Growing Appreciation

There comes a time in every grown man's life when he starts appreciating some of the bands on his iTunes library a little more with every new shuffle. Needless to say, I have found myself in the same conundrum and decided to peruse through my library to create a list of bands that I have learned to appreciate more over the last few weeks.

AGALLOCH - I had heard of this band before I moved to Portland, but I always assumed that they were just another Black Metal band. After hearing one of their songs on Pandora, I decided to download a couple of their albums. And what a revelation they have been. I can't stop listening to "Not Unlike the Waves" from their Ashes Against the Grain album. Atmospheric, folksy, beautifully melancholic - this is the band Ulver should have been. It makes everything sound pale by comparison.

ALCHEMIST - This Australian band are often regarded as the Metal's Best-Kept Secret. It is a bold statement, but it isn't far from truth. They sound like a heavy version of Tool with oriental influences taking the front seat. The intro to "Evolution 1 - The Bio Approach", from fantastically-titled Organasm, gives me goosebumps with every listen.

AMORPHIS - When I first listened to Amorphis in high school, I wasn't a fan of their death-metal growls. Over the years the band adopted a new style with clean vocals and more avant-garde arrangements. In college I couldn't get enough of Am Universum. Lately, though, I keep going back to their older stuff - especially the transition album, Elegy.

ANTHRAX - Let's get the obvious out of the way - Anthrax were the smallest of the Big Four of Thrash. And rightly so. They weren't as epic as Metallica, as musically-gifted as Megadeth, or as mind-fuckingly heavy as Slayer. But they were definitely the most fun. Listening to "Caught in a Mosh" again after all these years brings a huge smile to my face as I mosh in my own living room. By myself.

BAYSIDE - I have been introduced to this band by Bheeler. I thought they were pretty good when I first listened to them, but for some reason I never specifically went back and sought them in my library. Until late last year when "They're Not Horses, They're Unicorns" kept coming up on Shuffle. Now I can't get enough of the whole album - a very unique sound and style.

BRAND NEW - Another Bheeler band. When I was in my final year at Nottingham, "Sic Transit Gloria ... Gloria Fades" was a minor hit in the U.K and also had the most demented video this side of "Diane". I'm not big on emo and Brand New are as emo as it gets. But, what sets them apart is their progressive approach - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me is an album worthy of comparisons with Radiohead's OK Computer.

ELECTRIC SIX - We all thought they were a joke - you only needed to listen to "Danger! High Voltage" and "Gay Bar". The accompanying videos would confirm this. The other day I decided to go back to the album that gave us such sophisticated songs, Fire, and was pleasantly surprised that Electric Six is more than a joke. Unlike the Darkness, they knew to pen songs that had depth and weren't afraid to stretch.

GARY JULES - After seeing him in all his 'high' glory a few weeks ago, it became apparent that I had to go back to Trading Snakeoil for Wolf Tickets. He will always be associated with his incredible version of "Mad World", but that album proves that he is a formidable songwriter on his own too. Highly underrated and underappreciated.

IN FLAMES - The most famous band to come out of the Gothenburg scene, In Flames were only a name until the Ozzfest 2005. They were the opening act for the main stage and were definitely one of the highlights of the whole day. Since then, I have slowly but steadily grown immense appreciation for this band. If you like your music melodic, heavy, and emotional then In Flames are ready to blow your eardrums off.

KOSMOS - They are not strictly-speaking a Bru band, but it never hurts to escape the norm sometimes. Their self-titled 2007 album and especially the song "Dream" are now perennial must-plays of the day. It's part Krautrock, part space-rock, full on trip-fest.

LIVE - Although I have grown a bit cold after the abysmal Songs from Black Mountain, I went into a nostalgic fervour after finding The Distance to Here somewhere hidden in a box. I remember headbanging in my dorm room with Rich as "The Dolphin's Cry" rocked from the stereo, reveling in the uber-coolness of "The Distance", and shedding a few tears over "Dance with You". Throwing Copper may have been their finest hour, but The Distance to Here is for me the quintessential Live album.

