Posts tagged review
The Music Explosion Begins!
Sep 15th
Muse - The Resistance
The section of the year which I’ve been looking forward to/dreading the most has arrived. From now until the end of October there’s a parade of new music that I’m looking to buy. I’m going to be a very poor individual indeed.
First up this week, was Muse’s new Album, the Resistance. I’ve spun it a few times so I think I can make a coherent mini review.
Muse continues their arc from the more guitar driven songs of Absolution into the invasion of synths and more electronic elements in Black Holes and Revelations to the much more synth driven The Resistance. It’s a very solid album with a couple of dissapointing spots in it which hold it back.
The opening track Uprising firmly establishes it as as Muse album. It’s a straight ahead rocker with lots of energy and it’s something that Muse is very good at. There’s some analog synth action to be had on this track which sets up the tone of the album to follow. The same vibe seems to flow forwards into the second track Resistance, but the chorus is something that’s pretty different for Muse. This song has a bit of a U2 feel to it at times.
These two songs pave the way for my least favorite song on the album, Undisclosed Desires. There’s no guitar at all and it’s very…pop-y. It’s the weakest track to me. I don’t hate it, but I have a hard time getting into it. That may change as time goes on.
However, the album makes up for it with United States of Eurasia next. There’s some epic piano work on this one. The song structure reminds me very much of Queen. By far my favorite track of the album so far. Guiding light returns back to the heavy synth style and I think it’s quite cool. I think I need some time for this song to really click with me, but it’s promising.
Unnatural Selection is another more guitar driven rocker with some very strange and proggy sections and then there’s MK Ultra which switches back to a heavier synth sound while keeping up a higher energy level.
I Belong To You is a strange song. Some very nice piano throughout breaking in the middle to insert a piece of music by a french composer (Saint Saens) and after a short reprise of the main theme, it heads into the final 3 tracks of the album: the Exogenisis Symphony.
The symphony is really cool. Very beautiful and atmospheric and very different from anything Muse has ever done before. It retains a few signature Muse stylings of course, but it’s a sign of a band that doesn’t want to get pigeon-holed into a certain style after achieving some success with it.
Very solid album and it grows on me with each listen. One other thing I wanted to mention was that the bass work on this album is very nice. Muse has always had interesting bass lines, but these are out of the park good.
Next up, I’ll be picking the new Porcupine Tree album up on my way home from work (and scribblenauts for the DS…couldn’t resist that). I should have some thoughts on Porcupine Tree tomorrow. I’m a bit apprehensive because that album has gotten some mixed reviews.
Systematic Chaos: First Impressions
Jun 6th
I bought Dream Theater's new CD Systematic Chaos yesterday during my lunch and I've listened through a couple times, which is enough to offer some initial impressions.
First of all, lyrically, this isn't going to win any awards. John Petrucci decided to go into a more fantasy based direction and I'm really not feeling it, especially in In The Presence of Enemies, the epic track. I'm warming up to it a bit, but it's honestly not his best work. He's done fantasy/sci-fi lyrics before but back in the Images and Words days, those were also covered in metaphor and poetic writing. This latest effort is a lot more…straight ahead without much of the poetry. Another lyrical complaint is the overuse of distorted vocals in The Dark Eternal Night and Constant Motion. It's just not my thing.
Musically, In The Presence of Enemies is an awesome track, after listening to it a few times. There's only one section of the CD I don't really get right now which is the middle instrumental section of The Dark Eternal Night which feels very…out of place.
Overall, I'm enjoying it. Repentance is an awesome song, as it Ministry of Lost Souls. There's some seriously killer riffs in In The Presence of Enemies Part 2. Right now it's about on par or slightly below Octavarium on my favorite Jordan Rudess era album list, with Octavarium being behind Scenes From A Memory.
Fear of a Blank Planet
May 11th
Much to my surprise, I signed onto the Mike Portnoy Forum earlier this week only to be greeted by a discussion of the new Porcupine Tree album, Fear Of A Blank Planet. I hadn't realized it was coming out, so I rushed over to Best Buy and nabbed it.
I'm a fairly large Porcupine Tree fan and Steven Wilson (the man behind the band's production, writing, lead guitar and vocals) is one of my favorite people in music right now. It seems like everything he touches turns to gold. Very talented.
