Mullmuzzler - Keep It To Yourself

Mullmuzzler is a solo project of Dream Theater vocalist, James LaBrie. Being a side project of one of the greatest progressive rock groups around today, you would expect that the group also holds their fair share of prog elements, and they do, but at the same time, they also contains a lot of aspects that set themselves far from the Dream Theater sound.

Keep It To Yourself is Mullmuzzler’s debut album, and it really does an excellent job at setting a solid basis for LaBrie’s future solo recordings. Starting off with the solid track “His Voice,” you already get a sense of how personal LaBrie’s lyrics are. It really makes me wonder why he hasn’t written more songs than he has for DT. The next track, “Statued” seems to be a direct response to “His Voice” in that the instrumentals play very similarly and the lyrics also seem closely tied together. “Shores of Avalon,” though probably my least favorite track on the album, has strong instrumental unity, but for being one of the longest songs on the album (at about eight minutes), it really doesn’t delve very far into different musical forms, making the final product relatively bland compared to the rest of the album.

At this point I had thought I got a good grip on what the album had to deliver, but man was I wrong. The next song on the album, “Beelzebubba,” starts off with a very heavy Chicago style, fusion sound, riddled with awesome bass lines and a slew of messy trombone hits. The lyrics are strangely delivered, discussing in a sarcastic tone, the Monica Lewinsky trials of President Clinton, under the coined nick-name, Slick Willy. “Guardian Angel” arguably stands as the albums greatest track artistically and instrumentally with its twisting styles and awesome Andrew Lloyd Weber tributes, but personally, I feel like the lyrics could have been a little better. At points they are beautifully poetic: Another day in a cold uncaring world / Dark treasons cold unhearted ways / I stand before your providence / Nobody comes, nobody goes; but at others, they seem to be lacking and almost corny: I dream of a place of simple love / Detached from the wicked and the bad / Lost out in a storm of sinfulness / Where is the kindness we used to have? I really don’t have much to say about “Sacrifice.” It’s a pretty typical ballad piece with some slight classic rock elements sprinkled in to give it more of a definitive sound, but it’s really nothing too special.

The album starts preparing itself for a close with the next track, “Lace.” This song is definitely the album’s darkest, and has a great vocal performance from LaBrie. The end of the song ends with this very progressive tutti type section between the keyboards and guitar, which goes for about twenty seconds only to fade out. I kind of wished they would have done more with this, as it seemed like a great transition point for the piece, but alas, it just silences the short-lived idea. “Slow Burn” drops the heavier rock sound, but still holds the progressive style giving us a beautiful, orchestrated ballad. I really enjoy the way the piano travels with LaBrie’s vocals on this one. That, along with the well written and presented lyrics, makes this one a favorite of mine. The closing track of the album really lets LaBrie shine in a way he never has on any Dream Theater recording. “As A Man Thinks” revolves almost entirely around the vocals in this semi a cappella song. At the times when the instrumentals are the main focus though, they do an excellent job acting as a response to the vocals or setting up the basis for the next verse to be delivered.

Overall, I’d say the tracks are pretty good. As far as the album goes, it could have been better. However, I don’t really think it was LaBrie’s intention to tie together the entire album into one voice, but rather to let each song speak for itself. Even in the case of the first two songs, it is apparent that each song is written from a different emotional perspective about the same idea, so even though the concept is similar, the voice of each song is completely different. With that said, I would say that this album is more for the casual progressive metal listener, but can still hold a solemn place in the collection of a prog enthusiast.

As for anyone who has a strong liking for Dream Theater, I highly recommend this album, mainly because it gives you a deeper look into the mind of James LaBrie. As I said, Keep It To Yourself is overall an incredibly personal album and really shows a different side of the Dream Theater vocalist.

For the more casual listener, I suggest checking out “His Voice,” “Guardian Angel,” and “Slow Burn,” as these are, in my opinion, the highlights of the album. You can check the whole album out at Napster with the following link:

http://free.napster.com/view/album/index.html?id=12522802

Shuffle Sunday [Béla Bartók - Rhapsody No. 1: Lassu]

Shuffle Sunday has bestowed us with a little bit of classical this week. Béla Bartók is widely credited as being one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century and I wouldn’t be one to argue. His music always throws my mind into wonderment; making me wish that I could get into the mind of its greatly influential composer.

Bartók started composing at a very young age, very much influenced by the late romanticism era. Yet as he matured, he began to find inspiration in the much simpler concept of Hungarian and Turkish folk music. One of his most famous thoughts is his comparison of classical composition to the works of William Shakespeare. Bartók believed that if Shakespeare could develop ingenious art in the form of plays, simply from the stories of common-folk, then an evolution in the musical art may be unearthed from the simple songs of the same people. He then spoke the art of his composition as this: to neither use the folk songs directly, nor expand upon them, but to harbor into music, the true entity and atmosphere of the songs themselves.

