Album Review: Lacey Sturm - Kenotic Metanoia

I pretty much checked out on 2023 early this year. By the middle of November, I was ready to call 'cut' on this one, and I didn't see anything listed on my calendar of upcoming releases to keep me invested in continuing the search until next year's albums started to roll in. This sort of thing happens every year, but it set in a bit earlier than usual, which only reinforces everything I've been thinking all along. Still, I'm never truly closed off from something new catching my attention at the last minute, and that's a quality I'm always a bit proud of.

This year's late entry comes in the form of Lacey Sturm, the Flyleaf singer who is now releasing her second solo album. Funnily enough, my only real experience with Flyleaf is from the first album she was not with the band for. There's one song from that one I've always remembered fondly, so when I saw Lacey's name pop up on my radar, I was a bit curious what she was doing on her own that didn't make sense to do as a Flyleaf record. I think I understand.

The songs on this record are a chronicle of Lacey's spiritual journey, telling us about the moments of clarity that define the way we see the world. It doesn't make as much sense to put these out under any other name, because they are the focus of her life, they are the ethos that drives everything she does.

It also so happens that Lacey is the sort of voice who towers above a band, and she is going to find up the focal point no matter what she does. Her voice has as much power as a full stack of Marshall amps, but more than that, she is a performer in the purest sense. She belts the songs out when needed, but on a song like "(I Died)" she throws so many colors and inflections into her singing that she is acting out the moment when you stare up from the bottom and see the edges of the hole finally grow closer. Listening to her is captivating, and she lays down some of the best vocal performances I've heard all year.

Mainstream rock is hard to talk about, both because it doesn't seem to mean much of anything anymore, but also because so much of it fits into a box so narrow we can't turn around to see if we've passed by the point. Lacey's songs are mainstream rock, but done with such care and attention to detail that they elevate to the highest tier. Her melodies are superb, grounding all of these tracks in choruses that pop out from the background like a pastel-colored children's book. These are dark sounding songs, but given such heart they're hard to keep away from.

The highlight is "Breathe With Me", a dramatic song featuring Lacey's voice intertwined with Lindsey Stirling's violin. It is gorgeous, moving, and makes me think some rock band needs to have a full-time violin player. The tone is undeniable, and it gives the record a crescendo that makes it feel like a true journey that has taken us to somewhere new and unexpected.

I don't know what kind of year it was for the mainstream rock charts, since I don't pay attention to that sort of thing, but I have a hard time thinking there was much (if anything) from that world better than this record. It's late in the year, but that just makes it even more satisfying to find a record that makes this kind of impact. After everything 2023 has had in store for us, and our minds are overloaded and ready to be purged, Lacey Sturm found room to wedge in another great memory.

How 'bout that?

Twenty Years With Opeth's "Damnation"

Opeth's entire career has been a case of "What if?" At first, I found myself wondering how great they could become if they weren't committed to being a death metal band. When they no longer were, I found myself wondering how great they could have been if they didn't abandon everything heavy they once were. I could always hear something in Opeth I loved, and I could see the path to the promised land, but Opeth was never willing to point their compass in that direction. So while I do enjoy what is right now the middle period of their catalog, every listen comes with my mind wandering to a future that never came.

The one exception to those trends is "Damnation", the album that might have been made simply to prove that the band was prog all along. The companion to their heaviest record, "Damnation" was Opeth's first attempt to strip away all of the extremity and metal from their sound. This record is all atmosphere, bathing us in a melancholy that may even exceed anything Katatonia has ever managed.

From the very first notes of "Windowpane", this record makes clear what we are dealing with. Clean guitars, jazzy drumming, and ample keyboards soften Opeth's sound without diluting their identity at all. The chord progressions are pure Opeth, merely without the distortion hiding that side of Mikael Akerfeldt's influences. His vocals are just as soothing, and he is one of the rare singers who is better when he isn't putting as much into his performances. These are intimate recordings, sung softly, like a cooing lullaby as the shadows creep up the bed.

In fact, the song "Death Whispered A Lullaby" is a fitting description of the record as a whole. The atmosphere hangs heavy in the air, and the melody wraps around us like a pall, warming us for the journey to the next destination. These are amazing songs that show something that was always present in Opeth's music, as we saw in "Face Of Melinda" or "Harvest", but was more of a sideshow attraction to the endless ten-minute forays.

So why do I say Opeth's entire career is a case of "What if?"

Like every other entry, "Damnation" suffers a fatal, self-inflicted wound. After six tracks that redefine everything we thought we knew about Opeth, the record ends with two throw-away songs that tail off like a skid mark pointing over the cliff. Opeth pulls the rug out from under us, and everything the feeling of this record was stirring up in us gets consumed by the bitter aftertaste we are left with. It sounds as if the band only realized after recording the album that they didn't have enough songs to pull this off, so they threw together whatever they could to pad it out.

That is a shame, because "Damnation" should be Opeth's true masterpiece. I love "Still Life" and "Blackwater Park" like everyone else does, but a full record of Damnation hitting on all cylinders would be untouchable, even by Opeth. Unfortunately, there is a second problem that is even harder to ignore, and that can't be remedied by treating "Damnation" as an EP you turn off two songs early.

"Damnation" ruined modern Opeth, because it shows us exactly why their recent records fall short. Their outright prog direction is similar in tone, but not in execution. When Mikael ditched growling to focus on clean singing, he not only started to sing beyond the means of his voice, but also lost his ability to write his unforgettable melodies. The new records might be longer, and more involved, but they do so much less with so much more. An entire decade has now passed with every Opeth release sounding like the echo of their real voice.

Twenty years after "Damnation" came out, it is as frustrating as it has ever been. The greatness is still apparent, but now it is also the proof that some of us don't hate Opeth for making their change, but for not doing it well. "Damnation" proves that prog Opeth has been a decade of disappointment, and maybe the way the record immolates itself was a sign even Opeth knew they weren't going to be able to reach those heights ever again. They warned us not to get too attached, but we didn't listen.

What if "Damnation" fulfilled its promise? What if "Damnation" was the masterpiece it should be? Well, I probably would be able to put my frustrations with Opeth aside more easily.