MANOWAR - Death to False Metal. Manowar are so easy to make fun of. Yet, there is no denying the fact that when it comes to writing some kick-ass and catchy tunes, there aren't many bands that can rival Manowar. Hail to England has lent many a song to my playlists of late.

PARADISE LOST - It's strange, but I paid to see Paradise Lost twice. It's strange, because until recently I have lived in ignorance of this amazing band. "Enchanted" from their breakthrough Draconian Times and "Fader" from their amazing Believe in Nothing only confirm that this is a band with immense talent. I now wish I had paid to see them more over the years.

PULP - Brit-pop was great. It filled the gap after grunge imploded and brought a much-needed cheekiness to the whole shebang. Pulp's origins go way before bands like Oasis and Blur became ultra-mega-super stars, but they are without doubt one of the key bands of the era. I always thought Different Class was a great album - perhaps one of the greatest pop albums ever. Listening to it again after ten years, I'm amazed how fresh it still is. "Disco 2000" has now become one of the most melancholic songs ever.

There it is. I have always kinda liked these bands, but now I appreciate them even more. Maybe in five years I will come up with a new list and a new group of bands that I tend to ignore (skip) during shuffle now. Who knows who they'll be?

Peace.

- The Bru

I Want to "Scream"

Warning! This piece contains some use of superlatives for Chris Cornell ... sadly most of them will not apply to his new album.

If somebody asks me who my favourite vocalist is, I will proclaim without any hesitation that it is Chris Cornell. The man has defied lung capacities for all rock singers ever since Soundgarden released their early heavy stuff. Before the said band went stratospheric, he masterminded the Temple Of The Dog project - a good contender for the best album of '90s and, arguably, one of the most important albums of any genre. Then Soundgarden imploded and he went solo and released what I believe to be a really good album with "Euphoria Morning". When the announcement was made that RATM guys would  record an album with Cornell, I thought that finally we have our generation's Zeppelin. Even though Audioslave imploded under its own weight (implosion is a common theme in Cornell's musical career, it seems), they released one good album ("Audioslave"), one very good album ("Out of Exile"), and one great album ("Revelations").  I'm not biased at all.

In the middle of all this, he released another album where he tried to emulate (he didn't have to) people like Nick Drake or Jeff Buckley. It was a patchy album, but it had that amazing version of "Billie Jean". Then I was informed by none other than Mr. Rican himself that Timbaland was producing Cornell's new album. My first raction: "Isn't his album out already? Why is he making another one so soon?" My second reaction: "Who the fuck is Timbaland?" When I found out about who the fuck Timbaland was, I said to myself: "Fuck".

The new album took a long time to hit the shelves. I'm sure Cornell realized his error halfway through and wanted to take a low profile. Because, you know, I grew up with grunge. And people like me don't like their music to be tampered with by, of all people, hip-hop "artists" (sorry, I couldn't resist). I like elements of soul and old school R&B (I'm talking about Sly & the Family Stone and Stevie Wonder stuff, not fucking Beyonce) in grunge ... but Timbaland? Is Chris Cornell becoming like Justin Timberlake? Don't get me wrong, I love JT's contributions to music with hits like "Dick in a Box" and "Jizz in My Pants" (he only has a cameo in the video), and he's very good at what he does. He has a massive fan base, but I'm just not part of it. And I don't like the artists that I like to succumb to the pressure to make a hit or blend in with the "in" crowd.

I respect Chris Cornell's ambition and his decision to diversify his output, or whatever. But, I think it becomes a little masturbatory when bands / singers do shit like this. As I'm writing this U2's new shit is playing on TV ... I don't think I can write what I'm thinking about here, because, you know, this not the fucking place to spew out obscenities on vermin like that. There, I said it. I think U2 are the vermin of the music business. They write shit, release that shit ... and make people buy that shit, because it says U-fucking-2 on the link you click with your mouse.

