Foo Fighters Concrete and Gold- New Album of The Week

    After the promise of Run earlier this year the Foos have delivered with an excellent album that draws on some old school mojo mixed with a hit of metallic freak out. Most of the album is devoid of the more Alt rock elements that usually call back to Grohl’s time in Nirvana, replacing them with a double dose of Classic Rock inspiration and Metal attitude. The Foos have also decided to throw some vaguely political themes on a few songs, but they do those of us who find escapism in music a favor by keeping the political messages background to the music most of the time.

    The first track, T-Shirt, seems to illustrate that Grohl also would rather stick to just making music, stating “I just wanna sing love songs and pretend like nothing’s wrong…”. This track does a good job of prefacing one of those vaguely political tracks, Run, by letting us know Dave is only addressing these topics because he feels that he needs to. The track also build up musically to the beginning of Run, flowing together into Run’s metallic freakout of a first verse.

As I said back when I reviewed Run as a single, I love hearing Dave Grohl’s harsh vocals on the verses, especially when contrasted with the softer approach he takes when getting to the melodic chorus. Taylor Hawkins Dancehall and Drum n’ Bass inspired drumming on this track also adds a level of chaos and danceability that I have never heard on a Foo Fighters track before.

    The next track, Make It Right is solid featuring more of Hawkins drumming up front as well as a Jimmy Page like guitar riff and backing vocals by Justin Timberlake. Track 4, The Sky Is Neighborhood is one that I fully expect to wind up on Top 40 and Alt Rock stations, sounding like an all real instruments take on Imagine Dragons. Rather than the drum samples, computerized samples and copious amounts of studio reverb that Imagine Dragons use we have a somewhat dry mix full of acoustic drums and guitar riffing getting the same feel. Also Dave Grohl sounds much nastier and more powerful than Dan Reynolds’ polished vocals.

    The next track La Dee Da is my favorite track on this album featuring two of my favorite gimmicks in a rock song and one of my all time favorite vocalists. This track has powerful fuzz bass as the main driving element, powerful metal screams in a non metal song and backing vocals by Alison Mosshart; seriously if Jack White had a guest solo on this track it would be my favorite song of all time. Even though Mosshart’s vocals aren’t that high in the mix this whole track has the same kind of spastic rhythm that she is known for, likely because her and Grohl are singing the same lines and he decided to match her cadence rather her sing it straight. This is basically the second Run on this album, featuring a powerful sound and somewhat politically charged lyrics.

    Dirty Water is an okay Alt rock tune and Arrows is the most standard Foo Fighters song on this record. Happy Ever After (Zero Hour) is a trippy song that reminds me a bit of Across The Universe and has that distinct Classic Soft Rock sound. Speaking of The Beatles, the next track features Taylor Hawkins doing his best John Lennon impersonation on vocals and Paul McCartney guesting on drums. Sunday Rain rather intentionally sounds like a halfway point between The Beatles and Nirvana and does a good job of feeling nothing like a Foo Fighters song, largely because of not having Grohl sing on this track.

    The second to last track The Line reminds me of Walk and is a pretty solid Foo Fighters track. Closing out this album is the title track which Grohl described as sounding like a mix of Sabbath and Pink Floyd, and honestly that description is nearly perfect. The slow but punishing guitar on the first verse and chorus with Grohl’s creeping, almost spoken vocals certainly sounds like Black Sabbath mixed with Comfortably Numb. Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men adds a choir of haunting background vocals on the chorus that perfectly hammers this song home. This track is filthy and beautiful in all the right ways and closes out the album perfectly.

    Overall this is a pretty awesome album by the Foo Fighters, proving once again that they are second only to Jack White in the modern Rock god pantheon. The only real weakness of this album is they don’t have many songs that sound like the typical Foo Fighter’s sound, but I really like the aggro metallic style that they display on Run and La Dee Da, especially when contrasted against Sunday Rain and Happy Ever After. The dynamics and blending of numerous influences are what make this album so much fun to listen to, along with all of the crazy guest spots on this record. As we get closer to December I have started to make my year end Top 10 list, and something off of this album will definitely be on it.

