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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Rag'n'Bone Man Human: An Album A Day

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

    Much like Elle King, the artist we are looking at today, Rag’n’Bone Man, brings a different take to the blues and soul genres. Rory Graham (stage name Rag’n’Bone Man) has such a powerful gospel delivery to his singing that it makes his music jump out and grab you, especially when played on a pop station amid soulless auto tuned pop singers. Over the course of his debut album Human, Graham showcases a blending of soul, blues and gospel singing with modern hip hop and indie beats.

    Interestingly Graham actually started out as an Emcee with a drum and bass crew, going by his original handle of Rag’N’Bonez. Some of Graham’s rap influence can be heard throughout Human, with the pounding 808 drum beats underneath just about every track as well as a rap verse on Ego. The minimalistic beats also sit underneath the music in the way that calls all of the attention to the vocals, highlighting the vocal performance and lyrics in a similar way to rap music.

    Along with the largely synth based backing music, certain tracks feature elements that call back to soul, funk, blues and gospel music. Choirs and pianos are common elements throughout the album along with tracks like Innocent Man that make heavy use of funk inspired bass guitar and saxophone. The album has a consistent sound throughout, with the differences in tracks coming from the way the various genres are presented. For example, Love You Any Less is a powerful piano ballad, while Be The Man is a straightforward soul track driven by acoustic drums and strings.

    Literally every song on this album is strong, and even though they all have a similar style the songs are different enough that it doesn’t get old or tired. Deciding which tracks are the best from this album will have to come down to current mood and personal opinion; as of writing this I’d say the best tracks on this album are Innocent Man, Skin, Ego and Die Easy.

    Innocent Man is a good track that mixes in more of the funk and soul inspired elements into the music instead of relegating them to only Graham’s vocals. Skin is a dark minimalist track about the inability to let go of a past relationship that features some supremely powerful vocals on the chorus while having a restrained and emotional performance on the verses. Skin truly stands out in the version of the song used in the music video where there is a 40 second long acapella segment at the beginning that showcases Graham’s vocals.

    Ego stands out as one of the angriest tracks on the album, featuring lyrics that seem aimed at prideful liars and hypocrites. This track also stands out because of the third verse where Graham drops back into his Rag’N’Bonez rap persona, calling out egotistical rich people who claim to have all the answers while being detached from the common man; essentially modern Marie Antoinettes.

    The strongest moment on the album is the closing track Die Easy, an entirely acapella spiritual. It is a testament to the power and emotion in Graham’s delivery that he can hold down the best track on the album entirely unaccompanied. The lyrics and themes sound heavily inspired by old folk and gospel tracks, with the imagery and thematic elements being similar to O’ Death by Ralph Stanley. It closes the album out with a funeral dirge as the album ends with nothing but Graham singing about his death.

    Overall this is one of the best albums I have heard in awhile and certainly one of the best to come out this year. I cannot wait to see what else Rag’n’Bone Man puts out, as everything I have heard from him has been brilliant. Along with this album, Graham has put out various EPs including Bluestown, a contemporary blues album that includes a rendition of my favorite blues standard, St James Infirmary Blues. As long as Graham continues singing without auto tune any direction he chooses to go in will be amazing.

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Twenty One Pilots: An Album A Day

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

It’s always interesting with a band or artist who get a large following around a song or album to go back and look at their earliest music. By doing this we can see how much their style has evolved from their earliest work to what they’ve become known for. In the case of Twenty One Pilots (stylized as twentyonepilots) their self titled studio debut is vastly different from anything off of their more well known albums ,Vessel and Blurryface.

Each of Twenty One Pilot’s three (ish) albums have each brought a different level of success and marked new phases in the band’s career. The band first gained a large indie and local following through the self release of two albums, Twenty One Pilots and Regional At Best. After selling out shows around their local Columbus, Ohio area they ultimately signed to Fueled By Ramen and put out Vessel, an album that included new songs as well as polished versions of Regional At Best tracks. The release of Vessel marked the band’s phase of having moderate national success.

