video review: 'arms of morpheus' by kingfisher sky

I can't believe I keep forgetting these...

Ah well, next up is Big K.R.I.T. Stay tuned!

album review: 'arms of morpheus' by kingfisher sky

So here's an interesting situation: you're an technically minded musician, looking at pushing the boundaries of your craft, and you're part of a band that's on the precipice of breaking into the mainstream. And you know that if you start aiming to push for more complex progressions that are less commercially friendly, it could hold you back from that breakthrough. So what do you do - stick with simpler instrumentation that really aren't stretching you artistically, or forge a new path that will almost certainly be less commercially viable?

That was the choice Ivar de Graaf made when he left symphonic metal titan Within Temptation after their critically acclaimed album Mother Earth. And to some extent, it makes complete sense - Within Temptation were always a band with a keen eye to appealing to a more pop-friendly metal crowd, and de Graaf's desire to play more complex progressions and improve his compositional skills would almost certainly fly in the face of that. He still maintained a friendly relationship with Within Temptation and would occasionally play with them on later occasions, but in 2005 he collaborated with his wife Judith Rijnveld to form the progressive symphonic metal band Kingfisher Sky.

And here's the funny thing: listening through their debut album Hallway of Dreams in 2007, I definitely saw some real potential but I also was struggling to see the areas where Kingfisher Sky could stand out from the crowd. Keep in mind that not only did Within Temptation release The Heart of Everything that same year, Nightwish released Dark Passion Play in all of its folk-flavoured genre-bending might, and it's not hard to see how Kingfisher Sky might have been overshadowed simply for being quieter and having more restraint, their influences being less film scores and more Porcupine Tree, Kate Bush, and traditional folk. But I'd argue that being a little softer gave Kingfisher Sky a chance to develop their songwriting and acoustic textures, and while they did occasionally fall into cliche, they frequently were able to compensate for it. They followed that album with Skin Of The Earth in 2010, which was heavier and had tuned the songwriting a little finer, but it was at this point the lower production budget was definitely hampering the more symphonic side of the band, and while the guitars had crunch and some of the more progressive grooves were interesting, I found myself wishing that Judith Rijnveld was a more powerful vocalist or they could expand their sound into something with a little more import and scope.

In other words, I wasn't sure what to expect with their crowdfunded 2014 album Arms Of Morpheus - I expected to like it, but it's been a crowded year for symphonic metal. So how is it?

video review: 'man against machine' by garth brooks

Can't believe I forgot to post this last night... ah well, it's a comeback that for the most part most people outside of the country music sphere will completely miss, and while that is a shame, it's not like Brooks was helping himself in the right direction here.

Okay, next up, I want to talk about Kingfisher Sky, because I still need more time with Pink Floyd and Big K.R.I.T.. Stay tuned!

album review: 'man against machine' by garth brooks

It's a name that hangs over modern country music and will probably never be forgotten. An artist who is one of the great selling music acts of all time and who was probably most responsible for leading the popular resurgence of country music in 90s. For me, it's music that I didn't just grow up with, but material I'd consider formative in shaping some of my deep-seated love of country music. I grew up with his CDs in the car pretty much since I was born, and I can look back on many of his records as having some absolutely stellar songs.

Yeah, you all know who I'm talking about - and yet as a music critic now, Garth Brooks is one of the more complicated acts to talk about. His most famous and iconic songs - 'Friends In Low Places', 'The Dance', and especially one of my favourites 'The Thunder Rolls' show up on his earliest albums, but throughout the early 90s he maintained a damn impressive level of quality, but as the decade wore on, things started to get shakier. Everyone looks at the fascinatingly disastrous Chris Gaines project as the breaking point, but to me the wheels were starting to come off as early as Sevens. He made a modest comeback of sorts on Scarecrow, but at that point he stopped making albums and after a few years 'retired', he went back to performing and has been consistently making a fortune doing so.

