Showing posts with label Between the Buried & Me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Between the Buried & Me. Show all posts

Monday, October 19, 2015

Every Time I Die - Gutter Phenomenon




            If I am notorious for anything, it is most likely procrastinating for untold amounts of time before following through on people’s recommendations. Just like with Modest Mouse, for years, the name Every Time I Die was tossed relentlessly in my direction. Countless conversations ended with promises of “I’ll look them up when I get home,” shortly followed by apparent memory loss on my part. It wasn’t until my girlfriend’s tattoo artist spent an entire session shuffling their discography that I actually got to hear Every Time I Die, but by the end of that hour, I knew I had to delve deeper. With only a few days’ hesitation, I grabbed a copy of Gutter Phenomenon and popped it into my car, to find I understood this act exactly as much as everyone told me I would. 
            With a band name as ostensibly metal as Every Time I Die, music that showcases intensity is an absolute must, and these five musicians do not disappoint. Guitarists Jordan Buckley and Andrew Williams race through heavy melodies and distorted chord progressions, smashing metal grittiness together with rock’n’roll feels that call to mind acts like Black Sabbath and Motörhead.[1] As Jordan reveals in an interview with PureGrainAudio, the band’s infatuation with their rock forefathers is thorough, so much so that the album’s name is a callback to the genre’s beginnings, when the public saw rock as music made “just for losers” that “appealed to the lowest of the low.”[2]


            The chugging and squealing guitars may dominate the mix, but only because drummer Ratboy and bassist Kevin Falk (a Between the Buried & Me alumnus)[3] create a searing rhythmic foundation. On Gutter Phenomenon, Every Time I Die rips through hardcore punk tempos like they only have seconds left to live, attacking each note so thoroughly that you can practically hear the blisters forming on their fingers. Attach to this madness the piercing vocals of Keith Buckley, who grows like a possessed lion into his microphone, and the result is an almost sickeningly heavy sound that shatters the eardrums.              Without doubt, the music on Gutter Phenomenon writhes around like a serpent with its head cut off. The instrumentation is dripping with energy, a fact partially driven by the composition of the music. According to Jordan, the band strives to write riffs that are “not catchier, but harder to forget.”[4] The band explores pretty complex territory, swimming in syncopation during “Pretty Dirty” and messing with time signatures in “Bored Stiff,” yet they manage to rip through each piece with absolute intensity. As Jordan puts it, the band’s philosophy is simple: “We’re going to be playing these songs every day…so let’s write songs we’re never gonna get sick of playing.”[5] Every Time I Die commits fully to making music they truly care about, and while much of their songs tread the same worn metalcore territory almost ad nauseum, they load their performances with fury, fun, and true honesty.
            Although Gutter Phenomenon has its fair share of break downs, screeching minor second chords, and guttural screaming, Every Time I Die manages to break up the monotony of a genre running dry by leaning on older influences. Much of their guitar riffs are built around pentatonic and blues scales that call back to the days of Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith, and no song captures more rock’n’roll than “The New Black.” Instead of chugs, the instrumentation revolves around a wild guitar riff reminiscent of rock’s heyday. Both guitarists squeeze in trebly solos, and Ratboy even tastefully applies a cowbell. Similarly, Keith Buckley focuses on singing far more than screaming, and although his voice isn’t the most controlled, he really lays into his catchy chorus lines: “Everything I do is wrong / But by God I do it right.”[6] With “The New Black,” Every Time I Die takes the feel of 70’s rock music and applies a tasteful coat of contemporary metal to the finish, calling back to the greats while maintaining the band’s own signature grittiness.


