Album Review: Amorphis - Borderland

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating; things can be too perfect. When you think about it, if something is perfect, it sucks the optimism out of the air. If things can't get any better, why would we ever need more of that thing? Logically, you wouldn't, and I find this phenomenon appearing more often these days with music. As productions continue to get slicker and slicker, we've reached a point where some bands have a sound so pristine that it actually sucks the life out of their music.

That isn't to say metal needs to sound like it was recorded on a potato, as the old joke about black metal goes, but there is something about a bit of roughness that is necessary for our eyes to focus on the core, and not the glossy sheen meant to trick us from seeing the hollow emptiness.

Amorphis is not hollow by any means, but as I have listened to and/or reviewed their last three or four albums, each one comes to us with a sound even more immaculate than the last. They are metal done to absolute perfection, which is what makes it interesting how little I have returned to those albums in the time since each has been released. Everything tells me Amorphis is among the very best to do what they do, but there is an almost eerie lack of humanity to their recordings that makes them easy to slide out of my train of thought.

This album follow in exactly that path, blending melancholy and melody with aplomb, giving us beautiful clean choruses punctuated by absolutely guttural moments of death metal fury. This is an even slicker version of when Opeth was at their best, and in many ways is done better than Opeth could have ever imagined. Tomi Jousten's vocals are gorgeous, but as is the case with the production, perhaps too clean for their own good. The choruses are beautiful, but they don't have the soul or gravitas of a rougher-hewn singer. He is, in a way, too good.

The songs deliver exactly as they should. The opening trio of songs hit hard, give us big hooks, and if anything dial down on the melancholy a bit to make this an 'upbeat' album by Amorphis standards. Releasing in the summer rather than the fall might have been an indication that the band was trying to look more on the bright side, which certainly sounds to be the case.

With that being said, if you ask me to differentiate this album from "Under The Red Cloud", which floored me the first time I heard it, I'm not sure I could do so without having to break down statistics about the percentages of clean and harsh vocals, and soon and so forth. Amorphis is doing what Amorphis always does, and they're damn good at it. I'll never discount the ability to write great metal songs, which Amorphis does each and every time.

I can only say that as good as Amorphis is, their music does not tend to stick with me long after the albums come and go. Perhaps it's the shimmering perfection of the recording, or perhaps it's the lyrical focus on stories of nature rather than human emotion, but there is a disconnect between what Amorphis delivers and what I'm looking for out of new favorites.

All of that is to say I would certainly recommend "Borderland" to any metal fan who is looking for something new that is of hte highest quality, but I can't guarantee I will find myself loving the record at the end of the year as much as most people will. I'm in a weird place, and clinically impressive metal isn't the medicine I need. That doesn't take away from how impressive Amorphis is, especially this deep into their career. They deserve all the praise they'll get.

"Braver Than We Are" Was Cowardly

I have often said to myself that the worst thing anyone could say to me is 'yes'. There are times when we need to be told 'no', because we cannot see for ourselves that we are headed down the wrong path. Saying 'no' is not an easy thing, and it can lead to hard feelings and strained relationships, but honesty is often the thing we need the most. Much like how a mirror gives us an inverted image of who we are, our own perception of ourselves (and our talents) is similarly skewed by the limits of our senses.

When we make a mistake that is so glaring, and so avoidable, it is one of the saddest things we can see happen before our eyes. Or our ears, in this case.

Meat Loaf wanted to pay tribute to his musical partner Jim Steinman before they ran out of time. That's an admirable goal, and it makes everything I'm going to say from here on out sound a bit mean, but oh well. The result of that desire is not just one of the worst albums ever recorded, but something so pitiful and depressing it works against its own goal, shifting from an ode for a decades-long friendship to a burned out chunk of coal that reminds us how cold and dirty we feel digging through the soot and ash of the now dead fire.

There are two factors that made this record the equivalent of a true-crime podcast; 1) The songs, and 2) Meat's voice.

Let's start with the songs. Jim Steinman is my favorite songwriter of all time, and he is the only person I might use the words 'musical hero' to describe, and yet I am able to sit here and say that he also wrote plenty of garbage. His early musicals were filled with scraps of ideas that either never worked, or needed to be put into new context. He was famous for recycling himself, in part because his well of inspiration dried up relatively early in his life. I have gone through the exact same thing, so I certainly sympathize with that position, but it doesn't make the bad ideas any better.

For this record, Meat Loaf scraped together whatever residue of ink was left from Steinman's pen. He pulled out "Going All The Way", which had been recorded in demo form as a potential album anchor for a female singer, and the classic "Loving You Is A Dirty Job". They are real songs, and good songs, which were meant to be joined by Steinman's last great composition, "What Part Of My Body Hurts The Most?", although it seems Steinman was protective of letting a broken Meat Loaf anywhere near that one.

The rest of the album is made up of bits and pieces from the old musicals, none of which work as full songs, nor do they have anything to do with the Meat Loaf sound. They are Steinman, yes, but they are theater, not rock and roll. We do not want or need to hear Meat trying to sing Vaudeville numbers, especially when they use the 'turn around' motif from "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" before Steinman knew what to do with it.

The bigger issue, though, is Meat Loaf himself. His voice at this point was completely shot. He sounds like a red-lined recording, but he isn't. His voice warbles, croaks, and has a fluttering strobe of silence that will make you think you speakers weren't working properly. They are, it's his voice that wasn't working.

What's worse is that they pair him for three duets, all of which highlight just how decayed his voice became, as the other singers are cock-slapping him (metaphorically) with their talent, akin to the boner joke in "Speaking In Tongues" that is the worst one Steinman ever wrote. We can't write this whole thing off as an unprofessional bit of recording failure when we hear the other singers, especially Ellen Foley from the original "Bat Out Of Hell" album, still sounding so good.

It's a crime against music that no one was able to stand up to Meat and tell him he didn't have it anymore, and shouldn't have been recording. You can hear the creeping specter of death in his voice, which makes this album less about the potential loss of Steinman and more about the inevitable loss of Meat Loaf. He might have had years left to live, but the character died making this album. Meat Loaf was no more.

What pisses me off the most about this album isn't just that it's terrible, or that it sounds like elder abuse and exploitation, but that it tarnished my memories of Meat Loaf. His music has meant more to me than anyone else's, and I can no longer hear his best work without knowing it ended this way. We don't always get to choose our final words, but we are in control of what we say, just in case our time is up. Meat Loaf used what were his last musical words to tell us all he had no shame, no pride in his output, and that he actually thought this was a tribute to Jim Steinman.

Did this album only see the light of day because the music business is a business, and someone saw money in the project? I don't know, but what I do know is that if the industry actually was what people claim it to be, there would have been people there to protect the legacy of their investment, and to stop them from making an album as sad as this one.

It wasn't brave to make "Braver Than We Are", it was cowardly. It was a damn shame no one could convince Meat Loaf, the producer, the band, the guests, or the label, that this simply wasn't good enough. It was an embarrassment, and I say that knowing full well the look people give you when you say you're a Meat Loaf fan. Most of the time, I wear that badge with pride. When I think about this album... I can only think about the compulsion for self-harm.

That's what this album is to me.

Singles Roundup: Soen, Amy Lee and Company, & Spock's Beard

We're moving into that awkward zone when the years begin to blend together...

Soen - Primal

The one hope I had left for this disappointing year was for Soen deliver an album late in the year to rescue us from so much mediocrity, as their usual cycle would have made possible. Instead, they are waiting for the start of the new year in January to release the record, being the first big name we will encounter with fresh ears. That brings them back to the position they occupied when they first caught my ear.

This first single continues the trend Soen has been on for almost their entire career. With each album, they have been refining their sound, stripping away their early prog influences for something simpler and more powerful. The wall of guitars may have never been louder than here, and the rhythms being played have little of the off-kilter flair that made songs off "Lykaia" and "Lotus" such an interesting spin on modern melodic metal. It isn't a problem that the band is moving in this direction, but it does mean they have to nail everything else to make up the difference.

