Maroon 5 "Overexposed" Review

...OK, right from the start, I will admit that this is going to be a REALLY odd album for me to review, for quite a few reasons:

1. My familiarity with Maroon 5 (apart from this album) is pretty much limited to "This Love" and "She Will Be Loved".
2. I am not massively fond of either of those songs. They aren't bad, but I wouldn't say I'm a big fan of them by any means.
3. Adam Levine's voice gets on my nerves when I have to listen to it for too long.
4. I usually tend to avoid modern pop music unless it's either VERY good (and, by that, I mean "Has a very good reputation among people I know who normally don't like modern pop music") or I'm so bored that I'm just browsing stuff to pass the time.

So, yeah, I'm technically not in a great place to review this album. I've got so much bias against it that you could be forgiven for asking "Why are you reviewing this if you're so inadequately prepared to review it fairly?" Well, my surprisingly talkative friend, I would respond to that by saying that an album should be able to be judged as a record in and of itself.

Plus, I don't actually hate this record. Yes, I'm very biased against it, but I will say that the record gets at least a few things right on it. Granted, a lot of those things are minor in the grand scale of things, but I still can't say that it's completely irredeemable.

So, now that we've got that out of the way, let's start by looking at the history of Maroon 5, for the benefit of those not familiar with them (although, really, you'd have to have been living under a rock for a good while to have completely missed Maroon 5: they're not exactly a small band!). Well, they have their roots in the band Kara's Flowers, a band made of four of the original members of Maroon 5: Adam Levine, Jesse Carmichael, Michael Madden and Ryan Dusick. Surprisingly enough, the band had very little funk influence. In fact, from what I've read about the only album they released worldwide, it was mostly alternative rock, with their self-released debut actually having more in common with grunge.

...I swear to God, I didn't make that up. Here's the music video to the only single Kara's Flowers ever released, if you don't believe me!

Yeah...so, as you might have guessed, Kara's Flowers didn't catch on. They were dropped from their label after their official debut album (titled The Fourth World) proved to be a commercial failure (selling something like 5000 copies). However, they carried on for a bit (although not on as big a level as last time, due to all of the members going to college) and eventually got an offer to join Octane Records after developing their sound a bit. They changed their name to Maroon 5 after the addition of guitarist James Valentine (formerly of the band Square, who released one album over the course of their short career, This Magnificent Nonsense) and set to work on Songs About Jane.

Which was rather popular, to put it politely.

Seriously, if you don't know how popular this album was, let's just say that it's sold over 4.8 million copies since it was released. That might not sound like a lot to some people (it's been out for about 11 years and three quarters now), but it still works out to over 400,000 copies sold per year. And that figure is from April 2012, so it might well have topped 5 million copies sold by now. Not bad for a debut album, is it?

Anyway, it took nearly five years before the follow up album (It Won't Be Soon Before Long...which has to be one of the dumbest album titles I've seen!) was released, with new drummer Matt Flynn behind the kit. It's sold over 5 million copies since it was released, according to a figure from 2011.

After a wait of about three years and four months, the band released their third album, Hands All Over. According to what I've seen online, this album got a bit of a mixed reaction, compared to their last two. Not necessarily a bad one, but you could kind of get the feeling that this album was not quite as well loved as the last two and, indeed, it seems to have sold noticeably less well than the last two albums. Granted, that one might be because it was released more recently than the last two, but it doesn't seem to have crossed the 3 million copies mark yet, which is not a great sign when your last two records have crossed the 5 million copies mark! Also, a lot of those sales were caused by the success of "Moves Like Jagger" (which is also included on here as a bonus track, for some reason...). With that fact in mind, the band appear to have taken the conscious decision to work with outside songwriters, went from a more pop influenced sound and pushed Adam Levine even more to the front of the spotlight than he already was (although the fact that Jesse Carmichael temporarily left the band to focus on his studies probably didn't help, as it meant that there were less people in the band to focus on...).

And the results...were even MORE mixed than last time, but it sold better than the last one, so I have a horrible feeling that this is going to be their music direction from now on. While I won't use the word "Sellout" (you can't really sell out when you already had a strong pop undertone to your music and were already really popular, if you ask me, especially considering all they've done is pushed the pop undertones to the forefront!), I wouldn't blame Maroon 5 fans for having words for this album.

HOWEVER, I wouldn't say this album is quite as bad as you'd expect me to say it is. Indeed, I would say that it has some very enjoyable moments if you look at it on its own merits and put Maroon 5's original sound aside. The problem, though, is that it doesn't really sound like a band effort: if anything, it feels more like it should have been Adam Levine's solo album, due to how little the rest of the band contributed to the songwriting. Now, to be fair, the band's second album was mostly composed by Levine on his own (with some input from the other members), so you could fairly make a case that this is not an accurate statement. However, the key difference is that Levine composed the second album mostly on his own. This album, however, has outside writers. Now, I'll admit: a good outside writer can bring something new to a band's sound without taking away from it, often providing the band with ideas that they never would have come up with and help them to develop as songwriters themselves. But the most common result is that outside writers tend to try to force their style of writing on the band, often without considering whether it actually suits the band or not.

You have two guesses as to what happened here, and the first one doesn't count.

Anyway, I've raged about all of this without actually talking about the album. So, let's actually start digging in to this.

First of all, I have to comment upon the album cover. I imagine this would make a lot more sense if you were higher than a kite, but all I'm reminded of is the animated Yellow Submarine movie, only with a pink filter over it and with some influence from Picasso thrown in. Basically, it doesn't make a huge amount of sense. If there's meant to be a deeper meaning behind all of this, I have absolutely no idea what it's supposed to be. Also, as much as I know bringing up My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is a bad idea across the internet, I have to point out that the show as a whole has a far better colour contrast than this artwork does: I've watched the entire show aired to date and I've never felt that I was being swamped with colour to the extent that I do when I look at this!

Anyway, getting to the album itself, I will say that it is surprisingly varied, covering quite a few different styles of music (although all of them are radio friendly styles and, to my recollection, none of them are really connected to rock music...so yeah, don't expect to hear the band suddenly attempting to do anything like Killswitch Engage or Slipknot). I suppose the issue is that they are very hit and miss with the quality of the material. Sometimes, they produce a very strong song that is really enjoyable to listen to and can stick with you for a good while (see "The Man Who Never Lied"), but the record also has a few songs that commit the unforgivable sin (for a pop album) of being completely forgettable.

I will say that, at least to me, the first half of the album contains the best songs. "Daylight" is a very enjoyable ballad that is at least strong enough for me to say that it's worth a listen if you aren't opposed to pop music in general. I also have to admit to having a soft spot of "Lucky Strike", despite the fact that there are more than a few moments lyrically that sound like they could have been borrowed from a glam metal song without needing any changes. And then we get to probably my favourite track on the record, "The Man Who Never Lied". I can't quite place why I like this song so much, but I do really enjoy it! It's just got a really strong hook and is a lot of fun to listen to. If I were to criticise it, I would say that the lyrics really needed some extra work, but I think I can give them a bit of a free pass on this one, as I don't think they're completely awful. They just have a few moments that can wind me up when I think about them too much. Also, "Love Somebody" is fairly enjoyable. It's nothing brilliant, but I can't complain about it. I also don't have any real issues with "Moves Like Jagger", but I can't really count it as part of this album, considering it's a single that was released separately from any albums and it also appeared on the re-release of Hands All Over.

Observant people (or those with the album up on wikipedia in another tab) will no doubt have noticed that those tracks are tracks 3 to 6 (and track 13, if you want to count "Moves Like Jagger") on the album track list. Well...that's because the other tracks are when the album really starts to fall apart for me. Some of them aren't bad, but none of them really catch me like the other ones did. For the most part, every song that I've not mentioned in the paragraph above is just dull or wrecks itself either due to dumb lyrics ("Tickets") or being musically uninteresting ("Ladykiller"), although "Sad" has a weirder problem: it's let down because Levine just doesn't have a strong enough voice to sing a piano ballad and do it justice. "Payphone" also has a guest rap by Wiz Khalifa that flat out doesn't fit the song (It's a song about a romance that has ended, and probably quite poorly if you think about it. Why's Khalifa rapping about spending as much money as he can and having cars that start with the push of a button? If he's trying to sound like the woman on the other side of the phone...he didn't really put that across. At all.), although I don't like the song a huge amount anyway, so that doesn't really help it. "Beautiful Goodbye", the closing track on the album, is about the closest these other eight songs get to being a good song, but, by the time you've finished sitting through the rest of the album, you're probably just glad it's nearly over. Credit to the writers, though, the chorus isn't bad!

The performances on this record...well, Levine is very noticeable, but everyone else? For all I know, the entire album was done by season musicians, that's how little presence the rest of the band has on the album! There's so little guitar on this album that you'd be forgiven for thinking that James Valentine wasn't even on the record. I've got bass enhancing headphones, so I know that there definitely was a bassist on the album and there are certainly drums on the album, but there's very little of the funk additions to their playing (unless you count "Ladykiller") that helps you to recognise that it's definitely them. If all of the effects are played by Jesse Carmichael (which is possible: he only went on hiatus from the band a few months before it was released), then I think he maybe overdid it a bit. The best comparison I can make would be comparing Dream Theater's two most well known keyboardists, Kevin Moore and Jordan Rudess. If Jesse's playing on their previous albums was more like Kevin Moore in Dream Theater (so, not overbearing the proceedings, but instead focusing on supporting the music), then his playing on this album is like Jordan Rudess in Dream Theater: it's almost literally everywhere across this album, detracting from the album as a whole because it detracts from the group sound. If it's not Jesse doing most of the sounds on this record, then I take that back, as I didn't realise it wasn't him. And reiterate my comment that he might have not been on this record at all, for all I know...

