Album Review: Eclipse - Megalomanium II

We need to have a discussion. What exactly is a double album?

That seems obvious, doesn't it? A double album is just an album that's twice as long, right? Well, no, that isn't always the case. You have all the classic examples, but then you have things like System Of A Down releasing two albums a few months apart. Is that still a double album?

Eclipse is stretching that to the absolute limit. As the title of this record suggests, it is the second half of their previous record, and band mastermind Erik Martensson has described this as the second half of a double album. But the problem is that the first one came out last year. Two records... a year apart... a double album?

I don't mean to be a grinch here, but I'm calling bullshit on this. I've been getting sick and tired of PR hype, people being called 'legends' who have never had a hit single, and on and on. I hit the breaking point of putting up with this kind of thing. If you don't release the two albums at the same time, it's not a double album, full stop. This is just another album that sounds exactly like the last one, and using the branding of a double to explain that doesn't make it any different.

That's a few paragraphs without actually saying anything about the record itself, which is fitting, because there isn't anything to say about it. If you've heard Eclipse before, you know exactly what you're getting with this one. Not only does it sound exactly like the last record, it sounds exactly like the ones before that too. Erik has now written so many songs between his various projects that the recycling of riffs and melodies has become too much to ignore. There are guitar lines and vocal lines here that bring heavy doses of deja vu.

But there is a slight difference this time, and it isn't for the better. Erik seems intent on trying to find mainstream success, and generate a 'hit', so more songs than ever feature "whoa oh" and "na na" sections of backing vocals. They both pop up in "Falling To My Knees", which would be a fine song otherwise, but the annoyingly nasal 'na na' bit sounds so bad I have to think it was intentional. I don't understand it all all, but surely if it wasn't the plan they would have recorded another take that sounded less like a bratty teenager.

I've always been harder on Eclipse than most. Erik has released three albums with his Nordic Union project, was part of a tongue-in-cheek album with Ammunition, and wrote songs for Xtasy; I like all of those more than any Eclipse record. I think that's because jumping from one vocalist to another helps to break up the similarity of his writing. When he focuses on putting out more Eclipse music, it jumps to the forefront.

All of that is to say "Megalomanium II" is a disappointing record, not a bad one. Erik writes too many solid melodies for that to be the case, but he's at the point where he's making records that no longer make a case for themselves. He needs to tweak something, even if it's just the guitar tones, so they don't all sound exactly the same. Nothing makes your music more irrelevant than confusing the audience with whether or not it's new. Not everyone can be Lemmy and make doing one thing for fifty years their gimmick.

Eclipse fans will probably love this record. That's great for them, really. I wish I could say I did, and that I could have written something from a more positive slant. That regret might disappear if I hear a third chapter of "Megalomanium" is scheduled for next year...

The Complicated Legacy Of "Four"

What happens when subversion becomes the accepted mainstream? What happens when an anti-establishment message is taken up by the masses?

These are questions I was not asking thirty years ago, when Blues Traveler released their seminal "Four" album. I was too young to be thinking of haughty concepts, which means at least I had an excuse for things going over my head. The rest of the audience who came to love "Run Around" and "Hook" without realizing what John Popper was actually saying have less means to defend themselves.

"Four" made its impact as an album with four-chord pop songs that were just unusual enough to catch people's attention, but conventional enough not to scare them away. Take away the harmonica, and put in a more 'beautiful' voice, and the hits feel like they would have always been hits. A pop diva could have made "Look Around" into a massive power ballad, and if you don't think Meat Loaf could have performed a song about a clown having dalliances and illegitimate children all over his touring route, I might have a bone to pick with you.

Underneath the surface, the two big hits were Manchurian Candidates; bitter expressions of artistic dissatisfaction wrapped up in the trappings of pop music to con the people into hearing a berating of how silly and stupid they were. It worked, albeit too well. The public did not pick up on the message that "Hook" was calling them shallow listeners who wouldn't recognize meaning even if they had stared at the words tattooed on their body for their entire lives. Pop music was not always known for depth or meaning, but as much of that fell on an audience with no discernment as it did on artists who didn't care about art.

Popper admits in these songs that he's giving us the run-around, spinning words and stories that use a lot of language to say very little. Is there a narrative behind the verses of "Run Around"? Is it just word association that is a more formalized version of the scat he would include on one song per album? In the end, that doesn't really matter, because the message comes through the form of the music by itself.

