Only By the Night

"Oh wow. Now I have a choice between following in Cook's steps and reviewing an album I hate, or just following my rainbow-filled path in reviewing good albums. OR: I could do both! HA! That would certainly out-indie Cook!" Well, now you know my thought process of how I come to review Only By the Night by the famous Kings of Leon. This album I have a love-hate relationship with: all the songs are actually brilliant and I like listening to them but they ALL SOUND THE SAME >:( This obviously doesn't make me very happy.

So to begin: the instrumentals can be extremely awesome at times. But at other times? Not so much. A prime example is in "Crawl". The song seems just like a mash of random sounds from a guitar, drum set, bass and voice. None of it works in conjunction so you end up having the feeling that each player is trying to out-play each other on a subtle level. Then there's things like in "I Want You". There's an insistent cowbell playing through pretty much the whole song. It makes no sense to put it in! They could have just inserted a ride cymbal or something but nooooo they had to be hipster and all and put in a fucking cowbell! Oh well.

Okay so there are some good songs on the album. Such as the famous "Sex on Fire" (which I'm NOT going to talk about) and "Closer". Closer is incredibly weird but is still awesome. Not much else to say really... mainly because it is one of the few songs on the album that WORKS.

Another thing that pisses me off is the singer's voice. I mean jeez! How bad can it get? As bad as J_____ B_____ (common decency doesn't allow me to mention this name)? Gosh.

Thats really all I have to say on this album. Not much ey. Oh well. The next one will be LOOOOOOOOOONG. I promise.

-Alex

Metallica-...And Justice For All

Hey, Cook here, so yesterday I was rummaging through my CD collection trying to find something I felt like listening to and I cam across this. I never gave it a good listen through so I put it on. And the result? Let's just say I'm tired of all the positive reviews here and I want something to rip into for a change.

This CD, being their 4th LP was met with great critical claim and became the standout Metallica album before The Black Album overrided that status 3 years later. The album contains fantastic guitar/drum work but they're a thrash band, so no points for that. It contains 9 songs and the album runs for around 70 min. Notice a problem? Now I have nothing against long songs, I mean I've listen to Brain Salad Surgery, I know what I'm talking about. But as for this album, they're consistenly long with very little change within each other;intro, riff for 3-4 min, guitar solo, riffage, mini outro. You could apply this outline to 8 of the 9 songs on the album. It is criminal for an album to contain 8-12 songs that run extremely long with little change between each track (Dragonforce/Tool, heed this warning). The album does have one saving grace, One. But it doesnt even pull this off uniquely. After a slow intro and a few beautiful verses/choruses, it goes into another thrash riff/solo/outro, albeit it manages to keep the slow feeling of the first few minutes. Doesn't stop it from being the best song on the album.

Metallica have a bad habit of creating an extremely similar album allthroughout it and getting universal claim for it. Personally, I prefer this band's rival, Megadeth. Their songs are repetitive but alot shorter and Dave Mustaine's voice doesn't want to make make me stick pins in my cochlea. To like this album you really need to worship Metallica as a band, otherwise its boring and bland. Maybe not though. Maybe I'm just biased because Megadeth have gotten so much shit because of the fact they're not Metallica. Maybe this album is the magnum opus of thrash metal everywhere. Of course that means Nickelback have artistic potential, Good Charlotte have totally released some good songs, and Karen O isn't the sexiest thing to happen to music since Marylin Munroe got her tits out at the President's birthday.

Pros
- Great guitaring/drumming
-1st half of One is great

Cons
-Repetive/Dull throughout the album
-Songs all follow the same pattern
-Too long

The Flaming Lips

Well well well. It is nice to see cook take some initiative and do my job for me! Anyway. This is one very special review as it is of one of my personal favourite bands: The Flaming Lips. So straight to their not-so-recent album "At War with the Mystics".

This is, again, not an album for the faint hearted. If you buy the deluxe edition like I did, you end up with a bursting 16 songs (totalling about 1.2 hours). If you decide to be a cheap-ass and buy just the normal edition you end up with 3 less songs, which are namely "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Time Travel... Yes!" and the longer edition of "The Yeah Yeah Yeah song." Okay, so "Time Travel... Yes!" is not really a song at all, just a guy talking about how time travel exists in our own minds with some awesome trippy effects in the background. "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the other hand is a cover of Queen's original version and thus it is immediately awesome. "The Yeah Yeah Yeah song"... well its a longer and better version of the original one.

