Seattle At It's Freshest.

Album: The VS. EP

Artist: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap

Year: 2009

Label: Ryan Lewis Productions

[I wrote this a bit back, and a edited version has been published here. This is the full version. Enjoy!]

People who claim to hate Hip-Hop on principle have never heard good Hip-Hop. I like Hip-Hop, but I don’t write about it very much, which is something I’d like to change, given that I feel it’s a wrongly maligned genre and I’m here to defend music against all odds. I’ve written about a few of the better players in the Seattle Hip-Hop scene, Blue Scholars and Grayskul to name two, and have even tackled some of the Def Jux crew like Cage & Aesop Rock. But noting that I live in Seattle and it’s been a while since I wrote about Hip-Hop and I just discovered Macklemore a few weeks back, I thought I’d tell you a bit about his most recent release: The VS. EP.

My first introduction to Macklemore was not memorable. It was on the Onry Ozzborn produced album Die Already by The Gigantics. Macklemore and Xperience featured on the song “Keep Walking,” which, like the rest of that album, was a grim trip down the road of Giganticland. At the time I didn’t think much of him, because there were simply too many artists on that album and eventually, some of them started to run together. So Mack got lost in the shuffle. I didn’t think much more about him till late last year, when I was reading The Stranger (so I’m a hipster. Bite me,) and I ran across an article about him where I learned that Macklemore was just getting ready to release his first new material since 2005’s The Language Of My World and that the reason he hadn’t produced anything new in four years was because he’d been having drug problems. Specifically, with cough syrup. When I first read that I thought it was a joke. Then I did some research and found out that cough syrup can actually be an addictive substance that people abuse just like any other addictive substance. But fortunately, Mr. Macklemore has since kicked his addictions and has been clean and sober for what’s probably been 20 months now.

In the few weeks that remained between that article’s publication and the release of The VS. EP, I picked up The Language Of My World to better familiarize myself with Macklemore. After one listen I was convinced that he was a genius. Because, with the exception of an anti-Bush song, which is now outdated, The Language Of My World is a beautifully constructed Hip-Hop album that balances social commentary (White Privilege) and laugh-out-loud humor (Penis Song) and does it extremely well. A week or so later, The VS. EP dropped and I picked it up. And damn. At thirty minutes in length, it’s even better than The Language Of My World.

The VS. EP is two things. It’s a spectacular collaboration with producer Ryan Lewis and also Mack’s comeback album after four years of nothing. For all of you currently on hiatus from something, take note: THIS is how you do a comeback. The EP opens with “Vipassana” which is essentially Macklemore reaffirming himself in the scheme of things. From the way he speaks, he sounds refreshed and the track is very refreshing to listen to. It sounds like you just got up, took a hot shower, got dressed up real nice and then stepped outside to greet the day, and the day greeted you back with a cool breeze. On “Vipassana,” Mack talks about where he’s been in the last four years and what brought him back. He talks about how he was inches away from death, but sobered up and how after years and years of searching, he’s found himself and what really matters in life. I’d like to think that you don’t have to nearly die to find what really matters in life, but still, it’s good to hear that he’s found himself. What follows “Vipassana” is the romp stomping 80’s send up of “Crew Cuts” in which Mack and another unnamed Emcee wax lyrical about their best memories of life “before CD’s and Internet was in effect.” The song is a full on party and the most levity this EP has in store. It reminds us that, besides great storytelling, Macklemore is capable of having great fun with his music. A tip of the hat is in store for Ryan Lewis, whose production job gets better and better as the EP continues. And of the seven songs, there isn’t a weak one; they’re all choice cuts.

All the songs on The VS. EP heavily sample other artists, but it is with the third track “Life Is Cinema” that one of the more recognizable samples comes into play. Ryan Lewis’s choice of back beat on that song was created from The Killers’ “All These Things I’ve Done,” even going so far as to sample the famous refrain “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier” which proves that you can make a really good piece of music out of a mediocre one, if you put your mind to it. Mack’s rap on “Life Is Cinema” gets more and more intense as the music builds around him. He raps about looking at life as though it were a movie and realizing that when things suck, the only person who can be the editor is you. Powerful message.

