Sabaton – The Great War (2019) album review

Track listing:

  1. The Future of Warfare (3:26)
  2. Seven Pillars of Wisdom (3:02)
  3. 82nd All the Way (3:31)
  4. The Attack of the Dead Men (3:56)
  5. Devil Dogs (3:17)
  6. The Red Baron (3:22)
  7. Great War (4:28)
  8. A Ghost in the Trenches (3:26)
  9. Fields of Verdun (3:17)
  10. The End of the War to End All Wars (4:45)
  11. In Flanders Fields (1:57)

I’m not sure if Sabaton’s upward trajectory of success in the 2010’s is due more to the general audience’s simplified tastes in popular music leading them to be more accepting of metal bands with more emphasis on hooks and crowd-ready anthems despite their overall cheesiness, or if it’s more a case of the direction that mainstream metal has started to take to move forward by revisiting the past, but whatever it is, they’ve clearly been enjoying it. Of course it’d be a little too reductive to boil Sabaton’s success down to their accessibility alone, when they stand out from the rest of the power metal crowd by electing NOT to write song after song about dungeons, dragons, glorious knights, wizards, and the eternal light that will free humanity for all time. Instead, with Sabaton, it’s all, and I do mean ALL, about history, and specifically history in warfare. Their scope has spanned all the way back to ancient Greece and all the way forward to modern conflicts in the Middle East, and it’s clear through their lyrics that this isn’t just a gimmick they’ve chosen just to stand out; they really are fascinated by this sort of thing, and they are passionate about sharing their knowledge to all their audiences. It’s not unlike how Iron Maiden has crafted enormous progressive rock anthems off of great works of literature, everything from the Phantom of the Opera to Frank Herbert’s Dune, but Sabaton takes it much further, to the point it more or less defines who they are. Their stage set is packed with artillery and munitions, they wear camo suits in concert, they bring a goddamn tank with them everywhere they stop, and the visual aid throughout their shows is always bursting with dramatic war imagery. It makes for quite the thrilling show, and one that draws quite a few excited and passionate fans. Every metal fan, whether they like Sabaton’s music or not, should see them live at least once.

With all this said, despite that Sabaton’s music is very straightforward and predictable, to the point they seem to reuse riffs and melodies on each album, it’s been kind of inevitable these guys would buckle down and get serious for a concept album for a while now. I mean, in a way, their music has always been conceptual; every song they write tells of a true story, a true event about real people. Given the rich real-world history building up the subject matter of their songs, it wouldn’t be that much of an adjustment to cover a specific period in history across a whole album. I mean, their last album The Last Stand, from 2016, may not have been conceptual, but it still had a theme throughout, in that every song on it told a story about a famous last stand in history, everything from the Spartans at Thermopylae to the Samurai at Shiroyama. Perhaps most fittingly, Sabaton elected to cover World War I on the hundredth anniversary of its ending, aptly titling the album The Great War. And, assuming these guys are still around come 2045, maybe they’ll make a sequel, considering how much they love pulling material from WWII.

Suffice to say, Sabaton’s arrival at a war concept album has been in the pipe for longer than maybe they even planned it, so the arrival of The Great War after the success of their most recent albums Heroes (2014) and The Last Stand (2016) is well within reason. Despite this turn towards a more focused historical narrative, however, I don’t find that Sabaton are writing their blend of powerful metal anthems and ABBA-esque pop song structures any differently here than they have been up to this point. It’s more or less that Sabaton have compiled a set of WWI-inspired songs and placed them in the proper order as the events of the war unfolded. The album opens with the suitably bombastic “The Future of Warfare” which tells of the battlefield debut of the armored tank and the rise of chemical warfare changing how European armies crossed each other in contrast to their preceding conflicts. The album follows with track after track detailing significant battles such as Verdun, Passchendaele, and Belleau Wood, and yet, unless you’re listening to the ‘history’ version of this album, which precedes each track with narration more clearly laying out the historical facts within each song, the album flows with much the same pacing as any other Sabaton album. The songs are short 3-4 minute hype anthems, loaded with inspiring choruses, machine-gun drumming, and classic 80’s metal riffing. “Fields of Verdun” in particular sports a main riff eerily similar to Judas Priest’s 1982 anthem “Electric Eye”, and it doesn’t help that most of the songs here are rife with the same energy that drove that classic track.

Where The Great War struggles is its insistence on opening up new or oft-overlooked chapters of history with the trite songwriting techniques that keep Sabaton comfortably in the mainstream. I like songs like “82nd All the Way”, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, and the title track well enough in their own right, but what I’m hearing far more often than I’d like to is the band copying themselves so blatantly it almost seems like a tongue-in-cheek gesture to the fans who follow them well enough to know all their songs by heart. “The Red Baron” is a prime example, so obviously ripping off its melody and structure from the song “Smoking Snakes” off of Heroes, and even the title track owes more than a small sum to the title track of the previous album The Last Stand. And while I’ve been willing to overlook this a few times so long as Sabaton is improving on their own ideas and crafting more exciting songs, The Great War is still lacking the kind of creativity that resulted in some of their excellent songs in the past. This album doesn’t really have any singles on par with “To Hell and Back”, “Blood of Bannockburn”, “Panzerkampf”, “Carolus Rex”, or “Sparta”; instead it just has songs that borrow some of the same ideas and utilizes them less favorably. That being said, the album does close out with a thoughtful interpretation of John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields”, a departure from the militaristic power metal throughout the rest of the album with lovely choral vocals reciting the stanzas in bright and colorful harmonies. I thought it was a really tasteful way to end the album, and it’s a pretty significant highlight on an otherwise predictable experience.

It is hard, though, to defend being critical of the music of a band whose intention is to teach history through their music and not at all to be progressive for heavy metal as a genre. I’d still have to question, though, the motives of naming a song “The End of the War to End All Wars”, which sounds a little too comical and over-the-top given the song’s solemn subject matter. And it’s also troubling to me that bands like Sabaton, who are just about the biggest name in the new wave of power metal, are representing this subgenre to people who don’t listen to power metal and putting a pretty bold and simplistic face to a genre that has lots more to offer. Not all power metal is this cheesy, not all of it is this straightforward, and not all of it sounds like it’s borrowing heavily and unabashedly from the heavy metal heavyweights of the 1980’s. And I truly do love the album The Last Stand, honestly just about every song on that album landed with me and they’re so damn catchy and exciting and pumping that I’m never really thinking about how unoriginal they are. But I guess The Great War didn’t really leave me with the same impression, even though the songwriting hasn’t drastically changed and the band has gotten slightly heavier since 2016. It’s an ok album from a band that can do much better, but that has also been considerably worse. I guess, if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, Sabaton might just be insane, or maybe they’re like a boxer continually swinging their fists and occasionally landing a big hit. I don’t know, whatever analogy you want to go with to describe this band’s strategy, they just weren’t firing on all cylinders with this one.

The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) movie review

You should probably know now that quiet movies like this which aren’t sequels, reboots, or remakes and have nothing to do with the current obsession with comic book adaptations or origin stories of uninteresting characters tend to fill my list every time I start to think what movies I’m most excited about in the upcoming year. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy a good popcorn summer flick, but years of overblown high concept films has left me hungering for the indie films no one really talks about. I know it sounds like I’m pushing up my glasses as I’m saying this, but really, how many times can Hollywood tell the same stories and sell them to us like they’re brand new before we’re well enough aware of it to stop paying for it? I’m not exactly holding my breath, but I guess it says a lot that the only other people in the theater aside from me and my sister when we went and saw this was a trio of old ladies down in front of us.