They mostly do that here. The song's riff is crushing even if it doesn't have as much groove, while Joel delivers a stirring chorus. The red-lined production fits the theme, as the band takes on the state of the world in the lyrics. Writing about politics can be tricky, and some of the language they use is a bit awkward. The message of fighting back against a ruling class who exploit our financial insecurity and fear of the unknown for their own benefit is one we should all be able to get behind. Politics being what it is, though, I'm sure some people will miss the point and prefer the band to keep their beliefs to themselves.

This song is very much in line with the initial singles from both "Memorial" and "Imperial". You could say Soen has settled too much into a formula, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you. I haven't gotten tired of that quite yet, so as long as the songs are still of this quality, I'm not going to complain. I might not feel quite the same if the album feels like the third carbon-copy in a row, but considering the state of music right now, I can think of a whole lot of things that would be worse.

Poppy, Amy Lee, & Courtney LaPlante - End Of You

I know in some circles this collaboration was talked about as being absolutely massive. Frankly, I like one or two Evanescence songs, but by and large why these three have become so beloved is one of those things that escapes me. I tried listening to a Poppy record when people were raving about her genre bending, but it was some of the worst songwriting I've ever heard in my life. I've tried to listen to Spiritbox, and I find them duller than dishwater, because there can be interesting spirals of colored dirt as that goes down the drain.

So imagine my surprise when this song was actually good. It doesn't do anything we wouldn't expect from a radio-rock single, and the three women don't really bring different enough personalities to make their presences all necessary, the song delivers where it counts. Amy, in particular, is stirring on the chorus, which immediately gripped me more than the last couple times I tried to listen to Evanescence.

I always say everything comes down to songwriting, and this is a prime example. When given a compelling song, Poppy and Courtney's talents are easier to hear and appreciate. That's a pretty good accomplishment.

Spock's Beard - Invisible

With most of the band currently in the lineup of Pattern Seeking Animals, and with that band's songwriter being a big part of the last twenty years of Spock's Beard, it's a bit curious that both bands are putting out albums this year. The album doesn't come from the band's usual writing teams, which is an interesting twist, and will be partially conceptual about a post-apocalyptic world. Oh fucking joy.

This first song gives me reason to think I may not actually subject myself to the whole of that experience. While I liked " " when it came out, Spock's Beard hasn't really sounded like themselves since Ted Leonard took over on vocals. Now with a different writing voice, this song doesn't feel much like Spock's Beard as I listen to it. The tones are right, but the song itself doesn't really go anywhere. There is prog, but it's not impressive prog. There is melody, but it's not a memorable melody.

I get worried when the first song picked to highlight a new album is this forgettable. Time will tell if that worry is on the nose or not.

"Happy Birthday, No One Cares"

"Happy Birthday, no one cares."

So sings Jakob Dylan in The Wallflowers' song "Witness". On this day last year, I found myself playing that song, and being caught off-guard by how perceptive my subconscious was being.

Birthdays are not occasions for celebration to everyone. While the image we are presented with is one of friends and family gathered 'round to show their appreciation, if not love, reality is not painted in such bright colors. For some of us, birthdays are yearly reminders that we are unable to stop the flow of energy and people out of our lives. They exist to taunt us with the knowledge that our dreams are as far away as they have ever been, coated slick with another layer of stardust.

Last year, my birthday hurt in a way it never had before. While much of my family had abandoned giving a damn when I was young, and the way a 'friend' attempted to make the day special in my college years was my introduction to full-blown depression, nothing prepared me for how it felt to have the one person I consider most special forget the day. I never expect much, but there are a small handful of people I count on to remember I exist, so I can remember that fact myself. To be forgotten was soul-crushing, and the ensuing apology came to mean very little when my Christmas gift was later ignored for months.

That lyric hit me hard, because often it does feel as if no one cares. Expressing that thought has gotten me in trouble in the past, but considering that virtually every relationship I have is entirely one-sided, and I run what I call an 'energy deficit' because I put in far more than I get out of those friendships, I don't think I was wrong to make the claim. 

If I can't count on people to be there for me, what I can count on are the important records of my life. Those are always sitting on the shelf, ready for when I want to spend time with them. In that respect, records can be our best friends, because they are dependable, and they don't disappoint us once we learn to love them. "Breach" is one of those records that I find myself going back to time and again, because I continue to discover new wrinkles that apply to where life has taken my psyche. The reasons I love it now are not the same as when I loved it then, but being able to evolve and develop together deepens the bond.

"Your wishes won't be coming true this year
Now darling don't you cry
We're gonna teach you everything
Where you'll learn to get by
Now lesson number one in homicide
Is emotional murder's no crime"

The best way to prevent yourself from being the victim of emotional murder is to not invest your emotions in anyone or anything. That is not exactly a healthy way of living, but neither is putting yourself in situations that are destined to beat you down again and again. 'Get back on the horse' they say, as if a horse is a lightning strike, and it can't throw you off a second time and injure you even worse. Hope is a lovely concept, but at a certain point it loses its potency when we can no longer remember the last time it paid off.

This year comes with the new wrinkle of blowing out the candles on dreams. Perhaps it was foolish to ever have them, but the time spent pursuing even the most basic version of them has ripped open emotional wounds I thought my creative work had sealed shut. What I was once proud of has become the bane of my existence, the identity I held for myself has become a costume that no longer fits. As such, I am giving up on those thoughts that I could make anything of my work. When the world tells you often enough that they don't care, and you can no longer stand to listen to your own lies convincing you that you even care yourself, the lesson eventually sinks in.

The only birthday wish I have made for most of the last twenty years is for it to not be the worst day of the year. Seldom has that been the case, and in all honesty it doesn't help when it isn't. That day didn't manifest in a better way, there were just others that dragged me down even further.

And so I spend this of all days with this essay, hoping that putting these thoughts into words might get them out of my head.

"You come around here, you'd better bring a witness
Everyone in here's on the guest list
When you're gone you won't be missed
Keep one eye open when you kiss"

At times, it feels like the only person who notices when I pull away is me, because I miss the times when I wasn't quite as dispirited by people. I will spend the day tallying the numbers of who does and doesn't remember, or can't be bothered to click a button or type a couple of words when they are prompted.

Relationships seem to inevitably wither on the vine, and not just with people. I find myself not loving music the same way I used to, but despite that fact, the guest list for my party is a collection of my favorite albums. Maybe it's better that way.

Happy f'n birthday to me. 

Album Review: Year Of The Goat - Trivia Goddess

I was pleasantly surprised when Year Of The Goat released "The Unspeakable", as occult sounding vintage rock is not exactly something I'm known for being a fan of, and yet their take on the genre was fresh and lively. That album delivered everything I could have asked for; organic sounds, hints of sinister energy, and memorable melodies that were sly invitations to the invocations. Their next album didn't hit me the same way. The pieces were still there, but the songs were further into the darkness, and lacked the sweet melodies that won me over the first time. I'm a fickle listener, I realize, but there was a bit less spark to the proceedings, and I haven't felt the urge to revisit that record in several years.

Six years on from that, the band returns with an album dedicated to telling stories of women's history, specifically relating to witchcraft. That's an interesting direction to take, and the band starts off by dealing with the original sin of misogyny; Eve. "The Power Of Eve" tackles the misconception that she is to blame for any of the sins of the world, rightfully declaring "God is the only one to blame". Think about it; an all-powerful being could have made humans without the urge to sin and break rules, and he could have simply not put the forbidden fruit in the Garden, but instead He chose to set in motion the nature of humanity He himself had created. How is that Eve's fault for behaving as she was made?

Perhaps I'm digging too deep into theological philosophy here because the songs on the album aren't giving me as much to talk about from a musical perspective. Despite the claim that this pulls in new influences, "Trivia Goddess" sounds very much like the band's previous works. There are slight differences, like the different vocal in "Kiss Of A Serpent", but those aspects are not changes for the better. The more I listen to Year Of The Goat, the more it seems "The Unspeakable" was a one-off moment of inspiration.