The production is actually fine. Yeah, it's on the loud side and slightly lacking in the bass guitar (when I listen to it without my bass enhancing headphones), but I don't think it does anything it really shouldn't be doing.

So, to sum up...it's got some solid tunes, but it's surrounded by so much mediocrity that I can't really say it's worth picking up if looked at on its own merits. If looked at when you compare it to what Maroon 5 are known for sounding like, then it falls pretty far short of expectations. If you want to pick up a pop album, then this isn't completely bad, but I wouldn't say it's an album you'll be loving, as there's more than a few tracks on here that you'll be skipping very quickly. If you don't like pop, then give this a miss. There's nothing here that is going to win you over.

Final Rating: 4 Out Of 10

This album isn't as terrible as my rating probably makes it sound, but I don't see there being a lot of reasons to pick this up unless you're already a Maroon 5 fan (and, even then, you'd need to be very fond of modern pop to enjoy this more than their first three albums). Maroon 5 would be best advised to not repeat what they did for this album and try to reconnect with their roots again, as I fear another album like this will only lead to a lot of disappointed fans and diminishing returns.

(Also, something interesting that I spotted while doing my research and wanted to share: apparently, it was while touring for the band's second album that Adam Levine admitting thinking that the band would only make one more album before disbanding, as he felt they had reached their peak. I'll admit, as much as this will make me sound like a jerk, I suspect that doing so might have been the more sensible idea, with the benefit of hindsight. I don't know what made Levine change his mind, but it's just interesting to note that the band did consider disbanding before "Moves Like Jagger" was even a thing. Imagine what the band's legacy would be like if that had happened: released two very strong albums and took a bit of a dip in quality on the third, but were still a very respectable band in the mainstream music scene. Now...well, the "respectable" bit could be up for debate, depending on who you ask. As could the "band" bit, if you judge only by this album and don't trust James Valentine's claims from April 2013 that they've written some darker stuff for their fifth album that leans more towards what they did on Songs About Jane...)

A Thank You To The Breakdown Room

I woke up to receive a message that The Breakdown Room (the Queensryche forum I mentioned I'm a member of a few weeks ago) is going to be closing down soon due to the fact that the board was originally intended to be a vehicle for change in the Queensryche camp and a lot of other stuff that has now been met.

While I am in shock at the suddenness of this decision, I do respect the admin's decision to close the forum. I would just like to extend a special thank you to the forum, as it was Queensryche and Crimson Glory that made me interested in progressive metal and it was the site posting the documents that kept me interested in seeing what was going to happen in the band and, if it weren't for the forum, I might not have developed my (still budding) interest in progressive metal and become more open minded to music in general.

If any of my readers want to download and save the documents from the Queensryche court case, I highly recommend taking the time to do this as soon as you can. Why do I recommend doing this? Because I think that this is an incident that deserves to be remembered. Not so they can be held on to as a reason to detest Tate for his actions (although I wouldn't be surprised if that does happen, as he's done some pretty unpleasant things...), but because this is an event that we simply cannot allow to be swept under the rug and quietly forgotten, as it may well be necessary to have them in the future, even if only as a reference for how not to lead a band.

Let it not be forgotten.

Thank you to everyone for reading this and I hope that all Queensryche fans will join me in putting on Queensryche's music for at least the rest of the week. Because, regardless of whether or not you liked The Breakdown Room, we are all Queensryche fans and it's sad to see a forum like it disappear forever. But I guess it's better that it closes on its own terms.

For those of you who do want to read the full story on the forum's decision to close, I have provided a link to that section of the forum: http://www.anybodylistening.net/breakdownroom/index.php?topic=5366.msg120288;boardseen#new

To close this article off, I'm going to put up a song that makes me break down into tears whenever I hear it. It's not Queensryche related, but I think that this song really needs to be heard and, well, now's a good time to put it up. So, here's Midnight (the now deceased ex-lead vocalist of Crimsong Glory) and his cover of Sarah McLachlan's "Angel".

Amaranthe Self-Titled Album Review

OK, this is going to be a weird one to describe, so bear with me for a second, I want to describe these guys before I get into anything.

Amaranthe are a band from Sweden who play a combination of metalcore, melodic death metal, power metal and pop music (for ease of remembering, I will now refer to it as melodic power pop core...which is just my personal nickname for their sound, but I like that term so much that I want to use it!), with three different vocalists providing a combination of strong female vocals, surprisingly poppy male vocals and death growls. I suppose you could TECHNICALLY say that it's a combination of power metal and trancecore, but I'm honestly not familiar enough with trancecore to say how accurate that description would be.

OK, we now return to your regularly scheduled brand of waffling pretending to be an introduction to this review.

*Cough*

So, I first heard of Amaranthe back in 2012, not far from when Kamelot were about to release their first album with Tommy Karevik on vocals, Silverthorn (which is also how I got introduced to The Agonist, who you may remember me talking about from my double review of "War Eternal" and "Disconnect Me"). Being very curious and having more money than I did common sense (I was a student!), I ordered this album (then their only album) having only heard maybe one or two tracks from it first.

...Wow, I've ran out of things to say to delay actually doing the review already. That must be a new record!

So, the album cover is...I hesitate to say that it's bad, but I can't say it's brilliant either. I guess you could argue that it gives you what you want to see, as it includes an image of the band (at the time: the guy doing death growling on the first two albums has now sadly departed the band, albeit on friendly terms), but it feels like it's lacking creativity.

As a side note, this is not a new trend among the band's album covers. Here is the cover for their second (and most recent) album, The Nexus.

Spotting a slight trend? I wish I had mad photoshop skills, as I have a feeling I can guess what their next album cover will look like just from a glance at the colour wheel...

Anyway, the band has a sound that, as I've mentioned before, is rather weird to describe. Some metal elitists like to say they're basically Britney Spears mixed with metal, which...actually, that's not as dumb as I first thought it was (although I highly doubt that Britney Spears has ever sung anything by Iron Maiden...on the off chance that she has and it's been recorded, please do not link me to it!). This is certainly a lot more pop sounding than you tend to expect from anything associated with metal, although I think that the band keep themselves anchored enough in metal that it's hard to say quite where they fall in terms of the line between metal and pop. As such, your viewpoint on this album WILL vary quite drastically, depending on your thoughts on pop music and metal music. I would say that, if you're a metal fan who doesn't hate modern pop music or a pop music fan who wants to get into metal, you'll find a lot of like about this. If you don't like one of the genres much, then this is definitely something to pass on. If you like (or can appreciate) both, though? Well, prepare to meet what might potentially be your new favourite band!

The album is very much made up of songs that could get on the radio without too much difficulty: the longest song on the album is a bit under five minutes long and, to the best of my recollection, there aren't any themes on the album that are likely to prevent airplay. In fact, even with the deluxe version of the album that I have, the album barely crosses the 50 minute mark, even with 14 songs. So, pop radio DJs out there who are reading this (although, really, why are you reading a blog about metal music if you're a pop music DJ? It just seems like an odd thing to read...) and want to throw something unexpected into your next show, try picking something from this album (or the next one) and see what happens! I'm pretty sure that this will go down very well!

The songs, for the most part, are fairly conventionally written (which makes sense, considering their sound is not too far removed from pop music mixed with metal), with very few surprises in the songwriting department. This does mean that the songwriting will start to feel a bit predictable if you are used to more technical songwriting. However, considering their sound, I think it's fair to give them a pass on this one, as I don't see the band's typical sound being one that would suit an epic track of more than six minutes (heck, the longest song on this album, "Directors Cut", arguably is pushing to the edge of where their songs can go before getting dull and it's nearly five minutes long!). Still, this is a factor that will put off some people, so I do have to point it out.

I wouldn't say that their sound lacks variety, though: within the boundaries of their sound, they come up with a lot of a surprisingly large range of songs, ranging from nearly entering melodic death metal territory (the verses to "Call Out My Name" wouldn't be too far out of place if they cropped up in a melodic death metal song, although the rest of the song is what I am going to nickname "speed pop music": basically, pop music played really quickly!) to a very nice, fairly slow paced ballad with barely any harsh vocals in it (although they do crop up for a little bit of the song in question, "Amaranthine"). It's this variety (along with the fact that all three vocalists are very strong singers in their own right) that makes this such a captivating listen. The fact that just about every song on this album will get stuck in your head if you let it is also something that will win over pop fans. Metal fans might be a bit more picky about the songs, but I think they're well written enough that most metal fans (providing they don't flame it purely because it has any influence from pop music) will have little to complain about with the songs.

The whole album is also very well performed, but one performance that I feel I must highlight is that of drummer Morten Løwe Sørensen. Put simply, this guy is brilliant behind the drum kit, although the fact that the guys has played (admittedly, only live) for Soilwork should be enough for most metal fans to get an idea of what the guy is capable of. For those who don't know who Soilwork are, let's just say that, across this album, he practically gives a masterclass in playing the drums that will have most drummers with their jaws dropping through the floor. Yet I wouldn't say there is any real point when his drumming becomes intrusive to the music, although he does reach for the double bass drumming probably a bit more than most pop fans will be comfortable with. Basically, the guy's a brilliant metal drummer, but he can dial it back when the song calls for it, which is a pretty good ability to have!