"Hook" is a variation on Pachelbel's canon, the most cliched musical form known to man. On top of that, Popper flat-out told us that nothing matters except for a catchy hook in a song, because that's all we will ever pay attention to. His lyrics make clear they don't matter at all, so long as he sings with the expected amount of emotion put through in the performance. Pop music is a performance, and the audience not seeing which side of the curtain they're on is one of those rare moments when we are included in the comedy, as the butt of the joke.

This is all well-known by now, so why do I bother to repeat it? What is most interesting about the pop pandering of "Four" is how well it worked. You can still turn on the radio and hear those songs, people will still remember them and sing along, and the message is as relevant now as it was back then. The audience remains oblivious, despite the truth being publicized time and again. It's purely the fault of the audience when they don't know "Born In The USA" is not a patriotic anthem, and it's also their fault when they don't realize "Hook" is musically pissing on their ignorance.

When such a message becomes an invisible part of pop culture, it brings to mind questions about the very nature of art, and whether it is a small fragment of the population that is attuned to understand it. I was recently watching a documentary about Duchamp's "Fountain", the sculpture in which an upside-down urinal became a piece of art. Like "Four", it was a bit of subversion that was challenging an audience to ask questions about the art they were consuming. Also like "Four", the point was largely missed, only to have the misunderstanding become a part of our culture. It is both the greatest feat and the greatest artistic failure to have an enduring work that lives outside of context.

Thirty years later, the legacy of "Four" remains tied to the unexpected chart success Blues Traveler never had before or would again. It was a moment in time that coincided with the end of an era. The record came out at the end of Kurt Cobain's life, and much like how his abstract poetry was turned into the defining language of a generation, we were an audience who assumed meaning existed when it didn't, who were happy to float on surface level without ever asking how far we would sink if the boat capsized.

The irony of all of this is that "Four" became a self-defeating prophecy. Because that simpleton audience ate up what they did not understand, Popper would try to recreate the success by chasing after the pop fans who loved him when he hated them. Once he needed them, they were disinterested in his genuine efforts to write hit singles. The lesson, which "Hook" predicted, was that the perception of authenticity is the most important aspect. That song had it, because Popper was fully invested in his kiss-off to the people who hadn't bought the band's first three records. He was not as authentic a voice of pop hit-making, and those songs lacked exactly what he knew they needed to make the desired impact. The lesson he was teaching us got turned around, and he wasn't able to see that he was now the one misunderstanding how the relationship between artist and audience needed to work.

My own relationship to the record has changed, has deepened, over the years. I was one of those surface-level fans in 1994, but time has turned me into the bitter and jaded sort Popper was when he wrote these songs. In essence, we have traded places. I suppose that means "Four" is really 'my' album at this point, as few have been as foundational in my life. The past may have predicted the future, unknowingly. I like that kind of happenstance.

Quik Reviews: Legions Of Doom & Stryper

Not a lot of sunshine this week.

Legions Of Doom - The Skull III

I got in trouble a few years ago when doom legend Eric Wagner died, because I wasn't exactly sensitive to the how and why of it. Since it happened during the early days of the pandemic, I think you can put the rest of the story together.

This record is made up of the pieces that would have been the next record from his band The Skull. The rest of the band, and some friends, took the in-progress scraps and fleshed them out. It's a nice sentiment, but I'm never sure if we should be applauding an end result that might not at all be what the deceased would have wanted it to sound like. Sometimes paying respect can actually be disrespectful, but since Wagner's family signed off on this project, I'm not going to suggest anything.

Without Wagner's unique voice, this record actually feel sless haunting and solemn than the work he did when alive. The vocals lack the sorrow and pathos that made Wagner stand out, and the lyrics often being uninteligible only further saddens this affair. Wagner's last words are on this record, and the singers can't even deliver them so we can hear what he had to say. I shouldn't say it's insulting, but it is.

When Wagner's voice appears on "Heaven", everything crystalizes. The others, no matter how good their intentions, are not equipped to replicate what Wagner brought to the table. I don't know if this would have been a great Skull record even if Wagner had lived, but without him it doesn't stand a chance.

Stryper - When We Were Kings

It seems to me that some people don't quite learn the right lessons. Case in point; Stryper. Since they came back, they have released album after album they describe as their 'heaviest' yet. And yes, it is true that Stryper today is heavier than Stryper in their cheesy 80s glory. That's an interesting factoid, but it obscures the main point, which is that less people care about Stryper music today than they did back then.