Albums like this one are enjoyable enough to listen to, but they don't leave a mark on me when they're done. The Scooby Doo-esque doom riff on "Kiss Of A Serpent" is nice, but when the song doesn't blossom into a memorable melody, the notes get lost as my attention drifts off. That happens most during "Met Agwe", the most doom song of the bunch, and one that drags on without a compelling musical idea for eight solid minutes. It's all angst without any of the underlying justification, a howling that never gives me a reason to care.

I suppose when it comes to the dark side, I prefer to be able to have a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun with it. That's what makes the "Dracula: Swing Of Death" rock opera one of the best albums of the last decade, and what is missing from most of this album. If you are trying to make the occult sound like a good option, you have to make it sound and feel like more fun than the path of belief. "Alucarda" does that, sounding the most like one of the songs form "the Unspeakable", and it makes the rest of the album feel dull by comparison. The harmonies are on-point, the melody is sticky, and the band has enough energy in their playing to sound like a concert in a pitch-black forest I would actually want to attend. Funny how that helps, eh?

After six years, I was expecting more from Year Of The Goat. Rather than writing an album that candy-coated their occult perspective with hooks upon hooks, they turned more toward traditional doom. Maybe that will work for more hardcore metal fans, but it doesn't work for me. I was hoping for Futurama's Robot Devil, and instead we got Calculon playing the devil. Similar, but not the same. Year Of The Goat is still good, but this is far from their best.

Album Review: Beth Blade & The Beautiful Disasters - Vintage Rebel & Trauma Bond

You can't have a shadow without a light, despite how it might feel sometimes. In order for there to be darkness you notice, there must be a place where we can see the light shining. We might be barred from getting there, and it might feel like a trick spawned by a demon, but it has to exist. To put it another way, as I did in a song I wrote; "Even a dying filament can reveal how dark it's been."

Beth Blade is leaning into the duality with her band's newest album, which is sequenced as two short episodes that swing on either side of the pendulum. "Vintage Rebel" uses its six songs as a throwback to the old days of rock and roll, the days before we really had an understanding of what is happening to our mental health. Those are the songs about being out with friends, having a few drinks, and enjoying the sound of a good band. It's a necessary part of life to find little moments of joy, and to balance out the moments that eat us alive, but in all honesty it doesn't make for as compelling a set of songs.

The "Vintage Rebel" songs try to be uplifting and fun, but that era of classic rock is one I never experienced in real time, and it's one I never went back and learned to love either. Songs that pull from the sound of classic Aerosmith and Kiss, often written about drinking and revelry, aren't going to have much appeal to me.

I'm much more interested in the "Trauma Bond" portion of the record, as much of the last year has felt like emotional trauma to me. Music is a healer, but more in the sense of giving me the emotional context to process my own thoughts than in getting me to lift a beer. Frankly, I've never had one, and I'm not going to start now.

The sound turns darker as the subject matter does, which is a more fitting palate for Beth's voice. She sounds more natural belting out songs about pain than she does about drinking, although the production of this record doesn't put her voice to the forefront the way I would like. A trauma bond is a human connection, and that is harder to do musically without the vocal up front and center for us to latch onto.

"When will I see myself as more than broken," she sings, working through the emotional damage of a controlling relationship. This is when Beth is at her best, showing us her truth as an act of bravery. She isn't covering her past in metaphors the way I would, but rather using honesty as a superpower to beat back the demons that never seem to fully die off. Being able to get through those episodes, and turn them into compelling rock music, is what connects us and gives us the collective strength to keep going on.

Beth deals with issues of self-image in "Dysmorphia", which bookends with "You Never Screamed" to show how common abuse is in this life. If we aren't suffering at the hands of others, we wind up doing it to ourselves. The idea of happiness is one of those things we might have created because it was necessary to believe in, even if there was no evidence it was real. We have come up with far more ways to torture ourselves and others than we ever did ways to make life easier and better. Life can feel like a zero-sum game, one played by zeroes, which amounts to a whole lot of nothing.

Beth wonders if she has perhaps found the light at the end of the tunnel by the end of the record, but it comes in the form of an eclipse, which is a spotlight cast behind a curtain. We might think there is something better waiting for us, but we don't know until we lift the veil. That is always the danger lurking in the back of our minds.

All of this leaves the record with an odd feeling. I don't know if the conceit doesn't work, or if it just doesn't work for me because half of it is out of my character. What I can say is that the "Trauma Bond" half is compelling, and thought-provoking, and stands up with the music Beth and her band have made in the past.

This is her therapy, and that it helps her find her way is all that really matters.

Good "Trouble", Even After 35 Years

Do we feel special when we are fans of a 'cult classic'? I wonder if there is something unique about the experience of knowing we are among a select few who see the greatness of a certain piece of art, especially when the influence of that art is felt in strains of the mainstream that are completely unaware. Perhaps it gives us reason to be proud of our taste, or perhaps it gives us reason to question the taste of all those who missed the boat.

Of course, the real answer is that luck plays more of a part in life than we like to admit. Much as people talk about pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, and manifesting the destiny you want, the truth of the matter is that being in the right place at the right time is as much a factor as anything else. All the talent and drive in the world means nothing if you don't have someone who can open a door to success, and people with open eyes and ears to embrace what you have done.

Thirty-five years ago, Trouble underwent an extreme rebranding under the tutelage of Rick Rubin. Much as he had stripped Slayer down to the studs for the concentrated and clinical "Reign In Blood", he took the same approach with Trouble. They were a big name in American doom, but that scene was so small you would be forgiven for not knowing it even existed. Trouble was eyeing something bigger, and Rubin was the person who could guide them toward that future.

The result of their collaboration was the 1990 self-titled album, which remains a seminal album in the trajectory of doom and stoner metal, as well as one of the truly great 'guitar albums' of all time. Trouble's driving force was always the guitar duo of Bruce Franklin and Rick Wartell, who blended crushing doom riffs with hints of groove and psychedelia, giving their music a sense of swing that was often missing from straight-ahead metal. Combined with a guitar tone that was a thick, gritty soup of distortion, Trouble was one of the heaviest bands on the scene.

Or they should have been.

Trouble was not impressive when I first heard them, and I the same is true for many others, because the early days of CDs were often a failed experiment. The sound we heard was not Trouble as they should have been heard, but a thin replication of what needed to be put on a vinyl record to make the result sound right on massive old hi-fi systems. The album was a brittle production, dry by most standards, but without the razor-sharp clarity of "Reign In Blood". Trouble was actually heavier than Slayer, but didn't sound it, due to the terrible transfer to the new medium.

I did my own remastering of the record, and boosting the bass frequencies opened up a new world of sound. Suddenly, Trouble's sound was as thick and powerful as anything from that time period. The chunky muted riffs in "R.I.P." became percussive blasts, while the ending to "All Is Forgiven" closed the album with crushing distortion. The same complaints have been leveled against "And Justice For All", but no amount of fan-made restoration has had as much an impact in that case.

The only thing Rick Rubin has ever been good at shines through on this album, which is his ability to convince bands to strip away the excess in their writing, and to focus on writing the most direct songs possible. Trouble doesn't waste time cycling through riffs that drone on, or playing endless solos that go nowhere, instead penning songs that are only doom by the band's prior reputation. This is the genesis of stoner metal, and a yin-yang with the early Danzig albums. The balance of fuzz and clarity was perfect, as was the balance between guitar excess and striking hooks.

Whether a riff or vocal, every song on the record makes an immediate impact. The pounding rhythm in "R.I.P.", Eric Wagner's piercing vocal in "The Wolf", the band was not wasting any time on songs that put mood over substance. Much as Slayer had pared down their early songs into two-minute bursts of fury, Trouble were using every piece of their songs to prove their worth as a band deserving of more attention than they had received.

In guitar circles, they achieved that. Guitar players and metal fans know Trouble, and consider this album a stone-cold classic. In the wider world, though, Trouble is a band that never made the leap. They didn't have the speed or controversy of a band like Slayer, nor the touring tenacity of Metallica, so they languished in the underground as one of the best kept secrets around. They would follow this record with "Manic Frustration", which was nearly as good a record, but perhaps played a little too obviously to a mainstream audience.

