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The Hollow - Memphis May Fire Album Review

*ATTENTION*  I don’t claim to know everything about music, or the album I’m reviewing. In fact, I have very little experience with any kind of musical theory or any of that. Also, all my reviews are purely MY opinion on the release, so you may or may not disagree with it, and I’m happy to discuss it all with you through comments or whatever. Peace.

Progression is an inevitable part of a musician’s journey, taking them into new, unexplored musical frontiers, in a bid to discover one’s musical identity.  The main downside to this is that certain progression alienates previous fans from an artist’s earlier work, or the progression that has taken place hasn’t actually brought them forward proving to be detrimental to their reputation.  The latter is more or less the case with Memphis May Fire’s latest album The Hollow.

Memphis May Fire used to have a relatively unique sound in comparison to many of their label mates.  Catchy post-hardcore choruses, some decent and tasteful breakdowns, all topped off with a slight southern tinge to the proceedings made their 2009 full-length, Sleepwalking, a relatively enjoyable listen.  However, this level of uniqueness is pretty much disappeared in The Hollow.  Gone are the southern rock-influenced guitars, and some of the softer sections that set this band apart.  Instead sheer speed and ‘heaviness’ rule supreme, with some touches of electronics in there.  Now, while this isn’t bad per se, it’s just that lots of these bands are emulating this sound, and it becomes monotonous and predictable after a while.

Take the vocals for instance.  They follow exactly the same patterns, with screamed verses (or rather, breakdowns), with high, clean-sung choruses in between.  Such predictability on this front becomes boring over the album’s 40 minute run time, and one is left wishing there was more variation on this front.  The saving grace for these vocals however, is that they sound good.  Pretty damn good. Matty Mullins has a good, clear scream on him, one that highlights the anger and anguish present in his lyrics, and his cleans capture that ‘catchy’ feeling, making almost every chorus easy to sing along to.  The only problem with his cleans is perhaps they sound too whiny sometimes, and the layered/harmonised vocal effect detracts from some of the emotion he attempts to convey.

The instrumentalists, however, only seem to show the stock standard capabilities of an average post-hardcore band, only playing it safe to appeal to the masses.  Guitarists Ryan Bentley and Kellen McGregor rarely do more than chug through verses and open strum choruses (except for the intro to ‘The Commanded’ and the verse of ‘The Reality’, those parts are actually pretty interesting).  While this can be expected at least in the choruses (as they’re meant for the vocalist to shine), it’s slightly disappointing to see such a highly anticipated album to fall short on this front.  Drummer Jake Garland does little more than play stock-standard post-hardcore beats, with the bass drums locking with the guitar chugs, only ever doing anything interesting with his fills, which are as quick as they are complex. And bassist Cory Elder can rarely be heard doing more than providing a simple ‘rumble from down under’.

The Hollow was, in a word, mediocre.  With the vocals and some guitar sections being the only real interesting aspects throughout the entire performance, it’s likely that this is an album that won’t be remembered for too long.

Rating 6/10

Get Sleepwalking instead, it was better.

Take Care, Take Care, Take Care - Explosions In The Sky Album Review

*ATTENTION* I don’t claim to know everything about music, or the album I’m reviewing. In fact, I have very little experience with any kind of musical theory or any of that. Also, all my reviews are purely MY opinion on the release, so you may or may not disagree with it, and I’m happy to discuss it all with you through comments or whatever. Peace.

The American instrumental post-rock band, Explosions In The Sky, has been a much loved band for me for a fair few months now. After picking up their critically acclaimed 2003 full length, The World Is Not A Cold Dead Place, I immediately was struck with their innate ability not to just create flowing musical epics, but create a real emotional experience throughout the pieces’ run time. Fast forward to 2011, their latest release, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, can be placed right up there with other legendary post-rock albums, and almost (almost) beats The World Is Not A Cold Dead Place as their best.

