Quick Reviews: Kerry King and Marissa & The Moths

One good, one bad, this week. Funny how it's often the 'big' names doing the least impressive work.

Kerry King - From Hell I Rise

I fully understand that not every musician is capable of a world of diversity. Many of us are good at one thing only, and we don't want to show our failed experiments at anything else to other people. Believe me, the impulse to stay in your lane is strong and relatable. Yet, when it comes to Kerry King going solo after all these years, it isn't so much the lack of a new direction that frustrates me as it is how much this feels like he's intentionally cloning Slayer.

We know his writing is going to sound the same as it ever has. He's even warned us that what came after Slayer would essentially be more Slayer. What we couldn't have expected was that he would recruit a vocalist to essentially do an impersonation of Tom. That was the one place where Kerry could have given his new music some degree of differentiation from Slayer, and he decided a new voice wasn't necessary. Maybe so, but when the songs are exactly the same, and the voice is almost the same, so too will be how little I'm going to care. A couple of these songs are nearly identical clones of vocal lines and riffs from Slayer records, which only makes the echo ring louder.

Later Slayer was hit-and-miss at best, and much of the missing the mark came from Kerry's diminishing lyrical IQ. When he finally gets around on this record to writing that he's "in mental retrograde", I don't know if I can come up with a better way of saying how utterly unnecessary this record is to anyone but the most devoted of Slayer fans. I can't even say I'm disappointed by any of this, because it's exactly what I expected. Oh well.

Marisa & The Moths - What Doesn't Kill You

I remember finding charm in Marisa & The Moth's debut album, which was bringing back some of the tones of the grunge age, filtered through a Paramore reality. For album number two, the band has upped the ante across the board. With more songs, more music, and more focus, they have tilted their approach and pocketed the eight ball on the break.

We have talked before about the cyclical nature of music, and how we're due for a grunge revival any day now (it is underway, but it hasn't yet broken through). It will require more than a complete recreation, and instead update the feeling for a new generation. That's what Marisa & The Moths can do, and are able to do, with this record. The guitars are appropriately thick, and the atmosphere gloomy enough, but they remember that Kurt Cobain was essentially a pop songwriter at heart.

Marisa and her cohorts deliver a record that carries the tone, but on tunes that largely dig their hooks into you. Sixteen might be a couple too many, and I don't like the choice to start the record off with a slow ballad, but the core of the record is a lovely throwback to the kind of rock I remember from my younger days. You can hear some Seattle in their sound, and some "Blue Album" in the guitar tone as well, girding a nice collection of hooky and heavy rock.

They have grown, and improved, and made a fine record here.

Album Review: Hot Water Music - Vows

There's a concept in sports that you can only beat the competition put before you. Outside of the objective sports like track & field where you compete against clocks and measuring tapes, greatness comes in the form of being better than your peers at any given time. Some of the greatest of all time would fall short in other periods, but outpacing the competition still makes you a great. It opens up worlds of debate in the sports world, and perhaps there is something to be said about that for music as well. Is a great album today as great as one from a time I consider better? That's what I've been thinking about lately.

As I've been listening to new records, I'm comparing them to records I'm pulling off the shelf from years ago, and even many of my favorites of today can't out-muscle those that ranked lower in yesteryear. It's an interesting phenomenon, and I think it sometimes leads me to appreciate today's great music less than I should.

Today, let's talk about one of those great records. To do that, we have to start with one that isn't so great. Last year, I was massively disappointed by Spanish Love Songs and their follow-up to "Brave Faces Everyone". They went in directions I didn't understand, and hearing this album from Hot Water Music, my feelings make more sense now. Whereas that band took influence from the 80s and sucked the joy out of screaming for therapy, this band stays in the current millennium and finds the collective energy that comes with sharing an experience.

This music is still firmly in a territory you can call emo, but it's played with an almost optimistic bent in search of anthemic statements we can coalesce around. The vocals are shared, with one voice being so gruff it's almost a pastiche, but that voice is what makes the record work so well. It howls with frustration and pain, a deep echo that clatters in your chest. Not every band can make that connection, so that alone makes this a winner.

Then there are the songs, which largely hit the mark as the anthems of the downtrodden they aim to be. Yes, there is a misstep or two when they veer into 'whoa oh' territory, but I can forgive those. When they hit their best marks, like on "Bury Us All" or "Searching For Light", the band is delivering moments of clarity everyone is going to be able to see themselves in. There is a catharsis to pouring your pain out through song, especially in a way that has an infectious energy. While thinking about others going through the same things isn't an optimistic thought, sharing any experience can make it easier to get through.