Still, I won’t lie; I hadn’t been anticipating The Peanut Butter Falcon the year long because I’d never heard of the directors or the studio putting it out, and I’ve never been a huge fan of Shia LaBeouf or Dakota Johnson, and it’s not been this long-gestating project like The Irishman or Dune with lots of chatter surrounding it. I also tend to wait until a movie’s been out long enough, unless it’s something I’ve been dying to see, that there’s a general consensus from critics and audiences about whether or not it’s worth seeing, because there’s not much I hate more than wasting my money on a terrible film, especially when that film was expressly made to make money. But The Peanut Butter Falcon intrigued me from the day its first trailer appeared, and not just because it was an audience pick at Sundance (again, gotta keep pushing these glasses up). I like good old-fashioned Americana movies, like Mud, Wind River, and Hell or High Water, understated movies that shine a light on the parts of the country that Hollywood generally won’t go near. I also can’t for the life of me remember a movie where a mentally challenged person played the lead, and seemed charming and convincing enough even in the trailer that you could pretty easily see how the film would center on him and tell a pretty heartwarming story. But, sweet and heartwarming movies like this can be pretty sappy and predictable, and at their worst they’ll be preaching messages about getting along with and not judging people who are different from you, with little to no authority or experience on the subject. It’s a trite cliche that doesn’t bear much weight in today’s cinematic landscape.

The Peanut Butter Falcon is directed by Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz, and stars Zach Gottsagen, Shia LaBeouf, Dakota Johnson, Thomas Haden Church, John Hawke, and Bruce Dern. It is set in rural North Carolina, where young Zak (Gottsagen), a 22 year-old with Down Syndrome, has been growing up in a retirement home under the care of a nurse named Eleanor (Johnson). He dreams of training under the pro-wrestler Salt Water Redneck (Church) and conquering the wrestling world, but despite several escape attempts, remains at the retirement home due to being abandoned by his biological parents and having no other home to go to. Then, after a fluke escape attempt gets him out on his own, he runs into a struggling long shore fisherman and social outcast named Tyler (LaBeouf), and the two begin a lovable Mark Twain-style traveling friendship as Tyler promises to bring him to the Salt Water Redneck’s training facility on his way south to Florida as Eleanor works tirelessly to track Zak down before he gets into trouble. It’s a simple enough premise that could have easily, in the wrong hands, become tedious and pandering, and even if done right has the potential to be undone by its over-sweetened earnestness.

But Nilson and Schwartz managed to make a few discoveries here, aside from themselves as directors and screenwriters. Gottsagen is a fantastic lead, due to his ability to command the screen when he must and share it generously when he needs to. He delivers the kind of sympathetic performance that I have yet to see from several A-list Hollywood actors (another reason I tend to gravitate to indie hits like this), and he’s so funny and charmingly likable in the role that you’ll find yourself completely on his side after just his first scene. As great as he is, though, I think I was more impressed with Shia LaBeouf’s turn in this movie, because this is easily the most stripped-down and believable he has ever been. Better still, he seems to inhabit his character well, rather than uncomfortably attempting an outdated southern accent from the 1850’s. I would not be surprised to see a best supporting actor nomination for him come Oscar season, he’s that good here. His interplay with Gottsagen throughout the film is its biggest highlight, the kind of banter you would think had to come from real-life conversations and arguments. Dakota Johnson is also fine in this film, not particularly a standout performer to me, though her chemistry with the other actors is easy to latch onto and she does the material justice.

The Peanut Butter Falcon is an easy film to appreciate because it rings true, its themes and messages are important, it doesn’t talk down to its leading man or anyone else who’s felt like they’ve been in the same position he has. It’s also unflinchingly honest at times, kind of holding up a mirror to the viewer and make them reflect on times where maybe they treated someone who’s different from them in a way they wouldn’t be proud of. This is not a flashy film with lots of fireworks or explosive scenes of tremendous overacting; it’s pretty understated, but it keeps your attention with intimate cinematography and a tight, often hilarious script. It’s especially authentic to someone like me who has not only grown up living in the south, and recognizes a lot of the scenery and the jargon these people use, but also as someone who’s on the autism spectrum and understands what it’s like to be talked down to and exploited for being not as well adjusted socially as everyone else. Obviously I can’t speak from the perspective of someone with Down Syndrome, but I think that’s an aspect of the movie that Nilson and Schwartz really worked to get right.

I will say, though, the last act of the movie loses me a bit for two particular reasons. For one, I was never really sold on the subplot between Tyler and Duncan (Hawkes), and it just came across as manufactured tension to make the film a little tighter with the pacing. I didn’t think Duncan was much of a compelling antagonistic character, and I don’t think Tyler and his relationship was explored enough to feel like it mattered as much. There are also a few moments, which I won’t spoil, namely in one of the film’s last and most climactic scenes, where reality is sacrificed for big plot moments, and in a movie that’s so realistic and genuine the rest of the way through, they really stick out uncomfortably. They aren’t enough to ruin the film for me, and maybe they won’t matter as much to less experienced filmgoers, but they keep the film less than perfect in my eyes. I understand that they were necessary to the story the way it was shaping up in the end, but I wasn’t totally buying it.

This film has gotten a lot of positive buzz, and deservedly so. I was enjoying it basically throughout, mostly due to its endearing performances and heartfelt script, and the personal themes resonate well after the credits roll. It’s not a landmark film in the genre, but rather one of those quiet little gems that may be forgotten about in ten years, and serves as a worthwhile diversion for whenever it gets dusted off in the future. I think most people can learn something from The Peanut Butter Falcon, and everyone else will still come away smiling and wishing they were part of the ragtag little family that closes out the narrative together.

Baroness – Gold and Grey (2019) album review

Track listing:

  1. Front Toward Enemy (3:45)
  2. I’m Already Gone (3:51)
  3. Seasons (4:27)
  4. Sevens (2:05)
  5. Tourniquet (5:46)
  6. Anchor’s Lament (1:40)
  7. Throw Me an Anchor (4:01)
  8. I’d Do Anything (4:10)
  9. Blankets of Ash (1:04)
  10. Emmett: Radiating Light (4:12)
  11. Cold-Blooded Angels (5:38)
  12. Crooked Mile (0:52)
  13. Broken Halo (4:24)
  14. Can Obscura (2:02)
  15. Borderlines (6:16)
  16. Assault on East Falls (2:19)
  17. Pale Sun (4:14)

Every time I’ve attempted to listen to the new Baroness album in its entirety, I’ve felt like an angry construction worker has been torturing me with a power drill in the ears for the last 40 minutes.

And that’s not a knock against Baroness’s musical style. This Savannah, GA quartet has proven again and again that their passionate lyrical complexity can match well with the layered, flowery textures of their very hard-edged music. While I wouldn’t exactly call them progressive, Baroness has certainly pushed the envelope a few times on just how melodic and colorful stoner metal can be, and they’ve brought an intriguing blend of several non-metallic styles of indie rock, jazz, and punk to the table. In late 2015 they dropped Purple, an album which, while thematically fans could draw the conclusion that it would be a mix of their first two albums, Red and Blue, musically is perhaps their most accessible and likable record yet, filled with dynamic songwriting, passionate performances, and poetic lyrics. It was a metal album with all the beating heart of an indie pop record, and it was one of my favorite records of the year. Naturally, given a three and a half year wait, my expectations were high for the follow-up.

But nah, man, the real reason this album is so grating and difficult is its absolutely abhorrent production job. Purple, for all the praises I like to sing to it, definitely had sound issues that made some songs harder to love than they should’ve been, but even that was excusable given some of the powerful and beautiful songs on that album. Gold & Grey, however, is a different story. Baroness has been getting rougher and more bare-bones on their sound mixing throughout their discography, so when it reaches its breaking point here on this 17-song album, you know it’s an intentional stylistic choice, rather than laziness or ineptitude. The static, the feedback, the brickwalled drums, the layered vocals faded behind the mountains of guitar and drum noise, it’s all so dialed up to the point that you know Baroness was going for an amateur, lo-fi sound on this record. It’s a mush where the instruments are constantly in competition with each other in their abrasive loudness, and whoever wins, the listener always loses. No doubt they figured it would sound like a beautiful mess, in the most complimentary way. But it’s a hot mess. It’s all over the place. It’s not even consistent. At least when Rick Rubin lambasted the late-period comeback releases from ZZ Top, Metallica, and Black Sabbath, the sound was fat and noisy throughout, so you as the listener could make the proper adjustment to your sound system in order to be able to digest it in one sitting without having to noodle around throughout. Here, Baroness lays back a little bit on songs like “Seasons”, “Borderlines”, and “Cold-Blooded Angels”, and they’ll strip down the noise for a watery texture on the opening tones of “Tourniquet” and the slow jam “I’d Do Anything” only to ratchet back up without warning. Sonically, it almost sounds like Baroness has contempt for the listener, teasing them with solid songwriting, especially in “Throw Me an Anchor”, but preventing them from reaching any meaningful emotion by splashing hot water in their face with a mastering job that’s physically painful to listen to.

