2008 Year End Reviews Part II

Lots of new music in 2008. Some more quick thoughts:

Mouth of the Architect: Quietly

After one listen I was hooked on this album. The sheer force of it, the weight of the distortion and waves of sound broken with occasional dynamic interludes, the repetition of the final line "...sweeter than honey and lies....." That's the first listen impact of the record. Repeated listening exposed the disc's inherent flaws: it's all sheer force with occasional (and almost forced) dynamic interludes. Waves of sound turned out to be one level of heavy all the way through with few exceptions, and those exceptions aren't great. The "Mad as Hell" bit from the movie The Network showed up on records by at least two other bands this year, and sampling isn't a substitution for creativity or a message, anyway. And that line about honey and lies? Not so sweet once I realized that that is the only note and the only inflection the vocalist hits throughout the entire disc. Every damn sound that comes out of his mouth is at that level of gutteral scream, at that same exact frequency, at that same exact volume. Seriously. This should not pass in music, yet the kids eat it up. The best part of the album is this little bit of guest vocal work done by Julie Christmas from Made out of Babies and Battle of Mice. I did not realize who this was until later, until after I had heard the Ruiner.

Made Out of Babies - The Ruiner
This year I got Quietly, The Ruiner, and a Jesu/Battle of Mice Split 12" EP. At first, I didn't connect the dots that these works all feature the vocal stylings of Julie Christmas. I'm sort of thick sometimes. This girl is excellent, and that means a lot coming from me. Up until I heard The Ruiner the only female singer I could stand was Kim Deal. Julie Christmas has some killer pipes and a killer range. She can get mean, she can get scared, she can whimper or whisper or scream and you'll believe she means every second of it. Of all the places I've heard her voice, this is where she seems most at home (I hear other albums by Made Out of Babies don't showcase her range as well as this one - I'll have to find out). The band behind her matches her insanity with that loud but natural grungy metal sound - easy comparisons have been made to Melvins, only more frantic. It all bulids to a frenetic insanity that crosses anger with fear and paranoia, and the whole damn thing is quite emotional, and believeably so.

Melvins - Nude With Boots
Speaking of the Melvins, this release was one of my most anticipated of the year. (a) Senile Animal is easily in my top ten albums of this decade, so naturally I was looking forward to a followup with the same lineup. It's good, it's just not as good. It's the same, only not quite the same. Where Animal was cohesive, Boots feels a bit disjointed, as though the band took all the compontents of their previous record and seperated them across different tracks. There's the fast-rocking, crazy time signature song, the tough-guy group harmony song, the spaced out reverby song (sounds a lot like Earth), the weird ambient track that isn't much of a song at all, a couple of crazy drum breakdown moments, but not as many as on Animal. The whole thing starts off fast and rockin and then loses steam, loses momentum until after it's finished, after those last two looooooong, spacy tracks, you'll find yourself surprised that it's already over.
As I side note, I was lucky enough to see most of this record and parts of Animal performed live recently. Very good. Melvins are an amazingly talented band, and they really seem to have regained focus with this latest lineup with Big Biz. Very awesome.

2008 Year End Reviews Part I

Lots of new music in 2008. Some quick thoughts:

Secret Machines - Secret Machines
You know that point in Pink Floyd's discography where they go from psych-rock to adult contemporary? Somewhere between The Final Cut and Momentary Lapse of Reason? That's what the Secret Machines are doing at this point in their career. It's not all bad - the memorable hooks are still there, the short track list of long songs, the thumping rhythm that pulses under noisy guitar and keyboard tomfoolery and well delivered vocals. But the negatives are starting to show - the band now meanders instead of delivers, the keys are used to prop up the soundscape instead of glistening through it, and at one point there's this whole saxaphone thing.... Anyway, it's good, quite good even, but not up to full the band's full potential as shown on previous records.

The Mars Volta - The Bedlam in Goliath
I don't know why I was excited for this album to arrive. I hadn't cared about The Mars Volta since I listened to Frances the Mute years ago in the car and got too confused to drive. This record makes that record seem almost structured. Every song on Bedlam is caked in layers and layers of noise. Constant guitar noise, like a blender. It's sheer chaos. And the pace...the damn thing keeps getting faster and faster. Serious ADD music, with something like melody buried in there somewhere, though you'll have to listen through quite a few times before you'll be able to hum along. All in all, pretty good.

The Presidents of the United States of America - These are the Good Times People
A guilty pleasure of mine has always been the Presidents (that's not 100% true; I don't feel guilty at all, but I feel like I should). These guys have a way with silliness while always coming across as honest and heartfelt at the same time. This record is again more of the same and again more of an expansion on or progression from previous work. Tops their last two albums easily.