So the best song is most definitely "The Yeah Yeah Yeah song". It's really catchy and still retains the band's unique and sometimes weird sound. But of course, me being me, I'm not going to talk much about that song as although however catchy it is, it's still boring compared to the other songs. The most INTERESTING song is of course "Haven't got a clue". And as the name suggests, I've got no fucken idea what's going on with the key. It seems to be in one key but then SUDDENLY! It changes leaving you saying "W.T.F" over and over. On top of this, there are weird insertions of the band members coughing, burping etc. In one instance you can hear one of the members saying "I'll kill you" but the voice is sped up so it sounds incredibly cute.

And then there's "The Wizard Turns On..." Now this... I really have no idea what this is all about. There aren't any lyrics but this isn't what is weird. Lots of songs do this. It's just the fact that there isn't any real main melody/riff or anything. It's just, well, texture. Kinda like elevator music on lots and lots of crack and drunk at the same time. But it is still a brilliant piece of... texture.

Finally, there's "Pompeii AM Gotterdammerung". This song comes pretty darn close to beating "The Yeah Yeah Yeah song" to the best song of the album. It has this orgasmic harmonic progression that repeats almost over and over again but still it never gets old. The lyrics are un-deciferable as the band sings in falsetto (squeeee!). There really isn't much else to say about this brilliant song other than the interesting choice of instruments. There's an electronic organ, many synthesisers, a flute sound and also an extremely prominent bass line.

Buy this album! Even if it did come out in 1999, it would make a brilliant edition to your CD/iTunes library. Trust me. You will be listening to this whole album for years to come. Not one song on it is mediocre and all are overly awesome. :D

-Alex

Amazing and Unqiue Guitarists pt1

Cause I hate to see a good thing die and cause walker is a lazy shit I've decided to secretly update this blog. Anyway...

I've always been a fan of rock and always will be. The core element of a rock band is their guitarist. Actually, this topic stems from a conversation with a friend; I asked him some of his favourite guitarists were and he responded without the slihtest bit of irony Benji and Joel Madden from Good Charlotte. Instant facepalm followerd by instant rant. So these are some of guitarists who are the best in the area they specialise in and you should definitely check them all out

Buckethead-My favourite guitarist of all time, Buckethead can do everything: Slow, beautiful ballads (Padmasana/Whitewash);pure noise craziness (The Android of Notre Dame/We Are One);riff based jams(Jumpman/Spokes On The Wheel Of Torment) and pure shred awesome(Soothsayer/Nottingham Lace). Whoever you are, check those last two songs out, I've managed to convert some rap/techno friends into liking these songs. You can't go wrong

Tony Iommi/Angus Young-If you recognise these two (Black Sabbath /ACDC respectively), youll know they are the best riff creators of all time. Iommi can boast Iron Man/Sweet Leaf/Fairies Wear Boots while Young has Hells Bells/Back In Black/Thunderstruck up his sleeve. Knowledge of these two essential for any fan of rock is required.

Dave Gilmour-The champion of slow but emotional solos. His best works come from PinkFloyd's big 4 (Dark Side/The Wall/Animals/Wish You), but pay attention especially to Shine On You Crazy Diamond/Comfortably Numb. Not even all the butchered covers on youtube can diminish the quality of Gilmour's playing

Paul Gilbert- The champion shredder, you want insane fast music you come to this guy. He's been in several bands such as Racer X and has had a very good solo career and was a core inspiration to Buckethead. Go to youtube and listen to Get Out Of My Yard/Technical Difficulties, he can make any amateur guitar player shrivell in fear.

I was thinking about adding more but then I realised this post was getting too long, sorry :). Btw, a person at my work has started up a band called Constant Congress and they're rooly rooly good, great instrument playing all around and excellent vocals. I'd be very happy if you checked them out. Now, Go Go Gadget end post
Cook

Normally...

