Into the Heart of Darkness...

Sometimes, in the course of life, bad things happen. Sometimes they happen for a reason. Sometimes it is pre-ordained. Sometimes it is just bad luck. Well, such a terrible fate was waiting for me at a seemingly innocent gig about a month ago. It has taken me this long just to work through all the trauma of that horrible night. A night that I now feel duty-bound to share with you. To save you, should you find yourself in the same position.

Sit down, gentle readers, and let me tell you a tale...

I was up in Birmingham with an old friend of mine to see A.F.I - by all accounts a cracking band live, and there was much anticipation. The pub we were in was kinda dead, so hoping to grab some good places we headed to the Academy. Little did we know that inside this innocent looking building lurked a terrible darkness. Arriving just as the first opening act were winding down, we grabbed a beer, found some spaces, and settled down to wait out the second act before AFI took the stage. Then began the longest 1/2 hour of my life...

The band was called 'Sick Of It All', and without resorting to cheap jokes, I was. Within about 3 chords. Imagine if you will, dear audience, all the worst parts of metal thrown together. The guitarist was sporting a fake blond mohawk. The bassist looked like a frat party had thrown up on him. The singer had enough ink to put a cartographer to shame. And the drummer... well I can't actually quite remember what the drummer looked like, but in the best tradition of metal drummers, I'm going to assume he looked like the Missing Link.  This was a bad first impression, to say the least, but a band can play good music without good fashion sense? right?

The actual music was basically what you could have expected from a band called 'Sick of it All'. Distortion, fast guitar and screaming. Lots and lots of screaming. The singer's vocal chords must have looked like they'd been through a cheesegrater by the end of the set. From the moment the song started, to the final note, he screamed. If he wasn't screaming, he was pumping his arms trying to get the audience to do the same. And we're not talking about good screaming either. AFI have some screaming, and they can get away with it because it's not too bad - they make it work and they switch it up alot with actual melodic singing. This singer did not stop screaming once. Like literally, there was not a normal recognisable note in the entire set. His voice sounded like a bear with throat cancer. It sounded like an angry squirrel doing Tom Waits impressions.  As you might be able to tell, this was not good singing. You would not find this in a textbook on 'How to Sing'. Except with a big red cross through it. And maybe some skulls for good measure.

As for the songs themselves, well who can tell? Apparently there were some lyrics there, but I honestly couldn't tell - the only word I made out in the whole set was 'die'. And that's only because it was repeated quite alot. So, with the power vested in me, I'm going to declare that all thier songs were heartfelt confessions of their eternal love for puppy dogs, rainbows and big happy smiles. Yeah, that's the ticket - makes me feel much better...

I realise this review is a touch one sided, so I should probably be a bit positive about the music... well the drummer wasn't too bad. He must have had biceps like steel girders to keep up with all the double-time machine-gun drumming going on! And the guitarist... well he certainly knew how to turn on a distortion pedal. I'm just not too sure if he knew how to turn if off again.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. By the end of the set I couldn't take it anymore - despite my love of metal as a genre, I had to go hide in the loos until the buggers had stopped playing. I did not realise it when I first passed through that dark portal, but that night saw the end of a quest I did not even know I was undertaking. This was not just a bad opening band, gentle readers, no. They were the bad opening band. And somehow, I feel a cold comfort in knowing that things may never be as bad as that dark, dark 30 minutes. I have weathered the storm of terrible thrash-metal, faced up to the demons of god-awful fashion choices. I have endured a band so bad they overcome my abilities to metaphor about just how bad they were. And I have come out stronger. Let it be known, dear readers, that I do such things to warn you from being caught in such a foul trap as I was.

Goodnight.


