East of the Wall
The Apologist
ParamaI have to admit this album took a while to get in to. At first I thought it was nothing special, nothing really stood out and I was ready to tell you your favorite album is boring. It's a grower, though, and quite a roller coaster ride. There's a plethora of styles and influences interspersed throughout this album. I hear Between the Buried and Me, hints of Fall of Troy, some Isis, bits of Cult of Luna, Oceansize, Tool, and even some influences of some of the more jazzy technical death metal bands. They seem to mix all these genres and influences to make a sound that is all their own though. It doesn't really sound like anything else out there.
The album starts with Naif and immediately it's apparent that the bass is very prominent, front and center in the mix. This song basically serves to set the tone for the rest of the album. It flows right in to Linear Failure. It should be noted that each song flows seamlessly to the next. I like this. I'm not entirely sure if this is a concept album, I haven't looked in to the lyrics much, but the flow is fantastic. I wish more bands would do this. There's a cool little jazzy guitar solo in the middle of this song. My Favorite Society Guy is next, which is a cool little interlude with some nice pounding drums and bass to make a cool rhythm leading in to False Build. This song has a nice buildup to a groovy drum beat in the middle. I need to bring up the bass again. It has that thick dirty tone, similar to what Geddy Lee used in the later Rush albums. I love that tone. There are times where I could imagine Geddy playing these bass licks. This guy is good (not as good as Geddy though, lets just get that out of the way
) and he works well with the drummer to lay a nice foundation for each song. Precious Memories is entirely instrumental with some nice guitar melodies and solos. It leads nicely in to the title track, The Apologist, which starts off as a beautifully moody piece. This has some of my favorite vocals on the whole album. (Speaking of the vocals, they aren't the strongest part of this band. For instance, the harsh vocals seem a little forced and don't always work for me, but overall they are functional and don't drag the album down.) This song also ends in a similar fashion as it started. All the intensity leading up to it makes it stand out, in a good way, and it's a nice halfway point for the album. Running Tab of Sweetness picks up the pace again. The drummer really finds a way to kind of play off something either the guitarist or bass player is doing and make it sound awesome here and throughout the album. Horseback Riding in a Bicycle World (which is a cool track name) is another cool little instrumental. This leads to A Functional Tumor. For some reason this song reminds me of Coheed and Cambria in the beginning (minus the vocal style). I think it's the guitar tone and melodies. Overall this song isn't the best on the album, but it's short, so it doesn't overstay it's welcome. Nurser of Small hurts has some interesting bass lines and spacey guitar riffing and melodies, which all seems to serve as a segue to the final two tracks on the album. Whiskey Sipper has some good ideas, but goes on slightly too long. So while it's still a fairly strong track, it probably could have been better. The finale Underachiever is anything but an underachiever. It goes through some awesome changes and may be the most technical song on the whole album. It has this controlled chaos about it. There also seems to be some subtle horns at the end too. Cool!
To conclude, I'm not sure how this band passed under my radar. They also have 3 other albums for me to check out. So I have some catching up to do. Overall this album is great. There are a few little issues I have with it. The aforementioned issues I have with the vocals and a couple of songs need some fat trimmed and don't really live up to the standards of the rest of the album. And to think this album started at the bottom of all the albums I received for this round....
Favorite Song: The Apologist
Worst Song: A Functional Tumor
Score - 16.8
Greyhaven
Empty Black
TrainI wasn't sure what to expect from this album, since I had never heard of this band before. I usually enjoy Metal-core infused Post-Hardcore. So how does it stack up?
First thing I noticed after the first listen was the vocals. This guy reminds me of the original vocalist from The Human Abstract at times, just quite a bit rougher around the edges and not as much emotion in his cleans. The music has a heavier more aggressive bite to it though. Sweet Machine starts it off decently enough. Not a fantastic song, but nothing to really complain about. Blemish starts off pretty cool, but starting with this song the vocalist starts doing this weird whiny/sort-of-falsetto/breathy thing with his voice occasionally that makes me cringe every time I hear it. This is also where some of the obvious Sikth influence comes through as well (it's just not executed well). Echo & Dust Pt.1 has some really heavy Human Abstractness to it. I really like this song. I like the back and forth between the heavy sections and the clean sections and the clean vocals are the highest quality on the whole album here. Mortality Rate sees a drop off in quality. It seems a fairly standard run of the mill song for this style, with more of the annoying clean vocals. Ten Dogs - Red Heaven and White Lighters is much better. Better vocals, better riffs, better melodies. That drum pattern in White Lighters is also really cool. Kappa (River Child) and Day is Gone are both pretty inconsistent for me. The opening riff in Kappa is cool and the music is neat throughout, but the vocals get in the way of the song again. Especially at the end. Then Day is Gone is pretty much the same although there are some better vocals in parts of this song. The second half of this song sounds like something The Human Abstract would have done. The feedback at the end is unnecessary (I will never understand why bands do this). Broadcast Network tries to do some interesting things, but ultimately is fairly forgettable. Echo & Dust Pt.2 is a really good album closer.
