Armor For Sleep - What To Do When You Are Dead

Just like with metal, I was the antithesis to all things “emo” during high school. I holed up in 90’s punk and ska, shunning almost anything that deviated from my favorite sounds, defaming any band sporting the label “punk” without meeting my ridiculous and retrospectively uninformed definition. Even when a mix CD of various emo and skramz bands fell into my possession, I saw it only as silly, as worthless, despite the fact that some of those songs were actually really, really good.

There are few songs left in my head from that gifted mix of emo, but one tune, "Basement Ghost Singing" by Armor For Sleep always stood out to me as the top track. And when I stumbled upon a $3 used copy of that song’s parent record, What to Do When You Are Dead, I picked it up as a joke, assuming that I would again be delightfully disappointed by how bad it was. But when I popped it into my CD player on the way home, I was immediately overwhelmed by how good, by how real, the music felt to me. I found myself addicted to its heady, emotional tunes, and much to my chagrin, I loved every second of it.

Primarily composed by lead singer Ben Jorgensen, What To Do When You Are Dead sounds like the inside of a manic-depressive’s diary: the guitars rage through distorted power chords, Nash Breen wavers between gentle beats and crash-ridden grooves, and Jorgensen howls in a voice familiar with despair. While almost every song follows the same structural formula, there is a great variance in dynamics across and even within those songs, spacing valleys of emotive breakdowns and melodies between mountains of sound and fury. And when Armor For Sleep does reach for loud and fast, they give it their all, throwing themselves wholly at their instruments.

Just as Armor For Sleep employs heavy dynamic changes across the record, so too do they vary their sound palate. Between punk thrashers like “The Truth About Heaven” and “The More You Talk, The Less I Hear,” the band inserts gentler pieces, delving into post-hardcore melodies on “Awkward Last Words” and “Walking at Night, Alone.” They further explore sound by genre-hopping a bit, tacking on an orchestral outro to “Awkward Last Words” and filling out the closer “The End of a Fraud” with a gospel chorus. For “A Quick Little Flight,” they even eschew the rock aesthetic completely, opting instead to voice the song entirely with a droopy keyboard and an electronic beat.

 

On What To Do When You Are Dead, Armor For Sleep expertly steers their brand of pop-punk through vastly different sonic territories, but no more so than in “Basement Ghost Singing,” the song that introduced me to this act. Floating into existence on a spacious guitar and an ethereal vocal, the band layers electronica and emo in their sound, adding programmed drums and layers of reverb and delay that soundscape a lonely afterlife. Even Anthony Dilonno’s bass seems dialed into a more synthesized tone to reflect the atmospheric shape of the song, which unexpectedly explodes into a finale of pessimistic punk. According to Jorgensen, “Basement Ghost Singing” shows the band taking a chance at being different, and while most other acts would have flopped hard trying to blend two antithetical sounds, this band absolutely nails it.

 

Armor For Sleep absolutely knocks their instrumentation out of the park on this record, but when listening to the lyrics, I remember why my younger self had such a hard time appreciating this style of music. Though the record’s title gives it away, the writing on What to Do When You Are Dead is ridiculously depressing. Jorgensen’s lyrics are loaded with a combination of self-pity and self-loathing; his final moan of “I would still die for you” in “Car Underwater” is more melodramatic than the lead in a high school play. Similarly, the lines “I started feeling bad for myself today / But then I stopped ‘cause I don’t care” in “Stay on the Ground” are so dripping with angst that it’s difficult to give Jorgensen’s complaints any credence.

The vocal tone of What to Do When You Are Dead is blatant despair and zero variation, and I can sum up my initial assessment of the record’s lyrics with an exaggerated eye roll. Yet, the fact that WTDWYAD is in fact a loose concept record really helps justify the outward depressive self-indulgence. As Jorgensen describes it, the concept combines “death and heartbreak” into one scenario that the album explores simultaneously, taking teenaged torment and applying it to a much broader topic.