I can’t for the life of me guess why this band would make this call with their production, because it is truly terrible, and they’ve proven time and again that they know what they’re doing, musically speaking. That being said, I had my concerns when Baroness first announced this album, and I saw the lengthy track listing. While Gold & Grey isn’t a double album, the last time they put out an album of this length, Yellow & Green in 2012, it turned out to be very underwhelming overall. All of Baroness’s strengths just seemed drawn out and spread thin on that album, and there were only precious few songs like “Cocainium” that could stand up to their previous highlights like “Rays on Pinion”, “Swollen & Halo”, and “Wanderlust”. I worried history would repeat itself and Gold & Grey would be similarly overblown, and the singles “Borderlines” and “Seasons” didn’t do much to stir my enthusiasm, partly due to the fact the production had clearly gotten even worse since Purple. “Borderlines” especially came across as a filler track, reusing a lot of ideas from Purple‘s opening track “Morningstar” and not doing much to improve on them, and given that this was the first taste of the album, it boded pretty poorly. “Seasons” was more decent, especially given the surprising use of blast beats and a more atmospheric guitars, but it still left me wanting more, and not in a good way. “Throw Me an Anchor”, the album’s third single, turned out to be a great song underneath its derisive sound, but that sound was bad enough that the single’s video was littered with comments with concerned fans at how drastically unlistenable the song was, so I knew right then that it wasn’t just me. It wasn’t a style Baroness had chosen to please a certain demographic of fans, because the fans were actively decrying it.

It gets worse from here. The excitement with which the band seems to jump into these songs can’t really hold back the fact that very little about Gold & Grey is new territory for them. The biggest change since releasing Purple in 2015 has come with the addition of guitarist and backing vocalist Gina Gleason, who presumably contributed to the songwriting duties alongside frontman John Dyer Baizley. One positive I can say is that her voice, with its straight, clear tone, compliments the rougher exclamations coming from Baizley quite nicely, and was my main takeaway from the otherwise boring single “Borderlines”. They make for some pretty lovely harmonies at times, which is something Baroness has been gradually picking up more over the years. But for an offering of 17 songs, several of which are admittedly short ambient or acoustic interludes, Baroness never really takes flight with the songwriting. Perhaps more troubling, even on the cases like “Cold-Blooded Angels” and “Tourniquet”, two of the album’s better tracks, where the band shows some promise with an attempt at building a song more tastefully and less predictably, they just appear to arrive at the same plateaus. At least the melodies carrying them can vary in their levels of inspiration, and the lyrics are beautifully poignant and vivid, with lines like “Wasted years on an empty road where flies buzz around my head, now I miss the bitter hand that cut me down all the way to nothing”. As much as I do appreciate the poetry, I just wish the album lived up to it musically more often, rather than being applied with songs that sound like b-sides and leftovers from better albums. It makes me wonder, considering that the band announced Gold & Grey would be the last of their chromatically themed albums, if they’ve felt constricted by their thematic focus while making this album. Unlike the new 18-song Taylor Swift album, this isn’t really a case of quantity over quality; instead Baroness sounds creatively stifled, perhaps by the success of Purple and a need to lay back on their laurels and deliver more of the same. A lot more. In doing so, they haven’t delivered anything on par with “Shock Me”, “The Iron Bell”, or “Try to Disappear”. It’s an album that has worse sound and mixing than they’ve ever had, with songwriting as meandering as their previous weakest effort Yellow & Green.

Gold & Grey is quite possibly my biggest disappointment of 2019 thus far, the album I was most looking forward to, based on how great the band has been recently, that let me down the most dramatically. My hope is that this album will become a turning point for the band, that they’ll recognize the errors made here and capitalize on their lessons when they transition to new thematic territory on whatever comes next. But whatever happens, as long as John Baizley keeps killing it with his thoroughly compelling lyricism and his fantastic artwork (yes, he’s responsible for that awesome cover art as well), then whatever direction Baroness takes, it can’t be all bad. But I can’t recommend anyone listen to this album on a pair of headphones or speakers without a full range, and to anyone who’s new to Baroness, there are much, much better places to start anyway.

Death Angel – Humanicide (2019) album review

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Track listing

  1. Humanicide (5:42)
  2. Divine Defector (3:24)
  3. Aggressor (5:11)
  4. I Came for Blood (3:12)
  5. Immortal Behated (6:08)
  6. Alive and Screaming (3:36)
  7. The Pack (3:33)
  8. Ghost of Me (4:34)
  9. Revelation Song (5:33)
  10. Of Rats and Men (4:27)

It still surprises me how rarely Death Angel comes up in discussions about classic thrash metal albums of the 80’s and 90’s despite making pretty valid contributions in the forms of The Ultra-Violence and Act III while they were still teenagers. It’s as though people are afraid to mention them in the same breath as groups like Slayer, Testament, Anthrax, and Exodus. As a matter of taste, I consider their 1990 album Act III to be a more enjoyable album than Reign in Blood, Among the Living, and Peace Sells, but to each their own, I understand tastes will always differ among us metalheads. The break-up following their third album may have been detrimental to their ongoing success while their peers soldiered on, and despite solid efforts after their reformation in the 2000’s, old-school thrash bands had been slow to catch up to the alternative movement in the 90’s, and they just weren’t competing when metalcore, nu metal, and deathcore were championing the mainstream of metal in the new millennium (for a while, anyway). Thus it’s been a slow road to recovery for Death Angel since their unfairly overlooked glory days, including the departure of their star drummer Andrew Galeon, but they have remained persistent. By the year 2010, it appeared that there was a growing appreciation even among younger metal fans for an old-school sound, leading to the success of albums like Accept’s Blood of the Nations, Kreator’s Phantom Antichrist in 2012, and Ghost’s discography in general, not to mention power metal bands like Sabaton gaining greater recognition. For thrashers like Death Angel, it was a prime opportunity to bounce back and prove how vital they still were, especially given that younger groups like Havok and Vektor were catching up. In 2010, after signing with Nuclear Blast, Death Angel’s Relentless Retribution helped to put them back on the map, and in 2013 they followed up with the leaner The Dream Calls for Blood. With The Evil Divide in 2016, Death Angel had cemented their status, to me anyway, as being among the best of the surviving 80’s thrash bands, and that album is still one of my favorites from a very, very busy year in music.

Now in 2019, they have reappeared right on time, after a three-year gap of writing and touring, with Humanicide, their 9th album. Due to their gradual success in the past decade, Death Angel has remained steady with the same 5-man lineup for four straight albums, as longtime members Mark Osegueda (vocals) and Rob Cavestany (lead guitar) have partnered up with Damien Sisson (bass), Ted Aguilar (guitar), and Will Carroll (drums). As evidenced by their recent output, the band seems to be getting more confident in their songwriting cohesion with each other, and the new album, while more brutal in places, feels tonally right in line with the material Death Angel has been making since Relentless Retribution. It does bear mentioning, however, that while Humanicide is every bit as pissed off and misanthropic as a modern thrash album should, it’s not as dark as The Evil Divide, and instead feels like more of a spiritual successor to The Dream Calls for Blood specifically. Over time the band has lowered their tunings to mostly a half step down, with drop C# recurring about half the time or less, as opposed to the standard tunings they relied on in the 80’s, though that’s more an attempt to sound more modern and heavier rather than to go easier on Mark Osegueda’s voice. Because, on this album, and really throughout the past decade, Mark has just been sounding fiercer than ever, lightening up when he needs to for more melodic songs like “Lost” and this album’s “Immortal Behated”, but otherwise roaring and shouting at the top of his lungs as though there’s no limit to the amount of strain he can put on his voice. Much less the Joey Belladonna clone that he used to be.