The production of this album is pretty solid, although I still think that the bass is lacking some prominence in the mix. The mastering is pretty much fine, if maybe a tiny bit louder than it might want to be overall. No major complaints on the production front, I have to say!

So, how does the album as a whole weight up? Well, every song is worth a listen to, it's well performed, has a rather unique sound, has a lot of variety to it and can appeal to quite a large audience. You know what? While I think calling it a classic would be pushing the truth a bit, I can find very little to complain about with it. I suppose my big worry is that it might not have the best shelf life, as it can become one of those albums which you really like, but don't play a lot due to how you keep finding other stuff that interests you longer (as has happened with me). However, considering how the album sounds as a whole and the fact I have no real complaints to make about it, I think I need to give it a high rating.

Final Rating: 9 Out Of 10

It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but, if you can enjoy modern pop music and metal music in general, you'll likely find a huge amount to enjoy here. Highly recommended!

Megadeth "Super Collider" Review

Don't ask why I didn't get to this one earlier. Considering the fact that it's by one of the most well known names in metal music, you'd have expected this to have been higher on my list of albums to check out.

And, honestly, it was. But the controversial nature of this album put me off checking it out, which was not helped by the title track being...erm, not what I expected from Megadeth, to put it politely. However, I'm a sucker for a good bargain and, when I found this was being sold for £4 in a store, I figured that it was worth snapping it up. Plus, I'd been debating having a go at reviewing this for a while now anyway, so that just happened to be a case of good timing.

Anyway, everyone probably knows who Megadeth are, so I'm going to skip the talk about their past. What I will say (for the benefit of those not keeping up to date with what Megadeth's been up to) is that, after Th1rt3en, Megadeth (or, at least, founding member, vocalist, guitarist and main songwriter Dave Mustaine) have been in the metal press for reasons not relating to music and, well, not for good reasons either. Now, this isn't anything new if you're familiar with what Dave's been like since the band returned from their break up, but it would fair to say that the band could be fairly accused of having a poor reputation in light of Dave's actions. They left Roadrunner Records in early 2013 to form their own label, Tradecraft, which had the album distributed through Universal Records, so, naturally, expectations were high that the band could produce a solid thrash album to start off their (relative) independence.

...Well, we all know how THAT went.

This album has received a lot of reviews that generally fall between "mixed" and "bad", with some fans going so far as to claim that Risk is a better album than this is, although a general consensus is that it's one of Megadeth's weakest offerings. But does that necessarily make it a bad album in its own right? After all, some bands have such a high reputation for quality that their weakest offerings would be another band's strongest offerings, so surely that means that Megadeth has done that, right?

Well...no. While it's not as bad as some people will claim it is, it's still not a particularly good album, as even the best songs on here would probably be considered weaker offerings on a better album. Or is a cover, in the case of "Cold Sweat".

Let's start with the good stuff on the album (because there is some). "Kingmaker", despite the melody line to the verses bearing a surprising similarity to Black Sabbath's "Children Of The Grave", is a pretty enjoyable song overall and gets the album off to a decent start. While it's not an opening track that is going to go down as one of Megadeth's best album openers (it doesn't outdo "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due" and "Wake Up Dead", just to name two of my favourites!), it's still a good enough opener to justify keeping it on the band's setlist for now (indeed, according to setlist.fm, it's the only song from the album to consistently appear on the band's touring setlist at the minute, with "Cold Sweat" having not been played since December 2013 and the title track having not been played since July 2013...). It's also among the most thrash influenced song on the album, which means that thrashers will at least enjoy this one more than, say, "Super Collider" (which I'll come to later...).

The next song that I'd say really stands out is "Dance In The Rain", although it doesn't start out like that! At first, it's just Megadeth with Dave doing his typical talking over the music (word of advice: if you can't convey something through your song's lyrics and have to speak it, that's your cue to start again with the lyrics!) and, for a lot of the runtime, it just plods...but then it picks up at about the 3 and a half minute mark into one of the best songs Megadeth have released since The System Has Failed. It's made up of a brilliant riff that throws back to Megadeth's thrash roots wonderfully, has one of the best vocal performances on a Megadeth album since the band reunited (although it says a lot that it's NOT by Dave Mustaine, but by Dave Draiman...oh yeah, he's on this album! And does a wonderful job with his only appearance on it, if you ask me, and I'm saying that as a guy who isn't a fan of Disturbed!) and actually sounds like one of the most inspired moments on the whole album! It's a shame that this had to be attached to the rest of the song, as it could have become a highlight on the album if it had been made into its own song, easily!

"Don't Turn Your Back..." is pretty solid as well. Nothing especially great by Megadeth standards, but it's certainly an enjoyable track.

Lastly, we get to the Thin Lizzy cover, "Cold Sweat". I'll admit, I'm not familiar with the original version of this song, so I can't say how good it sounds compared to the original, but I found this a very enjoyable song. It's just a shame that this had to be one of the highlights of the album, as it says a lot about the quality of the rest of the album!

A few songs have a few interesting moments that I want to single out before I tear into the rest of the album. I like the slide guitar and fiddle part on "The Blackest Crow", although it doesn't really ascend the song from being dull. I also have to say that the main riff to "Forget To Remember", while making me think of "Trust" and "Almost Honest" more than it probably should be doing, is pretty solid. The song itself...it's certainly better than a lot of the rest of the album, but I don't think it's strong enough to single it out as a highlight, to be honest. Eh, what the heck, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt this time!

So, that's four songs that are worth a listen (and a fifth that isn't a highlight, but is strong enough for me to feel guilty about not mentioning it). What about the rest? Well, let's put it this way: some of the songs here COULD have been much better if a stronger vocalist was singing them. Let's look at "Kingmaker" for a second: it's a good song, but could you imagine how much better it might have sounded if, say, Chuck Billy of Testament was singing it instead of Dave? That issue crops up on "Built For War": if Chuck Billy had sung it, I reckon it could have been a great song (seriously, imagine Chuck doing his lower, growly tone for the chorus!), but, with Dave singing it, the vocals let it down and drag it down to just being OK. Some, however, couldn't have been salvaged, even if you ignore the fact that the Megadeth name comes with the expectation of thrash metal and look at them on their own merit. Take the title track: it just feels tired from the moment it starts and even a vocal performance by a great vocalist (which Dave never was, at least from a technical perspective) wouldn't be enough to save this song from just being dull.

The lyrics also have gone downhill. Don't believe me? Go look up the lyrics to "Beginning Of Sorrow". The song sounds like it's about how abandoning children makes them grow up to be monsters, but the way it starts out leaves you with a lot of questions that REALLY should have been sorted out before they were sung. I may be reading too much into it, but there are too many potential interpretations that should not be needing me to try to guess what the right one is if you're not trying to attempt some cryptic writings (and I know that was a terrible attempt at humour, but I couldn't resist!)! Is it a song about whether you should abort unwanted children? Is it a song about whether a child should be adopted? Is it about how children grow up to be like their parents? A bit of clarification would have been nice, guys!

And, really, that leaves me with a big question about this album: who is it meant to appeal to? It won't win over the thrash fans, as they tend to react to anything which isn't thrash with...less than enthusiastic reactions, to put it politely. Yet it won't gain the band any new fans in this day and age, as metal and rock in general are almost completely ignored on the radio, so it likely won't be heard by those who might want to hear it. Plus, if you have heard of Megadeth before now, you'll know them for their reputation as part of the Big 4 of thrash metal. Maybe there are fans out there who loved the band's 90's output and were craving a return to that (heck, one of my first Megadeth albums was Cryptic Writings, so I can get why some would want that...), but is it really worth appealing to that crowd when you consider Megadeth's reputation? And, if you do go for that crowd, why release an album that just sounds like you aren't putting your all into it? All of those factors add together to just make this album feel like it wasn't written with an audience in mind. And, while I do get that artists have the liberty to do what they want and I would never say that an artist must only write an album to suit their audience (people change as they get older and what you loved doing as a young adult might not be something you want to do when you're 50...[PURGED BY ORDER OF THE ORDOS HERETICUS AND MALLEUS]), there is a point when you have to stop and ask whether what you've written is what people want to listen to. To put it another way, you are within your right as an artist to play something with more time changes than a travel journalist's watch, a guitar solo with more notes than your average law book and running for longer than a marathon, but, if nobody wants to listen to, what's the point?

And that's the thing that, I think, Dave's messed up on the most this time. With thrash having returned, there's just no real need for the band to return to doing Megadeth's type of material from the 90's. Metallica have made a return to metal (if, admittedly, not quite to thrash metal, although "My Apocalypse" was about the closest they've come for a good while!), Anthrax made a welcome return to some attempt at thrash with Worship Music (and are apparently working on one of their thrashiest albums for a while now...fingers cross that isn't just journalistic bullcrap!) and Slayer...well, Slayer technically didn't completely give up on metal in the first place, but World Painted Blood was very much a thrash record. Again, I get that Dave might have wanted to do a less thrash influenced record because he wants to do something different (before fans start treating this as an insult, actually stop and ask whether you'd want to be performing the same songs again and again for years, potentially night after night without any real break and potentially songs that you don't like much, but everyone else really likes...yeah, see what I mean?), but it still doesn't sound like he was putting his all into this record, instead aiming for that bit of mainstream success that pushed his streamlining of Megadeth's sound in the 90's and lead to albums such as Cryptic Writings and Risk (although, granted, those two were partially due to Bud Prager's influence, so you can fairly say that those two are not quite the best examples...). And I just don't think it was necessary.

