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

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Now that I'm back from my unannounced, week long hiatus, I'm ready to post the Phoenix review! So, apologies all around, but my week was filled with plans and utter chaos. With that said, on with the review!

For those of you who have never heard of the band Phoenix, let me start by saying this: in general, Phoenix is an indie band that goes for that very stereotypical, half-way between Death Cab For Cutie and The Strokes sound, that those of us who love indie music hear so damn much. However, the thing that separates Phoenix from the rest of these bands is that Phoenix does it right.

Being a group that began as backing instrumentals for the French indie band, Air, and being partly responsible for the formation of Daft Punk, you shouldn’t be surprised to see aspects of both of these groups in all of Phoenix’s music. Using these bands as a reference, it could be said that Phoenix is comprised of the electronic intensity of Air backed by the seamlessly simple and mesmerizing musical integrations of Daft Punk. The simplicity is also reflected in their album composition. Phoenix always makes it their goal to deliver an album that, as a whole, is aesthetically pleasing. The album doesn’t need to make the concept of delivering a deep message its primary goal, but it does need to be comprised in a way that will pull the listener further into what is being presented. Now, I’m not trying to say that Phoenix doesn’t have any profound, underlying messages in their music, because that would be ludicrous; it’s just that Phoenix takes more of a musical path to delivering their messages as opposed to the more common poetic path.

The reason I emphasize this aspect of the group is because the album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix does an amazing job defining this concept. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is arguably as musically artistic as many legendary indie albums such as, Arcade Fire’s Funeral, or The Pixies’ Doolittle and does more than catch the eye of the artistic soul; this album effectively pulls in even the non-analytical listener. The first two tracks, “Lisztomania” and “1901” are so luring with their faint electronic backgrounds and pseudo-dance beat drive, it does nothing but have the listener wanting more. As the album progresses, the instrumental involvement is in and out like a musical roller coaster ride. This gives the album well spaced variety and a transforming, diverse sound. Songs like “Love Like a Sunset (Part I and II)” and “Big Sun” do a great job at making these stylistic transitions happen smoothly.

Once the musical work-up pulls your heart into the album, that’s when your mind starts to listen closer. The entire album has a classical theme (interpretable by the title) and contains a deep, historic-style inner conflict that will keep you analyzing the poetic vocals. I won’t go into the actual poetic conflicts of the album, as to leave the interpretation up to you, but let me tell you, no matter how you look at it, it’s deep. And hell, if analyzing lyrics isn’t your thing, we already talked about how the album is as pleasing as ever for those types of listeners.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is an album that excels in all musical categories. This great achievement, however, is also its greatest criticism. It seems that to make a truly iconic album, one needs to push all efforts into one aspect, whether it be the instrumentals, the poetics, or the all around evolution of the music...but I say fuck it! Phoenix has made an excellent album that is a masterpiece to the masses. So give it a listen, I guarantee you will love it one way or another!

Album review will be posted tomorrow

I just changed my mind on which album I will be reviewing this week, and rather than rush it out tonight, sloppy and poorly done, I will be taking a little more time and posting it tomorrow night. I will however, tell you what album I will be reviewing. By request this week, I will be reviewing the album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by the band Phoenix. Look out for it tomorrow!

Shuffle Sunday [The Mummies - Justine]

I’m really glad that this song popped up this week because to put it quite simply, I believe that anyone who has a passion for music needs to know about The Mummies. The Mummies debuted in 1988 performing a live show at the Chi Chi Club in San Fransisco. These four guys dressed in tattered mummy costumes performed their loud music, while simultaneously making a mess of the stage and screaming obscenities at the crowd in between songs. Little did the attendants of that show know, this group would later be looked at as one of the most influential and iconic garage punk bands in the history of music.

If there is one thing that I have learned in my studies of music over the years, it’s that music is nothing without a serious motive. The Mummies motive was a little thing they liked to call ‘Budget Rock.’ This concept simply meant that they would constantly reject professionalism and fame to give themselves more of a homemade, half-ass sound. When they recorded, they would usually do it on hand-me-down at best equipment, which was usually broken, or not working properly. The Mummies recorded all of their material onto vinyl and didn’t even use CDs as a means of distributing their albums until the year 2000. Hell, even when they toured, they drove themselves and all their equipment around in a beaten up 1965 Pontiac Ambulance!

This idea of ‘Budget Rock’ really showed people that if you want to make music, you can, and The Mummies proved it. This simple concept is one of the biggest reasons underground punk has come so far over the past twenty years. I guarantee if you ask any punk group in the world if they know who The Mummies are, every one of them will say yes (or at least they should). From their garbled punk music to their crazy stage antics, The Mummies have definitely put themselves on the map of punk history.