Humanicide is all business and no play; Death Angel have always challenged themselves to write more sophisticated thrash metal songs while always staying true to the breakneck nature of the genre. On The Evil Divide, they hit their stride magically, and on Humanicide, while the riffs don’t sound as fresh and the production is rougher and less precise, they continue to hone their craft and keep the lessons they’ve picked up over the years in their pockets. Like the previous album, Humanicide is very well-paced and feels complete, and the riffs are well executed along the rhythms of the vocal lines and Carroll’s drum patterns. The album opens with its visceral title track, setting the stage with a “Hellion”-esque melodic intro and then unleashing the wolves with a rather dangerous sounding lead riff and a primal Osegueda scream. From here the album offers a slew of great thrash tracks, all of which keep up the intense pace but also throw in different rhythmic feels and dynamic key shifts in order to tell each other apart. “Divine Defector” is a thrillingly brutal track, complete with blast beats, raging vocals, and some excellent riffs, all culminating in a bridge so stellar I can’t keep from smiling every time it comes on (and then breaking into a headbanging frenzy). “Aggressor” is meanwhile a more restrained track, and meaner, with a clean guitar melody lining the intro and verses to a nice effect. It sounds like a leftover from Divide, with its darker tone and the chunkiness of its riffs. To contrast this, “I Came for Blood” has some pretty hardcore punk vibes going for it, its bright chord-riffs giving the song a brisker feel as it speeds by. Then, at just over 6 minutes, “Immortal Behated” appears to be the album’s centerpiece, and with the clean intro and melodic nature of the vocals and riffs, it’s certainly a departure from the full-on thrash of the rest of the album. As such, it’s one of my favorite songs here, as it brings some catchiness surprising depth to the band’s songwriting and just feels like a much more creative effort than most thrash bands get credit for. I will admit, though, some of the slow sections in the solos remind me of the title theme from the TV show Mad Men, especially with the bass line moving the way it does.

But we’re only halfway done at this point, so how could Death Angel top themselves after so many back-to-back hits? Well, in truth, at this point, the best is behind us, but the latter half of the album still has plenty to enjoy in its own right. The shorter tracks “Ghost of Me”, “The Pack”, and “Alive and Screaming” seem less inspired than the preceding slew of bangers, though “The Pack” does get points for being a great live song with its chants and fist-pumping rhythms, hence why it appeared as the album’s second single. All three are still bursting with energy nonetheless, and with “Revelation Song” the band makes another return to more melodic riffery, sounding like a juiced up Dio track from the 80’s, though the results aren’t as stunning as “Immortal Behated” before it. Still, the band finishes strong with another great cynical thrasher, “Of Rats and Men”, a song which fits like the culmination of all the angry thrashers and slower, more melodic songs on the rest of the album. Mark’s voice fits this track perfectly, switching back and forth between the menacing attitude of “I’m the hammer, you’re the fuckin’ nail!” to the soaring notes of the “You’re on your own” refrain. It’s a triumphant note to the end off the album, especially with its delicious lead guitar work and Will Carroll’s ravenous drumming. And with that, I should note that since Carroll seems to live in the shadow of Andrew Galeon, who was a huge part of this band’s vitality in the 80’s and 2000’s, he doesn’t get the credit from fans that he deserves, because he sounds huge on this album especially. He has more of a presence here than on the last two albums, really utilizing the full kit to its maximum in conjunction with the guitars and bass to create a really full sound and introduce unexpected bridges and breakdowns with style. He does an incredible job on this album, and I’m not a credit to metal reviewers anywhere if I don’t point that out.

This album is almost just as good as The Evil Divide, which in my mind is a thrashterpiece. By modern standards, Death Angel sounds very strong and considerably younger than they are, and while there are faster, more brutal, and more inventive thrash bands out there, they continue to hold their own and age better than most of their peers from the mid-to-late 80’s (particularly the Big 4). They have this unique way of presenting riff ideas that you may have heard before elsewhere, but interpreting and incorporating them in such a way that sounds fresher and more aggressive. Along with Testament, Overkill, Kreator, and Destruction, Death Angel has successfully evolved into a new era of heavy metal, and in many ways they sound better than ever. I’ve been enjoying this album since day one, and so far it’s one of my favorite metal records of 2019. Check it out, if it sounds like your thing.

Overkill – The Wings of War (2019) album review

Track listing:

  1. Last Man Standing (5:49)
  2. Believe in the Fight (5:03)
  3. Head of a Pin (5:57)
  4. Batshitcrazy (4:33)
  5. Distortion (6:10)
  6. A Mother’s Prayer (3:59)
  7. Welcome to the Garden State (4:42)
  8. Where Few Dare to Walk (5:25)
  9. Out on the Road-Kill (4:42)
  10. Hole in My Soul (4:47)

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Few bands follow this mantra more devoutly than New Jersey’s bay area thrash showmen in Overkill. Back in March, these guys dropped their 19th studio album, and per any reasonable expectation, the album is as formulaic as they come in modern thrash.

Usually, when I use the word ‘formulaic’, it’s intended as a complaint, but when it applies to bands like Motorhead, AC/DC, and especially Overkill, well, it’s sort of the idea. A deviation from the formula would be a betrayal of what the band stands for, and they’re nothing if not consistent; in fact, dare I say it, they may just be the most consistent band in heavy metal, bar none. Since 1985, these guys, namely vocalist Bobby ‘Blitz’ Ellsworth and bassist D.D. Verni (the only two constant members), have put out album after album with rarely more than a two or three-year gap between, always packed with mean-tempered, bad-mannered blue collar thrash. And somehow, in recent years, with the addition of younger guitarists and drummers, Overkill hasn’t just been consistent; they’ve been improving. In 2010, they made a pretty big statement with the album Ironbound, an album of full-throttle old-school thrash mean and heavy enough to make contemporaries like Slayer and Metallica blush. I’ll leave the debate for how outdated the template of the Big 4 in thrash metal is these days for another time (maybe I’ll get around to it in my Death Angel review), but suffice to say Overkill has followed suit with several albums since, each measuring up to Ironbound‘s level of intensity and adding new favorites to Overkill’s live playlist. So, a new album in 2019, just as fast and aggressive as the others despite how old some of these guys are getting, is just business as usual, never mind that it’s the 19th record in their catalog.

But all this isn’t to say that Overkill’s tenacity in the genre has kept them stuck in a late 80’s era sound of thrash without evolving. The band may not have tricks like lower tunings, blast beats, death growls, or overly pristine production to make themselves sound heavier and more modern, but they’re smart enough to keep themselves fit with greater speed and intensity in order to sound as fresh as bands half their age. The most recent lineup features lead guitarist David Linsk, who’s been playing with them since the late 90’s, rhythm guitarist Derek Tailor, who joined in 2002, and drummer Jason Bittner, previously of Shadows Fall and Flotsam and Jetsam, who took over just two years ago. I had the opportunity to see Overkill live in Atlanta back in 2015 when they were touring with Symphony X (also from New Jersey) in support of their 2014 album White Devil Armory, and seeing them then it’s easy to grasp just how much vitality these guys still have, how much energy they bring to their live shows, and how well they can translate that energy into a set of new songs, as they’ve done here. Even if it does mean near constant whiffs of Mary-Jane coming from backstage.

