Happy Halloween everybody, today we are looking at the first single off of Nine Inch Nails’ 2013 album, Hesitation Marks. Aside from having a spooky sounding title that fits perfectly with Halloween, this is one of my favorite NIN songs with Hesitation Marks being my favorite album. Most NIN fans would consider that last statement blasphemous, but in my opinion a lot of Reznor’s earlier albums don’t hold up as well now.
Let me first state that I have never been a huge NIN fan; I liked some of With Teeth and some of the other singles but they were never a project I really got into. Hesitation Marks was the first album of Reznor’s that I got into enough to listen the whole thing from beginning to end without skipping around. Even with this album I found that the majority of it felt more like a movie score to my ears, with the only tracks I was really interested in listening to outside the context of the album being Copy Of A, Find My Way and Came Back Haunted.
Came Back Haunted in particular is a good mixture of the 90’s Industrial Rock sound that NIN is known for with some more contemporary electronic elements including some Dubstep leaning bass wobbles. The lyrics to Came Back Haunted seem to be relating to a character in the vein of Victor Snowden, even making an allusion to Deep Throat. While on the surface the lyrics remind me a lot of the kind of conspiracy theory Rock songs Muse put out, their is also a more personal level relating to Reznor’s battle with addiction and depression.
Regardless of the lyrical meanings, this track is the perfect mix of threatening and
danceable that a NIN track should be. Like I said, I love the whole album, but this track is one of the best off of it, and easily the most digestible.
Today we are looking at Lorde’s latest single off of her Melodrama album, Perfect Places. I heard this song for the first time a few weeks ago and I really couldn’t stand it. Whereas with Green Light I was just kind of on the fence about, Perfect Places I developed a deep distaste for. The main issue that I have with this track is that Lorde somehow has become boring and maybe even common.
This isn’t necessarily all Lorde’s fault as she managed to be a bit before her time, striking it big before the trend of dark electropop started. Because of how long it took for her to release her follow up, Lorde’s style has now been endlessly copied by artists like Halsey, Selena Gomez and even Taylor Swift. So now that Lorde has come back to the post Royals world of mainstream music, she’s no longer particularly original or unique sounding anymore.
Further hurting Lorde’s potential to stand out with this track is her choice to base the lyrics around the all too common theme of the consequences of partying. These lyrics wouldn’t seem out of place in a Drake or Lana Del Rey song, but again the issue is that these artists set the trends that have been done to death now. Of the few changes that Lorde has made to her style, the additions she made to this song make it blend it even more as the stark emptiness of her earlier work made it stand out more.
I want to listen to the full album Melodrama before making a complete judgement on Lorde, but I’m worried that much like Drake, the originality of her earlier content isn’t going to hold up on subsequent releases now that she is established. I have heard a lot of good reviews of Melodrama, so it’s entirely possible that my personal opinion is not in line with the majority opinion on these new tracks. I’m personally hoping that the rest of the album is dramatically better than these two singles. Either way, I don’t like this song but I can see why other people would.
Today we are looking at an album that I had recommended to me quite a while ago but just never got around to writing a review of. I listened to this album multiple times over the last months but couldn’t ever real figure out how I wanted to talk about it. But I’ve decided today to quit putting it off and finally do a review of King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard’s album Flying Microtonal Banana. If that name isn’t a dead giveaway, these guys are a pretty weird band. Featuring seven members with three guitarists, two drummers and a bassist as well as interludes of synth, piano, harmonica and flute.
For a little background on this band I highly recommend a Premier Guitar article entitled Microtonal Madmen where Stu Mackenzie and Joey Walker (two of the guitarists) are interviewed. To sum it up, King Gizzard started as a jam band among friends who played in various bands and the seven man band consists of the guys who stayed and made it their main band. Flying Microtonal Banana is their 9th studio album and features the interesting gimmick of using microtonal instruments, that is instruments with extra notes not commonly found in western music.
To better explain this I have a few diagrams I’ve made to demonstrate the difference between Mackenzie’s Banana guitar and a standard one.
The Banana has six extra frets that are placed halfway between where two normal frets on a guitar would be creating “in between” quarter notes.
These quarter notes are not typically heard in Western music but are very common in Eastern music such as traditional Arabic, Indian, Japanese and Chinese music. Because of their association with Eastern music, quarter tones have a very exotic sound to those who are familiar with Western music.
Getting to the album itself, it is way more melodic and enjoyable to listen to than I first anticipated. Many of these type of weird for the sake of weirdness bands cross over into unlistenable territory, but as weird as King Gizzard get they are always making music. I’m not 100% sure of the recording process for this album, but I have to believe that at the very least the demos for this album came from hitting from record and jamming. Every track has the feel of clips from a 70’s psychedelic rock band’s jam session. The mix of traditional western rock conventions with the Eastern tinged sounds brought out by the microtonal instruments creates a really cool sound throughout this album.