That has been the through-line of my favorite records for several years now. It started when Dream State released "Primrose Path", continued on Yours Truly's "Self Care", and last year was imbued in Katatonia's "Sky Void Of Stars". Music that takes the pain and the dakr side, but turns them into shimmering songs leading us toward the light at the end of the tunnel, is the rare gift that bridges where we are and where we want to be.

Hot Water Music hit that mark all over this record, with songs like "Remnants" being the fist-in-the-air moment that makes it feel like boxing with God can end with our victory. It won't, we know, but the moment of hope is enough to get us through another day. Often, that's the best thing music can do for us.

This year has been lacking in great music, and the competition is rather weak. Maybe that does help "Vows" rise toward the top of the list, but it would be too simple to say that without acknowledging a great record is still a great record independent of those factors. Hot Water Music has given us a great record, and it doesn't matter whether or not it would be contending for Album Of The Year in 1999 or 2005. It's a damn strong contender this year, and the spark of joy is all we need to worry ourselves with.

Singles Roundup: Jules & The Howl, Yours Truly, & Deep Purple

The singles grab-bag has been refilled, so let's see what we have this week:

Jules & The Howl - I Just Want To Feel Better

May is mental health awareness month, which is a fitting time for Jules to be releasing this song, which is centered on the struggle many of us have trying to keep our heads above water. It's a fact of life that pain leaves scars that never fade, while smiles only leave little wrinkles we try our best to avoid. When it is the hurt and the dark we remember most vividly, it's difficult to remember there is still a sun shining behind the eclipse.

Jules uses a different metaphor, singing about her mind being a merry-go-round that never stops, which is a familiar feeling. Catastrophizing does feel like the rush of falling toward the ground, and regrets can play in our minds as if on that loop, bouncing to the circus music like the meanest taunt of a scary clown.

Her questioning of fate comes in the form of a jaunty song, one that gives me feelings of the disco era, dressing up demons in sequined outfits to highlight how two-dimensional they are. As Jules sings the title in the chorus, along with layers of harmonies, it's a call for community, a reminder that many of us go through these times without anyone there to turn on the light and show us there's nothing hiding in the corner, under the bed, or in the shadows. Nothing but ourselves, that is.

The message of the song is important, and it's something I've written about myself. What I never managed to do was wrap it up in an uplifting package the way Jules has. This is absolutely one of her best songs, which sadly only seems to reaffirm the dangerous idea that great art comes from pain. Let's hope that is only correlation, not causation.

Yours Truly - Sour

To use those immortal words as a question, "I'm too old for this shit?" I'm being facetious, but the two songs released so far by Yours Truly for their sophomore album do have me wondering if the younger generation is indeed lost on me. As much as I loved everything they did through their early EPs and debut album, their recent music has taken a turn I'm not as in tune with. This song continues in that style, with a bit more aggression and a whole lot less fun. While "Self Care" felt like a cathartic breakthrough at the end of therapy, a song like this one feels like the seething initial recounting of why we end up on that couch. I miss the bit of optimism, yes, but what I really miss is the ability of the music to sound uplifting while the lyrics work through the issues. This simply isn't as enjoyable as a vehicle for the message, and I worry what it means for a record I so dearly want to love.

Deep Purple - Portable Door

On the one hand, I have to commend Deep Purple for staying so productive at this stage of their career. On the other hand, their commitment to coming up with the worst album titles makes it rather difficult to talk about their music these days. The first taste of "=1" is a short rocker that tells the story of the band at this age. Their style is locked in, so having a new guitar player makes very little difference to the sound. This is all about the organ and Ian Gillan's voice, which is perhaps what makes this song bittersweet. While it's a fine song with a solid hook to it, the line between sounding 'veteran' and sounding 'old' is fast approaching.

Alblum Review: Sebastian Bach - Child Within The Man

It's hard to talk about Sebastian Bach without mentioning the constant talk about a reunion between him and Skid Row, mostly because he won't shut up about it. He has spent at least a decade trying to guilt the band into bringing him back, which I could say is all about money, but I think Bach's solo career makes it clear it's more about him not really wanting to make new music anymore. His solo output has been sporadic at best, and he spends more time talking about is past than his present, so it's not hard to see all of this as something he has to do while biding time for what he really wants.