The Wings of War doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is, which will make it tiresome for some people and just what the doctor ordered for others. Right from its opening track and leading single “Last Man Standing”, the album builds up and fires full throttle into Overkill’s signature green and black thrash, with an intro that will service as a fine opening hype song in Overkill’s live sets in the future. Following with “Believe in the Fight”, Overkill messes with their pacing and delivers some savage riffs along with a thumping bridge that includes some of Ellsworth’s trademark charismatic snarls. With the second single “Head of a Pin”, the band hearkens back to their more adventurous days in The Years of Decay with more unpredictable riffs and more sectional songwriting, which immediately makes it one of the more interesting, if not quite the most exciting, track(s) on the album. Middle tracks “Batshitcrazy” and “A Mother’s Prayer” are more showcases for the band’s undying vitriol, though without much special to distinguish them from the rest of the bunch. Meanwhile “Welcome to the Garden State” gives the Jersey boys another chance to brag on their home state and proudly wave their flag, and despite some corny lyrics (not unexpected on an album with a song titled “Batshitcrazy” on it), it ends up being an album highlight for all its workmanlike charm. “Where Few Dare to Walk” opens with a sinister clean guitar crawl and stomps in with one of the album’s nastiest licks and maintains a tense pace, leaving its mark as the album’s coldest and darkest track. The album’s lengthiest cut, “Distortion”, earns its place with more of the drawn out, sectional songwriting that defined “Head of a Pin”, including a clean intro highly reminiscent of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. “Out on the Road-Kill” fires off like a round from Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All days, and lastly “Hole in My Soul” closes out the album in much the same manner as it started, which, if the riffs and progressions are sounding stale at this point, it’s only because Overkill has this brand of thrash just about perfected, and damn it if it isn’t satisfying to rock out to 95% of the time.

The Wings of War is, pretty simply, Overkill as they have been known and loved. The production is dry, the riffs hit hard, the speed and ferocity even harder, and Bobby’s howling madman vocals are as unrestrained as ever. This is true headbanging music, without all the artistic pretenses of more sophisticated bands, nor the self-flattering flashiness of more cutting-edge death metal and thrash groups. It isn’t going to win any awards, and it won’t be remembered years from now as an important achievement in metal circa 2019. That isn’t what Overkill is about these days. These guys are just adding on to their winning streak and delivering album after album of quality old-school thrash metal. If it happens to be your thing, the good news is that there seems to be a limitless supply of it; the bad news is you have to wait about 2-3 years to get any more of it. Boo-hoo.

Us (2019) movie review

This review was previously posted to my social media in March and I’m sharing it here with slight edits.

There are many who would claim that the only good horror movies are the old ones. Alien, The Exorcist, The Shining, The Thing, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, even Psycho, if you can call it one. Hell, even the novelty of horror parodies like Scream, Scary Movie, and The Cabin in the Woods has become worn out by now. And while I don’t agree with the sentiment of older is always better, modern cinema has gotten to the point where, like modern music, a lot of the real gems for the nerds like me who are harder to impress can’t be found in the mainstream anymore. You have to be willing to go looking for them. Movie studios aren’t paying much attention to auteur filmmakers these days; they only want writers and directors that’ll do what they’re told so that box office success can be ensured. In light of all this, a genre as cliched as horror has become can only benefit from forward thinking filmmakers like Ari Aster (Hereditary) and Jordan Peele (Get Out, and this) who are willing to push the genre’s limitations so that it can evolve. Luckily, as in the case of Peele’s Get Out, John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place last year, and Us this past weekend, sometimes creative minds are allowed to work freely and break genre conventions in a worldwide movie market, as opposed to quiet independent releases that no one sees.

Now, I have previously stated that I was likely going to be in the minority of viewers who thought this movie was an over-hyped mess, so perhaps some of you reading this will already know going into this review how I felt about the movie, and you’re likely poised to tell me where I’m wrong, how I misinterpreted it, why it was so scary in subtext, etc. I still include Jordan Peele as one of the forward-thinking directors in the horror genre, however, despite my criticisms on this movie and that Get Out was similarly overpraised, though a much better film overall. He cares enough about his craft that he’s sought to work complicated moral messages in his two films so far, rather than senselessly berating his audiences with jump scares in another highly predictable January seat-filler. Plus he’s one of the only, maybe the first, writer/directors to make a mainstream horror movie with a predominantly black cast, which is deserving of merit in of itself. So, following the slew of Oscar nominations for Get Out in 2017 (for which it won original screenplay), Peele arrives on time two years later with a follow-up, to prove that this comedian turned director wasn’t simply dabbling in the genre for amusement.

Us is written and directed by Jordan Peele and stars Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker. It follows the Wilson family after moving into a lovely new home, in a neighborhood not far from a beach where the mother Adelaide (Nyong’o) had a frightening and traumatic experience in her childhood. Shortly after the move, the family starts to notice a series of weird coincidences and eventually comes in contact with a family of dopplegangers, who appear to have sinister plans. From here the Wilsons are steeped in a fight for survival, where it seems the only people they can trust are themselves. What begins as a straightforward home-invasion horror flick quickly turns into Twilight Zone-esque sci-fi thriller territory, where there are no easy answers. Twists begin to emerge in the plot even before the halfway point of the movie, so there is little more I can divulge plot-wise without spoiling anything. Firstly, it should be noted that the performances in this movie are quite impressive; each actor has to portray both their regular characters and a sadistic doppleganger, so the dynamic shifts in behavior showcase a lot of range. The film drags a bit in the third act, but by and large it’s well-paced and edited, and despite some quick camera movements with characters suddenly appearing in frame, Us doesn’t resort to cheap jump scares with loud, exaggerated sound effects that are impossible to be prepared for. I noticed that Get Out was noticeably absent of them as well, so I’m glad that Jordan Peele recognizes that as a trend in the genre that needs to die. I also quite liked Michael Abels’ musical score, especially the main theme in the opening credits, and it sets the tone without being obtrusive or simply background noise. There are also clever uses of editing in the narrative, particularly in the first third of the film. I also appreciate, on a grander scale, that Us doesn’t give all the answers to its mystery, and in the end it has a sort of moral ambiguity to it, one that will get audiences thinking and arguing for a while. For this reason, I imagine many have grown to love the film over just its first weekend.

So why didn’t I like it? Well, I’d like to make a distinction first: me not liking a movie is not the same as me calling it a bad film. Us is a good film, because it is thought-provoking, it doesn’t fall into all the genre’s cliches, and it presents a compelling story arc which is engaging throughout. My problem with the movie is that it’s not as smart as it thinks it is. I didn’t find any of the twists surprising, mostly because, the plot had me scratching my head until the twists DID happen. There are some gaping plot holes that annoyed me even as they were happening, and aren’t really addressed by the end of the movie. The main family are all likable enough on their own, but aren’t well enough developed for me to be particularly upset if anything were to happen to them. As for Adelaide, there are aspects of her background that are left too much out of the picture, like her childhood love for dancing, that it shouldn’t feel like it’s as relevant to the plot as it is. Instead, there are a few scenes of massive exposition dumps that rob the film of much of its mystery and grind the pacing down to a halt. But, perhaps worst of all, I just didn’t think Us was particularly scary. Somewhat thrilling at times, and disturbing in context, but not scary. The film is largely bereft of tension after the first home invasion, and from there it continues to work its way on to its forgone conclusion, including a final twist that most of us saw coming miles away anyhow. I understand the deeper meaning of the film, what Peele is trying to say about classism and marginalized people and cultures, and the true enemy in ourselves, even as Americans. I’m not saying it’s an idea too lofty to be adapted into a movie, but I will argue that the manner in which Jordan Peele presented it here doesn’t really add up to a solid horror film. There’s too much structurally and logistically that starts to fall apart in retrospect for me to appreciate Us like I hoped to. I admire what the film was going for; I’m just not very impressed with the end result.

But Us is a complicated film, and it has a lot thematically going on so that viewers can find more to dig into on repeat viewings and then do research of their own at home afterwards regarding Hands Across America and all the white rabbits in the underground. Similar to Get Out, its premise is just enough over-the-top that it can be laughed at even as the viewer is forced to reflect on the grim reality behind the dark comedy. Everything in the movie is meant to be taken metaphorically; it just gets a little head-scratching to me when Peele writes human characters that seem real and plausible enough to be living in the real world, and almost seem to have a meta awareness that they’re in a horror movie. Still, like I said before, I can’t say that Us isn’t a good movie, and for the reasons listed above I do think it’s at least worth seeing once or twice. It’s an interesting movie, but it just didn’t satisfy me either as a horror film or as a piece of social commentary. Nevertheless, I realize it’s a film that’s inspired multiple interpretations, so I welcome any counter-arguments or any other comments open for discussion.

