Ed's Music Review Blog

Iwrestledabearonce - It's All Happening

2009-09-16T13:12:00.000-04:00

Let me start by saying that I absolutely despise hardcore. I hate all of the "core" genres (deathcore, metalcore, vegetarian grindcore).

I do not hate screaming vocals. I very much enjoy screaming vocals, but the way these hardcore/emo/scene kids do it is just awful. That combined with the fact that a vast majority of them lack any skill on their instruments.

With that said, this band isn't very different from the rest. The band does try to be very progressive, and when they do, the music is great. When their singer actually sings instead of screams it's amazing. She has such a great voice, and the guitar players actually do have skill. I think this band would work out much better as a prog metal band instead of progressive hardcore.

I think that the songs with the techno keyboard stuff mixed with the hardcore elements are good, but they hardly use it.

In conclusion I think that with a lot more work this album could have been amazing, but as it is right now it's just hardcore with a pinch of prog and it really should be the other way around.

Ensiferum - From Afar

2009-09-16T12:45:00.001-04:00

I know I said I would be posting more often, but it seems I lied. I really will try harder to post more I swear. In fact I think I will do several today.

But on to the review. I had never listened to this band before this album, but ever since I saw their terrible music video for the song "From Afar" I had to listen to the rest of the album.

I wish that I didn't. It's horribly boring. The band claims that they recorded this album with a full orchestra, but they hardly utilized it. They never give a chance for the orchestra to shine or make the songs more powerful, which is the whole point of recording with a real orchestra in the first place! (i.e. Dimmu Borgir)

The riffs are quite stale and the vocalist's death metal growls are pretty bland. And when he actually sings his voice sounds really weird and lacks real power. Which is also the whole point of the viking metal genre. Power! Glory! Volume! Thor! All are absent on this album.

The titular track is actually pretty good. The chorus uses a very interesting melody, but unfortunately this is the only track that is any good on the entire album, and as such, I can't recommend it.

Holy. Crap. A new post.

2009-09-05T12:30:00.000-04:00

Hello there. For a long time I let this blog die off and fall into the barren wasteland of the internet. The reasons are pretty varied, but mostly I think it's because I am extremely lazy.

But this has changed!! I am now out of high school and have lots of free time since I'm not attending college. I will still probably only post once or twice a day.

Since a million albums have come out since I last posted, I'm not going to even try to review them all. Instead, I'll do new(er) releases and periodically I'll do a classic album, band or genre overviews, and other juicy stuff.

I've also decided to do away with the review scale. To me an album is either good or it isn't. Some are amazing and some are just ok, and I'll be sure to tell you that in the review, but I find it very hard to assign a value to it so I won't.

Well that's enough for today. I won't do anyother posts since I'm busy today, but at least now you know that I have returned!

One Day As A Lion-Zack De La Rocha Side Project

2008-09-01T15:26:00.002-04:00

I like Rage Against the Machine. It's one of the few rap groups I do like. Their rapper, Zack De La Rocha left the band a while ago to do this project (he's back with them now so I don't know what's gonna happen to this project, but that's a different story).

Yes, It sounds like Rage. A lot like Rage. But it takes rage a step farther. Yes, the guitar isn't nearly as advanced as the stuff that Tom Morello plays, but with just one guitar, a keyboard, and drums, I think it sounds more advanced. How? Well for one it doesn't seem as crowded as Rage. The focus is a lot more on the vocals. The lyrics are the same political craziness that you see in Rage, but again, he takes it farther. He sings.

Yes, you heard (or read :-P) right. Zack De La Rocha sings on this album. He is actually not bad. It has a kind of wolfmother vibe to it. It adds to the whole experience quite well.

So there you go. It's Rage Against the Machine minus crazy guitar and plus singing. If you don't like rage you won't like it, but if you do like rage and have an open mind I highly recommend you check it out. It's a great package. I can't wait to hear the full-length if it ever comes out.

3/5

Zune vs. Ipod-Who wins?

2008-09-01T15:07:00.002-04:00

I haven't posted a new post in a while. Of course, no one reads this so it shouldn't matter, but I'd still like to have a few posts on a regular basis for anyone who might stumble on my blog.

Anyways, I'll get to the point. Which MP3 player is better? The Apple Ipod or the Microsoft zune. Well, each have their pros and cons. Itunes has a bigger library of music due to it being the most popular. They also have the most games (well, all the games since you can't play games on a zune) and podcasts.

But there is one thing that sets these two apart by leaps and bounds: the zune pass. Fifteen dollars a month and you can download all you want. Itunes is a dollar a song. If I paid the money that I would've paid buying my songs off of Itunes I would've spent around 4000 dollars. Yes, the tracks you download off the zune marketplace won't work if you cancel your subscription, but boo-hoo. It'll take like 40 years for the money I spend on zune pass per month to equal what I would've spent buying each CD or downloading off of Itunes.

Now there are things that cost extra, Metallica, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin tracks all are not available to download using the zune pass. You have to buy them, but there are millions of other songs that you don't have to pay for and that's what makes the zune wins in my oppinion.

Now that I can nearly every album on earth I sure as hell will do some more reviews soon. If you have anything you want me to check out, be sure to email me.

Frank Zappa

2008-08-20T16:08:00.002-04:00

Wow. I haven't posted in a long time. It doesn't matter though, because only two people (if that) read this thing. But I should care about my two readers so I'll keep posting.