Explosions In The Sky’s songs (or pieces if you want to split hairs about what they actually are) aren’t merely just songs with generic structures, catchy choruses, or guitar solos. They are far more than that. The music screams a form of emotional maturity not often seen in the music I usually review. Each piece sounds as if it’s meticulously looked over time and time again, to make sure the often 10 minute-long epics flow perfectly. Such is the case throughout Take Care, Take Care, Take Care. The music never feels dull, and the subtle plays with dynamics and a brilliant use of atmosphere make this style the perfect kind to fall asleep to, or to play in a dark room while sharing an important DnM with some good friends. The absence of any vocals in these songs does the band some good, as it makes the music more personal, since one can create and identify experiences within their lives with Explosions In The Sky’s beautiful melodies and stirring crescendos.

This is why one cannot rate this album purely on the performances of the band. While the three guitarists of the band obviously have talent at their instruments, they don’t show it off like other wanky progressive bands. They prefer to let their expert song writing and beautifully crafted melodies speak for themselves. This is much the same with their drummer, Chris Hrasky, but he doesn’t play as much as the others, mainly serving as the icing on the cake to the aforementioned crescendos and, well, explosions that Explosions In The Sky are able to pull off so well.

To sum this all up, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care is an amazing piece of post-rock music. Everything in the songs serves a particular purpose, and lifts the overall worth of them, along with the experiences these songs can give someone.

Go check out: ‘Human Qualities’  

Rating: 9/10

Go get this, and The World Is Not A Cold Dead Place, I guarantee you’ll love them. And if you don’t, there’s something wrong with you.

The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues - Between The Buried And Me Album Review

*ATTENTION*  I don’t claim to know everything about music, or the album I’m reviewing. In fact, I have very little experience with any kind of musical theory or any of that. Also, all my reviews are purely MY opinion on the release, so you may or may not disagree with it, and I’m happy to discuss it all with you through comments or whatever. Peace.

Between The Buried And Me have been making waves in the heavy metal/hardcore world as of late, with the release of their masterpiece, Colors, earning them praise from almost anyone who enjoys incredibly proggy, technical music.  Their latest release, an EP by the name of The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues, lives up to their reputation, being arguably one of their best and most accessible releases in recent times.

With the album having only three tracks, it’s understandable why someone would believe this EP to feel rushed and unfinished.  Thankfully, it isn’t.  The EP is a precursor to an upcoming full-length baring the same concept.  I won’t go into what this concept is, but let me just say it’s pretty crazy.  Now, while this crazy concept (look it up) seems that it would make the release sound awfully pretentious and cheesy, much like a bad power metal album, again, it isn’t.  Tommy Rogers writes great lyrics that fit in with the rest of the band’s genre-swapping antics, and not once does it feel like he’s poetically wanking in your ears, or sounding thick.  Along with this, Rogers’ voice is great, and truly one with real versatility.  One second he could be singing softly over a jazz break, and then the next bellowing out a bear-like growl over insane guitar chugs and blast beats.  That, and his keyboard parts add a great ambience over the slower parts of the songs, really bringing in a unique atmosphere.

The rest of the band contains much the same talent as Rogers.  Guitarists Paul Waggoner and Dustie Waring are true legends on their instruments.  They effectively genre-swap throughout the EP’s 30-minute run time, and, to be blunt, make odd time signatures their bitch.  On top of this, the skill they possess isn’t overbearingly shoved into your face, any crazy sections they play are done tastefully, and aren’t a ‘look how good I am at guitar!’ section.  Bassist Dan Briggs is hands down the best bass player in heavy music today, playing some of the most varied (and sexual) bass parts, and can actually be heard over all the instruments, something that is often not done in heavy music today, be it an accident or otherwise.  Rounding out the quintet is rhythmic giant Blake Richardson, who in some way or form manages to follow Briggs and the guitarists extremely well, and without sounding like a metronome.  Bottom line, they’re fucking gods at what they do.

