the record. Look no further than "Black Cadillac", which is a slow dirge where the chorus is merely chanting the title, done so with backing vocals that reverberate in a way that masks Michael's voice. That makes the 'gang vocal' actually sound small, and not powerful at all, which goes against the entire way the song is constructed. I don't think it would be all that great anyway, but the choice doesn't help matters.

"When The Apocalypse Comes" trades in a chorus for a single line, which doesn't really work for me as a release after the verse, and especially when the cadence of that verse is one of those moments I swear I've heard before in one of his songs. There's the law of diminishing returns put on display. The same is true of "Painless", although that song at least has a tempo and chord droning that is a little something different for Michael. It distracts a bit from the lack of a compelling melody.

When we hit the middle of the record, "Disconnected" and "Precious" dip into what makes Michael's music so much fun, with "Pushin' Me Back" forming a trio of songs that make me wonder what I had spent the previous twenty minutes listening to. The shift in tone is jarring, as all of a sudden the band sounds alive, the songs have punch, and we've got ample reason to headbang and sing along.

That leaves me asking myself an interesting question; is it better to have a full album that's merely 'ok', or an album that is half forgettable and half really good? That's the difference between this album and the previous one. The second half of this album is really good, and I would probably put ahead of almost all of "I Live Too Fast To Die Young", but the first half is the most tepid group of songs I've heard from this era of Michael's career. I can't say I love either album in full, and I'm not sure I have an answer to the question I just asked. I will likely get more replays out of the good songs on this album, but I might be less eager to put it on knowing what it will take to get there.

My biggest takeaway from "Outerstellar" is disappointment, not so much because of the quality level, but for hearing in it the band still has plenty of great songs in them, but for some reason makes us sit through their worst material before we get to hear it. I don't say this often with records that are only forty-three minutes long, but taking two of those early songs off to make a thirty-six minute album would have made this a better record, and one I'd be far more excited about.

Quick Reviews: Austen Starr & Joel Hoekstra's 13

There are a lot of things I know I don't understand about how people and the world work. Among those seems to be scheduling. Whether it's television programming or album releases, the ways in which the people trying to maximize attention and profit choose to release their work to the world often leaves me puzzled as to why they make the decisions they do. Many times, those choices are self-defeating, at least to me. It's certainly possible that I'm the weird one here, but the two albums we're here to talk about today are an example of just this phenomenon.

Austen Starr's "I Am The Enemy" and Joel Hoekstra's 13's "From The Fade".

There are actually two issues of scheduling I feel need to be addressed, so let's start with the most obvious of them. Both of these albums feature the guitar playing and songwriting of Joel Hoekstra. The same label is releasing two albums featuring his work in the same month, which I suppose could be them trying to piggy-back attention from one album to the other among his fans, but it seems to me more likely to burn us out on his playing. I complain often about musicians who are popping up too frequently while doing the same thing, which waters down their trademark sound, leaving at least me feeling less excited every time I see their name.

That isn't quite the case here, as the two albums do take moderately different directions. Austen Starr's album is more compact, more melodic, and has hints of emo creeping in around the edges. Joel Hoekstra's album is heavier, more guitar-oriented, and gives everyone more room to stretch their talents. The basic tones are the same, and Joel's guitar playing ties them together perhaps too much if you listen to the records back-to-back as I did, but these are not clones in the way many other projects from this particular label tend to be.

Both albums feature expert playing, but the difference in voice and approach make for wildly disparate experiences. Austen's voice cuts through the mix, her melodies the focal point of every song. The band is great, but they are serving her songs. Joel's album is all about the guitars, as Girish's voice is often put just low enough in the mix that it's difficult to pick out exactly what he's trying to tell us. Personally, when a production makes me strain to hear important pieces of the song clearly, it makes it difficult for me to enjoy the experience. Girish serves more as texture than anything, with his Axl Rose-isms catching my ear more than any lyric possibly could.

Listening to the albums together, it becomes an obvious matter of philosophy. Do you prefer songs or sound? I am one of those people who listens to music to hear melodies that get caught in my head, which leads me to prefer Austen's album. Joel's is the more impressive album from a musical perspective, but the songs don't shine through in the same way. Even if they were are hooky, the saturated sound of the production is taxing on my ears.

