Music Archive 1

I was going through my collection alphabetically writing stuff up a while ago, but I stopped and I'm pretty behind.

The All-American Rejects - The All-American Rejects


Don't listen to this expecting anything deeper than the kiddie pool or lyrics worth the manufacturing cost of the cd jacket they're printed on. This is as close to idiotic, pure, care-free pop as you can get while still being called rock.

But it's fun. Every song on the CD sticks in your brain like it was welded there, and as simple as the melodies may be, the members of the All-American Rejects (all two of them) are pretty competent musicians. My favorite tracks are the punkish "One More Sad Song" with it's high-rising guitar riff and "The Last Song" with it's anthem chorus and epic bridge.

As long as you don't think so much of yourself that you can't enjoy a little cheesecake now and then, this debut album is a pretty decent listen. Except for those awful lyrics.

Anberlin - Blueprints for the Black Market


I bought this album because of the opening track, "Readyfuels". I really loved the main guitar hook and the multi-layered chorus. I was hoping the rest of Blueprints For the Black Market could live up to its beginning.

In short, it didn't, but I like it anyway. The immediately following track reminded me lyrically of "Boys & Girls" by Good Charlotte (which is a bad thing), but at least it's more enjoyable to listen to. The rest of the album goes by pretty painlessly. It's all pretty good punk with good musicianship, but nothing that will blow you away or really affect you significantly.

A couple other standout tracks are "Glass to the Arson" with its slightly different, catchy verses and smooth chorus, and a fairly nice cover of The Cure's "Love Song", which takes the main synth hook and does it with a piano.

Anberlin has a good singer and some talented musicians, so if they could settle down and write some music that actually means something, they could be a really good band.

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Source Tags & Codes


I got this album after Worlds Apart, so I kind of knew what to expect. Most critics rate Source Tags & Codes higher than Worlds, and I suppose I understand why. I can see its relative immaturity and lack of focus in comparison to Source Tags. However, I just find the enjoyability of the songs on the new album to be more consistent than on their major-label debut. Don't get me wrong, Source Tags contains 4 of 5 songs that are completely incredible, but there are a few in there that I just find irritating, while there are no tracks I dislike on Worlds Apart.

On their newest album, the singer stays mostly in a higher range of vocals, while in the old one he goes deeper more, and he also shouts more. I have nothing against screaming in music, but the songs in which he does it just seem to be less interesting. It just seems their songwriting is best when they stick to slower paced songs that focus on a melody instead of just a bunch of noise.

My favorite songs on this album are "It Was There That I Saw You", which contains an awesome soaring chorus, "Another Morning Stoner" with good drumming and a great main guitar line, "How Near, How Far", an immensely listenable song with varying moods, "Relative Ways" which is about the only time they get screaming right, and the title track, which is a pleasant way to end a great album.

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Worlds Apart


My only experience with ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead prior to this is the faint memory of a commercial for one of their albums a few years ago that I don't recall exciting me very much. For reasons I'm not sure of, I decided to buy Worlds Apart on impulse.

The first thing you notice is the unique medieval tapestry-style cover art, but you quickly forget it as the music begins. The album starts with an epic musical overture which ends with a single female voice stating "And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead..." which announces the next track, "Will You Smile Again?", a near-two minute block of nothing but hard rocking guitars and banging drums followed by several minutes of a lone voice backed by a single drum beat. The song builds back into a wall of noise that ends just before the seven-minute mark, and it's possibly the best on the album. It's followed by the title song, which begins with some humor, expresses a vulgar, politically-charged message, and ends with a chorus of animals.

Two of the album's biggest motifs are that of an unorganized jangle of loud noise and a romantic renaissance theme expressed by the jacket art, animal sounds, and some beautiful violin and piano interludes. These two concepts mesh surprisingly well to create a cohesive sound that belongs solely to this band.

Other highlight songs include "Caterwaul", with nice vocals backed by an infectious melody; "Classic Arts Showcase", a noisy song with an incredible, epic bridge; and "The Best", a song that starts with a screeching guitar riff that turns into a lyrically driven song that seems to evoke Cursive, and ends with the haunting noise of a woman screaming and a distant reprise of the chorus from "Worlds Apart".