Anyways, at school I'm in this AP Music Theory Class. I'm trying to improve my music writing skills. I really don't think they're that bad, but I had the room in my schedule so I said why not. I probably shouldn't have taken it though because I have a feeling I'll fail.

This is all beside the point. What I'm tryin' to get at here is that a few days ago the teacher said that 300 years from now people will still be listening to and studying Mr. Zappa like they do Beethoven. Then he played for us a bit of one of his songs. It was the Black Page. I must say, it was quite interesting. It sounded very different from anything I've ever heard before. It had lots of notes going all over the place, but at the same time they seemed to be in the right place.

If that makes sense at all. :-P

My teacher did bring up an interesting point. What will people be listening to 300 years from now? Will they still be listening to Beethoven or will they be listening to Zappa, the Doobie Brothers, Led Zeppelin, etc.? I hope they will listen to all of it.

But for all I know the earth will blow up before then. :-P

Why I like King Diamond

2008-08-02T13:51:00.002-04:00

I am a big fan of Kevin Smith's movies. The clerks movies especially. They are by far the funniest movies of all time. Anyways, in Clerks 2 there is a part when Jay and Silent Bob are jamming to a crazy metal song playing on their radio. Later on in the movie Randal and Jay scare Elias with a song. I was very curious as to who made these songs. So I looked them up. It turns out they were by the same artist. King Diamond. The songs were called "Welcome Home" and "The Invisible Guests." Both of those songs are of the album "Them." Them is a concept album about a house posessed by evil spirits known only as "Them." All of King's albums are concept albums. Which I think is pretty cool.

King is known for his unique style of singing in which he sings extremely high and then goes back down in these death metally style vocals. Technically you could call King Diamond a Death Metal band. That makes sense to me, but I'd call them a progressive Death Metal band. You will not hear any bands that sound like the King (except for the band he was in before, Mercyful Fate).

The guitarists for the band are simply amazing. Their riffs are original and the solos are just amazing.

The bands latest album "Give me your soul...Please?" is not nearly as good as the older albums. King doesn't get very high, and the riffs aren't also aren't as good as they used to be. It's still a decent album though. Highlight tracks include "Neverending Hill" and "Give me your soul." I do encourage you guys to pick it up and his other albums as well.

The Same Sound

2008-07-31T15:19:00.003-04:00

In this day and age there isn't a whole hell of a lot of difference between bands. Come to think of it there wasn't a lot of difference a long time ago either. As soon as someone thinks of a new kind of music thousands of bands are formed to mimic that. Hardcore, Deathcore, Metalcore, all of it.

The only thing that doesn't seem to be copied like crazy is progressive music. Progressive Rock bands like Kansas and Yes, or bands like Dreamtheater. These are the bands that aren't a dime a dozen and deserve a listening to.

The problem, I think, lies in people's unwillingness (is that a word? :-P) to try new things. That was true for me to. I used to listen to nothing but classic rock. I thought that all the new bands were stupid. I certainly didn't listen to extreme music. How could people screaming be considered music?

Well, one day I started listening to bands like Cradle of Filth and Bal-Sagoth. I found that different things could be good. You just have to give it chance.

So to the two people who might be reading this: Please give other music a chance. Get out of your comfort zone. You have nothing to lose and favorite bands to gain.

Naast-Antichambre

2008-07-31T13:41:00.004-04:00

This might be a weird choice for a first review, but I’m doing it anyway. Not enough attention is given to the music from other countries. It seems like if a band sings (or screams :-P) in a language other than English no one will pay attention to it. Record companies won’t sell world music because they think they it won’t sell here. They are probably right. A lot of people I know won’t listen to stuff that isn’t in English. This is ridiculous people!!! You aren’t listening to a band simply because you don’t understand their lyrics!! They are a ton of bands who sing in English and I don’t understand they’re lyrics either! The music could be great, but you won’t listen to it because of the lyrics.

But I’ll get off my soapbox. Naast is a rock band from France. I was first introduced to this band from Guitar Hero 3. (I praise that game and Rock Band for including songs that are from other countries!) Their song Mauvais Garcon is a bonus track. The guitar work is not face melting: they mostly just use chord progressions. That’s not to say the songs aren’t extremely catchy though. The vocalist is very good. His voice is pretty deep so when he hits the high notes he does strain a bit, but it doesn’t detract from the whole package. The drumming is solid and the keyboards are interesting even if they aren’t played up that much.

If you like The Clash or The Ramones you will probably like this band. Also, if you get bored with long songs you are in luck: most of the songs don’t stretch farther than two and a half minutes.

Every track on the album is good so you will definitely get your money’s worth. I don’t know if the album is on itunes or the Zune marketplace, but you can definitely get it off of amazon. That’s how I got my copy. It didn’t take very long like you would expect an album imported from France to take.

So overall, if you are looking for catchy rock songs, you will find it here.

4 out of 5

First Blog Post Ever!!!!!

2008-07-30T16:18:00.002-04:00

Hello folks, not only is this the first post of my music blog, but it is the first blog post I have ever done!!! I must say, I'm quite excited about reviewing music for the two people who might be reading this. The feeling that I might be influincing those two people's next music choice is amazing!

Anyways, let me tell you what this blog will be like. I plan on reviewing albums from all across the rock music spectrum with no bias towards any particular genre. I'll also be talking about how I feel about certain genres, artists, or the music industry in general.

Well, I hope you are as excited as I am. I don't plan on posting a review today as I am racking my brain trying to decide what album to review first, but I plan on posting a review soon.

Until then, keep on rocking!!!