Between the Buried and Me review!

My review of Between the Buried and Me's new album, Future Sequence, can be read here. Ultimately, it's some pretty good stuff!

Epic Kings & Idols Tour

You'd really think there'd be more hype around this show. You have three legendary metal acts performing together (Devin Townsend Project, Katatonia, and Paradise Lost), and all three are touring on what many fans consider to be the best albums in recent times.  Then you have Stolen Babies, an awesome new gothic metal band featuring a cute female lead singer and accordionist.  

And then you have InsideOut managers going around complaining about how this tour has been a big failure and financial loss.

What gives?

Shows aren't really cheap, and few people are going to them. Also, progressive music and doom metal aren't exactly the big sellers in the United States these days. Dream Theater, the biggest dog in the progressive metal yard, play to mostly half-filled concert halls when they're stateside. And most metal bands seem to have given up headlining US tours altogether; they bundle festival-like shows with other bands, or don't play at all. 

The results for us fans are mixed. On one hand, we get lots of epic nights offered by tour packages like "Epic Kings and Idols". On the other, fans of what particular act-- but not necessarily the entire scene-- can feel a bit slighted. 

That's how a fan of Devin Townsend Project might feel after seeing the Epic Kings & Idols show. In my case, I love Devin Townsend. I like Katatonia lots, especially the new Dead End Kings record, but I've never been a huge fan. And I like Paradise Lost too; I just haven't heard much of their music. 

For me, Epic Kings & Idols was give-and-take. Devin Townsend was absolutely awesome. But I was hoping to see more than 70 minutes of his music, and was disappointed when two of my favorite albums, Terria and Ghost (as well as Ziltoid) were not represented at all. Even Epicloud, the (literally) stellar new album, was underrepresented, though Devin's spirited performance of  "Grace" was by far the highlight of the evening. 

But because Devin's time was limited, Katatonia, Paradise Lost, and Stolen Babies had a chance to blow me away: and they did. Especially Katatonia. I'd heard mixed reviews of Katatonia's live performance, especially regarding lead singer Jonas Renske's voice. But Katatonia could not have been better live, and nor could have Jonas. Having heard only a few Katatonia albums, I was stunned by how competent Jonas was at delivering the lyrics (many of which I was hearing for the first time) in a digestible and effective way. I don't think any live metal band has ever managed to do that, to make me feel the emotional content of a song I'm hearing for the first time during a live performance.

I guess the point of Epic Kings & Idols tour is to help artists cross into different markets. Devin Townsends bizzaro metal might not appeal to Katatonia or Paradise Lost fans, and I heard more than one Katatonia fan in the audience smugly dismiss Devy as a "goofball". But, on the flip side, Devin's musical range might leave fans feeling like there's no other metal bands out there worth listening to-- like Devin does it all. And, thanks to the Epic Kings & Idols show, this Devin Townsend fan was convinced that there's plenty of reason to listen to Katatonia sometimes, too. 

Light in Dark Places: A Review of Bon Iver's Live Show

A few nights ago, I had the pleasure of seeing Justin Vernon's Bon Iver live. 2011's Bon Iver, Bon Iver was my "album of the year", so there's no chance I was missing this. As it turns out, Bon Iver is just as great live as it is in the studio; and much more beautiful and alive sounding.

The show was opened with "Woods", a relatively a cappella track from the Bloodbank EP, of renewed popularity from being sampled by Kanye West's track "Lost in the World".  "Woods" is one of Bon Iver's more demanding songs, which makes it such an effective opener.  You can't listen to "Woods" from beginning to end without transporting yourself from your current situation over completely to the world of music, and that's right where I was when Bon Iver went into the next song, Bon Iver, Bon Iver's opening track. 

There were eight people onstage alongside Justin Vernon (two of them drummers) in what was a performance of supreme audio and visuals. The sound at the Mann Center in Philadelphia was crisp and clear as ever, as the band appeared performing amid haze, phosphorescent curtains, and illuminated in electric candlelight. As the band played song after song-- almost all of those from last year's sophomore record and a good chunk of those from their debut and subsequent EP-- Justin interacted warmly with the crowd, sharing a number of jokes and suspicious anecdotes about the meaning of songs.  Performances were tight and precise, but loose enough to be supplemented with the occasional jam or melodic variation.  Bloodbank tracks and solo-spots alike provided atmosphere as the band segued between the folksie For Emma, Forever Ago songs and the more experimental soundscapes of Bon Iver, Bon Iver.  

Masterfully arranged versions of For Emma, For Ever Ago were some of the best of the night, with Vernon proving that the rest of his nine-man band can do something to enhance what would normally be solitary performances of "Skinny Love", "Flume", and "Creature Fear" without veering too far from the classics that everyone loves. Meanwhile songs from the sophomore album were more faithful to their studio counterparts. The best part of the night, though, was the "Wolves" encore, where Justin encouraged the crowd to sing along the lines "what might have been lost" before erupting in a climactic scream.