A Short Story: "In The Groove"

Editor's note: I am taking Black Friday off, so to celebrate the day, please enjoy this re-post of an original, comedic short story.

****

The doorknob spun in his hand faster than his mind could think, if he ever bothered to do so. The hinge almost dripped oil as the door swung open in a gliding arc, silently cutting a semicircle in the sunlight warming the floor. He moved to take a step inside, but froze in place when his eyes focused as he turned the corner. That delay had always felt like a curse to him, a mistake in his wiring that slowed him down when the world was speeding up with every revolution.

The figures came into shape, two lovers engaged in the act. She was leaning forward, her elbows dug into the mattress, her face blankly reflecting the blue light from a computer screen. Behind her, her younger man's skin glistened, the work obvious on his form.

He snapped his eyes closed as quickly as he could, but not before the image was burned into his memory, a postcard to be sent again and again from Misery. He threw his hands up, blocking residual torture from borrowing through his eyelids. As his throat fought not to spasm, she noticed his presence. She did not move.

"Are you just going to stand there?" she asked.

"What are you doing, mom?"

"I'm trying to learn how to fold a fitted sheet," she responded flatly.

He opened his eyes just enough to check if he was the only one whose skin had turned bright red. To his amazement, he had not interrupted.

"Do you think your friend can stop while I'm standing right here?"

"You walked in without knocking. I'm the one who should feel uncomfortable," she said.

The man behind her slowed down, but did not pause his motion. His eyes moved from one to the other.

"Should I stop?" he asked.

"Yes!"

"No, dear. This talk can wait until we're done," she argued.

The man stopped, and disengaged from her. He looked to salvage his dignity, and picked up a t-shirt from the floor behind him. He placed it over himself, letting it hang in the air like a slightly soiled ghost, not hiding the outline. He sidled past and moved toward the door.

"I'm going to finish in the other room," he says.

"You don't have to do that," she replies.

"Yes he does."

She looked at her son, having not moved. She didn't show it, but she enjoyed his embarrassment.

"Seriously? You can't find anyone to sleep with who isn't one of my friends?"

"They're the easiest ones to meet," she says.

"You know that's not the point."

"Unless you were planning to sleep with them, what does it matter if I do?" she asks.

"Don't throw logic into this. We're talking about feelings. Disgust, mostly."

"Is it disgusting for me to screw him, or for him to screw me?" she asks.

"That question is a trap."

"You're going to have to accept that you're not the only one in this family with needs. It's not my fault your friends are delicious," she says.

"Please tell me that's a metaphor."

"Sure, it can be one of those too," she says.

"I can't handle this."

"That's what he said," she replies.

"Oh God."

"He said that too," she says.

"I'm done."

"We didn't get that far," she says.

He took a deep breath, occupying his mouth so words he will later regret don't come flying out. He shook his head, and turned to leave the room. Before his senses caught up to him, he was outside, walking down the street. His autopilot knew where to take him, and he enjoyed the silence until the rhythm of his shoes clicking on the asphalt began to remind him of music, and a song crept into his mind from somewhere in the shadows. It was an inevitability.

He arrived at the record shop, entering as the broken bell made the small clatter of a closed hi-hat, not doing anything but making the new arrival question if their presence has even registered. He considered it a fitting metaphor.

"Best song for finding one of your best friends balls deep in your mother? Go," he shouts.

The owner of the store was sitting behind the counter, tracing the groove of a vinyl record with his finger, as if he could play the music directly into his blood. He stopped his circle when the words registered.

"That's the weirdest one we've ever thrown out there," he says.

"Every situation needs a soundtrack."

"Is there something you want to talk about?" he asks.

"Not really. I just need something to flush my head out."

The other girl in the store drew closer, her energy a black cloud that for the first time didn't feel like an omen.

"How about The Darkness' "Get Your Hands Off Of My Woman"?" the owner suggests.

"Good try, but she's not mine. That would be even creeper than what I saw."

"So you saw something?" he asks.

"Can we not talk about it?"

"Sure. If you want to clear your mind, how about Fastball's "Outta My Head?" he says.

"You're getting closer.

Her voice came from behind him, as if the devil on his shoulder was speaking.

"Tom Petty. "Into The Great Wide Open"," she says.

"I don't get it."

"I figure since you wrecked her life, you probably wrecked her body too."

The owner of the store put his hand over his mouth, trying to not visibly laugh. Family trauma should not be a comedy, at least not when the one being tortured is present. The mocking should be done behind one's back, as is proper.

"I really don't want to talk about my mom's..... you know."

"We can talk about whether your friend is hung enough for her instead," she says.

"That's not helping."

The owner disappeared below the counter, leaving him alone with the inappropriate voice putting bad thoughts in his head.

"Don't you want your mother to be happy?" she asks.

"That's not the point."

"And isn't it better she not get involved with some skeezy guy who could be a serial killer or something?" she asks.

"Yeah, but..."

"So your mom banging your friend might be keeping her alive," she assures him.

A few chords rang out over the speaker. They were familiar, but he couldn't quite place them. It took him a moment before he realized the joke. "She Bangs" continued to play.

"Oh, screw off."

He gave the other two the finger as they lost control of their laughter. As Ricky Martin pounded home the chorus, he couldn't help but crack a smile as well. A good joke is a good joke, even when it hurts.

"Why don't you get yourself laid so you can forget about it?" the owner asks.

"The only place I know to meet people is here, and that's a disaster. It's hard to be with someone with bad taste in music."

"What does someone's taste in music have to do with sexing them up?" the girl asks.

"My mother has a whole theory about it. She says if she meets a guy buying a record from a pop star, he's probably more interested in eating a bag of Cheetos."

"Orange is tastier than pink. Got it," she says.

"I'm ignoring that. If he's got tattoos and is in the rock section, he probably slaps it around without knowing how to use it at all. And if they're into emo or synthwave, they're probably good at oral."

"Because they're too sad to get it up," she surmises.

"Exactly."

"What about if they're into something like The Smiths?" the owner asks. "I'm asking for a friend."