Beginning with a hidden pregap track, the album tells the story of a distraught lover who takes his own life, only to find his soul stuck on earth. He spends his afterlife pining for his unrequited lover, while finding ways to accept the consequences of his rash decision. When read on a whole, the lyrical concept actually suggests a journey through the Kubler-Ross 5 Stages of Grief, painting the protagonist’s journey of dealing with his own death as well as the loss of his loved one. Thus, the whiny line “I wanna live again” in “Awkward Last Words” suddenly becomes a plea for reversal, while the statement “You can’t turn off that you’re dead / You just deal with it” in “I Have Been Right All Along” communicates an acceptance that only this journey could bring. While Jorgensen’s lyrics are immediately drenched in angst and whine, a closer look at their internal narrative puts that feeling into perspective, sewing them together to show us a boy making a serious mistake and having to cope with the consequences.

 

Between the violently emotive instrumentation and the comprehensive lyrical concept, What To Do When You Are Dead is overall a very complete record. There is no lack of depth on this CD, of subtlety or of feeling, and I still find myself endlessly discovering new beautiful moments within its confines. It still baffles me that my only reason for ever picking it up was to dig for nostalgic laughs, and further still that this record turned out to be so damned good. Never has the bittersweet taste of eating my words been so fulfilling.

Tunes to Check Out:

1) The Truth About Heaven

2) Stay on the Ground

3) Basement Ghost Singing

Suicide Silence - The Cleansing

My college years were my first real foray into the genre of metal. I had been surrounded by it during high school; but it had been the plague then, and I’d wanted nothing to do with it. Yet just with as every doe-eyed college student, I felt my horizons widening as I got older, musical tastes included. Suddenly, metal wasn’t so unintelligible or inhuman, and I found myself enthused to dive into this dissonant genre that so many of my peers loved.

It has been more than a few years since metal started making sense to me, and while my tastes again align more towards catchy music, I still have a soft spot for some metal records. Recently I revisited Suicide Silence’s debut, The Cleansing, remembering when its grinding power riffs and growling screams made me clench my jaw in excitement. But while this record still holds up as brutal and energetic, I was more than a little let down by the lack of substance in between its notes.

When I first encountered The Cleansing about five years ago, I was immediately sucked in by the sheer brutality of the instrumentation, which has not faded in the least. Recorded live rather than in separate studio tracks, there is an absolute energy falling off these songs like an avalanche down the side of the mountain. The guitars are loud and blasted with distortion, the drums fast and unrelenting. Suicide Silence avoids lots of repetition in their song structures, using just enough to create themes without bludgeoning the listener endlessly with the same riff, often while switching between time signatures. And while tremolo picking and blast beats abound, songs like “No Pity for a Coward” and “In a Photograph” slip slow, trudging tempos in between the speedy parts, creating swirling moments of chaos that help break up the stream of continuous notes.

Even now, listening to the instrumentation on The Cleansing still leaves me pumped up pretty hard, but if I lean even a little closer for a better look, I find that there really isn’t much to see. As vocalist Mitch Lucker stated in an interview, Suicide Silence “wanted to get our first record out as quick as we could,” and that rush is reflected in the composition. For most of the record, guitarists Mark Heylmun and Chris Garza appear to be playing the same exact parts, piling chugs and fuzz on top of each other, making Mike Bodkins’ bass virtually inaudible, if not completely unnecessary. And while each song obviously has its own flair, the overall submersion in heavy guitar and light speed drumming makes each tune practically indistinguishable from the other.

Suicide Silence certainly nails the death metal aesthetic they are striving for, but fails to provide any variety or surprise for their fans. The guitars are a true wall of sound, blaring through the speakers almost endlessly; Mitch Lucker’s death growls are enlivened and wholly real, but he remains forever at a 10, providing no dynamics whatsoever. Alex Lopez’ drumming is perhaps the most effective part of the instrumentation, as he isn’t afraid to slip back under the rest of the band, pulling up in tunes like “The Disease” to set the stage before he lays into those bombastic blast beats.

This severe lack of variability is just as prevalent in the lyrics on The Cleansing. In line with the demands of their genre, Mitch Lucker overlays the brutal instrumentation of Suicide Silence with lyrics equally as vicious. Violence is his main weapon, and he wields his vehemence like a club with lines like “more of your family’s dead tomorrow” in “Hands of a Killer,” or the heavily spotlighted threat “doctors won’t be able to recognize your fucking face” in “Bludgeoned to Death.” And if violence is Lucker’s sword, then anger is the hand that grips it: Mitch sprays profanity and fury like viper’s venom, unabashedly imploring the subject of “No Pity for a Coward” to “put that gun to your head” and “pull the trigger bitch.”