You can make your music as heavy as you want, but if the songs don't connect to people, it doesn't matter. Yes, I know that being on the label they are means no one outside of their old audience even knows these records exist, but they are still playing in their own feedback loop. There's a reason why the only times hard rock and metal ever became popular in the mainstream, it was when they became more melodic. That's what gets widespread acclaim.

The plus side to this album is that I haven't seen Michael Sweet bragging about writing it in a week, but the negative side is that if this one did have more time invested in it, I can't hear where. Sweet continues to produce songs with lackluster melodies, sung in his perpetually full-bore vocal. His riffing style is simplistic, which would actually be perfect if he could deliver strong hooks. He doesn't, and the bare-bones nature of every piece of the puzzle reveals how plain the picture is.

Stryper fans will enjoy this, because it sounds like modern Stryper. Everyone else is going to wish we could have the cheesy fun of the yellow-and-black days again. At least we could laugh at those.

Singles Roundup: Linkin Park, Opeth, & Neal Morse

Well, this week kicks off with one I didn't know we'd ever have to discuss.

Linkin Park - The Emptiness Machine

First thing first; I was never a Linkin Park fan. I hear the radio songs, but never more than that, and even those songs didn't mean much to me. I don't have a deep and emotional connection to them like so many people do, so my perspective is entirely that of an outsider. Having said that, Linkin Park reforming as an entity making new music is without a doubt the biggest surprise of the year. I didn't know if it was possible to come back from their loss, or if it was advisable to even consider such a thing. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't, but merely that it is a risk you have to be ready to take on. They apparently are.

My first impression of the song is that they found the right singer to join them. Her voice is just different enough to make clear she isn't Chestor Bennington, and yet the strained tone of her voice hits the exact same marks. It almost doesn't matter what the song is, because it sounds right.

And yet, the song also comes with the emptiness of knowing why it exists as it does, and why it has been so long since Linkin Park made music. It sits in a limbo that will take time to sort through, and I don't know which direction that will go. There are already questions being raised about certain ties to certain things, but I'm not going to address them here. I'm content to leave things at this; Linkin Park released a song that sounds very much like Linkin Park, and I don't know what to make of that.

Opeth - S3

So much for those growls. After making waves with the return of their death metal side, Opeth pulls the rug out from under those people with a return to their neo-prog side on this second single. I was a dissenting voice in not thinking S1 was any good, and I feel justified in that thinking having now heard this song. They are similar compositions, but without the novelty of the growling vocals, the flatness of Akerfeldt's vocal lines are put to the forefront.

Not only is there nothing close to an interesting melody to be found, but his vocal performance is lackluster as well. He no longer seems to have any power at all to his voice, cooing with extra effects put on in post-production to cover up for this fact. If recapturing his growl meant losing his clean voice, it was not a trade worth making. Prestige tv has a problem of thinking that being slow and ponderous means you have said something important, when all you have done is wasted time saying nothing. Opeth is squarely in that reality.

Neal Morse & The Resonance - All The Rage

The good news here is that Neal has recruited a new group of musicians to make a prog album, which means this song is already miles better than his awful two-part Joseph concept album. The bad news is that this new group sounds exactly like the now-on-hiatus Neal Morse Band. The music is pure Neal, with all of his usual tropes. That's fine. The production sounds exactly like Neal, down to the frustrating slathering of effects on every vocal. Again, expected. The players he has selected for this, though, sound like copies. The playing is all in the same box, and the vocals not done by Neal sound very much like Eric Gillette's contributions on the NMB records. That all adds up to say this feels more like a placeholder for a band that was forced into taking a break, rather than a new band that has something of its own to say. Perhaps the rest of the album will prove otherwise, but this is a disappointing way to introduce something new.

Album Review: Moggs Motel - Moggs Motel

I'm not sure which direction I'm supposed to look at this album from. On the one hand, I could give Phil Mogg credit for sticking to his word that UFO was over and done with. On the other hand, I could ask why he needed to retire that band if he was going to turn around and do something almost identical to it. Artistic freedom is a wonderful thing, but when you are synonymous with a band, is there a need to strike out on your own? I'm not sure the answer to that, and this album doesn't really make a strong case one way or the other.

UFO went out on the lowest note possible; a covers album. If that was an indication Mogg was out of energy to keep making music, I would have understood it. But here we are with a new album, a horrible name (Where is the apostrophe?), and pretty much the vibe of UFO. At least when he made what I consider his masterpiece, the $ign Of 4 album, it had guitar playing that separated it greatly from UFO's legacy.