Now usually you would think that I would have more time during the long weekend but... well... exams and such eat through my time. SORRY :(

-Alex

Toxicity - SOAD

The more cultured people bitch about how modern day music is too repeatitive. Coldplay have gotten a lot of shit for this and I agree, a Coldplay album is too repeatitive to be enjoyed as a whole album. However I am now about to be a hypocritical arse and talk about one of my favourite albums of all time, Toxicity by System of a Down.

Toxicity is SOAD's 2nd full length album and is the one that brought them into the limelight. Being one of the 1st albums I ever got, yes there will be nostalgia interjected into my opinion. Now the problem; 11 of the 14 tracks on the album sound extremely similar and you could be forgiven for mistaking one for another. But I think they're all great. Not good but great. Putting aside the repetition of instruments and the vocals, done by the extremely talented Serj Tankian, are bloody brilliant. He shines through on tracks such as Forest, Psycho and X. But now the other 3 songs, Chop Suey!, Toxicity and Aerials. They are all fantastic with great composition and flow. They're all slower and softer than the other 11 and that's what makes them stand out.

I can't give this album anything but a 10/10. Every song is great and in some cases perfect. Buy it now as a real copy, you'll want to listen to this all the time.

Recommended Songs:
-Chop Suey!
-Toxicity
-Needles
-Forest
-Aerials

Cook

MIX

Hay hay HAY! What have I done with the traditional album reviewing? I felt I should give you guys a mix of single songs that I listen to in my itunes playlist :D ENJOY or else >:(

The Ghost Inside (Broken Bells)- This song is very catchy but still pretty awesome. It has everything a good song needs: music, instruments... all that stuff. Check it out!

Myriad Harbour (The New Pornographers)- A brilliant song from this fine band, which I have yet to review. Myriad Harbour is a collection of interesting sounds fused together to create some of the awesomest music I have heard. Ever.

A Day in the Life (The Beatles)- C'moooon. Everyone likes the Beatles right? Right? Of course they do. But this song is clearly so awesome that you could listen to it forever and never get sick of it. Hmmmm I can feel the need to review this album!

Viva la Vida (Coldplay)- A fine song from the masters of making songs sound the same, Coldplay! This song comes from one of their more unique albums where NOT every song sounds the same. i am of course talking about Viva la Vida (tha- thats the actual name of the album. AND the song... how original).

Forever Young (Youth Group)- An old classic from a not THAT old band... Youth Group! Everyone should listen to this song at least 500 times during their life.

These songs are just SOME of the songs in my favourite playlist. There are of course most of the songs from the albums past reviewed (except Operator Please... bleeeeagh). So do your ipod a favour. BUY THESE SONGS. :D

-Alex

MGMT

Okay so I now discover that I have to review Congratulations! Congratulations is MGMT's latest album and many people seem to think that it is their worst. But, being the fantastic non-conformer that I am (dear god that sounded emo-ish), I actually LOVE this album.

Congratulations is a nice change from the heavy guitars and/or annoying synthesizers that frequently appear in modern conventional music. Congratulations is a culmination of fresh sounds that you probably wouldn't hear from anyone BUT MGMT. So obviously when you hear it on the radio you can impress you're existent/non-existent friends and say "HOLY SHIT THAT'S MGMT".

There isn't really a 'best song' on this album I find. All the songs are equally as awesome and they all get better the more you listen to them. So at first you might hate this album but listen to it a bit more and you might find yourself toe tapping or something as equally corny to signify to the rest of the world that this music is awesome.

Really you have to hear this album before you buy it to decide whether it's worth it. Many people I have talked to about Congratulations say that it wasn't worth the money. So I guess it's up to you. You can listen to the album FREE on MGMT's website: http://www.whoismgmt.com/au Just click on the link: "Listen to Congratulations"

Have fun deciding! :D

-Alex

THE OFFSPRING!

The Offspring. How awesome! Specifically their album "Conspiracy of One". This album is fantastic. Almost all of the songs are catchy (ones which are not include "Vultures") and all of them are GOOD catchy.

As with all offspring albums, this album starts with a 'song' called intro. Well, really it isn't a song its just the band saying a few words to lead into the first REAL song (Come out Swinging). Of course, all of the songs on here are fantastically ROCK. Guitars and heavy drums and stuff! WOO!

