There are worse bands to rip off than Cursive. To that end, Stegosaur’s new Adventure seven-inch gets points for drawing heavily from The Storms of Early Summer: Semantics of Song. To describe the band in terms of Cursive’s discography, they haven’t yet opened up their instrumentation to the highs of Domestica or The Ugly Organ.
Opener “Headache” is pretty straightforward – Saddle Creek-indebted punk with quavering vocals. “Big Breath” shakes the formula by skewing towards mellow indie pop. It’s really catchy, mildly twee.
The flipside’s lone track, “Bloooooood,” (Yes, there are seven Os. Yes, I counted) is less successful. It’s long, mid-tempo, and not particularly dynamic. Oh sure, there are handclaps and organ and gang vox, yet somehow none of that really matters. The song is boring, but at least it’s kept a safe distance away from “Headache” and “Big Breath.”
Adventure presents two possible paths for Stegosaur. Side A is fun and good and not terrible. Side B is the overwrought opposite of that. If the band can avoid indulging moody yet uninteresting pieces like “Bloooooood,” then its full-length might be killer. Hell, they could be the new Cursive.
Dearly departed Minnesota pop punk act The Soviettes always had a no-bullshit presentation. The group’s songs were dead-on shots of Ramonsey fire, usually clocking in somewhere between 100 and 200 seconds. They released three records in consecutive years. The titles were sequential numbers. Album covers swapped palettes and logos but remained otherwise similar. So the only real surprise about their new Rarities compilation is that it’s coming out four years after the group’s dissolution.
Of course it would be a solid 35-minute dance-fest in the vein of Tsunami Bomb and Teenage Bottlerocket. Of course the artwork would look the same. Of course they’d give it away for free. Like the band’s name suggests, these songs belong to the people.
Given its thoroughly cheap price tag (FREE!), Rarities should function as an excellent introduction to folks who missed out on The Soviettes last decade, even though it’s also arguably the weakest album in the group’s discography. As members Annie Sparrows and Maren “Sturgeon” Macosko admitted in a recent interview with Punknews.org, some of these tunes are a bit rough. The harmonies that filled LP III are missing here. Sure, most of these songs predate the group’s Adeline material, but there’s still going to be a twang of disappointing for some fans looking for lost classics.
That’s relatively speaking, though. Rarities is still a good album, but given that the group’s three full-lengths were such tight pop punk concoctions, anything less cohesive pales. That’s why a rough track like “Twin Cities Sound” can be disappointing compared the group’s overall output yet still kick the shit out of 99 percent of all other music ever written.
But enough belly-achin’ – Rarities is priced to move and er’rybody should take advantage. These 18 songs run The Soviettes’ pop punk playbook hard and fast. The group doesn’t fuck with their musical formula, but they are willing to experiment with languages (Japanese tune “Mazacon” is mighty catchy, even if I have no idea what Susy Sharp is singing). Songs like “Plus One” and “Matt’s Song” (which was later rerecorded for LP) are bouncy and fun. Thirty-five minutes of free, high quality pop punk is hard to deny. Rarities reaffirms The Soviettes’ excellence. Now if only the band could reunite forever…
Sludgy, lo-fi, two-piece punk. Must be from Brooklyn. The duo of Shell and Shag, known to the world as Shellshag, recently made its Don Giovanni debut with Rumors in Disguise. As minimalist, plodding and ramshackle as the band gets at times, the record showcases a gift for hooks, even if they’re as tossed off as the “blah blah blah”s of “Get Right.” If you’re looking for Ramones-indebted dirges of the haziest degree, Rumors is the place to be.
The duo splits vocal duties throughout the album, with guy guitarist Shell recalling Jeffry Hyman more than lady drummer Shag does. Shellshag writes two kinds of songs – slow, psychedelic ones and faster garage rock fare that almost recalls Mean Jeans or No Age. Either way, there’s a lot of murky production. The group is said to have a dynamite live show, and these songs, while not exactly exploding one after another, hint at that possibility.
