Metric is certainly not a band that is new to me, or this blog. I have been completely enamored with them since their fourth album, "Fantasies" came out a decade ago. I have written reviews about subsequent albums that you can read here and here. They are a band that has long dominated space on my SD card.
So, imagine how happy I was a couple of days ago to learn that Metric had released their seventh studio album, "Art of Doubt".
I have been streaming it in my car ever since. On the way back from the bus stop, after picking up my high school daughter, she listened for a bit. "Is this Metric?" she asked.
"Yes," I answered.
"I knew it!" she exclaimed. "All of their songs sound the same."
And she is right. Over the years, the band has developed what can only be quantified as a "sound". Danceable drumbeats. Infectious guitar riffs. '80s style synthesizers. Emily Haines' chirpy soprano. This band has always taken a proverbial page from Missing Persons.
So, it all sounds the same. So what? This album is so catchy that you don't care that it mirrors other albums. It tastes good. You like it on the first listen. It is palatable, delectable, and saccharine, which makes you forget Haines' sometimes dark lyrics. ("Is this dystopia?") There is an ethereal quality added to this record that could be explained by producer, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, a know aficiando of dream pop, having produced bands such as M83. This shows on songs like the almost "Dressed to Suppress" and "Risk". But never fear - the band remains unapologetically new wave as on songs "Love You Back", "Die Happy", and "Anticipate". My personal favorite songs are the angry "Dark Saturday", the contemplative "Seven Rules", and the centerpiece, "Art of Doubt", which actually rocks pretty damn hard at times.
There are so many hooks on this record that they will grab you with their sharp barbs and never let you go. Definitely check this one out.
I know, I know. I'm late doing this, but I can't revive my blog without letting you know what I think the Best Album of 2017 was - and that distinction belongs to Slowdive for their self-titled 4th album, their first in 22 years.
Last winter, when the album first came out, I sent a couple of clips to my buddy, Steve. He said, "I like it. I've never heard of them." The truth is, I never heard of Slowdive in the '90s, either - not until my renewed interest in the shoegaze movement starting about six years ago.
So why is that? Why had we never heard of them? Both Steve and I prided ourselves on being up on music back then - we were young and hip. I listened to some shoegaze back then like Catherine Wheel and Lush. Why not Slowdive, who has since gone on to be recognized as one of the most influential of the whole genre?
A lot of it has to do with unfortunate timing. First of all, shoegaze never took off in the United States like it did in Great Britain. The fact that I listened to as much as I did from the scene is testament to the fact that my tastes were pretty broad and far-reaching. In the UK, however, the scene exploded like a dazzling firework, everyone was deeply enamored with it, and, just as quickly, everyone turned on it with revulsion. Slowdive's first album, "Just For a Day", was released in late 1991, on the down swing of things. Slowdive, having taken their name from a Siouxsie & the Banshees song, had been around for a while, and their first album was highly anticipated by fans of that style of music. It was met with disappointment and poor reviews. By then, music critics were calling the music of My Bloody Valentine, and other shoegaze acts, bloated, indulgent, bombastic, artsy fartsy - "the scene that celebrates itself", they called it.
Slowdive - then
This really would be an unfair interpretation of Slowdive and their first album. It is effervescent, languid, borrowing all the best elements of Cocteau Twins. My favorite tracks are the opener "Spanish Air" which combines the mesh of guitars and harmonies of Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell into something akin to a Mamas & Papas song, the scintillating "Catch the Breeze", the somber waltz called "Ballad of Sister Sue", and my favorite, "Primal", which builds up to an impalpable wall of sound, a veritable assault of the senses.
There were problems with their sophomore record, "Souvlaki", as well - a lot of it marketing issues made by the record company. For instance, the record company kept delaying its release date in America, and it was almost a year later (1994) from the British release date. They were weeks into their American tour without having the benefit of having an album out. Also, the British press was abandoning shoegaze in favor for its noisier, less-cerebral cousin, Britpop, bands like Suede and Oasis. And yet "Souvlaki" has gradually come to be known as one of the quintessential shoegaze albums, along with MBV's "Loveless". They enlisted the assistance of avant garde composer Brian Eno, who co-wrote and played on a couple of songs, the spacey and trippy "Sing" and "Here She Comes". Other gems include the urgent "Alison", "Machine Gun" with Goswell doing her best Elizabeth Fraser, and shoegaze staples "40 Days" and "When the Sun Hits". The whole record is a masterpiece.
In 1995, they released their third record, "Pygmalion", which was a departure from their earlier sound. It was more experimental and ambient, relying more on electronica, obviously influenced from their time with Brian Eno. It consists of more atmospheric, moody arrangements with minimalistic instrumentation. Forget "Dark Side of the Moon", "Pygmalion" is just as mind-altering and psychedelic, with lengthy explorations of music like "Rutti", "Visions of LA" and "J's Heaven". This is a really great concept album. Three weeks after its release, their record label dropped them.
Over the next twenty years, all of them moved onto separate projects. Some did solo projects, and some went on to form the alt folk band, Mojave 3 on the 4AD label. Halstead formed a musical project, Black Hearted Brother, and Goswell joined members of Mogwai to form Minor Victories (all of whom I will write about in the future). In the interim, the shoegaze movement was reborn and Slowdive was touted as its hero.