One of Lucker’s strongest thematic elements is the idea of religion, or more specifically, his own militant atheistic response to religion. Songs like “Unanswered” and “Eyes Sewn Shut” provide direct assaults on the idea of religion and anyone who chooses to follow such beliefs. Lucker even invokes God directly at times, shouting “You let them fall” in “The Fallen” or offering a challenge in “In a Photograph:” “were you just going to sit back / and watch him die?” The Cleansing heavily chronicles Mitch Lucker’s distaste for all things religious, using Suicide Silence’s death metal as a backdrop to champion his lack of faith.

There is no doubt that each of Lucker’s growls is fueled by an inner roiling hate, but the words he rattles off in unintelligible growls lack enough substance to be interesting. He endlessly reworks metal tropes of gore and horrific violence, all without bringing a new flavor to them, or more importantly, providing a new and wholly more realistic perspective on those topics. He derides religion in typical metal fashion, bringing no argument to the table, only loud antagonism. His lyrics regularly trivialize serious human issues like murder or even rape, spinning violent and tasteless scenes into existence for the sake of shock and brutality that apparently are considered comical. The lyrics of The Cleansing revisits again and again the worn out, dark-for-the-sake-of-darkness imagery that pervades the genre of metal, leaving me rather disappointed and more than a bit disgusted.

After spinning this record for the past month, I have to say that The Cleansing has lost much of the luster it once held in my eyes. While I still find Suicide Silence’s thrashing, brutal grooves to be invigorating, I now can’t help but trip on their mistakes. Furthermore, the overall weakness and general insensitivity of the lyrics has left a bad taste in my mouth. And while I have no plans to throw my copy of this record out, that taste has me wishing more than a little that I’d left the CD on the shelf.

Tunes to Check Out:
1) No Pity for a Coward
2) The Disease
3) In a Photograph

Song Spotlight: "Bbtone" by Pinback

Being in a band with two bass guitars has been a fascinating experience, especially since it is a territory so rarely explored. It is only in the past six months that I have become aware of other acts trying out the same palate. After a recent Hiss the Villain show, a very kind fellow musician compared our sound and setup favorably to Pinback. I’d not yet heard of this band, but I immediately sought out their music to see how they applied two bass guitars to their songs.

As it turned out, what I took as an offhand suggestion turned out to be an extremely generous compliment. Upon my first listen, I was instantly drawn into Pinback’s gentle, melody-driven compositions, and was delighted to see this duo effectively and intelligently compose pieces that wove bass parts together. Yet the song that cemented me as a Pinback fan was not one featuring dual bass work, but rather an arrangement just a hair less eccentric: a bass and a baritone guitar, the two main forces at work in the darkly delicious “Bbtone.”

Though the title is simply atruncated combination of the two instruments that drive it, the actual tune shows far more complexity and effort than its name implies. Multi-instrumentalist Rob Crow takes the rhythm in the song, laying out a winding background on his baritone guitar. This allows his partner in crime Zach Smith to tease from his four strings gorgeous yet brooding phrases, building complicated chords across open-position intervals and adding a bright bass harmony to the vocals.

The two string parts in “Bbtone” are tailored to fit together like pieces of a suit, Zach dominating the higher register while Rob focuses on the lower. Above a programmed beat that ticks repetitively like an old clock, these two instrumentalists react to each other’s parts like well-worn gears, Zach’s colorful trebles bouncing and turning with Rob’s guttural picking. This is capped by the duo’s interlocking vocal parts, Rob finishing his phrases just as Zach chimes in. The composition places each person in juxtaposition, their separate vocals conversing, telling two sides of the same story their instruments strive to paint in music.