All this praise aside, there are some down sides to this EP.  For starters, it’s short for a Between The Buried And Me release, and will no doubt leave some fans very unsatisfied with it.  On top of this, the EP has one or two ‘wtf’ moments, moments that really don’t further the song in anyway, but seem to be there just as a talking point among internet trolls and fanboys (see the accordion breakdown in ‘Augment Of Rebirth’).  Also, those unfamiliar with BTBAM’s style will probably find it very hard to get into, as constant genre-swapping, technical and mathy instruments can leave listeners confused.  These things aside however, the EP manages to be one of the best releases this year so far, and solidifies my view of Between The Buried And Me as ‘the Dream Theater of the hardcore scene’.

Go check out: ‘Lunar Wilderness’

Rating 9/10

You need to go get this, and while you’re at it, get the rest of their stuff, it’s gold.

Reckless & Relentless - Asking Alexandria Album Review

*ATTENTION* I don’t claim to know everything about music, or the album I’m reviewing. In fact, I have very little experience with any kind of musical theory or any of that. Also, all my reviews are purely MY opinion on the release, so you may or may not disagree with it, and I’m happy to discuss it all with you through comments or whatever. Peace. 

Asking Alexandria’s 2009 debut, Stand Up And Scream, to be frank, was a pile of crap. Stupid trance beats, repetitive breakdowns, and a set of ‘metal’ riffs ripped off of Killswitch Engage, all backed up by vocalist Danny Worsnop’s hideously sexist and thick lyrics made for the most immature, and surprisingly popular (albeit among teenage girls who thought ‘OMG danny is sooooo hot <3’) release of that year. Now, two years later, the British metalcore quintet have released a highly anticipated follow up, entitled Reckless & Relentless. Now, while this effort is an improvement upon their last, it’s still like polishing a turd, i.e. better, but it’s still a shit.

I doubt I would be lying when I say that the majority of people that listen to Asking Alexandria are girls, girls who are only there for Danny and his hair. Now, while most elitists would bash their fanbase and Worsnop himself, I have to hand it to them. Somehow, some way, they’ve catered to a particular demographic, and are terribly popular because of it. This probably because of their song structure and image. This image being skinny scene kids with floppy hair, something a lot of girls seem to be drooling over these days. As for song structure, Asking Alexandria’s songs are usually a variety of similar sounding breakdowns, followed by an open strummed chorus, then a build up to a ‘massive’ breakdown. This style has people listening to them both because they have ‘teh br00t4l’ breakdowns, and the catchy choruses. There really isn’t a HUGE problem with this style, except for the fact that every song sounds exactly the same. It just makes the entire experience boring. There’s no experimentation, aside from a few much-improved ambient sections that break up the horrid monotony (‘A Lesson Never Learned’). But aside from one or two okay moments, the album just all sounds the same.

The performances on here aren’t too much to scream about either. Danny Worsnop, clearly the cover boy for the band who rakes in the fans, is a talented guy. He has a good screaming range, with beefy low growls and highs that could easily be seen in a decent deathcore outfit. He can even sing, and pretty well at that, performing some catchy choruses throughout the album. But his main problem is his lyrics. While they are infinitely better than their last record, his lyrics are still terribly juvenile and ridden with clichés. If one is looking for lyrical depth in this album, they won’t find it. Worsnop also has done the programming, keys, and synths on this release, and while they’re decent, it’s obvious they aren’t his priority. Most of his ambient sections sound the same, and the trance beats are still as out of place as they were two years ago.

The rest of the band aren’t much better. Drummer James Cassells, a drummer who definitely has talent on the double bass drums, doesn’t end up doing much more than following the guitar chugs (or maybe the guitar chugs follow him?), and bash his kit as hard as he can. He plays the same beats, more or less, through the whole 42 minute run time, and plays much the same fills. It’s disappointing to see such a talented player do very little with his instrument. Guitar players Ben Bruce and Cameron Liddell just aren’t very good, to be honest. They can play in time, but the majority of what they do is chug through breakdowns, open strum some choruses, and rip off classic metalcore bands’ riffs. The bassist, Sam Bettley provides a nice rumble during the copious breakdowns, making them sound full, but aside from this he doesn’t do much more. He follows the guitar players, who are really the two people he shouldn’t be following in this band.