Stand out tracks in my opinion are the opening track Rattlesnake, Open Water and Nuclear Fusion. Rattlesnake is one of the most straightforward songs on the album, reminding me a bit of a lighter take on a Doom Metal song, featuring heavy repetition and subtle shifts of the main riffs over it’s 7 minute length. Open Water is driven by an Egyptian/Middle Eastern sounding drone and a vocal drone that is doubled by something that sounds like a Sitar. Along with the Eastern elements on Open Water there is also an extremely tight and dynamic rhythm section, with the twin percussionists and bassist doing an amazing job at grounding the otherwise floaty track.
Nuclear Fusion is about halfway between Rattlesnake and Open Water, being a fairly straightforward Alt rock track but still having those heavy Eastern sounds. The drumming is also superb on this track, with plenty of delicious fills in the transitions of this track.
This is an album that is best experienced as an album rather than as a collection of tracks. I highly recommend just putting this on and letting it wash over you, just don’t expect to be productive as some of the dronier bits become a very relaxing wall of sound after a while. If you’re looking for something different or weird give this one a listen, it will be well worth your time.
Now we get into the cheese. Today we’re looking at Bobby “Borris” Pickett (The Monster Mash guy) and one of his various attempts to score a second hit. After the huge success of the Monster Mash, Pickett did various other parodies and spoofs throughout the years including the Transylvania Twist, Monsters Holiday, a Star Drek and even a King Kong parody. The biggest follow up hit he ever had was The Monster Rap, a cheesy 80’s rap song that served as a sequel of sorts to that graveyard smash.
The track effectively mixes 80’s synths with the typical horror movie/sci-fi sounds you’d expect and a funky bass line. Funnily enough, as goofy and cheesy as this song is the rap verses by the monster aren’t that much worse than typical 80’s rap songs. The basic idea of the song is the story of Frankenstein’s monster told as a rap song, intercut with lines by Igor, samples of the monster roaring and complete rap verses by the monster.
The sad part is I actually kind of prefer this one to the monster mash as a song; they’re both cheesy songs that no one should ever listen to outside the month of October, but this one actually some cool things going on with the music. The 80’s hip hop beat mixed with sci-fi noises and monster samples actually sounds pretty cool and that funky bass line is completely danceable. Like I said, I wouldn’t recommend this outside the month of October, but leading up to Halloween, why not throw this on and get into the graveyard smash made for everyone out there looking to bust a rhyme.
Continuing our look at spookier music leading up to our Halloween episode this Sunday, we are looking at the album Nightmare Revisited. This is an album that features various Rock bands covering the songs from the Tim Burton classic Nightmare Before Christmas. The album has a mixture between covers and parts of the original score, featuring artists like Marilyn Manson, Korn and Rise Against in between Danny Elfman scores.
First off, I have actually yet to see Nightmare Before Christmas so any nostalgia or emotional attachment to these songs is gonna be lost on me; I’m looking at these wholly on how the song sounds and how they compare to the original versions. Also I’m really not going to comment on the scores lifted straight from the movie because I really don’t have much to say about film scores in general. With all those qualifiers out of the way, let’s get started.
Starting off the covers on this album is Marilyn Manson’s cover of This Is Halloween. Having Manson do this cover was the perfect choice because he is one of the few vocalists who has enough different voices to cover the wide range of characters that sing this tune in the movie. Manson and his band do an amazing job of transforming this largely orchestral track into a creepy hard rock song that wouldn’t be out of place on one of their albums. As much as I enjoy the original version of This Is Halloween, the Manson version has become the definitive version for me.
Next up we have the All American Rejects version of Jack’s Lament. Unlike Manson they really don’t change up the arrangement much from the original aside mildly speeding it up. Whereas the Manson version of This Is Halloween arguably surpasses the original, this cover is really not that good. The main issue here is that Danny Elfman’s performance as Jack Skellington is bassy and growling while Tyson Ritter isn’t exactly Tom Waits. Honestly I don’t know that anybody other than Elfman could nail this track, but All American Rejects were not a good choice for this cover.
What’s This? By Flyleaf is interesting because of how much it differs from the original, not even really following the same tempo as the original in a lot of places. While I still don’t like it as much as Elfman’s performance, because of how different it is I don’t dislike it as much as I do Jack’s Lament. Lacey’s performance on this track is really breathy and almost ethereal sounding, which works great over the aggressive guitar driven music and does a good job of matching the tone of the original.
Sparklehorse sucks; that’s all.
Next we have the second best track on the album, second only to Manson; Kidnap The Sandy Claws by KoRn. Just like Manson’s multiple voices for the characters in that song, Jonathan Davis does an even better job of having dynamic passages and giving each character their own sound. This is a natural evolution of the original song into a creepy Nu Metal track that is absolutely KoRn and fits the insanity and tone of Tim Burton.
