Prepare to Be Let Down
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Album Review- Oh, Manhattan’s “Spiritual Warfare”
Upon first listen Oh, Manhattan’s Spiritual Warfare might grab the average listener as a run of the mill post-hardcore album. The breakdowns are there, the screams are there, the gang vocals even make an appearance. And while you couldn’t be faulted for making that assumption based on the presence of these post-hardcore staples, you’d be missing exactly what it is that makes this album great.
While the heavy elements of your average post-hardcore album are there, it’s the spaces in between those elements that distinguishes Spiritual Warfare. Guitarists Kodi Gray and Chris Branton do exceptional jobs of creating atmospheres in the songs that make this album stand head and shoulders above their peers. Take track two. “The World Ends with You” for example. The opening moments of the song might fool you, but after the initial post-hardcoreisms of the song, the soaring vocal melodies and ambient guitars surprise the listener with something fresh in a scene too focused on the “br00tality” of every song.
While the lyrics are at times a bit cliched such as in songs like “The Anti Da Vinci,” the words are penned with a surprising subtlety. Vocalist Hance Alligood crafts his lyrics expertly and intelligently (any David Lynch fan will appreciate Guilty Blessings, Pt II) to fit the mellowness of the slowed down, atmospheric interludes as well as the crushing breakdowns that are sure to follow. Track seven “To the Gallows” (my personal favorite) is a good example, with Alligood crooning “there is comfort right in the eye of a hurricane” in the songs clean beginning and screaming with all his might “one, two, step left, right, left to the gallows!” at its annihilating end.
The album as a whole stands out from its contemporaries because of its ease of transition between ambient, high-pitched guitars to its head banging breakdowns. While some bands make the transition painfully and abruptly by interjecting a sad synth/dance part, Oh, Manhattan does it with a skill that is missing in the scene today. Songs such as “Face of Another” or “Ian Curtis” illustrate this perfectly.
As much as I wanted to find fault with a younger post-hardcore band, it was very difficult after listening to this album straight through. The melody is as captivating as the heaviness is exciting, and the best part: they know how to make them flow seamlessly together. For a band like Oh, Manhattan, an album like Spiritual Warfare is an exciting pedestal that will bring them to new heights and, I’m confident, be a big step in them realizing their obvious potential.
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Album Review- Texas in July’s “One Reality”
When you start out in pretty much any art form, it is almost impossible not to have people in the same art form that you idolize. If you’re a band, taking influences and tricks of the trade from bands that you respect and listen to is pretty natural. There are instances, however, of this being taken slightly too far. Case in point: Texas in July’s obession with imitating their fellow Pennsylvanians in August Burns Red. Unfortunately for Texas in July, they have once again fallen short of ABR with their latest effort, One Reality.
The album begins with an introduction (a trend in metalcore I’m becoming increasingly tired of) that sets the scope of the album nicely. The intro moves into the first real track called Magnolia. This is where it becomes clear that Texas had Constellations (August Burns Red’s 2009 release) too much in mind, as the guitar and drum tone reveal themselves to be almost identical to it. The larger scope and more melodic bridges of tracks three and four (1000 Lies and Dreamer, respectively), as well the intros to the songs only hammer home how badly Texas seems to be riding the coat tails of Constellations.
Is this Texas in July’s fault? Well, not entirely. Having grown up only twenty minutes from August Burns Red’s hometown of Lancaster, it’s fairly easy to see how Texas in July would take their influences from them. Take Texas’s last release I Am. While it was, by most standards, a good album, its no stretch to say that it was inspired (read: completely lifted) from ABR’s Messengers. This may or may not have been intentional, so its hard to really point a finger at the guys in Texas in July. Since their inception each band member has been compared to the corresponding ABR member, which is a difficult standard to live up to to say the least.
Texas in July are not bad musicians. They’re actually very talented. And One Reality is not exactly a bad album. However, just because all the nuts and bolts are there, it doesn’t mean a band has put forth something great. The band’s greatest weakness seems to be themselves, and while tracks such as Magnolia and Dying World show good songwriting and technical prowess, the album is honestly forgetable. The reason? They sound like weak August Burns Red songs. My review may seem to amount to a comparison and contrasting of ABR and TIJ, but thats their fault more than mine. Until Texas in July learns to move away from the “ABR Jr.” sound and establish themselves as capable in their own right, August Burns Red will always be one step ahead.
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Prepare to Be Let Down: Do certain bands in the scene deserve respect?
