Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 (Review: The Chief)

I seem to have noticed that on every Prog Rock album I have listened to in the past, there has been a section where we hear a phone being dialled or ringing. Prog Rockers clearly find this an exciting sound...Sadly, I dont.

It was a cold and rainy summer evening at Sonisphere when I first experienced Coheed and Cambria without laughing at the high pitchedness of Claudio Sanchez's voice. The second they stepped onto the stage they had me entranced, I thought this couldn't be the same band that I brushed off simply because I thought the vocals were a bit funny? Anyway, I'm glad I didn't decide to see Heaven & Hell in the rain instead otherwise. After this I pretty much only listened to Welcome Home and Ten Speed so I'm really glad that Dan decided to put them up.

The album starts with a nice little instrumental that makes a kind of epic orchestral sound, this initial epicness is certainly something that is kept up throughout the album. I have found that sounding epic is a very integral part of Coheed's sound especially as all of their albums essentially is the epic of two people called Coheed and Cambria. But what I especially like about 'Heed is that the listener doesn't need to understand the story line to enjoy the album, to be honest I have no idea what's going on in terms of plot, and this is something that other concept album bands like Maiden can not seem to do. With many Maiden songs I can't really enjoy them if I don't like the concept Dickinson is whining about. I feel that Heebria manage to do this successfully because of a combination of two things: Claudio's voice (which I know thoroughly enjoy) and the brilliant musicianship of the band as a whole, not to mention the pretty tight production. All this allows the band to really show emotion in their songs that can get the audience really into the music (as I witnessed first hand at Sonisphere).

Another aspect of the album and the band as a whole that I enjoy is the combination of genres. Pinning down a band to a genre is always something I (quite sadly) enjoy doing and while its simple enough to call 'Bria a prog rock band it is clear that they are influenced by many other genres. As I've already implied there is a clear Iron Maiden influence (and honestly they do what Maiden do better than Maiden do) but also some punk-popish influences, even some mid-west nineties emo (which is a huge plus) and they manage this while still being able to be very catchy. Overall I just find this band fascinating, from the weirdness of their frontman to the interesting sound they make to the general concept of their albums.

What I've found with In Keeping Secrets is that it is generally much faster paced than Good Apollo which I like because on the latter I found a few of the tracks to be somewhat boring. This is something that Co-Cam have completely avoided on this album and frankly I like every single track it has to offer. I believe this album to be the second best release of the year 2003, second only to Radiohead's Hail to the Thief. 5/5

Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring (Review: The Chief)

Well, I laughed in the face of Dan when he asked Alex, Ben and I to come with him to watch Noah and the Whale. While I'm not sad I missed it as I might never have discovered Frank Turner if I left the NME Tent went to the Main Stage, I do regret making fun of this group so much. I judged way too soon on one crappy song and couldn't even imagine they'd make such beautiful little pop-folk songs. Well when I say that it sounds as if I'm in love with the album, far from it, its pretty good background music but it doesn't really grip me like the artists I love do. Still I judged Noah and his pet Whale before giving them a proper listen and for that I can only apologise.

As I said Noah make a very pretty song, they know how to make the listener tap their foot or sway to the music but I didn't ever find myself being gripped by a song. I feel that this is down to the vocalist, in other folkish music that I listen to (such as Bob Dylan and Frank Turner) I find that their voices are what make me think 'hold on let's listen to what he's got to say'. The singer of Noah has a nice enough voice that goes along with the music very well, but in this case I believe that is a negative. Dylan is frankly a poor singer but its so brash it makes me listen to the lyrics. This just doesn't happen in The First Days of Spring.

I think that the instrumentals and the orchestra are a great addition to the album. They really pick it up and it sounds really exciting. This part of the album is so good because it took me completely by surprise and really shows the great musicianship of the band, not to mention their creativity. Another stand out track on the album is Stranger, even though I was a bit annoyed that the pace of the album slowed down again I found this song to be pretty compelling, something that I've found most of the other tracks lacked.