“1984” kicks the record off well. It’s a hair too fast to be called midtempo, Shell’s guitar squalls alternate between shoegaze haze and psych backwards solos while Shag lists things that don’t work for her (drugs) and things she’d like to know (other stuff?). It’s an excellent lil number, and it’s not even the lead single. That would arguably be track two, “Resilient Bastard,” which The Village Voicehas been hyping for a month. Shell takes over the mic, hypnotically referring to himself by the song’s title. From there, the album continues down its little punky path. Sometimes the songs get harder (“He Said She Said”), sometimes the group whips out a cool instrumental (the last 40 seconds of “Wake Up” are killer) and sometimes Shellshag just kinda putters around for like three minutes (“Get Right” succeeds in being neither terrible nor terrific for three minutes).
Given the somewhat repetitive nature of the music, Rumors’ 14 tracks could have been whittled down to 12, maybe ten, songs. Still, at a 32-minute running time, the album is cohesive and entertaining enough. Again, the songs suggest that Shellshag might be better live. I could see them jamming out “Wake Up” to great success, and rockers like “He Said She Said” and “Dirty Looks” should go over well. For now, though, Rumors is a solid glimpse at Shellshag’s sound.
Though he passed away seven years ago from a congenital heart defect, Joe Strummer’s death continues to resonate with me. If Streetcore was any indication, the man still had more songs to write and sing, and it drives me crazy that, one day, I’ll have heard his entire output and there won’t be any more surprises. Until then, though, I’ve been doing my best to color in the margins. The first five Clash albums are all essential listening, as is B-sides collection Super Black Market Clash. I’m waiting for the day I finally cave and buy Cut the Crap, an album so bad that most people don’t even know or acknowledge its existence. There are the three albums Strummer cut with the Mescaleros, which I think are just as good as the Clash’s output. There are Earthquake Weather and assorted singles like “Love Kills,” “The Harder They Come,” and “It’s a Rockin’ World.” My quest to stay in touch with Strummer has since led me to Walker, a pretty good Latin music soundtrack he composed for Repo Man director Alex Cox’s 1987 film of the same name.
Walker, the movie, is an intentionally historically inaccurate bio-pic about William Walker (played by Ed Harris), an American who declared himself President of Nicaragua pretty much because he had enough money and firepower to do so. Strummer played a supporting role in the picture, perhaps thanks to his involvement with Cox in Sid and Nancy and Straight to Hell, and composed the soundtrack.
The album is an interesting listen for Strummer fans, in that it downplays most of Strummer’s strengths. There’s no reggae, and Strummer sings for only a few of the 14 tunes. Rather, he trusted his assembled studio musicians and, with the help of violinist Dick Bright, provided rough sketches for the group to draw from. Once he handed over the demos, according to Chris Salewicz’s excellent book Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer, ol’ Joe would head out for breakfast in the afternoon while the band added touches to his foundation. The result is a record that, while not as immediate as, say, London Calling, is still appealing.
Walker is a much quieter record than the punk legend’s other albums. It’s mostly acoustic. It utilizes a lot of mandolin, banjo and brass instruments. It’s free from the sterile ’80s production that hampered Cut the Crap and, to a lesser extent, Earthquake Weather. The first half plays out like an extended Latino jam, ideal for warmer weather. Starting with track eight, “The Unknown Immortal,” though, the band starts to change direction. For starters, Strummer actually approaches the mic on that song. Later, on “The Brooding Side of Madness,” the group veers closer to orchestral music, with percussionist Stephen Mitchell pounding out a military marching rhythm. Folksy campfire sing-along “Tennessee Rain” brings Strummer back on vox, and it’s arguably the most inviting of the songs.
Walker is a modest success. It was conceived to be chopped up and used by Cox however he saw fit, so the music is accordingly straightforward. It’s perhaps best suited for the already converted, as there are at least 10 Strummer-related albums worth checking out prior to this, but it’s still a good album and should appeal to folk music fans. If nothing else, it’s the sound of Strummer finding his voice again.