Anyway, back to "Scream". There are some great moments, like the transition from the opening song "Part of Me" to "Time" - a power-chord bonanza that really got my hopes up. Similar transition also appears at the end of "Get up". By the way, the chorus for "Part of Me" is No, that bitch ain't a part of me (I'm not fucking kidding). "Take Me Alive" has a certain Soundgarden quality to it, but without Kim Thayil's crunching guitars. "Scream", the best song on the album, could easily be the best song he released as a solo artist ... he just needs to get rid of that rap part in the middle (I'm assuming it's Mr. Timba-fucking-land) and the annoying beats that drown everything else, including the vocals. The rest of the album has moments of genius, but also moments that make you think if Cornell intentionally paid Timbaland to ruin his music. I'm hoping that's the case, because that would be a great post-modern twist that Cornell is playing on the music business before announcing that Soundgarden are getting back together (I like to daydream).

I really wanted to hate this album. But I couldn't. His voice is still very unique, despite the tweaks here and there (I guess Mr. Timba-fucking-land thought that Chris Cornell was some 18-year-old kid who just wants to get rich and bang some bitches without an iota of singing talent). The songs are actually very good - it's just the arrangements that ruin them. I hope that Cornell re-releases this album with songs re-mixed and re-arranged by somebody like Rick Rubin. Now that would be something special. The odds of that happening? Not as good as a Soundgarden reunion. I guess I'll just blast "Louder Than Love" and remind myself that Chris Cornell is still the best there is.

I Watched the Watchmen

While Rican was having his regular dose of estrogen with chick flicks, I joined the horde of nerds around the country and saw the I-can't-believe-it's-already-out Watchmen. Now, I have done nerdy things before, like waiting outside an Apple Store in London for the unveiling of Tiger a few years back, or actually queuing up outside the Odeon Leicester Square to watch and subsequently weep at the abomination that was The Phantom Menace. However, I hadn't practiced that most beloved and essential nerd-action called reading comic books. I think I had a similar discussion with Bheeler before. When it comes to comic books, I am an utter philistine. My knowledge comes from the movies ... and pretty much ends there.

As you do, I got caught in the whole Watchmen shebang after seeing the first publicity photos on the Empire magazine. The existence of Watchmen had eluded me all these years. Later, it started to pop out in random conversations with random people - obviously the rumor mill had already started to turn by this point. Eventually, or perhaps inevitably, I caved in. I bought a copy of the comic ... and read it four times in a row. I agreed with everything that was said about the book - deconstructing the myth of superheroes, and all that shite. But, I was also totally mesmerized by the characters, the abundant yet subtle symbolism of the graphics, the sexual undertones, and the in-yer-face violence ... My only concern was the incongruous ending - I just couldn't buy it.

I got ready for this weekend by going through all the available trailers online - including that one with the Smashing Pumpkins song. Then last night, I decided to go one step further and bought a ticket for a midnight showing here in Portland. Needless to say, the nerd count at the theater was off the charts. And after nearly two hours and forty-five minutes, I was a satisfied filmgoer. I don't want to jump to a quick conclusion here, but ... who cares ... it is the best comic-movie adaptation I have ever seen.

That might not sound like a great epithet, because the competition does not really include many gems. Last year's The Dark Knight excepted, I'm not a fan of the genre. And don't even get me started on Spider-Man 2. So, I don't think it's in any fair to claim that Watchmen and the Dark Knight are the best comic-book adaptations ever. They are great films of any genre.

I wanted to write a review here, but I know Bheeler will do a better job at it. Also, I can't really be objective about it and my perspective might change after watching it again this weekend on IMAX. Now, I wonder if Dr. Manhattan's schlong will be distracting this time ... Probably not, because there will always be Silk Spectre II. Saucy.

Peace.