"Oh Goodie!" – Updates MWF

“The Phantom Menace of Rock Albums”

In the last ten years, thanks to the internet making all music easily accessible, it seems most acts are mash-ups or combinations of classic genres.  Pop and rock music has become an inspirational free-for-all, and it’s quite exciting to see people paste together all these parts you normally think wouldn’t go together.  All while creating fun catchy songs.

Coheed & Cambria exemplified this perfectly.  They combined elements of pop, metal, rock (of the progressive variety), and indie to create music that was epic but accessible.  Their “Amory Wars” tale (told in the lyrics through all their albums so far) gave hardcore fans an epic story to follow, but their songs were energetic and catchy enough where casual listeners could be let in.

I should probably state right now that I like C&C in spite of themselves.  The “Amory Wars” story makes no sense and the Image comics depicting it (written by lead singer Claudio Sanchez himself) were lame.  Best I can tell you is the main characters Coheed & Cambria are robots and then are killed by this other robot and their son tries to avenge them but it turns out he’s the Kwisatz Haderach and he has to fight the dark lord Xenu to release some alien souls…oh forget it.

My point is you didn’t have to know this to enjoy C&C’s songs, so you just kind of indulged them as they tried to fit everything in the structure they’d set up.  Apparently the story has ended with the previous album “No World for Tomorrow”, so now we get a prequel to show how it all started in “Year of the Black Rainbow”.

A prequel?  Would that make this the “Phantom Menace” of Coheed & Cambria albums?  Y’know what, I’m gonna end that thought there.

“One” opens with what sounds like an orchestra warming up and delicate piano playing.  I expect haunting intros from Coheed, but this one doesn’t leave much of an impression like their previous ones.  It sounds like a robot whale singing through a sea of flange filters.

“The Broken” is the first proper song, and opens with the same Led Zeppelin march like their past hit “Welcome Home”.  Is Sanchez going “Blah blah blah” at me during the chorus?  I know he’s an overly wordy lyricist but it seems he’s just taking the piss now.  Doesn’t seem so much a song as a mash-up of chants, screams, and guitar squealies.

“Guns of Summer” starts off with lightning fast drums and guitars with some synth growls.  It sounds like Michael Todd’s bass is farting.  The riff in the chorus has hints of vintage Coheed but not enough to make it memorable.

“Here We Are Juggernaut” suffers from the same problem.  It feels like a big wall of white noise with Sanchez’s vocals washed in reverb.  It made the riffs and rhythm a little difficult to discern.  At the end of it I wasn’t sure what I had just listened to.  This isn’t looking good so far.

“Far” opens with reverberating fuzz guitar and programming drum beats.  Sanchez gets a little sweeter here in his singing.  I want to call this a ballad, but it doesn’t have the tenderness of past ballads like “Wake Up”, or the build-up like “Mother Superior”.  In fact this song has no build at all.  It’s the rare “infinity song”, which since it has no build feels like it has no beginning and no end.

“This Shattered Symphony” has more lighting fast guitars and drums, with squawking guitars panned to the left.  You remember when Eddie Van Halen would go at his guitar with a cordless drill to make a real wild-sounding solo?…Yea this is nothing like this.  So far I’m not sure where Coheed is going with this.

“World of Lines” is the first song that approaches a memorable chorus and a memorable guitar riff, sounding almost like classic Coheed.  It’s still way below the standard they’ve set for themselves though.  Used to be you had catchy songs coming out of the wood work.  Did their songs get infested with catchiness termites?

“Made of Nothing (All That I Am)” is certainly an apt title at this point, and maybe should’ve been what they called the album.  So far I haven’t heard one catchy memorable song!  I mean the chorus for this song kinda comes close, but it’s still not quite there.  What the hell?

“Pearl of the Stars” starts out with acoustic guitars and more damn white noise!  Stop it with the white noise!  The electric guitars are washed in reverb again and sound like they might as well be a block down the road.  I suppose this would be a good trance song, and those can be well done (”Disintegration” by The Cure is a great example), but this feels as directionless as anything else.  Claudio sounds like he’s on fucking valium, and the song follows suit.

“In the Flame of Error” catches my attention with it’s opening lyric “I hate everything I’m becoming”.  I know Sanchez is writing this “in character” but considering how sullen, tuneless, and self-loathing this album has sounded so far I’m wondering if he needs a hug and a warm piece of pie.  The drums and guitars are quite furious on this one and feels like we’re getting closer to our goal, but it still feels like spastic thrashing instead of the purposeful songs of the past.

“When Skeletons Live” has a fairly memorable riff.  Everything’s still caked in reverb but it feels like we’re getting somewhere.  This is probably the most memorable song so far, so I guess you could call it my favorite (I guess).