See, here's the thing about Garth Brooks - many have put forward the point that he's less of the 'artist' than the professional businessman entertainer, a little analogous to Jay-Z if he had actually retired after The Black Album. Because let's be fair here, Brooks is still a pretty damn good songwriter and a powerful presence behind the microphone, and while the Chris Gaines experiment is dated and embarrassing, it's not hard to theorize that it was Garth Brooks taking a chance artistically that the public rejected en masse in favour of his material packaged through lucrative deals signed with Wal-Mart. The public didn't seem to want Garth Brooks the artist, and that bugs me - granted, it's not like he hasn't embraced the businessman mold to the point where his army of lawyers have ripped every single music video of his off of YouTube, a move where even Prince has backed off. It's gotten to the point where Brooks launched his own music distribution system rather than work with iTunes - and to me, all of this strikes me as monumentally short-sighted. Sure, I remember Garth Brooks and his older fans will remember him, but YouTube is how most of the youth across the world disseminates and remembers culture, and purposefully fighting against it is an easy way to lose a younger audience, especially when Billboard counts YouTube streams these days for chart positioning.

What this means is that, for the first time in a long time, I'm not including backing music from the album, half because his lawyers would use YouTube's broken Content ID system to prosecute a case they'd lose under Section 29.1 of the Canadian Copyright Act but would still make my life hell simply because they can, and half because I want to make a point. But that's asinine business practices, we're here to talk about the actual music of this album - and I'll admit I was excited. I grew up with Garth Brooks, he made some of my favourite country songs of all time, and now he's back with his new album Man Against Machine - how is it?

video review: 'sonic highways' by foo fighters

While there could have been more to this album, it's still solidly enjoyable, and I still liked it.

Okay, next up... hmm, either Big KRIT or Garth Brooks, because I need a little more time with Pink Floyd. Stay tuned!

album review: 'sonic highways' by foo fighters

You know, for as big of an act as the Foo Fighters are, I don't think I've ever, in public or private, really given a comprehensive opinion about the band. I've talked at length about many of their contemporaries, some great and some awful, but I haven't really talked about Dave Grohl's post-grunge turned arena rock band in, well, ever. I think it's time I rectify that.

So, the Foo Fighters are, for me, a defining example of a pretty damn good band. Not a great one, not an all-time classic act, and it'll definitely be interesting to see how long their historical legacy lasts in comparison with their peers, but a pretty damn good rock band. There's a lot of common opinions about the Foo Fighters as well - their best material was in the late 90s, they really are more of a singles act over structuring cohesive albums, and a lot of their material sounds the same. Having revisited the entire Foo Fighters discography... well, they're not wrong, although Wasting Light was a solid step to reinvigorate the band. But tapping into the reasons why gets trickier. For one, as potent of a frontman as Dave Grohl is, some of his more serious, hyper-earnest, 'we're the last real band in rock' self-aggrandizing gets exasperating - and the sad fact is with the decline of hard rock in the mainstream, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. But on the other hand, earnestness is one of the Foo Fighters' greatest strengths - you believe Grohl when he's howling or singing, and the band's knack for a melodic hook has kept them a steady draw for years. On the flip side... okay, lyricism has never been their strong point, and many, many songs fall into easy cliche and feel more broadly sketched than they really should. But once again, there's another side to this, as broadness can work well in the fist-pumping anthems the Foo Fighters can make like clockwork.

So you can bet I was intrigued by their newest album Sonic Highways, reportedly recorded in eight different American studios in order to capture the unique musical vibe of each city. And not only that, with each song they brought on guests to enhance the roots-driven sound, from Joe Walsh to Ben Gibbard to Zac Brown, the last of which was the biggest draw for me being a massive Zac Brown Band fan. On the other hand, I also know the Foo Fighters - we weren't likely to see Little Big Town levels of experimentation on this record, and at the end of the day they'd still probably sound like the Foo Fighters. 

video review: 'broke with expensive taste' by azealia banks

Well, that was the unscheduled review, shame it wasn't better. Now back to my schedule with Foo Fighters next. Stay tuned!

album review: 'broke with expensive taste' by azealia banks

Okay, normally when I get requests, it's pretty scattershot. I get a few for upcoming records I'm obviously going to cover because they're so big it'd be insane for me to ignore them, I get a few for offbeat oddities that I might check out if I find them interesting, and of course I get the requests for records that came out two years ago and weren't particularly well received even then. Let me clarify something about my schedule - with every artist I cover, I endeavour to assemble a full and fair picture, which means going through their past discography to get some historical context - which means that in addition to covering the album and listening to it multiple times, I'm also backtracking through history, either for the first time or just to get back up to speed. In other words, a lot of time and work goes into my schedule, and I can't cover everything, no matter how hard I try, and even my year-end catch-up of albums won't snag everything.