The reason I love Porcupine Tree is that nothing else really quite sounds like them. They can be heavy one minute with rocking guitar riffs and then suddenly turn very…strange and sound scape-y, or veer more towards pop or…It's very, very strange. Usually when I try to explain PT to people who haven't heard them before, I break down and end up saying something to the effect of "Porcupine Tree is, like, um…er…well, they're like Porcupine Tree!"
And the tradition continues here with the follow up to their awesome Deadwing. The CD begins with the title track, which sounds very standard Porcupine Tree, more towards the heavy side. Honestly, I haven't really gotten into this track. It sounds way too busy for my tastes and the vocal effects make it a little hard to understand the lyrics at times.
The second track, My Ashes is a much more mellow song, providing a nice break from the title track's busyness. I really liked this song a lot, probably because of my current musical mood, which is tending towards less heavy and more melodic/open songs.
The third track is Anesthetize, the 17 minute epic which has to be my favorite track on the album by far. Alex Lifeson from Rush guests on this track's guitar solo which leads into a VERY experimental and weird sounding section about 5 minutes in which ramps up into a quick tempoed, groove oriented section that continues until towards the very end of the song. I LOVE this part. This one song would have been enough for me to buy the CD alone.
Sentimental the 4th song is more along the lines of My Ashes, but with more strange effects on the drums giving the opening an odd feeling. This feels a lot like something that would fit right in on their Stupid Dream album, which isn't a bad thing by any means.
Way Out of Here highlights for me how much I enjoy listening to Gavin Harrison's drumming. He keeps it very groove oriented, but still with a lot of extra room to play around and make things interesting. He very rarely plays a straight ahead pattern. The middle of the song turns…odd and then suddenly drops from a sort of haunting guitar line into a really heavy riff. It's a song of contrasts really the entire way through.
Sleep Together starts off electronicaish sounding and stays that way through the entire song with a lot of synth effects with the guitars only kicking in during the chorus.
Overall, I like the album, but I don't think it beats out Deadwing as my favorite from Porcupine Tree. It's definitely going to be on heavy rotation in my car for quite some time to come.
Finally…The Cold Eases
Oct 2nd
I think I may finally be getting over this stupid cold. My nose isn’t quite so stuffy anyway. Since I’m going on 2 weeks here, I think it’s about time.
Last night I had some horrible coughing fits though. Ugh…
Anyway, I’ve been playing Lego Star Wars II for the PC recently. It’s a very fun game, mostly due to the art style and how well the game designers used the format (Lego bricks) to create something new and unique. It goes through the story of the original star wars trillogy, but the action sequences have transformed into playable levels in which everything you see except some of the terrain is made out of lego bricks.
Highly recommended for the humor value alone. It doesn’t require a high end system and the difficulty level is pretty easy. There’s no way to die and lose the game. When you die you lose lego studs which double as cash. You then instantly respawn back where you were, so it makes the game less frantic so you can concentrate on solving the somewhat complex puzzles that you’re presented with as the game progresses.
Xenosaga 3…Completed
Sep 16th
Kos-Mos
After an exhaustive week of playing it almost nonstop…I’ve finished Xenosaga 3. Yay me!
So the game was pretty good if you consider it a standalone title and not compare it to it’s inspiration (Xenogears). The storyline got a bit confusing towards the end when they brought in a bunch of meta-physical stuff to it, but generally an enjoyable experience. They still have a habit of namedropping things from the bible in a completly misplaced context, but if you just nod, smile and accept it for what it is in the context of the game, it’s not quite as bad…
The comabt system is leaps and bounds better than what was in the first and second titles in the series, a lot simpler but letting you have some ability to strategize if you enjoy that sort of stuff.
The music was pretty good in general (a huge departure from number 2), but there were a couple tracks that felt out of place.
Actually, that sums up a lot of the game. It’s pretty good in general, but has some rough spots. Not a masterpiece, but something which gives you a good solid 40 hours worth of enjoyment for your cash. I do recommend it, but it’s helpful if you’ve played the first two games…otherwise you’re going to be very confused to start off with.