"Trouble" was a singular moment in time when a band fused all of their influences together in a lightning storm of inspiration. I would argue Slayer did the same with "Reign In Blood", which may or may not be a coincidence. Between you and me, I don't think it's much of a contest. "Reign In Blood" might be legendary, but the middle eight songs blend together in a way that makes the thirty minutes sound as if the whole album is just three songs. "Trouble" holds up from beginning to end as a masterclass in how you can make a guitar album that works as more than just a guitar album.

Eric Wagner's shrill, piercing voice is not for everybody, but Trouble isn't trouble without him. When they would later try to make an album without him, it simply wasn't the same. Wagner's occult-hippie vibe was the sharpness that created the cracks for the band's hammer to pound mercilessly.

Some cult classics are adored by a small clique for obvious reasons, because there was something about them too off-putting for the mainstream to ever embrace them. "Evil Dead 2" was never going to be a blockbuster, because the masses won't get the appeal of watching a man sever his own hand with a chainsaw, and then get into a slapstick fight with it. "Trouble" is not a cult classic in that sense, because there is no obvious reason why people who were buying Metallica albums by the millions couldn't have also loved Trouble. Maybe it was simply bad luck.

"Trouble" is one of my favorite metal albums of all time, and is one of those albums that set a bar few modern bands have been able to scrape with their fingernails as they reach. Metal doesn't always understand what the mission is, but Rick Rubin showed Trouble the path to musical enlightenment. Thirty-five years later, "Trouble" is still a stunning achievement.

*In 2020, a remastered edition of the album was finally released. That is the mandatory version of the album, as it fixes the issues the original CDs had. Listen to that version, and maybe you'll hear what I always heard, maybe you'll join the cult.

Singles Roundup: Erik Gronwall, MSG, Alter Bridge, and Dr Smith & The Night Shift

Stay to the end, and I swear I have something good to say. This is the most depressing stretch of the year (I'll have something to say about that soon), but I'm not incapable of finding something worthwhile. 

Erik Gronwall - Black Velvet

I usually don't bother with the people who put out covers upon covers to generate content, but I happened to see this recommended by the algorithm. "Black Velvet" is one of my favorite songs of all time, so much so I wrote my own song that borrowed the title. Hearing a 'moody', rocking version of the song could open up new ways of appreciating and understanding an old favorite...

Or it could remind me of a couple truths about music. The first and foremost of these is that music is a human thing, and the emotional connection we make with music and musicians is very real. It is also really lacking in this version of the song. Erik's voice is great, and I'm sure his performance is technically flawless, but it doesn't give me the same feeling of passion that Alannah Myles did. Her version of the song was gritty and passionate, while Erik's sounds like someone trying to nail the notes without needing Autotune (which he doesn't, I would bet).

Erik's version might be closer to my taste, and it might do everything perfectly, but it's the imperfections that make music what it is. I've been listening to "Black Velvet" for thirty years, and it hits as hard as ever. I'm not going to remember this version a week from now.

MSG - Don't Sell Your Soul

Speaking of Erik Gronwall, he joins forces with Michael Schenker on this track. At least I think he does. To be honest, I didn't recognize his voice the first time I listened to the song. It sits in an uncomfortable place in his range, or the production is highlighting the wrong frequencies of his voice, but he sounds incredibly tired on this song. He sounds just fine on the previously mentioned cover, so maybe Erik realizes Schenker's music is as by-the-numbers as I do. There's not much here to recommend, and I wouldn't even mention it if not for the obvious comparison.

Alter Bridge - Silent Divide

How often does a band get to play the self-titled record card before we get to call them out on it? Weezer does it as a joke at this point (or at least I hope they do), but why would a band with some actual credibility release a self-titled record as their eighth album, when they already have one quasi-eponymous record in "AB III"?

Thankfully, we've had a bit of time since both Myles and Mark have released their own albums, so this return-to-form for Alter Bridge doesn't sound as played out as it could. To be honest, the two of them have put out so much music that I was getting rather tired of hearing them, whether together or apart. The breather has helped, although knowing Myles has already recorded an album with Slash that won't see the light of day for a year-and-a-half is ridiculous.

Alter Bridge is usually good, and this song is too. It is to the point, though, that the machinations and distractions give me more to talk about than the actual music. Not sure that's a good thing.

Dr Smith & The Night Shift - House Call

A sparse arrangement is daring, but it can reveal an artist with massive core strength. To put a vocal front-and-center with little else to carry the proceedings is to dare someone to find fault with what you have accomplished. This first song from Dr Smith & The Night Shift does just that, highlighting the impeccable vocal and the lyric that contemplates the need for human compassion being greater than the need to keep living. To feel seen and heard, to feel cared about, can be the only thing that matters when we are trying to assess if life has been worth the effort. That is the feeling captured by this song, and it's one that resonates all the deeper for being given the space to do so.

It's rare for a song to make such a perfect first impression. This one manages to.

Twenty-Five Years Later, Dilana Is Still "Wonderfool"

Nostalgia is a powerful drug. We often look back at our youth, and the way the world was, and pine for days when things seemed simpler, when things seemed to make more sense. What we often forget is that nostalgia is very much like the rose-colored glasses we talk about in metaphor; it gives us an illusion of history filtered through polarized lenses that push the inconvenient memories to the background. That's if we're lucky, of course. Remembering the past as better than it was is the preferable alternative to only remembering the black clouds and not the silver linings.

Twenty-five years ago, I was not listening to Dilana's first declaration of herself. I was turning seventeen, and I was playing Tonic's "Sugar" album on an endless loop while falling in love with musical poetry as The Wallflowers were on the verge of releasing "Breach". Dilana was, quite literally, half a world away from me at that point in time. And yet, when I think about the past, I often think about it in terms of the eras themselves, of which "Wonderfool" is certainly a part.

The turn of the millennium was an interesting time for music, with a fascinating blend of gloss and angst percolating in the mainstream. We were still living in the echo of Alanis Morissette's raw honesty, and Meredith Brooks hitting the charts by calling herself a bitch, but it was done with shimmering guitars and productions that put a candy coating on the truth so we didn't realize our demons traveled with us no matter how peaceful the world might have seemed. These were the times that gave us "Torn", where we heard a lovely pop song, and didn't register that it was about being so heartbroken that depression teamed with gravity to make it impossible to get up off the floor and keep living.

That was the time in which Dilana released "Wonderfool". Her music wore the costume of guitar sheen the same way the pop princesses of the day wore the costume of 'fuck you' attitude. They were opposite avenues leading toward the same focal point, toward the audience that wanted to feel like they knew the musicians they were listening to, while fully aware they didn't actually want to know what extended beyond the image on a poster hanging on the wall. Some artists were pin-ups to display, others possessed voodoo dolls in which they stuck pins in our hearts. A few plunged so deep they remain stuck there to this day.

From the very start, Dilana had an ability to communicate her soul through her voice, whether she had penned the message of a song or not. Her performance on "When You're Around" remains a highlight of her career all these years later. What could sound like a simple love song is something far deeper because of her, as the texture of her voice tells us a complicated story. There is the warmth of love there, but also a keen understanding of how love falls apart, how it crumbles and floats away if we blow a kiss too hard in its direction. No matter how many times I have heard that song, I am still captivated by how much her voice is saying, how honest that sound is irrespective of the words. Her life's story is contained in her vocal, if you know how to listen.

On "Secret Of My Soul", she sings "When I hear your voice I get shivers down my spine". That's the sensation she has always given to me, and it's more of an admission than a line in a love song. She is tapping into a reality of life wherein some people connect to us on deeper levels; chemical, even electrical. It is as if they are the batteries needed to power our hearts, and without them our blood comes to a standstill. The true secret of a soul is that they are all cut in curious shapes from the image of God, and we spend our lives searching for one that fits along the edges of our own.