Folks, I’ve been on a big Bowie kick for the last month or so. It was revived thanks to Hugo Wilcken’s entry on Low for the 33 1/3 series, which got me listening to the “Berlin Trilogy” … and then Iggy Pop’s The Idiot and Lust for Life albums, which Bowie had a hand in around the same time … and then Aladdin Sane just ’cause I like that album. The next book I picked up, to my delight, was Marc Spitz’s Bowie, a biography/love letter to one David Robert Jones. Turns out he’s been on a Bowie kick too, only his has lasted since 1978 or so, when he heard “Space Oddity” for the first time at age nine. He writes:
I would look up at the sky and wonder what it would be like to be Major Tom, trapped way up there in outer space, floating in a tin can forever. Was it technically living? …Bowie made me consider existentialism before I even knew what it meant to be alive (and before I ever really thought about my death). It was much easier to reckon with the Grease soundtrack and put off the inevitable, but I already knew even then that Bowie’s music had permanently damaged me. [p. 24]
See, Spitz interweaves his own personal interaction with Bowie’s music (loves it, needs it) and the man himself (visits his favorite New York spots, sees him once on the street and then loses his nerve) into the narrative. It doesn’t overwhelm the story of the main subject’s life like, say, Jon Krakauer’s insistence on injecting his camping trips into the more interesting life and death of Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild. If anything, I would have been OK with more Spitz-bits, but then, I generally dig his writing (his work with Spin, and with Brendan Mullen for We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk, are both essential music reading). The anecdotes remind us that Spitz is a fan, and that this book is a labor of love, although the writing style alone indicates that.
Spitz covers as much territory as he can without actually having to interview his idol. He gets most of the key players – ex-wife Angie Bowie, guitarist Carlos Alomar, a ton of former managers and more – to cover the story, and utilizes a deep bibliography to fill in the missing storytellers, like the late Mick Ronson and Bowie himself. The result is a bio that hits all the needed plot points – his birth, his troubled family history, “The Laughing Gnome,” “Space Oddity,” glam rock, Brian Eno, conquering the ’80s, fading into obscurity in the ’80s, Tin Machine and more.
Given his self-admitted fandom, Spitz occasionally runs the risk of gushing too much:
Ziggy [Stardust] is the space-race anticlimax, Manson and Altamont and Nixon’s reelection and the breakup of the Beatles made sexy. Rock ‘n’ roll ecdysis is a crucial element of his appeal. Ziggy says to all those in pain, “You have failed as human beings, but it’s all right. We will succeed as slinky, jiving space insects. Let all the children boogie!” [p. 178]
But here’s the thing. Spitz’s loving passages come from a place of deep-seated devotion. He’s not peddling bunk here. And he’s also not afraid to call his idol on his own bunk. Labyrinth gets a knock (Sounds like somebody needs a love injection). Some critically derided albums get elevated (Diamond Dogs, Let’s Dance), while others get dropped (Tonight, Never Let Me Down and even Space Oddity, which I happen to think is an underrated psych/folk/rock album). Sure, Spitz softballs Bowie’s sexual indiscretions and, uh, that time he got super coked out and spent the late ’70s advocating Nazism and fascism, but it’s not like he digs to justify every little thing he did. For comparison’s sake, check out Philip Norman’s John Lennon: The Life, in which the author spends an entire chapter not only validating his subject’s proclivity for masturbation, but elevating it to some sort of artistic expression on par with John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.
Bowie hits a sweet spot of being informative, passionate and as honest as possible. Spitz even talked me into expanding my already pretty big Bowie collection (I’ve got Starting Point, a collection of Bowie’s early, kind of terrible, ’60s novelty singles, through the Labyrinth soundtrack from 1986. Dare I try on Earthling or Heathen?). The ending is somewhat lacking – Bowie is still alive after all – but given that his last studio album, Reality, came out in 2003, Spitz has as good a conclusion as he could hope for currently. Super fans should give it a gander, although it’s easy enough to follow that even novices looking for someone to guide them through Bowie’s dense discography might be interested in it as well. After all, if you like folk, punk, post-punk, R&B, glam rock, funk, industrial, goth, so-bad-it’s-good-rap (a la Labyrinth’s “Chilly Down”) or any of the fashions associated with those genres, Bowie might have a song or two to hook you in as well.
If nothing else, give Sick Electric credit for being somewhat eclectic. Sometimes the four-piece plays cock rock a la the Hives, sometimes they try out post-hardcore, and sometimes they go as quiet as they can. They also deserve props for choosing album artwork that fits their songs on Haywire. They’ve got titles like “Haywire,” “Concerning Gears and Girls” and “Marionette,” and they slapped a lady-robot on the cover. There’s a song called “My Love is a Severed Head,” and a picture of a dude holding a severed head on the back cover. It’s like Haute Tension! Inside the jewel case you’ll find a bloody hammer, perhaps a reference to “Heavy Hammer, Soft Brains.” So, kudos.