Just look at the cover of this album. Does that not tell you how little effort was put into making this? Bach wants to think he's still cool at his age, but that drawing is so horrible it would have been too cheesy even in the 80s. Oh, and let's not forget that he's also drawn as being at least three decades younger than he actually is. Perhaps reminding us so forceful of his man-child reputation isn't a good starting point.

The people Bach has chosen to work with continue his trend of making records that try to be heavier than Bach needs to be. His voice has always been rather high and thin, and going in the heavier direction only serves to highlight the limitations of that tone. He feels the need to go into rougher textures and even screaming at times, which either tells me he doesn't believe he can sell these songs with his natural voice, or he doesn't believe he has enough voice left to do it. Either way, hearing a once great singer screaming his head off is not a sign of quality.

This album comes down along the same lines as his other solo work; it's heavy rock that is supposed to impress up by being the heaviest thing he's ever done, but the songs aren't that great, and we all know in advance Bach is going to leave this behind once it's out. He isn't going to be flying the flag for this album for the next couple of years. It's something that reminds us he's still out there, and hopefully pushes a few more fans to bring his name up each time the slot in Skid Row comes open again.

Personally, I don't have a dog in that fight, but I do find it amazing how often the talk turns to how much money a tour would generate, with almost no one seeming to care that the rest of the band would be utterly miserable (by their own admission) to have to spend that much time with Bach. Shouldn't fans have more sympathy for what would make the band happy? I digress.

This record is firmly in the 'meh' pile. There are a few good moments, but I don't know if I would say any of the songs are great. It isn't a miserable experience, but it's also not anything I'm going to want to come back to. The main reason for that is actually Bach, whose voice grates on my nerves. Age has narrowed his tone, making it more shrill than ever, and I don't find it a pleasant sound at all. It almost sounds like he's whining half of these songs, and much like Chris Jericho in Fozzy, I simply don't want to listen to that for more than a few minutes at a time.

Bach may have been a great singer at one point, but time has not been kind to him. His voice is not pleasing, the attitude he takes on the record isn't engaging, and yes, I've never seen an interview with him where I thought he was actually cool.

I'll finish by saying this; if Sebastian and Skid Row ever did get back together, this record tells me it wouldn't be what anyone wants. Bach now is not a better singer than the last two who have filled that spot, so we just have to ask if nostalgia is really worth all this talk. Personally, it's so short-lived I don't see the point. I'll be kind and not say that about this record too.

Still Feeling "Blue", 30 Years On

I'm sure I saw the "Buddy Holly" video when it was in rotation on MTV, but the first time I remember Weezer being a focal point was in high school. Someone who was in my social circle would regularly wear a Weezer t-shirt, and at some point I was asked if I listened to them. At the time, I wanted to think myself too cool for such a thing, so I truthfully answered I didn't, all the while thinking they were too much 'nerd rock' for me.

As time would prove, that would be entirely wrong. Weezer may not have been the only starting point for that description, but they are the one for my generation that blurred the lines between the coolness of being rock stars and the utter lameness of being nerds/geeks/dorks/dweebs. I think what kept me from embracing them at the time was a misunderstanding of the rainbow of possibilities when it comes to being lame. My lameness came in a different form than the traditional stereotypes, and as such I was looking for a closer analog, missing the proverbial forest for the trees.

I didn't start listening to Weezer until "Hash Pipe" hit the airwaves, which is rather hilarious to me, considering that an Adderall-fueled song about cross-dressers on the street corner has precisely zero to do with me, my life, or my own proclivities. Until much later on when Rivers Cuomo went off the deep end, you couldn't have picked a song I would have less of a connection to, and yet it was perhaps the only one I would have been won over by.

I found myself in an online Weezer community, which was something I didn't know I needed as much as I did until it fell apart. Caught between the in-jokes and the other nonsense, the question we kept debating over and over was which album was better; "Blue" or "Pinkerton"?

Even today, I can go back and forth on that one. "Blue" is now thirty years old, which is a depressing fact. It means I'm older than I want to admit, it means I've spent far too much of my life listening to Weezer, and it means not enough has changed in all of this time.

What we couldn't have known at the time was how the record set up most of the Weezer story, and should have been a warning we were in for a bumpy ride.