"Kissed A Butterfly" and "Do You Now" were the front-and-center pop songs that were meant to power the album's climb up the charts. They do their job, giving us sweet and sticky melodies for Dilana to use to smirk and snarl her 'over it all' attitude. There are hints in these songs of knowing where music was going to go, and knowing she was not destined to be a part of that scene. This was an album discretely giving the finger to the cultural powers that be, the ones that were never going to appreciate someone who didn't fit inside the mold. Dilana was too strong a personality, and too unique a person, for such things.

In that way, "Wonderfool" was Dilana's subversive way of finding her true self by showing how ridiculous it would be for her to try to fit in with the mainstream. She was a beauty who could look the part, but she would never be that plasticine, nor able to sing vapid songs written by men behind the scenes who literally put syllables together without considering what they meant. "Wonderfool" is an album of its time, but it's the one true mirror in the funhouse, the one time we get a glimpse of reality in a panorama of distortion.

Over the last twenty-five years, Dilana has grown and evolved, and these songs are not the woman she is today. They are the woman she was, and they tell an important chapter in the story. Without "Wonderfool", Dilana may have never found her voice, may not have fought to be able to bare her soul with us as she has. The experience of trying to be what was expected showed the perils of taking the same road as everyone else. There is so much traffic you get lost, you miss your exit, and no one sees you amidst the sea of humanity.

"Wonderfool" was an album for the people who saw what the world was, and wanted someone who could cut through the absurdity with a sharp one-liner and a delivery full of snark. Dilana was a heroine for everyone who knew music could be more. Her jagged little pill was prescribed to fewer people, but it lives on in our blood.

We can sum things up thusly; I'm a fool for Dilana, and she's a damn wonder.

Album Review: Helloween - Giants And Monsters

I've written multiple essays trying to explain the connection I have with certain voices, and it comes in the form of talking about the good ways singers can burrow their way into my heart. The opposite is also true, where certain voices rub me the wrong way, making my brain itch as I'm listening and trying to understand how other people find the sound so wonderful. Speaking ill of the dead means I'll probably never write anything about how much one person in particular reminded me of the sound of Styrofoam rubbing against itself, but I can mention Michael Kiske without poking a body with a stick.

Kiske is a legend of power metal, and has popped up as a guest on several projects I have listened to over the years. No matter the context, I have always hated his voice in ways that are hard to describe. Even as bad a singer as I turned out to be, I think I would rather listen to myself than Kiske. So when Helloween brought him back to bring all the eras of the band under one metaphorical roof, it was the only think the band could have done to make me less interested in what they were doing.

Look, I like "The Dark Ride", but otherwise Helloween has never spoken to me. They are a rare band that manages to sound as if they are trying too hard while not coming across that heavy, and who are cheesy without any of the tongue-in-cheek fun that usually comes with the term. Maybe it's a miscommunication of senses of humor across the ocean, but Helloween's appeal is something I have a hard time discerning.

The entire genre of power metal has been accused of re-writing "Eagle Fly Free" hundreds of times, but Helloween has contributed their share of similar melodies over the years. The opening pair of songs on this album both go for the same soaring vocal approach, but they don't hit the stratosphere, nor do they move with a notable sense of melody. They're flat, but also not showcases for vocal heroics. It leaves the songs sounding quite generic.

"A Little Is A Little Too Much" is a better song, taking more of a hard rock approach. The synths add layers, but it's Deris' hook that is the improvement. The song appears to be about something... premature, but I didn't have to worry about Helloween getting me too hot and bothered too early. It was certainly a choice to write a song about that, though. At least it wasn't a song about how hard they rock, if I can play on words a little bit.

I also like "Into The Sun", which is a semi-ballad dripping with drama, as the piano and strings gives a stirring backdrop for the singers to both take turns and harmonize. It reminds me of a song like "If I Could Fly" from their past, and it the best use of the three singer approach, rather than trading off from one song to the next. Their interplay gives the songs layers and dynamics, and if they did that sort of thing more often, it would only make things better.

The good things the album does get weighed down by the generic power metal, which I can't muster any interest in anymore. "Universe (Gravity For Hearts)" comes along with eight minutes of exactly that, culminating in a chorus that finds the vocal ascending on an awkwardly phrased "you-knee-verse" that hits my ear in an uncomfortable way.

You might be wondering why I'm reviewing the album if I'm not much of a fan of Helloween or Kiske. The answer is that their reunion received wild praise from all corners, even though I didn't listen to it. When I saw the new album come across my desk, I figured I would see what I was missing out on. As it turns out, the answer is nothing I didn't already suspect. More power to the people who love this, but Helloween, especially in this incarnation, just isn't for me.

Opeth's "Ghost Reveries" Killed Them, Still Haunts Them

Rarely do we encounter a single song that ruins an entire band's trajectory. Those kinds of moments are difficult to find, because most bands either go through a slow decline into mediocrity, or they make an abrupt shift that encompasses an entire album. The 'sell-out' accusations come from the latter, and the former is as cliche as they come. No, there's something special about being able to recognize at a specific instant when a band is never going to be the same, and knowing there's nothing that can be done to stop it. Once the momentum of success gets going, no one wants to slow down until they've milked it for everything it's worth.

Released twenty years ago, Opeth's "Ghost Reveries" is the album that marked the end of their 'glory days'. Now, depending on who you ask, that stretch is much shorter or longer than you might assume. Personally, I find the black metal tinged early days rather sloppy and unfocused. Opeth was still finding their way, and hadn't yet developed their songwriting chops. People will praise the twenty minute long "Black Rose Immortal" for being long, without noting that none of the parts have any transitions written between them. Opeth was a 'cut and paste' style of collage band, which might have some interesting pieces, but isn't a great illustration of talent for actually writing songs.

Their height started with "Still Life", and stretched through "Blackwater Park", "Damnation" (not necessarily "Deliverance"), and "Ghost Reveries". During this period, Opeth was an utterly unique band that was able to do things with metal no one else could. Imitators would spring up, but none of them got the pieces right, or had the ability to write any of those pieces quite as well.

Maybe the cracks started to show with the duology, but "Ghost Reveries" is where the band's fractured psyche would finally crumble to pieces. They squeezed out one more inferior album before making their dramatic shift to dad-prog, but "Ghost Reveries" ended the era. It all happened in one ten minute song.

"The Grand Conjuration" is the song that killed Opeth. It's also their biggest 'hit', which says a lot about the taste of the listening public. While the album starts off with the titanic "Ghost Of Perdition" that weaves through a flurry of beautiful musical moments, we can feel the inspiration slowing to a trickle as the album plays out. The opening trio are Opeth at their best, possibly exceeding even their best work. "Reverie/Harlequin Forest" is one of their most gripping numbers, blending crunching guitars with some of the best melodic singing Mikael Akerfeldt has ever put to tape. There's a forty minute core of the album that could be their masterpiece.

The new elements introduced pull from djent and drone, both of which combine to suck energy and life from the record. The slower songs "Atonement" and "Hours Of Wealth" stretch the simplest of ideas to the extreme, repeating dull parts until we reach our breaking point. With the album stretching more than an hour, those extra minutes are wasted, building frustration rather than anticipation. They don't provide a payoff that makes the wait worthwhile.

Then there's "The Grand Conjuration", which brings those attitudes to the band's heavier sound. For ten straight minutes, Akerfeldt basically plays the same three note riff, growling one of the most boring vocals imaginable. It's the exact same thing again, and again, and again, and... you get the point. The riff is barely interesting at all, and it is driven into our heads as if we're trying to remember a dry history textbook. Songs need to justify their length, and "The Grand Conjuration" is barely two minutes of unique content given ten minutes to stretch itself to the point of becoming distorted in our perception as we hang in the balance between consciousness and whatever happens when we space out.

That song became the band's 'hit', garnering them more attention than ever before. They in turn saw this and doubled down on the lesson they were learning. After one last gasp to prove they were complex artists, they made the dramatic swing towards simplicity. "Heritage" saw them streamline their music, but "Sorceress" saw them completely commit to the 'one riff per song' method of songwriting. They moved on to heavy groove rather than intricate melody, stomping rhythm rather than tides of emotion.