The First Days of Spring is a nice album. It's a good piece of easy listening for a day when I've got a bad hangover or something but its far from one of my favourite albums. 3/5

Streetlight Manifesto - Somewhere in the Between (Review: The Chief)

I was going to kick off my comeback review by doing The Fall of Math but it seems that that has been done enough and Ben has said a lot of what I was going to say and I wouldn't want to make you read the same thing twice. Therefore I have chosen to do Streetlight Manifesto as I missed them at Reading due to seeing A Place to Bury Strangers (who were fantastic and you should all check them out). I've come to see what all the hype is about.

As this album is actually still downloading I'll write about 65dos a bit. I agree completely with Ben in that the emotion in the songs is quite remarkable but I feel they pull this off much better in their later album The Destruction of Small Ideas. With the exception of Retreat! Retreat! I feel that every track on TDoSI is better than those on Fall of Math. They are executed and produced a lot more professionally and feel a lot deeper to me. One thing I would disagree with Ben and Matt on though is that I do not think that 65days need a vocalist, in fact I think its the last thing they need. What I love about this band is that I can put my own little thoughts as to what the song is about without being told by the lyrics, it makes me think more and my thoughts change everytime - in my opinion this band is perfect at what it does.

OK Streetlight Manifesto has finally finished downloading so we can now get down to business. Now the only 'ska' I've experienced is what the internet calls ska-punk and that makes me think of Less Than Jake, which makes me sad. Also there's Madness of course, I like Madness but they're a bit cheesy. I won't let these two bands cloud my judgement however. I'm actually very excited to be listening to this band.

The first thing that I have to say about this album is that its a lot of fun, bouncy and wholly original. I love the combination of horns and what we call your standard rock instruments, I'm really surprised by how well it works and all fits together. I feel that this is due to Streetlight just being fantastic musicians and I admire them for having the vision to make this kind of music. Another brilliant factor is that this sounds like a genuine genre rather than just a gimmick, which was my major problem with Skindred.

I've found the album to be very consistent, perhaps a bit too consistent as many of the songs sound incredibly similar. Despite this I can't say that its boring at all, which confuses me as I've always considered songs sounding the same a massive let down and gotten quickly bored and I'm sure most of you will agree with me. But SM managed to keep me interested throughout and I find them just a very enjoyable band.

One small thing that I'm not a fan of is the lead vocalist. While I don't mind him I think they could do with one who's somewhat less gravely. His voice seemed to grate on me after a while but luckily I still have the music to enjoy. While I didn't find the lyrics bad or below average I still didn't find them to be the most attention grabbing but I still found that they go well with the music.

Overall this is a very good album that deserved the hype my fellow authors gave it after Reading and now. I was really impressed by the band's originality and musicianship and while I wasn't a big fan of the vocalist the positive aspects outweigh the negative. 4/5

Meshuggah - obZen (Reivew: MattJ)

This has been coming for a while now, and I was very glad to see this album come up as Roshan's return album. I've only ever heard Bleed by Meshuggah and liked their very different riffs and the heaviness of the song in general, but I was worried whether they would fall in to the same trap that countless metal bands have in the past, especially technical metal bands - that almost all of their songs are the same and they become one long boring monotonus song of people wanking over their instruments. What I means is that so many of these metal bands completely lack any emotion or feeling in their music, one man armed with just an acoustic guitar can create much deeper and meaningful feelings in a listener that Cannbial Corpse ever could.

Now the question is: does Meshuggah fall in to this emotionless trap? I found the answer to be yes, but not as bad as it could have been. I feel like Meshuggah are very much showing off their technical ability, which is immense. But I don't think that Meshuggah are really trying to say anything else with their music apart from a display of the hardest-to-do vocals, with the hardest-to-do guitar, etc. I don't really have a problem with Meshuggah doing all of this instrumental masturbating though, as they clearly have a right to. The more I think about it the more I realise that this is music made by fans of technical metal for the technical metal audience and while I don't like it I can hardly slate them for not being arty or emotional enough.

I feel like I'm writing off a whole band just because of one album, when it could be that their other albums incorporate completely different styles and sounds. But seeing as this album is all I have to go with I can only compare them with other bands people label 'technical', like Tool, Gojira and Opeth. Compared to such bands, in terms of ability, I'd say they're one of the best I've ever heard but I'm not going to change how I listen to music for this band, because I don't want to rate them on their ability to play instruments.

I'm going to give them 2.5/5 because I genuinely enjoyed about half of the album, but on second listen I have to say I was not finding anything new and becoming a little bit bored.