Another of Bartók’s beliefs was that there were three great discoveries in the world of music, held above any others: the use of progressive form by Beethoven, Bach’s attention to the importance of counterpoint, and the endless knowledge of harmony usage, rebirthed by Claude Debussy. Throughout the early nineteen hundreds, Bartók spent a great deal of time trying to find a way of perfectly combining this great trinity of concepts. It wasn’t until 1911, when he finally admitted defeat at the criticism of his peers. From then on he gave up on this musical goal, and wrote very few new compositions afterwards. Although he may not have unveiled the powerful tri-force of music (you all knew the Zelda reference was coming), to say he didn’t leave the world with any great musical landmarks would be ludicrous.

The track shuffled into my ears this week, is the first part of a great composition of Bartók’s, “Rhapsody No. 1.” It was composed in 1928, being one of Bartók’s latest pieces. The song is written in a Night music style; a style of Bartók’s slower classical compositions in which he uses creepy or eerie backgrounds filled with strategically placed dissonance to bring emphasis to a more beautiful and innocent melody. In this case, the melody is always presented by a lone violin. The backdrop is provided by a mild string orchestra (or just a single piano in the original transcription), accompanied by a small brass section depending on the harshness of emotion being portrayed by the melody. It is simply amazing how he can get the mashing of dissonant chord to sound so uplifting. The concept is incredibly hard to muster, but believe me, the first time you listen to a Béla Bartók piece, you will understand. Not only that, your musical mind will be opened to a fresh new plain of possibilities, just waiting to be explored.

I only wish I could describe this music in greater detail, but I know if I tried, it would do you no good. Words cannot do these compositions justice, so please check out the following link. It is the original transcription of the piece, and the piano is being played by Béla Bartók himself, and if anyone can help you understand the wonders of this Night music, he can. I mean, he created the darn thing. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuMTISOHRKg

Eagle-Eye Cherry - Desireless

When I was young, before I had ever owned any albums, I heard a song on the radio that really stuck out to me. It really lured me in and became my favorite song for almost that entire year. Shortly after I had heard the song on the radio, I saw a music video for the same song on VH1. The music video was also really cool, and made me love the song even more. Being the young juvenile that I was, I didn’t think twice about looking into this artist’s other material; hell, I didn’t even know the artist’s name until a friend of mine informed me at the local roller-rink. Years later however, I recalled the memories I had of that great song, and being the mature music lover that I was, decided to do a little research and uncover the mysteries of this artist.

Considering you have already seen the title of this review, you already know that the artist in discussion here is Eagle-Eye Cherry. And if you give your mind a little time to delve into your memories, you’ll recall the tune of Cherry’s debut hit “Save Tonight.” There you go. Now that you remember the song and are bobbing your head back and forth to the acoustic, intensity driven greatness, let’s talk about the album that you probably don’t know as much about.

Released to the U.S. in 1998, Desireless was a top seller. Selling over four million copies worldwide, the Eagle-Eye debut was a hit. Although people were lured into purchasing the album mainly for its hit single, it does have a few other gems within its track listing. One of these songs, “Indecision,” is an interesting song in which the lyrical delivery see-saws between soothing storytelling to anger-driven refrains and guitar solos; a cool twist on the typical soul-rock genre song structure. Cherry’s second single, “Falling In Love Again,” holds a great place in the middle of the album, giving the listener a break from the quiet acoustic soul charts and hitting it with a vicious, moody love song. Another great song that really sticks with me is “Conversation,” a song telling about the tragedies of lying to a child. The vocals in this song are touched with just the perfect amount of soul given the emotional weight of hatred and sadness.

After listening to the album a couple times, I realized how similar some of the songs sound in comparison to some of John Mayer’s mellower music. This made me wonder why Eagle-Eye Cherry never got much more recognition. Since the release of Desireless, Cherry has released two more studio albums, both being extremely unsuccessful. This may be because the acoustic sound wasn’t really highly sought after by everyday music listeners until the early 2000s when John Mayer started his rise to fame, reminding people of the overshadowed genre.

Is Desireless a perfect album though? Far from it. With the lyrical flubs within “Rainbow Wings” and “When Mermaids Cry,” and the repetition in songs like “Comatose (In The Arms of Slumber),” Cherry presented us with a pretty average album. In his defense, it was his debut album, and not many artists can successfully pull off something like the Boston debut. Either way, I definitely note the album as an honorable mention, solely for the deep amount of passion put into its construct.

If anything off Desireless seems to pull you in, I encourage you to check out Cherry’s other two albums Living in the Present Future and Sub Rosa. These too have some pretty good tracks worth checking out. In the meantime, go ahead and check this album out with this link to the album on Napster:

http://free.napster.com/view/album/index.html?id=10502799