"You probably need to draw them a picture of how it's supposed to work."

"Sounds about right," she says.

"The last date I went on, we started talking about music, and she tells me he doesn't like music. Like, she doesn't listen to any music at all, just podcasts."

"The monster," she says.

"I didn't know what to say. I'm thinking to myself about how desperate for human connection you have to be to listen to people you don't know talk about stuff you don't care about. And if you never listen to music, you can't have any rhythm, so how do you figure out how to get it on?"

"This isn't very scientific, you know?" the owner interjects.

"Psychology is more important than science. Science can't explain why nearly every stupid thing humans have ever done was in the pursuit of getting in someone's pants."

"Every good thing, too," the owner adds.

"They do say that most business gets done under the table," she points out.

"That's not what that expression means."

"You don't know that," she responds.

"Why do I ever come to you people looking for some advice?"

"Because no one else likes you," she says.

"Are we that bad at it?" the owner asks.

"Let's see. You are the one who brought a boom box into the delivery room so you could play Danzig's "Mother" while your wife was giving birth."

"I was going to play "Stacy's Mom" if we were going to have a girl," he adds.

"It's no wonder you're divorced," she replies.

The owner took a sarcastic bow.

"Your sadness does make me feel better about myself."

"So do you want the new Morrissey album or not?" the owner asks.

"You know what? I don't think I'm sad enough for that anymore."

"Good. Listening to Morrissey is worse than walking in on your mom's o-face," she says.

"Great. There goes my mood again..."

"I'll put on a record for you," the owner says.

Fergie's "M.I.L.F. $" began to play.

"I hate you guys."

"We hate you too," they reply.

Dream Theater Reunites: Do Band Reunions Matter If Nothing Changes?

Recent news has been that the classic lineup of Dream Theater is reuniting for the first time in a dozen years, with Mike Portnoy leaving his journeyman status behind. These developments have been met with plenty of fanfare from the fans, which is an interesting bit of psychology. While I am not a huge Dream Theater fan, I was aware enough of what they were doing to know that Portnoy was not so beloved when he left the band at the time.

The last couple of albums of his tenure were controversial among the fans. Portnoy was bringing new influences into the band's sound that not everyone was a fan of, and that perhaps weren't integrated with the kind of care and nuance we would expect from an 'intellectual' band.

They made "Train Of Thought", which was obviously inspired by their love of Metallica and classic metal. It is by far their heaviest record, and it was also where some more modern, rhythmic vocal lines started to creep in. Without knowing the context, one listen makes it clear it was an album from the days of nu-metal, and as such it sticks out like a sore thumb. This record was still well-received, since metal fans rarely complain about there being too much metal in their metal. Personally, I find it to be rather difficult to listen to these days. The production is stifling with its insistence on everything being heavy, so much so the record comes out sounding monotone and rather boring. On top of that, there are a few songs that don't break that up with solid melodies, and instrumental widdly that has almost no transition to justify its existence. This is where the band's penchant for writing in the studio became clear, because it sounds like the first draft of pieces put in order, but without the edges sanded down to make sure they fit together.

Further down the road, we would get riffs that sounded like they were bringing in influence from Muse, who were big at the time, but had nothing at all in common with Dream Theater. The complaints started to grow.

They reached their head when "Black CLouds & Silver Linings" came out, as that record encompassed everything Dream Theater fans were getting frustrated with. Portnoy took on the role of harsh vocalist on "A Nightmare To Remember" for some unknown reason. "The Shattered Fortress" finished off his decade-long conceptual suite about recovery, but did so by pasting together many themes from the older entries. Not only did this feel rather cheap, but to be frank, those songs are often the dullest numbers on their respective albums. And then there was "The Count Of Tuscany", which would be one of the band's best epic songs, if not for the fact the lyrics are on the level of a low-budget schlocky horror movie.

I say all of this to illustrate my confusion for why the reaction to the news has been so strongly positive. Not only was Dream Theater not exactly firing on all cylinders when Portnoy left, but little of the music Portnoy has done since leaving has given me reason to think he is the missing piece that will revitalize the band. His work with The Winery Dogs is good, but isn't really any different than what Richie Kotzen can do on his own. Sons Of Apollo was a disappointing attempt to make a more modern prog metal band, and might actually represent where Dream Theater was headed in an alternate universe. And his work with The Neal Morse Band got less interesting with each self-indulgent album.

In that same time, Dream Theater made albums that ranged from great ("A Dramatic Turn Of Events" - their best record) to downright horrible ("The Astonishing" - one of the worst concept records ever), but for the most part did what Dream Theater is supposed to be doing. You didn't have to keep up with the charts to know what was influencing them on any given day, which was a nice development. Were the record less exciting because they stuck to being Dream Theater? Perhaps, but since fans tend to complain as much about bands changing as they do bands not changing, it's not as if they could win anyway.

With Portnoy returning, it seems inevitable the next record will be billed as a 'return to form', and they will trot out all the hallmarks of the Dream Theater sound. That means... the next record will likely be just like the last few. So what exactly is the big deal here if all that's changing is which order the drums are hit during the fills?

Look, I'm not trying to dump on the reunion. While I'm no die-hard, I do enjoy some Dream Theater from time to time, and I'm sure I'll be listening to their reunion album when it comes out. On a personal level, it's great for them that their relationships have healed to the point they can be back together as the group that has spent most of their lives together. On a musical level, I just don't see how it is going to change things very much, which means I'm not sure why the excitement among the fans is so high.

Does this prove that sometimes our reaction to music isn't actually to do with the music, but rather the psychology of our own relationships with bands? I'm thinking that's the case, and it's rather interesting. More interesting to me than the actual news sparking the discussion.

Happy 'No Thanks-giving'

This is the season of Thanksgiving, wherein we take stock and give thanks for the things that bring us joy and comfort in our lives. Today, I feel like doing the opposite, and instead talking about a few things in music I'm not thankful for. There are plenty of people, bands, trends, and sounds that have pained my ears over the course of my lifetime, and while they come up naturally from time to time, right now I'm savoring the irony of taking this opportunity to list a few of them.