Blur - Parklife (Review: MattJ)

I had always thought Blur to be a different version of Oasis despite the few Blur songs I have heard in the past sounding nothing like Oasis I still thought that all of their other songs must be pretty similar if they are in the same genre. This is my grounds for always saying Blur>Oasis because I thought that Blur were pretty shite like Oasis but they had a couple good songs. Boy, was I wrong. I have no idea how the two are in the same genre as they are very different and I will stop comparing the two now as I now realise how unnecessary this comparison is now.

The album opens to the brilliant pop song 'Girls & Boys' which reminds me of my 90s childhood. The song is catchy but it's also more than that as the up beat rhythm, good lyrics and vocals of the song makes it a genuinely good song. The vocals, in fact, are the only consistent part of the album as the band are so diverse through all the songs exploring loads of different styles such as pop, different variations of punk and some stuff that sounds like The Kinks but is still unique enough for Blur to call it their own. This diversity is what makes them stand out from a lot of other bands at the time.

The little review on Spotify tells me that this album is 16 songs exploring the different aspects of British life and I can hear this very clearly throughout. This album is so British that there should be a brand of tea named after it. While it is very very British (which I enjoy) it is not in anyway patriotic (which I hate) and this delights me to the utmost. It is like various different photographs of London in 1994.

With a diverse album such as this I was worried that there were going to be tracks that I didn't like and I'm afraid that I found one that stopped this album from being totally perfect. I didn't really like Badhead. Not to say that it's a terrible song it's just that it's being shown up by the other songs which I really liked, although Lot 105 is pretty much lift music but I think that's a joke so it doesn't really count. I am being a bit overly picky but I don't think I can give this 5/5 because it isn't perfect, but it is incredible.

4.5/5

Biffy Clyro - Puzzle (Review: MattJ)

Where's the change font button gone? Oh well... I'd never in my life heard a Biffy Clyro song before this, I just had never bothered with them and I don't really know why. I didn't know what to expect from there, apart from something guitar based which is what I got. I think that this band have managed to find a unique sound that will interest a great number of people but it is not so different that it will turn people away, in fact I can see why so many people love Biffy Clyro - this is a very nice achievement.

I really liked the riff of Living is a Problem... and the song is a really good straight rock track with a different edge, and this is how I found the rest of the album to go. This edge I feel is provided by the vocals which are nothing ground breaking but complement the music in a strange way that I can't quite pin down. Like Alex said Biffy don't try to do too much, they are just playing what they want to play and it worked out nicely for them. Too many popular bands are trying to do too much and trying to be bands like Muse, Radiohead, Joy Division and even The Beatles. In fact bands have been trying to be the Beatles since they first came about but that's a different story. Anyway it was a somewhat breath of fresh air with Biffy Clyro.

One thing I did notice was that their songs had a similar structure and after Who's Got a Match? - which I really didn't like the lyrics of by the way - I was begging for something different. I was glad then when the slower As Dust Dances came on. As Dust Dances is good for what it is a bit of a more melodic personal song with a big old uproar towards the end where things got a bit louder. I don't tend to go for these types of songs unless they are really good but this is one of the only (for want of a better word) power ballad that I thought "Yeah, this is alright..."

I think that the middle of the album takes a turn for the worse. A Whole Child Ago and Now I'm Everywhere both really annoyed me, mostly because the way the vocalist is singing. Also a lot of the tracks follow the same formula as earlier tracks which bored be somewhat. Overall though this is a good album but I think it contains quite a bit of filler. Biffy have come up with something that has both uniqueness and mass appeal and for this I award them 3/5

Fightstar - One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours (Review: MattJ)

Like Roshan I was pretty sceptical about Fightstar seeing as its Charlie-from-Busted's band - something I'm sure they will never escape from. Post-Hardcore has never been a genre I've really enjoyed, it's all samey in my eyes and I was happy with Hardcore before it became Post-Hardcore, I never thought they should try to do anything more with it but that's just how music works I suppose.

