MEST - Destination Unknown

Every music enthusiast has some band that they idolized during their formative years, only to find out that, when the visor of youthful bliss had been lifted, that act was never really all that great. For me, that artist is Chicago pop-punk masters MEST, whom I first discovered in the liner notes of Goldfinger’s Hang Ups. I soon landed on a copy of Destination Unknown, and was ecstatic to find another act that was everything I loved in music: fast, loud, catchy, and angsty. And though a decade later, Destination Unknown now plays like a guilty pleasure, I still am quite in love with its almost kitschy charms. 

As a unit, MEST is extremely tight and quite creative, and do manage to put together a powerful array of songs on their sophomore major label effort. Guitarists Tony Lovato and Jeremiah Rangel thrash through heady power chord riffs, one guitarist occasionally dipping into a melody or trading off vocal duties to the other. Bassist Matt Lovato lays a groundwork of extreme integrity, while drummer Nick Gigler flies through fills, slashing his drum heads in half with his speed. Their collective energy is virtually unmatched by other acts; songs like “Opinions” and “It’s Over” are so lively that I have no trouble imagining the band jumping up and down in the studio while recording. As instrumentalists, MEST sure has a grip on their genre, and deliver an intensity and honesty that had me frothing at the mouth when I was a kid. 

Produced by Goldfinger frontman John Feldmann, the sound of Destination Unknown is loaded with hallmarks of his mentoring, one aspect that really helps it stand out. There are constant dynamic shifts throughout each song, making every second interesting and every repeated section unique. Besides their well-worn punk sound, MEST creates variety by dipping into other genres as well, emulating ska in “Reason,” touching on pop in “Mother’s Prayer,” and toying with hip-hop beats in “Cadillac.” Furthermore, songs like “Living Dead” steer away from the general verse-chorus-verse song structure, adding further intricacy to the album. While MEST certainly brings some worthwhile pieces to the table on Destination Unknown, it is the guru-like advice and production of John Feldmann that makes each song pop in its own way, letting the record explore sounds and spaces that it might not have otherwise. 

One song where instrumentation and production coalesce flawlessly is the driven and emotive “Drawing Board.” Opening with a dolorous guitar riff that establishes the mood, MEST uses the room of the song to stretch in all sorts of directions, thrashing through a punk chorus broken up by gentler verses, beating down on a rhythmic bridge, and even peppering in a gentle, melodic guitar solo. Both Jer and Tony interweave their voices in harmonies and counterpoints throughout the song’s coda, before capping everything with a reverb-drenched choral outro. While John Feldmann’s fingerprints are all over the arrangement, it is MEST’s die-hard execution that brings “Drawing Board” to life. 

If I’m being honest, the instrumentation, arrangement, energy, and production of Destination Unknown are all superb, if not near flawless. This record has it all in the instruments, but unfortunately, the lyrics suck more than a little life from the songs. While simplicity is to be expected from a pop-punk act, MEST seems to put the bare minimum of effort into their writing, i.e. piling some words on top of a melody. Though they may be catchy, the opening lines of “Another Day” feel like they were scrawled inside a high school freshman’s diary: “Another day gone by / and still no reason why / you say goodbye and then you cry.” Similarly, the lines “Frustrated with what’s going on / I feel lost and I don’t feel right” from “Opinions” sound like they came from the pen of an automaton. And while they do craft a few interesting phrases here and there, for most of Destination Unknown, both Tony Lovato and Jer Rangel unfortunately seem far more focused on finding cheap rhymes than imparting anything insightful. 

Worse than their apparent lack of interest in crafting interesting lyrical pieces is MEST’s blatant disregard for cohesion of any sort. While they always manage to squish enough language together to imply a theme like lost love or teen angst, often parts of the song seem to have no bearing on the rest of the tune, like the lines “from the bottom to the top / they stuck to their guns, they’ll never stop” in “Without You,” a song clearly about a failed relationship. What’s worse, many songs feature lines that do not even make sense grammatically; the chorus to “Misunderstood” doesn’t even hold up as a sentence: “Completely overwhelming / stories that you’ve heard / when people tell you that / don’t trust him.” 

There is a horrifying weakness in the lazy writing on Destination Unknown, but truth be told, MEST is not an act trying to impress anyone. As Tony puts it, although they consider themselves “serious musicians,” they are certainly “not serious as people,” and that comes through in their extremely general lyrical writing. There is a massive atmosphere of fun throughout Destination Unknown, pervading every song regardless of its tone or lyrical content. The music is made to incite mosh pits, to whirl around to while thrashing at a guitar, or simply to laugh, nothing more. When the band needs to be serious, such as in arranging their instrumentation or in dedicating a song to the Madden brothers’ mother, they are more than capable; the rest is just four friends having fun doing what they love. 

Listening back to this record, I find myself laughing more than a little at the pedestal I used to place under Destination Unknown, whose instrumentation still holds up as powerful and complex while the lyrical sentiments and execution leave me cringing. But still, Destination Unknown stands as pivotal in my musical upbringing, having fostered much of my own teenaged angst at a time when I didn’t know where else to put it. With each listen, I am immediately taken back to my thirteenth year, sitting in my cold basement and stumbling along on my bass to the rhythms of “Fuct Up Kid” or “Breaking Down,” warmed with a fun, rocking nostalgia that I wouldn’t trade for anything. 