The EP’s trend of heavy sampling continues with the fourth song, the harrowing “Otherside” which samples and builds around the bass line from the Red Hot Chili Peppers song of the same name. Appropriate, because “Otherside” is Mack’s story of his addiction to cough syrup and pain meds that nearly ended his life. The song displays Macklemore at his most sober. Clearly this is heavy stuff and he doesn’t mess around with it, he just tells his story and warns against the dangers of thinking oneself invincible when, really, you’re not. Laden with mournful strings and a heavy beat, “Otherside” is by far the scariest song Macklemore has ever penned. But it’s not the most epic. That honor belongs the track five: “Kings.” I knew after reading a bit about The VS. EP that one of the songs sampled The Arcade Fire, but I wasn’t expecting Mack and Lewis to sample my favorite Arcade Fire song “My Body Is A Cage.” The heavy church organ sounds are the perfect backing for Macklemore and Champagne Champagne to rap over. Like Mack says on the track: “You only get a couple chances to be epic” and “epic” is about the only word I come up with in describing “Kings.”

As I said before, this EP just gets better and better as it goes on and the penultimate track is one of the finest in all of Mack’s Discography. “Irish Celebration” features Mack rapping over “Scenic World” by Beirut and a whole bar full of rowdy drinking buddies. The song is obviously one of festivity and listening to the way Macklemore talks about his Irish heritage makes me actually wish I had some Irish blood in me. It’s the chorus that really gets you, though, “We put our glass to the sky and lift up, and live tonight cause you can’t take it with ya, so raise a pint for the people that ain’t with us, and live tonight cause you can’ take it with ya.” It’s not a Flogging Molly or Dropkick Murphys song, about getting shitfaced at every turn; it’s a Pogues song about Irish pride in Hip-Hop form, with Macklemore as a better-toothed Shane MacGowan.

After “Irish Celebration,” comes the final song on the EP, “The End.” A slow, piano drive song built on samples from “Another World” by Antony & The Johnsons, “The End” is Macklemore’s story about his relationship to music told through the metaphor of a sweet last school dance. It’s a beautiful end to a fantastic EP. The VS. EP is a brilliant way for Macklemore to return to music and brings some of his best cards to the table. Even better? You can get this EP for free from Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ websites. They had to do it like that; the obviousness of some of the samples means they would’ve run into legal trouble if they’d tried to market it. I can’t think of a single reason not to go and get this EP right now. I’ll even give you the link. Enjoy!

Macklemore On Myspace (Where you can download the EP.)

Macklemore The VS. EP on Youtube (In Pieces)

Macklemore Website

When No One Was Looking...

We snuck out of the room. But beware... we've just snuck back in. The Sound Guardian will get off his ass and get back to work within the week. In the meantime, here's a picture of Frank Zappa. See you soon!

DOOM.

Album: Doom Jazz

Artist: Swami LatePlate

Genre: Doom Jazz

Year: 2007

Label: Veal Records

Over the years, Jamie Saft has proven time and again that he will not be confined to just one music box. He wants to inhabit them all and has undertaken a number of strange and sometimes bewildering projects (Whoopie Pie) in order to stretch himself and the minds of his listeners. I’ve written about a few of them. I initially knew Saft for his piano work with The Jamie Saft Trio, an acoustic Jazz group featuring Greg Cohen (bass) and Ben Perowsky (drums.) Knowing only this side of Mr. Saft, I was surprised when I encountered Veal Records and The Beta Popes. Veal Records is a label that Saft started in order to release various side projects of his, all of which have some kind of dark bent to them and The Beta Popes is a trio he formed with drummer Bobby Previte and saxophonist Skerik. But The Beta Popes don’t traffic in Jazz, they do semi-improvised Death Metal and Saft plays a really crunchy guitar with them. Don’t hold your breath, it only gets weirder from here.

Exploring Veal Records further, I found that Saft had several other gloomy projects of interest on the label, but none piqued my curiosity more than Swami LatePlate, a duo that Saft formed with Bobby Previte from The Beta Popes. The group takes both players back to their Jazz roots, but with an M. Night Shyamalan-like twist. Swami LatePlate plays self-proclaimed “Doom Jazz.”

I know.

Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?

The basic Idea is this: Doom Metal is a brand of Metal based around slower tempos, crushing low-end sound and lyrical themes that evoke… well… a sense of doom. Saft and Previte decided to take that formula and apply it with a Jazz mindset and instruments. In this case, Previte finds himself in his rightful place behind the drum kit and Saft plays both the piano and the electric bass. From what I’ve heard of the duo’s live show, Saft sits at the piano with the bass on his lap and plays them at the same time, but I’m not sure if that’s how they did it on the record. It sounds a little too tight sometimes for that to be the case, but who knows? Ultimately, it doesn’t make a lick of difference whether Saft is in fact playing both at once, he plays them both beautifully and that’s all that matters.