Well it started out how I expected it to start, One Day Son has an alright riff with some alright vocals to suit the alright production. I don't hate it, well I do hate it but I don't hate it because I hate the music I hate it because I think everything about it is just average. It's not exciting me enough. The second song has a bit more of an up beat tone to it, and the fact that I noticed it is a good thing, so this song is a little bit more alright than the first one. Despite the more upbeat sounding riff the song follows the same structure as the last song which I found annoying, and a little bit insulting I might add.

Another thing about this band, I don't really think that Charlie is really a particularly good singer, I mean his average voice suits many of their average bog standard post-hardcore songs but on One Last Common Ancestor they do a bit more of a mellow song and Charlie sounds terrible on it, the same goes for the song 99. This is quite the opposite to his shouting on Deathcar which I think was very good, I'd like to see Mr. Simpson in a death metal in the near future. I wouldn't really.

Anyway Deathcar is quite a good song indeed and I would liked to have seen some more agressive stuff on the album really. I don't think it would be fair to give this album a really low score because its not that bad, its just not anything new. I really do dislike this but its not for the actual music, its, again, because of the averageness of the whole thing. Therefore I'm going to give them 2.25/5

As an aside I'm in a bit of a bad mood, I hope it didn't show in the reivew....

Skindred - Babylon (Review: MattJ)

Right today I'm going to do something different, I was just planning on starting this review when I had a conversation with Roshan on MSN about this album, I feel that it included all of my opinions on the album and so I'm going to copy and paste it into here. I hope you all don't mind.

Matt says:
i dont think i've ever hated anything more

Roshan says:
?

Roshan says:
!

Matt says:
pdon?

Roshan says:
Serious

Matt says:
yes

Roshan says:
Loved it.

Matt says:
its mediocre

Matt says:
average rock/metal with stupid vocals

Roshan says:
In what way, have you ever heard such a fusion of sound before?

Matt says:
it sounds like its a gimic

Matt says:
it is a gimic

Roshan says:
no no no no... geniunily amazing combination of genres, with an awesome voice. I take it you don't listen to a great deal of reggae/ jamaican singers?

Matt says:
i dont but i do like reggae
the little of it i've heard
but the whole metal/rock side of it is rubbish

Roshan says:
Have you heard tarantular by Pendulum, they have like a Jamacian MC to drum and bass, pretty amazing.

Matt says:
not to mention the vocals just not working with this music

Matt says:
yeah thats good
it fits in perfectly with the music
this doesnt at all

Roshan says:
I felt it added an special kind of aggresion not normally found in Metal/rock. It was harder hitting, more powerful.

Roshan says:
Especially in the first two tracks

Matt says:
i'm finding its taking away the agression
making it sound silly

Matt says:
i cant take this seriously

Roshan says:
OK

Roshan says:
I get it now.

Matt says:
im thinking of posting this discussion as part of my review

Roshan says:
right

Roshan says:
well

Roshan says:
basically, for you its probably like...

...Like listening to foreign music for the first time around your friends, say your forced to listen to it in some seminar or what ever. You start giggling, poking fun at it and overall, doing things to make yourself feel less embarrased. Thats the kind of reaction your having to this sound.

Roshan says:
...like a chav to culture...

Matt says:
no i dont think i am
it is just a poor album

Matt says:
i've heard fusions of different genres before and i think that this could possibly work, i mean anything could work if its done correctly
but skindred does not work

Matt says:
its a failed attempt in my eyes

So overall I could not stand this album, especially on the more heavier songs where the vocals suited the song even less. The vocalist sounds like a cartoon character sterotype of a Jamaican man. On a track like The Fear they actually become tolerable because they aren't trying to be so hardcore and are forcing this botched fusion of genres on the listener.
Therefore I have to give this album 1/5

Placebo - Meds (Review: MattJ)

I'd never heard Placebo before this and really was not sure what to expect, although I do have a very faint memory of them being on Kerrang when I was about 12 but I don't remember what they sounded like.

Anyway the first thing that struck me were the vocals. When I first heard them I hated them because they were whiney, but after the first couple minutes I got over it and actually started to enjoy them. They complement the music brilliantly. The vocals are probably my favourite part of the album purely for their uniqueness

I think this is an album which is good for background music, the music and vocals are very nice but they didn't do well in holding my attention. Not to say that their songs all sound the same but they aren't massively attention-grabby. Despite this there are two tracks that I absolutely adored: Follow the Cops Back Home and Post Blue. The lyrics are nicely emotional but don't over do it, I found them quite captivating. But I mostly love Post Blue because it shows the chemistry of the band extremely well, all elements of the music complement each other.