This brings us to the second issue of timing. Girish appeared on America's Got Talent with his band over this previous summer/fall. I am dumbfounded that the label knew he would be on the show, and they did not work to have something in the pipeline to take advantage of that new audience. This is, as far as I know, the first record since then Girish has appeared on, and it doesn't even have his name in the title. I can't help but think this was all a missed opportunity. That's not to say I think sales would miraculously soar, but when you're dealing with what is essentially a niche genre at this point, every little bit can help.

Leaving my self-indulgent musing aside, what we have here are two albums that are both solid efforts. I would not be surprised if more people gravitate toward the heavier rock album, but I'm going to be honest and say the winner of this little bit of circumstance is Austen Starr. Not only do I enjoy her album more, but I come away more impressed that she bested an album filled with veterans.

It's always the songs.

Album Review: Hoaxed - "Death Knocks"

It takes a minute.  Do that thing that’s so hard to do in our modern society of up-to-the-minute shitposting and instant gratification and new, uniquely unfulfilling content around every rhythmic click of the second hand.  

Be patient.

That’s how you’ll get the most out of Portland’s Hoaxed and their new album Death Knocks.  Don’t look for the big bang, the rumbling earthquake, the thundering catharsis.  There’s a certain kneejerk desire to compare Hoaxed to, say, Royal Thunder, and while there are similarities, that comparison is a misstep.  Hoaxed wins by playing the long game.  This is, if it can be said, low-fi dark rock beats for the discerning ear.

Instead, listen for the quiet, defeated desperation of Kat Keo’s vocals, the slow burn, the simmering boil that the album employs again and again.  Be patient.  It’ll come.  Give the record two complete listens.  Three.  Six.  Close your eyes, ignore the distractions.  Put your phone away and get lost in the swirling sea of the record as it takes the first three songs to build to the crescendo of the fourth, “The Fallen.”  You read that right - it takes more than ten minutes and three songs of clever layering, brooding harmony and slowly building might to get to the album’s first release point.  

There’s an interlude called “Looking Glass” (sadly, not a cover of the sublimely excellent song of the same name by Cave of Swimmers, which I bring up only because I would ADORE it if Hoaxed sank their fangs into it and came up with their version,) and even that interlude is crafted and thoughtful and an inexorable piece of the whole.  It’s haunting and cinematic and tangentially reminiscent of the work Goblin did for Dario Argento in the late ‘70s (watch Suspiria.  Thank me later.)

All that, all that just to get to the album’s best song, “Dead Ringer.”  The cut rolls out with an Iommi-ian riff, and then bridges into something dark and staccato and threatening, until the chorus erupts into a strained, chaotic singalong.  It’s one of the few choruses on the album that does so, which makes it stand out all the more.  If you’ll pardon the vernacular, it’s so damn cool.  Hoaxed shows us a glimpse of their power in a way that would make last year’s darling Year of the Cobra look at each other and say “maybe we need a guitarist.”

There are no bad songs on Death Knocks. No wasted space.  If there is a criticism that’s fair to levy at all, it’s what we discussed in the opening part of this piece - the listener must be patient with Death Knocks.  It’s not going to explode out of the speakers at you.  That’s not how it’s designed, not what the band is going for, and not what Keo’s vocals are meant for.  There are calculated moments of power, like “Dead Ringer,” “Kill Switch,” or the outro of “Where the Seas Fall Silent,” but Hoaxed purposefully doesn’t show that hand all the time.  If you’re looking for an adrenaline fix in your rock, best move along.

If you have the patience and the right ear for it, though, Death Knocks is a deeply rewarding album that should have something novel and enjoyable to offer for fans of all the bands we’ve already mentioned, plus Blood Ceremony, Type O Negative, Ghost, Nim Vind, and you get the idea.  

But be patient.  Close your eyes.  Breathe in your nose, out through your mouth, and wait for the music to come to you.  It will.