The music on the appropriately titled Doom Jazz is exactly that: Doom-laden Jazz music. I mentioned Metal earlier? This isn’t Jazz meets Metal so much as it is Doom Metal formula meets Jazz. And the great thing is that it works out perfectly. This is an album of shadowy minimalism, of haunting echoes and shifty looks over your shoulder into the darkness beyond. The slow pace and low tuning of the music allows for sense for a sense of dread that is unfamiliar in Jazz. It has a very noir feel to it, and in my personal experience it makes for great night driving music. From the opening drum roll of “Malignant Cloud” to the final piano chord strike of the last and title track, Doom Jazz takes you on a journey through the darkest corners of Saft and Previte’s minds.

There are no words, but the titles of the songs and the liner notes tell a story of a 1984 like prison world where a man named Frank tries desperately to escape from something evil which is keeping him and his fellows prisoner. I don’t know the outcome of Frank's story, but do know that the track “Escape” is followed by the title track, which implies to me that either Frank did indeed escape and this is the credits music, or the Doom Jazz is the very thing he was fleeing from and it has finally caught up with him. I’m shivering just thinking about it. I’m also writing this review in pitch dark and listening to the record as I do. It feels appropriate.

Another thing I don’t know for sure is how improvised is this project. Saft and Previte are both accomplished Improv artists, but some of this sounds too tight to be completely off-the-cuff which makes me think that it’s probably somewhere in between.

There is something about the Doom Jazz concept that isn’t entirely original though. Actually it’s been done before and for a while. A German band called Bohren & Der Club of Gore have been playing a very Doom-like form of Noir Jazz since the 90’s and have released several albums in that style. I’ve even written and posted about one of them on my old blog. But if I had to choose between Swami LatePlate and Der Club of Gore, I’d have to pick Swami LatePlate and here’s why: Bohren may be talented band with a lot going for them but what they don’t have is dynamic drumming or really, dynamic anything. Every single one of their songs uses essentially the same two or three drum sounds and it gets really old, really fast. They have a fantastic saxophone and keyboardist, but their rhythm section just kind of sits there, doing the same thing for minutes on end. If anything, their music can be too minimal. Swami LatePlate on the other hand manages to be both dynamic and spooky, with full kit work from Mr. Previte and Saft’s chilling piano and bass work.

Describing the individual tracks is a little beyond me because they all follow the same formula and still manage to sound different, but I know that my favorites are the opening cut “Malignant Cloud”, “The Forbidden Border” and The already quotation marked “The Bearded Man Cannot Help You.” Of all the Veal Records releases, Swami LatePlate is the one with the most interesting sound and also just the flat-out most listenable. It’s probably my favorite of all of Jamie Saft’s weird little projects and if you like Jazz, you should get this album. If you like Doom, get this album. If you like Bohren & Der Club of Gore, get this album, it’s way better.

Swami Lateplate's Doom Jazz On Myspace

A Live Rendition Of "The Bearded Man Cannot Help You" On Youtube

A Live Rendition Of "Escape" On Youtube

Veal Records On Myspace (Where You Can Buy The Album)

(Making Up For Lost Time) The Horror... The Horror...

STOP: I Highly Recommend That You LISTEN TO ME Read You This Review. The MEDIA PLAYER Is Located Near The Bottom Of The Review, Before The Links. Enjoy!

Album: Primary Colours

Artist: The Horrors

Genre: Death/Shoegazer Rock

Year: 2009

Label: XL

The Horrors seem to have the world in the palm of their hand. Critics love them (NME, Drowned In Sound;) they’ve got cult-like followers and the admiration of elder statesmen of the music world (Geoff Barrow, Trent Reznor). On top of that they’ve got a great sound, chock full of gothic darkness and shoegazy textures and, as if that weren’t enough, they’re young, having only existed for four years. All of that is fairly respectable and makes me wonder what’s wrong with this picture. But even I’m quashing my inner cynic for this one, because, ultimately, I like The Horrors. Sure they’re not my favorite band in the world, but I’ve found this album, Primary Colours, strangely addictive and fun to listen to and since anyone worth their salt would need more convincing than that, I’ll take you on a tour as best I can.