Ariana Grande – thank u, next (2019) album review

Track listing:

  1. imagine (3:32)
  2. needy (2:52)
  3. NASA (3:02)
  4. bloodline (3:37)
  5. fake smile (3:29)
  6. bad idea (4:27)
  7. makeup (2:21)
  8. ghostin (4:31)
  9. in my head (3:43)
  10. 7 rings (2:59)
  11. thank u, next (3:27)
  12. break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored (3:10)

Previously posted review from my social media, slightly updated for this blog.

In a time when it takes 3-5 years for my favorite bands to deliver something new (if they haven’t disbanded or died off yet), a quick turnaround is an unusual thing to see, even or perhaps especially in pop music when an artist can ride the waves off a new single for years before releasing a mediocre album under their name. Of course in the 70’s and 80’s, even rock bands and metal bands could put out an album a year, if only due to the pressures from their record companies or touring commitments. In retrospect it’s probably a good thing that musicians have learned to do better than to let the candle burn at both ends like they did in previous generations, but if there comes time of genuine inspiration in someone’s life where none of these constrictions need apply, well, the market is always hungry, so have at it, why not?

Unfortunately, in the case of Ariana Grande, that period of inspiration came from a dark and tumultuous time in her life surrounding the release of her fourth album, last year’s Sweetener. The drug overdose of her former boyfriend, rapper Mac Miller, and the subsequent end to her engagement to comedian Pete Davidson, not to mention the reverberations from the 2017 Manchester bombing, have all left Ariana understandably pensive going forward as one of this generation’s most spotlighted musicians. Thus, no one could have blamed her for choosing to take a break from music, as she announced she would last September, and yet here we are. Her new album, thank u, next, has already spawned some of her most successful singles, even as we’re still humming to the fresh tunes of “No Tears Left to Cry”, “Breathin'”, and “God is a Woman” from last summer’s hit album. I rather liked Sweetener, personally, but I figured such a quick follow-up would end up feeling like a collection of B-sides, if not a literal album of them. Thankfully it isn’t, nor does it feel that way.

It is worth noting that Ariana’s thoughtfulness and personal touch are much more genuine here than on Sweetener, but not quite to the heavy-handed extent that some may expect. It’s a very different album from its predecessor, that much is certain, just from its general mood and focus. Whereas Sweetener was filled to the brim with playful sensuality and empowerment, thank u, next shows Ariana at her most vulnerable, self-critical, and cynical. She doesn’t feature any guests on this album, instead choosing to handle her rhetoric fully solo, and accomplishing her direction with less obtrusive production and instrumentation. This isn’t to argue that her new tunes are any less vibrant or playful than previous hits, but there’s a certain crass, snide attitude that she applies not only to her lyricism but also to her melodies and vocals on several tracks. As evidenced by “NASA”, “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored”, and “bloodline”, she’s quite capable of unloading personal baggage and frustrations into some pretty fire songs. Yet this isn’t the only side to her to be seen on the album either; with “ghostin'”, and “thank u, next”, she deals a tender, bittersweet final blow to her past and current relationships, and with the album opener “imagine” she begins with a level of optimism, perhaps in the freedom she feels in being single again despite the circumstances, and delivers a fine r&b track with lush, colorful harmonies in the process. “fake smile” also touches on the vague personal angst and social pressures she and so many others have to deal with, especially in troubling times like she’s recently been through. Meanwhile “bad idea”, one of my personal favorites, is a quick, fiery examination of her dangerous carelessness that arises as a result of her internal struggles. It also serves the point, like numerous other tracks on the album, that there’s a strong variety of songs here, many equipped with their own attitudes and hooks to quickly divert from any previous high points on the album. thank u, next is a shorter album than its predecessor, and as such moves along at a more deliberate pace and with stronger cohesion between songs. It’s the kind of album where it’s easy to imagine just about any of the songs as a single, with its own music video, though I suppose, for now, the songs chosen, particularly the braggadocious “7 Rings”, were probably the best to set the stage.

This album seems to be doing so well critically and commercially that it’s elevated the success of all of Ariana’s earlier work, Sweetener and Dangerous Woman in particular. To me, while I’m not familiar enough with her first three albums to declare it definitively my favorite, it’s definitely an improvement over the already admirable Sweetener, and I hope she can continue this upward trajectory for a while, and hopefully without experiencing more heartbreak and tragedy to do so. I would certainly say that thank u, next, sets a pretty high water mark for vocal pop in 2019, and I would recommend that you all give it a listen, if half of you weren’t already jamming “7 Rings” in your car on the way to the club tonight, and the other half has grown to loathe the existence of that song. Just know that the album is more than that one song, whichever side of the fence you’re on, and if you decide to check it out in full, you have my blessing.

Rammstein – untitled (2019) album review

Track listing

  1. Deutschland (5:23)
  2. Radio (4:37)
  3. Zeig Dich (4:16)
  4. Auslander (3:52)
  5. Sex (3:57)
  6. Puppe (4:34)
  7. Was Ich Liebe (4:29)
  8. Diamant (2:34)
  9. Weig Weg (4:21)
  10. Tattoo (4:12)
  11. Hallomann (4:12)

This review was previously posted on my social media accounts and has been slightly edited/updated for this blog.

It’s been ten years. The last time Germany’s Rammstein graced us with a new album, Obama was fresh in his first term, I was a sophomore in high school, there was no consideration that we knew of for a new trilogy of Star Wars movies, and the world faced a devastating economic crisis, from which we still feel reverberations today. Of course, none of this has much to do with the reasons for the band’s studio absence, although it’s interesting to see how much our lives and the world around us has changed when a band like Rammstein, over the same period, changes very little. They have had the same six-man lineup since their inception 25 years ago, a remarkable feat, and even in this ten year gap they’ve never disbanded. They’ve remained persistent with touring to continue to build on their reputation as one of the world’s most impressive live acts, taking pyrotechnics and perverse stage antics to the next level with each new trek. But part of the reason why these six guys have remained together all this time is their personal understandings with each other, and every time one of them decides to take time off to focus on personal projects, the band is in full agreement. They’ve been a notoriously reclusive bunch, mostly refraining from interviews and keeping no personal social media accounts, which perhaps also benefits them as it prevents them from engaging in any drama or controversy on the online stage.

But controversy is nothing new for Rammstein. Nearly every one of their songs touches on some dark or disturbing subject, whether it’s sexual perversions, religious hypocrisy, gluttony, political discord, the innate personal desires to destroy and corrupt, or, as in the case of their new album’s leading single “Deutschland”, a critical look back at their homeland’s troubling history. For this reason, it’s a small wonder how come Rammstein aren’t exactly the big screaming deal in Germany that they are in other parts of the world. Regardless, the announcement of their first full-length LP since 2009, and leaving it untitled with a simplistic picture of an unlit match as its cover art, built up some expectations for the band’s return. Many have taken to simply referring to this as the band’s self-titled album, and that would make sense given what the material within represents. There is hardly a better opener to be wanted than the aforementioned “Deutschland”, which sets the stage effortlessly with a steady build up and a plodding, deliberate pace, and recalls in its opening lines the band’s biggest single “Du Hast” from 1998. This song assures that the Rammstein who left us a decade ago is very much the same band, but older, more modernized, and perhaps more powerful than before. It also promises that the following ten tracks would be a culmination of the band’s past six records, in style and in substance. The second single “Radio”, a bitter critique of oppression and another strike against Germany’s past, follows suit, and in doing so presents one of the album’s more memorable hooks and pounding riffs. As the album moves along with tracks like “Zeig Dich” (my personal favorite, as it represents what Rammstein sounds like every time I visualize them in my head, but with some added flair), “Auslander” (an oddly danceable track with synth grooves stronger than much of today’s pop music), “Sex”, and “Weit Weg”, it would appear the promise from the first two tracks was kept, though mostly pertaining to the albums “Mutter” (2001) and “Liebe ist fur alle da” (2009). However this also comes with a number of surprises, such as the sobering and nicely chorded tones of the choirs and power chords in “Zeig Dich” and the somber reflection with the bass and vocals in the album’s most restrained number, “Diamant”. Perhaps the most memorable moment comes in the song “Puppe”, where singer Till Lindemann broods on the destructive tendencies of humanity by grunting about biting off a doll’s head, and in so doing lets show some of his own crazed wildness in a volatile chorus delivery.

