UltraJoeBot

When you listen to almost nothing but guitar rock, it’s hard to not immediately roll your eyes and label a band as “sensitive” or “dramatic” when their songs are instead dominated by piano.  Indeed, there are a lot of obvious pitfalls to avoid for bands who prefer 88 keys to 6 strings, but the truth is that when done right, a rock song written on piano can actually be pretty awesome.  And while there are a number of notable contributors to the genre, I can think of no better example of how great piano rock can be than The Glass Passenger, the new album from Jack’s Mannequin.  Unsurprisingly, given singer/songwriter Andrew McMahon’s recent battle with leukemia, the usual connotations (such as “sensitive” or “dramatic,” as I mentioned above) are completely inescapable, but the important thing is that he makes it work.

Indeed, despite the inherent weight of the subject matter, there is a distinctly sunny, west coast vibe to most, if not all of the 14 tracks here.  Along with the unavoidable melodrama that accompanies tinkling major-key piano arpeggios, is an underlying current of optimism and hope.  There is a delicate balance between the emotional vulnerability of what is a very private and profound redemption, and more universal themes that make up the lyrical content of some of the catchier choruses.  “I’m alive, but I don’t need a witness to know that I survived,” McMahon sings on “The Resolution.”  Rather than dwell on past experience and harp on his own personal battles, he looks beyond himself to try and catch a glimpse of the big picture, transforming his songs into a celebration of life.

All of this could easily be trite and hammy if not approached very delicately.  Luckily McMahon knows what people want to hear, and his knack for composing infectious pop hooks is highlighted here by impeccable arrangements.  The double-time chorus of “Bloodshot,” like much of the album, demands to be cranked up on your stereo, so that the majestic synthesizers and multi-tracked vocals can properly wash over you and truly achieve catharsis.  When some bands employ predictable chord progressions, it can grate on your nerves for their lack of ideas and imagination.  But when Jack’s Mannequin pulls out the very same bag of tricks, the technique is executed so flawlessly that the familiarity is comforting instead of tired, speaking an innate language that you don’t realize you speak until it’s been conveyed so perfectly and you find yourself singing along.

Though it is probably heresy to suggest this to diehard fans of the band, I feel like the weakest part of the album is probably the vocals.  Everything is certainly well-written, while the tasteful orchestrations and production always serve the songs, but McMahon’s singing is sometimes overworked.  When the choruses kick in and his voice is doubled, soaring over the band rocking out at full volume, he sounds great.  But when the arrangements are stripped down for a more hushed dynamic, the songs beg for restraint in the vocals, which he only manages about half the time.  That said, when the vocal delivery is spot on, his voice is absolutely capable of carrying the song – case and point, “Drop Out – The So Unknown,” one of the standout tracks about halfway through.

I feel like The Glass Passenger is the kind of album that could potentially be the soundtrack to your life, but you would have to completely give yourself to it first.  It’s up to you, really; if you can recognize that a Bruce Hornsby-influenced piano interlude could possibly have its place in a song, and the song could still be great (as is the case with the opener “Crashin’”), then this could be the album for you.  It’s true, it took me a little while to get to that point, but I think the journey was worth it.  I will admit that my wife makes fun of me for listening to Jack’s Mannequin, but not nearly as much as she does when I put on show tunes, so you can reach your own conclusions.  My advice is to not bother apologizing to yourself and just embrace some unabashedly sensitive piano rock, because sometimes it’s cool to be so decidedly uncool.

I think the best bands are those who create music that is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. It isn’t always enough to get a group of individually talented musicians together in a room and just see what comes out, unedited and uncensored. The risk you sometimes run when your musical heroes indulge in solo albums and side projects is that you might end up with a watered down version of the original. The potential danger is even greater with so-called supergroups, where the expectations are so high, but the magic may or may not be there. Comprised of members of Rx Bandits, Circa Survive, Chiodos, Good Old War, Finch, and The Autumns, The Sound Of Animals Fighting take a page from The Traveling Wilburys handbook, humbly adopting anonymous aliases The Nightingale, The Walrus, The Lynx, and The Skunk.

The band find themselves in an interesting position as they release their third album, The Ocean And The Sun. They set the bar high with 2005′s Tiger And The Duke, a concept album about a mutiny aboard a ship whose cargo are animals that constantly howl and fight below deck. The following year they released the highly experimental Lover, The Lord Has Left Us, which relied more on electronic instrumentation, and also featured a wide array of guest musicians. This time around the sound is closer to that of their debut, focusing more on organic compositions, with occasional distorted percussion, noise interludes, and electronically tweaked children’s voices to mix it up a bit.

Stylistically, the music covers the extremes of early Mars Volta prog-punk, late 90s math rock, and classic symphonic prog, with bits of world music and sleepy psychedelia thrown in for good measure. The sound shifts and sways all over the map from song to song, and it’s nearly impossible to describe in terms of genre, but it almost sounds like the music I *wish* Coheed And Cambria had decided to make after their second album. Moments like the final three minutes of the fantastic closer “On The Occasion Of Wet Snow” are absolutely epic, while the technical complexity of the aggressive odd-time riffs found in “The Heraldic Beak Of The Manufacturer’s Medallion” are just about as good as it gets for a music nerd like me.