That modern version of Opeth has gone through several chapters of its own, each growing even more dull as Akerfeldt seemingly couldn't remember what the heart of Opeth's music was anymore. As the music got simpler, and quieter, his writing lost its sharpness. He sang more, but also more boring lines than when he wasn't relying on his voice to carry so much of the songs. It was sad to hear a band that was once so interesting become happy to noodle around on a couple of clean chords while letting the lighting show carry the hard work of being entertaining.

Even when Opeth recently tried to resurrect their history, they failed. Akerfeldt had so atrophied his writing chops that the return of growling and the cranking of guitars was buried in his obsession with lifeless concepts and refusal to write songs with any clear idea what the point of it all is. People loved it because it reminded them of the past, but it was a pale imitation of Opeth's identity, and a cheap attempt to rip off prestige tv. It didn't translate from visual to auditory media, and much like how watching rich assholes acting like rich assholes turns you into an asshole for wasting your time on such bullshit, Opeth is now a band you listen to with the knowledge you're listening to something you wouldn't actually want to spend time with.

And all of this was clear listening to "The Grand Conjuration". If that song had been the failure of lazy songwriting it should have been, Opeth's career might have been far different. It's success showed Opeth you could aim as low as you wanted and still please the unwashed masses. That's sort of what they did, and it's why Opeth is a tragic 'what if' story.

"Ghost Reveries" is aptly named, because it was the death of Opeth, and hearing how good they used to be haunts me every time I have to hear what they've become.

Sapient Scar's Weaponry Is Anything But Weak

Anecdotally, we hear that people can tell within a minute of meeting someone new whether they are potential partners, or if the 'friend zone' is the velvet rope they will never be allowed past. In that way, bands are subject to the same sense of immediacy, where it only takes a few seconds to know if their sound and attitude is something we could love, something we might mildly enjoy, or something we never want to hear again. Musical pheromones may not exist, but 'love at first listen' is absolutely a thing.

For new bands, the first impression is the most important thing they will ever do. Overcoming the limitations of our psychology is a tall order, and while we have been told since we were children not to judge books by their covers, we all know that's a part of life that saves us an incalculable amount of time.

Sapient Scar is making that first impression, but is slapping us in the face with a particular hue of color we have seen many times before. VK Lynne is the recognizable front-woman of this group, now backed by a powerful group that channels the chunky riffing of modern heavy metal. The guitars are thick and soupy, picking both an angular groove and a thrashy chunk. The tandem of Allie Kay and David Ruiz are pulling from the palate of Bruce Franklin and Rick Wartell on Trouble's stone-cold classic 1990 self-titled album. That gives this song the feeling of a contemporary bit of swing music, albeit with denim and leather rather than zoot suits, all while shifting our head-banging tempo from section to section.

The band is not playing coy as they come out of the gates, playing off the lyrics that delve into that topic. VK sings of someone with the "little voice of a little girl", who builds a world around her that will soon crumble under the reality of what society has in store for her. What society doesn't realize is that she has something in store for it as well.

She plays up her weakness to lull those who don't understand a woman's power into a false sense of security, catching them by surprise when she unleashes her strength upon them. Weak is the weapon takes on a dual meaning, as she uses weakness to camouflage her weaponry to make the maximum impact, but just as much the weaponry society aims at her is weaker than those brandishing it will know... until it's too late.

Some men seem surprised to find out that women are indeed members of the same species, which might actually be understandable, because I sometimes struggle to see how those sorts of men and I are made of the same building blocks of life. In their minds, with a twisted version of what science tells us, there is an inverted sense of 'genus envy' taking place. And yes, that whole convoluted bit was just so I could make that joke.

When we see a spider, the threads she spins might appear weak as they reflect the sunlight, but we find out how strong they are once we are trying to pull them out of our hair. Society is still learning that lesson when it comes to women, or perhaps it is trying to create circumstances where the truth is no longer true. In either case, there is a potency to a woman belting out the truth over the fury of a metal band that can't be captured any other way. If we are listening, that is.

VK may have gotten her start singing the blues, but she is equally adept at seeing red. To return to our dating metaphor, Sapient Scar uses these first minutes to look over from across the room at us, giving the wrinkle of a smile as their eyes gleam, inviting us to come into their gravity. There's no doubt they make the impression we'll certainly be seeing each other again.

"Weak Is The Weapon" releases on September 12th. Pre-save it here! 

Quick Reviews: Rise Against & Ellefson-Soto

Not much good news to report this week. I know, I know, that's been the norm for this year. Anyway...

Rise Against - Ricochet

A lot of Rise Against fans have not been fond of their recent output. I am not one of those, as "Wolves" was the first album of their I had heard, and I've been very fond of that one, "Nowhere Generation", and especially the "Nowhere Generation II" EP. Maybe the band wasn't as raw and aggressively punk as in their youth, but the rough edges around the clean productions was a perfect blend to me. They were clearly angry and disappointed in the state of the world, but they wanted to make sure we heard the message they were trying to get across.

That sort of fails with this record.

The production of "Ricochet" is more raw, with buzzing guitars that contain uncomfortable frequencies, and vocals that do nothing to assuage the concerns I've seen that Tim McIlrath's voice is close to shot. He sounds more strained than ever; damaged, not angry. It sounds like a band scouring their record with sandpaper to obscure what the polish would reveal.

That isn't helped by the songs, which simply don't have the same hooks as before. The sound hinders things, yes, but no production would make this as energetic and hooky as "Wolves" was. There's too much time spent in slower tempos, too many bits where the guitars don't have power if they were even there at all, and too much aimless shouting.

Now watch, I'm sure because I'm disappointed in this record, it will be the one to win back the old fans who had been complaining all along.

Ellefson-Soto - Unbreakable

As I skimmed through this album, it felt like a perfect mirror to an experience I had on the golf course a few days ago. I almost got hit in the head by a ball, and the person who struck the shot never yelled the customary "fore" to warn me. When I stopped him and told him he had almost hit me, rather than say a quick "sorry" so we could all move along, the first words out of his mouth were "shit happens". No, shit only happened because you failed to do the courteous thing.

Why do I mention that? Because when looking at the track listing to this album, and seeing these two writing songs calling people sons of bitches, singing about hating others, and having backing vocals chanting a refrain of "fuck you", the whole experience reeks of that same kind of immature selfishness. Soto was part of the fantastic W.E.T. album earlier this year, but I continue to be unimpressed when he isn't being handed songs by more accomplished songwriters. I don't know if he or Ellefson is responsible for the parts here that turn me off, but either way he signed off on singing these songs.

These are two guys in their fifties, and they come across sounding like two frat bros who can't find their favorite flavor of Monster down at the 7-11. They're able to record an album with impeccable production, which obviously takes time and talent, but then their lyrics sound like they were scribbled in the margins of a high school notebook. Am I the only person who expects, or even wants, just a little bit of maturity from the middle-aged musicians I'm listening to? I hate when writing a few words about a song or album gives me the impression I've put more thought into what they're saying than they did themselves.

To paraphrase the old line: Am I too old (at heart) for this shit?

Singles Roundup: Secret Frequency, The Wonder Years, & Bad Cop Bad Cop

We've got a couple of interesting topics to discuss this week.

Secret Frequency - Crashing Words

Let's start with this one, because it requires a bit of musing. AI and music has been a topic in the headlines of late, with at least one 'band' on Spotify racking up big numbers despite being fake. Myself, I'm at least curious about if AI will ever get easy enough for me to replace all of my own vocals with something that sounds passable, so one day I can be proud of my own work as a musician... but I digress.

I'm not sure what to make of Secret Frequency. Their music is on Spotify and YouTube, but I can find no social media presence; no website, no Facebook profile, no Instagram account. Are they real? Honestly, I have no idea if 'they' are an AI performance of a song someone has written or not. The interesting thing is to ask myself if it matters.

In a way, it doesn't. The song sounds really good, the vocal doesn't feel artificial, and the composition is very strong. It's the kind of swelling rock song that hits me in the way I want to feel music, and that should be the only important factor. It isn't, of course, as it's hard to ignore the possible lack of humanity behind it. There's the theoretical and the practical in play here, and it leaves me both enjoying and hating this song at the same time.