Between the wavering strings grooves and the incessant metronomic beat, there is a strange sense of tedium bubbling over in the instrumentation, which is heavily reflected in the lyrics. Lines like “Steadily we climb down / Step into a hidden room / Searchin' for another out” reflect a languid movement to the song that suddenly becomes frantic with the lines “The walls close in around me / Old habits fade far from me.” This changing pace continues throughout the song, reinforced by the two separate voices: Zach’s vocals maintain the detached, slow rhythm of a person resigned to his circumstance, while Rob’s rush through phrases at a dizzying speed, as if searching for a way out.

The strange but extremely effective alternation of mood in “Bbtone,” built on the band’s alternating vocals, fortifies the theme of futility that also pervades the lyrics. The song proffers a tale of suffering built on the ineffectiveness of change: there is a nihilistic ennui in the image of a  “Bucket and a shovel / on a sand dune / Building castles / Knocking them down,” commenting on the pointlessness of attempting to alter the world. This is further reflected in the line “Forever pushing / Sisyphus would know,” referencing the mythical figure whose eternal toil is always for naught. In “Bbtone,” Pinback uses gorgeous composition to breathe life into the banal nature of a life without meaning; never before have the celebratory and the disaffected been such close bedfellows, in music or anywhere.

Besides being a breathtakingly beautiful piece of music, “Bbtone” is a piece of art that manages in so many ways to mix dichotomous ideas. Between the unique instrumental approach, the alternating vocals that are at-odds in sound and pace, and the thematic collision of two ideas utterly unlike each other, Pinback has enough material for two songs here. Yet, their intelligent approach to composition manages to sew them into one beautiful, harmonious piece, reflecting the conflicts of being human, of being able to approach the same situation, the same life, with both love and loathing.

With all this in mind, its become increasingly clear to me that Pinback is an artist that deserves my utmost respect and attention. The swirling, cyclical strings of “Bbtone” keep my head spinning in delight, imparting both beauty and boredom while using a sound palate that is after my own heart. I am truly grateful for that kind comparison of my band’s music to this monster act, and I have no doubt they will continue to influence my own writing as I continue on this two-bass journey that is Hiss the Villain.

(Speaking of which, check out my band Hiss the Villain through the links below!)

hissthevillain.com

hissthevillain.bandcamp.com

facebook.com/hissthevillain

Fall Out Boy - Infinity on High

When I was in high school, growing into my own and immersed in 90’s punk and ska, there was no act I hated more than Fall Out Boy. Along with my entire group of friends, I found their music to be kitschy, unintelligible, and far too pervasive. Though my distaste would lessen as I passed from teens to twenties, my inclination to avoid hearing their music never disappeared. Yet when I had the opportunity to see them live earlier this year, I was bamboozled by how much fun I had, and even more so by how damn good of an act they are. I soon scooped up my girlfriend’s copy of Infinity on High, and though I wouldn’t call myself FOBsessed, I am undoubtedly now a fan of this seminal act.

As their third full-length effort, Infinity on High makes it apparent Fall Out Boy is both a seasoned and driven group. Drummer Andy Hurley sets up solid, unfaltering grooves across the record, tailoring each to the song’s vibe and locking with the rolling bass notes of Pete Wentz. Their sturdy rhythms allow guitarists Patrick Stump and Joe Trohman to sew their strings together in intricate patterns for “The Carpal Tunnel of Love” and even an interlocking piece in “Bang the Doldrums” that wavers between major and minor keys. The band brings a heap of energy to the table, so that even gentler tunes like “Golden” or “I’ve Got All This Ringing in My Ears and None on My Fingers” invite the listener to the dancefloor. Though their roots lie in pop-punk, Fall Out Boy does far more than thrash at their instruments, instead imbuing each song with its own unique feel along with the monstrous energy for which they are known.

The unit of Fall Out Boy has their sound locked down, but the factor that launches them beyond the noise of the pop-punk scene has to be Patrick Stump’s dynamic and flawless vocals. He uses his voice like a weapon, loading each melody with energy and emotion that sounds as honest as it does awesome. As the band’s primary composer, he guides each song along with his vocal, letting his voice play with space and power without overriding the instrumentation. Yet his varied and prestigious influences, apparently including Michael Jackson and David Bowie, urge him to mark tunes like “Don't You Know Who I Think I Am?” and “The (After) Life of the Party” with vocal runs controlled and creative, practically channels the King of Pop through his vocal chords. Patrick Stump breathes heady life into the songs through his singing, bringing a serious beauty and pop sensibility that compliments the band’s unwavering energy.