Of course, as with any such ambitious musical offering, there are moments where it inevitably falls somewhat flat. Producer/project mastermind Rich Balling (The Nightingale) probably should have left more of the lead vocal duties to Anthony Green (The Skunk), whose soaring delivery is instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever heard a Circa Surivive track. The moment he takes over for the chorus of “I, The Swan,” his powerful voice renders the first two minutes of the song almost forgettable. On another note, an ambient interlude or two could have been cut in favor of making the album a little more concise. Likewise, editing a couple minutes out of the sprawling “Uzbekistan” could have resulted in better pacing in the somewhat meandering second half of the album.

In the end, for all its hits and misses, The Ocean And The Sun is without a doubt a grand musical statement and a notable achievement, worthy of praise from fans of any of its members’ full-time bands. Taken at face value, while you might end up skipping over a track or two, it is still a solid album that deserves a place in the collection of any fan of complex and challenging music. Perhaps the biggest downside is that they have no intention of playing live shows to promote the album, due to the members’ various commitments to their individual bands. But even if their busy schedules do not allow them to write another chapter in the history of The Sound Of Animals Fighting, at least we have this collection of songs as an artifact of how great experimental rock can be.

Meshuggah played at Irving Plaza last night, and it was insane. These guys are just flawless technicians when it comes to their instruments, and it absolutely boggles my mind. But I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself, because part of the reason their performance had such an impact on me, was probably the stark contrast between them and the opening act. So let me start from there.

Hemlock took the stage at 8:00 and proceeded to bludgeon their way through about half an hour of mind-numbingly simple party-thrash, if such a thing exists. Their singer/bassist put more emphasis on making devil horns and pulling on his own dreadlocks, than he did on actually playing his instrument. I suppose it’s somewhat excusable, since the bass was mostly inaudible anyway, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who had grown tired of his antics by the time he insisted that 10 more people join the mosh pit, or when he started his own chant of “Hem-lock, hem-lock, hem-lock …” that no one felt like joining in on. It was fitting that the audience participation consisted of laughing in unison with the last song’s campy “ha-ha-ha-ha” riff, and holding up our middle fingers as prompted.

When Meshuggah came on around 9:00, there was no obnoxious stage banter, fist-pumping, or crowd-baiting. They just launched into their set at full throttle without an introduction of any kind. Their colossal 8-string guitars sounded monstrous yet crisp as they navigated the ridiculously technical rhythms of behemoth riffs. Lead vocalist Jens Kidman seemed to be suspended in water as he loomed out over the crowd, somehow managing to scream in time with the polyrhythmic insanity that was going on. These guys’ talent is other-worldly. I’m sure part of the crowd were a little confounded and unsure what to make of them, but the rest of us were in total awe.

Their setlist featured a few songs from their new album obZen, including the mind-bending “Bleed,” a 7-minute lesson in dexterity that must be drummer Tomas Haake’s double bass equivalent of doing 500 push-ups. The opening riff in that song feels like fast-revolving gears of a machine that has somehow learned to breathe, gradually inhaling and exhaling with the pitch bends. Jeff and I were discussing whether or not it would even be possible to pull off a song like that live, especially with the mechanical precision of the studio recording. Apparently it is possible after all.

I think Irving Plaza is an ideally-sized venue for Meshuggah. Their sound is too big for a cramped nightclub, but their surgical finesse would be totally lost in a stadium. The sound in there was perfect, and I don’t think any one of them missed a note. These guys reign supreme as the undisputed titans of the chaotic groove – a guitar apocalypse that’s somehow grounded with a steady backbeat. If you ever get a chance to check them out live, it is not to be missed. Seriously.

Also, apparently they were opening for Ministry last night. I don’t know, I left after Meshuggah’s metal lobotomy had sufficiently melted my brain and smeared it all over the inside of my skull like paste. Ahhhh.

In the sometimes stale world of modern hardcore, Crime In Stereo Is Dead is as refreshing an album as it is inaccurately named. While full of the aggression and intensity one would expect of a release on Bridge Nine Records, the album is equally big on atmospheric soundscapes and buzzing electronics. Vocalist Kristian Hallbert sings in a breathy falsetto almost as much as he screams, balancing hushed whispers with primal screeching. The haunting bridge of “Third Atlantic” finds him pulling back to channel Nick Drake, only to squeeze one more shout-along chorus into the last 15 seconds of the song. So all this begs to question – is Crime In Stereo still a hardcore band?

Luckily I don’t pretend to be an authority on any genre of music, least of all hardcore, so I don’t intend to answer this question. When Crime In Stereo played at The Knitting Factory last week, I took the decidedly un-hardcore route and opted for the balcony to avoid the moshpit and the stage diving. From a safe distance, I studied the confused crowd as they struggled to understand this unfamiliar notion of melody and dynamic variation, a flock of teenagers desperately wanting to flail their limbs wildly but not finding in this music the requisite breakdowns to which they could do so. It’s a versatility that has allowed the band to tour with diverse acts like Brand New and Poison The Well alike, breaking the hardcore mold to find common ground with a wider range of fans.