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Nickelback Feed The Machine: An Album a Day

An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

So I've never really had an issue with Nickelback, I mean photograph was terrible but they've had some good songs too. How You Remind Me, Next Contestant and even Lullaby from their newer albums are just a few of the genuinely good songs they've done. I think we were all spoiled when we thought that Nickelback was the worst music could get, I don't know about anyone else but I'd love more radio rock on top 40 stations. With that said I understand that Nickelback are a mediocre band, so when I saw some people saying their new album was pretty good I was intrigued.

I had heard the title track already from when they first put it up on YouTube and to say NickelDjent surprised me is putting it lightly. I got to imagine that someone realized they were playing low tunings through the same digital amps that every djent band uses and decided to make the most of it. The heavier modern metal guitar sound and huge drums are found throughout this album and they make some bad songs sound good.

A good example of the music saving a mediocre song is with For The River, a decent premise that is made so much better by the drums and the two shred solos. A lot of people say their last album was where they stopped trying, well if that's the case this is where they started again. Even when the lyrics aren't great the musicianship is actually pretty good on this album.

A track I rather enjoy is Must Be Nice, which uses various nursery rhymes and children's stories before the chorus proclaims that whoever is being attacked live in a fairy tale. The use of nursery rhymes reminds me of Shoots and Ladders by Korn which featured Jonathan Davis’ twisted singing of various nursery rhymes. Must Be Nice is also one of the vaguely political tracks on the album, along with Silent Majority and Feed The Machine.

That's right folks, in between the semi country songs and typical radio friendly songs we have political Nickelback. And they do politics exactly the way you would expect a commercial band like Nickelback to do it, by generalizing. There political tirades are general enough that you can insert whatever political affiliation you want.

Feed The Machine can just as easily be about the corporate machine of Donald Trump or the political one of Hillary Clinton. Perhaps it's against political parties in general and supports anarchy or it's referencing the evil health care companies and wants single payer health care. It can literally work for any political cause. The track Silent Majority is similarly vague, although the title lends itself to Trump voters who see themselves as marginalised it can also work for members of minorities or small political parties.

Overall though, like I said with Viva La Vida, I actually prefer these type of political songs in general. That way I don't have to really think about politics when I listen to music, it's just there like, yeah it is bad when people do bad things. Muse are also big on this, making protest songs that can be applied to most causes.

This album is pretty good for the most part, certainly better than a lot of Nickelback’s other music. The hard rock/ metal edge works well on this album, making them sound like a legitimate rock band, and the guitar solos are actually pretty good. Feed The Machine overall reminds me of a mediocre rock album from the 80s, with the huge drums and mild metal influences on top of a commercial album.

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Trophii Vitamins and Flowers: An Album A Day

An Album A Day is published 5 days a week Monday-Friday

    After waiting over 4 years for a debut album, Lindsey Pavao’s angry kickstarter backers finally have something to show for their donations. Pavao, one half of the dream pop duo Trophii, was a semifinalist on the NBC singing competition The Voice back in 2012. Pavao was always something of an oddball among the show’s mainstream pop, rock and country artists as she was clearly cut from an indie background. No matter how much dubstep and pop production her coach Christina Aguilera surrounded her with, she retained her unique indie stylings.

    This indie streak likely played a big role in her post Voice approach to making a debut album; kickstarter. Rather than selling out and cutting a pop record hot off the heels of the exposure she gained from The Voice, Pavao decided to go small time and make her music her way; the only snag is that it seems she was unsure of what way that was. Somewhere along the line she joined up with a band before breaking off on her own project with co-conspirator Richie Smith.

    The combination of Pavao and Smith is a strong one; despite the duo’s debut album being weird and often experimental it succeeds on almost every level. As a self described dream pop duo, you could be forgiven for expecting them to sound like a boring and ambient wall of sound with lilty vocals laid over top. On the contrary, most songs feature strong, driving rhythms and interesting melodies on top of the wash of ambient synths and echoey guitars. Even the songs that are mostly mellow and ambient feature prominent melodies that keep the tracks from being dull.

    Pavao’s vocals have not lost a step from her days on the voice, brilliantly going from sweet and soothing on Vitamins and Flowers to creepy and a bit threatening on Raven. I think Raven and Featherway are two of the most interesting tracks on the album as the melodies and interplay between Smith's guitar and Pavao’s vocals create a great combo.

    Surprisingly for such an ambient album there is a lot of tasty guitar work throughout. From the solos on the album opener Itch and second track Trove to the interesting melodies played throughout Raven and Featherway, Smith’s guitar work is superb. What Smith does throughout this album is something far rarer than playing the guitar well, it is playing the guitar in a restrained manner that always serves the song.