Reckless & Relentless is a slightly more mature record than Stand Up And Scream was. But still, the album contains little creativity, with the majority of it being a lot of similar sounding breakdowns, that just aren’t really that great. The choruses are better, with more interesting vocal lines, yet still feel like they’ve been copied off someone else, someone who’s just done it better. The whole album contains this feeling, and in a scene where people are often doing the same thing, why should I spend my money on it?

Rating 3/10

This is one of my picks for worst album of the year. Stay away.

Truth Is… - Ten After Two Album Review

*ATTENTION*  I don’t claim to know everything about music, or the album I’m reviewing. In fact, I have very little experience with any kind of musical theory or any of that. Also, all my reviews are purely MY opinion on the release, so you may or may not disagree with it, and I’m happy to discuss it all with you through comments or whatever. Peace.

If there’s one thing plaguing the heavy music scene of the US, it’s a bunch of bands sounding exactly the same and failing to do anything interesting with their music.  Now, while I would love to say Ten After Two are one of the few exceptions to this observation, I can’t.  Ten After Two’s recent debut full length does nothing for the post-hardcore scene, with the album consisting of over vocoded vocals, uninspiring guitars, and laughable ‘heavy’ breakdowns.

Ten After Two songs usually follow a pretty linear verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure, with a small drum fill leading into either clean-vocalist/guitarist Josh Doty’s over-autotuned vocals or screamer Sean Wall’s super-layered attempts at screaming, then into a generic, four chord ‘catchy’ chorus.  The main problem with this structure is that by about two or three songs the listener can predict where the song (and album) is going to go next, leaving the listening experience bland and dull.  That, and Sean Wall’s performance over the course of the album wanes and becomes weaker, with many of the songs having very little input from him.  This makes me wonder why he’s even needed in the band if he does so very little for the overall worth of the release.  Also, as with the other vocals, he often gets slightly drowned out over the too prominent guitars, making it even more difficult to tell what he’s saying.

The clean singing on this album, while better than the screaming, still falls short of being anything terribly interesting.  Doty has had his voice harmonised, layered, and autotuned in any and all of his parts, leaving most of his singing sounding robotic.  The guy can obviously sing, he should just work on fixing the little indescrepancies in his voice himself instead of relying on an audio plug-in to do it for him.  Along with this, the autotune and such makes him sound just like every other clean post-hardcore vocalist in the scene right now, eliminating any real memorability in his performance. With so many clean singers doing the same thing as each other these days, Doty fails to rise above the mediocrity present among his peers.

Doty not only sings, as he also plays guitar, along with fellow axeman Patrick Hennion, a relative youngster to the scene, at only seventeen years old.  With his relative inexperience, Hennion has little to no real distinct voice on the album, unlike someone such as John Petrucci of Dream Theater, who you immediately know is playing the guitar when you hear it.  Therefore, Hennion and Doty’s performances on the six-strings proves to be fairly uninspiring, as to be expected with most post-hardcore instrumentation these days.  What really could have set them apart from the other bands out there was to infuse a feeling of intense energy in their recording (Comeback Kid’s Wake The Dead, anyone?), but there is no such feeling.  The two boys just either play similar sounding chords or spam their bottom strings for breakdowns.  Bassist Danny Clark is also nothing special, barely being heard in the mix or writing anything of any real creativity. Sexy basslines get a bass player laid, after all.  Drummer Vincent Adorno also epitiomises the post-hardcore drummer, having a great sense of timing, yet not doing much more than serving as a metronome to the rest of the band.  He has a few good moments, chucking in some nice off-time beats here and there, but these moments are few and far between.