So without any further ado, here are a few of the things in music I am saying 'no thanks' to:

Ozzy Osbourne: He may be called The Prince Of Darkness, and Black Sabbath might not have ever established metal as we know it without him, but I cannot stand Ozzy. He has always been, to me, the least talented person in music who achieved that level of success. At least Britney Spears could dance and take a good photo. Ozzy was a terrible gimmick, not very responsible for the songs that shot him to fame, and the possessor of one of the few voices in the professional ranks I actually hate even more than my own.

If you ask me about Black Sabbath, the answer will invariably be about Ronnie James Dio, or even Tony Martin. They are the singers of Black Sabbath to me, and no matter how often I hear the early records praised, I simply cannot listen to them with Ozzy's warbling all over the songs. Luckily, I also think Randy Rhodes had the absolute worst guitar tone in recorded music history, so I don't feel any shame at all about ignoring Ozzy's first solo records. I would like to enjoy Sabbath, as the Dio stuff is among my favorite metal of all time, but I can't hear Ozzy without thinking about how much higher our standards have gotten since then. He wouldn't get a record deal if he was just starting out these days, would he?

Even worse is that half of all doom bands try to copy him. Ugh.

Led Zeppelin: Of all my opinions, the one I feel most sheepish about putting out there is the fact that despite trying several times to get into Led Zeppelin, I just can't seem to do it. I know they are important, and I know pretty much everyone else in the world thinks they're one of the greatest bands of all time, but I hear them completely differently. They are still a foundational piece in the development of rock music, and they illustrate to me that I don't particular care for those embryonic states.

It stems from the blues. Zeppelin built so heavily from the blues, and that form of music doesn't speak to me the way you would think it should, given my personality and penchant for brooding. The fact of the matter is that the blues rhythms tend to drive vocalists in directions that don't mesh with the kinds of melodies that stick in my head. Robert Plant wails away, and I can barely remember anything he's ever sung. Much of the classic rock of that era suffers from the same problem, as the idea of integrating pop-ish melodies to catch the listener's attention hadn't yet become a big thing. That's the one way I will praise KISS. Don't ask me to do it again.

Zeppelin defines my belief that the vocal line is 90% of most songs, and because Plant and I don't hear music the same way, I find Zeppelin's songwriting to be too slippery to embrace.

Lazy Harsh Vocalists: You might get the impression I hate extreme metal, and I understand why. I have rarely talked positively about death metal, and even less so as the years have gone on. In fact, I don't actually remember the last time I listened to a full album of pure death metal. The reason for that is quite simple; I find death metal to be lazy, in one particular way.

There's an album Dan Swano released called "Moontower", and on that record he growls 90% of the lyrics. It also happens to be one of my favorite records. So what gives? Swano somehow mastered the art of growling actual melodies. I can listen to a song like "Patchwork" and hear it as a melodic metal song, and it would be amazing. For almost all other death metal I hear, the vocal patterns are flat and static, barking out syllables that have little pitch movement. If you sung those with a clean voice, they would almost be talking. You could make the argument that Meshuggah is just harsh spoken word. There isn't a need among the fans to do better, so the artists don't bother.

I cannot be thankful for how many times I've been told a death metal album is finally going to win me over again, only to be smacked by the same old issue.

Concept Albums: Music really isn't the right format to tell long-form stories. I've heard way too many concept albums over the years, and here's an admission; I don't actually know the story to a single one of them. Songwriting and narrative writing are completely different, and the odds of being great at both of them are very low. Just on that factor, most concept albums fail to deliver simply on the basis of telling stories I'm not interested in. I don't know how many story-lines about battles and magic I've run across. It's great if you're a fantasy literature fan, but that's not me.

Beyond that, concept albums suffer from the fact that there aren't enough words in typical songs to properly tell the story. Either the lyrics get turned into clumsy narrative that has no musicality or flow to them, or much of the narrative gets put into liner notes that try to explain what the songs are trying, but failing, to get across. At least in a theatrical setting, you also have dialogue and visuals to get more of the story across. Narration on record doesn't work well, gets incredibly annoying on repeated listening, and only proves that the songs themselves can't do the intended job.

Don't even get me started on prog concept albums that have five-minute long instrumental passages. How exactly do those relate to the story?

'Balls Caught In Their Zipper' Singers: Whether it's Robert Plant, or Jon Anderson of Yes, I hate how much of rock and metal has been defined by singers who perform at the highest limits of their register. Even if they aren't going into full-on painful shrieking like Rob Halford is famous for, it's a sound that hurts my ears. Those high notes are painful like a whistle being blown directly in my ear, and they often don't sound like they belong with the music the rest of the band is playing.

It also plays into a bit of culture I've never quite understood. Why exactly does a musical culture that is mostly made up of guys who only hang out with other guys, and who only listen to other guys, love singers who often sing in the same range as women.... and in the past would often have even longer and more teased hair?

Part of me wonders if there's a degree of projection in here, where these people are trying to find a safe and sanitized way of having something they don't want to tell their friends about due to embarrassment. Was a band like Poison really a big and popular rock band, or were they filling the role women weren't allowed to fill? I can't say for sure, but since I've come to hate 'bro' culture so much, it's a thought I keep coming back to.

There are more things that annoy me, including covers albums, double albums, instrumental music, worthless introductions, and the trifecta of band/album/song all sharing the same name. We'll save those for if I do this again next year. Perhaps 'No Thanks-giving' will become a tradition.

Quick Reviews: DGM, Ignescent, & Soledriver

I don't have much to say about these records, all coming from Frontiers Records this month, but let's say something anyway.

DGM - Life

This Italian prog band has the right idea. While the playing is expert, and still rather technical, the focus is still on writing great songs. They don't all hit that level, but there is a focus on melodies we don't often get in prog metal, and it's refreshing to hear amazing musicians who want to impress us with more than merely their raw ability. I will say I find the music to be busy enough at times that it gets a bit tiring to listen to the entire record in one sitting. There isn't much in the way of diversity, as notes keep coming at you in rapid fire, and perhaps a bit more shifting in tone and tempo could have gone a long way. This is still a good record, but it's one that is actually too focused, if you can believe it.