            The package that Every Time I Die presents is very tight and thorough, but remarkably, one of their greatest strengths is also their weakest link. Lead singer and lyricist Keith Buckley perfectly embodies the metal frontman, and his screaming voice is full and dark, as if he has demons raging in his lungs. But where his heavy vocals reign, his singing voice is severely lacking, and he applies it far too often for its own good. As his melodic parts in “Guitarredand Feathered” and “Apocalypse Now and Then” show, he has an exceedingly hard time staying on pitch, and thus invites more wincing than applause.
            In a similar vein, Keith has a wonderful grasp on creating compelling images and applying poetic principles to his lyrics, but the myriad random scene changes in each song leave the overall pieces completely disjointed. With lines like “We drew a crowd / The crowd drew blood” from “Champing at the Bit,” it is obvious that Keith can wield his pen thoughtfully, but in the same song he jumps between completely unrelated images, moving from “the tide is swelling and we’ve fallen asleep on the shore” to “someone’s yelling fire in the theater.”[7]


            Although Keith’s overload of disconnected images leaves a lot of Gutter Phenomenon feeling unevolved, in “L’Astronaut,” he actually manages to impart a larger theme through the song. Amid changing time signatures and grindcore guitar, Keith paints a scene of a decorated soldier returning from war. His first lines depict the hero’s praise in a safe return, to which he replies humbly: “Honestly, it was nothing / We should all just thank God I’m alive.” Keith then dives beneath this modest façade, digging into the quiet trauma of PTSD; with lines like “I’ve got a 21 gun salute playing over and over and over in my head” and “I’m on call to be somewhere / Somewhere I’m not,”[8] Keith graciously hints at the permanent mental scars so many veterans carry with them long after the fight is over. In his own fragmented manner, Keith effectively describes a hero’s return to his country while taking into consideration the damage war can do to a soldier, turning “L’Astronaut” into a deft treatment of a narrative that has been all-too-familiar for the past decade.


            After spinning Gutter Phenomenon for the past two months, I am pleased to state that the music of Every Time I Die is everything they said it would be. Their riffs rock hard and heavy in a way most metal no longer dares, and their unbridled energetic performance is as infectious as influenza. But most potent in their music is the band’s honesty—each guttural scream and snare smash drips with a truth that is wholly Every Time I Die. Gutter Phenomenon captures the genuine imprint of these five musicians, humming a tone of honesty that rings above all else, and in my opinion, that alone makes this record worth experiencing. 
Tunes to Check Out:
1) Gloom and How It Gets That Way
2) L'Astronaut
3) Tusk and Temper
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, June 28, 2015

The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer


            Few acts are as synonymous with the idea of insanity as The Dillinger Escape Plan. I remember hearing a story in high school from an acquaintance that had just seen them live, claiming that lead singer Greg Puciato had literally run across the room on the heads of the crowd, and as more and more of my friends became fans of them, further wild accounts of this band’s prowess and madness made it into my ears. Despite being a big fan of other technical acts such as Norma Jean and Between the Buried & Me, I had never found my way into any of Dillinger’s music, until my friend and drummer for Hiss the Villain (who all but worships Bill Rymer) insisted I check out their newest release, One of Us Is the Killer, which quickly proved to me just how insane this act can be.
            Despite being credited with creating the genre of mathcore,[1] a style over which they certainly hold mastery, The Dillinger Escape Plan is far more diverse in their sound than that label suggests. While writing One of Us is the Killer, the band's intention was to "consciously...push ourselves into uncomfortable territory rhythmically,"[2] and with that in mind, they manage to intermingle jazz and salsa rhythms with the speed picking and chugs that define the mathcore feel, giving a refreshing take on a sound that has already been beaten to death. Drummer Bill Rymer easily earns his accolades, loading syncopated hits and polyrhythms into every song, creating both percussive pipebombs and tiny ear-catching firecrackers. Similarly, guitarist and primary composer Ben Weinman moves so quickly up and down his neck that his hands must be bleeding. He layers intricate lines and full chords to fill out the treble zone, while Liam Wilson dominates the low-end with his roaring bass, absolutely ripping up the intro to "Crossburner" with his distorted tones. And if the heaviness isn’t enough, The Dillinger Escape Plan even has the audacity to add a horn section and soundscapes to their varied metal, further diversifying their brand of chaos.