Best song on this album? Deffs "One fine Day". This song has funny lyrics that you can sing along to. Drunk. Fun for the whole family! ^^. But not only that! The song is immensely catchy. You'll find yourself singing it in history and then getting told off for shouting in class :D.

SO. Buy this album? Definitely! DO IT! :)

-Alex

PS: sorry for the shitty review. I'm under pressure with work so forgive me please.

I hope

I hope to god that you guys liked Cookie's post. My posts (which are obviously substantially better :D) should resume as normal today.

-Not as lazy and opinionated

-Alex

RIOT!!!!! - Paramore

I am cook, and I'm graciously accepted to review an album today partly so Walker could gain a rest for a change but more likely that I want to rant about things that I like. But not today...

Paramore's 2nd album Riot was one of the 1st albums I bought with my own money and this is why I had never fully listened to it until now. After giving it a full listen I fell disappointed and un satisfied. There are of course great moments: Hayley William's soaring voice over the multi-layered guitars in "Hallelujah"; the enticing bridge where Hayley Williams's voice gently strokes your cochlea for aural pleasure in "That's What You Get"; the build up of Hayley "hotness" Williams's lines into the guitar solo in"Misery Business". The more alert of you will have noticed that Hayley Williams is the best performer who carries the album with her magnificent voice. Not to say all other performers are shit, the drummer has some interesting moments while the guitarist/bassist exist for the sake of being there.

Of course Hallelujah is the best song, closely followed by That's What You Get, but some other songs are simply horrible. When It Rains/We Are Broken are painfully emotionless ballads, Let The Flames Begin sounds like a weak Evanescence ripoff and Miracle is boring pop rubbish. Buy the album if you see it for $10, her voice is worth it

Lazy Opinionated Bastard
Cook

No post

No post for today. too snowed under with work

100 VIEWS

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! 100 VIEWS! WOO! :D

Over excited much :/

OOPS

Forgot Colplay's link :P

http://www.coldplay.com/

Coldplay

Coldplay is one of those bands that have their absolutely brilliantly amazing songs and then some brilliantly shit-house songs. But possibly their best album is "X&Y". It's choc-full of sleeeepy songs that you could fall asleep on a rock to.

I think what makes this such a good album is the amount of songs that are really good on it. The album doesn't have one mediocre song on it. All of the songs are well made and have a lot of thought put into them. IF you're not into those sort of songs that you can relax to then this album probably isn't for you.

The best song on the album would definitely have to be "Talk". I'm not really sure why but it just stands out from the rest and I've kept on coming back to this song to listen to it for ages (about 2 or 3 years now). Other great songs on it include: "A Message" and "Swallowed in the Sea".

Unfortunately there is a downside to this album. As with most of Coldplay's songs, the songs tend to be repetitive with choruses repeating sometimes up to 4 times in a row. Ridiculous right? This might be why the songs mentioned above are so good. THEY DON'T FRIGGEN REPEAT EVERY 5 SECONDS.

So. Buy this album? Thats a maybe. I found the album worth the money but you might not. Coldplay isn't for everyone. If you like sleepy, relaxing songs then buy this album. You'll feel so cool even antarctica will be too hot for you :P

-Alex

LINKS

To give you guys a scope of the music I'm reviewing I'm gonna post some links to the band's sites and also some Youtube vids.

http://muse.mu/ This is Muse's website

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8OOWcsFj0U&feature=channel Undisclosed desires

http://www.thejezabels.com/ This is The Jezabels website. It has all of their songs on it. Just click on the media section

http://www.modestmousemusic.com/ Modest Mouse's website. Also has some vids on it

http://www.myspace.com/operatorplease Operator Please's myspace page. They don't have a website that I know of. But there still is some live streaming on their page.

Thats it for now! :D

-Alex

The Jezabels

Hooray! ^^ It's the Jezabels turn to be reviewed! Specifically their album "She's so Hard". Alright its a kind of weird name and I'm not sure where it came from (none of the 5 songs are called "She's so Hard") but this is still a great album.