    As a huge fan of both Pavao and genuinely good indie music, I absolutely adore this album. While it’s entirely possible that there are a million better indie records out there that I simply do not know about, this album is fantastic. Trophii have done just enough with melody and rhythm to keep the ambient elements of this record from being drowsy or boring, but they do this without overpowering those ambient elements. If this is what dream pop sounds like, then I might have to go listen to some more dream pop.
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Elle King Love Stuff: An Album A Day

An Album A Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

     Here we have someone doing the neo-soul, blues rock thing who does something besides rip off Jack White or The Black Keys. In the same group as Kaleo and Hozier we have Elle King, the banjo slinging singer songwriter daughter of Rob Schneider. Her debut album Love Stuff is filled to the brim with powerful rockers, catchy hooks and some chilled out country ballads.

    The first thing I’ll praise this album for is the sheer number of good music on here that fits perfectly within the modern rock and pop scenes. The first two tracks on this album, Where The Devil Don’t Go and Ex’s and Oh’s got major radio play on pop and alternative stations despite both tracks being fuzz guitar driven rock songs. Despite the heavy rock elements found in these songs, King’s lyrics and vocal delivery are catchy enough to fit in perfectly on pop radio.   
    The album opens with four strong blues rock tracks filled with fuzzy guitars and raspy soul filled vocals. The next few tracks feature King singing country and folk inspired ballads while strumming the banjo with drums, piano and other production elements filling out the mix behind her. Track seven was the last single released from the album and is a country dance track that sounds like a mix between Avicii and acoustic Mumford and Sons.
    I Told You I Was Mean is a good anti love song in the same country soul vein as the rest of this section of the album. The next track, Ain’t Gonna Drown has a gothic folk sound that reminds me of Will There Be Enough Water by the Dead Weather. Despite the shift it doesn’t feel out of place as King’s poppiest tracks still have an edge to them that feels completely natural to her. The song Jackson takes a slight detour back into hard rock territory before wrapping up the album with two soft acoustic songs that show a more vulnerable side to King.
    Overall this album is strong, and although I would have preferred a few more rock tracks there is nothing wrong with the country leaning songs on the album. If I had one complaint it would be that the last two songs kind of go against the attitude that King has set up on the rest of the album, and I personally would have preferred more punk rock attitude to close out the album. While I was initially drawn in by the fuzz guitars on the early tracks, I stuck around for Elle King’s unique combination of powerful rasp and vocal sweetness.

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Demon Hunter Outlive: An Album A Day

An Album A Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

Before we get started with talking about the album, a little background. Demon Hunter are one of the only staples of the Christian Metal scene, think of them as Skillet’s bigger and burlier little brother. Over the years Demon Hunter have garnered respect within both the Christian and regular metal scenes for making quality music and not trying to hide their Christianity behind metaphors and bland lyrics.

    The two main elements of Demon Hunter’s sound for most of their careers has been face melting metal sections offset by extremely catchy and melodic interludes. After their last album Extremist had a few too many of those melodic sections, Demon Hunter have returned with a much more balanced approach on their 2017 release Outlive (stylized as Ovtlive)

    The album opens up in typical Demon Hunter fashion with a build up in the form of Trying Times. The opening track has lead singer Ryan Clark’s multi tracked vocals echoing over huge drums and guitars in a nice mix of heavy and serene. Trying Times goes straight into one of the heaviest tracks on the album Jesus Wept, a track that sounds like Slipknot mixed with some death metal elements. The lyrics here are based upon John 11:35 which is part of the story of Lazarus and states rather plainly “Jesus Wept”.

    One of my favorite things on this album is that Demon Hunter has decided to add synths straight out of Stranger Things and heavy guitars to their softer songs, giving the entire album a very rich and dynamic sound. Songs like Died In My Sleep and Raining Down have entirely clean vocals, but also feature Djent inspired guitar riffing, fast paced drums and polished old school synths.

    Not only is the production and musicianship on this album superb, but it feels like an actual record and not simply a collection of songs. Each song either fades into the next directly (such as Trying Times into Jesus Wept) or by switching tone at the end of one song to fit the beginning of the next (such as The End into One Less).