Ignescent - Fight In Me

One of the more modern bands on the roster, Ignescent fills the same sort of style that New Years Day and the like have been making popular. It's very heavy, peppered with modern electronic bits, and a bit of a bizarro-world take on pop/rock. It's certainly interesting, and I think there is potential in there for something really good, but they're still putting the pieces together on just how to do that. If they can work on honing the hooks, they have something to offer. For this record, I think they're still standing in the shadow of the bands they're obviously inspired by.

Soledriver - Return Me To Light

Oh look, it's yet another Michael Sweet project. This time, he teams up with the label's in-house songwriter for some melodic rock a-la Journey. I think I pegged Del Vecchio at having written over a hundred songs on records last year, and that's just too much. I'm sorry, but I don't think anyone can write that many songs and have them all be worth listening to. Plus, I'm burned out on his style, and I don't need to hear any more of it for a long time. Combine that with Sweet's voice, which seems to operate at full volume 90% of the time, which flattens out every melody, and this is the sort of thing that shows there's a difference between being melodic and being hooky. This is melodic, sure, but I don't really remember a bit of it.

The Epilogue: The Spider Accomplice Spins Their Last Web

As we were told by Axl Rose, "Nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain."

This November, we got the news that regularly featured favorites The Spider Accomplice are ending their period of web-spinning. After completing their first European tour, the band announced they have decided to pursue other goals, which means they are saying goodbye to this era.

It's been a rather eventful batch of years, and I still get a chuckle out of how it all started for me. To think I wound up writing so many words about a band I only heard because of a collaboration years earlier that never produced an actual song until well down the line. It's one of those stories that explains why music is so wonderfully weird, and how often luck comes into play when we realize how our tastes were formed.

In that short stretch of time, we were treated to three EPs and a full-length record. Like the light reflecting off of a spider's silk, every time we saw them was a different experience, as their sound was always changing color and tone from one song to the next. The constant was their dedication to not giving a damn about fitting in, as I certainly felt a kinship with their artistic predilections, even when they veered in directions I would not have thought to go myself.

When their trio of EPs was finished, I created a special award to honor the full "Los Angeles" experience, because it created a record with ambition to rise above the usual fare. Even if we weren't told the full story, the pieces dotted a trail I wanted to follow. That trail would lead us through a string of singles that showcased how diverse we are as people, with ballads opening up our pain, rockers pumping our adrenaline, and pop songs widening our smiles. They were able to do more in their short time than some bands who will remain nameless have managed over decades.

So while the news is sad, we should maintain perspective. There is that old question about whether it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. The asshole in me is fond of twisting that into the couplet, "those who say it's better to have loved and lost/are obviously the ones love has never double-crossed", but that's admittedly me burying feelings in wry humor.

The truth is that of course it was better to have loved a band that comes to an end, rather than never having them around at all. While there's no telling what music could have been made in other timelines, I choose to love and appreciate what this one gave us. My heart will always melt a little bit at VK's little yelp at the end of the chorus in "Bromelaid", and I will always love the way certain coincidences in the lyrics made me feel like I haven't been completely disconnected from people writ large.

I will especially continue to love "Crawl", which I think stands as their defining song, and video as well. Those few minutes blended the modern and classic, the drama and the power, like bleeding neon pink onto the hem of our Sunday best black outfit. Like that contrast stitching would be the pop of color reminding us you can't fully hide who you are, The Spider Accomplice helped me to remember how much I wanted to make music as much as talk about it. That's a sad story for another day, though.

VK and Arno will continue on in other guises, which will bring many surprises, and I'm sure I'll have more to say about those as they unfold. For now, we mark the end of an era with a remembrance; we divide time into eras because they mattered, they meant something, and they were important. So if The Spider Accomplice was just an era for all of us, that means the band left their mark.

You can't be too sad about that.

Single Review: The Beatles - Now And Then

The saying 'never say never' is a contradiction, but it's one of those things that rings true, no matter how cliche it might sound. There is always a chance of something unexpected happening, no matter how remote the odds might be from a mathematical perspective. To wit, I can't say I ever expected to be sitting down to discuss a new Beatles song. Since the band broke up more than fifty years ago, and half of the band is no longer with us, it seemed like the book was closed on their career. But much like a Hollywood reboot, there seems to be no way to stop popular names from still coming back again and again.

For this song, an old John Lennon demo was resurrected through the new AI technologies available. Able to separate his voice from the piano track, Paul and Ringo could then build a fresh recording around John to flesh things out. They had tried years ago, but only now can it be done. As the characters ask in every horror movie about a mad scientist, the better question isn't can it be done, but rather should it?

This song is not monstrous, but it does raise a number of ethical questions. It's a perfectly pleasant, somber John song, and if it had come about any other way, I don't think I would even give it a passing mention here. It will never stand up to the 'classics', since we know that to be psychologically impossible, but it's a nice curiosity. However, this song serves as a focal point for the dilemmas we are going to be facing in music for the foreseeable future.

First; Is it right to finish and release a song without the writer's consent?

Second; Is artificially enhanced music still the artist's music?

Third; Is it all going to sound this bad?

Let's take those in order.

First, we have to ask whether this song should exist at all. John is not here to speak for himself, and it's difficult to know whether he would have wanted the others to finish and release the song. They know better than we do his wishes, and Yoko would know even better than them, but still, releasing music an artist did not finish writing is a touchy subject. This is not the song as it would have been released by The Beatles, should they have all lived long enough to finish it. This is Paul and Ringo's interpretation, and those views could be incredibly different from what John would have turned the song into. The band famously hated what Phil Spector did to "Let It Be", so it isn't out of the question that John's opinion of this recording could be just as unpleasant. There are usually reasons why songs don't get finished, and perhaps this one was supposed to be forgotten.