A lot of the lyrics seem to be about drugs and alcohol and both their positive and negative effects, this is probably why the album is called Meds. Drugs is definitely one of my favourite subject matters in music and poetry and I'm very glad that Placebo manage to do it so well. I am also very pelased that they portray both sides of drugs rather than just one biased side - the naked truth. I think that's why they have chosen that album art.

Overall I'm quite unsure about this album and I found it very hard to review. I disliked the fact that I didn't like it more. 3/5

Soundgarden - Superunkown (Review: MattJ)

I've always wanted to listen to Soundgarden being a fan of other Grunge acts like Nirvana and Alice in Chains, and I'm glad Alex put it up. What I've found with Grunge is that unlike other genres one band can sound entirely different from the next - I mean Nirvana are supposed to be the model Grunge band but all the other Grunge music I've heard doesn't really sound like them at all. I suppose Grunge is just what they called Alternative Rock in the early to mid 90s.

The first thing that has to be addressed in this review is the vocals. They are superb. Everyone praised Cornell's vocals in their Audioslave reviews but I didn't particularly see what was special about them. But on Superunknown they are twice as powerful and frankly just so much better - an example of when his voice is very powerful is on tracks like Mailmain and Superunknown. Perhaps it's just that I think his voice suits this kind of music better than that of Audioslave.

The music on the album is what I'd expect of any Grunge band - nothing spectacular but very nice and probably catchy. To be honest I'm thinking more and more than Grunge is Pop Rock with a bit of distortion, although this isn't a bad thing at all. Despite that Soundgarden seems a lot more Rock than Pop and I found myself really enjoying it with head banging and the lark. I really enjoyed Soungarden's slower songs as well, like Head Down and Fell on Black Days. This shows another side of the band making us see that they aren't a one trick pony but can explore a slower and darker element of the genre.

There's not a lot that I don't like about this album - well I say not a lot but I can't think of any. The album is very long but it's OK because the tracks are all pretty good and I mean pretty good. There aren't any tracks that jump out at me and make me think "Wow, that's amazing". Hopefully I will find something when I listen to this album more and I can make this a 5/5. But for now it will have to remain a 4/5, which is by no means a bad score.

Also, sorry to go off topic but I don't think there's enough talking between authors and so I think we should hold 'music debates' on MSN or something between 2 or 3 of us and then we could post it here on the blog.

Mistabishi - Drop (Review: MattJ)

Well I've not heard much drum and bass in my time but I do like nearly all of what I've heard from the genre - as well as the closely related Jungle and Dub Step genres. I must say that Mistabishi are different from other drum and bass songs I hear coming from my mates' cars - and this must be what 'Liquid Funk' is. My opening thoughts: 'Well this is quite uplifting' as Roshan said it would be. Another thing that Roshan said is that this is drum and bass that you can just sit and listen to rather than just on occasions like clubs and driving - this is still being debated as much as when I will write a paragraph that doesn't include a hyphen.

So what do I look for in a Drum and Bass album? Well the answers are: Songs that don't sound the same, good production throughout, if there are vocals then for them to fit in nicely with the music, and above all originality. This most of all because so many drum and bass songs I have heard in the past sound vastly similar. So let's tackle originality first. This album is not like any other Drum and Bass I've heard before, as I already stated it is purposefully uplifting and it does this quite well. The Printer Jam song is incredibly clever and I think it's amazing how they managed to get such an exciting sound out of a boring office situation - it is also quite funny. Therefore Drop does well in the originality department. Obviously from this point we can see that not all of songs on the album sound the same.

The vocals on some drum and bass songs I've heard before ruin it for me, either poor vocals or a bad sample (Dub Step is often guilty of this). But I think that Mistabishi manage to have their vocals sound like they suit the music well, the only time I didn't like it was on the song View from Nowhere where they have a male vocalist. Maybe it's just that I don't like male singers on this type of music... I'm not sure. I really like the sample at the beginning of White Collar Grime - a song that's one of the album's highpoints.