            By far, Dillinger’s sound on this record is loaded with intensity and technicality, but as is too often the norm, the extreme competence of the musicians sometimes causes the music to stray into the territory of noise. Although a lot of their polyrhythms are aesthetically pleasing, portions of songs like “Hero of the Soviet Union” and “When I Lost MyBet” are so rapid-fire and syncopated that the CD might as well be skipping. Similarly, the riff that makes up the entirety of “CH 375 268 277 ARS” is interesting, but so repetitive and unresolved in any way that it alienates the listener more than it draws him in. Although I respect every risk that The Dillinger Escape Plan takes on One of Us is the Killer (even the abuse of odd accent cymbals as well as a xylophone), I’d be lying if I said there aren’t a few moments where I am totally lost by their thought-driven composition. 
            Despite some of the more soulless sections of song, The Dillinger Escape Plan gets it right way more often than wrong, and the best example of these four completely dominating is in the title track, “One of Us is the Killer.” Sliding into existence with an almost-inaudible arrangement, Puciato sings in a high falsetto, winding his melody between Rymer's whispering cymbals until the chorus goes off like a nailbomb. Although Dillinger adds their standard flair with polyrhythmic hits in the chorus and an atonal 21/8(!!!) bridge, the overall structure of the song is simple and palatable, causing their insanely technical choices accent the tune rather than drive it. Furthermore, they create an emotional space that allows Puciato to simply go off, his vocals running the gamut of sound from gentle high notes to throaty screams and beyond as he contemplates the binary nature of unhealthy relationships.[3] With "One of Us is the Killer," The Dillinger Escape Plan finds the perfect balance in loud/soft dynamics and simple/complex riffing, using moderation in all senses to produce an excellent and intricate tune.


            From the opening salvo of the album, it is quite obvious just how good the musicians in The Dillinger Escape Plan are, but in my opinion, no member is more interesting in his contributions than Greg Puciato. There is a sheer, honest intensity that bleeds from his voice in every take, a true connection between emotion and diction. His vocal performances stem from true outbursts of feeling, which are sometimes so strong or violent that the very microphone he is recording with gets mangled in the process.[4] This experience of truly exploding during vocal takes is one that Puciato describes as "fucking therapeutic,"[5] as it allows him to come to terms with the subject matter of his songs. In an interview with Chad Bowar, Puciato remarks that "if you're in the studio screaming about something, you should relate to it,"[6] and indeed, Greg embodies the visceral reactions inherent in his emotions, channeling them through his voice to make the vocals on One of Us is the Killer so real, he might as well be screaming in your backseat.
            As with the sound of his vocals, Greg Puciato's process for writing the lyrics those sounds will encapsulate is just as driven and inspired. Unlike most vocalists, Puciato waits until right before recording to pen the lyrics, sketching "blurts" and "blobs" until he realizes the direction the song must take. As he puts it, "the reason you create art is to get something out of you or learn something about yourself that helps you move past something or grow in some way," and by writing the lyrics to the entire record in a short amount of time, he is able to maintain a "consistency and honesty" in capturing a certain moment of his life.[7]
            Of course, this hyperfocus placed on creation of the lyrics over a short time span leaves little room for intricacy to enter the writing. While some of Greg's ideas slip into poetics, such as the lines "Drag the knife across the skin / tempted to succumb / carving fervor into flesh / holy we've become" in "Understanding Decay,"[8] the rush in which most of the writing happens leaves clichés littered throughout and much of the rest as blatant statements. Indeed, the words to the chorus of "Nothing's Funny" are so simple they come off as absolute drivel: "Eventually the jokes aren't free and nothing's ever fun and nothing's funny."[9] However, knowing that Greg's writing process is focused on capturing the true emotion in the words and presenting it brutally and uncut, the relative unimagination of the lyrics is completely forgivable. Furthermore, as hackneyed as the phrase "you are the scum of the earth" may be, I simply cannot tire of hearing Greg rip those words from the bottom of his lungs.[10]


            As Ben Weinman aptly puts it, "There is no specific Dillinger way - there's no right or wrong way of doing things. [We] just make it work."[11] On One of Us is the Killer, The Dillinger Escape Plan pushes the envelope in countless ways, but more importantly, pushes themselves into spaces they've never explored themselves. Regardless of any shortcomings, this band worked their asses off in making One of Us is the Killer into a unique experience, which alone is something amazing to see and even more amazing to hear. After spinning this record until it started skipping and then some, I can truly say that I've never heard anything like The Dillinger Escape Plan, but I'm very grateful that I did. It is a record fuming with anger and energy and enthusiasm, extremely intricate, extremely diversified, and yet extremely listenable, and I have no doubt I will be returning for more.
Tunes to Check Out:
1) One of Us is the Killer
2) Crossburner
3) Nothing's Funny
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Between the Buried & Me - Alaska