As mentioned before, this album only contains 5 songs. BUT WORRY NOT! Each of the songs are relatively lengthy so it comes to 25 minutes total listening time. Of the 5 songs the longest is "Into the Ink", which also happens to be their best song on the album.

"She's so Hard" has about 3 absolutely fantastic songs on it and 2 good songs. Namely these songs are "Hurt Me", "Easy to Love" and "Into the Ink". Admittedly each song seems to be a bit repetitive but after listening to them for the third time you get to hear a lot of new textures you don't really hear the first time.

What really drew me in was the singer. If there had been any other singer this album would not be any where NEAR as good as it is. Three thumbs up for her singing. She has this power beneath her voice that acts as the base for the whole song and gives the rest of the song its power.

So. Buy this album? Definitely. Buy more of their albums? I've got no friggen idea but I'm assuming their as good as this one :)

-Alex

Operator Please

So originally today I was going to review the wonderful heaven of music that is the Jezabels but instead I thought I would instil in you all my hate of pop music. Operator Please is a perfect example to show you this hate of mine.

Operator please released their second album "Gloves" quite recently in April. According to Wikipedia the group is an indie-pop-rock band but according to itunes the entire album of Gloves is pop. I'm going with itunes on this one. Sorry Wikipedia. Most of the songs on "Gloves" sound the same. Not in the riffs but in the structure its just verse chorus verse chorus chorus. There's not even a friggen bridge for chrissakes. Really when you listen to the whole album you find yourself wondering a few times whether you changed songs or not.

Admittedly there is ONE good song that follows the formula. "Back and Forth". The riff in this song actually sounds presentable and not something the band thought up of in two seconds to beef up the number of songs on the album. Really this is a must have song. DO NOT BUY THE ALBUM. IT SUCKS. I should know. I wasted 16 bucks on it...

With this album I found myself forcing myself to get through the album. This is not something an album should sound like and unfortunately, most albums do :/

-Alex

Muse

Muse is one of those bands who like to experiment with their music. So today I'm gonna talk about their 'latest' album, Resistance (which came out in September 2009). Resistance is one of those rare albums in which all of the songs are equally fantastic. Well, maybe not EQUALLY but their all pretty darn good.

As I said before, Muse likes to experiment with their songs. Anyone who has listened to their most popular song "Super Massive Black Hole" and then listened to "Undisclosed Desires" will know what I'm talking about. "Undisclosed Desires", which is on the Resistance album, was their most poular song on the album. Personally I don't agree with this because MK Ultra is obviously so much more awesome. Just listen to it on youtube or something. Or better yet, actually buy the album! But back to Undisclosed Desires. This song relies heavily on synthesisers and a really heavy bass. This isn't such a bad thing though because even for an experiment, it was pretty good.

So really the Resistance album is one you absolutely MUST BUY. DON'T DENY YOUR EARS THIS MUSICAL HEAVEN. So buy it. :D

Modest Mouse

So to kick it off I thought I would start off with a fantastic album from Modest Mouse called "We were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank". Modest mouse is definitely NOT for everyone. Its a culmination of weird sounds that fit the title of the song. Such as in the first song "March into the Sea" there is an accordion accompanied with squeaky wood to give the feeling of a ship on the sea.

The singing isn't really pleasant to hear but you slug it out through the song to hear the awesome riffs during the chorus. But as terrible as the vocals are, it suits the style of Modest Mouse and gives it the band's distinct sound. Eventually you get used to it :P

By far the best song in this album is "Dashboard". The riff at the start captivates you and keeps you captivated so that the whole day it will annoy you from the back of your mind to the point that you end up singing it throughout the day to satisfy your new found "Modest Mouse addiction".

SO. Buy this album? Yes. Every song sounds individual and is relatively addictive. BUT: if your really not into this style of music just buy "Dashboard" or "March into the Sea" for the sake of buying a brilliant song. :)

So

Because this is the very first post I don't really expect anyone to see this other than my friends and people who I can actually talk to in real life. So basically this is a blog about the music I actually like and not stuff that people listen to to be 'popular'. And it's also about music that I dislike so much my ears bleed to listen to it :/. So judge me how you will: it really won't stop me from writing this blog :D