Music Update 1

AFI - Sing the Sorrow


AFI has been around for a while. I haven't heard anything they made before this album, but apparently it was different enough to alienate a lot of fans. In any case, I like it. They make quite capable pop punk with catchy choruses, a high voiced vocalist, and pretty normal guitars. It's not exceptional, but it's solid. Why I really like them is the bombast. Just the tone of the album is a little mightier and significant-seeming than most other stuff in the genre, starting with the opening song's war-cry esque vocals. They do a good combination of the singer's lone voice and several people shouting in unison, and it has the same feel as a general leading his troops into battle.

It could have been front loaded, with all of the singles in the first half, but it maintains quality throughout. The songs do kind of blend together as it goes on, but it's catchy enough that it's hard to care too much. It ends strongly, with the second to last track (which is oddly the first part of the two-part song that ends on the second track), which is a nice softer song, before the epic finale "...But Home Is Nowhere". It has one of the better anthems in it, than after it ends, there's a short silence before a sequence of voices progressing in age tell a creepy story backed up by a minimal piano tune. It then finishes with a stripped-down, well performed capper of a hidden track. Sing the Sorrow is a pretty good punk album helped out by elements that go deeper than the music.

Deftones - White Pony


Of all the bands stuck with the reviled nu-metal label, Deftones was one of the first, and it didn't do them any favors. They aren't like some of the other bands known for it, who inserted mediocre rap vocals and highly computerized and studio-perfected sound. They do have a bit of rap on the opening bonus track, although it's not obstructive and is pretty cool because the chorus is recalled in a different way on the album's final song. The hard rock music is decent, but the reason I really like Deftones is the vocals. The guy can sing, and his high voice contrasts in a very nice way with the crunching guitars.

He can scream as well as sing, and this is used along with the music to great some very nice shifts between hard and soft in the same song. Just listen to "Back to School (Mini Maggit)", "Elite", "Teenager", and "Passenger" to get an idea of how many things they can do and still sound like the same hardcore band. The single "Change (In the House of Flies)" interested me when I first heard it years ago, although I never got around to really listening to them until now, and I'm not sure why. Every song is enjoyable, and they manage to avoid all sounding the same which happens to a lot of bands with a similar style. It's not astounding but it's good hard rock.

Modest Mouse - Good News for People Who Love Bad News


I am becoming more and more of a fan of this kind of off-beat, different music. I guess I can't help myself. I liked the single "Float On" when I heard it a few years ago, but again, I didn't pursue the album until later. Good News is interesting because of its contrasting moods. The plucky guitars and catchy harmonies conflict with the cynical lyrics that attack religion and certain kinds of people. The vocals range from pleasant sounds in the background to aggressive, near shouting tirades. The singer isn't all that great at singing, but he's great at using his voice to convey any mood he wants.

"The World At Large" starts off the album about as happy as it gets, with flutes and meaningless vocals in the background. "Bury Me With It" is about as angry as the band gets musically, though not lyrically. That would be "Bukowski", which is completely pleasant musically. "The View" sounds like kind of like dance music. "Satin In a Coffin" uses prominent drums and older sounding instruments to create a very interesting sound. "The Good Times Are Killing Me" finishes off the album while perfectly illustrating the conflict of sound and message, and it's produced by The Flaming Lips, which is cool. Modest Mouse is a unique band, and a good one at that.

Nirvana - Nevermind


I like Nirvana, and I understand the influence they had on mainstream music, but I can't say I love their stuff as much as others do. Nevermind is a good album, but it's front loaded, and just doesn't have that something that makes it great. You can totally see all the ways their sound is replicated by other bands, but I don't find any of them to be terribly interesting either. Cobain's raspy vocals fit with his dark-natured guitar playing and lyrics, and he's a talented musician. But I think he's put on too high of a pedestal just because of how his career ended.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" is considered by many to be the best song of the decade, and one of the best ever. It's good, to be sure. It might just be hard for me to put it in context, having heard it for a long time without really knowing much about music when it was first popular (I had just turned four when the album was released). It's followed by four more good grunge songs I've heard before, and then six that I haven't. None of it's bad, it's just a little boring after the first half. The last track has the earliest instance I know of a hidden song after several minutes of silence. It goes with the whole album, respectable, high quality stuff, not quite what I'd call amazing.

Opeth - Damnation


Opeth is a metal band, but Damnation is not a metal album. It is the second half of a broken up double album, and is almost purely progressive rock. Deliverance, which was released about six months earlier, is supposed to be one of their hardest records, and this is quite a counterbalance to that. Opeth is known for switching between hard and soft moments, and that's part of why I liked Ghost Reveries, but without that, they are free to just let the softer stuff do what it wants, and it becomes a more enjoyable overall record. Despite his growling, he can definitely sing, and they don't seem out of place doing music like this.

"Windowpane" proves you can be good at regular guitar playing and fast-paced metal shredding. The more downplayed musicianship is combined with creepy sounding ambiance and strong vocals, and this combination is heard throughout. My favorite part is the end of "Closure" which combines different kind of music to create an awesome sounding groove that could last forever if it wanted to. The whole thing is a bit brief compared to their other stuff, which makes some sense considering it was once just half of an album. It's quite entertaining while it lasts, and shows how much range a band can have.

Papa Roach - The Paramour Sessions


I got all of these albums through BMG. They have pretty good deals, if you don't mind buying the sometimes unwanted stuff they offer you. I'm not a big Papa Roach fan, but I was willing to get their latest album if it meant 5 that I actually wanted for only the cost of shipping.

I don't think Papa Roach is that good, but they're really not bad either. I've never been that critical of rock as long as it's entertaining to listen to and has some catchy hooks, which Paramour Sessions does. The band has long since steered away from rap and is now pretty standard hard rock. Nothing they do is really extraordinary, but they're quite capable of radio-friendly noise.

The single "...To Be Loved" is a pretty solid fast-paced jam. "The World Around You" has a nice guitar line in the verse and a hard chorus. "Forever" is one of the band's better slower songs, and is matched with an anthemic refrain. "Time Is Running Out" kind of sounds like a pop punk song, and is fun to listen to. "My Heart Is a Fist" is one of the more hardcore songs on the album, and "Roses On My Grave" is a departure with a string section, and is a nice way to end it.