From the first chords of "Apple Pie", the sounds could just as easily be any of the later UFO records. The guitars play simple riffs with just enough clear distortion to sound bother classic and modern, putting all the attention on Mogg's vocal and lyric. Mogg is one of those rare singers who has gotten more interesting with age, as his limitations have given his voice a unique timbre that is more expressive than when he had his full range available. That has been true for decades now, but it's worth remembering as he knows enough to lean into his current strengths.

The issue here is the same as through most of Mogg's career; he is reliant on the guitar player to give him a melodic base to sing from. On that $ign Of 4 album, the playing had more melody intrinsic in it, and I don't think it was a coincidence that record featured Mogg's best set of melodies and hooks. Conversely, when a song like "Face Of An Angel" here plods along on the most basic of rhythms, Mogg isn't able to provide a hook that can break out of the tedium. His phrasing is so textbook Mogg that I would believe it if I was told it was an intentional referencing of songs from his past.

Ultimately, what we are hearing is a good album that needs a spark to make it great. The music is simple, Mogg's melodies aren't his best, and his voice is no longer capable of as much expression as at his height. Any one of those things would be fine, but having all three happen at the same time means that the record begins to drag long before it reaches the end. There isn't much energy to the performances here, instead sounding like veterans running through these songs for the tenth time during a recording session. It's played professionally, but without passion coming through the speakers.

There's enough good material here for this to be an enjoyable record, but it's one that won't be essential once the novelty has worn off. Whichever period of Mogg's career you're a fan of, I don't see this record displacing any of the old favorites from the tops of our lists. It's nice to hear Mogg still at it, and still making solid music. That's nothing to be disappointed in.

What Do We Owe Bands?

Here's a question; What do we owe bands?

It seems like a simple question, because except for the rarest of circumstances, we don't actually have relationships with the artists we listen to. We forge them in our own minds, and the music comes to define moments in our lives, but there isn't a personal relationship between ourselves and the musicians.

So it was interesting to hear a commentator talking about whether they have become 'that guy' who only likes a certain era of a band's career. I say it's interesting not because considering such a thought is interesting, but that the concept of 'that guy' exists at all.

It seems too easy for me to say that no, of course we don't owe the bands we listen to anything. It is not upon us to like everything they do, no matter how many lineup or style changes they undergo. The term 'fan' does come from 'fanatic', of course, but that doesn't mean we have to become fanatical in our devotion to bands. We've had this discussion for most of our lives. Do we not remember the Poochie storyline on "The Simpsons"? Even then, the kids on the show were smart enough to know they didn't need to convince themselves they liked something just because it appeared on something that already liked.

That is the sentiment that comes most to mind here. We don't owe bands anything, but we do owe it to ourselves to be honest. We owe it to ourselves to only like what we actually like, and not lie about enjoying things we clearly don't. No one who has any sort of standards or independent thought likes everything they're exposed to, and it's foolish to position things as being otherwise.

I don't believe in the concept of unconditional love. Just because you love someone does not mean there is not a line that cannot be crossed. If your love suddenly snapped and became a murderer, are we saying we aren't allowed to cut them out of our lives? There's a political joke I could make, but I'll leave that out. Suffice it to say, love is not a permanent thing that never changes or wanes. Just look at the divorce rate to know that.

What I'm saying is that if you don't like a band after they switch singers, that's just fine. I only really enjoy Black Sabbath when Ronnie James Dio was in the band. That means I might be only the most cursory of fans of the band, but honestly, who the bloody fuck cares? Why do we allow people to be gate-keepers defining our own experiences with music. It can be a communal thing, but at its core music is solitary. No one else can hear and feel the music the way you do, so giving anyone the power to control that for you is abdicating your own humanity.

The rush to love everything makes no sense to me. It tells me one of two things; either you don't care what music your favorite band puts out, or you define yourself by being a fan. In either case, we need to have more pride in ourselves, and listen to our inner monologue more than the chattering voices of people who don't actually mean anything to us. I get a lot of hate for my opinions, but I truly don't care. Listening to music I don't like just so random asshats might like me 1% more is ridiculous.

The same thing happens in sports, where athletes begin to define themselves by the number they wear. They spend money trying to get their familiar number when they change teams, as if that is who they are. They have their actual name on the back of the jersey, and they care so much about a number. They're looking at the wrong thing.

I feel like music fans often do the same thing. Like whatever you like. Just don't like whatever you're being fed.