However I did not like every aspect of the album. I wasn't a big fan of View from Nowhere at all, it just sounded a little boring to me - it didn't make me bounce around in my chair is what I really mean. I also found myself pretty bored with Wipe Your Tears and was surprised to see that it wasn't six minutes long. I don't think that the sound of window wipers works as well as a printer jamming.

But overall this is a very good album and one of the best Drum and Bass albums I've heard. Although I still think Hold Your Colour is a better album even if it is the Tracy Beaker of DnB. If they are the Tracy Beaker than Mistabishi are Star Trek. A solid release with very nice production and original use of office equipment warrants a 4/5 I feel.

I'm not using percentages ... ever.

Damien Rice - O (Review: MattJ)

Well to start it off I had never even heard of Damien Rice before it was posted here, I can't imagine why. This album sounded like I expected it too - acoustic, melodic voice, love songs. Although I did expect a thick Irish accent and was a bit disappointed when I didn't hear one (I won't mark it down in my rating because of this). Also, I'm going to say this now, there was nothing about the songs that I didn't like, but I really can't say that this is a brilliant album - I'll explore this more in a bit.

Damien's voice is very good. You can hear the emotion in his voice and this is a massive positive. I love the intensity I got from songs like Amie, Cheers Darlin' ("What am I!?") and especially the end of I Remember, this was not down to the instrumentation - which is pretty standard - it's all about his and the guest vocalist's voices. But mostly Damien's. But it's not just intensity that Damien Rice provides; he manages to calm the listener with simple songs like 'Delicate' and 'Cold Water'. The main task for songs like these, I think, is to manage to have such slow lovely songs without them becoming boring - and this is something that is done throughout.

Whilst listening to this album I just kept on comparing him to Jeff Buckley, Elliott Smith and City and Colour. I didn't really want to but I kept on doing it in my head, and this is the reason why I didn't love the album. I just personally think that Buckley and Smith are superior singer-songwriters. It feels bad to mark down an artist purely on personal opinion but I feel I have to. I have to because it's all I really have to go on. Give me a hip-hop album and there are certain factors that I need to have to consider it a good album, same goes for a 70s Rock album - but when it comes to singer-songwriters on their own with acoustic instruments I don't know where I stand. I just listen and see if I like. That is why I've found this a difficult album to score and review.

Overall I like this album, and Damien Rice has a very nice voice. I'm going to add his next album, 9, to the ever growing list of artists I wish to listen to. I'm going to give this album 4/5 for brilliant singing, top notch production and nice music.

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion (Review: MattJ)

I had been looking forward to this album for quite some time and was instantly on my mind when the idea of New Release Sunday came up. When it comes to music I am always on the lookout for anything different, stuff that has something new and unique to offer - but that's obviously not enough, it has to actually be good and I have to like it. Luckily with Animal Collective this is what I've found.

But I was worried at first. I didn't think the album got off to a very good start at all with In the Flowers and I was wondering what I'd gotten myself in to. I found this song to be just plain odd, but not in a good way (I consider cLOUDDEAD to be odd in a good way). I didn't like how I could barely hear the vocals and it made me think: do you not want me to hear what you're saying?

Thankfully the album picked up from here because I very much enjoyed The Girls - which is, according to last.fm, their most popular song and I can see why that is. The simple little beat that continues throughout is very nice and really sucked me in to the song. Then I realised that this song isn't just a minimalistic little beat and some echoed vocals - it is a very layered song with lots of slight noises here and there and it made me think that I had missed something with the opening track.

Another paragraph must be dedicated to my favourite song on the album: Summertime Clothes. It's got such a lovely bouncy beat to it that hand me hopping around in my chair. As well as this it has wonderful lyrics that tell a story about going out on summer nights. In fact this song put me in a massive summer mood so that's a big ol' positive mark. I've been playing this catchy happy song all day.

Although I liked the album quite a lot I did find myself bored on occasions. I didn't really find entire songs boring, just that a few of them dragged on slightly, for example on Also Frightened, I could have done with it being 2 minutes shorter, same goes for Brother Sport. I think that knowing when to cut a song short and when to make it a long one is important for the album as whole so Animal Collective need to work on that.