    The album closes out with Slight The Odds, a track which has a nearly one minute fade from only a string section into the full band in a very smooth transition that sees the strings stick around for the entirety of the song. The blending of symphonic and metal elements works well under Clark’s vocals before the entire track fades out to just the strings again.

    Overall Outlive is an excellent album that features some of the best production on a metal album I’ve heard in awhile. Each instrument is clearly audible and there's never a point where the heaviness of the guitars makes the note clarity suffer. Furthermore, the use of synths, strings and piano parts make the album feel huge and dynamic, with all of the loud and soft parts mixing together into a cohesive whole.

    While it’s certainly not the heaviest album in Demon Hunter’s catalogue, Outlive is one of the best, blending a myriad of different pieces into one complex, complete and mature album.

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Linkin Park One More Light: An Album A Day

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Here's an album that hasn't generated any controversy...

Maybe it's just me, but I really feel like Linkin Park caught way too much hell for this album. Is it the best album they've ever done? No, not by a long shot, but I cannot understand the outrage from some Linkin Park fans. As a longtime fan of Linkin Park myself, I’ve been seeing the same comments about the band being a sellout or needing to go back to their nu-metal roots since A Thousand Suns (and trust me, it goes back further than that.)

The thing is, they did exactly that on their last album The Hunting Party, which is a nu-metal album that is heavier than anything they’ve ever done. And the response to the album was okay, but that was all it was. Where previous albums had brought in new fans or broadened their sound, The Hunting Party was a niche album pandering to fans who would still rather listen to Hybrid Theory on repeat than hear anything new.

And that is why I can understand the frustration that spawned the comments Chester Bennington has made towards fans of the old Linkin Park. The band literally just made an album geared specifically for them and they still wanna call Linkin Park sellouts and say they don’t care about their fans.

Now that all the background is out of the way, how does the actual album hold up? Because regardless of obnoxious “fans” and backstory on the album, the only thing that matters is the music. Honestly, it’s average; some tracks are really good, some tracks are okay and a few tracks are just a boring waste of time.

The best tracks are Good Goodbye, Talking To Myself, Heavy and Sharp Edges. Good Goodbye is the song that I wish more of this album was formatted like, it is the only track to feature rapping and overall has a modern trap feel. This song would fit very well on Living Things with the ambient synths in the background with an aggressive rap beat on top. The guest verses work well with Stormzy’s verse particularly well done.

Talking To Myself features one of the only cases of lead guitar playing on the album and is a strong alternative rock song. The chorus reminds me of Handclap by Fitz And The Tantrums (another rock band to take a dip into pop) and overall this track is what Linkin Park doing pop rock can sound like at their best. This and Heavy are tied for the best overall pop track on the album, with this being more of the Imagine Dragons leaning side of pop rock and Heavy being closer to Kiiara's style mixed with twenty one pilots.

Sharp Edges is the closing track and is one of the weirder moments on this album, but I really enjoy it. It has an indie folk sound similar to Ed Sheeran and at times has an almost country feel. While it is not something I would expect from Linkin Park, I find myself really loving this track for what it is; and that is kind of the best way I can sum up this album.

While there are some real duds (Halfway Right, Battle Symphony) I generally enjoy the album for what it is. Something I learned a while back with Linkin Park is you have to approach each album as its own entity, because after Meteora they have not made two albums with the same style. As a 2010’s pop rock album it’s pretty good, definitely in the top 20 pop albums of the decade.

But as a Linkin Park album this is definitely the worst one they have done. The style of this album is so much weaker than anything they have ever tried before that it simply doesn't match up. When compared to all the other genres Linkin Park has covered on past albums, 2010’s pop rock just can’t stand up.
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The Black Belles: An Album A Day

An album a day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

            In the music industry there is a tried and true formula for making money, get a group of attractive young, mildly talented girls and give them something to sing. The Black Belles are the Third Man Records equivalent of the girl group. Featuring Third Man Records multi instrumentalist Olivia Jean as front woman of the quartet, The Black Belles truly encapture the Third Man Records blues rock sound.

The four piece consists of Ruby Rogers on bass guitar, Shelby Lynne on drums, Christina Norwood on synth and Olivia Jean with vocals, guitar and organ duties. One of the first things that struck me with their self titled album is that only one song, “Honky Tonk Horror” eclipses the 3 minute mark and the entire album being around 27 minutes long.