If Dave wanted to do this for other reasons, I can respect that and I will happily take back the last two paragraphs. But that's just what it sounds like to my ears.

Anyway, since I've been harping on about what the album isn't as opposed to what it is, let me return back to my attempt at being a serious critic. The production on this album is pretty good, I have to say! It's maybe on the louder side of things and the bass could do with a tiny bit more prominence in the mix, but I otherwise have no major complaints about it! And, for all my complaints about the material, it's still very well performed. I do think that the drumming is still a step down from the classic line up (no disrespect intended towards Glenn Drover: I'm aware thrash drumming isn't as easy as a lot of people tend to make it out to be when complaining about it), but everyone certainly puts effort into the instrumental sections of the music. While I think Dave might want to consider retiring as Megadeth's vocalist due to how far downhill his voice has gone since the 80's (he sounds bored a lot of the time on the album), the fact that he's been singing for the band for about three decades now is still not lost on me and, to be honest, I can't think of anyone who could really replace him as a vocalist (in his prime, he fit the music brilliantly, despite being a pretty poor vocalist on a technical level), so I just don't see that happening.

So, is this album really the worst album Megadeth has released? Unfortunately, I have to agree with the majority and say that, while it's not the outright worst album they have released, it is certainly among the worst. As an album in its own right, however, it's an OK album. Unfortunately, Megadeth have never been about releasing material that is just "OK": they are one of the biggest names in thrash and have at least two albums (Peace Sells...But Who's Buying and Rust In Peace) which are considered classics of thrash metal. At their best, they could make Metallica quake in their boots with their raw aggression and (not counting Dave's vocals) could probably outplay all of the members of the band at their own game (and I'm saying that as a Metallica fan). And they could back it up on record, too. So seeing them descend to releasing an album that's just OK...it's actually kind of painful, especially when you consider that metal is not a genre which gets by purely on being just "OK"! And that's really the thing that breaks this album: it's just not a strong enough album to really recommend it.

Dave, you're a great musician and a strong songwriter, but, looking at this as objectively as I can, I have to say that you fucked up with this one. If you don't want to do thrash any more, please just release solo albums and let Megadeth rest, as you're not going to win over the guys who put the band on top of the thrash scene by releasing albums like this. If you do want to do thrash metal, then take some time to recharge your batteries before writing and recording the next album. There's no shame in taking a few years out to make sure you can release the best Megadeth album you can by doing a solo album or two to explore other styles of music while you get the best thrash metal you can ready in the vaults: some brilliant artists have done solo albums to allow them to explore other styles of music while they get the main albums for their bands ready to kick ass. Even if you don't want to take time off and want to rush into the studio, I encourage you to think about how a fan would react to the album before you try to release it. We aren't all grumpy people who just want thrash metal again and again: a lot of us just want a solid album at the end of the day and this, I'm sorry to say, isn't one.

Final Rating: 4 Out Of 10

While this is not a completely unlistenable album, it has some serious issues that drag it down and has so little quality material on it that it is not an album that is really worth checking out. Unless you can find this on sale fairly cheaply and have checked this out online first to see what your thoughts on the album are, I do not recommend picking this up.

Personal Highlights: "Kingmaker"

Arch Enemy's "War Eternal" VS The Agonist's "Disconnect Me": A Double Review

On Monday this week, the extreme metal scene was shaken with the news that Arch Enemy's frontwoman for 13 years and a few months, Angela Gossow, was departing the band to focus on the management side of the band. The person given the job of replacing her was none other than Alissa White-Gluz...who left The Agonist on the same day, being replaced by relative unknown Vicky Psarakis. Entire cities drowned in the blood of innocents, sacrifices were made to Lucifer himself pleading him to help get rid the unclean one and the world trembled in fear of what would happen next.

But enough about my trip to Wales. How did this news affect me personally?

It was probably the biggest shock that I personally have had involving extreme metal (aside from my reaction to hearing The Browning for the first time...). My first exposure to The Agonist was when I heard Alissa's appearance on Kamelot's single for their (then upcoming) album Silverthorn and, to be blunt, she impressed me so much that I couldn't stop listening to the song (although the fact that Tommy Karevik impressed me as well probably didn't hurt either!). Being curious about hearing more by the band, I got all of their studio albums and, while I would never be as impressed by The Agonist as I was with Alissa's appearance on Silverthorn, I still liked them enough to wonder when they would release their fourth album.

By contrast (and you might as well get your laughs out now), I never paid any real attention to Arch Enemy. My knowledge of them literally began and ended with "Nemesis". Now, to be fair, I was introduced to them far too early to really appreciate death growling, as I was still trying to get into metal when I got recommended the band (as unbelievable as this will sound, I was recommended them by a guy who played guitar for the morris dancing group I was part of in my last year of high school...seriously, I'm not making that up! I can even tell you what the group was called: Rag Bag Morris. Used to do rehearsals in a place called Etal. Nice place, great pub, lovely town hall!) and, as such, was not really capable of appreciating the band at the time. That said, I have recently started to gain an appreciation for death metal (although learning how to do the vocal style the genre is famous for may have had something to do with it...), so it's not impossible that I might have gone on to check out the band sometime down the line had this news not hit!

So, obviously, now Alissa is part of Arch Enemy, I was half expecting The Agonist to disappear while Arch Enemy rose triumphant with Alissa on vocals. So, when I hear both bands were releasing new songs this week ("War Eternal" in Arch Enemy's case and "Disconnect Me" in The Agonist's) to show how their new vocalists would fit in with their new bands, I was silently jumping at the news with all the enthusiasm of a kid in a candy store. Could The Agonist survive without Alissa? Would Arch Enemy get an amazing performance out of one of my favourite vocalists in the extreme metal genre (yeah, I know, odd choice, but I'm not a big extreme metal fan, give me a break!)? And, most importantly, would both bands be capable of producing a song actually worth giving a damn about?

To quote Harry Hill's TV Burp, "There's only one way to find out. FIGHT!"

So, first up, let's look at "War Eternal". If you've not heard the song, check it out!

Now, I'm probably not really qualified to say how this song fits in with the rest of Arch Enemy's discography, so I'm going to judge this song only on the song itself. The major thing that springs to mind is that the song is a lot more melodic than I'd expected it to be. This might be a minor thing to a lot of people, but one of the things that has recently struck me is that, with extreme metal, the focus isn't on the vocals, but on the music itself. If you will, the reason the vocalist is making what sounds like a horrible noise is to try to stop you focusing on the melody of the vocals and make you look at the rest of the music instead. That doesn't mean you don't get people who can perform melody lines while singing in extreme metal vocals, but...I'm digressing. Anyway, Arch Enemy are more melodic than typical death metal, which means that there's usually a focus on getting some sort of melody into the music, even if it's not in the vocals. In this case, the most melodic parts of this song is the pre-chorus and the chorus, which usually means that you'll probably have the chorus in your head. It's nothing especially new, but it's solidly written and should get a lot of headbanging action from metal heads.

The drumming is pretty much your typical death metal drumming: double bass for a lot of the run time, some other drumming that basically serves to keep time and a few fills. It's nothing technically brilliant, but it requires a hell of a lot of stamina to do all of it for any real time! The guitars are, again, fairly typical of melodic death, although there's a bit more of a death metal feel to them here, as the verses put the emphasis on being as heavy as they can be (which means fast and somewhat mindless shredding, to a lot of people). The bass...well, I can barely hear it on the loudest volume setting on the laptop I'm typing this on, so you can spot my usual complaint coming a mile away. That said, most death metal bands don't tend to give their bassists especially complicated bass lines to play, so I think I can let my usual complaint slide this time.

You'll notice I've not mentioned Alissa's vocals yet. And it is here that I have to be as honest as I can and say that Alissa, while still sounding good, seems to have lost something about her vocals with the swap between bands. Her harsh vocals are still as good as they were in The Agonist, but, without her clean vocals, I kind of feel like she's being wasted slightly in Arch Enemy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not demanding that Arch Enemy suddenly add clean vocals just to suit Alissa, but she has a good clean voice and it's just a huge shame that she's very unlikely to get a chance to use it in Arch Enemy. Maybe it's because I'm still not a big fan of death metal, but I find that only having harsh vocals is criminally underusing a good vocalist.

So, how do I find the song overall? Well, it's a good song. The problem is that it's nothing especially special: if you've listened to any previous Arch Enemy, you probably know what to expect to hear and you'll come away satisfied, but people who just can't latch on to death metal of any sort because of the vocals will have no real way to enjoy this. Nobody really has any standout moments on the song to me, but I can't say that I dislike the song either. Alissa will be fine with Arch Enemy, but I just think that it's a shame that she won't be able to demonstrate her clean vocals as part of the band. All told, it's definitely worth at least a listen if you like death metal, melodic death metal and The Agonist (and probably if you're a metalcore fan as well), but I just don't think it's offering enough new to really get me excited for their first album with Alissa. Maybe it's because I'm a cynical git, but, if this is going to be what the rest of the record sounds like, I think it's going to be a good, but not great, album. So, with that, I come to my final rating.