Where the band gets anti-kudos, though, is in their songs. The band tries too hard to show its range, resulting in a record that never coheres musically. Sick Electric’s lyrics aren’t too great either, often injecting humor or post-apocalyptic imagery for the hell of it. For example, try out the album-ending title track, a spontaneous surf rock jam whose sole line is “Shit’s gone haywire.”
There are some good ideas buried here – dig that synth sound on “Errors of Electrical Man” – but as is, Haywire sounds like a few friends fucking around. I’m sure these songs are fun to play, but the listening aspect needs work.
Dark. Ethereal. Kind of boring. That’s pretty much how I’d describe New Beautiful, the debut album from Vancouver, Canada’s Satellite Tragedy. The synth-y alt-rock duo is at their best when at their weirdest, which sadly doesn’t come into play until the record’s second half or so. The album’s first half, meanwhile, goes for more traditional rock fare, like on the Nirvana-esque “Ethanol,” which makes Nevermind sound that much better.
Not that I’m going to slag Satellite Tragedy for trying out different ideas. New Beautiful is an eclectic mix with a slightly lacking success ratio. The fanfare of intro track “New Beautiful” is attention-grabbing, but squandered on mild rocker “In My Head Again.” “Inside Your Skin” feels like a more natural approach for the band, opening with a static-y beat and whispered vocals before exploding into a huge chorus. It’s far from great, but it’s promising, even if “Gone” recycles the approach with weaker results.
But things do start to turn around by the 60-second sixth track, “Out of My Mind.” It’s another Nirvana homage with a shade of Big Black, but the punk aggression is executed better. What makes it weird is that the record starts to get interesting after that, but does so by completely ignoring any semblance of adrenaline. “Tonight,” which the band dedicated to Deftones bassist and coma victim Chi Cheng, has a slinking, spacey vibe that envelops the listener, while “SP-117” slowly focuses that ambience. “This Unknown” and “Interference” continue this feeling. As far as I’m concerned, that’s where New Beautiful ends, as the real concluding track, “Goodbye,” is kind of a drip.
Satellite Tragedy’s most successful songs are generally their most lethargic ones, and even that happens too infrequently. I can’t recommend Satellite Tragedy to anyone, but I’m not exactly going to write the group off either. The band could go a few ways, be it more brainless grunge or perhaps some sort of Dntel electronic route, or even into spacier territory. Or hey, there’s always a free form jazz odyssey. With a new album already in the can, Satellite Tragedy might just be getting started. So here I am, ya canuckleheads. Entertain me.
Slick and efficient, Self Made Soul is the ultimate killing machine, by which I mean their workmanlike full-length The Future Belongs to Us churns out vaguely emo, vaguely alt-rock tunes with grim precision. Passably resembling Emery, Mae, Switchfoot, and other, blander bands, Self Made Soul’s songs are calculated to be as safe as possible. Tunes like “The Real You” aim to rock you right down the middle of the road. While there’s nothing truly awful about the record, The Future Belongs to Us is so homogenous that I feel really lame crapping out 400 words about it. Here goes:
The production on The Future Belongs to Us is toothless. Drum sounds come off flat and mechanical, while the guitars and vocals sound overcompressed, even artificial in places. Worse, the band doesn’t even have the cajones to end their songs, opting for the occasional slow fadeout. It’s like the worst of ’80s pop all over again. Whenever the band tries to break out of its safe adult alternative cocoon, like on the spontaneously screamo “Your Favorite Hiding Place,” failure abounds.
But hey, give the band credit for sticking to their sound and concept. The 10 songs that constitute The Future Belongs to Us are arranged like a book – tracks one and 10 are the prologue and epilogue, respectively, while the remaining tracks allegedly fill in eight chapters of… I don’t know, love and the human spirit? To sarcastically quote Org reader Tom_Delonge, “It’s a circular narrative in many ways, where it kind of sums up the human race in a time capsule.”