We are living in an era of Post-Punk revivalism, as clearly demonstrated by bands like Interpol (Joy Division,) Bloc Party (Gang Of Four, whether they like it or not,) Romance (Sisters Of Mercy AND Gang Of Four) and now, The Horrors who don’t so much revive Post-Punk as they break into the graveyard where it’s buried, unearth the coffin and make off with it into the night. They then take the corpse down to the lab, where, using a mixture of dark science and a borderline unhealthy dose of guitar feedback, they resurrect Post-Punk. Then, they begin to begin to tinker with it.

The Horror’s sound is not unique by any means, but it is a fun amalgam of what has come before, in this case Gothic Rock mixed with Shoegazer. The darkness of the sound and the lyrical themes recall Goth at it’s best, but the guitars and synths come from the My Bloody Valentine side of the park. As with MBV, The Horror’s guitars and synths are all about the texture. They want you to not so much hear the sound, as they want you to feel it. And you do. Listening to (and feeling) the music is sort of like being immersed in shimmering waves of darkness and light that warp and twist around you like smoke in the wind.

The darkness is not oppressive, however, and unlike My Bloody Valentine, whose guitar waves threaten to drown you, The Horrors seem to understand restraint. Or, more accurately, Geoff Barrow (of Portishead) knows how to restrain them. In his role as producer, Barrow seems to have allowed The Horrors to blossom into a dark flower, that only here and there needs trimming. From what I understand about their relationship, Barrow’s job was to reign in The Horrors when they took something too far, rather then to help shape their sound. Ultimately, Barrow’s greatest contribution to the album may be that his stamp of approval is one of the things that convinced me to pick it up.

The problem with The Horrors first album, Strange House, with the exception of their cover of the Screaming Lord Sutch song “Jack The Ripper,” was that none of the songs were particularly memorable and the band’s choice of influences to display made them sound like a bad combination of Christian Death and the Ramones. It would be fine to try and combine those two, but the overall effect of Strange House was one of monotony. Primary Colours is a welcome change in that all the songs manage to sound different from one another and Faris Badwan, the band’s vocalist, has, for the most part, dropped the horrible scream he employed on so much of Strange House in favor of a more varied delivery. His voice is a gothic drone on the epic love song “I Only Think Of You,” an agonized bark on the deranged “New Ice Age” and a dream-like mutter on the synthesized wash of “Scarlet Fields.” All of these voices are still noticeably Badwan though, and that’s a good thing.

There are a lot of great cuts on Primary Colours. All the songs I’ve previously mentioned are good ones but my personal favorite is the dark spiral of “I Can’t Control Myself” which sounds like the band on a ship, sliding and slipping on the wet deck as they try to cling both aboard and to their own sanity. Another excellent cut is the eight minute closer “Sea Within A Sea” which apes the atmospherics of Joy Division and the synthesized shadows of Suicide and combines them into one of the Horrors’ best songs and a great way to close out the album.

Sadly, this album is not a perfect masterwork and is, rather incredibly, nearly done in by a single track. That track is the third song on the album: “Who Can Say” which begins as a simple apology song to an ex-girlfriend, but during the bridge I nearly lost my shit. The music mostly stops, except for the drums and a distorted guitar line. Over this Faris Badwan speaks “and when I told her I didn’t love her anymore, she cried” and then “and when I told her that her kisses were not like before, she cried” and continues “and when I told her another girl had caught my eye, she cried” and finally “and then I kissed her with a kiss that could only mean goodbye.” Then the music starts back up again like nothing ever happened. My description isn’t going to do it justice; you’ll have to hear it to fully understand just how pretentious he sounds when he does this. He doesn’t sing it, he speaks it and there’s an echo effect on his voice. It sounds abominably insincere and makes you want to gag. It is with this song that I’m reminded of how ridiculous this band can be. I really hope that they weren’t taking themselves seriously with “Who Can Say” because if they were, that’s cause for alarm.

But overall, Primary Colours is still a great album chock full of great songs. It is thus far the band’s best work and it stands up to repeated listens, which goes along way towards The Horrors being more than a flash in the pan. Just please, for the love of god, skip “Who Can Say.” This album would have worked just fine without it and you’re not missing anything (except maybe some cringing) by not listening to it.