"War Eternal" Final Rating: 6 Out Of 10

So, now that Arch Enemy have set a level to match, we come to "Disconnect Me" by The Agonist. Now, as I've mentioned earlier, this is the band I was worried about. After all, they've just lost their most distinctive member, so surely there's nothing that they can do to surprise me?

Well, let's boot up "Ye Olde Laptope" and give it a listen, shall we?

To quote my original reaction to this song, "FUCK!"

Yeah...I was wrong with my original thoughts. Very wrong indeed.

The Agonist play a combination of metalcore and melodic death metal, two genres that a lot of metal purists tend to deride for various reasons, and have a female vocalist, which can get a lot of...controversial reactions from metal purists, to be polite. That the band can make all three of these factors work together without making one of the factors feel unnecessary is a testament to their songwriting ability, although it doesn't hurt that they added more progressive influences to their albums as time went along. While this song is probably not going to be the best indication of what the band's next album is going to sound like as a result, I can say that it is one of their strongest singles to date. At the very least, I think it rivals "Thank You, Pain" as my favourite single by the band. And that says a lot, as I love "Thank You, Pain"! The songwriting is top notch, with some really neat little twists to the song that help make the song evolve as it goes along, yet it doesn't forget to keep things memorable. I guess the problem is that a lot of it will not sound as impressive if you're already a fan of The Agonist, but they do add something from out of left field that, I will admit, took me a few listens to really get used to: male death growls. I won't lie: at first, I hated their addition. The Agonist never needed them before now, so I thought adding them was a bad idea. But, after a few listens, my complaints about them faded away. Now that I've grown used to them, I like their addition, as it gives the band an extra aspect to their sound that makes them more interesting to listen to. True, it doesn't completely replace Alissa as a growling vocalist and it is a shame that it's not an original idea, but I think that, after you get used to them, they are a welcome addition.

The guys who made up The Agonist prior to Alissa's departure are all still doing their own thing. Simon McKay is still his ridiculously fast drummer self (I honestly wonder whether the guy lives off of energy drinks...), Danny Marino is still playing his own surprisingly technical and weird brand of guitar riffing (along with Pascal Jobin) and Chris Kells is as impossible to hear as usual. I don't know who is doing the male growls, but my best guess (due to the mention of him doing backing vocals on wikipedia) is Chris Kells. If so, it's nice to hear him, as he does a wonderful job with them!

And so we come to Vicky's vocals. Now, Vicky (to my knowledge) was previously only really known for doing vocal covers of songs on youtube (which sounds very similar to the guy now singing for Damnation Angels...), so I took a chance to check her cover of "Thank You, Pain" out before "Disconnect Me" was released. And the big complaint I have to make is the same issue that crops up in this song: she doesn't have an especially wide growling range. She does better on this song than she does on the "Thank You, Pain" cover, I'll admit, but Alissa had a very noticeable range to her growling, which has me slightly concerned that Vicky is going to struggle with some of the band's more growl heavy stuff live (like "You're Coming With Me" and "Panaphobia"). However, I think that she can develop this range more over time, so I'm not too concerned at the minute about this. Her clean voice is stronger than Alissa's, though, which is at least an advantage in her favour. As a replacement to Alissa, I think that Vicky is a passable successor. She needs some time to develop as a vocalist (particularly in the growling department), but I think that The Agonist will be completely fine with her on vocals.

So, how do I find this song? Well, I prefer it to the Arch Enemy track, that's for certain! While I have issues with this song, I still think it's a strong song and most of the issues I have with it can be fairly traced back to the vocals (and I wouldn't say any of them are particularly serious issues). It harkens back to the band's second album, with a bit of the influence from the band's third album to keep things interesting. All told, it's just a really good song. Not perfect, by any measure, but it's very enjoyable at least! I expect great things from The Agonist on their next album, just based off of this track!

"Disconnect Me" Final Rating: 8 Out Of 10

De La Cruz "Street Level" Review

...OK, depending on how nationalistic and nitpicky (about genres) you are, you could argue that, to an extent, I am technically reviewing a UK hard rock album. However, Australia has been its own country for at least a hundred years and, well, if you think all glam metal is just hard rock with funny costumes, I'd suggest you go look up W.A.S.P.'s self-titled debut album and Twisted Sister's debut album, Under The Blade.

Anyway, before this descends into a flame war involving nationalist Brits, the rest of the world, metalheads who hate glam metal and people who like it, let's move on to today's band and album. Well, De La Cruz are surprisingly new to the metal scene, forming in mid-2011 and putting out their debut EP in October 2011. After getting a new bassist and, in mid-2012, a recording contract with Frontiers Records, the band set to work on their debut album, which got released in March of last year (on the 25th of March in the UK). Shortly after the release of the album, however, disaster struck: Casey Jones (founding member, guitarist, co-main songwriter and guy in charge of recording, mixing and producing the album) announced his decision to leave the band. While the band are still around now (with a new guitarist and bassist), I think it's unlikely that they'll be releasing another album for a while now.

And nothing of value was lost, if you ask me.

...OK, that was harsh. This album isn't bad (indeed, I'd say it's a very enjoyable album if you like glam metal), but, considering how many good bands are coming out of Europe playing this kind of music and doing it better than De La Cruz are, it's just hard to get really excited about this. I'll admit that it's nice to see a band coming out of Australia playing this kind of music, but I think they need to improve on a few things (assuming they come back) before they have a chance of making any waves.

First of all, I have to aim my first criticism at lead vocalist Roxxi Catalano. The guy seems like he wants to be Axl Rose and...well, he's welcome to give it a go if he wants to, but, when he goes for his higher range, I just hear a guy who is fighting to sing the material a lot of the time. Now, I'm not a vocal coach, so I can't say whether that is just part of his higher range or him having to sing louder than he feels comfortable doing, but it just winds me up when I hear it. That said, he has a fine voice when he doesn't try to do...whatever he's doing that winds me up: his singing in "Dreaming" is very good, reminding me a bit of Olli Hartmann from Reckless Love. On the off chance that Roxxi is reading this, may I suggest more vocals like on "Dreaming" and less like on "Turn It Up" on future albums? You'll probably find it more comfortable on your vocal cords, which is an important thing to remember if you want to seriously make a career in the music business: after all, if you lose your voice, you're basically out of work until your voice recovers!

Secondly, the band's choruses generally appear to be from the "Cherry Pie" school of chorus writing, which teaches that repeating a few words qualifies as a chorus. Now, I'll be honest, this normally doesn't bug too much (heck, Reckless Love did the same thing on Spirit and I didn't criticise them for it), but that's because the music usually is strong enough for me to not go "Hey, that's not an imaginative chorus!" De La Cruz, sadly, haven't quite nailed the ability to write a catchy chorus yet, as they can be very hit or miss when it comes to them (case of point, compare "Dreaming" to "Girls Go Wild". If you come out of that singing "Girls Go Wild" instead of "Dreaming", I'll be surprised!). Considering that glam metal was originally based on catchy choruses, this strikes me as a serious issue which they need to work on. As a new band, I can cut them some slack, but I still think that they should take a bit of time to work on writing stronger choruses before they record their next album and make sure they don't forget those lessons when their third record is in the writing stages, as that is when it's going to be the make or break point for them.

Thirdly, the lyrics, while generally passable for glam metal standards (if you're looking for deep lyrics in glam metal, you're missing the point of it a bit...), do have some moments that leave me wondering what they were thinking. Take "Cherry Bomb", for example: the chorus is literally "My cherry bomb baby/got her head in the clouds and her knees on the ground". While I can make a very good guess as to what they're trying to convey in those lyrics, it's still a set of lyrics that just leave me scratching my head. I'm not going to say those are the worst lyrics I've ever read (Reckless Love have produced worse lyrics in their time), but most of the bands writing worse lyrics at least have the excuse that English isn't their first language. De La Cruz, I remind you, are from Australia (well, mostly: Roxxi Catalano is from New Zealand), so I can't give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.

So, after all of my comments, you'd expect me to hate this band, right? Well...yes and no. I'm not going to say that the issues I have with them are minor issues, as they do add up to generally drag the album down for me. However, to say that it makes the album completely unlistenable would be horribly unfair, as, when the band avoid falling into the pitfalls I've listed, they can write some pretty good songs. Take my personal favourite song on the album, "Dreaming": this song just sounds brilliant, with a wonderful chorus that you'll be humming for a good while, a vocal performance that, while a bit restrained, suits the song nicely and has some lyrics that I actually really like. "Shine" is also very good, having a noticeable atmosphere to it that makes it a rather engaging listen. I also have to say that "S.E.X." has a very good main riff and that, had the band been a bit more subtle with the subject matter (just take a guess as to what the song is about), could have potentially made a great song out of it. I also find "Set The Night On Fire" and "Invincible" pretty enjoyable, although not really enough to call them highlights. For all my complaints, I can't say that any of the songs are outright bad (although "Cherry Bomb" needed a lot more imaginative lyrics to it), it's just that they often fall prey to a few issues that just bug me and drag the experience down.