Directly following KoRn is Rise Against’s Punk Rock tinged rendition of Making Christmas. This is another one of the covers that changes up the sound without losing the feeling of the original and while it may not be better than the movie version, it is a valid cover (unlike Sparklehorse).
The last of the covers that improves upon and replaces the original (at least in my mind) is Amy Lee’s rendition of Sally’s Song. While the original was good, Amy Lee’s vocals are just a massive step up in quality, with the hauntingly gothic tone of her voice really conveying the despair and hopelessness of the lyrics. Also their is a perfect bridge featuring some rock guitars and ad libs by Lee before she comes back and delivers the last line of the song. This, along with Manson and KoRn masterfully covered the songs from this movie.
The last of the covers on this album is Poor Jack being covered by the Plain White T’s. This suffers from some of the same issues as Jack’s Lament having a singer who’s voice really cannot touch Elfman’s performance. The difference here is that at least on this version they tried to follow the original as closely as possible and do a pretty good job here. Nonetheless it’s not better than the original.
Overall this album is a mixed bag, having three great covers a few decent ones and Sparklehorse. The bits of the movie score throughout are also kind of cool, but to me the main draw is the covers. I personally love about half the covers off of this album, and their are some cool ones that were on a different album including Fall Out Boy doing a much better version of Jack’s Lament. I highly recommend checking these out if you were a fan of the original soundtrack or film, but expect to be disappointed by a few of them.
Kicking off a week of haunting, spooky and otherwise dark reviews leading up to our Halloween special this weekend is the KONGOS track I’m Only Joking. KONGOS are an Alt Rock band from South Africa made up of 4 brothers who use a mix of African tribal drumming, epic slide guitar and mastery of bouncy accordion riffing to create their sound. They had a huge hit with the single Come With Me Now off of their Lunatic album and a minor hit with the track I Wanna Know from the same album. While these tracks had a mainstream Alt Rock sound to them, my personal favorite track was a darker and more mysterious song entitled I’m Only Joking.
I’m Only Joking uses those tribal drum patterns I mentioned earlier to conjure up the feeling and imagery of a Voodoo ceremony while the Accordion brings to mind an insane carnival. The dark and mysterious vibe of this song is helped out by the eerie vocal performance of the verses and the conspiracy theory and mystic ramblings of the lyrics. The whiplash from the very dark and serious imagery of the verses to the singer insisting that he’s only joking as a way to mess with the listener only adds to the carnival theme, portraying the singer as a carny telling ghost stories to scare patrons.
As the song stretches on, it builds to a crescendo of insanity on the noise filled bridge of the song. This track overall works well as a sequel to Come With Me Now’s quest for freedom and losing one’s mind in debauchery and fun. Even the bit of the chorus where the singer states he’s just saying a “...crazy little thing he read.” fits in with Come With Me Now, where he made the comment that “I open my mouth and it’s something I’ve read.” Thus in many ways the insanity of this song can be seen as the follow up to the letting go and loss of control in Come With Me Now.
Regardless of the way that this track fits into KONGOS’ discography it is an awesome and eerie song. The madness on this track is so much fun and always makes me feel like a horror movie villain when I listen to it. The energy is infectious and powerful and the various changes throughout the track make it one of my favorites.
The Man is a powerful and anthemic track that draws on every single element of The Killers’ sound with a sheen of Bowie tinged funk holding it together. The Killers avoid the trap of sounding like a novelty act here, using New Wave and Funk elements to create something that sounds modern and clean with old school roots. This track sounds like what Panic Station by Muse would sound like if it were produced by Daft Punk.
The lyrics are very straightforward, knowing the situation and objectively stating that he is The Man, second only to God. While this track is destined to be an uplifting jam, it’s actually written from the somewhat unhealthily arrogant personality of lead singer Brandon Flowers in the band’s early days. Despite the self deprecation associated with the lyrics, Flowers does a brilliant job of selling the song’s boisterous confidence.
Aside from the amazing lyrics that blur the line between awesome and cheesy, this track has gorgeous instrumentals throughout. While the obvious stars are the bass and drums the guitar work is top notch, including two mini solos and the constant rhythm playing on the verses. Similarly the synths and keyboard elements wrap around the song giving it the glossy sheen of New Wave that makes this track sound so amazing. The production is flawless, giving just the right amount of space to each element of this really thick sounding track.
There is really nothing about this track that I don’t adore, as far as I’m concerned this is a masterpiece of how to write a Rock track with crossover appeal in 2017. It would be nice to see The Killer step back into the same mainstream consciousness that Imagine Dragons and Portugal The Man currently are in.