Ultimately, Bon Iver live is full of special musical moments like that, shared from one generous and passionate music lover to thousands of others. As the sun set on Philadelphia, Vernon and Bon Iver continued to play on a stage of mellow music and light.  It was a reminder that, even amid darkness, there is still brightness, magic, and art in the world for those who seek and unite around it. In sum, Bon Iver live is perfectly representative of the melancholy beauty and optimism that Bon Iver's music stands for.    

Bob Dylan- Tempest: A rickety, if not wild, ride

Bob Dylan is on cruise control. At the age of 71, he still tours relentlessly. And he records new albums about as quickly as your great-grandfather can peruse his collection of pre-prohibition vinyl records. He's like an old, rickety car making its way down the highway on fumes, puttering on with no sign of what'll give first: the engine, or that old tape-deck.

Dylan said that Tempest would be a wild ride, but I never really believed it. And despite some stellar early reviews, I don't think Tempest is a return to form the same way that Time Out of Mind was. But it is a continuation in that same general direction, picking off where subsequent lesser-albums like Love and Theft and Modern Times left off.  

The album opener, "Duquesne Whistle", is a typical 21st Cenutry Dylan opener: a strong, catchy song with just enough lyrical curiosity to latch onto,  "Don't you hear that duquesne whistle blowing/ Blowing like the sky's gonna blow apart/ You're the only thing alive that keeps me going/ you're like a time-bomb to my heart"

Those apocalyptic images make up one of Tempest's many motifs. The third track, "Narrow Way", features a burning White House, an empty cup, fighting in the streets and seeing someone both "buried" and dug-up. "You won't get out of here unscarred" Dylan says, before eventually waxing romantic.  Later in "Pay in Blood" Dylan tells us, in a particularly ghoulish bark, "I came to bury/ and not to praise". Toward the end of the record, there's a long ballad about the Titanic sinking (it's the title track). Like another one of Dylan's long and uneventful ballads, "Joey" from 1976's Desire, "Tempest" is tiresome and of questionable sentiment-- and makes reference to "Leo and his sketchbook". Dylan croons about the masses drowning amid the Titanic's extravagance, but it's hard to tell whether he actually cares. That ballad, clocking in at just over 13 minutes, is neither as good nor as coherent as the one which precedes it: a nine minute song called "Tin Angel" which deals with themes of personal struggle, salvation, and reformation and is the closest  Dylan ever gets to classics like "Hollis Brown". 

The most difficult song to devour is "Roll On John", which is either a tribute or mockery of John Lennon's legacy.  Dylan, from the present, warns John in the past, and smugly characterizes him as the singer who always played "to the cheap seats" and dressed in rags "like any other slave"; and then Dylan wails "I heard the news today, oh boy" and other Beatles lyrics, and makes wild exaggerations like "there was no more Joy" after Lennon died; and furthermore advises John to pass-over into that land where "the Buffalo roam". On one hand, Dylan does seem to genuinely miss the influence of one of his greatest peers. On the other hand, I can't help but hear a few jabs to a rival between the lines of commemoration, especially given the extravagant way the lyrics pile-on praise and bizarre, sometimes outright goofy, imagery. Or perhaps the topic strikes too close to home for Dylan to handle. Whatever the case, "Roll On John" is the strangest, and in my opinion worst, song of the album. 

Ultimately, Dylan is Dylan, and he puts out whatever music he wants to. There are those among us who would sacrifice all the musical world in exchange for the privilege to listen to Bob Dylan's music, and those of us who wouldn't. After hearing Tempest, I still belong to the first group. Like Shakespeare's play of the same name, Tempest isn't Dylan's best or most enduring work and it might just be his last. But if that's how things wind up, it's not cause Dylan has planned it that way. "I ain't dead yet/ my bell still rings/ I keep my fingers crossed" says Dylan in another track, "Early Roman Kings". And like that rickety car, he seems to just keep on going. 

Katatonia's unique style has not reached a "Dead End"

Katatonia have never really been one of my favorite bands. While they do crank out the occasional awesome tune, their albums, especially the ones recorded since their infamous change in direction, tend to be inconsistent and full of uneventful  melancholic dirges. That was what kept me from really enjoying their last effort, Night is the New Day, which I thought had a killer opening track before disintegrating into an indistinguishable swathe of gray. But all that aside, Dead End Kings is a real surprise and it's one of my favorite metal offerings so far this year.

One of the first things that stuck out when listening to Dead End Kings is how diverse the album is, especially by Katatonia standards. There are heavy and energetic songs, and even the occasional up-tempo song like "Undo". There are also the pensive slower-paced standards, like "The Racing Heart", which are more melodically heart-wrenching here than ever before. 