Tunes to Check Out:

1) Drawing Board

2) Living Dead

3) Yesterday

A Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms

Like many well-known bands that deserve my attention, I am the latest to the party in giving A Perfect Circle their due. Although they had been constantly recommended to me by a close friend, who was more than willing to let me borrow their CDs, again and again other records took precedence. I knew very well that Maynard was (and is) a god of vocalization, and the one song I had heard before I remembered as being interesting, but it wasn’t until a long car ride soundtracked by Mer de Noms that I delved into APC’s music, and found myself utterly shocked at just how good their debut record actually was. 

With music composed over a decade by guitar guru Billy Howerdel, Mer de Nom’s multifaceted pieces push the band to explore the furthest reaches of their sound palate. While tunes like “The Hollow” and “Judith” bring heavy guitars and slamming drums, “Rose” and “3 Libras” intertwine Paz Lenchantin’s violin with a dreamy darkness that is as beautiful as it is threatening.  Similarly, “Thinking of You” toys with industrial noise and electronic beats, and the spacious “Renholdër” seems to give voice to a Middle Eastern desert. And while excellent production values, drop tunings, and minor-key song structures almost warrant a comparison to their nu metal contemporaries, Mer de Noms exudes a confidence and maturity that far surpasses the rest of the noise that surrounded it in the year 2000. 

There is ostensibly a lot of flash to the sound of Mer de Noms, but one of the more subtle aspects of Howerdel’s approach to his songs is his delicate application of time signature. While most of the composition sits in a comfortable 6/8, Howerdel pushes different sections into different territories, such as starting "Rose" in 6/8 before tacking an extra beat on later in the song, or switching between 6/8 and 4/4 in “Thomas.” He even takes this idea to the extreme in “Sleeping Beauty,” featuring an intro in 13/8, a pre-chorus in 6/8, and a chorus that plays once in 6/8 and another time in 4/4. Although he has a severe penchant for odd rhythms, Howerdel applies these technical thoughts with such delicacy that they are virtually unnoticeable to all but the trained ear, adding nuance without standing in the way.  

Certainly, Howerdel is a defining force in APC’s monumental sound, but it is the star-studded lineup he collected that launches these tunes into the atmosphere. Paz expertly holds down the core of each song in rhythm, yet pulls all the energy from her bass into the spotlight for “Rose” and “Breña.” Chugging along with her and second guitarist Troy van Leeuwen is drummer Josh Freese, who brings both a temper and a temperance that effortlessly match the string section’s roar. This trio gives definition to Howerdel’s compositions on Mer de Noms, creating a backdrop that allows his composition to shine without pushing the rest of the act to the wayside. 

The instrumentation of Mer de Noms is a fierce entity, but no member brings more energy and humanity to the music than lead singer Maynard James Keenan. With an amazing vocal range and an even more complex emotional one, he seems to link his very soul to each song, tapping into spiritual states so immersive that the listener is sucked in with him. Like Billy, Maynard varies energy, style, and even mindset with each song, sounding a battle cry in “Judith” only to croon through sadness and suffering in “Orestes.” He leaves nothing out, drenching every note with the full essence of his thoughts, the full scope of his headspace, imbuing each song on Mer de Noms not just with feeling, but with its very own ghost. 

If Keenan’s technical singing brings a soul to each song, his lyrics imbue them with memory and emotion. Maynard has stated that he views “music as a result of the relationship with the people you’re surrounded by,” and as such, many of the songs are named after the person they are about, while others are named after mythical figures whose stories bear a resemblance to the lives of people he knows. Both “Judith” and “Orestes” appear to address Keenan’s relationship with his mother, while “Renholdër” is written for future APC member Danny Lohner. As Maynard puts it, the music on Mer de Noms “is really personal, so I gravitate more towards personal-relationship issues in these lyrics.” Maynard dives deep into himself to wrench each word of this record out, which not only makes for an amazing listening experience, but also one that is, in Keenan’s words, “a lot more dangerous.”

Keenan also focuses his writing on Mer de Noms through a few specific themes. Sexuality runs heavily in some of the songs; “The Hollow” gives a very poetic voice to sexual urges, while “Thinking of You” seems to be a very tactful description of masturbation. On the other side, religion is also often approached. “Judith” and “Magdalena” reference heavy religious ideas and images, while “Thomas” seems to be a personification of the doubting apostle. Keenan wrenches down universal themes and injects them with his personal experiences, creating compelling pieces of writing to which anyone can relate, yet that pull the listener in like a close friend listening to a confession. 

Between the superb writing and impassioned performances, Mer de Noms is truly a tour de force of sound and soul, and its no surprise that it debuted higher on the charts than any rock album before it. It is a record loaded with integrity and honesty, brute fury and dolorous sentiment, all executed with a flawless precision that demands attention. I mean every word when I say that I have not been able to stop spinning this record, that I cannot convince myself to listen to anything else on my commute. Mer de Noms rings with a truth and intensity that I have not heard this clearly in a long long time, and one I do not expect to hear again for a an even longer while. 

Tunes to Check Out:
1) Thomas
2) The Hollow
3) Thinking of You