The Horrors On Myspace

The Album Is (In Pieces) On Youtube

Band Website

Buy the Album

Jubilee: ROCK'N'FUCKINGROLL Part. 2 (Five Weeks Later...)

(This review will make much more sense if you've read the one previous to it.)

Picking up right where we left off…

Album: In With The Out Crowd Single

Genre: Hard Rock

Year: 2008

Label: Buddyhead

Consisting almost exclusively of hard rockers, The In With The Out Crowd Single has a far heavier sound to it than Rebel Hiss did. It (of course) starts off with the title track, a song about being stuck in L.A. with all the people who go to L.A. to make it big and wind up working in diners or something. It’s a more down beat song than the explosive “Rebel Hiss” but it rocks just as hard, featuring more fuzzy, distorted guitar goodness from North and Lynn. The first b-side on “In With The Out Crowd” takes a turn for the more experimental direction. Sounding more Industrial than anything else Jubilee has thus far set to tape, “I Don’t Have An Excuse, I Just Need A Little Help” features programmed drums from Trent Reznor and backing vocals from Maynard James Keenan of TooL, both of which, along with Michael Shuman’s rough bass line and North’s jagged guitars, make it the darkest sounding Jubilee song in existence.

The third track is the humorous “Jenny Artichoke” which lyrically sounds like something The Presidents Of The United States Of America could have come up with and even features hand claps. It’s the most fun and funny song Jubilee’s recorded work, which contrasts heavily with “I Don’t Have An Excuse, I Just Need A Little Help.” Following that is the bone shaking, ground pounding “Pioneers Get Shot With Arrows” which stomps up and down the room just daring for someone to challenge it to a fight. It could kick your ass too. The final song on the single another cover, Jubilee’s take on The Who’s “Someone’s Coming” which to my knowledge is not a famous Who song at all. But it’s a good one, or at least the Jubilee version is, bent and twisted as it is by North and Lynn’s guitars.

The music of Jubilee is undeniably fantastic; it’s all the stuff after the music that causes confusion. Shortly following their tour of England, Shuman and Lynn left the band to go back to Wires On Fire (which doesn’t make any sense to me, because compared to Jubilee, Wires On Fire suck,) so North hooked up with Tony Bevilacqua (of Spinnerette, formerly of The Distillers) and Jenni Tarma (of Har Mar Superstar.) He also got a permanent drummer in the form of former Icarus Line drummer Troy "Boy" Petrey. This new line-up actually doesn’t sound half bad, but they’ve yet to tour and Jubilee hasn’t released anything new in a while. Which brings up the question: where’s the album? It’s been close to two years since the first single was released and if the album’s going to be anything like it, then it’s bound to be good. So what are you waiting for North? Hit us with this bad boy!

End of Review.

Note: If you want to make purchase of Jubilee’s material, you can only do it from their website. You have to be a member of their online club thing to get The Who and Replacements covers, but if you just want the first four tracks from each single, it rounds out to about $6.00. Good deal for this music.

Jubilee: ROCK'N'FUCKINGROLL Part. 1

Artist: Jubilee

Somewhere between the fall of Grunge and the rise of Indie Rock, I feel we as a people lost our faith in good, loud, RockNFuckingRoll. Jubilee is a band that, without a doubt, restores that faith. There’s something extremely life affirming about nice, fuzzy chords played at 11 and this band provides plenty of them. Led by Aaron North, Jubilee has already gone through several line-ups and incarnations in its short lifespan, but now the dust seems to have settled and they’ve come to a place of stability. Which is good, but the incarnation that provided us with these two singles is gone, leaving me to wonder if the new incarnation will be as good. But the truth is that, while Aaron North is in the band, you’re in good hands as long as you’re not a guitar. In that case, I’d start worrying about whether or not I’m going to get smashed.

Aaron North used to be in a Punk band called the Icarus Line, which is where he started to develop his mastery of feedback and distortion drenched guitar antics, but he’s probably best known for being the lead guitarist of Nine Inch Nails between 2005 and 2007, during which he destroyed an unfathomable number of guitars, amps and mic stands. Because he could. He was a very appropriate guitarist for Nine Inch Nails too. Clad in black leather, perpetually greasy haired and destructive as fuck, Aaron North was one of the highlights of my very first concert experience: Nine Inch Nails at the Key Arena in 2005, during which I watched him practically dance with his guitar. Granted, it was a very violent dance and it ended with him impaling an amplifier before pushing it off stage, but it was awesome. A musician friend of mine noted: he doesn’t so much “play” as “use” the guitar and he uses it very well.