            My life in relation to music mirrors a multi-stage rocket blasting through the atmosphere. My initial exposure lay in my dad’s classic rock collection, all Black Sabbath and Deep Purple; my second dose came in my early teen years with my best friend’s expansive collection of pop-punk and alternative from the 90’s, while the third wave broke in high school with my immersion into ska. Up until that point, the heaviest music on my iPod might have been Mudvayne’s radio-friendly hits, until a mix CD of hardcore music somehow drifted into my hands. Among others, engraved on that disc was the guttural and grueling “Autodidact” by Between the Buried & Me, the first song I’d ever heard that truly scared me. Its squealing pinch harmonics, throaty screams, and thundering blast beats were unlike anything I’d ever heard, and urged me to delve deeper into the darkness of hardcore. After only a few weeks, BTBAM’s Alaska found its way into my car stereo, kicking off the fourth stage of my musical ascent.
            Naturally, the initial terror I felt in sampling this band was only magnified when I began to listen to the full record; however, I quickly learned that this band could reach both brutality and beauty. Alaska features a broad spectrum of sounds, showcasing both this band’s unbelievable technical skills and their diverse approach to composition. Complicated time signature changes abound on the record, but Between the Buried & Me glides through them with ease, alternating between 3/4 and 4/4 in “All Bodies” and “The Primer” and trudging through a slowly collapsing 7/4 section in “Roboturner.” Paul Waggoner and Dustie Waring prove themselves as free-range guitarists, chugging and sweeping through “The Primer,” fiddling with syncopated madness in “Autodidact,” and fingerpicking and comping along the Latin-tinged “Laser Speed.” Blake Richardson hammers his drums in impulsive blast beats before dumping the clutch into low gear grooves, all four limbs flavoring each tune with improvisational syncope hits. Even the vocal spectrum is explored, as Tommy Rogers drops into deep and unintelligible growls in tunes like “Croakies and Boat Shoes,” only to amaze with gentle and spirited melodies such as in “Selkies: An Endless Obsession.” Being the first full-band writing effort for BTBAM,[1] Alaska seems to dip into every genre available, all while maintaining the band’s unique voice. Though much of their music spelunks in the abyss of deathcore, the spread of sounds, feels, and energies on this record proves that for Between the Buried & Me, genre labels hardly dictate behavior.
            The heavy nature of death metal is perhaps universally defined by three things: detuned guitars, bullet train drumming, and gruff screams shaped at the very bottom of the lungs. Often, virtually no room is left for basswork in such a formula (especially since guitar tunings regularly reflect drop C or lower, making a bass all but unnecessary); yet, as is their forte, BTBAM refuses to play into genre stereotypes, and with a weapon in their arsenal like Dan Briggs, it is obvious they made the right choice. Rather than drowning in the noise, Briggs lays down a heavy foundation with mosaic, jazzy lines, building on each successive rhythmic idea like the strata of a canyon wall, filling any available spotlight with sick tone and incredible finesse without outshining the rest of the band.
            One tune in which the bass shatters the mold is the certifiable “Roboturner,” a seven-minute onslaught of distortion and screams. Though perhaps as metal as it gets on this record, the star of “Roboturner” is undeniably Briggs, who slips through all the chugs with complicated walking lines that run the entire length of the song, not to mention a groove composed of chords and even a short sweep. The tune jumps between tempos and time signatures before finally crashing into the last suite, a 7/8 trudge introduced, of course, by Brigg’s overdrive-soaked thumping. The suite trudges on, slowly decreasing in tempo, before being swept back into the groove of chords and runs that leads “Roboturner” to its banging conclusion. Briggs dominates the composition on this piece, making damn sure that every listener knows that, though Alaska may fall under the deathcore label, the seventh track unequivocally belongs to the bass.  


