Quick Newsbits & Rants
Posted by RNS Robot on February 11th, 2010
The new album from Living Sacrifice is out. But you probably already have it if you’re a fan.
Holly Williams finally released a sophomore album! It is beautiful indie-alt-country, with some traditional stuff wrapped up in a modern candy-coated shell.
Demon Hunter has posted some songs from their upcoming album on myspace. If you’re the kind of fan who loves all DH albums, it’s probably right up your alley. IMO it’s pretty average-sounding. I’ve soured pretty heavily on DH. Their first album is fun, and The Triptych is fantastic, but their 2nd and 4th LPs were mediocre at best. Cliche, trite, forced. How can a band continuously become “MORE HEAVY AND YET MORE MELODIC THAN EVER”? Feels so calculated and over-important.
The Cornerstone 2010 line-up is slowly being revealed. Some ‘big’ name bands playing this year like Skillet and TobyMac (I personally don’t care about that… but 2009 didn’t really have a ‘bigtime’ xtian rock group), but also a few surprises. The Choir is listed as playing, as is… Bleach? Bwuh? I’d love to see another Bleach album. The Forefront era isn’t very good (STATIC IS A TERRIBLE ALBUM PEOPLE), but the three discs they put out later on Tooth & Nail are among my favorites. They have zero web presence to speak of, though… wonder what’s up?
Project 86 is going out on the road with Flatfoot56. Man, I gotta say that I’m a bit bummed. I’m just not interested in seeing P86 another time despite this being my last chance to catch a Seattle show easily (moving northeast in a couple months). Partially because I’ve seen them five times and while Schwab is super-intense, the band isn’t the most exciting in the world to watch — and because I’ve heard all these songs live now and am really not interested in hearing a bunch of the new disc and some old favorites. I kept hoping Picket Fence Cartel would grow on me but I only really like a couple songs. It’s by far their weakest album. It’s not bad, (well, Cement Shoes is a bad song), it’s just not far above average. I hate the production, it’s so limp. No power, no low-end.
There’s something to be said for bands on their 6th or 7th albums. Often they are granted more autonomy from their labels (or have gone indie). Project 86 largely produced this album theirselves. In the past, they’ve had people like GGGarth Richardson pushing them hard in the studio. As much as you don’t want a producer completely reshaping a band’s sound, some groups aren’t good when left to their own devices.
Another example of a musician I love, but have been disappointed by recently, is Matthew Good. Good has always favored certain chord changes and song structures, but on Hospital Music a couple years ago, it was like all the criticisms bloomed. He largely wrote the same song, at almost the same tempo, for 15 songs. Born Losers was a good track but it was a boring album (despite how intensely personal it was for Good to write). His recent disc, Vancouver, was streamed in its entirety online. I listened to it and while it was a bit more diverse than HM, it again sounded repetitive and lacking something. Matt’s best work was all produced by Warne Liversy, both with the Band and solo.
Now granted, some artists have put out great material while producing themselves. Billy Corgan produced Smashing Pumpkins’ Adore disc, and while it is hugely divergent from their prior output, it remains one of my favorite discs. Skillet’s Alien Youth has some of Skillet’s best and heaviest songs (prior to Collide). Now John Cooper could have used a producer to tell him “why do you have four CCM songs and 8 industrial songs?” and help him rewrite some cheesy lyrics, but Eating Me Away/Kill Me, Heal Me/Thirst is Taking Over are phenomenal.
Then again, sometimes musicians just hit a wall creatively. Whether that’s a temporary thing or just a matter of a band running its course is the question. Perhaps Project 86 and Matthew Good simply aren’t going to put out anything memorable again in their creative careers, short of collaborating heavily with some new voices. Or maybe they pull a U2 and manage to put out something that takes people by storm like All That You Can’t Leave Behind well after they seemed to become irrelevant.
None of this means that I love the earlier albums less. But I continue to be reminded that loving a BAND is, ultimately, silly. Love albums. You will get less upset when a band ‘strays from their sound’ or doesn’t deliver exactly what you expect. Love an album and give a new one a chance. It’s irrational to expect every album from band X to impact you or resonate with you the way Album Y does. I mean, I love Stavesacre’s Speakeasy, but I can pass on Absolutes. If you don’t like it, that doesn’t mean you have to give up on them entirely. I plan to at least listen to the new Demon Hunter in its entirety; they’ve put out at least ONE album that blew me away. Be open, attach yourself emotionally to a song or album, not a band. What the heck is a band? And why should what they do or not do impact you in any meaningful way? They wrote some songs that maybe were meaningful to you, you know? That’s really all.
(I’m not entirely sold on the above argument, mind you. I REALLY like the direction, sound, lyrical themes of Stavesacre even if not every song is a home run. I am a fan of that band. I suppose it’s more about putting yourself in a position where a favorite band releasing a crap album doesn’t make you HATE THE BAND NOW THEY SUX or being depressed about it. I mean hell, look at my review of Skillet’s Comatose on this blog. I was BITTER. It’s how I felt at the time, but isn’t it a bit silly? The album sucks. That is all. But then again, that band impacted me heavily. I don’t know. Maybe I’m selling the power of music short, but let’s not pretend any one specific group of people are somehow better for making some songs, or that we ‘know’ them because they made songs. Of course, that’s also why I’m less quick to run out and buy any new album these days without sampling it first…)
Tags: Andrew Schwab, Bleach, Cornerstone Festival, Demon Hunter, Holly Williams, Living Sacrifice, Mark Salomon, Matthew Good, Project 86, Skillet, Smashing Pumpkins, Stavesacre, U2
You do know that p86 is playing old songs and fan-requested faves (ie. songs they haven’t played live ever or in ages) on this tour, right?
I do, Jerry. I’m skeptical they’ll play anything really obscure, and I’ve seen ‘em four times already. I am interested in seeing Flatfoot 56 AND seeing P86 do a headlining set — I’ve never seen them play more than an hour (last time in Seattle they did a 10 song set, the other three times were festivals). Mostly, though, outside of Schwab doing his thing they’re not a very exciting band to -watch-. It’s intense if you’re in the middle of the pit and screaming along to every word and throwing down of course! Eh, I got a couple weeks to decide still.