The Wonder Years - New Lows

I found it rather funny that the song was credited to Becky Lynch featuring The Wonder Years. Oh, when you're the bigger deal in the marketplace, you get to make everyone else grovel for crumbs of attention. In this case, that would be WWE, who got The Wonder Years to record this new theme for their biggest female star. Since their last album won AOTY from me, of course I was going to listen to what they came up with. The results are... frustrating.

The song is excellent. It makes reference to her story, and it has the band's signature brand of propulsive fury in the stirring hook. It's really good, except for it only being two minutes long and feeling incomplete. It needs a bridge or a breakdown, so we can cycle through the cathartic moment one more time before it's gone. I know why it was written this way, but if you're going to release it as a stand-alone song, it needs to work that way too. This one maybe doesn't.

Bad Cop Bad Cop - I4NI

The opening lyric of this song asks an interesting question; "Why are we so obsessed with 'an eye for an eye'?" What we have seen over the last decade of our lives is not just a coarsening of culture, but an embrace of vengeance and violence as the answer to life's problems. Somewhere along the way, we forgot the second part of the phrase that tells us that eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

There's something hopeful about punk music being the source of introspection asking us to be more respectful people toward everyone. If you look at many of the most controversial issues out there, they can be summed up as a lack of respect for people who want to live their lives differently than we might. Truly, who gives a damn what other people do when it doesn't make fuck-all difference to our lives?

Bad Cop Bad Cop are breaking the news to us that perhaps we need a refresher course on how to be decent people. They do it in a pop-punk gloss that soothes the burn, and gets our head bopping up and down, agreeing whether we mean to or not.

Album Review: Lord of the Lost - "Opvs Noir Vol. 1"

Time to start with an inflammatory statement.  Lord of the Lost’s Opvs Noir Vol. 1 is not perfect by any means, but it’s the album that genre luminaries Ghost should have released this year, instead of the one we got.

Backtracking a little bit - for those who don’t know, Opvs Noir is to be a trilogy of albums from Lord of the Lost, which as a concept is a little dubious (how can they, or anybody, possibly have three quality albums of material ready at hand?) but if this first installment is to be the launch point, then the subsequent two releases (release dates unknown as of this writing,) should at least merit attention.

Lord of the Lost has long been a singles band.  Each of their albums has a couple of satisfying earworm bangers on it, but they also have a history of stocking their albums with dramatic borderline ballads, as fits their idiom, so it can be a tiresome exercise to find the wheat amidst the chaff.

The band’s previous album, Blood & Glitter, did a lot to correct that trend, by writing an album full of bopping sing-alongs and cutting back on the number of purely dramatic pieces (which makes the sublimely excellent “One Last Song” resonate even more.) Now for this new record, it’s come to the point where the bombastic, over-the-top songwriting of the band’s younger years has been paired with the pacing lessons learned from the previous record, to produce an effort that is solid both in breadth and scope.  The band delivers a versatile experience of both down-and-dirty metal chugging and easy to digest, passionate choruses.  You know, like Ghost should have.

Not to mention that the songwriting on Opvs Noir Vol. 1 has also become more dynamic and varied.  Skip all the way down to “The Things We Do For Love,” and suddenly Lord of the Lost is writing a Combichrist song, but interspersed with the kind of high drama that Lord of the Lost is so accomplished with.  Could the blending of these two things been a little smoother?  Yeah, the song kind of sounds like two songs in one, but the juxtaposition of the two pieces is so entertaining that it works anyway.

What we see from Lord of the Lost that’s hard to say they’ve displayed previously is a sense of real ferocity.  There’s a lot of destructive potential in the riffs on this album, as evidenced both by what the band is playing and the sheer volume and distortion of it.  Past the mid-point of the record (more on this in a minute,) beginning with “Ghosts,” the riffs bite with a savagery that is uncommon for Lord of the Lost, and it adds a new and appreciably dire dimension to the band’s typically more accessible fare.

There’s a sense that even with this being the first album in a trilogy, that this new record is two albums in one, and the first half is the weaker of the two.  Four of the first six songs test the waters of what’s in the second half, but they feel a little more wallpaper, especially in conjunction with what comes after.  Only “I Will Die In It,” which sounds almost like a righteously angry song from a musical, and “Moonstruck,” really hit a chord (no pun intended) of something more substantive and of greater promise.

It is worth mentioning that Opvs Noir Vol. 1 is peppered with guest appearances, from the influential (Feuerschwanz, Tina Guo,) to the shrug-inducing (Within Temptation.)  This gives a possible window into how three albums of material in succession may be possible - by incorporating many other artists into the creative process and making the trilogy more of a collaborative work, under the single banner of Lord of the Lost.

Either way, Opvs Noir Vol. 1 is a quality jumping-off point for a musical project that is ambitious in scope.  Just make sure to listen to the whole thing, and not get stuck in the first half.  Fingers crossed that it can keep the momentum going through parts 2 and 3.

Singles Roundup: Creeper, AFI, Rob Thomas, & The Requiem

Three out of four are Goth(y)... how is this happening?

Creeper - Blood Magic (Is A Ritual)

It's no secret I hated Creeper's last album, when they veered into the world of 80s Goth. They are continuing that on their upcoming sequel record, but something has changed. I liked "Headstones" quite a bit, and this second single is just as good. It's dark and cheesy, but there's also a bit of actual fun injected into the mix, as if they finally realize being camp needs to be self-aware. They have a penchant for borrowing bits and pieces, and here the melody of the chorus reminds me quite a bit of "Heaven Is A Place On Earth". That gives the song an immediate lift when it comes on, and reminds me why Creeper came onto the scene as one of the most promising new bands. If the album is able to keep this up, I might still have issues with their complete rip-off poser status, but they'll at least prove they have the substance behind the style.

AFI - Behind The Clock

I must be missing something. When and how did Goth become a big trend again? It feels like everywhere I turn, there's new Goth music coming out. AFI is not the band I would expect that from, but I've also learned not to expect good music from them any longer. They are a completely different band than the brief time in which I liked them, and now they are fully embracing being weird old coots. Danny Havok is sporting a look that is as cartoonish as The Village People, and this first song from their upcoming album is the kind of tuneless tripe that leaves me convinced he spent more time on his mustache than on writing the song. It's slow, boring, and without any redeeming qualities. It drones on as Danny croaks out vocals that sound nothing like him, 'singing' a melody that is purely theoretical. It's... the sort of thing that makes me wonder how anyone likes this sort of thing, even more so when I see fans still praising it. Ugh.

Rob Thomas - Hard To Be Happy

I found myself listening to "Yourself Or Someone Like You" a lot over this last year, so hearing where Rob Thomas is now is a bit like trying to figure out what is in the center of a black hole. This jaunty bit of sadness is so far removed from the past that it doesn't seem connected by even the thinnest of pretense. I agree with the sentiment that it's hard to be happy, but I can say this song is doing nothing to help correct that. It tries to have the energy of the upbeat songs from Rob's first solo album, but the flat production and passionless vocals don't let the song resonate with anything approaching sincerity. It feels hollow while trying to say something meaningful, and it doesn't work for me at all. Compare this to how he sang on "Long Day" or "Kody", and age isn't the only explanation for what's gone wrong.

The Requiem - From Dust To Dawn/Vanity

Here's one of those uncomfortable cases where good music could make you angry. The Requiem's album was my Album Of The Year in 2024, but now has me asking questions. How can that be? These two songs come off the new deluxe edition of the album, which features a few other songs that aren't quite so important. These two fit right in with the album, adding even more great emo/punk numbers to the track listing. They have the same flair, attitude, and big hooks that made the record what it was. The issue is that by putting out this deluxe edition, the band is doing two things; 1)They are showing us the album could have been even better with these songs included from the get-go, and 2)They are making fools of anyone who went to the trouble of buying a CD from them. These deluxe editions coming out months (or a year) later are an insult to the fans that support you from the start, and the kind of cheap cash-grab that ultimately turns people off from being active and engaged fans. In another head-scratcher, they aren't even cashing in properly, as right now I don't believe the deluxe edition is even available for physical purchase. So what's the point in bundling these songs in for streaming playlists? I don't get it.