Self Made Soul is a boring band, a modern day wishy washy soft rock quartet for the Warped Tour set. In some ways, that’s worse than if the band was, say, racist or homophobic, or even just annoying. At least then there would be something to react against, whether it be personally, socially, or artistically. As is, The Future Belongs to Us is a great record to listen to if you want to feel nothing. And I don’t mean that in a “my parents don’t understand me/I want to listen to The Cure’s Pornography and watch the sun come up” way. I mean it in the most literal sense: This music will mean nothing to you. It will not inspire joy. It will not inspire hate. It will, however, inspire nothing.
On Everything Burns,Shirock occasionally aims for Paramore’s adrenaline-fueled pop rock U2's stupid electronic/arena rock period and The Hush Sound’s lush guy/girl pop classicism, but more often they come off as ham-fisted as The Fray. Co-vocalists Chuck and Pap Shirock have pretty voices and sound great together, even if Charles does slur a bit too obnoxiously at times and tries way too hard to imitate Bono at others, but that doesn’t save the over-the-top stadium band production or limp songwriting. And without any clear cut hooks, these songs won’t even qualify as guilty pleasures. This will be your jam if you love teen dramas.
Maroon 5’s rhythms, Paramore’s adrenaline-fueled pop rock, and late period Straylight Run’s pop structures come to mind as well, though I would never put Shirock on the same angst-ridden level. Everything Burns isn’t necessarily a bad album, and I certainly don’t hate it. But I can, and have, listed bands that have done this style better. While the record has the occasional glint of brilliance – dig the haunting yet danceable “Still Young” and “Say It Out” – for the most part, it’s a sub par go at a sound I’m not particularly enthused about.
But hey, if earnest piano-based ditties with lyrics like “I’ll take love on the bad days / Over no love on the best days” give you a reason to live, so be it. Everything Burns is well-produced, thanks to Jay Ruston, and the packaging, combining images printed on translucent wax paper and regular stock looks pretty cool. It’s clear Shirock is trying, which is commendable. They’re just not getting a whole lot of results out of their efforts.
P.S. – Check out the bio on their MySpace. They’re totally trying to ride President Barack Obama’s coattails.
In a year where bands like the Bouncing Souls and Paint It Black avoided full-lengths in favor of short seven-inch bursts, Strike Anywhere rallied ahead with their fourth full-length, Bridge Nine debut, and possibly best album ever with Iron Front. Maybe it’s fitting, given that the Iron Front, the circle with three declining lines that decries communism, monarchism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and pretty much any other jerk belief system ever, has always been Strike Anywhere’s symbol. Iron Front describes the band’s aesthetic more than even an eponymous title ever could.
Iron Front revitalizes the band’s melodic hardcore sound. Things seemed a little dark there for a while – Exit English was merely solid; Dead FM would’ve been the best EP of 2006 if the band had just stopped recording – but this new release finds Strike Anywhere combining their trademark socio-political insight with their most infectious hooks yet. Catchy yet informative (hereafter known as the Avail Principle), the songs take on globalism, child soldiers, racism, and environmental policy, among other issues.
The elements seem so simple – keep it short and fast, rock the gang vox, and maybe try to change the world while you’re at it. Yet no one else seems to be knocking out songs like Iron Front’s 13 tracks. Those who purchased the preview EP will already know and love “FailedState” and “Hand of Glory,” but they’ll be shocked to see those aren’t even the strongest cuts on the album. Album opener “Invisible Colony” blasts through civil discourse in the U.S. in 78 seconds, giving way to the uber-catchy “I’m Your Opposite Number.” Frontman Thomas Barnett is fed up with trying to get along, taking the violent right to task, singing, “Lower the flags / Raise up the earth / Freedom ’til death / Death until birth / We’re still fighting each other / I’m your opposite number.” He even throws in a “Fuck you” for good measure. And when someone as literate as Barnett tells you to fuck off, you know he means it.
Outside of picking “Invisible Colony” as the opener, I imagine little thought was needed to sequence Iron Front, because the songs are all so got-damned awesome. As excited as I am to sing along with deep cuts like “Omega Footprint” (Love the chorus) or “Summerpunks” (Best whoas of 2009, hereafter known as Whoa-Nine?), I can’t bring myself to skip a single track of this 30-minute masterpiece. I mean, I wouldn’t want to miss “The Crossing” (Another catchy chorus ‘n’ whoa concoction, natch). But then again, I always want to hear “First Will and Testament,” a love letter to lost friends, coursing through my ears and blood. Barnett takes inspiration from the deceased, vowing to “Wait for the day / Work of the day.” He’s going to live and then “shine in this song even when my body’s gone.”