But overall I found this a very enjoyable album which I will be playing again and again, hopefully all summer, but again it is not perfect at all and I really expected more from a band's eighth studio release. 3.5/5

Album Highlights:

Summertime Clothes
Bluish
My Girls
Daily Routine

Enter Shikari - Take to the Skies (2007) (Special Review: MattJ)

Well well well, Enter Shikari, we meet at last. I've listened to this at the request of Dan who in exchange has listened to and reviewed (very nicely I might add) cLOUDDEAD. I feel that I've gotten the easier end of this deal...

Well everyone and their grandmother seems to have listened to this album and seen the band live apart from me. I wasn't really sure what to expect, although I say that I knew exactly what they are - hardcore(ish) and electronic(ish), but what is that supposed to sound like? The first thing that surprised me was the vocals. I really wasn't expecting what I got from the vocalist on the opening song - he reminded me strangely of the singer from post-punk band Wire and that can only be a good thing.*

'Anything can happen in the next half hour indeed' I thought. I very much liked the little interludes throughout the album and found myself thinking I wouldn't mind listening to an entire album like this, especially the last one before the end. Another part of the album I liked was the energy I heard from the band, especially on the annoyingly named 'No Sssweat'. I very much would like to see this song, Mothership and Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour live. Furthermore, I suppose you could call this a good thing, the backing vocals of 'Return to Energizer' sounds like they are shouted in to a cushion and really made me laugh. Yeah, that is definitely a positive.

Although I did find many aspects of the album to be good it was not without its negatives. 'Sorry, You're Not a Winner' was the only ES song I had heard before this and I have never been a fan of it. From the vocals, which otherwise on the album I have enjoyed but sadly not on this track, to the eternally horrible clapping. I just don't find this song very enjoyable; the same is true of Labyrinth and Johnny Sniper where I really hated the riff of both songs. In fact I found Johnny Sniper down right cringey - it sounds like I stepped out of my bedroom and into a fairground. I'm finding that the aspects of the album I did not like were all things that are down to perspective and so are not things that are bad because Enter Shikari are bad - more because I don't really like some aspects of the album.

This is a fairly solid album from a band who feel like they have been around forever, but listening to this album I hear a young group with a hell of a lot of potential. I much preferred their fast paced songs and shouting as apposed to slower songs like 'Today Won't Go Down in History' but I found 'Adieu' to be a very nice song indeed. I was pleasantly surprised with this album, which is by no means a masterpiece but still a good album, and I am actually looking forward to hear how they've grown with their next album. 3/5

Highlights:
Enter Shikari
Mothership
All of the interludes

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqP-Ezl-4AM (I feel the need to explain myself as I can't just name drop any old band in a review and expect people to know them, I'm not a reviewer from Pitchfork)

Jimmy Eat World - Futures (Review: MattJ)

This is the first Jimmy Eat World album I've ever heard. Before this I'd only heard The Middle and a couple of other songs I don't remember the name of but I'm sure I didn't like. With the song Futures I don't think that they went off to a good start. I hated the riff and couldn't get into the song at all. Just Tonight... then came on and I found this to be huge improvement, the music was quite good and the vocals didn't seem to grate as they had done before. The song was genuinely quite catchy.

Regrettably this was the last song that I enjoyed on the entire rest of the album. There were two main points that I didn't like and came up a few times on the album. The first is the vocals - the worst of which I found to be on Work. His high pitched whine annoyed me greatly on this song and the 'oh oh, oh oh oh' parts of the chorus made me cringe horribly.

Another part of the album which ruined it for me was the music itself. It's as if Jimmy Eat World want their songs to sound catchy and for everyone to be singing along and loving it, but it's just not doing it for me. The repetition of the last words on some lines in Kill made me hate it with an unbelievable fiery passion: "I can't help it baby, this is who I am (am)
Sorry, but I can't just go turn off how I feel (feel)"
I know it may seem like I am being nit picky but it is small things like this that can ruin a song for me completely. "We're only ever as happy, as everyone else seems to be." It's lyrics like this that just make me want to shout 'Fuck off' to my computer screen. I am sorry Ben if this seems like I'm being too cruel.