Everyone knows "Buddy Holly", which is the song on the record that sounds most dated. The approach of filtering power-pop through grunge is palpable, but it is neither the production nor the pop-culture references that date the song. No,it's the bridge of the song, where Rivers sings in a rhythm that always felt to me like he was co-opting a different musical trend of the time. Little did I know that he was indeed dissecting everything popular to later use in cynical ways for his own songwriting. It sounded out of place then, it sounds calculated now.

Rivers was too smart for his own good. His audience was not watching old reruns of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" or listening to 50s rock and roll, nor were they likely to be reading Kerouac. It's that reference that makes "Blue" such a sad album to me. In "On The Road", Kerouac spends hundreds of pages tearing through the story of his life, and how he and his friends were on a manic quest to live as much life as they could. The story is ultimately depressing, because they travel from one end of the country to the other, again and again, never finding anything they could savor long enough to stay put.

That reflects in Rivers' career, where Weezer keeps getting reinvented in the quest to find the same level of success they started out with. "Hash Pipe" would get there, as would (sadly, I would add) "Beverly Hills", but what gets lost in the search is the core. Rivers would toss aside the idea of making music for any purpose other than finding success, as he famously stopped putting anything of himself into the songs after "Pinkerton" failed so miserably. Given what he wrote about on that album, having less Rivers isn't exactly a bad thing, but it stripped the passion out of Weezer so much there's no way to listen to him sing about how he can't stop partying without wondering if the only one he's ever attended was through a telescope from the other side of the street.

We need to reckon with the level of honesty on the record. There are certainly pieces of Rivers in these songs, with the references to his familiar issues and his love of KISS. How much of the record is true colors how I can think about it, because while at times he is playing the part of the hopeless romantic who hasn't found his place yet, there is also the "Pinkerton" foreshadowing in "No One Else". That song is controlling and nearly abusive, and was a warning of how ugly Rivers' views of women were going to become on the next record. This is where it would be nice to think "Blue" was just another of Rivers' academic experiments, but that doesn't quite mesh with the other songs. Rather, it sounds like a blemish that was the first sign of a toxic bloom that would soon come to the surface.

The three singles from the record are still staples of rock radio, and for good reason. Rivers was a key figure in bringing back the power-pop aesthetic into rock, and he did open doors for people who were never going to be conventionally cool. "Blue" became an album of anthems for those of us who didn't fit in, even if our own formula of uncoolness tipped the scales in different ways. It didn't matter if you actually wore horn-rim glasses, or wore sweaters, it was the idea of being together as outcasts that spoke to us.

"Blue" is the album that can still make us feel like someone else understood, whether we have moved past those days or not. While we would learn on "Pinkerton" that sometimes people are shunned for good reason, "Blue" is still the defining record of nerd culture.

As a quasi-member of that group, thirty years hasn't been enough time to figure out if I think that's a good thing or not. Some days...

Album Review: Anette Olzon - Rapture

Sometimes, reviews pain me to have to write. It's never fun when something you've been looking forward to disappoints you, and it isn't made much easier when you know what's coming. Anette Olzon is one of my favorite voices. Her unique tone is captivating, and between her work with Alyson Avenue, The Dark Element, and the Allen/Olzon project, she's been on some of the best melodically heavy music I've heard. My hopes and always high when she's going to release something, but these solo albums of hers aren't much fun for me.

With her voice, and with Magnus Karlsson once again writing the songs, this should be a record that turns around what has been a difficult time for my mood. That would not be the case, however, as this record follows suit from her previous solo album. For reasons I don't entirely understand, these songs feature bursts of harsh vocals, and the least hooky melodies on any of Magnus' current projects. Anette's voice is beautiful and soaring, and she's given very flat songs that don't play to her strengths.

Also not helping matters is the mix, where Anette's voice is not put front-and-center. She fades into the guitars far too often, and considering this is her solo album that should be focused on her, it's an inexcusable decision in the mixing process. Everyone involved here are highly respected, so I'm at a loss how Anette is not positioned as the star of her own album.

You get everything you need to know from the opener, "Heed The Call". You get a decent chorus where Anette doesn't pierce through the clamor, but also multiple sections of barked vocals that don't add to the melody, and even a quick interlude of a child singing. It's all bizarre, and tells us this is not going to be a record focused on delivering great hooks and melodic metal bliss. They are trying to 'experiment', and we all know you can't possibly win every time you try something different. Of course, let's aslo be honest here; the claim they are playing with various genres is a bit ridiculous. These are the same songs Magnus has always been writing, just with a growl here or there, or an extra keyboard.