The phase that Twenty One Pilots is currently in is the mainstream level appeal and stardom that their third album Blurryface has brought. While Vessel had a few hits, nothing can touch the overplay of Stressed Out from Blurryface. With three pop radio (Stressed Out, Ride and Heavydirtysoul) hits as well as the success of Heathens from the Suicide Squad soundtrack it’s safe to say that Twenty One Pilots have made it.

Going all the way back to their 2009 debut however, we find a very different band. Although the main lyrical themes of lead singer and songwriter Tyler Joseph are still there, namely mental illness, death, Christian themes and interesting wordplay, the style is much less engaging. With the exception of Isle of Flightless Birds, Fall Away and possibly Johnny Boy, all of the tracks on this album are slow piano ballads. Whereas the blending of pop, rap and rock elements on later albums make Tyler’s lyrics dynamic and full of impact, on this album a lot of them just come off as melodramatic and whiny.

           The more up tempo rap style can be found in parts of songs like Taxi Cab, but overall a lot of tracks become forgettable because of their slow pace and similar feel. I don’t just put the blame on Tyler being a less experienced songwriter however, I chalk it up to his bandmates as well.

While Twenty One Pilots is currently a duo consisting of Tyler and drummer Josh Dun, back in 2009 Twenty One Pilots were actually a three piece band.

Dun wasn’t even in the band yet, with it consisting of Nick Thomas on Bass and Chris Salih on Drums behind Tyler. My theory is that either Thomas and Salih didn’t let Tyler be as creative and weird as he would later be or simply that Dun facilitates Tyler’s pursuit of less conventional musical ideas. Either way, this album doesn’t stand out nearly as much as their other work because it simply feels too safe on a lot of tracks.

Overall it’s not a bad album, in fact some of my favorite tracks from this band such as Implicit Demand For Proof, Trapdoor and Taxi Cab are on this album. It’s just no where near as good as the more diverse and engaging content found on Vessel and Blurryface. While it's fun to look at this album and see some of the early threads of the band's current style, I would recommend just checking out the highlights and skipping the rest unless you're a die hard member of the Skeleton Clique.

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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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Bitch Magnet Star Booty: An Album A Day

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

Today’s album and band are not the type of band you’ll find on many top 10 lists; hell you’ll be hard pressed to find anybody who’s heard of them who didn’t come up in the same scene as they did. Bitch Magnet were a three piece post hardcore band that often strayed into noise rock territory. I first discovered the band’s story through a book entitled Your Band Sucks that was written by the band’s guitarist Jon Fine; throughout the book, Fine tells the tale of his various experiences in bands with the first serious one being Bitch Magnet.

While the name might offend some people’s sensibilities it’s pretty much par for the course for the hardcore punk inspired indie scene that the band came up in. While both lead singer/ bassist Sooyoung Park  and Fine would go on to create more progressive minded music both within and without the band, Star Booty is a mostly straightforward rage filled rock fest of an album. Despite the obvious hardcore punk influences throughout the album, Star Booty does manage to be much more listenable than your average Minor Threat song.

Of the entire album the only track I’m not terribly fond of is Circle K as it snaps you out of the almost meditative state the rest of the album puts you in. Similarly to shoegaze bands like My Bloody Valentine I find that the wall of noise created by the heavily distorted guitar and bass becomes almost soothing after a while, as the noise just kind of washes over you.

While Carnation and Cantaloupe are good opening and closing tracks respectively, the strongest chunk of the album is from Chord through Knucklehead. Each of these songs flow together in such a way that they have the feel of one long musical piece, rather than four separate songs.

The version of this album that can be found on Itunes, Google Play and Spotify is a deluxe edition that includes remastered versions of other EPs and singles the band released. Of these the only one I find particularly good is Big Pining, but none of them are bad per se. Overall this is a killer noise rock and post hardcore album, and likely one of the most accessible in the noise rock genre for the uninitiated.
            Bitch Magnet have played a few reunion shows with other bands from the same indie scene and watching these guys play live brings the music to life in a whole other way from the studio recordings. Below I have embedded a video of them playing live in 2012 at the Knitting Factory.

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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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