Patrick Stump’s foray away from a strictly pop-punk sound bleeds into the instrumentation of Infinity on High as well. As Pete puts it, IOH “was always going to be about doing something new, and something different,” and as one listen will show, there is no doubt they have achieved their goal. Though almost every song maintains some root in FOB’s classic thrashy-pop sound, the band also experiments with a variety of other styles and genres; “Thnks fr th Mmrs” features a full classical arrangement, while “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” toys with a flamenco bridge and a Motown-esque sensibility. Fall Out Boy even leans back towards their roots in hardcore for some tunes, employing grinding chugs in “Thriller” and screamed vocals in “The Carpal Tunnel of Love.”

Every song on Infinity on High finds a unique sonic area in which to adventure, so much so that Patrick states that “none of the songs sound like the record, in general,” calling IOH a record that’s “hard to take out of context.” The quartet of musicians in Fall Out Boy work hard to make each song a wholly novel listening experience, tapping into new sounds and styles as a challenge for themselves and a treat for their listeners.

The instrumentation on Infinity on High manages to explore new tonal terrain while holding on the essence of Fall Out Boy’s sound, and the lyrics of the record do much the same thing. Primary lyricist Pete Wentz maintains a tongue-in-cheek voice, twisting worn clichés such as “I take my last chance / to burn a bridge or two” in “I’m Like a Lawyer…” or “Come hell or high water / well I’m feeling hot and wet” in “Bang the Doldrums.” Wentz is a writer that relies heavily on one-liners and turns of phrase, often considered weak weapons of writing, but Patrick Stump’s impassioned delivery of the lyrics gives them the life they need to stick in the heads and hearts of even the most curmudgeony or pretentious listeners.

Just as the instrumentation strives for the heights of stardom, so too do the themes of Pete’s lyrics, albeit with a far different attitude. With Infinity on High, Pete Wentz focused much of his writing on the band’s newfound fame and the struggles of being thrust into the spotlight. “Thriller” directly comments on their trajectory with the lines “Last summer we took threes across the board / But by fall we were a cover story ‘now in stores,’” while “Fame < Infamy” pokes fun at the narcissistic attitude of celebrity with the phrase “I am God’s gift.”

Though the theme of struggling with fame and celebrity may be a foreign concept to Fall Out Boy’s fans, so much so that Pete has named IOH an “extremely unrelatable record,” the ideas of depression and failure are virtually universal. “Don’t You Know Who I Think I Am?” presses the idea of imminent demise with the line “We walk the plank on a sinking ship,” an idea furthered by “This Ain’t a Scene” with the lyric “I wrote the gospel on giving up.” From his writing, it is obvious that Pete Wentz has struggled hard with his life as an artist, but his light-hearted language makes light of these heavy feelings, including multiple references to his suicide attempt in more than one song. Wentz’ talent for weaving words into fun and relatable phrases helps communicate the truth of his experience as both a celebrity and a human being, using language to process and address issues that threaten to overcome him.

Above the incredible instrumentation and exuberant vocals, the main tone ringing throughout this record is one of pure honesty, something that I value in music above all else. As Pete puts it, “Fall Out Boy is an attempt at honesty and authentic perspectives,” and after incessant listening, I am confident that Infinity on High maintains that standard of truth. It has managed to wade through years of active dislike and prove to me that Fall Out Boy is an act worthy of its following and my own appreciation. It has made me a true fan of theirs, something I would have balked at ten years ago, and I am excited to discover what gems the rest of their catalog contains.

Tunes to Check Out:

1) Don't You Know Who I Think I Am?

2) Hum Hallelujah

3) This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race

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

Nirvana - Bleach

When I was fourteen years old, it seemed like everything was Nirvana, and Nirvana was everything. With the Lights Out had just hit shelves, catalyzing a furious interest in the band’s back catalog that ran rampant through my friend group in high school. Burned copies of Nevermind and In Utero were passed around like a juicy piece of gossip; however, it wasn’t until I browsed the local FYE that I ran into a copy of their debut, Bleach, an album I just could not understand as a child. But having recently felt its pull again, I dove right in, this time arriving at a new appreciation for Nirvana’s gritty and groaning first-impression. 