No matter who the intended audience may be, Crime In Stereo Is Dead is an ambitious album, each of its 11 tracks determined to make an impact. The band has set out first and foremost to challenge themselves, not content to work within the limitations of a single genre. There are occasional moments where they falter however, like the somewhat light and insubstantial “Animal Pharm,” or the meandering pseudo-psychadelic vibe of “Orbiter.” But neither manages to detract from the intensity that is meticulously built throughout. Overall it is a solid album, the songs’ tight compositions never releasing the tension that propels you through its brief 35 minutes.

One standout track is the bleak “Small Skeletal,” which starts out with a quirky but somber melody over a pulsing rock beat. The verse gradually builds and gives way to an explosive dual-vocal chorus, in which visceral screams and an ambient falsetto create an unlikely call and response, punctuated by thundering half-time drums underneath. The second verse is all-out new wave, with a distorted bass carrying ping-pong muted guitars over a dance-rock beat to another frenzied chorus. By the time the bridge builds to the final climax of the song, the emotional impact is at once draining and exhilarating.

Other tracks experiment with atypical compositional structures, such as the mini-epic “…But You Are Vast,” a song with no repeating sections, that still somehow manages to feel completely unified in its own logic. Three or so minutes and several tempo changes after it began, the song comes to a conclusion that makes a kind of sense that can’t really be explained. It’s rare to come across an album as inspired and uncompromising as Crime In Stereo Is Dead. Full of energy but not formulaic, sincere but completely unpredictable, this is an album that will hit you hard but still stand up to repeat listens. I’m just hoping the album title proves to be ironic and they stick around long enough to build on the potential they’ve shown this time around.

Let’s be honest – it’s easy and it’s popular to gripe that music isn’t as good these days as it was when we were in high school. Most of the bands I listen to will probably never be all that fashionable or achieve the kind of mainstream success the White Stripes have, and that’s fine. I’ve grown to accept that. But what’s really frustrating is when a band that I’ve loved for years, releases an album that’s so average, it’s like a watered down version of their former selves. In a way, I would almost rather hear my musical idols release an EP of Abba covers, or even break up altogether, instead of gradually fading away with album after album of musical mediocrity. I’m talking about the kind of albums that you’ll download, or maybe even buy, scouring the tracks for some remnants of the band you once knew and loved, only to wish you’d spent the time listening to their back catalogue instead.

This month saw the release of several such CDs, all of them so-so. Jimmy Eat World came out with Chase This Light (October 16), a somewhat dull and overly polished record that might go down easier, if it weren’t so perfectly over-shadowed by their 1999 masterpiece Clarity. Thrice‘s new album The Alchemy Index, Vols. 1-2 (October 16) is OK on its own, but it lacks the raw power and urgency of their more aggressive, earlier work. Likewise, Coheed And Cambria‘s No World For Tomorrow (October 23) is expectedly clever and occasionally experimental in its prog noodling, but the passion and intensity of 2002′s Second Stage Turbine Blade is all but gone here. The new Armor For Sleep album, Smile For Them (October 30), is pretty good; I’m just not sure it warranted a review.

So I’ve decided instead to write up one of my favorite records of all time – Downward Is Heavenward, the fourth and final album from Champaign Illinois spacerockers Hum, released in 1998. Hum is perhaps best known for their signature “wall of sound” aesthetic, featuring two droning guitars, slowly crushing you beneath huge waves of layered distortion, while Matt Talbot’s soft voice floats delicately above it all. The dual guitars perpetually build on one another’s dissonance, shaping a sonic landscape of endless lingering suspensions that rarely resolve. Every sound on the album shimmers, from the epic wash of the cymbals to the background noise loops, meticulously generated from delay pedals and multi-effects processors.

Cryptic lyrics about space travel and time machines might serve to obscure the meaning, but underneath the sci-fi allegories and behind the intricately layered arrangements, lies a collection of 10 perfectly crafted love songs. In “Apollo,” the most stripped-down song on the album, Talbot is at his most vulnerable, softly repeating “I’m thinking of a number between everything and two,” while reverb-drenched guitars bounce off each other’s echoes in the distance. The space between lines creates a tension that he refuses to release until the final chord of the song, when he adds “it’s molecules of you,” almost as an afterthought. Every single track on the album is similarly constructed for an intense and moving experience.

Historically, it seems heavily distorted guitars are often employed to distance oneself from the music, to prevent an emotional connection. Yet with Downward Is Heavenward, Hum is somehow able to achieve the opposite effect, their songs sincere and vulnerable, without resorting to visceral screams or high-pitched emo whining. The chemistry between the four musicians is unmistakable, each instrument complementing the others to create a succinct and coherent whole. If you’re able to find the b-sides “Puppets” and “Aphids,” I highly recommend burning all 12 songs on one CD for a solid 62 minutes of transcendent spacerock. Although I wish the band hadn’t broken up 7 years ago, I’m grateful that we have yet to see a wave of imitators selling Hum knock-offs that serve only to cheapen the original, and I’m thankful that we will always have this album as a reminder of what truly great music is capable of achieving.