And yet, when I get a wave of requests for an album where nearly the only comments are asking for one specific debut record, I take notice. And the more they poured in, the less they made sense. I had heard the name Azealia Banks before for a strong EP and mixtape she dropped back in 2012, but since then her buzz has been less from her music and more from feuds with fellow musicians like Angel Haze and Baauer and from asinine remarks she made at tabloid fixtures like Perez Hilton. It didn't help that there had apparently been label problems that led her to getting dropped from Universal and this album being delayed extensively. So with little-to-no promotion and following in the footsteps of her idol Beyonce, Azealia Banks released her debut out of nowhere and I started getting requests to cover it. On the one hand, she probably couldn't have picked a better time - with the biggest charting names in pop rap being Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea, this is a better time to be a woman in hip-hop for a long time. On the other hand, I wasn't exactly sure what I was stepping into with Broke With Expensive Taste, and I remembered what happened with Angel Haze's Dirty Gold very early this year, a record that really was a complete non-starter even though it did have songs with commercial appeal. So what are we getting from Azealia Banks?

video review: 'z²: dark matters' by the devin townsend project

God, I wish this was better. It's still a good record, to be sure, but it just didn't quite land with me. Ah well, it happens.

Next up, I need time to get through my backlog of albums before I start the one of the heavier weeks of the year. Foo Fighters, Big KRIT, Azealia Banks, and more, so stay tuned!

album review: 'z²: dark matters' by the devin townsend project

And now we come to the second round of our Devin Townsend discussion, of the second disc and the one that definitely gripped more of the fans coming from Ziltoid The Omniscient. It was the sequel that so many of them had been asking for, the glorious return of Ziltoid and the madcap space insanity that had defined that album.

And yet, if I'm being completely honest, the more I thought about it the more I wasn't sure a sequel to that 2007 record was a great idea. Sure, there was undoubtedly more space to be tapped in the gloriously epic and epically silly saga of Ziltoid, but that album also ended in a way that didn't exactly leave itself open for sequels in the same way. It's similar to the sense of annoyance I had when I saw Disney's live action Alice In Wonderland directed by Tim Burton that actually turned out to be a sequel, couldn't be bothered to call itself Through The Looking Glass, and was a total piece of shit. Not spoiling anything, but when you transform what was designed as a pure flight of fantasy or madness into something grounded in a more concrete reality - you run the risk of breaking the joke.

And it seemed like Devin Townsend was running into problems too. A followup to Ziltoid was announced in 2009, and yet it took him five years to fully get the project to coalesce. He utilized the character on a satirical radio show in 2013 and bandied around the idea of a visual project, but this year he finally managed to pull things together for Z², and to placate the label he had to bundle it with a Devin Townsend Project album that actually managed to be pretty damn awesome. And even despite my serious misgivings going into this record, I have to admit I was still pretty damn excited for a new Ziltoid adventure - did we get it?

video review: 'z²: sky blue' by the devin townsend project

Part one was glorious, so let's see how part two pans out - stay tuned!

album review: 'z²: sky blue' by the devin townsend project

I've mentioned in the past that there are certain musical acts that have an insane work ethic, acts that will pump out distinctive, potent material that somehow manages to maintain a standard of real quality. Now from my observations, these acts tend to fall into two distinctive camps: acts that have a formula that allows them to subtly augment it with each release; and acts that simply have so many ideas that they have to let them all explode forth on project after project, with some of the ideas inspired genius, some merely inspired, and some that inspire headaches for all involved. In other words, there's a little less consistency in their output. And no, I'm not talking about Lil Wayne and his album/mixtape releases, today I'm going to talk about one of the more eclectic figures in metal, a Canadian musician who already dropped a country and blues flavoured record earlier this year and now has a full double album of progressive and extreme metal.

Yes, we're talking about Devin Townsend, formerly of the extreme metal act Strapping Young Lad and the frontman of the Devin Townsend project. He's a musician with a gift for versatility, a ton of explosive presence, and sheer oddball weirdness in his lyrics that can send many of his projects spiraling into madness, or at least be difficult to take them somewhat seriously. And to be fair, I get the feeling that Townsend recognizes this to some extent, as he's made some truly hilarious metal records that still manage to kick ass. I was first introduced to him through his 2007 album Ziltoid The Omniscient, a record about a power-mad galactic overlord searching for the universe for the perfect cup of coffee and with an ending twist that really shouldn't be as much of a fun surprise as it is. 