The song I liked the least of all was Drugs or Me. I dislike this the most because I can see what they are trying to do, but they just can not do it. This is supposed to be ballad that fans of JEW will call beautiful, it's supposed to be minimal in terms of instrumentation because the lyrics are the most important thing. The lyrics are supposed to reach the heart of the listener as they cry about the hurt the singer's singing about. But what I heard was lack luster singing and vocals that do nothing but make my ears blink* coupled with boring music. This song made me sad, not because of the message in the song but because it bored me.
You're sorry, you swear it: you're done
But I can't tell you from the drugs
Remember kids, don't do drugs.

Overall I will give this album 1.5/5

Sorry.

*Ear blinking is when you close your ears to sound. It doesn't really exist but I wish it did.

Tool - 10,000 Days (Review: MattJ)

Vicarious - what an album opener. It's a brilliant track with some of my favourite Tool lyrics: "I need to watch things die from a good safe distance
Vicariously, I live while the whole world dies". The lyrics are well complemented by the superb musicianship of Tool that I heard on their 2001 release Lateralus and these are two factors that are consistent throughout the whole album. I am especially a fan of the drumming from Danny Carey, which I found better than the drumming I heard on Lateralus.

On 10,000 Days Tool experiment with some more ambient tracks (mostly in the form of interludes) - an odd although not unheard of path taken in the metal genre, especially that which is considered 'Progressive Metal'. Tool have managed to pull these tracks off very well, and I would certainly like to hear more of this sort of thing. A criticism of Tool has always been a fairly similar slow, built up, heavy, progressive structure in almost all of their songs and with tracks such as Lost Keys and Viginti Tres the show critics that they can do more than this.

Something that I love about Tool is that it is hard to pigeon hole them into any specific genre, they don't really sound like anyone else. With 10,000 Days they continue this tradition and like Alex said, they are a clever band. This is a clever album because of the unusual structure of the music, '6.5/8' time signatures and the experimentation taken by all musicians which combine to make their unique sound. This album is also clever because of the lyrics: "Kangaroo done hung the jury with the innocent" from The Pot and the brilliant Right in Two which looks at the actions of man from the perspective of angels.

One of the things I liked so much about Lateralus was the interesting vocals, the high pitched shouting/screeching on Ticks & Leeches being a personal favourite. Despite there being no more screeching I found the vocals to be on point as usual. I've always thought that the singer could be in Alice in Chains as he is not totally dissimilar to Layne Staley, and I was delighted to find that he was offered to be their vocalist at one point, but he turned it down. Shame.

Unlike the album Lateralus I did find one track that I did not like. That track is 10,000 Days (Wings, Part 2). I honestly found it boring - it's like they've made a song based on all the bad reviews they've gotten. The music is repetitive, and not in a good way, the lyrics are barely audible and there was nothing there to excite the listener. But one bad track on an eleven track album is by no means bad, in fact it's very good. I am certainly looking forward to exploring more of Tool's discography.

4/5

Album Highlights:
Vicarious
The Pot
Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)
Rosetta Stoned
Right in Two

Audioslave - Audioslave (Review: MattJ)

Now, unlike Alex, I’m going in to this without having listened to any Rage or Soundgarden albums and no proper opinion of the band, so I’m curious as to how my review will differ from his.

The first thing that stuck out for me on this album was the riffs, they are very catchy and well… they rock. They make me nod along to the song which is always nice. Staying with guitar the solos are unusual and this I quite like, specifically on Gasoline. A problem I’ve always had is where a guitar solo just sounds like it was thrown in for the sake of it with no consideration to how it would sound with the rest of the song – Audioslave successfully avoids this.

Like Alex I am surprised I like this album. I mean its nothing groundbreaking; the vocals aren’t amazing and despite my previous complement neither are the riffs. Don’t get me wrong I still enjoy the riffs but they’re not going to make me eargasm. I like this album because it works; it isn’t trying to be groundbreaking, it’s just making some nice music. I hope it doesn’t look like I’m belittling the album in any way because an album that tries to be totally new and fails is a lot worse than an album that knows what it wants to do and is sticking to a formula. What I’m saying is Audioslave are not making the listener work in order to understand what’s going on, they can just sit back and enjoy, and the more I learn about Dan’s music the more I realise that this is type of music that Dan enjoys the most.

All in all this album is not without its filler, but is still a good album because of its enjoyable music and cool lyrics. It is not a complex album because it doesn’t want to be, I’m sure this album is very popular amongst Audioslave fans.

3.5/5