Now, while this album mostly proves to be little more than bog-standard, average post-hardcore, it does have a few good moments.  ’Interlude In D Minor’, while short, is a welcome change of pace to the album, as is the closing track ‘Believe Me’, the album’s ballad-like track, which contains some of the best vocal performances on the album, conveying a true feeling of genuine emotion in their lyrics. Yet, aside from these few good moments, Ten After Two’s debut Truth Is…, is rather bland, dull and throughly uninspired. If this band hopes to rise above the sea of mediocrity in their scene and stay afloat, they have to be more experimental in the writing process.

Rating 4/10

Unless you’re into mediocre, predictable post-hardcore, I’d stay away.

Scurrilous - Album Review

*ATTENTION*  I don’t claim to know everything about music, or the album I’m reviewing. In fact, I have very little experience with any kind of musical theory or any of that. Also, all my reviews are purely MY opinion on the release, so you may or may not disagree with it, and I’m happy to discuss it all with you through comments or whatever. Peace.

When one hears about Canadian Technical post-hardcore/progressive/thrash/metal band Protest The Hero, one can certainly expect screaming guitar lines, thundering drumming, interesting baselines, and a shrieking operatic-falsetto from frontman Rody Walker, and the band’s third album Scurrilous delivers all of these aforementioned traits.  However, the album seems to be mainly comprised of, to quote Tim Grey, ‘directionless wank’ on the instrumental front.  While the sheer technical mastery each member of this quintet exhibits is nothing short of amazing, they’ve sacrificed their ability to write good, coherent songs for what is little more than 45 minutes of ‘look how good I am on the guitar!’.

One of the main facets of this band that pushes potential listeners away happens to be vocalist Rody Walker’s falsetto, a falsetto which ceases to be anything more than a high-pitched tiring shriek on this album.  Gone are the harsh screams of Kezia and Fortress, and in their place is just more of Walker’s rangeless voice.  It seems he has only two settings when he sings, falsetto high and a whisper, and such a performance grates on the listener about four to five songs in.  I understand that fronting a band with such a severe case of ADD as Protest The Hero can be no easy feat, by I would’ve thought that after 6+ years in the band he would’ve found a less grating and monotonous niche.  On top of this, some of Walker’s vocal lines feel out of place, especially on the second track ‘Hair-Trigger’, where much of his parts during the chorus just don’t quite fit with the instrumentation.  These points aside, Walker has definitely matured and taken a more active role in the band, finally taking up the role of lyricist on this effort.  Instead of following the themes of the last two albums (that being fantasy and myths) he writes much more personally, reflecting upon events many people have experienced throughout their lives, making his message quite relatable.

The main draw to Protest The Hero is their technical ability on their instruments, and this album reflects this. Guitarists Luke Hoskin and Tim Millar have got to be some of the best at what they do, with their fingers flying all over their instruments, creating both interesting and incredibly complex riffs, never slowing down over the album’s run time.  However, this amount of technicality proves to be a double edged sword, with their music often exhibiting the behaviour of someone with  severe mental problems.  The music never settles to a comfortable point, with the songs rarely ever containing memorable hooks amongst all the fast picking and odd-metered riffs, thus making songs hard to distinguish from one another.  The musical performance of these guitarists makes me wonder whether they were setting out to write nice cohesive songs, or rather just show how good they were at playing the guitar.  The rhythm section follows in similar fashion, but it’s clearly obvious that bassist Arif Mirabdolbaghi and drummer Moe Carlson are just trying to keep up with the two axe-men. Carlson creates some interesting rhythms at certain points (‘C’est La Vie’ and ‘Tapestry’) yet most of the time spams his double bass pedal to make his parts seem as frantic as the technical guitar lines.  At the same time, while I’m sure Mirabdolbaghi is a very skilled bass player, in the mix he simply can’t be heard as much more than a rumble, with his low-end complimenting and contrasting Hoskin and Millar’s high notes.

So basically, while this review seems to be bashing Protest The Hero, Scurrilous is by no means a terrible album.  Sure, the instrumentation is both complex and even entertaining at times, and Walker sometimes gets his parts spot-on with the rest of the band, but all too often the album feels jarring, and amounts to quite a difficult listen.  I know next time I listen to Protest The Hero I’ll be listening to their masterpiece debut Kezia, and not this slightly lacklustre effort.

