3-LockBox
11-17-2005, 10:09 PM
I have a brother that's nine years my senior (he's almost 50!). Back when he was a teen, he delighted in such music as Uriah Heap, Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, etc, etc. Now this music was starkly different from the Mercy Beat stuff that had been popular, which is why he liked it probably. This was probably to the chagrin of our parents, but since they were part of the original rock-n-roll generation, they were usually tollerant of what their kids wanted to listen to. As I hit my early 20's, my musical tastes started leaning toward the heavy metal of the day (mid to late '80s). I remember my brother wasn't too terribly impressed with it; it wasn't his rock-n-roll. But he indulged me. He didn't diss it, but I could tell it wasn't his bag.
I recently began a journey into the current fray of 'metal', of which there is now several kinds. I have mentioned before how hard its been for me to digest music in which the lyrics are yelled, shouted, or growled. I started to remind myself of my parents. I guess I should just accept that 'metal' as I know it is a novelty. The strained shoutings that I hear on so many of the new metal groups (not to be confused with nu-metal) is just the way the youngins want to hear it. The media has caught on, and now most reviewers don't even mention what type of vocals the potential listener may hear (most reviewers now-a-days are more concerned with their own image, and catergorizing vocals is prolly a dead givaway that they're geezers). That being said, here's my review...
Lets pretend for a few minutes that we don't care what kind of vocals are here. Let's pretend that its not speed metal, no matter what kinda metal its supposed to be. The mix is murky, guitar and bass are up-front, the vocals and drums are mixed down a tad too much. In the case of the drums, this is too bad, because the drummer shows some real chops. The lyrics are hhmm...hard to understand, which seems to me, counter-productive, since this is supposed to be a concept album about ....Moby Dick....please, don't leave! Puzzling that these guys would make a concept album in a genre that could care less about plots or lyrics. But they don't seem to worried about such conventions, because if they were, they may have given second thought to the band name, Mastodon. Seriously though, if it weren't for the liner notes, there is no way anyone could tell what this album was about from the singing.
I'm sure there is plenty here for metalcore fans to enjoy, and there are some good ideas here and there, but too often, these ideas are only explored for about 30 seconds of a song, then ditched for speed and brutality's sake. The bands has recieved a lot of good ink, and it has been said that they're prog-metalish. But if there are any intriquate time changes or other complexities, it went by too fast for me to notice. The music here lacks the subtlties and complexity and contrasts that make Opeth so interesting (despite those vocals). This music is as subtle as a blugeoning. No way are these guys in the same league as Opeth.
So at risk of sounding like an old geezer, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who says they're into prog-metal, power metal, or even Opeth.
I recently began a journey into the current fray of 'metal', of which there is now several kinds. I have mentioned before how hard its been for me to digest music in which the lyrics are yelled, shouted, or growled. I started to remind myself of my parents. I guess I should just accept that 'metal' as I know it is a novelty. The strained shoutings that I hear on so many of the new metal groups (not to be confused with nu-metal) is just the way the youngins want to hear it. The media has caught on, and now most reviewers don't even mention what type of vocals the potential listener may hear (most reviewers now-a-days are more concerned with their own image, and catergorizing vocals is prolly a dead givaway that they're geezers). That being said, here's my review...
Lets pretend for a few minutes that we don't care what kind of vocals are here. Let's pretend that its not speed metal, no matter what kinda metal its supposed to be. The mix is murky, guitar and bass are up-front, the vocals and drums are mixed down a tad too much. In the case of the drums, this is too bad, because the drummer shows some real chops. The lyrics are hhmm...hard to understand, which seems to me, counter-productive, since this is supposed to be a concept album about ....Moby Dick....please, don't leave! Puzzling that these guys would make a concept album in a genre that could care less about plots or lyrics. But they don't seem to worried about such conventions, because if they were, they may have given second thought to the band name, Mastodon. Seriously though, if it weren't for the liner notes, there is no way anyone could tell what this album was about from the singing.
I'm sure there is plenty here for metalcore fans to enjoy, and there are some good ideas here and there, but too often, these ideas are only explored for about 30 seconds of a song, then ditched for speed and brutality's sake. The bands has recieved a lot of good ink, and it has been said that they're prog-metalish. But if there are any intriquate time changes or other complexities, it went by too fast for me to notice. The music here lacks the subtlties and complexity and contrasts that make Opeth so interesting (despite those vocals). This music is as subtle as a blugeoning. No way are these guys in the same league as Opeth.
So at risk of sounding like an old geezer, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who says they're into prog-metal, power metal, or even Opeth.