The first few tracks start off strong, with the opener “Leave You With With a Letter” being one of the strongest on the album. This track features a driving blues rock guitar and distorted bass riff as the centerpiece while the drums pound out in a 3/4 tempo. The psychotic waltz fits with Jean’s vocals in both tone and delivery as she goes up and down in pitch to match the guitar. This is one of the tracks where the Belles shine the brightest, displaying their own twist on the Third Man sound.

Unfortunately for most of the albums the Belles sound like a tribute band, owing equal parts of their sound to Jack White and Kills frontwoman Alison Mosshart. They come by it honestly with Jean herself having been a feature in Jack White’s backing band, but it would be nice for them to cultivate more of their own style. Rather than having their own sound,  The Belles often sound like a poor man’s copy of White and Mosshart’s supergroup, The Dead Weather.
    While sounding similar to The Dead Weather is not a bad thing by itself, the Belles do little to bring anything new to the Goth Blues Rock sound that they share. The similarities go so far that it sounds like Christina Norwood is playing the exact synthesizer that Dean Fertita uses with The Dead Weather.

In fairness, The Belles do have a few songs where they do add their own twist on the sound, such as Breathing Down My Neck. This track jumps back and forth between loud fuzz guitar filled verses and a calmer folk styled chorus. While it features some of the same elements as The Dead Weather, Jean adds enough of her own style to where she doesn’t just sound like a Mosshart imitator. Jean’s guitar solo towards the end of the track is rather simple blues rock fare, but it serves the song and leads to the outro.

None of the other tracks are particularly bad, but they also are not anything special. Songs like “The Tease”, “Honky Tonk Horror” and “Pushing Daisies” lack an original style, while “Hey Velda” and “Howling At The Moon” are just boring. Olivia Jean is clearly a talented singer, but for much of the album she lacks a distinct sound and the album suffers for it.

Ultimately, most of this album is solid with a few real gems that stick out. Fans of garage rock and alternative artists like Jack White, The Kills or Queens Of The Stone Age will likely enjoy this album, as well as those putting together a Third Man Records playlist. But for me, to be honest when I hear The Black Belles I would rather just go listen to The Dead Weather.

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Harry Styles: An Album A Day

An album a day is posted 5 days a week, Monday through Friday

Who would have thought that with all the major rock artists to release albums this year the album I'd be most excited about would be from 1/5 of One Direction. Harry Styles' self titled solo debut is a strong one, drawing inspiration almost entirely from old school soft rock and classic rock. The lead single, Sign of The Times, is a strong radio rock track that despite garnering air play on pop stations is wholly unlike anything on the radio today. The song displays a strong Beatles influence mixed with elements of 80s and 90s soft rock.

One of the things that hit me about both Sign of The Times and the album as a whole, is that Styles has filled every track with real instruments played by superb musicians. Styles has brought in a huge cast of studio musicians and backing vocalists to fill out the mix, rather than relying on samples and multi tracking of his own vocals. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of electric guitar on this album with at least 5 of the 10 tracks having guitar solos as well as legitimate lead guitar playing throughout.

The high points of the album for me are tracks 6 and 7, Only Angel and Kiwi. These two tracks take a detour into hard rock territory before the album closes out with the funky blues driven track Woman and the acoustic ballad From The Dining Table. Only Angel starts with an ambient tone that you expect to lead into another soft rock track before taking a detour at the :54 mark into Rolling Stones esque blues rock.

This hard rock interlude continues with Kiwi, which I consider the best track on the album. Kiwi is a track that mixes classic rock sounds with vocals that evoke Scott Weiland or Chris Cornell at times. This track was Styles coming out moment for me, as he shows with this song that he isn’t just a pretty boy singing love ballads but that he can be a legit rock star if he wants to.

Overall this album is absolutely brilliant with even the more pop oriented tracks having value and not feeling phoned in. By keeping the album to just 10 songs Styles avoids having any of them feel like filler with each track being different enough to not get boring. In a year filled with disappointing pop leaning albums from Linkin Park and Paramore, it is fantastic to see a pop artist put out a legitimately good rock album.

What Bruno Mars did with funk and soul music is what Styles has done here with classic rock and soft rock. I for one hope that he continues to pursue rock music, and that given his popularity others will follow his lead. It is premature to say for sure, but Harry Styles might have just kicked off a rock rebirth in the mainstream music industry.
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