“Postcards From Home” closes out the record brilliantly with its tale of child soldiers who can’t break out of a cycle of violence (“You can’t walk away / This land will follow you / You can’t walk away / ’Cause this is home”), which is a shame. See, as wonderful as the song is, Iron Front demands to be on repeat. The songs need to be blurred together and boiled down and bonded with your DNA, just like with Chorus of One and Change is a Sound. I know it’s October and all, but this is the punk album to beat for 2009.
Dang it all, Italians are charming, with their sports cars and delicious food. Power-pop act Suinage can be added to that list as well. The group’s full-length debut, Shaking Hands, is a charming 12-song strong collection. The three-piece name-checks Joe Jackson and the Replacements as influences, though the former comes through more than the latter. There’s even a hint of Candy Apple Grey-era Hüsker Dü, specifically on sad songs like “All Eyes on Me” and “There’s No Time.” These songs are tight and bouncy, and that counts for something, clam-flammit.
There’s a smattering of pop-punk energy spread throughout the record, like on opener “Toothbrush” and “Chump,” though the songs that make the bigger impression tend to be more mid-tempo. Concluding track “There’s No Time” is easily the best song on the album, building slowly but surely into a cavalcade of cacophonous guitars. It takes a little while to get there, but when it does…bang, fireworks. Dissonant, indie rock fireworks that sing in pretty good English despite originating from the country that gave us Andrea Boccelli.
Admittedly, the record does feel a little long at 40 minutes; it’s as if the band wasn’t sure they’d get to make another album. Still, though, there are some worthy gems to be found here, like the fist-pumping “Don’t Pass Me By” or the loose tumbler “Blacklist.” As each song ticks by, I get the feeling Suinage probably has a dynamo live show. The melodies are pleasing, the guitars crunch, and the drums pound away, though the group isn’t afraid to slip in the occasional slow/pretty part, like in the bridge to “Blacklist” or “Underneath the Leaves.”
Shaking Hands is somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades record. It’s got flashes of Got the Time and Tim with a healthy dose more somber songwriting. If ya dig indie rock, pop-punk, or power-pop, there’s something to take away from this album.
Up until last night, I'd say I was pretty OK with not getting to see Sunny Day Real Estate's show at the Trocadero tomorrow. Then I saw the band perform "Seven," the first song of Diary and therefore the song that made me love them forever (Batman Forever excluded), on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Got-damn these guys sound good. So jealous.
Side note: Anyone else feel Fallon's show succeeds in spite of him?
One’s a seasoned veteran of the punk rock force. The other is a wise-cracking Brit who knows a thing or two about the Internets. Together, they have to figure out a way to take down crime boss Funekei Yoshida (played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). Trying to break up international drug rings is hard work; some would even say suicide. Armed with only acoustic guitars and two songs a piece, these mad men are… Kevin Seconds *BLAM!* Mike Scott *ZOOM!* in… Split 7” *KA-POW!* This fall, justice has a new face, and acoustic punk has a new slab o’ wax.
SCENE: Kevin Seconds, he of 7 Seconds fame, enters, beginning the seven-inch with “Disappearing Girl.” It’s about a flaky girl, and sure to appeal to Seconds’ fans. His other contribution, “Slights & Snickers,” is the catchiest track of the split. It’s a nimble little number about a love triangle (“You found the perfect woman / Too bad she married me” goes one memorable line), revealing that 30 years after he started 7 Seconds, Kevin still knows how to craft great songs. Also, he fights a gaggle of gang members without spilling his coffee.
SCENE: The record flips over. Expository dialogue about how Yoshida killed Seconds’ parents. Will revenge quench his thirst for… revenge?
SCENE: Mike Scott (ex-Phinius Gage) delivers two more acoustic ditties. Although subdued compared to Seconds’ toe-tappers, “Back to the Drawing Board” and “The Scandal Song” are still winners in their own way. Scott’s songs speak more about struggling with technology, romance, political correctness… really just working up the will to deal with people in general. Scott fixes a bad guy with his steely gaze and says, “You have the right to be dead.” Bad guy blows up.