Second, we have to ask if artificially modified music even counts as belonging to the artist in question. I don't think that applies much here, as they were primarily using the technology to isolate the vocal track, but that vocal is not actually what was recorded by John. It is a digital replication of what it would have sounded like, had the piano not bled over the actual track. We are hearing bits of John's voice, but it's filled out with digital sound created by an algorithm. So is it actually John's voice? We will be wrestling with that question many more times, I assume, and I don't have a good answer on where we draw the line. As the technology gets better, and fully modeled recordings sound indistinguishable from those based on analog voices, I fear the percentage of human contribution is going to dwindle until it's nothing.

Third, let's face the elephant in the room; this song doesn't actually sound very good. I don't mean to say the song isn't good, because as I said at the start, it's perfectly pleasant. No, what I'm saying is this hybrid of real and artificial recordings actually sounds terrible. Despite this being released decades after the band broke up, the sound quality is worse than any of their actual records. Perhaps they felt going for high fidelity in the instruments they re-recorded wouldn't have meshed with the old John vocal track, but that's just another reason the song should have been left alone. This is the worst sounding Beatles recording I think I've ever heard officially released, and that's a shame. If this is the band's last every statement, it deserved to be treated better.

Of course, I'm one of those people who thinks sometimes we should just let things go. There's nothing wrong with art of the past staying in the past. Not every scrap of an idea needs to be promoted until the end of time, and I think this song just goes to prove that. My life isn't worse for having heard "Now And Then", but I don't think it's better either. It was a lot of sound and fury, ultimately signifying nothing.

Album Review: D'Virgilio, Morse, & Jennings - Sophomore

Have you ever had a record that should have been right up your alley, but for whatever reason you found yourself rather detached from it? That happened to me with the first record from these three prog luminaries. As a song-based, mainly acoustic record filled with harmonies, it should have been perfect for me. I did like it when I was listening to it... and then I stopped listening to it. Something about the music was too breezy, or the harmonies were too soft, or I'm not sure what exactly, but I found myself leaving it in the past and moving on to other things. I've barely thought of that record since I finished writing my review of it, so I suppose I was surprised to see a new one in my inbox, since I completely lost track of time.

In the time since, I have only grown further removed from the prog world these guys come from, and nothing any of them have done with their other projects has spoken to me either. The direction I have been moving as a listener is quite far removed from what they have been doing, so I wasn't sure what to expect from another go 'round with this trio.

The record kicks off with a trademark Neal Morse acoustic guitar riff, and we quickly settle into the group doing what they do best; pop/prog with lovely harmonies and melodies that make you bop your head. When I think about what I want to hear, and what I imagine these three doing together, "Hard To Be Easy" is a perfect illustration of it. There's just enough playing in there to remind you where they're coming from, but it's a perfect song for a warm and sunny day.

That feeling doesn't quite carry through the record, and in part it's because these songs come from three different minds, and thus come across quite different if you don't fully buy-in to all of them. For me, I've never for a second been a fan of Haken, so when Jennings' song "Tiny Little Fires" comes on, it takes me out of the experience. The introductory motif sounds like a cross between a nursery rhyme and Christmas music, and his lead vocal doesn't have nearly as much charm to my ears as Neal Morse does. The bridge to the song is better, but by that point I've already had enough. This is a good illustration of why variety can be both a blessing and a curse.

One of the more fun aspects of the album is to try to figure out where some of Neal's lyrics come from. There are plenty of times where you feel smart for being able to spot the cliche before he says it, where predictive singing to yourself is like creating deja vu. But then there are times where he starts singing a line about going to the hospital after dancing with a friend, and I'm caught completely dumbfounded. I understand the concept of confessional songwriting, but narrating random events from your life is an odd choice to make. It's such an unrelatable little detail, I find it pushes the song further away from the listener. But that's just me.

I'm also rather baffled that, like on the last record, by the middle of the record they're playing some very old sounding bluesy rock. The whole point of this group was that they don't rock, so I'm not sure why they leave behind their aesthetic for a song like "Mama", which not only doesn't sound like anything else on the record, but sounds so out of this time period. If you're going to ask, no, the song isn't so good it quiets those questions.

By the end of this record, what I'm thinking is that these records sound like a clearing house for songs that don't fit these guys' main bands. They must realize Neal's 'songwriter' albums don't sell as well, and I'm not sure how many people even realize Nick has made any, so this group is a way of multiplying their chances of people hearing these songs. I know I'm a cynic, but that's just the way this record makes me feel. It doesn't sound like a batch of songs written with a clear intent and sound.

And that's what I find so disappointing. When they do the sunny day acoustic pop songs, I'm happy. It's essentially a softer version of Neal's pop material, but with extra harmonies. That stuff works, while the more 'experimental' stuff rarely hits the mark. A three-headed monster has trouble walking a straight line, because all three are looking at the same path from a different angle. That happens with this record, and I find it a messy hodgepodge of ideas that doesn't endear long enough to work as a whole album.

Singles Roundup: Mick Mars, Lucifer, Sister Shotgun, & Exit Eden

Let's dip into the ol' jukebox to see what we have this week.

Mick Mars - Loyal To The Lie

After at least a decade of being teased, we finally have the first song from Mick's first solo album. After all that talk, and his status as a 'legend', it's odd to see he's working with the guy who was mostly responsible for the shockingly good one-and-done album put out by Steven Adler's band just called Adler. Sadly, this song is not nearly on that level, as the sound Mick is going for is darker and dare I say more grunge, which I don't think plays well into the construction. It's heavy, yes, but the riff is more of the grinding kind that doesn't scream great guitar playing, and the tone doesn't leave as much room for a strong chorus. It's fine, and I don't think the other members of Motley Crue can do any better without serious help from outside songwriters, but I expected far more for as long as this has been in the incubator.

Lucifer - At The Mortuary

One of the albums we already know will be rolling out in the early part of next year is "Lucifer V", from which this latest single comes. Lucifer dares not stray from their formula, and I don't blame them. They've mastered the sound of old black-and-white horror-noir, and so long as they deliver good songs, there's no need to change. The issue has always been that no matter how much I like them, something about the delivery has a bit of that old white noise to it, and it doesn't stick in my memory. I'm feeling the same thing about this song, but when it's playing, I'm always charmed by another dose of their occult rock fun.