What I can say in this record's favor is that it comes across better than "Strong" did. Whereas that record felt almost oppressive at times, and few of the hooks landed at all, this record is better at balancing the heavier and harsher elements with Anette and Magnus' traditional melody. These songs would still be better without any of the extraneous bits, but at least the core hooks are better this time around.

This is one of those cases where we need to draw the distinction between 'bad' and 'disappointing'. "Rapture" is a decent album. I don't hate it by any means. I can put it on and have a nice enough time listening to Anette doing her thing. "Rapture" is, however, quite a disappointing album. I know what Anette and Magnus are capable of, and this is not at the top of the list. Both of the albums she has done paired with Russell Allen are better, as are both of the albums she has done with The Dark Element, and none of those touch the one classic Alyson Avenue album. Even her first more pop-oriented solo album, which set her renaissance in motion, had one absolutely killer song in "Falling", which is more than "Rapture" can boast.

Having set high expectations is a blessing and a curse. It means I adore many of Anette's previous works, but it also means I'm not going to settle for second best. Unfortunately, "Rapture" is just far enough removed from what I want to hear from Anette it tends to feel that way. Good things can still make you sad, and a tinge of that is what I take away most from "Rapture".

What Twenty Years Of "The End Of Heartache" Shows Us

Genres are like fads; while they may never die out, they will never burn as hot or as bright as when they left their mark on the culture. Nothing can stay popular forever, not with society changing with each new generation that comes along. Twenty years after the fact, it can be difficult to remember what a paradigm shift felt like, because we have lived so long on the new ground.

Killswitch Engage pioneered metalcore in the mainstream, and no one ever did it bigger or better. While many will point to "Alive Or Just Breathing" as the impetus, that was not the record that conquered the world. No, that would be "The End Of Heartache", which amazingly is celebrating it's twentieth anniversary. When I stop and think about how that means I've spent half my life listening to that album, time no longer feels like a straight line.

Rather than sit here and tell you a story you don't care about, I would rather take a look back at what these twenty years have given us. It's rather interesting to have seen and heard how a band that blazed a new trail wound up digging their rut deeper and deeper.

It started with "The End Of Heartache". Killswitch Engage had a new singer, a new hunger, and they tapped into a well no one had ever drilled so deep into. Their music was heavier, the production stronger, and Howard Jones' voice more emotional. It combined to form a steamroller of an album that took the brutality of metal, the pain of emo, and a degree of songwriting few metal bands have ever possessed. The blend was perfect, the timing was right, and the result was the defining album of that time. No one could live up to that, and Killswitch Engage single-handedly dragged the entire metalcore genre into the mainstream. At least it seemed that way.

They followed that by trying to be more. "As Daylight Dies" is one of the best sounding metal records ever made, but in trying to be both heavier and more melodic, the two ends pulls the strings apart enough that we could see through the weave. Little did we know, but in one album cycle the genre had already fallen off.

The self-titled album over-corrected, going too far into melodic rock for most listeners (but not me). If this was metalcore moving forward, Killswitch Engage was marching alone. And indeed they saw the writing on the wall, as when Howard Jones left the band, they returned to their own past, dredging up the still fresh memories of Jess Leach's time in the band.

What is remarkable about this now longest period of Killswitch Engage's career is how... safe it all feels. The records come fairly regularly, they're all well-crafted, and they mostly disappear from the zeitgeist. It happens to many bands that they find a sound they are comfortable with, and they play the hits back again and again. The difference is that with the lineup change, it felt fully intentional to backtrack to their familiar sound. Again and again, the band makes records that sound like "The End Of Heartache", but never quite match the fire or passion that album captured.

Twenty years on, what has become clear is what we experience both from bands like AC/DC who essentially make the same record time and again, and also artists like Taylor Swift who literally make the same album again to get back the rights; songs are not everything - recordings matter. You can never recreate a performance exactly, and the magic you capture on tape once may never come again.

Killswitch Engage found that magic when they recorded "The End Of Heartache". The record stands up these years later as a fresh, vital, and stirring reminder of what you can achieve when you pour yourself into making music. It also serves as a warning, because it set a bar even they could not live up to. By reverting to form, and by churning out records that mine the same territory, they have in essence reminded us they'll never be as good as they once were.

That's true of everyone, but some make more of an effort to hide it. Of course, when you have one masterpiece to your credit, you probably don't need to shy away from taking your well-deserved credit.