            If Alaska is any example, Between the Buried & Me is a group that loves music enough to approach it with both heart and mind, and at the helm of this titanic stands Tommy Rogers, whose lyrical and vocal contributions shape the tone of the record’s though processes. Rogers seems to approach his lyrics from multiple standpoints, sometimes serious and accusatory: “Selkies: An Endless Obsession” criticize the capitalization of love and art with lines like “Market this change / exploit this idea of innocence,”[2] while “Croakies and Boat Shoes” attacks the faultless and condescending attitude synonymous of the “suburban elite.”[3] But despite the sinister tone of the music, Rogers also shows his humorous side through his writing, using the title track to explore insomnia and its effects with quips like “I’m fucking delirious right now…Not the best time for lyrics I suppose.”[4] Rogers presents a variety of tones and attitudes in his lyrics; however, he unfortunately slips into the cliché drawback of fronting a hardcore band where those lyrics are all but lost in his delivery. Alaska is loaded with both powerful singing and violent screaming, but the latter, being Rogers’ preferred method, completely drowns his poetic and literary senses in favor of intensity. Though his performance is quite spectacular in both realms of vocalization, the ratio of sing:scream unfortunately keeps much of his lyrics from being deciphered or understood.
            As is the rub with all technical musicians, much of the composition of Alaska, being both complicated and theory-based, runs the risk of erasing the emotional and human imprint of the performers. Many listeners find themselves unable to connect with music that has been dissected like a dead frog; diminished chords, tritones, and shifting tempos, while being interesting intellectual ideas, ring dissonantly in the ears of a non-musician. Truth be told, although there a lot of great ideas at play, between tremolo picking and quadruple kicks on the bass drum, some of Alaska devolves into pure noise. Chord progressions are lost in babbling tempos, taking significance they might have imparted into the abyss. However, unlike their colleagues, Between the Buried & Me refuse to stick to one formula or sound, peppering otherwise hectic compositions with moments of beauty. They even reserve three instrumental tracks to showcase their diverse and human sides, allowing the listener to find a foothold in tunes such as “Medicine Wheel” or “Laser Speed,” before diving into the dark waters of “Alaska” or “The Primer.”
            Because of this band’s dichotomous approach to their music, reserving moments for both technicality and luminosity, perhaps the most diverse song on this record is one that juxtaposes both. “Backwards Marathon,” Alaska’s longest composition, literally explodes into existence with headbanging rhythmic riff that would make most metalheads lose their cool. The song only gets heavier, sliding downhill into rhythmic chugs and sweeps like a house into a sinkhole. The instrumentation holds onto this anger for almost half the song, until suddenly falling into a gorgeous bridge, a repeating cycle of 5/4 and 6/4, championed by an innocent bass riff. Rogers’ chant of “It’s raining”[5] perfectly captures the gentle shape of this new section, whose gentle guitars and tingling ride cymbal create the image of the lightest of drizzles. The sheer magnificence of this section completely contrasts with the lunacy that preceded it, until, after culminating in a high and powerful vocal note, it explodes back into the intro riff, only to conclude in a heavy yet charming outro. “Backwards Marathon” is BTBAM’s treaty with the listener, a complex and delicious mix of both their technical musicianship and their soulful creativity.


            Though perhaps not the most accessible record, Alaska blends a myriad of genres and focuses them through the talented prism that is Between the Buried & Me. These musicians ostensibly know what they’re doing when it comes to music, and such a truth assures any listener music that is both complete and thought-provoking. Furthermore, this band compromises none of its vision or ability for anyone—Between the Buried & Me is making exactly the music it wants to, refusing to play into genre standards or stereotypes or to settle for less. “We don’t ever want money to get in the way of what we are doing,” says Rogers. “We just want to make the music we love.”[6] There is no illusion or compromise in their art, only five guys having a damn good time jamming together, and such honesty is what urged me to explore the word of hardcore, and what has kept me digging to this day.  

 Tunes to Check Out:
1) Backwards Marathon
2) Selkies: An Endless Obsession
3) Roboturner

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)