The album isn't perfect, none of the songs are bad, but at times the main melodies can seem a bit too repetitive. But if you're in the mood for a unique album that is both thoughtful and hard as hell, you should definitely check out ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead.

Armor for Sleep - What to Do When You Are Dead


A friend of mine recently said that Armor for Sleep was a triumph of style over substance. This may be true, but I couldn't care less when it's such good style.

What to Do When You Are Dead begins with a soft little song stating "I swear to God I'm gonna die tonight" (rewind before the first track!) before jumping into "Car Underwater", the first single from the album, which has a simple but effective guitar part and a nice chorus. It is then followed by some of the most consistently good and catchy emo/punk I've heard in a while. Nearly every song is above average.

Track 6 is another soft, vocally driven interlude that leads into "The More You Think the Less I Hear", the most aggressive song with a killer guitar hook, and is followed up by my favorite song on the disc, "Basement Ghost Singing", which has an electronic-led verse that goes into a powerful chorus. The next couple tracks are somewhat weak but are followed by another good one, "The End of a fraud," that reprises a bridge from "Remember to Feel Real", and makes it into an epic chorus, one that suitably ends a very solid album.

It's not the most original thing you'll ever hear, and perhaps it really is nothing more than style posing as substance, but this is still a very nice piece of work by Armor For Sleep.

Atreyu - Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses


Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses is the first studio album by Atreyu, and already they are showing significant musical ability. The production quality is a little low, but the talent of the guitarists shows through pretty well. The throat-shredding vocals may not suit everybody, but this is a good metalcore album.

God, I hate that word. Metal freaks (and purists of other styles) create a ridiculous heirarchy of genres and subgenres to keep anything they don't like from taking their label, but none of that matters. What matters is the quality of the music, and Atreyu is pretty good music. A few of the tracks don't do anything too special, just provide adequate headbanging material. But there are several standouts on this album. The opener, "A Song For the Optimists", kicks things off very well, and is followed by stuff like "Ain't Love Grand", which features nice punk guitar work and a cool chorus, and "Deanne the Arsonist", with a strong metal intro.

The whole album has a nice dynamic between the the lead screamer screeching out the verses as the drummer sings the choruses, and about every song has at least a couple great guitar hooks. The final track is probably the best on the CD, with a nice mix of melodies, a soft piano interlude, and a great guitar solo as it climaxes.

The whole thing, with 10 tracks and about 37 minutes of music, is a little short, but maybe that's for the best. I could see this sort of thing getting a little irritating if it lasts too long, but as it stands, this is a very enjoyable hardcore album.

Avenged Sevenfold - Waking the Fallen


What the members of Avenged Sevenfold have crafted here is an incredibly aggressive, loud, and technically impressive album; one that just fills you with energy and makes you want to punt babies over houses. It's quite long, over an hour, but it never lets up.

It starts out with a cool, slow paced build-up of an intro, which leads to a kick-in-the-pants of a first actual song. The singer screams at the top of his lungs as he is supported by pounding drums and bass and killer guitars, and Waking the Fallen never lets up after that. This album is full of great hardcore sounds, especially on tracks like "Eternal Rest"

But the vocalist can do more than just shout himself hoarse, he can also sing, surprisingly. This comes out the most in "I Won't See You Tonight - Part 1", an incredible song that eschews hardcore antics for a beautiful, epic melody with relatively thoughtful lyrics about suicide. The track clocks in at around 9 minutes and is part of a larger 14 minute, 2 part behemoth of a song. Like I said, it's a long album, and if you like this kind of stuff, it is definitely worth it.

Every song on Waking the Fallen is good, but except for a couple like "I Won't See You Tonight", they all sound pretty similar and you can lose track of where one ends and another begins. But if that's something you can handle, you can't get much better metal today.

Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil


Ok, there's no screaming.