So, now we come to 2017, and the band reunites to record "Slowdive", their first record in 22 years, and on an independent label. The result is clear and crisp, a shoegaze album with ecxellent engineering for the new millennium. The band runs through the spectrum - atmospheric dream clouds cushioning the vocals, both male and female, on "Slomo", guitars tuned for maximum fuzz on "Star Roving", one of the main singles, and Halstead answers Goswell's frantic keening with serenity on "Don't Know Why". "Sugar For the Pill" shows the maturity the band has reached by molding dreaminess into awareness, like waking from a deep sleep, and "No Longer Making Time" is my favorite song, with its alternating sweet verses and exploding choruses. I love to see how Goswell, Halstead, and Christian Savill blend their guitars to make soaring landscapes of exquisite noise. "Falling Ashes" is an eight-minute opus, melancholic pianos and wistful voices layered by a soft breeze. Just lovely.
Who knows what is next for the band? But I am happy that they reunited to form this angelic collection of songs that has dominated me for the better part of the last year. I highly recommend this band if you have never heard them.
Say what you will, but Maynard James Keenan is one of the most interesting men in the music industry - one of the most influential if not controversial. Indeed, his brand of art is so prodigious and log-awaited that his fans wait breathlessly for the sporadic albums to come out. In 2015, we saw a new album by Puscifer, one of the best albums of the year, and next year will boast of a new Tool album, the first in 13 years. Fans are going crazy with anticipation. And this year, we were blessed "Eat the Elephant", the spectacular new album by Keenan's supergroup, A Perfect Circle after a long 14-year hiatus.
Ever the eccentric artist, I enjoy watching and reading interviews with Keenan where he describes the creative process in making his music. I have heard many a Tool fan slobber, "Maynard just writes the words! He doesn't have anything to do with the music!" This is said to diminish his contributions, but can you imagine "Aenima" without Keenan's misanthropic rantings? It is true that he gives his fellow Tool members more creative leeway, because those guys are creative juggernauts. Even with his personal project, Puscifer, Keenan knows how to surround himself with creative influence and channels it like a maestro. The same can be said of A Perfect Circle.
Although the band started as the project of Billy Howerdel. With someone as charismatic as Keenan, it is easy to be eclipsed, but there is no denying that this project is Howerdel's baby. Howerdel worked in the '90s as a guitar tech for several huge bands, including Tool. He roomed in Los Angeles for a while with Keenan and was able to personally play the demos of his music for Keenan. The songs were originally written for a female singer, but Keenan observed that he could imagine himself singing these songs. And thus was A Perfect Circle born - a supergroup having included such musicians as Troy Van Leeuwen from Queens of the Stone Age, Paz Lenchantin from Pixies, and Tim Alexander from Primus and Arizona band Major Lingo, also currently including James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins.
I have been a Tool fan since the early '90s, but I remember the first time I heard A Perfect Circle in 2000. "Mer de Noms" became kind of the soundtrack for that year. It had an edge like Tool, but it was more dreamy, more gothic - in other words, my kind of music. There have been two albums since then, but honestly I didn't listen to those much until preparing for this review, and I was missing out. They are all great.
Between albums, Keenan secludes himself in his wine business in the Verde Valley of Arizona (not too far from me). He has aptly said that having something to do with his life other and music gives him fodder for writing music, otherwise life is just being on the road. When his bands - be it Tool or APC - are finished writing their music, they will send their recordings to Keenan, and he will play the music in his truck, looking for inspiration. When it comes, he will wrestle with it until a song emerges.
Keenan has said with "Eat the Elephant", he said that Howerdel sent him a collection of noisy, guitar-driven power pop songs. Keenan sent the recordings back and told Howerdel to strip the songs down to their most basic level - just piano. And that works; that's how they left the album - most of it circling around Keenan's voice and a piano, giving the whole album more of a primal feel. There are a few aggressive moments, but most of the album has the opiate haze of the impetus of a fever dream, the music ebbing and flowing, which makes Keenan's lyrics even more disturbing.
There is a very obvious political slant to this album. It's obvious that Keenan is not a Trump fan. But let me give you a hint - he's not a fan of the Democrats, either. Keenan is very careful to keep his political affiliations out of his interviews, but here, Keenan is evidently critical of both. This album is a dismal portrait of how screwed our society is.
My favorites are the title track, "Eat the Elephant" - whose meaning is perfectly clear. We are all clearly eating the elephant right now. The song starts out with a smoky, jazzy piano and a cymbal. Keenan's voice is almost weeping, and the guitars are fuzzy and pulsating. "Disillusioned" is one of my favorites - the song, a lament against technology, has movements and changes that take you through the proverbial gamut of emotions. Subdued. That is the word that describes this album. And yet it works. "The Contrarian" builds up to a pulsing wash of sound - a shoegaze song if I have ever heard one. "So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish", a bubbly, caustic tribute to Douglas Adams. "Talk Talk" continues Keenan's obsession, a love/ hate relationship with Christianity and has a poignant message for me as a Mormon - try walking like Jesus, instead of just talking the talk.. My favorite is "Hourglass", a catchy electronic song in the vein of Nine Inch Nails. Keenan breaks tradition and croons in his best imitation of Howard Devoto.
All in all, this album is genius. As everything Keenan does. It makes me hunger for the Tool album, sad to think about how long it will be before another release. But I maintain my argument - in mainstream music, no one is more important than Maynard James Keenan.