Rating 6.5/10

If you’re really into technical music, or just love Protest The Hero, by all means pick this up. Otherwise, just listen to Kezia.

Downtown Battle Mountain II - Album Review

*ATTENTION*  I don’t claim to know everything about music, or the album I’m reviewing. In fact, I have very little experience with any kind of musical theory or any of that. Also, all my reviews are purely MY opinion on the release, so you may or may not disagree with it, and I’m happy to discuss it all with you through comments or whatever. Peace.

When I heard that Jonny Craig and Jon Mess were both coming back into DGD and were going to put out a follow up to Downtown Battle Mountain, I can safely say I was jumping out of my seat like a Star Wars fanboy getting the chance to meet Princess Leia in her famed metal bikini.  I’ve loved Downtown Battle Mountain for a good while now, it being one of my most listened post-hardcore albums ever.  That, and I’m a huge fan of Jonny Craig’s singing ability, albeit that he’s a massive douche. But anyway, the album itself, I believe, aptly does the original justice, but doesn’t quite eclipse it’s prowess.

From the start the album opens strongly, with a familiar-yet-new DGD sounding riff leading into Mess’ almost incomprehensible hardcore-esque shouting.  And by god, Jon Mess does a great job on the album.  He’s clearly been practicing his trade, because now he no longer sounds like he’s gasping for breath after ever line, much like a 12 year old girl who’s seen Justin Bieber for the first time.  He’s particularly strong on ‘Need Money’ but the only problem I have to chuck his way is sometimes he’s too quiet in the mix, with Will Swan’s high pitched guitar lines drowning him out.

While I can easily say that Mess improved over the course of his two year period away from the band, I can’t say that Craig’s aprroach and effort on the album is as good. Recently releasing a solo album and an amazing self-titled effort with Emarosa, Craig should sound in his prime on this album, but sadly he doesn’t.  That’s not to say he never does anything on the album right, he actually has strong performances of ‘Heat Seeking Ghost Of Sex’, ‘Blue Dream’ and ‘Purple Reign’, but the rest of the time he just sounds like he isn’t putting in as much effort as the rest of the band, which is really unfortunate because he has more talent than any other vocalist in the scene, not to mention he’s one of the most unique voices I’ve ever heard.  Considering he has such a bad alcohol and drug addiction (he was recently put into rehab a week or so ago) it’s a wonder he can even sing at all anymore.  But nonetheless, he creates dynamic and strong melodies throught the entire 43 minute album run time.

Now, as for the people who don’t sing on this album.  Matt Mingus, one of my favourite drummers in this American scene, it definitely at his best, effectively staying somewhere in between OMG tech! drumming, and mind numbingly boring beats. So in short, he’s provides a strong rhythmic backbone to the proceedings while keeping his parts interesting.  Will Swan, the only guitar player in the band currently, also makes a very solid effort.  He’s has to be one of the most creative post-hardcore guitar players out there, seamlessly including technical guitar melodies into a musical genre where the instrument is oft ignored. The only problem with his playing is that, to the untrained ear, such as my own, many of his riffs sound very similar. Kind of like a Top 40’s pop countdown, only more interesting and far more bearable. Eric Lodge, the bass player, makes a triumphant return to this effort, managing to jump out of no where in a few songs to show of his skills, and then fade into obscurity of the mix all over again. It’s a real pity he isn’t heard more, but all the same he provides a nice low-end to the overall sound of the album.

II So to sum this all up, Downtown Battle Mountain II is great, with a few shortcomings that make it just shy of a masterpiece.  The songwriting is stronger, if a little bland at repetitive at times, but everybody (aside from Jonny Craig) has put 100% effort into this release, and it really shows.

Go listen to: ‘Heat Seeking Ghost Of Sex’ or ‘Swan Soup’

Rating: 9/10

Pick this shit up.