Noah 1. Ego-Rag n Bone Man 2. Hook, Line & Sinker- Royal Blood 3. Believer- Imagine Dragons 4. Walk On Water- 30 Seconds To Mars 5. The Man- The Killers 6. Died In My Sleep- Demon Hunter 7. Blame- Bastille 8. Feet Don't Fail Me- Queens of The Stone Age 9. Story of OJ- Jay-Z 10. Blood In The Cut- K.Flay
Justin 1. What Are We Fighting For- The Federal Empire 2. Come Together- Gary Clark Jr. 3. Legendary- Welshy Arms 4. Freak Like Me- NoMBe 5. High- Sir Sly 6. No Roots- Alice Merton 7. Feel It Still- Portugal. The Man 8. Fire Escape- Andrew McMahon in The Wilderness 9. River- Bishop Briggs 10. Love is Mystical- Cold War Kids --honorable mention-- Champion- Barns Courtney note-Jay- Z is not on Spotify so Story of OJ is replaced by Mask Off(remix) on the Spotify playlist. Find us on ITunes
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.
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.
An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday
While Twenty One Pilots have not released a full album since 2015’s Blurryface, they did release an EP of reimaginings of their songs with MuteMath in late 2016. These renditions of some of their best tracks off of Blurryface are really incredible to hear. The way that Twenty One Pilots and MuteMath mesh on these tracks puts them in a whole new context, adding new elements and filling out the sound of some tracks.
Much like seeing Jack White with a full band after being in The White Stripes it's awesome to see just how much can be added to these songs that were originally from a two piece. It isn't quite so dramatic since Tyler Joseph often layers synths and instruments in the studio, but what is dramatic is hearing other artists bring their own individual styles to these tracks. From the funk disco groove added to Tear In My Heart to the dual drumming on HeavyDirtySoul, the added style from the members of MuteMath makes these tracks come alive in a whole new way.
The first track from this session is Twenty One Pilots’ hit song Heathens from the Suicide Squad soundtrack. The slower more somber pace of this version combined with cello, marimba and synth layers add a darker tone to the song. This version plays up the dark and introspective nature of the lyrics a bit more than the original version, which had some aggression on it.
The next track is the one which is the closest to the original, HeavyDirtySoul. This rendition pretty much just exchanges a few of the synth textures for real instruments and adds a heavy breakdown at the end. This version also features dual drumming in parts with Josh Dun and MuteMath drummer Darren King both playing the frantic drumbeat on this track. They did keep in the main background sample that many fans believe to be the character of Blurryface screaming, which I thought was a nice touch.
This version of ride is slightly different, with the piano rhythm being replaced by an echoey electric guitar and arpeggiated synths. A lot of the synth textures are changed to analog sounding synths straight out of the 80s. The overall feel of the song is a little different but it’s mostly just a bigger reverb filled version of the original.
Tear In My Heart is the biggest departure from the original as it features a funky disco vibe and completely changes the instrumentation. This version also uses Josh Dun’s trumpet playing in a few more spots than the original, such as in funk swing intro. This version also features Darren King playing bongos throughout the bridge, adding to the retro vibe that they’re clearly going for here.
The EP closes out with a version of Lane Boy that isn't much different from the original. The main differences here are the ukulele riff being played on keyboard as well a smattering of echoey guitar fills. Also the tempo is slightly different like with Heathens. The last drop is then replaced by an epic sounding jam session between MuteMath and Josh Dun that closes out the EP perfectly.
If you are a fan of Twenty One Pilots already I absolutely recommend this EP, however if you have never got into them I'd also recommend checking this out. These different takes on the songs might just be the flavor of Twenty One Pilots that’s for you. Either way, I'd urge you to watch the full session video the first time you listen because it really does enhance the experience.
An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday
Today we are covering one of my favorite albums of all time, Viva La Vida or Death And All of His Friends by Coldplay. Now, Coldplay are not generally a band I get all that excited about. Even back when this was my favorite album I understood that I didn’t really care for most of Coldplay’s other stuff. Not to say that they are bad or uncreative, their earlier style just wasn’t my cup of tea. But Viva La Vida is exactly the type of alternative rock that I absolutely adore these days. I enjoyed this album when it first came out in 2008, in fact I enjoyed the lead single so much that I made this my first album purchase ever. I bought this album from Whole Foods in Baton Rouge, Louisiana when I was 11 years old and made my brother put it his CD player while we sat in bumper to bumper traffic in the rain. This album was the second CD that I discovered sounded really good being endlessly looped through my boom box, the other being America’s Greatest Hits album. I’m not sure what about the track Viva La Vida first grabbed my attention; I think it was either the fact that he was clearly telling a story about a Napoleon type character in a pop song or simply the viva la revolution! Feel of the whole thing.
While I’d describe a lot of the elements on this album as vaguely world music sounding, there was something definitively French Revolution about the sound of the title track. From the beginning to end every song on this album is fantastic, with the mix of strings, world music, piano rock and Johnny Buckland doing his best The Edge impersonation meshing perfectly together.
This album mixes arena rocking and ambient music together into a fairly unique and awesome combination. The best tracks on this album are the two title tracks, along with Yes and Violet Hill, while the only real low point for me is Strawberry Swing sitting between Violet Hill and Death and All Of His Friends.