After leaving Nine Inch Nails, North joined up with Michael Shuman (Queens of The Stone Age & Wires On Fire) and Jeff Lynn (Wires On Fire) to form the absurdly happy sounding (in name) Jubilee. Unlike the skuzzy Punk of The Icarus Line or the Industrial Rock nihilism of Nine Inch Nails, Jubilee is a Rock ‘N’ Roll band with a fairly wide palette of influences that they bring to bear. An early self-promotion for the band described them as sounding “something like The Replacements, The Stone Roses, Neil Young, Blur, Jane's Addiction, Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and The Verve, all sliced ‘n diced together quite nicely." That’s a lot to try and incorporate into your sound at once and while there’s truth in what they’re saying, to me, they just sound like a really loud Rock ‘N’ Roll band. Which suits me just fine. Aaron North is, again, at the core of the sound, being the lead vocalist and guitarist. His choice of guitar sounds range from “loud ‘N’ fuzzy” to “extremely loud ‘N’ fuzzy”” and it sounds awesome.

Album: Rebel Hiss Single

Year: 2008

Genre: Hard Rock

Label: Buddyhead

In preparation for the up-coming album, the band has released these two five song singles, each one featuring a song from the album as well as an assortment of B-sides and a few covers. The band at the time had yet to find a stable drummer, so revolving doors of talented skin-hitters play on the singles. The length of the two singles causes them to come off more like EP’s but that’s fine, the more music from this band the better. The first of these two singles is the Rebel Hiss Single, the title track of which is an explosive and surprisingly up beat Rock song that introduces the band very nicely and features the drum talents of Josh Freese. Aaron North’s voice isn’t the most spectacular thing you’ve ever heard, but it falls into that place that Iggy Pop once talked about in reference to Lou Reed and Himself: “He can’t sing! I can’t sing! Let’s Sing!”

As an opening single, “Rebel Hiss” gets us off to a great start with it’s uplifting guitars, but it is immediately shown up by its first b-side “Fuzz Are Down” which starts off quietly enough, just the ticking of drum sticks, before it bursts into Jubilee’s absolute best song thus far. Featuring tumbling drums courtesy of Loren Humphrey and some excellent feedback warping from North’s guitar, “Fuzz Are Down” is actually somewhat ironically named, given the amount of fuzz on the track. The bridge of the song is a great demonstration of this, with North’s guitar having a little fit as it’d brought too close to it’s amplifier. It’s kind of funny to me that the first b-side of the first single is actually better than the single itself, but it doesn’t seem to do any harm so there’s no problem.

The rest of the Rebel Hiss Single consists of one more original Jubilee song and two covers. The original song is the almost acoustic “The Fool On the Pill” a short little head-nodder about drug addiction, featuring North at his calmest. The two covers are both fairly ambitious in the form of Neil Young’s “L.A.” & The Replacement’s “Androgynous.” I’ve never heard the original of “L.A.” but Jubilee’s version is another strong rocker with Aaron North singing odes to Los Angeles and asking “Don’t you wish that you could be here too?” The Replacements cover, though, I have heard before. It pleases me that Jubilee’s version is just as good as the original, though some people will probably balk at Aaron North singing it seeing as how Paul Westerberg has a bit of a less ragged voice. But I think North’s voice fits the song well. Instead of a piano, Jubilee performs the song on two acoustic guitars and a harmonica, which gives it a folkier feel than the original. Overall, the Rebel Hiss Single is a great introduction to Jubilee and will rock your socks off, but if it’s possible to believe, the second single, In With The Out Crowd, rocks even harder.

To Be Continued…

Jubilee On Myspace

Band Website

Jubilee Store

My Inner Goth Is Crying

Album: Walking With Strangers

Artist: The Birthday Massacre

Genre: Synth/Goth Rock

Year: 2007

Label: Metropolis Records

I’ve made a bet with myself. I win if I can get through this entire review only referencing the clothing store Hot Topic once.