Rammstein’s new untitled, or self-titled, however you choose to look at it, isn’t so much a return to form, as they were a band that never seemed to lose their way, but rather a continuation of the direction they were headed the last time they were in the studio. The band hasn’t been softened by age, but instead seems willing to commit to a few new ideas rather than allow themselves to become stale. It’s at once a simple statement from the band for where they are at present, and a complex amalgamation of past and future. The quality of songwriting to me starts to plateau around the midway point of the album; for me, Rammstein always excelled at driving, militaristic industrial metal with some pop melodies thrown in, but tended to falter whenever they attempted more delicate and personal moments of reflection. The same holds true with their newest album, which grows more mature (aside from the dull-minded male fantasies of “Sex”) and brooding as it goes on but doesn’t succeed at remaining as engaging as its first several tracks. As a casual fan of the band, somewhat familiar with all their past work, I am pleased that their new album succeeds at being essentially what it needed to be, though I can understand the disappointment from hardcore fans who expected more. I think it’s a fine album, maybe not the most special album in their catalog, but it ought to satisfy most of those who have been waiting ten years to hear it. Let’s just hope it won’t take another ten years to follow it up.

Dream Theater – Distance Over Time (2019) album review

Track listing:

  1. Untethered Angel (6:15)
  2. Paralyzed (4:18)
  3. Fall Into the Light (7:05)
  4. Barstool Warrior (6:43)
  5. Room 437 (4:24)
  6. S2N (6:21)
  7. At Wit’s End (9:21)
  8. Out of Reach (4:05)
  9. Pale Blue Dot (8:26)
  10. Viper King (4:01) [Bonus track]

I previously posted this review on social media, before I started this blog. This album was released in February.

After 2016’s The Astonishing double album, I was 90% checked out on Dream Theater. With the release of their new album Distance Over Time, I’ve scaled that back to around 75%.

I’m sure there are DT diehards out there, with neckbeards down to their Mountain Dew-greased bellies, who will claim that The Astonishing, the band’s overblown 2 and a half hour concept album about some Fable II RPG bullshit and some daring militia trying to resurrect music in a society that has outlawed it, is truly one of the band’s masterpieces. The rest of us, however, desperately hoped that Dream Theater would never attempt such an idea again, even given the success of their previous concept album, 1999’s brilliant Scenes from a Memory. I have no doubt that Dream Theater themselves are quite proud of the work they did on Astonishing, but even they recognized that it was time to leave the dead horse they’d been beating to bleed and rot in the sunlight, so their work on a 14th album, per usual, started without any delay following the supporting tour(s) of their newest album. They were right to promise their fans that their next release wouldn’t be conceptual nor would it be a double album, but that still begs the question, is that enough? Does it even matter anymore what kind of album Dream Theater makes?

For many of you, probably not. Many might even be wondering why I choose to listen to such wankery, a band so passionately and devoutly worshiped and defended by basement-dwelling prog elitists who think that Rush was the greatest thing to ever happen to rock music, and Dream Theater in turn to heavy metal. But in being true to myself, I like whatever sounds good to me, regardless of who else is listening to it. If that means Dragonforce comes up on a playlist alongside the likes of Chris Stapleton and Phil Collins, then so be it. And Dream Theater, pretentious and long-winded as they tend to be, do occasionally get lucky and write something worthwhile. That being said, they haven’t made a great album since original drummer Mike Portnoy left the band in 2010, in fact their last great album in my opinion goes as far back as 2005 with Octavarium. I keep hoping for a significant enough evolution in their sound to justify their intense work ethic, because let’s face it, at the technical caliber they’re playing and writing music, for them to consistently keep releasing an hour long album or more every two or three years is pretty remarkable, like them or not. But 2011’s A Dramatic Turn of Events and 2013’s self-titled album both fell just short of that mark, and 2016’s The Astonishing, if I haven’t been clear already, was just a disaster. So what’s the story on the new one, which just happens to be the shortest DT album (still almost an hour long) since their 1989 debut?

Firstly, Distance Over Time (so, speed?) easily succeeds in bouncing back from the wreckage of its predecessor, returning to a recognizable, more classic DT sound and far less sappy balladry. Technically the band is still performing at the highest level possible, though James LaBrie continues to age and succumb to his limitations with each album. The songwriting hearkens back to earlier albums like Train of Thought (2003), Octavarium, and Falling Into Infinity (1998) in songs like “Room 137”, “Paralyzed”, and “S2N”, and with mostly shorter songs overall (none of them surpassing 10 minutes in length) the band keeps their extended instrumental suites reined in, so it’s not as suffocating as it has been. The singles, namely “Untethered Angel” and “Fall Into the Light”, are solid tracks, however they’re in the lower tiers of teasing tracks the band has offered in the past, not even touching classics like “Pull Me Under”, “As I Am”, or even “These Walls”. The sound of the album is improved over recent releases, at least: John Petrucci seems to have finally ditched the chocolate guitar tone that’s plagued the last two records, and Jordan Rudess seems to be relying on some more atmospheric vibes on the keys in the vein of former keyboardist Derek Sherinian, as opposed to some of the cheesy synths he keeps pushing (though they still show up from time to time). But drummer Mike Mangini still has a fat, plastic sound to his snare, toms, and especially the bass drums, and that added to his robotic style of playing makes the percussion on this album, as with every album DT has made since 2011, sound like a high-performing drum machine, far too artificial for a reputable progressive metal band. It occasionally meshes with the other instruments just right during some of the fills and punches with some notable intensity, but it isn’t enough to justify the sound quality across the album.
I think my biggest problem with Dream Theater right now is that they keep compromising good ideas with watered down, predictable and tired melodies, not to mention cliched lyrics. “Fall into the Light” starts out with one of the strongest Petrucci riffs I’ve heard in a while, but it quickly devolves into plodding verses and a chorus with a weak hook. The same song enters a gorgeous instrumental break after the second chorus, but for me the spell is always broken whenever it returns to the chorus afterward. Similarly the nine-minute “At Wit’s End” opens with some slick diminished scale riffing and keeps up the intensity with a galloping rhythm for the next few minutes, but by the halfway point the song slips into another tepid ballad and I’m left checking my watch (or I guess my phone, it’s 2019). While “Out of Reach” is the only true ballad on the album, the band can’t seem to maintain a certain level of badassery throughout any of their harder-edged songs, and the overly sentimental bridges and choruses (since the band remains fixated on the verse-chorus-bridge song structure) ring all the more hollow with each repetition of the formula. I can appreciate longer songs like “At Wit’s End” and “Pale Blue Dot” exhibiting a wider range of ideas and emotions, that’s kind of the point, but I miss out on any catharsis if the emotions expressed all come across the same way.

Distance Over Time once again falls short of the mark of a prime DT album, but it isn’t all bad, in fact there’s a good bit of it I liked. Objectively I think A Dramatic Turn of Events remains the post-Portnoy album I prefer over the others, but it certainly sounds like Dream Theater challenged themselves on this record, and the result is a fairly diverse experience, and a much less exhausting one than I’ve had from the band in some time. Were it less sappy and predictable, I’d be much more excited about it, but the most important thing the band needed to prove here was that they hadn’t lost their minds, and I think they’ve done that much.

Avantasia – Moonglow (2019) album review

Track listing:

  1. Ghost in the Moon (9:52)
  2. Book of Shallows (5:01)
  3. Moonglow (3:57)
  4. The Raven Child (11:15)
  5. Starlight (3:39)
  6. Invincible (3:08)
  7. Alchemy (7:29)
  8. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (7:21)
  9. Lavender (4:31)
  10. Requiem for a Dream (6:09)
  11. Maniac (4:27) [Michael Sambello cover]

I previously posted this review on social media earlier in the year, before I had started this blog; hence it appears here late compared to its release in February.