Album Review: Primaluce - Way Of Perfection

We've talked before about the conflation of prog, weirdness, and technicality. Sometimes, the terms get used interchangeably, which gives us the wrong impression about the music we're listening to. Specifically, technicality is equated as a not just a component of progressive music, but as progressive nature in and of itself. If you listen to any amount of music that falls into the categorization of 'djent', you'll be greeted with the argument that merely playing pop songs in rhythms that aren't strictly four-four is enough to qualify as progressive. Technicality does not by itself make music more progressive, more intellectual, or more interesting.

What makes both progressive and technical music most interesting is when the artists can blend unusual ideas and instrumental acrobatics with strong melodic songwriting. That subverts our expectations, and gives us multiple layers for the music to work on. It's special, and also something quite difficult to pull off. Very few bands have been able to master both sides of that coin, from my experience.

Primaluce aims to do just that, blending fret-burning guitar playing with melodic singing that indeed borders on pop music. The first minute of the record is a mixture of cinematic keyboards and frenetic runs of guitar notes that tell us this is an album trying to capture the complicated nature of life. When the vocals enter, the progressive metal edge tones down to an AOR feeling, recalling the best moments of Seventh Wonder and Tommy Karevik. The chorus is a soaring bit of beauty, and a wonderful give-and-take with the musical intricacy, not unlike that band's phenomenal "Alley Cat".

The band, led by Stefano Primaluce, packs a lot into each song. The longest are only seven minutes long, but they are able to ebb and flow, taking us from mood to mood as the notes fly by. Diversity is a key to the record, both from song to song and within each song. The band doesn't stay focused on any one motif or mood for long, letting everything breathe as it kaleidoscopes out from the melodic center.

Though completely different in tone, the approach reminds me of Sunburst's "Manifesto" from 2024, which should have been the Album Of The Year. Like that album, Primaluce is able to play deeply involved music that features melodies more lively and memorable than most of the 'melodic metal' that purports to focus on that aspect above all else. Primaluce's approach to the existential quandaries of life is to focus more on the uplifting aspect, which makes this a rare technical album that leaves me with more of a smile than with musical envy.

There's a lot to enjoy over the course of twelve songs and seventy minutes. The band rarely lets up, delivering strong compositions and performances from start to finish. Last year, progressive metal was headlines by the return of the classic Dream Theater lineup. In a few weeks, we might be getting this year's progressive headliner from the Neal Morse Band. If I'm being honest, "Way Of Perfection" is operating on a higher level than either of them. You could think of this record as being a blend of John Petrucci's wizardry with (classic era) Neal Morse's ear for sticky melodies, and you wouldn't be far off.

I've been largely unimpressed by a lot of the music that is supposed to be important as of late. I thought that was an indication of something wrong with me, but then an album like Primaluce's comes along and reminds me that indeed, I'm still capable of getting swept up in and enjoying a great album when I hear it.

That's what I'm hearing with "Way Of Perfection".

"Armed Forces" & Shooting Yourself In The Foot

Why do I love things that are self-destructive?

That's one of the existential questions I find myself dealing with on a near daily basis. Love is a complicated string of thought, and not something I am going to go into detail about here, other than to say too often I have found myself drawn to things and people that turn out not to be good for me. Whether or not that is a tautology encompassing the entirely of experience is another question I'm not going to be unpacking here, other than to say I've given it serious thought.

When I first discovered the music of Elvis Costello, I dove in and immersed myself in nearly everything he did between 1977 and 1986. I was listening to a flurry of creativity that radiated in every direction, and trying to work my way back to the origin point was not the easiest of tasks. That's true of any artist/band you discover who has a long discography, but even more so when they traverse and explore a wide swath of musical territory.

In those early days, "Armed Forces" was the album that stood out to me as Elvis' pinnacle. It was a pop kaleidoscope, an album that packed its brief running time with sticky melodies and shimmering performances from The Attractions. It was still awkward and literate, but with the costuming of being slick and professional to the nth degree. I preferred that to the rawness of "My Aim Is True", or the angry energy of "This Year's Model", because that was where my mind was at the time.