SCENE: Seconds stabs Yoshida through the chest with a kitana, pinning him to a wheel. Fireworks shoot out of the wheel, which then begins to spin. Then he explodes. Seconds and Scott walk into the distance. Credits roll.
Spin.com has been running a pretty excellent series of posts about Nine Inch Nails' final live shows, the best of which contains some bootleg footage from the Tues., Aug. 25 show in New York City. Frontman Trent Reznor brought out ex-Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy for three tunes - "Reptile," Bauhaus' "Kicked in the Eye," and Joy Division's "Dead Souls," which was featured on the Crow soundtrack, as well as the Downward Spiral re-release.
The video quality is a little pixelated, but the sound came out well, aside from the mic occasionally clipping. Anyway, it's stuff like this that makes me wish T-Rez wasn't pulling the plug just yet. I get his fear of playing past his expiration date - there's no way he wants to end up like Ministry. But I really, really wish he would stick it out a little longer. Dude's only 44!
[This lead really only makes sense if you read the article on Punknews.org. See, I'm shitting on a band that only has a contest running through the site, but also thanks said site in the liner notes to the album upon which I doth shit. I really don't think this article is going to appear on the Org tomorrow, but hey, who knows?]
So, uh, is now a bad time to dump on Set Your Goals? Sure, Mutiny! was a kick-ass pop-punk/hardcore mash-up, stuffed with positive vibes and pirate references. And the group’s emancipation troubles with former label Eulogy Recordings – in which the band had to buy-out their own contract for a rumored $150,000 – certainly casts Set Your Goals as hungry underdogs (and makes new album title This Will Be The Death of Us sound morbidly prophetic). But wipe away the good old days of summer ’06 and the sad buy-out backstory, and all that’s left is a merely decent pop-punk record.
Like many before them, Set Your Goals falters through a sophomore slump on This Will Be The Death of Us. It’s by no means a bad record; “The Few That Remain” and “The Fallen…” are both fist-pumping anthems in the same vein as “Flight of the Navigator” and “An Old Book Misread,” albeit with better, shinier production. In fact, on paper/computer screen, Death seems like it should be the better album. Drummer Michael Ambrose comes off steadier and more assured than ever before. The guitars are fuller. And co-vocalists Matt Wilson and Jordan Brown sound less auto-tuned, which shouldn’t be surprising coming from Epitaph Records.
And yet, for all its musical improvements, the record slips into homogeneity. There are roughly 1,300 guest vocalists on this g.d. album, and only one, Paramore’s Hayley Williams, stands out. Reasons for her highlighted performance vary; she’s the only gal at this weenie roast, but she’s also got arguably the best pipes too. And while duders like Chad Gilbert (New Found Glory/International Superheroes of Hardcore/ex-Shai Hulud, in case you forgot), John Gula (Turmoil), and Vinnie Caruana (I Am the Avalanche/ex-The Movielife) interchangeably slip in and out, Williams get her own introduction on “The Few That Remain.” “Whoa, whoa, guys, um, is it cool if I get in on this here?” she asks, to which the fellows respond with a hearty, gender-mangling “Dude, go for it!” And then much rocking is enjoyed.
There are some good ideas spread around, but the overall feeling I get listening to This Will Be The Death of Us All is disappointment. Too many of the early songs blur together. Given that Mutiny!’s optimism seems to have faded, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Four Year Strong-esque tour diary “Summer Jam” stands out as a fun ode to the open road, and “The Fallen…” and “The Few That Remain” are two honest-to-gosh catchy numbers placed back-to-back. But those good vibes are killed soon after by “Gaia Bleeds (Make Way For Man),” a laughable attempt at more hardcore-oriented songwriting. By this point, the record is almost over anyway, so while “Flawed Methods of Persecution & Punishment” boasts a jumble of catchy sections, it doesn’t really sharpen Death’s dull blades.
At the same time, though, This Will Be the Death of Us isn’t exactly an epic failure. None of the 12 tracks will incite a riot, and I suspect a good number of fans might be satiated by the sound quality. If nothing else, it’s an excuse to tour. Chalk it up to growing pains, maybe. Set Your Goals’ members have grown as musicians, but they’re still developing as songwriters.