As previously mentioned, Viva La Vida is an anthemic rock track that oozes with the French Revolution vibe the band was evoking with this album. The song tells the tale of a dethroned king who now lives in poverty and isolation, seemingly being sung from the perspective of a Napoleon like character, post exile. This was certainly the most radio ready song on the album but it’s style is very weird for top 40 success as it is one of the most definitively rock songs Coldplay have ever had get popular.
My personal favorite track on the album, Yes, features Chris Martin singing in his lower baritone register to add variety to the album. As a baritone myself I always loved this song because it was one of the few Coldplay songs I could sing easily. Along with Martin’s seductive low vocals this track features some of the coolest violin parts on the record. Apparently this track was inspired heavily by The Velvet Underground, which are supposed to be the originators of the alternative rock sound. Along with this influence, band members have commented that the hidden track Chinese Sleep Chant at the end of this song is meant to be a parody of shoegaze and of My Bloody Valentine specifically.
Next we have Violet Hill, a track that is vaguely political but in the kind of way where you can pretty much insert any political opinion into the song. I actually really like these kinds of songs, because I really don’t care to hear political ranting in music, with exceptions made for Rage Against The Machine and anti-Vietnam songs because of the quality of music. This track works amazing well at making me feel the cold winter that Martin sings about, the synths and piano stabs convey this feeling very well. The lyrics are kind of a mash of jumbled words that sort of tell a story, but the delivery of the song makes up for the sometimes disjointed storytelling.
Lastly we have the other title track and album closer Death and All of His Friends. This track could easily be described as Violet Hill part 2, with the same cold feeling and disjointed storytelling over music that pulls the whole thing together. The album actually closes with a hidden track inside of Death and All of His Friends called The Escapist, which seems to be the existentialist crises of Chris Martin leaking out.
The track features the repeated line “And, In the end we lie awake, and we dream of making our escape” over the music from the album opener Life In Technicolor. This makes the album easy to listen to on repeat because of it's circular nature. I always took the lines to be a poetic description of being dead; the lines are also likely a reference to The End by The Beatles which has Paul McCartney singing “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”.
As I said at the beginning of this review, this is one of my favorite albums of all time, turning this review more into a sales pitch to go listen to it. While I’m biased in favor of this album because of the nostalgia for me, I legitimately believe this album is just as good as I’ve said it. One of the strongest points of this album for me is it enough of an arena rock album to be a pump up daytime listen and ambient enough to be listened to at night. I can’t even count how many times I fell asleep to this album as a kid or even as an adult. I’ve enjoyed this album for 9 years now and I fully expect to be enjoying it for many more to come; do yourself a favor and give it a listen.
An Album a Day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday
So Fall Out Boy released a new single. This is the second single for their album to be released later this year, M A N I A. This will be their first new album since 2015’s American Beauty/American Psycho and reportedly is going to draw heavily on EDM influences. The first single Young and Menace featured the three years behind current trends sound of dubstep mixed with contemporary pop influences. So with the background out of the way, let’s see how Champion tackles EDM.
To start, this song does at least appear to have guitars somewhere in the mix and does bring in a little bit of Fall Out Boy’s older sound. The issue this track has right off the bat for me is that the production doesn’t sound like Fall Out Boy; it’s crisp with that dull echoey feel that all pop music has these days. On top of this, even with the guitar in the background the opening of this song wouldn’t sound out of place as the hook on a Future or Drake track, with such a drowsy and low delivery. Also their heavy use of purple in all the marketing keeps making me think Patrick Stump was sipping lean before some of these vocal takes.
Throughout the majority of the song Stump’s vocals are strong as ever, just like on Young and Menace, but there are a few drowsy segments that kill all of the momentum of this track. And while this track attempts to use the huge sounding drum sounds from their last album to add power, even the drums sound tired. I don’t want to be overly negative, because I hate people who throw a fit every time a band changes their sound, but there are changes that work and changes that don’t and this change does not work at all.
Fall Out Boy’s change from pop punk mixed with emo to a more commercial arena rock sound on their last two records worked because it expanded the sound of the band and made them sound like a bigger version of themselves. This shift to a EDM influenced pop sound does the exact opposite, making it sound more and more like Patrick Stump’s solo career ghost written by Pete Wentz. Seriously, on both of the singles from Mania how many musical elements can you pick out? On Young and Menace I hear a lot of synths, a snare drum, a very slight piano once in awhile and I think a guitar buried under everything else on the drop. On Champion, there’s a guitar line, a few synths and drums; that's it.
I find the same issue here I found with Heavy by Linkin Park when I first heard it; where is the rest of the band? Fall Out Boy feature two guitarists, a bass player and a drummer along with a vocalist; at least when Linkin Park fill an entire song with pro tools and keyboard they have the excuse of having a DJ and a keyboard player in the band. Continuing with the comparison to Linkin Park, I actually think this is worse than One More light because Linkin Park at least went all in on a pop sound and had some songs that worked as pop music. Conversely, Fall Out Boy's half pop half rock sound just makes these tracks sound confused and I personally don’t think Young and Menace or Champion work even as pop songs.
Overall, I’m worried that Mania could be to Fall Out Boy what One More Light has been to Linkin Park. The little bit of hope I have left is that they have not fully committed to the EDM pop sound just yet, as elements of their rock sound keep bleeding through. This means that there’s a chance that a few tracks on Mania will be legitimate rock songs. We will all have our answers soon enough as the album drops in September.