Ugh, I don’t care anymore.  The final track (the title track in fact) “The Black Rainbow” is long, droning, and has too much reverb.  Even when the distortion kicks in it doesn’t up the energy of this song much.  I’m wrapping this up.

What the heck happened Coheed?  Everything I liked about you is NOT on this album.  The catchy riffs, the sing along choruses, the pumped-up energetic rhythms, none of it!  That’s the best way to describe this album: lack of energy.

I’ve heard from a few people that this record gets better on repeats listens, but with Coheed you didn’t NEED to do that.  Their songs were so catchy they grabbed your attention right away and only got better from there.  Even “No World for Tomorrow”, which was a VERY rear-heavy album, had more memorable songs in the first half than this entire record has.

Forget depressed, Claudio sounds like he’s falling asleep while singing.  We can’t even get to the level of suicidally depressing because it’s just so DULL.  You’d fall asleep from boredom before you even got the razor blade close to your wrist.

They finally complete the saga…and ultimately we don’t care.

My rating?  Disappointing.

If you see some changes to the layout of the site over the course of the next week, it’s just me cleaning house and re-arranging some stuff I’ve been meaning to for a while now.  You’ve probably noticed on the changes to the right sidebar to the site (including my Facebook page), and also the addition of new webcomic lists I’ve joined.  After this I’m gonna update and re-arrange the cast page, and more stuff will be coming by the time I move to the next storyline.

Just reminding you all to stop by the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in St. Paul this Saturday & Sunday for MCBA’s SpringCon!  I’ll have a table there next to Nathan & Nadja from Impure Blood, and both of us will be partaking in a very special contest, the details of which I’ll go over the closer to con comes.  Be there!

“I came for Slash, not fucking Fergie!”

I haven’t done this in a while, so let’s just jump right into it!

Slash sure has had a storied career, hasn’t he?  After having been in bands with Axl Rose AND Scott Weiland he can say he’s survived working with the two most whacked out bipolar lead singers in rock music.  He’s nowhere near guitar virtuosos like Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, but if you’ve read his biography or heard him on radio shows he seems like a cool down to earth guy.  So you dig it when you see him in Guitar Hero or he shows up on some random talk show.  There’s no real logic or reason, you’re just happy to see the guy getting work.

And now he’s got his first solo album out, appropriately titled Slash.  Originally this was gonna be called Slash & Friends, which I feel is a more appropriate title, because Slash is going the Carlos Santana route by having a different singer on each song since the chap can’t do it himself.  Which means like the album Supernatural we’re gonna have a lot of fitting combos and a lot of flashes-in-the-pan to move units.

He goes from bipolar singers to a schizophrenic album.  Dude is running the whole mental disorder gamut with his career.

So we start things off with “Ghost” fronted by Cult lead singer Ian Astbury,  a crazy singer who got paid to replace king-of-crazy-singers Jim Morrison in the 21st Century Doors.  Slash sure attracts the loonies.  Slash works this appegiated riff most of the song and the rhythm has a solid strut and groove.  Solid opener.  Short, straight, to the point.

I know I made a Santana comparison, and “Crucify the Dead” has a similar feeling riff.  The Ozzman is the singer for this one, so it sounds a lot like one of his solo songs, but Slash sneaks in some pretty bluesy yet epic sounding riffs in this one.  Alright, we’re stretching out a bit!  This should be interesting.

Hoo boy, spoke too soon.  “Beautiful Dangerous” is sung by Fergie of The Black Eyed Peas.  Because when I think of bad ass rock n’roll, I think of Fergie!  This is the part of the album I was worried about.  She starts off the song with rambling baby talk and it all goes downhill from there.  Fergie continues the proud tradition of Black Eyed Peas tradition of singing non-sensical stupid lyrics that make no sense with her baby voiced singing style.  Seriously, I can’t make out one fucking word she sings in this song.  The riffs wouldn’t be out of place a strip club so let the strippers have it.

“Back From Cali” features Mayfield Four/Alter Bridge singer Myles Kennedy, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy a few Alter Bridge songs, mostly because Kennedy’s a good dependable singer.  But this track feels a bit aimless and I don’t know what to make of it.  Kennedy is touring with Slash behind this record and I think he’s a good choice though.  How he’s gonna pull off the Fergie song I don’t know though.  I doubt he’d OR Slash would look good in hot pants.

Alright, “Promise” features Chris Cornell, one of my favorite singers.  I’m kinda sad this song isn’t in Drop D like his Soundgarden classics, instead it has the folksy moods Audioslave found themselves indulging in during their later records.  Not a bad song though.  If Cornell doesn’t fuck up the Soundgarden reunion I may just forgive him for releasing Scream.