When Dream And Orchestra Unite
Aug 30th
Dream Theater - Score
Dream Theater’s 5th live release, a 3 CD or 2 DVD set titled Score, captures the last show of their 20th anniversary tour which was performed at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The show was constructed as a musical journey through the bands history beginning in the present and then flashing back to the days of Majesty in 1985, moving all the way back up to 2006 again, hitting every studio album along the way.
This release is notable for a few reasons. The first is the inclusion of Another Won, the very first song written together by John Myung, John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy back when they were at the Berklee College of Music in 1985. Another notable track is Raise the Knife, one of the unreleased songs from the Falling into Infinity era which was rarely played.
However, the biggest reason this show was special was the second set, where the band was acompanied by a live, 30 person orchestra through the entire second set and the encore. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence was played in it’s 42 minute entirety with the orchestral parts normally played on the keyboard being handled by the live orchestra.
There was so much atmosphere inside the RCMH during this show, you could almost see it in the air. The crowd was totally into the show, clapping, singing, fist pumping, lighter swaying, etc. During some songs (The Spirit Carries On, for example), there’s a lot of shots of the crowd that are very cool to watch
The Video
The video of this show continues the impressive tradition started with Live at Budokan (in fact, it was even done by the same production company). The footage has a different feel to it, due to the different camera crews and overall I feel it’s slightly behind LaB in “artistic” department, however, there’s coverage for every band member at all times, and the editing switches to show the proper band members at the correct times. There’s only a couple times I wished they would have shown more of the guitar during some solos, such as Under a Glass Moon, but overall the camera work and editing were really well done
The Audio
The 5.1 mix on the DVD is…incredible. The crowd noise all around you, the band and orchestra being perfectly audiable despite a lot of notes coming at you…it really makes you feel like you’re there. There’s a couple little spots that drew me out of the show, like during Solitary Shell, James’ vocals sound like they were equalized poorly, but it’s a minor thing really. John Myung is up in the mix so you can actually hear him, as has been the trend on recent releases which is a welcome change. At times the guitar sounds a smidge too loud and drowns out a lot of the keyboard action, but it feels like a lot more of a balanced mix than Live at Budokan was where the guitar was stuck over on the right hand side most of the show.
As far as the performance of the band, they looked like they were having a very “on” night, and from the reports of the people that were at the concert, it sounds like there was very limited need to do any overdubs to fix mistakes. James…James is going to get his own section header because he deserves it.
James LaBrie
Holy mother of god! James was ON. I saw DT 3 days before they played this show and he was pretty good then, but he took it to the next level here. Historically his vocal performance live has been hit or miss, espically with a lot of the higher notes due to a vocal chord rupture during the Awake Tour. I’m not sure you’re going to be able to find anybody who says that this was not the absolute best live performance of James LaBrie that has ever been recorded.
From Under a Glass Moon to Innocence Faded, he nailed pretty much every tough passage there was. I’m pretty sure they included Innocence Faded in the setlist just to showcase James’ voice, espically in the “Wearing apathetic displays / Sharing flesh like envy in cages / Condescending / Not intending to end” section. There’s no way he was ever going to pull something like that off a couple years ago.
Welcome back James!
The Orchestra
The orchestra started off the second set with a somewhat weak rendition of the Overture of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. Not really to bash their performance or anything, but you really need more than a 30 person orchestra to pull that off and make it sound as epic as it does on the album. However, once the rest of the band kicked in it got a ton better. Unlike Metallica’s S&M where the orchestra was bolted on to existing songs, Dream Theater is a more natural fit considering a lot of the keyboard parts are strings anyway.
The orchestration sounded pretty good, with some added flair that one is probably going to miss on the studio recordings when you hear them after hearing this. They played the entire second set including Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, a completly orchestral version of Vacant, The Answer Lies Within, Sacraficed Sons and Octavarium. They returned for the encore, which was Metropolis Pt. 1 and probably one of the greatest moments in Dream Theater history. The DVD is worth getting for the encore alone.
Oh, and at the end of the show, one of the guys in the orchestra threw up the horns \m/
The Bonus Material
The hour long documentary on the second disc is very well done, and runs you through the history of the band, starting at Berklee (the band even returns to the school and points out some signifigant areas to the band’s history) and ending at Radio City Music Hall. Included are interviews with current and past members of the band with the exception of Kevin Moore, the original keyboardist.