If you can ignore the issues, it is a fun listen, but I have to ask whether just being a fun listen is enough in this day and age when there are a lot of other bands out there doing the same thing (and, in my opinion, doing it better). And that's really the big issue: if you just want a fun listen, there are other bands out there doing the same thing who can be more fun to listen to than De La Cruz. If they were the only band out there doing it, I'd be raving about them, but, with Europe being a good source of glam metal in this day and age, I can only see this having a noticeable appeal in Australia and New Zealand, since it's expensive to travel to Australia from Europe and most bands would need to be pretty big over there to justify doing a tour there.

The production, considering it was produced by the band's guitarist, is surprisingly good, I have to say. It's a bit louder than it should be, but it's otherwise mixed fairly well (although the bass is maybe a bit on the quiet side for a typical pair of headphones...). I think that the guitars maybe are a bit too loud in the mix (a common issue with guitarists mixing something, I notice...), but I don't think it goes so far overboard that it completely dominates the album.

All told, if you just want to pick up a glam metal album, this isn't a bad album. I just think that, with the Europe scene providing a solid amount of glam being done to a higher quality than De La Cruz have provided, there's not a lot of point to getting excited about them if you live in or near Europe. That doesn't necessarily mean that you should completely dismiss them just because Europe does it better, but I just think that it's tough to go "YEAH, GO TEAM!" at the minute. If you do live in Australia, I'd say it's worth picking up (if only because European glam metal is not likely to be heading your way unless it gets big, so supporting your native bands is a good idea for now), but the rest of the world should put these guys on your list of bands to only check out if you're bored on a rainy day. Glam fanatics might love this album more than I do, but I just can't get excited about this one. Sorry guys, better luck next time!

Final rating: 6 out of 10

Personal favourite tracks: "Dreaming", "Shine".

The Treatment "Running With The Dogs" Review

...OK, I'm aware that doing another review of a UK hard rock band after my comments on the scene as a whole in my last review MIGHT be pushing my luck a bit with the UK readers of this blog, but I've been meaning to do this one for a while now (I even picked up my copy of the album about the time it was released), so it's time to place this album on the scales of justice and see how it balances out. Let's do this!

So, The Treatment hail (and probably kill and die...that was a terrible reference to Manowar, sorry!) from the location of Cambridge. Not exactly a place you'd expect a hard rock band to come out of: you'd probably expect a place known for one of the biggest universities in the country to have a huge prog rock fondness! While I can't confirm how large the Cambridge hard rock scene is, I do know that there is a death metal band from Newcastle who has recently released their debut album, so I guess that, if you dig deep enough, you'll always find some weird and/or wonderful band playing a style very atypical of what you'd expect. Anyway, The Treatment made a bit of a buzz when their debut came out, as they were invited to do a gig for the best up and coming newcomers (along with Jettblack and Reckless Love...who technically aren't newcomers, but hey, technicalities!). That's how I first heard about them, as I decided to pick up their debut album upon hearing about this gig. And...I wasn't impressed. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad, but I found myself thinking "This is what is making a buzz?" very early into the run time. I did quite like their song "Departed" from the album, but the rest of the album didn't really rub off on me. I've given it a few listens since then, but it still strikes me as being a very mediocre album, with little on it to really get me excited about these guys potentially being the next big thing. Maybe I'm being a grumpy git, but I won't say a band are going to be the next big thing unless I feel that they have the quality to back them up and, to my ears, The Treatment's debut didn't have the quality I was looking for.

So, why did I pick up their second album if I was so convinced they wouldn't amount to much? Well, I'm a persistent guy: providing a band doesn't outright piss me off with their album, I'll keep giving them a try. Heck, I bought SIX albums of Iced Earth before I really clicked with them, that's how persistent I can be! Plus, I might as well do my best to support my national rock scene, as, in spite of my grumpy rant from last time, I DO want the UK to become a major player in the rock and metal scene again. I just think too many bands are going about it the wrong way by not looking at their influences closely enough to learn all of the little tricks that made those bands so brilliant. Some of it MAYBE can be attributed to the bands being in the right place at the right time, but there is a reason that their classic albums are still so iconic and it sure as hell isn't just because they happened to be released at the right time!

Anyway, before I need to bring out the rant warning again, let's start actually looking at the album. And...well, I'd say the quality has stepped up at least a bit, but I still don't think there's enough to them for me to really start triumphing them over, say, Heaven's Basement.

A lot of The Treatment's sound can be boiled down to "AC/DC if they got a cleaner vocalist". Already, I can spot a problem with this: in this day and age, everyone who plays hard rock (not glam metal: hard rock) seems to play it in the same kind of style as AC/DC (heck, I'd argue that Airbourne sound more like AC/DC than AC/DC do today!), so you either need to be very good at the style or have a twist on it to mark you out among the crowd. A good example of the latter would be The Darkness: they could be fairly summed up as being AC/DC meets Queen, which gives them a uniqueness to the style that will have you forgiving the occasional moment of "Hey, that sounds familiar!" (although, to be fair, the fact that The Darkness have some of the most hilariously bad lyrics of any serious hard rock might win you over on that front as well...I don't think I'd be exaggerating much if I said that Steel Panther can write better lyrics than The Darkness, and Steel Panther are a parody band!). And, while having a cleaner vocalist can be a bit of a distinction, it isn't really enough for me to go "Yeah, that's a good enough twist!". I mean, if the Queen were to form a band that played AC/DC style hard rock, I'd...OK, I'd actually be willing to see that one for the comedy value alone, but I'd still say that it's not a big enough distinction to stop me from pointing out how much influence from AC/DC the band has taken.

Now, this doesn't mean that The Treatment only do their music like Airbourne, as they do try some interesting things that stop them from writing songs that just sound like unreleased AC/DC songs. A good example would be the very Western intro section to "The Outlaw" (which is imaginatively titled "Intro", although I will them credit for making it actually part of the song instead of making it a separate track...), as are the ballads "Cloud Across The Sun" and "Unchain My World". The problem is that, for the most part, none of them really become highlights on the album and don't really add anything to the album. Take the intro to "The Outlaw": while it does nicely capture the music choices you'd expect of a Western movie, it feels like a pointless addition to the track, as it doesn't really add anything to the song. "Cloud Across The Sun" comes about the closest to becoming a highlight out of those three moments, as it's a solid song that only really suffers from being very reminiscent of something you might expect to hear in the soundtrack to a romance movie (and also, for some reason, makes me think of The Beatles). "Unchain My World" also makes me think of modern Bon Jovi, for some reason...I suppose I can give them credit for trying, but, if you want to write a good acoustic ballad, I'd recommend taking some cues from folk singer-songwriters, as most of them only had an acoustic guitar and their vocals to perform their music and, in a lot of cases, did great jobs at it!

For their normal stuff, I'd say they mostly manage to get the hard rock sound nailed down well, although I do have to ask what they were thinking when they wrote "Drop Like A Stone", as it has a very unimaginative melody line that you'll have forgotten before the song ends. Aside from that, though, it's all at least good enough to say that it's enjoyable. I just don't think they have any songs that really win me over enough to put them on the level of "Departed", which is a bit disappointing.

The performances across the album are very solid. For all my ragging about their music sounding too much like AC/DC, I have to say that they are solid performers on the record. Vocalist Matt Jones is a strong singer for this type of music, but maybe could do with some work on his voice if he wanted to become a better singer for their ballads, as I think he doesn't really do them well enough to encourage the band to continue doing them at the minute. The production is a bit on the loud side (I think this is a bit louder than Spirit was), but everything is very well mixed (you can actually hear the bass without any difficulty!), so I guess that I can't complain too much about it.

All told, I think that The Treatment have a bit of a way to go before I can really start to say that they're going to be going anywhere. If they work on their hook writing a bit more and their vocalist gets a stronger voice for singing ballads, I see them potentially going places. But are they going to be topping New Device, Heaven's Basement or Jettblack in the UK hard rock scene? Well, I've never been a big fan of Jettblack, so I can say that they've at least won me over on that front, but the other two? I doubt it, to be honest. However, they've taken a step in the right direction to my ears and, on an album as notoriously difficult as the second album, that's a good sign. If they can keep making steps towards the right direction (and, if you pardon a potential egotistical moment, I reckon they could probably get there quicker by following my advice here and reading my rant in my review of Here We Stand), I'm sure that they will become a solid band that would be a fine representation of what the UK hard rock scene can provide. As it stands, they still have some work to do, but the fact that they've taken at least a step in the right direction does have me confident that they will continue to improve. You've got me interested in seeing where you go next, guys, don't screw it up!

Final Rating: 6 out of 10

If you just want to rock out, then this is at least worth checking out, as it has a few moments that will keep you interested. If you like your music with some depth or tend to get critical of music, this is not likely to be your kind of thing.

(...OK, I promise my next review won't be of a UK hard rock band.)

The Queensryche Fan Base + Why It Pisses Me Off

As you may have guessed from the title, all is not well in the Queensryche camp.

...OK, enough with the understatements and the politeness. The Queensryche camp at the minute is a fucking shambles, with what people are claiming to be a fan war happening every time the band is mentioned. And what does it all boil down to?

People not accepting that other people have a different opinion, basically.

...Yeah, it's not such a big deal when put like that, is it?

