Disappointment is an aspect we try to avoid in life. Whether it be letting ourselves or a friend down or allowing someone else to usher in disappointment, the feeling it brings can turn from an annoying scratch to a blood gushing wound.
Fortunately, I’m not going to be talking about the latter one. Quite frankly, any sentence containing the words blood, gushing and wound, metaphorically or otherwise, usually results in the following sentence of “Oh my! Aaron has fainted!”
So, since no one wants to read a half written blog or clean blood off the walls, or soul, I will be sticking to albums that disappointed in 2009. Enjoy.
Artist: Gwen Stacy
Album: “In Dialogue”
Genre: Metalcore
Label: Solid State Records
Release: Oct. 2, 2009
To be quite honest I’ve only listened to this album about two times thru. And when I write “about,” what I really mean is one, one and a half.
And that is why this album makes this not-so-prestigious list.
I love this band. Their sophomore release, The Life I Know, is still an unbelievable achievement in the genre of metalcore. This album was on my iPod no matter what urge I had to clear space for something newer. In short, a classic.
In Dialogue is far from classic and wanders in the land of mediocrity and never finds it’s way out. In fact, I called back the search party yesterday to enjoy hot chocolate and marshmallows while we mourned our lost friend.
The reason for my disdain?
Could it have been the change in lead singers? Nope. Geoff Jenkins, former guitarist for Southern metal act Once Nothing, did an unbelievable job in replacing ex-lead Cole Wallace. If I didn’t already know Wallace had departed, I really would not have noticed and even argued you were a horrible person for trying to pull a fast one on me.
Was the musicianship? Uh-Uh. It was hard and melodic just like the last one. Nothing much different there.
Was it the lack of meaning of the lyrics? Even though I felt Wallace was a better writer, and there is evidence of his lyrical handy work on some songs, it was still very Christ-centered and uplifting.
Was it the horrible lack of flow and quality of the choruses? DING! DING! WE HAVE A WINNER!
What made The Life I Know a great album was the flow and quality the choruses had in relation to the amazing verses. In Dialogue’s were jumbled at best and disjointed at worst. It seemed that the band tried too hard to write catchy choruses, thus, effecting the flow with the verses. Not the mention the choruses came off as boring and lacking passion at times. Whatever they used to make The Life’s choruses sound so great and epic they must have dragged out to the woods, took a shotgun at close range to the head and pulled the trigger, because nothing remained of the formula they used on their past masterpiece.
Then again, all the problems could have been the fault of Solid State and Gwen Stacy will return better than ever next album. Maybe I’m being naive and, in that case, this list won’t include the band’s next effort because I won’t be spending my hard earned cash on it.
Or if could be worse, they could be falling to there deaths by the hands of the Green Goblin…while Spider-Man makes out with Mary Jane Watson.
Download: “The First Words”; “The Sound of Letting Go”
Artist: Philmont
Album: “Attention”
Genre: Pop/Punk
Label: ForeFront
Release: August 25
I have problems with bands that have a painfully hard time with identifying there sound. It’s like the kid in high school that dresses in flannel, but has a spinning money sign chain hanging from around his neck. Or how about the kid that dresses like a punk, but wears all black with mascara. Those are classic examples of identity crisis. I don’t mind one of those things, but lets not mix and match scenes like were dressing our self for the first day of school.
On the first listen through of Attention, I instantly diagnosed this group as Punkishly Schizophrenic and told them to take two crazy pills and call me in the morning. Then I promptly unplugged my phone and told myself it was for their own good.
There is a thin line between influence and swiping. Philmont, though I’m sure it wasn’t intentional on the band’s part, let their influences write this album for them instead of the group themselves, thus falling in the file labeled “swipe.”
These are the bands that wrote Attention: Hawk Nelson, Relient K, Steller Kart, MXPX, Simple Plan and Green Day (though I didn’t hear much of them, naturally you can’t write a pop/punk album without the boys from Dookie-ville. So I’m adding them for good measure).
This wouldn’t be a bad thing if this was a parallel existence where none of those bands existed, Katy Perry became the darling of Contemporary Christian Music, Slayer (now known as Savior) won their 39th Dove Award for their newest praise album and Joel Olsteen was really a pawn of Satan.
Wait. That last one may not need the alternate reality scenario.
Philmont tried to be all these bands, but failed to realize that all those bands do it better than they do. I really don’t know what I was expecting from this album, but I wasn’t expecting to hear a greatest hits cover album for the bands above. I know it’s hard to breath new life into a genre that may be on it’s way to the morgue as we speak, but at least put a little effort into bringing it back from the grasp of death by finding an identity for you band. Not just a costume made of your biggest influences. Move the genre forward, don't spin it's wheels in the mud of "already been done." It's ok to have influences, but don't BE your influences. Take the foundation they've poured and build your own house on it, making it a unique structure on the block of pop/punk.
One more thing. Can we please stop with the Sythzizers already. They really have no place in this genre. So, for the love of Pete, stop.
Download: “The Difference”; “Another Name”; “Where to Start”
No comments:
Post a Comment