There's been some controversy about this. Avenged Sevenfold were known as much for their constant screaming vocals as much as their metal thrashing, but on this album, there's nary a shout to be heard, besides the opening growl in "Beast and the Harlot". The official explanation is that the singer's throat got seriously injured from all the shrieking he was doing and had to get surgery, and now it's too dangerous for him to continue doing so, so now he sticks to more traditional, sometimes-nasal singing. Some fans have cried conspiracy, saying it's all a lie, and that they stopped screaming because they've sold out now that they're on Warner Brothers. I have two arguments against this. One, there are thousands of witnesses from A7X concerts who can testify the singer was unable to scream properly like he used to without obvious pain, and two, if they're trying to sounds mainstream, why do they continue to make songs that regularly cross the seven-minute mark? It just doesn't make sense.

On to the record, City of Evil. It is a little different style from Waking the Fallen, in addition to no screaming, the music itself has shifted from hard/metalcore to something a little closer to speed or hair metal. It's still very enjoyable and performed admirably by the guitarists, but it's different. Another change is the lyrics. They've started to swear now for some reason, and there are some lyrics that are actually culturally relevant, like in the politically-charged "Blinded in Chains" (which also has a very cool fade-out ending) and the tributes to Hunter S. Thompson and Dimebag Darrell in the single "Bat Country" and "Betrayed," respectively.

Some other good songs are the strong, epic ballad "Seize the Day", the cool "Sidewinder" with an awesome intro, "The Wicked End", which features strong guitars and a bizarre, cheesy, but very enjoyable Lord of the Rings-esque interlude, and "Trashed and Scattered", which everyone else seems to like a little more than me.

What Avenged Sevenfold has released here is another very strong, technically incredible, and enjoyable metal album. My only complaints are that some of the songs drag on a little too long and the singer's voice tends to get a little annoying in spots.

Blindside - Silence


There's nothing too original or innovative about this release from Swedish hardcore punk band Blindside, but originality and innovation aren't what they're going for. They're going for no-holds-barred rocking to the MAX, and they definitely accomplish that here.

The first song, "Caught a Glimpse" starts things off strongly with hard guitars and a haunting chorus, and is followed up by the single "Pitiful", another very loud song about Jesus. You'll find that these guys sing about Jesus a lot. The next few songs all continue the trend set by the previous tracks, but the pattern is broken up by "Thoughts Like Flames," a slower song, which still has a loud chorus.

The next track, "Time Will Change Your Heart" is another good one, matching a fast-paced, screaming verse with a slower and calmer chorus. The following four songs are sort of a dip in the album. None of them are bad, they just don't stand out from each other and you may find yourself losing interest. The final song, "Silence" is another good one, totally breaking from Blindside's norm in a slow, soft, well-sung capper to a solid hard rock album.

Silence will probably not amaze you if you seek truly deep meaning, complex layering and composition, or natural-sounding English lyrics (they ARE from Sweden), but it is a well-played, well-executed album of its type.

Blindside - About a Burning Fire


Blindside's follow up to the solid Silence is just as pleasantly hard rocking, and more consistent throughout. They haven't changed their sound much, still pumping out very enjoyable Christian-themed hard punk, although they do take a few more chances on About a Burning Fire.

The record starts off with a few vintage Blindside tracks, "Eye of the Storm", "Follow You Down", and the single "All of Us". They all contain great hard guitars and enjoyable, catchy refrains. The next song, "Shekina", is a step in a different direction, featuring a beautiful female vocal, nice music, and some lyrics in the band's native Swedish.

The next couple songs are the most forgettable. "Hooray, It's L.A." features Billy Corgan on the guitar, but you wouldn't know if they didn't tell you. "Swallow" has a slightly infectious chorus, but these songs are merely solid, not really good. The next really good track on the album is "After You're Gone", which is a little too short. It's a great song with really haunting lyrics, and it really gets you caught up in its power.

The next couple tracks are a bit of a departure. "Where the Sun Never Dies" starts out fairly standard but ends with an unusual (for this band) techno interlude, and "Roads" is an out-of-nowhere, slow-moving song with a Western flair that's kind of hard to describe. The final song is the title track, which goes back to what Blindside does best, hard guitar riffs accompanied by towering, throat-shredding vocals. It's a good way to end an album for an album that does what they do about as good as anyone.