This diversity works so well partly because of how awesomely the album is sequenced. After a few listens, I noticed that the odd-numbered songs tend to be the faster-paced and more energetic ones, while Kataonia's usual slow-and-depressing stuff is reserved for the even numbers. This trade-off works well for a band like Katatonia. At no point while listening to Dead End Kings does one get the impression that the same song is being listened to on repeat. Honestly, I can't say I felt that way after listening to Night is the New Day. The energy level is consistently high, and the balance between light and dark has never been better... uh... balanced. 

While Dead End Kings is both consistently awesome and awesome in terms of its consistency, it's not really that surprising. This is Katatonia, playing music not unlike what they've played on their last couple of records.  It's moody and depressing; it's progressive insofar as it adheres to Kataonia's unique style; it's sung, and not growled, with those auto-tuned vocals that remind one of Cynic; and, rhythmically, the driving force is still the same triggered drums and Tool-inspired guitars that palm-mute more often than not. But Dead End Kings is a winner not because it switches up the typical Katatonia formula, but because it succeeds in realizing that formula in ways that previous albums have not. 

Download it here for the very generous price of $6.99.    

Cloudkicker- Fade

Over the last few years, Cloudkicker has been putting out an abundance of music, downloadable for whatever price we can afford to pay for it.  While Cloudkicker's music can range from post-rock to progressive metal, the common thread uniting most of his albums that they're mostly all instrumental, and always quality. Though an abundance of "donate to listen" heavy metal and "djent" instrumental acts have saturated the internet over the last two years, Cloudkicker continues to tower tall above most of them with Fade. 

The most noticeable thing about Fade upon first listen is the presence of distorted guitars, which announce a turn from the post-rock, folkish direciton of last year's Let Yourself Be Huge to the more metal and hard-rock oriented sound of Beacons and The Discovery. Fade, however, is not the same nonstop thrill ride that Beacons is. Whereas the latter is intense and turbulent, Fade sounds more relaxed and constant. The fast-paced clamor that characterizes songs like "Here, wait a minute! Damn it!" mostly gives way to heavy, melodic drone, like that featured on one of my favorite songs from Fade, "Seattle"; or else uplifting, U2-esque soundscaping guitars, like those heard on "LA After Rain", another favorite.

Like Beacons, Fade is a very consistent album that is sequenced very well. The songs work in a cyclical way, so that if you're listening casually you might not notice when one song has ended and another's begun. Still, sections of some songs tend to drag, and it is overall not as good as some of Cloudkicker's previous work.  And while almost all of the songs on the record morph into something great, a few, like "The Focus" and "Making Will Mad" begin with rarely generic rocking. Though Fade is exceptional, it doesn't dethrone Beacons as Cloudkicker's crowning achievement. 

Still, any fan of any type of rock or metal oriented music at all would be doing themselves a disservice by not giving Cloudkicker a try. You can name your price for the album at the Cloudkicker's bandcamp, here. And, while you're there, you might as well pick-up Beacons and everything else on his page if you haven't already.

Here's to much more quality music from Cloudkicker in the future!

Cynic- The Portal Tapes

Cynic's new (old) CD, "The Portal Tapes", is my very first contribution to this brand-new blog. Disclaimer: while I love Cynic's recent output, Traced in Air and Carbon-based Anatomy, I've barely listened to Focus (not really big on tech-death), which will probably invalidate everything I have to say about this album in the eyes of die-hard fans who just want to listen to Focus over and over again.

Calling The Portal Tapes a Cynic release is odd, because the material on this record was never meant for Cynic, but for Portal, a ditched side-project from1994-1995 that featured mainly members of Cynic and vocalist Aruna Abrams. On The Portal Tapes, Abrams' voice dominates, which sets quite a different tone from most of Cynic's other material. Aside from an overwhelming emphasis on female vocals, though, the material is not much different than what fans of Cynic's latest efforts have become accustomed to. There is less "metal" and more experimentation. Synthesizers are used liberally, and there are more spaced-out atmospheric sections than heavy, technical ones. Some songs are even audacious enough to have been written in the major key, with sprinkled airy-piano throughout.

In addition, Chris Kringel's fretless bass work on many songs really adds to the project's individuality. On the lighter, Jazzier songs it really shines. While Traced in Air was a good album, it really seems stylistically regressive compared to the territory this project was blazing into circa '94-'95.

The Portal Tapes might not work as an full-length album (even as it's longer than most Cynic albums), but it is an interesting and rewarding look at a band that has always valued innovation, progressiveness, and self-discovery through music. After listening to The Portal Tapes, it's become increasingly obvious to me that Cynic's current musical direction is one that has been in the works for some time. Not everything on The Portal Tapes is good, but Portal were tapping into some potentially awesome styles of playing that were well ahead of their time, and I'm glad to see that Cynic, with releases like Carbon-Based Anatomy, are finally fulling that potential now.