Well...I'm sorry to have to say this for the non-QR fans reading this, but, what with everything that is happening in the camp, it actually IS kind of a big deal. The current band situation (to leave out a HUGE amount of details: if you particularly want to catch up with everything and don't mind reading legal documents, I recommend following the link I'm going to provide at the bottom of the page) is basically two band line ups, both claiming to be the official Queensryche when booking gigs. While Tate is MEANT to be calling his line up Queensryche Starring Geoff Tate the Original Voice, bookings only refer to the band as Queensryche, with the only thing meant to tell them apart being the band picture provided at the link. Except that sites which sell tickets for the gigs have managed to mess THAT up, as they keep putting the wrong band picture up for each line up. So, there are multiple people who will either end up getting tickets for the wrong line up or end up not getting tickets for the line up they want to see purely because they aren't getting the right information.

...Yeah, kind of a big issue, isn't it?

But I'm not here to take a side in this argument (although, for the record, I support the side without Tate) and sling mud at either side. I'm here to just say one little thing.

STOP WITH THE FIGHTING, FOR GOD'S SAKE! IT'S DRIVING ME UP THE FUCKING WALL!

*cough*

I get that there are high stakes at the minute and that people will support the band for different reasons. Some will have always thought that Tate was the most important member of the band and, as such, can't enjoy the band without him. And that's fair enough: back in his prime, Tate could have potentially put Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson to shame (and I'm saying this as a huge Judas Priest fan and an appreciator of Iron Maiden). And there are some who will have loved the band for their music and, as such, can appreciate the band without Tate. And, again, that's fair enough: Queensryche wrote some of my favourite songs to date.

But there's no need to act like someone else saying they prefer a different line up of the band has committed an unforgivable sin. Putting aside my own dislike of Tate's version of the band and of Tate himself for a second, what would happen if you were to just say "I respect your opinion, although I do not agree with it" to someone who expressed their support for the other line up of the band (providing they do so respectfully)? Would anything of any real value be lost? Of course not!

This attitude of "Yell down any dissenters" is, unfortunately, not a new attitude across the Internet. Part of it is because, well, trolls will always be the ones with the controversial opinions and it's so easy to spot them that it's possible for people to become overly vigilant against them and accidentally shoot down someone who was not trying to troll, but was being serious, and another part of it is because, with the anonymity the Internet provides us, it's a lot easier to say or do something than ever before. And, because it can potentially be seen across the Internet if you look for it, a lot of people seem to get the feeling that any dissenters run the risk of reaching the ears (well, eyes) of those on high, who might act as if any dissension is an indication that it is time to pack up shop forever. Those aren't the only reasons, of course, but they are the two that are focused purely upon the fact that we're talking on the Internet.

To the first of these, I advocate trying to ask the person making the controversial opinion whether they are trying to be controversial or not (although in a more polite way than I've put it). To the second, I say "...And?"

Yeah, as much as fans like to act as if any dissension among the fans will make an entire band split up, the truth is that most bands probably have seen a lot worse than someone simply going "I think this band sucks" on a small forum that might only appear if you look for it directly. Heck, some members of bands have probably had to cope with receiving death threats simply for not releasing an album the person making the threat thinks is perfect. Does that stop them? No.

(And yes, there are people that weird out there. I think it says a lot that I consider myself more than a bit eccentric in the real world and I would still say that those people are completely nuts...on the off chance that someone reading this does consider death threats to be a valid thing to throw out there just because an entertainer isn't meeting your every expectations, I think you might want to reconsider what is important to you in life!)

And the thing that is really annoying me about the Queensryche case is that I know it's not going to end when the court case does. This fighting among the fans is just going to go on and on and on and on and on and on and...well, you get the picture. Realistically, this isn't going to end until the band breaks up (and probably not even then, considering how die hard some Queensryche fans seem to be...).

So, what I'd like to request, to ANY Queensryche fan reading this, is this: if you meet someone who prefers the other line up of the band, try to be polite and friendly to them. Let them have their opinion and, instead of flaming them, try to find a meeting point between the two of you which you can talk about with each other. If you can't find that, then just accept that you have no meeting point and move on. If everyone took the time to not flame each other and tried to talk with each other, you might find that you make a new friend and that the fan base won't be the way it is at the minute. Plus, at the end of the day, we're all fans of the same band. Do we really want the band to disappear completely just because we as fans can't talk to each other reasonably any more?

Think about that...

(And here's the link to the Queensryche court room documents. If you want to chat to me on the site, I'm ShadeInTheShadows, although you might want to PM me if that's the case, as I rarely post anything on the site these days...http://www.anybodylistening.net/breakdownroom/index.php?topic=2906.0)

New Device "Here We Stand" Review

Time to dig into the UK hard rock underground! Since I will be spending some time waiting for the album that I want to do a review of to arrive in the mail, I figured it might be a good idea to dig into the underbelly of the UK hard rock scene and bring to your attention a few bands that you might be interested in looking out. The two bands I'm definitely going to review are The Treatment and New Device, although I might look at Heaven's Basement and Jettblack depending on how long I have to wait for my order to arrive. I also might take a look at local pop punk band Epilogue's debut, although I will only do that if I get through everything else and still am waiting...

New Device are a pretty new band to the hard rock scene, forming in late 2007 and releasing their debut album in 2009, with then-drummer for Funeral for a Friend Ryan Richards doing the drums for the album. After that, the band pretty much toured and replaced members until February 2011, when the band decided to start work on material for their third album. After a new line up was announced in April 2012, the band recorded their second album, which was released in May 2013. This is that second album.

The band's sound is probably best summed up as hard rock with a bit of sleaze and traditional heavy metal thrown in and (dare I say it?) a hint of post-grunge for flavour (before anyone starts packing their bags and running, it's largely restricted to Daniel Leigh's vocals: although I don't think he's trying to go for a post-grunge voice deliberately, his habit of singing in a powerful bellow is very reminiscent of a lot of post-grunge vocalists and will probably be a factor in making or breaking the band for you if you dislike post-grunge...). When you consider that post-grunge is a style of hard rock (and one that has more influence from glam metal than you would think, too...), you would think it shouldn't be too hard to combine it with hard rock and sleaze metal (or even glam metal, if you don't mind the odd looks you'd inevitably get...). Do New Device do it well? Well...yes and no. Like with a lot of the UK hard rock from the underground that has reached my ears, it does sound a tiny bit too similar to what other bands are doing to get me wanting to triumph them over other bands, but I can't deny that they do a good job at it!

*Rant alert: skip this paragraph if you want the actual review and don't want to read me deconstructing the UK hard rock underground and why I don't think it's going to amount to much.*

As much as a lot of people like to say that the UK underground hard rock scene is a haven of brilliant hard rock that will one day cause a supernova of talent, the truth is that a lot of the bands that I've heard don't really get beyond being just good. Don't get me wrong, there ARE good bands in the UK underground hard rock scene, but even the best received bands from the scene that reach my ears just leave me wanting a more original take on the scene. Considering Volbeat are a highly successful band and have a rather unique style (I like to refer to it as metal n roll, personally...), I feel letting bands who do hard rock that sounds similar to everyone else get as much praise as them is not really fair, as it doesn't really encourage other bands to try to find their own sound. And that, to be honest, is the big issue I have: I know that bands CAN find their own style (as much as a lot of people like to say that you can't in this day and age...) if they put the work in to making sure they do it (case of point, how many of the original members of the Bay Area thrash scene sounded particularly similar to each other during the heyday of the genre (the 80's and 1990, for those who aren't sure when that is...)? Beyond the fact they're all playing thrash, I'd say the answer is "none"!), but next to nobody is really putting in that effort. And that's partially why I think the whole scene is unlikely to amount to anything at the minute: nobody is trying to find their own spin on the genre (either by mixing in influence from the genres that influenced hard rock in general (like blues, folk, rock n roll and classical music) to give the music some more quiet twists to keep you interested beyond the first listen or by combining influences from appropriate metal genres to create a darker take on it...), which tends to mean that, once you get past the excitement of "OMG, IT'S HARD ROCK FROM THE UK! HARD ROCK ISN'T DEAD, BITCHES!!1!!1!!!1!!!", you're not left with anything to really keep you wanting to return to it, as you'll usually find someone else doing the same thing, only slightly better. Maybe I'm over-thinking this all a bit, but I honestly think that the scene needs a band to take a good look beyond the hard rock genres and incorporate influences from other genres and start to become a major player in the music scene before the scene will take a hint and then will start to become a major player in the music scene. If you will, so many bands take influence from the hard rock and metal aspects of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath that they miss the fact that those bands wrote songs that didn't focus purely on being the genres they are, but had songs which aren't purely hard rock and metal (and even their biggest hits had influence from other genres: "Changes", anyone?). Take doom metal, for example: it's mostly people trying to be Black Sabbath. How many have really captured that sound perfectly? Not a lot of people, as they miss the underlying subtleties Black Sabbath had to their music and, in their efforts to be doom metal, they accidentally cut out the inner blues subtleties that make Sabbath so iconic. I could go on, but I think most people are wondering where the review is and why I'm ranting about all of this, so I'll get off of my soapbox and get on with the actual review.

*Rant alert deactivated. You may now breathe a sigh of relief, if you wish, and I apologise for going so far off topic!*

Now, I'm not going to say that just playing a style of music you like is a bad thing. Heck, I like hard rock as much as the next guy and I'd love to be in a hard rock if I was given the opportunity. It's just that, as I mentioned in my rant, it's harder to write deeper music if you don't do your research into the influences of the genre and take notes, as a lot of inner subtleties can be found in the music of the big bands of the 70's and 80's if you look closely. And that's the thing that I think New Device have to do before they do their next album, as it'll help them to step up their game significantly. HOWEVER, putting my rant aside (and not a moment too soon...), what they present to us on their second album is still very strong in and of itself and, if you just want to enjoy the music and expect to get a good album at the least, you'll not go wrong picking up this album.