Sister Shotgun - Fin Du Monde

I still regularly listen to Sister Shotgun's album, "Fragments", so seeing them return is a nice boost. That record was modern and heavy, but packed with hooks, all delivered with Chloe's powerful and unique voice. I wish I could say this new song lives up to that standard, but they have leaned even harder into being modern, so much so that it has very little trace of the classic metal they were updating the last time we heard them. This is even more precise and robotic, and it saps the life right out of the song. It isn't bad, but it doesn't have the same power as their previous work. The talent is there, but it's pointed slightly off the target.

Exit Eden - Run

Why? Why? Why did this project that was a fun symphonic metal take on hit pop songs have to decide to write their own original material? I'm not sure who was clamoring for it, but it doesn't make any sense to me, because generic symphonic metal like this song doesn't feel or sound anything like what that first record gave us. And the fact they are apparently going to have the new record be roughly half original and half covers is only going to make it even more difficult to put the pieces together in my mind. I have wondered over the years if they were going to ever grace us with another record, and I would have liked to hear more metal pop covers, but I can do without this kind of song. Sorry.

Single Review: Green Day - The American Dream Is Killing Me

I'm starting to worry that there's something seriously wrong with Billie Joe Armstrong. It was bad enough that Green Day essentially pissed on their own fans when they released "Father Of All...", which was so clearly a half-assed album put out simply to fulfill contractual obligations. Calling it half-assed might actually be giving them too much credit, but I don't want to contemplate what fraction of an ass the hole counts as. Regardless, after that abomination, the band has put out the first statement of their latest era, and it raises yet more questions about Green Day's mental state.

That comes in the form of a certain lyric, where Billie sings that we're 'pedophiles' for the American dream. Uh... ok.

I'm not entirely sure which way he intends us to take that line. Is he trying to say the American dream is childish, so it would be creepy to be so invested in it? If so, it doesn't make much sense. That particular deviance isn't necessarily for things that are childish, since there are plenty of people into role play of various degrees I don't want to imagine who are as repulsed by what the term actually means as everyone else. Or does he mean it in the sense that wanting the American dream is just as disgusting a thought and urge? That doesn't seem to make any more sense, since I don't see how you can possibly equate wanting better for your life with the worst of humanity.

What I think is happening here is that Billie has completely lost the plot, and is as obsessed as his choice of terminology with getting Green Day back into the limelight. They cratered their appeal with the trilogy, couldn't regain their footing with "Revolution Radio", and then put a puking unicorn on the cover of their last album. Put this into that timeline, and they're now, in wrestling parlance, playing for the cheap heat. They make an album everyone thinks is one of the worst things they've ever heard? Well, at least they're talking about Green Day! Throw in a word you know will be controversial? Green Day is back in the news, baby! The greatest fans in the world reside in (insert your city)!

Or perhaps this is all a ploy to distract us from the fact the band doesn't have anything left in the tank. After all, this song is repetitive, trite, and about as deep as a paper cut. To think that this is the song from their upcoming album they thought was the best introduction to this new era of the band is rather shocking. If this is the song they think is going to make people love them again, if this is the song that defines their mission on this record, we're standing as witnesses as Green Day keeps failing to escape the gravity of the black hole their career has been morphing into.

What I think is true is simply that we gave Green Day far too much credit after "American Idiot" came out. That record was so successful, we forgot it was a complete accident, and that we created a story that never existed. Green Day was backed into a corner when the record they actually made was 'stolen' (there are theories out there they knew it was terrible and scrapped it on their own), so they never wanted to make their magnum opus. It's also not the political rebellion we talked ourselves into treating it as. The record is a teenage Lifetime movie set to music, with one bad, George Bush is like a Nazi, reference thrown in. Oh, and it's also not entirely a true concept album if one of the songs abandons the characters and story to talk about an episode from your own life and emotions. Minor gripe, but still true.

I am as guilty as anyone of giving Green Day too much due for that album's status as perhaps the defining album of my/our generation (I'm still taking suggestions for what else in the '95-08-ish time-frame would beat it out), and every year since has made me doubt Green Day ever more.

Maybe we should have questioned more at the time whether a band that started out singing about masturbating could really evolve into having something deep and important to say. I'm leaning toward that being a heavy "no".

Not only is the political commentary of this new song below the level of an Econ 101 class, but the entirety of the lyrics of the song look like it was dashed off in five minutes. That's not to say a good song can't be written that quickly, but if there was thought put into these words, it slipped right out through the holes in the logic.

Let's look back, though. On "Holiday", the political commentary was certainly more astute, but written in just as ham-handed a manner. Not only was there that Nazi reference I already mentioned, but Billie just had to throw the word 'fags' in there as well. Not only did that put a word into a song released as a single that couldn't get played on the radio, but it undercut the whole point of the song. It was seemingly about the war in Iraq, and then is suddenly about anti-LGBTQ policy. Huh?

But we can go back even further. When "Minority" came out on their best record (yes, "Warning" is their best record), it was no better. Calling out the 'Moral Majority' was a fitting target for a punk song, but then he threw in the line, "One nation under dog". I know it was supposed to be a snotty joke, but when one of the things that group believed was that everything but 'good Christian values' would lead to a world filled with bestiality, giving people who don't understand sarcasm an opening to accuse you of animal worship was self-defeating. The song's only belief was in being a contrarian. Standing up for a view that might be in the minority is fine, and can be noble, but wanting to be in the minority doesn't even make sense. If you, for instance, believe in equality and justice for people of all stripes, why would you want that position to be the minority? Look, it was a song written around a pun, and I'm sure Billie never bothered to think about any of the implications. That's the problem. I've written songs around puns too, but mine weren't trying to say anything important that could get lost in translation.

I would like to think that in thirty years, Green Day may have matured or gotten a bit more intelligent. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. If you're going to be political and talk about weighty subjects, you have to at least know what it is you stand for. Ranting for the sake of ranting doesn't accomplish anything, and I'm not sure Green Day actually has a belief system other than doing whatever it takes to make people think they're still punks.

At my age, let alone their age, it's just sad to watch Peter Pan slapping on a bunch of eye-liner to hide the fact that he didn't grow up, but he did get old.