The 8th Avantasia opus is here, and while that name may not generate the same level of excitement to music fans, even metal fans, as a name like Rammstein or Tool might, I’ve been in love with this project since 2008 when The Scarecrow album was first released, and I always look forward to more of their music, even if it does tend to be more of the same in most cases. For those unfamiliar with the band, Avantasia is really more of a project than just a band. Tobias Sammet, a German vocalist and multi-instrumentalist as well as a songwriter, made a name for himself in the European metal scene in the 1990s guesting on numerous albums and starting his own band called Edguy. The band Edguy has released several albums, even after Avantasia got its start, but in the late 90s Sammet wanted to expand his horizons and modify his scope with his idea for something called a ‘metal opera’. He collected several other vocalists and musicians, mostly from other European power metal and gothic bands, including former Helloween singer Michael Kiske and Within Temptation frontwoman Sharon den Adel, and with their talents he constructed a musical narrative over two albums: the first two Avantasia albums, aptly titled The Metal Opera (1 & 2). The project was fairly successful in his home continent, but it wasn’t until, years later, when the Scarecrow album (2008) was released that he began to receive international attention. By then he’d upgraded to more advanced equipment and began working with guitarist and producer Sasha Paeth, who has been his producer and lead guitar player ever since. As with the Metal Opera albums, the narrative in The Scarecrow was held over into additional albums, The Wicked Symphony and Angel of Babylon, in 2010. At this point, it sounded as though Sammet had taken the project as far as he’d ever intended to, touring the world and featuring some of his biggest idols behind the mic. So I, like many others, figured he’d lay the project to rest after the 2010 releases, and yet every three years since, he’s graced us with new additions to the catalog, creating new mythologies and stories and adding to an already immersive legacy. With Ghostlights in 2016, it seemed as though Avantasia had reached a new peak, and despite the band’s typically 80’s songwriting styles, there seemed to be quite a lot of ground yet to cover on future albums.

So then appears the eighth album Moonglow, released this past February, which, despite Sammet’s claims that Ghostlights finished up the story begun on 2013’s The Mystery of Time, appears to follow some of the same threads lyrically, and uses many of the same guests. In speaking of guests, it’s worth mentioning that there are three vocalists who Sammet turns to as guests for nearly every album, regardless of whether the albums are related in some way: the previously mentioned Michael Kiske, Masterplan’s Jorn Lande, and one Bob Catley, who sang for a lesser-known prog rock band in the 70’s called Magnum. All three are featured on Moonglow, though to a surprisingly restrained extent given Sammet’s affinity for their presence on earlier albums. They tend to take on the roles of the same sorts of characters every album they appear on: Kiske as an older, wiser best friend, Lande as a scornful antagonist, and Catley as an elder offering sage advice, with Tobias Sammet himself ever the central protagonist. With that said, I find it a little puzzling that my version of the album, the standard jewel case CD, gives no information on what any of the roles are, or what the general plot is behind the songs, only that the songs represent the ‘narratives of a misplaced entity’. This is typical Avantasia vagueness at work, but with the inclusion of such guests as Hansi Kursch (Blind Guardian), Mille Petrozza (Kreator), and Geoff Tate (ex-Queensryche), it’s a bit of an oversight to expect me to pay $75 for the hardcover book edition of the album when these details were offered on all previous albums in their standard formats.

Nevertheless, most of this has little to do with the music itself, and right from the get-go, Moonglow is very recognizably an Avantasia record, and yet also a unique piece of work in the discography. Interestingly, while The Mystery of Time was criticized for its use of a live orchestra overpowering the band and vocalists, Sammet makes the choice to return to a more orchestral sound in Moonglow, when Ghostlights was more straightforward by comparison. Personally I never felt that Mystery suffered from the orchestral presence, but rather from some choppier songwriting and some redundant material, especially in its longer songs. But with Ghostlights and especially Moonglow, it’s clear that Avantasia has moved well beyond the tried and true power metal of the first few albums and the Bon Jovi/Iron Maiden worship in the Wicked trilogy. It’s clear that Sammet has allowed himself the space and time to let his imagination run free again, and he incorporates some intriguing instrumentation, such as the Celtic harp in the 11-minute centerpiece “The Raven Child”. He’s also hired a set of backup vocalists to accompany most every song, particularly in the choruses, for a very large and grand effect. And yes, despite that Avantasia is technically a metal band, there is much more emphasis in these songs on melody construction and big choruses rather than hard riffs. This is not to say, however, that Avantasia never really gets heavy, as evidenced by “Book of Shallows”, one of Tobias’ most aggressive songs to date which even turns into full-throttle thrash in the bridge with Petrozza’s appearance. Then immediately, the album shifts into catchy single territory with the title track, featuring Candice Night (Blackmore’s Night and solo), which might feel like a hard left turn were Avantasia not partially identified for its versatility and variety across albums. I’d credit this to Sammet’s utilization of the talented singers he invites to join him on these journeys: he understands that certain voices fit better with certain types of material, and when he attracts guests such as Alice Cooper or Dee Snider, for instance, some wonderful things can happen. But it can be a blessing and a curse, because it would seem that some of the vocalists he’s been working with for years now have earned a place on every album he makes with Avantasia, due to the working relationship they have. This can result in some underwhelming filler songs like “Lavender”, or for some songs like “Alchemy” (featuring Geoff Tate) to run longer than perhaps they should. This track in particular has a great chorus, and a deftly handled interlude transition from its preceding ballad “Invincible”, and on both tracks Geoff Tate sounds better than he’s sounded in decades, even considering his appearance on the previous Avantasia record. But it’s still derailed by an obligatory bridge and instrumental sequence breaking up the choruses, a by-product of dated songwriting techniques.

To quote a tired metaphor, a new Avantasia album is like a box of chocolates. On the surface, if you’re a fan, you know generally what to expect: powerful choruses, some fantastic guest appearances from various vocal talents in the hard rock universe, a healthy variety of tunes, maybe one or two epics to allow Sammet to built a vast musical landscape on occasion, and fine performances and composition throughout. But just who’s going to appear on these albums is always a thrill to find out, and the arrangement of material is something that remains dynamic. For instance, Sammet has historically had issues with album bookends; either there’s a weak opening track or a weak closing one, and the inconsistency tends to make the narrative feel incomplete somehow. Here, however, Moonglow is opened by the massive and joyful pomp and circumstance of the epic “Ghost in the Moon”, and closed (not counting bonus tracks) with the 6-minute melodic speed metal finale “Requiem for a Dream”, featuring the sole vocal performance of Michael Kiske on the album, which was rather cathartic in its own way. On that note, I must say it was surprising for “Ghost in the Moon” to feature no vocal guests; I can’t remember the last time Tobias ever sung a song of that length in Avantasia by himself, but it certainly felt like a warm welcome from the master.

I’m glad to say that one of my favorite bands, which has been running now for 20 years, has kept their winning streak going with another very solid album. I can’t say I was enthralled by Moonglow as much as I was by The Scarecrow or Ghostlights, the first time I heard either of them, but it’s nevertheless a reliably detailed and richly composed piece of hard rock, with so many other elements thrown in. I think Moonglow mostly sets itself apart from previous Avantasia albums with its more folksy influences, such as the Celtic beauty in “The Raven Child”, probably the best song on the album. But it’s also a showcase of how Tobias Sammet continues to grow and challenge himself with new ambitions on each album. Hearing a group as dynamic as Avantasia is will always be refreshing to my ears, even if some of their output isn’t as memorable as some of the rest. I’ve always thought that Avantasia is for anyone who’s curious; they’re certainly one of the most listenable metal bands out there, for people who aren’t fond of heavier music. I’d say Moonglow is definitely worth checking out, but if you’re new to Avantasia, maybe give one of their older records a spin first.

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