The animation played during octavarium on the main DVD is viewable in it’s entirety on the second disc as well, which is very cool. I remember watching it live and thinking it was awesome since it syncs up with what the band is playing.
There’s also a couple of additional live songs, Honor Thy Father, The Great Debate and Another Day from various periods of the bands history.
Conclusion
Eeep, I guess this ran a bit long. Overall I was really impressed by the DVD. The production, setlist, playing and the extras all make it a worthwhile purchase for anyone, and it’s probably a very good starting point for those interested in learning what Dream Theater is all about since it has a very wide selection of their music from every time period. The orchestra is weak in spots, but generally spot on (and even more impressive when you realize they only had 1 rehersal with the orchestra present the day before the show)
Two thumbs up from me, although if you knew me you probably could have guessed that was going to happen anyway.
Ok, I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about Score, so I probably won’t mention it for a while after this 
Black Holes and Revelations
Aug 24th
Muse - Black Holes and Revalations
I just picked up Muse’s new album (well not really new at this point exactly) the other day and got a chance to listen to it a few times.
If you’re not familiar with Muse or how they sound, you’re probably going to want to click the image there over to the Amazon page and check out some samples, because I really can’t describe them. Not that I’m good at describing music anyway, but this is one of those times where that’s epically true. The word “Different” come to mind, really. Like Radiohead crossed with some Queen thrown in. Which is a really bad comparison, but it’s all I got. Listen for yourself!
Anyway, I got turned onto the band by the members of the mikeportnoy.com forums, with Absolution, so I’m not an old school fan by any means. This also usually isn’t the kind of stuff I generally listen to (things with a cleaner production, for example)
One of the main things that the band seemed to want to do with this album is to branch out and experiment with some different sounds. Heavier rock, lighter balads, a little electronica thrown in there with “Supermassive Black Hole”, etc.The last one is the only track where the influence is very obvious and somewhat overbearing. If you only hear “Supermassive Black Hole” before purchasing, know that the rest of the CD is more in the Muse style.
My initial impressions of this CD are very positive. I like all the different angles they take on their base sound and don’t seem afraid to branch out a bit into other genres. My only complaint, if you can call it that is that the vocals on a lot of the tracks seem to kinda run together. Matthew Bellamy’s a very technical singer with a lot of inflection and pitch changes (and all that good stuff) in his vocals, but it seems he can get in a rut at times which makes the vocal lines on every song sound pretty similar. It’s just a minor criticism though and doesn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the album. Overall, I like it more than Absolution.
Favorite tracks include “Starlight” which is a more straight ahead pop type song and “Assassin” which is probably the heaviest song on the CD. “Knights of Cydonia” also rocks. Hard.
Aug 15th
Katamari Damacy
I just finished Katamari Damacy for the Playstation 2 after buying it about 5 months ago. So I got sidetracked…so what? Anyway, it’s a very fun game. For anyone who hasn’t really played it, the object is to roll this sticky ball around the world and pick up objects that are laying around. The ball starts small and grows as you pick up bigger and bigger stuff. Like in the beginning, you might be able to only pick up thumbtacks and stuff. As it goes along, you can pick up kitchen utensils, pets, birds, people, cars, buildings, clouds, tornadoes…etc.
It’s a very Japanese game in the way it presents itself. A lot of the music is very upbeat Japanese music (with words in Japanese as well). The cut scenes are…odd. The story is that the stars have fallen from the sky, so it’s up to the prince (you) to recreate them by rolling up all sorts of stuff on earth. The cut scenes follow a group of kids and their mother as they try to go cross country to see their astronaut father blast off on a trip to the moon (which no longer exists). I’m not sure I can do justice to how weird of a game this is 
The graphics are simple, but they work well with the way the game works. It’s impressive to note that the game engine needs to work well close up and far back since in the course of the game, your Katamari can grow from 10cm to 100+ meters in size. So it’s really impressive from that angle.
My only complaint is that the conrols can be a little hard to get used to in the beginning. It’s a very odd control scheme using both of the analog sticks at the same time to control direction.
Overall, an excellent game. And cheap too. If you haven’t played it yet, you should try to track down a copy.
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