If you've listened to any modern hard rock albums over the past few years and heard any post-grunge, you probably know what to expect here: riffs powerful enough to get you excited about just rocking out, vocals that focus on having a lot of power (at the expense of some subtlety, but New Device do at least have their moments of it) and ballads that will be heavily in love or hate it territory, depending on how much you like ballads in general. Nothing really wrong with all of that, but it does mean that, if the band doesn't have strong hooks, it can blend together and leave you bored. While it does blend together a bit, New Device do manage to avoid falling into this pitfall enough that you do at least have some highlights from the album and you don't feeling like you're stretching to find them: these are highlights that would still be highlights on a better album, they aren't the best of a bad bunch!

The songs that stand out to me as highlights are the title track, which has a pretty cool riff, a strong chorus and gets the album off to a very good start, "New York", which is a very enjoyable ballad that I think works very well, "Another Life", which has a nice chorus and is another really nice ballad overall, "Feel The Wrath", which has a really cool chorus that will have you singing along very quickly, and "Save Your Life", which has a strong sing along chorus and a really neat riff. None of the other songs are necessarily bad, but I find that these are the songs I return to the most from the album. Instrumentally, all of the guys are at least competent musicians, but I have to say that Daniel Leigh's vocals will wind you up the wrong way if you don't like post-grunge.

On a production level, I think this might JUST be outside of what I'd consider acceptable mastering. While it does have a powerful sound to it and it works for this album, I think it might be a bit too loud overall. While post-grunge and hard rock are generally genres which do demand a loud sound, there's a line between "a powerful master" and "ear fatigue inducing" that a lot of producers involved in the loudness war seem to not be aware of and I think this is just stepping over the line into the latter. Thankfully, it's not to the level where I would consider it unlistenable, so less picky people will not have the same complaints that I do with it. The mixing is very solid, although I think the bass could have done with maybe being turned up a bit (and no, I will not stop making this complaint until producers take a hint!).

Overall, I'd say the album is a very good album that, if you don't have the same complaints I mentioned in my rant, will be worth a listen. It probably won't blow you away, but there's enough good stuff on the album to at least keep you interested in it for a bit.

Final score: 7 out of 10

Personal favourites: "Here We Stand", "New York", "Save Your Life"

(...Oh yeah, and the album I'm waiting for in the post? Well, let's just say that building a city on rock and roll won't mean anything if you don't repair it for a good while!)

Good Charlotte "The Young & The Hopeless" Review

Yeah, this one might seem a bit out of place for the guys who've been reading my blog since I started out. However, there is a valid reason behind looking at this album, as this is one of the albums that pretty much defined my teenage years. And I figured it'd be an interesting idea to return to this album to see how it stands up now, considering my taste in music has moved on from Good Charlotte's style of music and become more...well, if you've read this blog more than once before now, you probably know what my usual taste in music is.

Anyway, Good Charlotte are a pop punk from Maryland (which is also where All Time Low are from) that formed in 1996. They've had a fairly consistent line up since then, only replacing their drummer twice since forming and adding a guitarist (who also plays keyboards) a few years before they released their debut album. For this album, the band were using a session musician, Josh Freese (who you might recognise for later playing in Nine Inch Nails between 2005 and 2008). The rest of the band's line up (lead vocalist Joel Madden, guitarists Benji Madden and Billy Martin and bassist Paul Thomas) were still searching for a drummer after the departure of Aaron Escolopio, who left to join his brother in Wakefield (another band from Maryland who are believed to have broken up, as no information by them has been found since 2012), but they would later find Chris Wilson, who would leave the band in 2005 to join Summer Obsession (who broke up in 2010: hilariously, one of his predecessors in that band was Josh Freese!) and is now playing for Matt Toka (former lead singer of Cherry Monroe) in his solo project. He would be replaced by current drummer, Dean Butterworth, who you might know for drumming for Morrissey on his 2004 album You Are The Quarry.

For the most part, the album relies on short songs (the longest tracks on the album being only a bit over four minutes long) with fairly simple arrangements (in some cases, mostly being carried by Joel's vocals), catchy choruses (although I wouldn't say any of them really get to the highest levels of catchiness, like with All Time Low's "Time Bomb") and a lot of energy. So, fairly typical pop punk, at first glance. The thing that will ultimately make or break the band for you are two or three little details (aside from, you know, whether you like pop punk to start with).

Firstly, the lyrics of the band's songs can be more than a alienating when the Madden twins start to focus on their past and talk about that. Now, some artists can talk about their pasts in ways which are cryptic enough to appeal to people who haven't gone through what the artist has, but will strike a chord with those who have. Unfortunately, this isn't a gift Joel and Benji Madden possess, as they don't tend to pull any punches when they do this. Whether this is enough to label the band as emo or not will depend on what you consider to be emo and what you don't. I'd say that calling them emo is MAYBE a bit inaccurate, as it's not a topic they exclusively talk about in their music, but it's definitely there and your ability to take this kind of thing will depend on how view the band. Possibly the most blatant example is "Emotionless", which is an open letter to the brother's father who abandoned them as a kid. It's a very emotional song and you get the feeling that there's no anger intended behind it, but it's definitely a song that will annoy more than a few people and may be justified with the use of the skip button. The topic of their father walking out on them is also fairly noticeable in "The Story Of My Old Man" and, possibly to hammer home the fact that they are not making up what happened in their past, one of the lyrics in the title track is "When I sing about my past/it's not a gimmick, not an act". I personally don't have a huge problem with the guys talking about their past (heck, I didn't have the best childhood myself...), but a bit more subtlety would probably go a lot further for the guys for people who normally don't like this kind of thing.

Secondly, due to the fact that the arrangements can be very simple (even by punk standards), it's likely that people with a fondness for more complicated stuff than punk will be left wanting at best. And I'm not going to lie: when I look at this album critically and not in my usual mindset of just enjoying it for what it is, I do feel disappointed that there's not more to the songs than there is (although, in my case, the fact that I've recently developed a slight appreciation of progressive metal might have something to do with why I'm probably trying to look deeper than I should be for this type of record...). However, I would fairly say that, well, if you are playing pop punk, you're not really expected to try to go for especially deep lyrics or music with hidden complexity, as you're basically combining punk music (a genre not exactly known for musicians who are brilliant on a technical level) and pop music (which is mostly about writing the catchiest hooks you can, which CAN be very tough (as much as a lot of people like to claim otherwise...) to do well, but usually doesn't require a lot of technical ability to do well). Anything that is deep lyrically can probably be fairly considered a bonus if everything else is there. Which...leads me to my third issue.

The third issue is that a lot of the band's hooks are not the strongest ones you could ever hear. So, if you like your songs with very strong hooks, this might not win you over even if the other two issues I've highlighted don't strike you as a problem. You're not going to find anything with a hook on the level of "I Am The One And Only" by Chesney Hawkes (which I heard once and could remember for days, and still enjoy listening to it every now and then due to how cheerful I tend to get after hearing it!), if you get what I mean. This DOESN'T mean that there aren't any hooks in the band's songs, as they definitely have them, it's just that it might take a few listens to really start to enjoy the songs on the album.

All of the guys are definitely at least able to play their instruments (although, in the drummer's case, would you expect a guy who would go on to drum for NIN to be a bad drummer?). None of the guys are likely to win awards for their ability to play them, but they don't sound like they're struggling to play the songs on the record to me. Joel and Benji (who sings lead on "The Day That I Die" and the second verse of the title track) are decent vocalists, but aren't likely to be anyone's favourite vocalists by any measure. From a technical perspective, I'd say Joel is probably a better vocalist than quite a few pop punk vocalists, as his vocals are clean (if not especially powerful and still with roots in punk). He doesn't have an amazing range, but he definitely has one, as he sings noticeably lower at the start of "Say Anything". Benji's vocals are more punk based, but he's mostly restricted to backing vocals most of the time (except for the moments I've mentioned earlier), so you can miss him if you're not looking for him. The album is pretty well produced, although I do think that the bass could have maybe done with being a bit louder at point. It also is reasonably mastered, as it's loud enough to have some punch to it, but not so loud that you're going to want to turn it down for the sake of your ears.

So, putting my nostalgia aside for this album and looking at this album critically, I have to say that it's a good album. It doesn't really rise above being a good album, which stops me from saying that this will get people who have no interest in pop punk suddenly loving the genre, but, for the genre it is in, it's an enjoyable album that fans of the genre will at least come out of feeling satisfied. If you just want to pick up a pop punk album to listen to get an idea of what the genre is like, you could do far worse than pick this up. It's not the best example of the genre by any measure, but it's certainly not the worst example of the genre. I wouldn't say this album stands up well compared to how I remember it, but I still enjoyed reviewing it!

Final rating: 6 out of 10

A decent album that won't win over those with no fondness for the genre, but fans of the genre should enjoy.

Personal favourite tracks: My Bloody Valentine, Riot Girl, The Young & The Hopeless

I'm trying a slightly different writing style for this review, as I feel my reviews used to be too long without any real justification. If you like this shorter style, let me know!