Album Review: Sky Empire - The Shifting Tectonic Plates Of Power: Part One

There are many things about progressive music I don't quite understand, and chief among them is the way they treat their vocalists. I get the prog isn't always interested in melodies and hooks, so the singers often get relegated to singing whatever they can shoehorn into the space between all of the complicated notes. It's not the best way to write songs, but we know what we're getting into before we hit 'play', so I'm not going to complain too much about that. Not yet, at least.

Where I get annoyed is when a band will sideline one of their members for huge stretches of time, as if they don't exist. In the case of this album, the press release makes a big deal of the fact Jeff Scott Soto has taken over as the vocalist... and then the record starts with a fifteen minute instrumental. Look, there are a lot of things I can say about how terrible the decision to open a record that way is, but the one that bothers me the most is that one of the members of the band is completely absent from the first song, and it's FIFTEEN MINUTES LONG. Try telling the guitar player he's going to be MIA for a quarter of the album and see how that goes over.

When Soto does finally get to prove he was there as the album was recorded, things don't get much better. "On The Shores Of Hallowed Haven" doesn't have much of a melodic hook to it at all, but the verse is written in what sounds like the wrong key for him, as his voice strains to keep up with the notes. He sounds worse than I've ever heard in those moments, and makes me wonder why the melody wasn't simply lowered to fit where his voice is strongest. He still sounds amazing when recording with W.E.T., so I know it isn't that his voice is shot. This is simply mismatching the song and singer, and it's unbelievable people so deeply rooted in the nerdiness of music wouldn't notice.

As the record moves along, there is plenty of intricate playing, and I would probably be amazed by some of it if I could dissect music theory as I was listening. Fortunately, I can't do that, so I'm able to hear music for whether it's memorable or not, and whether it makes me feel anything. This music doesn't, in any way, shape, or form. As fingers dance across fret-boards, they rarely stumble upon a series of notes that sticks out from the flurry. This is prog of the highest order, which means it has very little memorable songwriting in comparison to the sheer volume of notes being played.

There is no mention of whether this is a concept album or not, which I assumed it is, since the "Part One" note insinuates there is going to be another volume of this story. Honestly, after listening to the album, I couldn't tell you what the story is at all, other than the fact is involves god and demons. I thought I heard a song about Icarus, but I could have been filling in blanks that hadn't been fully explained. The thought of another record carrying on from here is not exactly exciting.

So what we have here is a record I'm not sure succeeds at anything. The songs aren't memorable, they aren't entirely pleasing to listen to from a production standpoint, and whatever the message is supposed to be gets lost along the way. Prog can be insufferable at times, and this is a particularly annoying instance. If this really is a concept album, spending over twenty minutes on instrumentals only goes to show these guys don't know what makes an album conceptual. If it isn't, I would say they should have spent more time refining this rather than promising a second album will be coming along.

We don't appreciate editing until we're presented with what happens when there isn't any.

Album Review: Serenity - Nemesis AD

Have you ever run across a band you know is good, and you do like, but they never release an album you actually enjoy in full? That's what my time with Serenity had been like. I knew they were good at what they do, and they have a couple of songs on every album I think are killer, but I just can't get into the records as full works. I don't know why that is, but something about their songwriting was too inconsistent for my tastes, and I was always wondering what it was I was missing.

That was until "The Last Knight" came out, which finally turned the tide. For the first time, I listened to the record start to finish and loved what I was hearing. There were the obvious standouts as always, but the rest of the album finally lived up to that standard. Serenity had done it, they had won me over...

And this record is being branded as a 'new era', already. Sigh.

That might be best embodied by the fact the band now features Marco from Temperance on guitar and backing vocals, who just so happened to be Georg's compatriot in Fallen Sanctuary. Now that they're working together in two bands, it really feels like there is no such thing as a band identity anymore, and music is just one mass of notes that gets divided up in random ways. That's not to speak ill of Marco, since I like Temperance, and I actually liked Fallen Sanctuary quite a bit too, but the music of all these groups is starting to self-cannibalize. That definitely kills some of my interest, if I'm being honest.

So does the subject matter. Apparently based on the life and work of a Renaissance painter, yet more talk about knights and crusades doesn't give me much to grasp onto. I don't have any delusions about being a sword-swinging warrior fighting against some vague evil, so these stories have almost no ability to resonate with my life or emotional state. They don't need to in order to be good songs, but if I'm trying to form a relationship with a new set of songs, being able to hear something I can use in my own life makes a huge difference. Without that connection, these are just melodies, and they have to be even better to make the same kind of impact.

That's what "The Last Knight" was able to do, since it suffered from the same issue regarding its subject matter. Those songs were packed with mammoth hooks, while this record is more restrained in that department. That might seem odd, since we see a renewed emphasis on symphonic elements here, but the bigger scope and sound actually works against the songs themselves. There is less room for the guitars to sound powerful, and vocal lines written with string accompaniment in mind don't have the same bounce and stickiness. At least that's how this comes across to me.

That being said, this record is still good. The odd thing is that it feels back-loaded, where the second half features songs like "Nemesis" and "The End Of Babylon", which deliver on Serenity's penchant for big hooks and sweeping melodies. Whatever my reservations are, when the band gives us songs like that, I'm fully on board. I don't think it's a coincidence that the latter song, which might just be my favorite on the record, also has less emphasis on the string arrangements than most of the others.

By the time the album is closing, I've come around on this being a worthy follow-up to "The Last Knight", even if I can't say it gets quite as far. The opening stretch of the album is a slow start, and I wonder how many people might hear those first few songs and tune out. That would be a shame, since the best songs are still to come.

As I was saying before, this isn't a record I'm even going to feel passionately about, given that I don't see how I can possibly connect it to my own life. That being said, it's a good record, even if Serenity, Temperance, and Fallen Sanctuary are drawing too much from the same well. For those who like all of that, this will be another obvious winner. I'm happy to say this is actually a positive surprise, given my doubts Sanctuary could strike gold again. It's nice to have expectations exceeded for once. There's been far too much of it going the other way.