If We're Lucky, We Write Our Own Ending

As a writer, perhaps the hardest part of the process is figuring out the ending. You want to give everyone a satisfying conclusion, but not one the audience can see coming a mile away. You want to tie things up, but you don't want the bow to be so perfect it doesn't look tied by human hands. Finding the balance between a happy ending and a cloying one is incredibly delicate, and more often than not the former cannot avoid being the latter. We want to hold onto optimism that things can be better than they are, so this is natural.

That is fiction, but we live in fact. In life, we do not get to write the ending to our story very often. We don't know when, where, or how the end will come. All we can do is be ready to say we did what we could, what we wanted, and we made peace with our regrets. Some of us will have more issues with that than others.

Saying goodbye, in a musical sense, is much the same. So many artists never fully retire, so they make each album thinking there will be another coming down the line. A true farewell is not so common, which makes evaluating the last statement by an artist a tricky thing. They usually weren't intended to be their final word, so reading messages into them is more about us working through our thoughts about those artists no longer being with us than it is about what they have actually said.

I think about this when I listen to the music of Ronnie James Dio. He stands as a titan of the rock/metal world, but his legacy is a period from 1975-1985, and the remaining time he spent making music is largely considered a long and slow slide into the vast morass of mediocrity.

That changed when Dio reunited with the "Mob Rules" lineup of Black Sabbath in the guise of Heaven & Hell. They were a celebration of music that had gotten lost as the public image of Black Sabbath had been reduced (and we know why) to merely the Ozzy years. The live album/DVD performance at Radio City Music Hall was a document of a great band reminding us how much they accomplished in just three albums, and giving us cause to wonder 'What if?'

Those memories were powerful, and we weren't ready to say farewell to that music just yet. The band made a new album, which may have been intended to be merely the start of a new chapter, but instead became the final testament of Dio's career. For that reason, it is a critically important record. It is also a record that was critically viewed, often depicted as a disappointment that left a sour taste in the mouths of many who were ecstatic over the reunion and tour leading up to the record.

We don't always know what the end will be, but there is something poetic about the last song on Dio's last album being titled "Breaking Into Heaven". After decades of singing about knights, the fight, and the power of metal, Dio's last words were about storming Heaven for an eternal reward.

The song tells a story of angels (demons?) waging an assault to be let back into Heaven, as the doors were closed behind them when they were exiled. It is an allegory about mercy, as the God we are taught about is said to have an infinite supply, and yet so many followers are consumed with the inevitability of Hell. The math of the whole thing never added up. The worst among us could (depending on particular denomination) ask for forgiveness after a life of sin and be forgiven, while a good person who made a mistake before they could atone would be punished. We are all made in God's image, which would mean sin is a part of God's nature, and yet we are treated as needing salvation for being exactly what we were created to be.

According to that theology, there are two endings to our story. Here on earth, we are able to see infinite gradations between the two extremes. When it comes to Ronnie James Dio, I find "The Devil You Know" a fitting epilogue. It was a record where Dio wanted to tell us stories, wanted to pull upon the threads of our minds as much as our metallic heartstrings. The people who criticize it for being slow are missing the point; the album was intended to draw out the drama and watch it slowly drip down the dagger that had been run through our hearts.

Dio was very much one of the bright lights the character in "Stargazer" would have been watching in the night sky. He burned bright, he led the way, and then one day that light was gone. Maybe we noticed it had grown dimmer, but we didn't realize how bright that fire still was against the blackness of the empty sky until it was gone.

Ronnie James Dio was never the biggest star in metal, but he was perhaps the one who was most joyous about being able to make music. His greatest legacy is that being the biggest star doesn't mean you will last longer than any other. The stardust we leave behind is all the same.

Even after fifteen years, we're still finding it everywhere we look.

Album Review: Halestorm - Everest - Part 2

Ughhhh, Chris is gonna be so mad at me about this.

Halestorm is a band I respect a lot.  They’re the top of my list when it comes to ‘bands I saw live back when they were nobody.’  I first saw them in 2009 with a couple hundred other people.  I wasn’t even there for them - I was there because a music promoter wanted me to check out The Veer Union, one of the opening bands.  I stuck around to see what the headliner was all about, and I’ve been following Halestorm ever since.

I haven’t loved everything they’ve done, I’ll be honest.  And that’s okay, they’re not writing albums for me, nor should they.  

“Everest” is the first time though, when I’m wondering where this album is coming from, and what’s driving it.

It starts off promising enough - the lead cut, “Fallen Star” is, to my sensibilities, the best on the record and offers the best glimpse of Halestorm in their truest form.  Lizzy Hale, rightfully so, gets the lion’s share of attention that comes Halestorm’s way, but there are three other very talented musicians making music on all their records, and this lead track is the one that best showcases the balance of all of them.

Skipping down a couple cuts, I want to address “Like a Woman Can.” Lzzy has always been willing to be more literal than most mainstream vocalists in her sexual allegory, which is to say there is rarely any allegory at all, and “Like a Woman Can” is no different.  The song is strikingly seductive and sexually charged, which is refreshing as opposed to the clumsy, juvenile metaphors about cars or playing cards or whatever else that dumb, sweaty men tend to write.  It is, in many ways, one of the album’s jewels.

But I’m a long-time media member, and that makes me cynical.  It makes me constantly wonder about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of a thing.  Lzzy is publicly bisexual, so it’s not like the song is contrived or made up - it comes from a place of absolute authenticity.  But here’s what I don’t want to happen.  A thing can be manipulated to two purposes, and this song would no doubt be an easy sell to a horny, middle-aged, male-dominated rock audience.  I am certain this song will be pushed, possibly by the label more than by Halestorm themselves, and what is meant to be an empowering female anthem could well be perverted to commercial or other nefarious ends.  And that makes me cringe just a little as I listen to it.

And then we come to “Rain Your Blood On Me” and now I’m confused.  In the middle there’s this whole thrash-y, big chorus, kinda Overkill-y section that’s cool and definitely grabs attention the first time you hear it, but some of that attention grabbing is because Halestorm has never really done THAT before.  And there’s nothing wrong with the central riff that the song already had - it’s punchy and strong of its own volition, so the section in the middle feels air-dropped in, and out of place.

Then we come to a series of hair metal ballads, and they’re all, to me, indistinguishable from each other, except that they all remind me of that part in the “November Rain” video where Slash is playing guitar out in the desert and being filmed from a helicopter.  Halestorm has always had this side to them, with varying degrees of success.  All of these lean heavily into Lzzy’s vocal prowess, which is a safe bet as she remains one of the most impressively vibrant voices in modern rock, but this crop of ballads in particular feels very much like a throwback to an era that Halestorm was never a part of.

When I first saw the album track list, I was immediately nervous about “K-I-L-L-I-N-G.”  I needn’t have been.  This is an old school Halestorm thumper, something that would have felt perfectly at home on their first two albums, along with “Fallen Star.”  It’s a stark reminder that the interplay of the band members, and the arrangement of the music, is of prominent importance in everything Halestorm does. Is it the highest form of Halestorm's art? Nah. But it's simple and fun.

The album closes with “How Will You Remember Me”...okay, let me reference what Chris said first.  It’s well executed, and Lzzy shines on it.  I agree with all that.  On the other hand, the motif of ‘hey, remember when we were carefree and young and hung out drinkin’,’ has spent more time in the oven than a twice-baked potato, and makes a lazy appeal to the basest of sentimentality.  There’s nothing wrong with being nostalgic for better days in and of itself, but I’m surprised that a band as lyrically provocative and accustomed to taking on complex issues as Halestorm couldn’t find a more creative or articulate way to say it.

“Everest” has a fair amount of likeable material, but there’s also some questionable decision-making. The band is allowed to experiment with whatever sounds and hallmarks they want, but in particular the reliance on the big rock ballad on the album’s second half feels a little forced and not like Halestorm at their best.  Tread with caution.