This album is kind of a cock-tease. It has some really good songs and then some rather bad songs. Both the Echo & Dust tracks really show what this band is capable of if they focused their sound. The inconsistency really killed this album. It could have been so much better. Songs like Blemish, Mortality Rate, and Broadcast Network drag it down. Perhaps their next album will be better.
Favorite song: Echo & Dust Pt.1 and 2
Worst song: Mortality Rate
Score - 13.5
Frameshift
An Absence of Empathy
JingleI went in to this thinking I would love this. After the first listen I thought maybe I need a couple listens to really let everything sink in. The more I listened, the more I realized that this is just a fairly mediocre album. I had heard the first Frameshift album years ago (the one with James LaBrie) and remember liking it somewhat. This album doesn't have the same effect though. I'm not sure if it's any one thing. My immediate reaction was to blame Sebastian Bach's vocals (which I don't really care for), but he isn't the sole problem. On the other hand there are some cool bits here and there.
It starts off with a pretty cool guitar riff in Human Grain Part 1, but the album becomes kind of monotonous and the songs all kind of start to blend together and not really do anything that stands out from one song to the next. Sure there are some cool guitar solos, but most of them seem to kind of be tacked on for the sake of having a guitar solo. Although the guitar solo in Just One More is pretty good. This song also reminds me of FWX era Fates Warning a bit. Just not as good.... The song I Killed You seems like it's a pivotal song as far as the story of the album goes, but it lacks any kind of intensity or power or emotion in any aspect (with the exception of the short bit with harsh(ish) vocals). The vocals seem lackluster and uninspired. The music feels lazy. Then the split vocal lines are just annoying and awkward. I found myself wanting to skip this song after a couple of times through the album. And the song goes on for 9 minutes. This Is Gonna Hurt is another song that I wanted to skip after a couple listens, the vocals kind of ruin it a bit for me. Push the Button has a really cool intro. I like the build up of adding instruments until it breaks in to the meat of the song. Unfortunately I don't really like the call and response vocals very much, but the music is pretty cool throughout the song. The rest of the album kind of follows the same patterns; cool riff, awkward vocal melody/line/lyric, nice guitar solo, boring instrumentation, cool organ sounding synths, etc etc. Like, In An Empty Room is just kind of awkward throughout, Outcast is just kind of there, Blade has a really cool tribal-like intro and perhaps some of my favorite vocals on the whole album, and then there's When I Look Into My Eyes....This song is completely ruined by the extremely annoying ear piercing sound effects throughout the song, especially during the chorus.
So to sum up, this album does have slightly more good than bad, but I don't think this is an album I will revisit in the future. Maybe a few songs here and there. And it may seem like I hated the vocals entirely (not quite), but I do think Sebastian Bach is a talented vocalist, I just don't really like his tone and I think his voice is suited for other styles of music and perhaps his voice wasn't used properly here. Sorry Jingle this was your second big miss in the roulette.
Favorite Song: Blade
Worst Song: When I Look Into My Eyes
Score - 11.3
Final Scores!
Parama - 6, 9, 7.5, 8, 8.5, 9.5, 9, 9.5, 21.7, 16.8 (105.5)
Evermind - 7.5, 7, 8, 7.5, 9.5, 7.5, 7.5, 8.5, 23, 18 (104)
Tomislav - 7, 9.5, 8.5, 9, 7, 9.5, 7.5, 9, 19, 16.9 (102.9)
TAC - 8, 8, 8.5, 6.5, 6.5, 9.5, 9.5, 9, 19.9, 17 (102.4)
Train of Naught - 9.5, 7.5, 9, 9, 5.5, 8, 9, 5, 19.9, 13.5 (95.9)
Jingle.boy - 9, 4, 8, 8, 9, 9, 8, 7.5, 20.7, 11.3 (94.5)
Kattoelox - 5.5, 6.5, 8, 10, 9, 9, 6.5, 7, 20.3 (81.8)
Home - 7.5, 7, 7, 7, 7.5, 8.5, 3, 8.5, 17.9 (73.9)
Soupytwist - 8, 10, 7, 8.5, 4, 7.5, 8.5, 5.5 (59)
TwoSuitsLuke - 6, 9, 5.5, 7.5, 7.5 (35.5)
Sacul - 7, 8, 7, 7, 5 (34)
Elite - 6, 7, 6, 5, 9.5 (33.5)
Congrats to Parama on the roulette win!!!
Poll
Topic: Puppies_On_Acid's Gentlemen's Roulette! Epilogue (Read 81099 times)