AFI were good though

More Icelandic warblings by the worlds leading ice-flow hipster

I have a suspicion that there is a correlation between the sound of a band, and the sort of surroundings they see when they look out the window. Built up affluent cities lead to fast, insistent tunage.  More industrial townships (like the German old-school metalworking towns) lead to slower, more pounding beats. When you start to move out into the country, the pace of life slows down, and so does the music – there is a greater sense of peace, as well as the constant danger of banjo attack* But the point of this rambling theory is Iceland. Iceland seems to be a magical place, full of wonder and a pearlescent sheen that covers everything like a cross between a travel agents and a perfume advert. I say this because all the music that comes out of Iceland is beauty incarnate – melodies so delicate they feel like they would break if you even looked at them; singing so ethereal that you’re pretty sure the singer isn’t entirely human. Bjork, Sigur Ros, Seabear... the best word I can think to sum them all up is atmospheric. Two new albums have dropped out of Iceland recently, so I thought it high time to give the Icelanders some love! So here is part one, ‘Go’ by Jonsi

I don’t blame you if you don’t immediately recognise the name of Jonsi. But queue up any of his songs, and you’ll certainly recognise his sound – close your eyes and you could swear blind you were listening to a Sigur Ros album. And you’d be pretty much right – Jonsi (real name Jón Þór Birgisson, according to the wonders of Wikipedia) is the lead singer of Sigur Ros, a band well known for creating music so beautiful it makes Helen of Troy look like Gordon Brown on a bad hair day. ‘Go’ is his first solo effort, and is as beautiful and meticulously crafted a record as you’d expect from the one responsible for Sigur Ros’ delicate melodies. Starting with the upbeat duo of ‘Go Do’ and ‘Animal Arithmetic’, the 9 tracks making up Go show a far greater emphasis on pop than Sigur Ros - most of the cuts have a renewed urgency about them that will be quite refreshing to anyone tired of 9-minute minimalist epics. But make no mistake, this is still Sigur Ros through and through. Indeed, taking the two side-by-side, it becomes clear that Jonsi is the main force behind Sigur Ros’ songwriting – the ethereal harmonies, the stratospheric vocals... this is a Sigur Ros album by any other name. Compare for instance the beautifully quiet and delicate "Grow Til Tall" with Sigur Ros’ equally lovely “Svefn-g-englar” – the stylistic similarities are very clear. Jonsi has swapped things up this time around though – as I mentioned earlier the stronger focus on pop lends itself to more upbeat tunes than his main band, and you’ll definitely find yourself falling asleep less through this album! ‘Go’ also sees Jonsi experimenting more with different languages – Sigur Ros famously wrote sang several of their albums in a made up language called ‘Hopelandic’ – a kind of bastardisation of Icelandic and gibberish. It’s undeniable that it added to the mystery and beauty of the songs, but it also formed a barrier between the band and the listeners. You couldn’t become as involved with the songs, because the vocals became just another layer of texture, rather than an anchor or a story holding the framework of the music together. ‘Go’ sees him singing more in his native Icelandic (which he also did for the latest Sigur Ros – clearly he's forgotten how to speak Hopelandic!) and with increasing snatches of English – ‘Tornado’ talks of the protagonist exploding like a volcano and laying waste to everything as a tornado, and while it’s still difficult to follow the thread of the stories (if indeed any do exist) it helps create a feeling that you actually know a bit of what's going on inside his head.

I guess my recommendation on this album comes down to a simple question - do you like Sigur Ros? If you like them, you will like this album, simple as that. It's a wonderful distillation of what makes Sigur Ros fantastic, while eliminating some of the gumpf that may have turned people away from them in the past. And if you don't like Sigur Ros... well then have a listen anyway - it's also a fantastic pop record in it's own right.

Tune in next week (or whenever I manage to get round to it) and I'll take you through "We Built A Fire" by Seabear! See you there!


* herds of wild banjos are a common sight throughout the heavily rural areas of the US, as well as parts of Cornwall and Norfolk. While weak individually, they are deadly in packs

And tonight, for your listening pleasure...

Finishing that review of 'Heaven Is Whenever', I suddenly realised that I hadn't included any music links for you to listen to. This must be rectified post haste!

Constructive Summer - fantastic song, fantastic piano. Surprisingly uplifting

Chillout Tent - Drugs drugs drugs. And oranges. And a rather creative video!