I wrote that after I read the interview the first time. I talked to you on Absolutepunk about it actually and you cleared up what you meant. I jumped the gun with my criticism, but its pretty difficult to pick up on sarcasm over the internet. Hope there’s no hard feelings.
i never think about people who i’d never met really giving a shit about anything i have to say. i guess some of them do. that’s really cool but also sorta weird. (i mean amirite?). i want to feel like i can have casual and fun conversation with anyone, but to those people who don’t actually know me (or anything about me) my (what i would think is obvious) exaggerations and/or sarcasm can often fall on deaf ears.
i remember going to see Every Time I Die in 2002 (?) in my junior year of high school. they were touring Burial Plot Bidding War (yeah… deep cut). It was on New Years Eve at the Killtime in Philadelphia. Emperor’s New Clothes was such a killer song. they were/are a pretty phenomenal band.
while i never really cared for Norma Jean (Spitfire was always the better band) Chris was a really old friend/buisness partner of mine when i worked for a company called IOS/Punkstop. telling him his band sounded like brokedick Botch was always my favorite thing to do.
these examples seemed really specific… and not exactly what i was getting at.
i think it’s obvious that good records came out during that time (duh). my point was that the time between 2000 and 2010 was a dark time for music. it truly lacked community and a sense of purpose. of course sometimes you can’t always translate that when you’re getting tape recorded and sharing a beer with your homie on his porch.
In the interview I posted, Evan Weiss sweetbrags about not using myspace to promote his music. Also, when asked how he felt about Norma Jean and ETID headlining the bledfest, he says that music didn’t exist for him between 2000 and 2010 (except for what he and his friends were playing, of course)….
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Horrible Music
Last night, I had a
nightmaredream that I was in a Rebecca Black music video. All the usual weird dream shit played out and eventually I woke up. The down side (besides having such a lame dream) is that now I can’t get that bitch’s awful song out of my head. Far be it from me to go on an internet rant about music I don’t like, especially since it’ll be something like the five millionth blog about Rebecca Black. I am, however, curious about one thing. Has our appreciation of horrible songs as novelty become actual appreciation if them? If “Friday” is any indicator, you can get just as famous for making an absolutely atrocious song as you can for making a great one.And by the way, Rebecca is laughing all the way to the bank. All the people out there that said “man, this song is so stupid and its really funny how stupid it is, I’ll download it!” Yea, remember them? Well they totalled about 400,000 on itunes. So way to go for paying this kid to laugh at you. But I digress…
I’m not saying I’m immune to it. We all laugh at shitty performances on youtube and move on. But what about the people that don’t move on? Are they the future? Sadly, its a possibilty. But Rebecca Black is the proverbial cart, not the horse. Listen to a song like Pretty Boy Swag, literally one of the most annoying songs put out in the past five years. Of course, Soulja Boy put out the song, so morons eat it up. But, if some shitty wannabe artist put it on youtube with worse production value, slightly weaker rhymes (if thats possible), and a retardedly bad music video, what would happen? Here’s what: You’d have the same 400,000 people that paid Rebecca Black ninety nine cents for a song that half of America thought was a joke clammering to download it.
My point: think before you download. Remember how teachers in elementary school said if you ignored a bully they would go away? Maybe if we all just ignore the next person trying to capitolize on how stupid they think we are, they’ll be forced to take their offensively bad song somewhere else.
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Album you need to hear: All at Once by Paulson
In an effort to sound like less of a dick, I’ve decided to also start recommending music instead of just projecting my bitterness onto it in the form of wordy reviews. The first album I’ll recommend to you (because it went unheard of for the most part) is Paulson’s All at Once, released on Doghouse Records in 2007. Though Paulson broke up only a couple years after writing it, All at Once serves as a lasting record of the great potential the band possessed. Most people would instantly dismiss this album as throwaway indie/dance/pop shit, but if you listen to one thing I say in this meandering heap of awfulness that is my blog, listen to what I’m saying now: get this album.
This album has it all: great musicianship, a fun atmosphere, and beautiful vocals. But above everything else, the lyrics are what define this album. Even though the music makes you want to get up and dance, the lyrics will make you think before you do it. Again, trust me. Some of my favorite lyrics ever come from this album.
So you don’t want to jump right in? Thats fine. Check out the songs Under Crowns, Window Frames, Programs, and Miami Current. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
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Do certain bands in the scene deserve respect?
In the interview I posted, Evan Weiss sweetbrags about not using myspace to promote his music. Also, when asked how he felt about Norma Jean and ETID headlining the bledfest, he says that music didn’t exist for him between 2000 and 2010 (except for what he and his friends were playing, of course). I was somewhat taken aback, considering his agreeable tone in the earlier portion of the interview. My question then is, shouldn’t there be a bit of respect from younger groups and artists like Evan to the old guard? Does the fact that Norma Jean, Every Time I Die, Underoath, and bands that have been at the forefront of the scene for some time use myspace and play larger venues mean they “sold out?”
And just to clear it up for the purists, when I say “the scene” I mean all of the underground music of our generation. Its not like people that listen to IIOI don’t know who Underoath and Norma Jean are. I’m not lumping them in with Job For a Cowboy or anything, but most people would agree that alot of these bands share a common fanbase. Hence why I reference them collectively. Anyway…
Evan’s tone disappointed me. It seems that he wants to dismiss ETID and Norma Jean as too commerical, or as out of touch rock stars. I’ve always felt like these bands deserve respect for doing what they do and how well they do it, not to mention how long they’ve been doing it. I think he was right though, the torch is being passed. Unfortunately, some people seem to be taking it with arrogance rather than gratitude.
