WATCH OUT!

Let me say just a few words about this album, which happens to be one of my favourites of all time. Actually, if you like good music, this album should rate pretty high with you too, so you can just listen to me laud Alexisonfire. And let me tell all you non-awesome-music-loving people who stumble across this blog that 1) Alexisonfire are awe-inspiring, and 2) their name is pronounced Alexis-on-fire. There may be an Alex on fire somewhere, but here no one cares. Even though Alexisonfire released an album prior to Watch Out!, I think most people will agree that Watch Out! is generally the better album. I bought it in August of 2005, around the time I bought my car, and when I got my license it was the only album I played while driving around. ‘It was fear of myself that made me odd’ was one of the few songs I could fit on my MP3 player at the time I went on a cruise holiday with my best mate, and let me tell you, sitting above the vast black Pacific ocean looking out into the night puts your life into perspective.
The first track sets up the tone for the album, ‘Accidents’ presents disassociation from the perpetually ineffectual circle of perceived need in culture. The song calls for the need to redefine what we constitute as important in our lives. One of the best aspects of the lyrics from Alexisonfire, is the fact that they avoid being openly insulting about features of society that the band find problematic. Without literally saying “this is shit”, the music projects into existence multiple alternatives to what is commonly accepted.
‘No Transitory’ is another song that immediately caught my attention; the protracted wail that there’s “no tomorrow” really makes you think about the life we create for ourselves today. Similarly, ‘Happiness by the Kilowatt’ also had a major impact on my life. So much so that I’m still considering having the title tattooed on my back. The haunting lyrics “wake up” stick in your mind when you think about all the stupid moves pulled in the past, and instead fills you with thoughts of your own future; you feel unstoppable because this one song lets you see that if you pull your head out, maybe you can achieve something worthwhile. What the band display is a phenomenal talent for getting across is the fact that life doesn’t get any better while sitting around thinking about how things haven’t turned out your way, the music has the capacity for getting into your head and inspiring you to do something better.
But most of all, this amazing band Alexisonfire really bring home the fact that living your life with and through music, as many of us do, is not about the scene that mindless followers have created for themselves; “this shit is not about pants, and this shit's not about shirts, and this shit is definitely not about hair,”. This shit, this life, is about “having a good fucking time.” Maybe if we all listened to bands that are trying to put out a message that can really motivate instead of just what is marketed as popular, we’d all think more about what we’re doing. Alexisonfire proved, to me at least, that “maybe music isn't dead” after all.

Review: Mastodon - Crack the Skye

Back again, my boredom prompts three posts this week. Yay. So i thought i would review my favourite album of the year so far. Mastodon's 4th album Crack the Skye.

Mastodon have been peddling their unique brand of thrashy extreme sludge metal since the late 90's, however, have always shown a healthy amount of growth with each release. Their debut Remission was as manic as it was heavy, if a little unfocused. Leviathan saw them break through to a larger audience with much improved songwriting and

an interesting nautical theme. Their 3rd, Blood Mountain, saw them soften the vocals abit and improve their production, but for me didnt show enough growth to be equal to the first two, despite that, its still a great listen. Plus they have great facial hair.

All this could not have prepared me for the epicness of their latest concept album Crack the Skye. With a story based around a Steven Hawking style character who for some cosmic reason goes back in time and gets trapped in the body of Rasputin, one could easily thing this quite a silly premise for an album. All this fades away however once you hear the first 2 minutes of Oblivion, an absolute killer of a track full of dynamite riffing, heavy bass, Mastodons trademark insane drumming and some quite beautiful melodic lines. On this album Mastodon have opted to pretty much phase out their harsher vocals, a ballsy move from a band who has built up a loyal and very particular heavy metal following. However, it just works and allows them to inject more melody into their music while remaining heavy. The vocals sound fresh all the way through, in no small part thanks to their being 3 different vocalists in the band, a variety which gives the album the feel of some kind of epic sludge opera, which is way cool if you love sludge metal as much as i do.

The track that really hit me though was "The Czar", i think the best track they have ever written, this track shows how far they have come. Masterfully crafted, the starts out with a beautifully melodic dirge. Then the guitars kick into a riff that will rip your face off while remaining catchy as hell. Then the song falls into this psychedelic atmosphere with a massive face melter of a solo and it ends where it began, with the dirge that fades away into nothing. Of course i can hardly do it justice. The best part is that every other track on the album is up near this one in quality from the catchy kick in the face that is "Divinations" to the extended progressive psychedelic noodlings of "The Last Baron", this album maintains its energy from start to finish, it is truly the first oustanding record of 2009 and itll be a hard one to beat.

Downloads:

Divinations

The Last Baron