Now in terms of pure Devin Townsend albums, it was his last until now, but that didn't mean he wasn't active. Instead, after quitting booze and drugs, he embarked on the Devin Townsend Project, a series of five albums that showcased five different sides of Townsend's experimentation to varied amounts of success, the last being the more pop- and hard rock-flavoured Epicloud in 2012. So when I heard that he was coming back with a double album this year, a sequel to Ziltoid The Omniscient, I honestly didn't have the slightest clue what was coming. So I took several deep breaths and plunged in - what did I get?

video review: 'vii' by teyana taylor

Well, this was a nice surprise. Quite liked this, and honestly wished she had more traction on mainstream radio.

Okay, next up will probably be Diamond District, but I also want to get a crack on this Devin Townsend double album. Either way, stay tuned!

album review: 'vii' by teyana taylor

It's always interesting as a critic that covers pop music to take note of major trends, and the easiest way to do so is to take notes of the acts that seemingly debut from out of nowhere, with unexpected waves of buzz or just the right amount of propulsion to launch into the mainstream.

And where new bro-country releases dominated 2013, 2014 will likely be remembered as the year where R&B and soul returned en masse with a slew of debut artists from both the mainstream and independent spheres. And in a nice change of pace from the male-dominated wave of country, most of the debuting R&B acts are women, with SZA, FKA Twigs, Banks, Jhene Aiko, and Tinashe all bringing distinctly different sounds and levels of quality to the table. But what's notable is to look behind the scenes and see where these acts are coming from, as it seems like most major labels are fighting to get their R&B starlet in the spotlight to mixed degrees of success.

But the label that appears to be throwing the majority of their money into the R&B game is Def Jam - they already launched Jhene Aiko and are already looking to add to the scene with Teyana Taylor, a New York R&B singer who is most notable outside the music scene for featuring on the soul-crushing show MTV's My Super Sweet 16, a show where spoiled rich teenagers have ludicrously expensive sixteenth birthday parties and act like terrible people.

So okay, not a good sign, but to be fair to her, that was seven years ago - most people are terrible when they're teenagers, you grow out of it - and she's been around the music scene long enough since then to probably have developed some sense - or at least some great connections. Originally signed to Pharrell's personal label, she later connected with Kanye West and apparently hit it off so well she landed vocal pieces on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and eventually was signed to Kanye's G.O.O.D. Music, where she appeared on the compilation album Cruel Summer and now has finally dropped her debut album VII, apparently heavily inspired by 90s R&B like Janet Jackson, Lauryn Hill, and Mary J. Blige. And coupled with Kanye West's executive producer credit on this debut, it was enough to get me curious enough to check it out - how is it?

video review: 'xen' by arca

Well, this required a second upload to get right, but I'm glad that I got a chance to talk about it. Fascinating listen.

Okay, next up will either be You + Me or Teyana Taylor, so stay tuned!

album review: 'xen' by arca

Let's talk a bit about abrasive sounds in music.

It's been a conversation ever since the beginning of recorded music, the artists who are willing to push the boundaries of what are considered traditionally 'acceptable' to the ears of the public. Forget the explosive crunch of metal or the harsh mechanical sounds of industrial or the raw edge of punk or the choppy sampling of early hip-hop, there were points where the distorted guitars of early rock or the experimentation of jazz was too much of a departure for listeners. The evolution of what has been considered traditionally listenable is a growing one, and with every year it seems to expand even further, from the raucous screams of black metal to the harsh blasts of static you get from a group like Clipping to the experimental explosive power of an act like Swans. Hell, there are acts in the power electronics genre that specifically focus on making the most explosive, abrasive, uncomfortable music possible for anyone to listen through.

Now for me, abrasion for its own sake has a place, but I'll also admit that I prefer music to have melody or at least enough texture to justify the usage of the abrasion as a complete piece. Noise without cohesion for its own sake is precisely that - noise. My challenge has always been finding that cohesion within the sound, if indeed it exists - because let's make this clear, this sort of abrasive sound isn't going away any time soon.

This takes us to producer Arca, most well known outside of electronic music circles as working with Kanye West on Yeezus and FKA Twigs on LP1. And going into his full-length debut, I was not precisely sure what was coming. His early work was defined by pitch shifted vocals, eerie synths, and moments that pushed the edges of what was conventionally listenable - in other words, I had a real challenge on my hands. So with a certain amount of hesitation, I checked out his debut album Xen - what did I find?

video review: 'pain killer' by little big town

Forgot to post this last night - quite literally fell asleep with the screen to post it and I didn't click the button. Figures.

