Friday, June 10, 2005
Album Reviews Out The Ass
This past Tuesday sucked for me financially, as FIVE separate albums that I was incredibly interested in were released on the same goddamn day. Some ended up slightly disappointing, some fantastically amazing. Here, I give you my views on five very different albums.
DREAM THEATER - OCTAVARIUM: THIS, This is metal. It is quite remarkable how Dream Theater can continue to impress me more and more with each successive release. Now, I am no prog-aholic or Dream Theater fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but this just might be one of the finest metal releases of 2005 (though it's still nothing compared to the new Corrosion of Conformity) With songs that rival The Mars Volta in both length and aspiration and at least two songs of concentrated kickass (Panic Attack and the amazing ten minute-plus anti-war diatribe Sacrificed Sons), this is definitely a must-listen.
AVENGED SEVENFOLD - CITY OF EVIL: A metal album with songs celebrating both Hunter S. Thompson and Dimebag Darrell, and yet it is somewhat disappointing. See, in 2003, Avenged Sevenfold released "Waking the Fallen", which was an awesome force of punk, power metal, metalcore, and Iron Maiden-esque riffing and noodling. The lead singer (M. Shadows. Yes, he looks like a goth/punk asshole) spent that entire album screaming his ass off and then switching to clean vocals which, while rather weak, sounded really good when thrust between walls of screaming. He then burst a blood vessel on his vocal cords and had a doctor tell him to stop all the damn screaming, as he was quickly losing his voice. Thus, on this much-hyped new album, there is MUCH less screaming and, as such, he relies mostly on his still weak voice. It then sounds like a metal version of Stone Temple Pilots (real metal, not that Velvet Revolver bullshit). Not as good as "Waking the Fallen", but not horrible. Good for a listen or two.
DEATH BY STEREO - DEATH FOR LIFE: This, however, is much better as long as you like weird-ass-sounding vocalists. Lots of punk-metal fury with Mike Patton-esque vocals. The album Avenged Sevenfold SHOULD have released.
COLDPLAY - X&Y: Not nearly as interesting as "Rush Of Blood...", though not exactly boring. They went through about 3 albums' worth of material to get here. I can't help but think that any of those other albums could've had more interesting tracks than this one.
THE WHITE STRIPES - GET BEHIND ME SATAN: What an album. What a great fucking album. Think about a bluesy, country White Album. It's that good.
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This past Tuesday sucked for me financially, as FIVE separate albums that I was incredibly interested in were released on the same goddamn day. Some ended up slightly disappointing, some fantastically amazing. Here, I give you my views on five very different albums.
DREAM THEATER - OCTAVARIUM: THIS, This is metal. It is quite remarkable how Dream Theater can continue to impress me more and more with each successive release. Now, I am no prog-aholic or Dream Theater fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but this just might be one of the finest metal releases of 2005 (though it's still nothing compared to the new Corrosion of Conformity) With songs that rival The Mars Volta in both length and aspiration and at least two songs of concentrated kickass (Panic Attack and the amazing ten minute-plus anti-war diatribe Sacrificed Sons), this is definitely a must-listen.
AVENGED SEVENFOLD - CITY OF EVIL: A metal album with songs celebrating both Hunter S. Thompson and Dimebag Darrell, and yet it is somewhat disappointing. See, in 2003, Avenged Sevenfold released "Waking the Fallen", which was an awesome force of punk, power metal, metalcore, and Iron Maiden-esque riffing and noodling. The lead singer (M. Shadows. Yes, he looks like a goth/punk asshole) spent that entire album screaming his ass off and then switching to clean vocals which, while rather weak, sounded really good when thrust between walls of screaming. He then burst a blood vessel on his vocal cords and had a doctor tell him to stop all the damn screaming, as he was quickly losing his voice. Thus, on this much-hyped new album, there is MUCH less screaming and, as such, he relies mostly on his still weak voice. It then sounds like a metal version of Stone Temple Pilots (real metal, not that Velvet Revolver bullshit). Not as good as "Waking the Fallen", but not horrible. Good for a listen or two.
DEATH BY STEREO - DEATH FOR LIFE: This, however, is much better as long as you like weird-ass-sounding vocalists. Lots of punk-metal fury with Mike Patton-esque vocals. The album Avenged Sevenfold SHOULD have released.
COLDPLAY - X&Y: Not nearly as interesting as "Rush Of Blood...", though not exactly boring. They went through about 3 albums' worth of material to get here. I can't help but think that any of those other albums could've had more interesting tracks than this one.
THE WHITE STRIPES - GET BEHIND ME SATAN: What an album. What a great fucking album. Think about a bluesy, country White Album. It's that good.