Hurricane J - the big tune off 'Heaven is Whenever'

And finally The Weekenders - another one off the new album. Possibly my second-favourite on the album, the tune is simply fantastic. And he seems so damn happy!

Make with the clickies!

In which a singer who looks like someone's dad starts acting like it...

 The Hold Steady deal in tableaux. Now onto their 5th Album, the New York band have cornered the market in indie-rock snapshots of drugs, booze and sexed-up 20-somethings in Manhattan. So I came at their latest offering, ‘Heaven is Whenever’ expecting another 12 tales of drug overdoses, hangovers and one-night stands that made their previous albums so damn enjoyable. But something strange is afoot on this LP. It creeps up on you slowly, and isn’t obvious at first glance, but the unthinkable has happened.

The Hold Steady have grown up.

The songs still have the same driving rock and the melodies are still razor sharp (with one serious caveat – I’ll get to that in a moment), but the songwriting has definitely taken a different turn. Take lead single ‘Hurricane J’, where singer Craig Finn advises that it’s better to be “22 and banging round in restaurants than 22 and banging round in bars”... Seriously? Is this the same man who sang about getting so smashed on drugs at a festival that he passed out, woke up in the medical tent and started making out with the first girl he saw? (‘Chillout Tent’) Or who described his marijuana trip as “starting in a vestibule and ending in a hospital”? (‘Hot Soft Light’) You find the same ideas throughout – the fantastic ‘Soft in the Center’ finds him giving some surprisingly zen relationship advice to a guy just starting on dating “I know what you’re going through. I had to go through that too”, while ‘Barely Breathing’ has the band firing salvos against the overly violent nature of mosh-pit shows. It seems that the Hold Steady have finally started to mature a little bit. It’s a strange change, and at times the transition is rather jarring – the aforementioned Barely Breathing comes off as just too preachy – but it’s a surprisingly strong and coherent album. The only track that harks back lyrically to their old songs is ‘Rock Problems’, which sees Finn back on his old stomping grounds – a party in Brooklyn where the music is loud and the drink is strong. But even here his new-found maturity invades – Finn finds himself cornered by a fan who asks if he was drunk at a previous show “since some kids from the net said the sound kinda sucked”. But it safely passes, and he goes back to being drunk again.

So outside of this strange new world, how is the album as a whole? In a word: Fantastic. In two: Bloody Fantastic. The centre of the Hold Steady has always been Finn and his beautifully human way with words. This new mature approach to lyrics has been greatly helped by a renewed emphasis on actually singing – in previous albums Finn has half sung, half spoke his lyrics to rather mixed results (in my view at least – I know some people love his delivery). Heaven is Whenever sees him making a far more conscious effort to actually sing, and the results help drive the songs along better. There is still a healthy streak of D.I.Y Punk running through the band, but this time around it is counterbalanced by a more professional sheen, no doubt in part brought on by some serious mainstream appeal after hits like ‘Constructive Summer’. Which, sadly, brings me to the one downside of this album. The previous albums have been bolstered by some truly stupendous piano work by Franz Nikolay, and his piano lines helped make songs like ‘Constructive Summer’ or ‘Stuck Between Stations’ into amazing tunes. Sadly he left the band before this album, and it really shows. There is a far stronger emphasis on guitar, but the hole left by Nikolay’s departure still gapes. As I was listening to the album, I kept waiting for the beautiful piano lines to sweep in. There are still some good keyboard parts from his replacement, and the melodies on the whole are amazing, but I can’t help thinking how much more fantastic a song like ‘The Weekenders’ would be with their old pianist at the keys. Also the album does deflate just a touch with the softer ‘We Can Get Together’ in the centre – it’s a lovely song, and the sentiments are touchingly sad, but it just goes on a touch too long.

Admittedly though, I’m nitpicking. Heaven is Whenever is a fantastic album, and one that deserves some seriously play from anyone with a love of rock. The more mature direction, while surprising, really helps the album as a whole. Let us hope they continue on such a strain! Go, grab it. You won’t be disappointed. Unless you were expecting the CD case to be full of strippers or something. Then you will be disappointed. Sorry.