As far as the song “Justine” goes, it’s pretty much a garage punk masterpiece. It’s a simple broken up love song about a girl who just didn’t do it for the guy. The song isn’t just simple in its concept, but is also a simple musical composition with half-screamed lyrics paired with loud messy drumming, all guided by sloppy basic guitar riffs and a pressing blues bass line. The whole song contains one verse and one refrain set to repeat for a whole two minutes, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it repetitive. The mistake-ridden imperfections of the song really keep the song incredibly interesting and intriguing, and aside from that, it’s just fucking fun to rock out to! Get your punk shoes on and throw this song on at full blast. You’ll find yourself dancing ‘til you can’t dance anymore.

Now I can’t talk about The Mummies without mentioning going into their live performances, but rather than talk about it, I think I’ll just show you a video, because words can do it no justice...enjoy...

Now *that* is intense. I really wish I could have seen these guys play. The worst part about it is that the group has been randomly seen performing unannounced shows *twice* this year already. But I won’t complain to you guys anymore about it. I’ll just show you the song and get on with my life...if you hear any news about The Mummies and a live performance, please don’t hesitate to tell me.

And without further ado...here is “Justine” by The Mummies!

Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy

I had wanted to talk about this album for a long time, but I decided that it would be in my best interest to let the album sit for a while; let people get all the unconstructive criticism off their chests and give them a little time to listen to the album in a different light. A light, that doesn’t hover over the fact that the album took 14 years to finish, or that Axl Rose couldn’t keep a proper band line-up throughout the creation of the album. Chinese Democracy (and I know I just may be attacked for saying this) is a virtually flawless musical composition, critiqued for all the wrong reasons.

Rather than review this one in my traditional conversational or song-by-song recap, I’m going to simply give the reasons why I believe Chinese Democracy deserves a great amount of respect and then elaborate on my points.

Time and Effort:

First of all, I need to give it up for Axl Rose, sticking with this project over all these years. The guy is probably one of the most inspiring artists I’ve ever seen. I mean, there were times that even some of his biggest fans were kicking dirt in his eyes, but he kept going. He kept going back and changing things; adding members he felt fit the parts and pushing off release dates until the album was indeed exactly what he wanted. At times he really had to be a dick about some things, but he just wanted to see his vision become a reality. He didn’t care what other people thought and when the album finally was released, I think it was a real slap in the face for all the people who doubted him.

Creativity and Ingenuity:

Chinese Democracy leans on the long side with a finished length of a little over 70 minutes. The first time I listened through the album it didn’t feel like any time had passed at all. My mind was sucked into the album, the way its sound travelled from track to track. It keeps the same feeling underneath it all, but drastically changes the moods and styles with every song. This album is the perfect way to introduce someone to the many sounds of rock. There are so many sub-genres of rock music; it’s almost inconceivable that one album could present them all. However, Chinese Democracy does just that. “It’s a very complex record; I’m trying to do something different.” Well Axl, you can rest well knowing that you have achieved that goal with a vengeance.

Axl Rose:

Axl Rose has always been known for his long ranged, scratchy vocals, but the true reason why my ears perk up every time I hear Rose’s voice is because of the immense amount of passion behind it. The only other American vocalist that I can think of that is even comparable to the intensity of Rose is probably Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. The best track on the album that proves the power of Rose’s voice is the beautiful piano ballad “This I Love.” Even when it comes to more intense avant-garde/fusion tracks, the way he molds his voice around the instrumentals is frickin’ awesome. Check out “There Was A Time” and you’ll see exactly what I mean; breathtaking.

Instrumentals:

Obviously after having almost 30 members contributing parts to this album over the 14 years of construction, Rose had a hell of a lot to work with and incorporate. The finished product after all the cutting and pasting of the thousands of recorded parts for each song leaves me with nothing to say but...holy shit. There is so much going on in every track it’s almost hard to keep track of it all. I could see where this could come off as being a bad thing, but trust me, it’s not. It keeps you listening and delving deeper into each track. I’ve listened to the album a lot since it came out and I’m still finding new things. It just keeps me coming back to find more and I love it.

Really there is only one thing that I could complain about on this album and that is the name of the band that released it. It just simply isn’t Guns N’ Roses. Is this a bad thing? Well, no. It’s just so far from the line-up, style and musicality of the original band that the group deserves a different title. The only remaining member of the original band is Axl and either way I don’t think that the name Guns N’ Roses deserves to tie into the release of the album. The group is simply a new legacy in music history.

Well, there you have it, my take on the infamous Chinese Democracy. If you’ve listened to the album I’m really intrigued to hear what you have to say about it, so please, head over to the forum and tell me what you think! The link to the forum is in the side bar, just register yourself and reply to the Chinese Democracy topic.

Here's the link to the album on Napster:

http://free.napster.com/view/album/index.html?id=13004813