Over the years, my taste has changed, and so too has my attitude with regards to Elvis' music. My favorite Elvis albums are the ones that strip away the pretense of being anything but himself, the ones that are distilled to the basics of writing and recording. That elevates albums like "My Aim Is True" in my esteem, and puts "King Of America" on the highest of pedestals. It also means that "Armed Forces" is an album that began sinking before I started thinking more in depth about just how problematic the record is.

I went through the same experience with Weezer's "Pinkerton", where I was struck years after the fact by the toxicity and ugliness contained in the songs. "Armed Forces" is an album I always knew had at least one choice in extremely poor taste, but it really is more than that.

Keeping with the Weezer connection, we can start by reading into "Accidents Will Happen" an undercurrent of sexual misconduct. As the first verse tells us of a guy who "says he'll wait forever, but it's now or never", the titular 'accident' becomes the encounter she will soon grow to regret. Add onto that how "they say you're so young", and "they keep you hanging on until you're well hung", and the picture starts coming into focus of a pursuit that should not happen from either side. It is less an accident than it is a failure of the will. And to add insult to the injury, the song is a sloppy mess of writing, with Elvis switching from third to first person in the chorus, which invites more questions about what was happening in his personal life at the time to spark such a song.

"Oliver's Army" is the song that has had to explain and justify itself from the very beginning. Elvis' critique of English politics was slandered by his own choice of language, which is uncomfortable to print even for the purpose of discussion. Describing the scene at an armed checkpoint, Elvis uses the phrase "one more widow, one less white n----r", only to then say how "London is full of Arabs". It's a shocking comment, both because of the casual racism that is delivered without obvious irony, but also because it feels entirely modern. Those same complaints come out of the mouths of the most powerful people in the world today, and I'm not sure whether I'm uncomfortable about the language in the song, or that what was once problematic would probably slide by without a second thought if released right now.

We move on to "Big Boys", and the implications of using a woman for sex before discarding her, because that's what it takes "to be like the big boys". Perhaps Elvis' is innocent compared to the movie theater fellatio of Alanis Morissette's songwriting, but metaphorically calling the woman an 'ugly stick' only good for that purpose is not his finest hour.

Things get worse when we arrive at "Chemistry Class", where Elvis uses the lush arrangement and production to hide the 'pun' of the woman in his sights being in need of "the final solution". We could be charitable in reading this as a legitimate pun about chemistry, but given the language we already heard in "Oliver's Army", and that the next song is literally titled "Two Little Hitlers", the proliferation of racist and dehumanizing language feels like a difficult thing to extend grace over. Elvis then calls her garbage, literally, and implies she's so ill-equipped for the task that any experience she has was, yet again, purely accidental.

Which brings us to "Two Little Hitlers", which is the result of someone thinking they are far more clever than they really are. The song is a story of a dysfunctional relationship that results in her looking through the pages of a dating service for someone who could provide "some effective mating", which would be crude enough, but pales to the fact that Elvis somehow thought it was acceptable to compare this relationship to Hitler. I'm not sure there is any scenario in which that would be in good taste, but this certainly isn't it, especially after just using a term of genocide in regards to a woman in the previous song. No, this is thoroughly disgusting.

If one time is an accident, and two times is a coincidence, what does that make an album that consistently treats women as problems until and unless they are showing their physical affection? The very first line of Elvis' discography says, "now that your picture's in the paper being rhythmically admired", which I once thought was the most clever way of explaining that particular physical act, only to now realize that writing a song about jerking off to a woman's picture is creepy beyond words. Elvis was branded in those days as an 'angry young man' of rock and roll, but did anyone stop to ask what he was angry about? There were occasional bits of politics thrown in, but largely Elvis' anger was directed straight at women. The irony is he seemed as mad at the ones who did sleep with him as the ones who didn't.

I've learned a lot about myself and my own psychology over the years, and I'm rather proud to say I've never written a song with that kind of anger or toxicity in it. Despite these songs swimming in my head all this time, I have been able to avoid falling into the same ugliness. I can blame myself for my failings, I can see that I'm the problem.

So... do I not love "Armed Forces" the same way these days because I am no longer impressed by the ear candy covering the weaker writing, or do I not love "Armed Forces" because I now realize the damage loving such an album can do to me?

The answer is yes.