Okay, next up... well, honestly I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, I still need more time before I cover Devin Townsend. Stay tuned!

album review: 'pain killer' by little big town

As I mentioned in the past, there was a considerable amount of time in the 2000s when I didn't listen to a lot of country music - sure, I caught what was on the radio and I still appreciated the genre, but for the latter half of that decade, country music was not on my mind - which really is a shame, because there were a fair number of great country acts in that period that made great albums. 

And one of the biggest acts to unfairly fall under my radar was Little Big Town. One of the more unique groups in modern country, they consist of the female singers of Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman, and the male singers Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet, and made their first big smash in 2006 with their second album The Road To Here. Going back through that album, they remind me a lot of Lady Antebellum in their mid-tempo vibe, but that's where the similarities ended. For one, their harmonies were excellent, and they tended to have a more rollicking edge to their instrumentation, even when it was very acoustic and polished - which, of course brought the comparisons to Fleetwood Mac... and yeah, it's kind of hard to miss. From a melodic standpoint, the similarities get pretty stark, especially on their third album A Place to Land - but on the other hand, speaking as a Fleetwood Mac fan, they were never straight-up copycats and did have some very well-written songs. 

Unfortunately, their early career was fraught with label difficulties, as their label Equity Records went under and Little Big Town was moved over to Capitol Nashville midway through releasing singles from their third album. They pulled things together for The Reason Why in 2010, which injected some sharper texture and energy into their typical midtempo vibe and it paid big dividends. They followed it up in 2012 with Tornado, which I really like thanks to the rough-edged production of long-time Eric Church producer Jay Joyce, but by that point it was hard not to notice the shift in their songwriting and the increased number of writing credits that weren't from the band. Granted, they were working with good songwriters and let's be honest, lyrical flair was never my biggest focus with Little Big Town, but it was a warning sign. And given I wasn't a fan of their lead-off single 'Day Drinkin', or their collaboration with Miranda Lambert 'Smokin' And Drinkin' that showed up on her last album Platinum, I was a little uneasy - yeah, they were working with Jay Joyce again, but they were also six albums into their career and country music as a genre is in a weird transitory place right now - what did it mean for Little Big Town's new album Pain Killer?

video review: 'chapter one' by ella henderson

First video of tonight, and honestly one of those I should have tackled earlier. Surprisingly good.

Okay, second video is on its way - stay tuned!

album review: 'chapter one' by ella henderson

I've said before that I tend to keep a healthy distance from any pop project backed by Simon Cowell and his label Syco Records. At this point, it's self-preservation, really, and it's not even that Cowell makes 'bad' pop music. If anything, his music projects fall more in the lines of intensely bland pop slurry that are riveted to following major trends instead of leading them, the sort of material guaranteed to sell to a less discerning public. 

And what blows my mind is that people haven't picked upon this yet - I mean, it's not like he hasn't been a major public figure in pop music and the music talent show circuit for years now. If you want to know why so many American Idol and X-Factor winners vanish off the face of the earth after dropping debut albums through Syco, it's because they aren't marketed as unique personalities, but instead just more product in the assembly line of pop stars, their personality boiled down to the broadest essentials for demographic appeal. And sure, it can make for short entertaining flashes, but longer-term careers in pop music are based off of unique personality. And if you want to know why many appear in the spotlight for a brief second before dropping off the face of the earth... well, now you know why.

In other words, I wasn't exactly interested to dig into the newest record from Ella Henderson, a performer who placed sixth on the ninth season of X-Factor, despite being one of the biggest favourites to win that season. Despite that, she was picked up by Syco Records and apparently was given significantly more creative freedom - and indeed, she has writing credits on nearly every song on the album. And that hadn't stopped her from attaining a fair few well-charting hits on the UK Charts - but let's make this clear, just because an act charts in the UK doesn't mean it's anything close to good - thanks to a lack of recurring rules and a smaller population, all sorts of weird crap pops up on the UK charts all the time. But to be fair, Ella Henderson didn't seem to be a flash in the pan - the fact she didn't win X-Factor and still got signed, coupled with solid critical reviews and beating Jessie J's sales in the UK, maybe she was the real deal. So with perpetual lateness, I gave her debut album Chapter One a listen - how is it?