Oh holy christ, “By The Sword” has Andrew Stockdale from Wolfmother (though since he’s the only original member now shouldn’t it just be the Andrew Stockdale Experience or something?).  If some of these song summaries sound like criticisms of the singers and not Slash himself I apologize, but since Slash isn’t singing I’m assuming he’s not writing lyrics either, so songs take on some of the personality of the singer singing them.  This is the first song where I don’t feel any of Slash’s presence at all.  It’s just Stockdale’s faux 70’s fantasy prog rock bullshit, which he busts out to mimic better bands rather than contribute his own ideas.  Just write about swords and sorcery with some fuzzboxes and you’ll have 20 something hipsters feeling nostalgia for a decade they were too young to experience in the first place.

It gets worse because the next song “Gotten” features Adam Levine from Maroon 5.  Because when I think of bad ass rock and roll, I think of Maroon 5!  This song is the tender love ballad with the acoustic guitars and swelling strings.  Y’know I actually like R&B, but I’ve never bought Adam Levine as some smooth sex machine all the ladies want.  Skinny dudes like Prince are considered sexy because Prince has an intensity and mystique that makes him alluring.  Adam Levine has all the intensity of a wet worm.

Hell fucking yes, Lemmy sings “Dr. Alibi”.  This is more like it.  This song roars and screams to life and feels like we’re back on track.  You don’t want Slash hanging out with limp dicks like Adam Levine, you want him hanging with grizzled bastards like Lemmy who bark more than they sing.  Of course Lemmy is god so he brings his A-game to this song.

“Watch This” isn’t a song per se, but an instrumental track between Dave Grohl on drums and Slash’s old GNR bandmate Duff McKagen on bass.  Slash basically noodles menacingly over their established beat for four minutes and it sounds pretty bad ass.  Why wasn’t the whole album just tracks like this?  By having a different singer for every track it becomes more of a showcase for them rather than Slash.  Slash says more as a musician in four minutes than he has on the last four songs.  We came for you Slash!  Not fucking Fergie!

“I Hold On” features Kid Rock trying to sing, which as you know is worse than hearing him try to rap.  Much like how I don’t buy Adam Levine being sexy, I don’t buy Kid Rock being sensitive.  Or talented.  Or capable of basic arithmetic.

“Nothing to Say” has a bad ass enough riff and Slash’s playing fits well enough over it.  This song is sung by M. Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold.  I usually don’t have many kinds words for A7X, but after Kid Rock I’ll take it.  At least Growly McScowlerson has the right idea.

“Starlight” is the second Myles Kennedy song and it’s another ballad.  Why are all these people making Slash go sensitive?  Slash’s playing is at it’s best when it’s being menacing and badass.  It’d be like Jack Bauer asking the terrorist politely where the nukes are.  “Now Achmed I’ve been very reasonable but you’ve been nothing but rude and unhelpful.  Al Qaeda will be getting a strongly worded letter from me after this.”

“Saint is a Sinner Too” is sung by Rocco DeLuca, and he’s the only singer where I didn’t know who the fuck he was.  As if I haven’t had enough ballads at this point, this one is mostly acoustic guitars and a fucking Wurlitzer.  Rocco’s vocals sound like James Blunt singing over an Enrico Morone soundtrack.

Oh Iggy Pop, thank god you’re here for “We’re All Gonna Die”.  If we can take half the singers on this fucking thing with us I’d be okay with that.  I know I’ve been making jokes about Slash teaming up with crazy singers but in the case of the good Mr. Pop I’ll take it.  This song actually has some grind and some “umph”, something sorely lacking in the previous songs and a good way to close out.

Final impressions?  I gotta ask, why wasn’t this just a Slash instrumental album?  I know he’s gotta make commercial concessions in order to get this stuff out on the market, but if you faff about with multiple singers like Santana did the musician’s personality gets lost in the mix.  Guys like Ozzy, Lemmy, and Iggy are great fits, but when you emphasis twats like Adam Levine it feels like you’re cutting the man’s balls off.

It’s good to see Slash going solo and I hope he does it again soon.  But I want to see him.  Not fucking Fergie!

My rating? Not very good.

My good friend Tiffiny Carlson is quadriplegic and frequent writes articles and blogs about issues concerning people who’re paralyzed.  She recently wrote a blog entitled “How To Do A Shot When You Can’t Move Your Fingers”, giving advice to quadriplegic people who go out drinking with friends but are unable to move their fingers (as Tiffiny is).  You guys should also check out her other blog posts here at Disaboom Live.