Lots of my favorite records tear into a run right off the gate, but it’s been a long time since I’ve heard anything erupt quite like Bleach does. This record has almost more energy than it knows what to do with: Krist Novoselic’s bass roars behind a guitar drenched in feedback and overdrive, Chad Channing’s bass drum beats like a blacksmith’s hammer, and Kurt Cobain yelps and growls with such force that his throat sounds like it’s about to collapse. The band rages through slow and fast tunes alike, imbuing the grinding beats of “Sifting” and “Paper Cuts” with the same visceral passion as those in “Negative Creep” or “Downer.” Kurt’s rampant guitar tones conjure up spirits similar to Black Sabbath, yet the band rocks with a ferocity oft reserved for hardcore punk acts like Minor Threat. Nirvana manages to give every ounce of strength and feeling they have to their music, forcing each song through the speakers like a shotgun blast.

 Though the priority of this record’s sound is certainly energy, it is not all noise and ire; the beginnings of the pop sensibility Kurt Cobain would be worshipped for are apparent even on their debut. Though in a few short years Nirvana would be considered the kings of grunge, when the band was writing Bleach, they were dealing with an apparent pressure to conform to the Seattle sound that surrounded them. The scene wanted heavy guitars and screeching vocals, and while Kurt did his best to oblige, he could not keep his softer influences entirely absent; “Swap Meet” and “School” both revolve around catchy vocal melodies, and “About a Girl” wholly embraces a pop angle, forgoing dissonance or insanity for gentle vocals and tailored key changes.

Even before the world was waiting for him to write “Smells Like Teen Spirit” over and over, Kurt Cobain had a knack for blending the heavy and the melodic, and “School” is an excellent example of this synthesis. Operating wholly on a “less-is-more” ethic, the four chords and fifteen words that make up “School” manage to create a piece both riveting and rocking. Chad Channing’s voracious drumming guides the tune through dynamic changes, while Kurt’s guitar and vocals battle for the spotlight, remaining brutal in the style of Bleach, yet catching the ear more than enough to cause a craving. “School” is a prototype of the formula that would soon drive Nirvana to success, a song incubating the emotions and attitudes that Kurt would explore more heavily in later records.

Besides forming a pop blueprint, “School” is indicative of the Bleach sound in other ways, specifically the sparse and general lyrics that blanket the record. As Kurt admitted in interviews, “With Bleach, I didn’t give a flying fuck what the lyrics were about. Eighty percent were written the night before recording.” This lackadaisical approach to writing leaves a lot to be desired from the lyrics, especially direction. “Big Cheese” and “School” can be taken to address the band’s experience with corporate influence, but random lines like “She is glue, how are you?” force the song to veer off into nonsensical territory. Similarly, “Scoff” almost sounds like a mission statement, but how Kurt’s demand of “gimme back my alcohol” adds weight to that statement is unclear. Indeed, other than a penchant for fun little rhymes, “Sifting” fails to communicate anything at all. 

Although lyrical content might have been “the least important subject” to Cobain, he does manage on occasion to say something of value on Bleach, specifically on the theme of rural communities. The nightmarish “Floyd the Barber” bastardizes America’s favorite small-town, but in doing so, Cobain comments on the massive disparity that exists between TV’s Mayberry and the reality of working-class life. Similarly, “Swap Meet” caricatures two characters scraping out a brittle living by selling items at the flea market, and from the bitter way they apparently avoid each other, their existence is far from happy. Songs like these show Cobain as completely capable with a pen in his hand, if only he chooses to apply it.

The lyrics might be wanting for some love, but overall, Bleach is as loud, gritty, and honest as a debut record ought to be. As Kurt puts it, Nirvana’s purpose was simply “to have fun, write songs,and play.” There is passion without pretension on this record, and for Nirvana, that passion “comes before anything else.” Bleach shows a band just working to get their footing, pressing their hearts onto vinyl and launching it into an uncertain future. Over ten years since I first bought my copy, I can finally hear that truth, and it is indeed a sweet sound. 

Tunes to Check Out:

1) School

2) Mr. Moustache

3) Negative Creep