Ahem, where to begin? The Birthday Massacre are a… err… “synthgothrock band” from Toronto, Canada. I put that in quotes because their worthiness of the title of “band” is questionable at best. I knew the first moment I heard those initial gaudy 80’s synthesizers that this band would be trouble, but I also knew that this would be fun to write, so let’s not waste time. The Birthday Massacre is one of those bands that make me start to lose faith in humanity. They’re not Creed or Limp Bizkit bad by any means, but they’re a candy coated ear sore that’s just waiting to turn into a full blown infection. You know the kind of bad, the kind that causes headaches, dizziness and insanity. Yeah, that kind of bad. If Wikipedia is correct, the Massacre has been going on for aboot (Canada joke) ten years now and that sort of frightens me. Mainly because this album, released in 2007, sounds like it was born out the worst elements of the eighties if those synth sounds are to be believed. Good thing I don’t believe them. No really, this is bad. We’re supposed to have progressed beyond the programmed synth pop that polluted the 80’s airwaves, but this band seems intent on resurrecting that corpse.

With The Birthday Massacre, I’ve found a lot to hate in a very short amount of time, to the point where I hardly know where to start. I’m not apoplectic at how bad this is, just stunned. The problem here is a combination of highly synthesized over production, cheesy musicianship and, my absolute favorite part, bleeding heart vocals that just about make me want to slash my wrists. Which is, of course, exactly what The Birthday Massacre wants, seeing as how they fall into a place awkwardly reserved between emotional scene kids, glitzy 80’s pop creatures and Hot Topic Goths.

Uh-oh.

Relying on synthesizers in your music isn’t a bad thing when done with class, but The Birthday Massacre wouldn’t know class if it came up and bit them in the ass. Hey, that rhymes. I didn’t actually know that emo could sound this glitzy but apparently you can do anything with a bad synthesizer.

There came a day some time ago where we made the split between Industrial Rock and Industrial Dance Music and very rarely do we see the two brought back together effectively anymore, and I feel The Birthday Massacre are doing an excellent job of FAILING at this task. Songs like “Science” try to make Industrial Synth Rock poppy and it comes off in the most sickening way possible. That’s not even the worst example though. The opening track “Kill The Lights” has possibly the most gut wrenchingly cheese ball synth intro of anything on this album. I know I keep referencing the eighties disparagingly in this review, but that’s what the sound calls to mind, on “Kill The Lights” more than any other song. I can’t help but imagine the opening credits of the worst eighties movie you’ve seen rolling as it plays. That and the “Take On Me” music video… Anyways…

The thing that ties all this cheesiness and insincerity together is the blasted vocals. Most of the members of The Birthday Massacre go by aliases. The vocalist calls herself “Chibi.” Small and cute huh? I think not. From a pop standpoint, this girl’s got a great voice, because it’s non-threatening. She sounds like she could even be one of those horrible, plastic, dancing… things… currently being passed off as musicians. But no, here she is trying with all her might to be the female Marilyn Manson circa Mechanical Animals. And failing. Chibi’s vocals are in a strange way, the absolute worst part of the music, because they convey the lyrics to us. The band is trying really hard to get this Alice-in-Wonderland-Gone-Wrong story arc across and it just comes off as a bad B-movie script, and I don’t mean Misfits or Schoolyard Heroes B-movie cause that would be fine. This is more like Paris Hilton in House Of Wax bad. If Chibi really wanted us to feel terror, sympathy or sadness, then perhaps she should try experiencing some of those emotions. She sounds like she’s reading these words off the page for the first time. The combination of insincerity in the vocals and the horrible “bad fairy tale” vibe of the lyrics bring this whole mess to a screechy halt. Another awful example of this band’s transgressions against music is track 5 “Red Stars” which is an attempt by the band to mix Industrial Metal with Pop vocals. I wanna say… DO. NOT. WANT.

Okay. I think I’ve made my point, but just to summarize: this is the kind of band scene kids listen to in order to think themselves dark and tormented when in reality, they’re just mall Goths with too much time on their hands and not enough understanding of what brought us to the current trend in gothic music. I don’t think that The Birthday Massacre effectively understands their forefathers or mothers either. This is depressing to me. Once upon a time, being a Goth meant you listened to bands like Killing Joke, The Birthday Party, Joy Division and Siouxsie & the Banshees. Now, if it means something like The Birthday Massacre, I want no part of it. My inner Goth is crying, I think it’s his bedtime. Hopefully, The Birthday Massacre will get a clue and put themselves to rest before more harm can be done.

BTW. I win.

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The Birthday Massacre On MySpace

The Whole Album is on YouTube

Band Website

(Don't) Buy The Album