Finding Peace: Blue October's Latest Album

Blue October

For a long time, I have been part of an online community that practically worships the work of Blue October - and with reason.  This band is genius.  However, I know many fans that were taken aback by their eighth studio album, "Home".  Why?  It's too happy!

It's no secret that singer-songwriter Justin Furstenfeld has a history of mental illness.  This struggle has oozed into the music, and the lyrics have often been tortured and angst-driven, the words often bit off and spat out with virulence, broaching a panorama of subjects like torture and murder fantasies.  Justin has often put so much of himself in his lyrics that his fans are often familiar with his personal struggles.  This culminated in "Any Man in America", an angry diatribe against his wife and custody case.  It was a little to much for the fans.  That album was followed by 2013's "Sway" which loosened its proverbial collar and veered into the direction of dance rock, but still had some of Justin's trademark weirdness.

So what's the deal with the new album?  One friend pointed out the primary single and radio hit - the title track "Home".  "I don't want to hear Justin singing about 'Daddy loves Momma' and 'dancing in the kitchen'!" said my friend.  "It's just not the Blue October that I'm used to.  What the hell has happened to Justin??"

Well, he got happy, apparently.  Give the guy a break!  Hasn't he suffered enough?  Obviously, he's in love again, and the songs are pleasantly sappy.  It's refreshing to see him happy.

That said, maybe there is method to the madness.  Although the songs are well-crafted and polished and palatable, none of them grab me as hard as anything on "Foiled".  The ferocity, the tenacity, the gritted-teeth passion that made me love Blue October is missing.

The opener, "Coal Makes Diamonds", is probably one of my favorite tracks with its piano intro and Justin's plaintive howls.  "Driver" could be a remake of "Sway", but they are both catchy songs, so it is forgivable.  "Heart Go Bang" is one of those sappy songs that I was mentioning.  It is incomparably hopeful, although the song is not that bad.  The dreamy background vocals at the end give it an added dimension.  "I Want It", the other single, is a fist-pumping anthem that could easily play at a self-help seminar.

The redeeming quality of this record is that the band veers off into dream pop for several songs, focusing on atmospherics and an ethereal quality that, of course, to me, is quite pleasing - songs like "We Know Where You Go" with its catchy bridge, "Break Ground", the sprawling "Time Changes Everything", and the shoegazey "The Still".  There are even some residues of aggression on songs in "The Lucky One" and the dissonant "Houston Heights".  Throw a couple of remixes, and you have a pretty good album.

These guys are all good musicians and songwriters.  They're not going to make a bad album.  However, this is probably one of my least favorite in their catalog.  The edge, the raw power of human emotion that was always prevalent in their music is gone.  But if it means peace for Justin - may they never recapture that.

Moroni's Review of Blue October's "Sway" and "Debris" EP

Okay, anything I could say to express how much I have looked forward to this album would be a severe understatement.  Blue October ranks up there among my top five favorite bands, which also include (in no particular order) Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Muse, the Pixies, and Silversun Pickups.  So to say that Blue October is coming out with a new album is a really huge deal to me!

I stumbled on this band quite by accident, shortly before they started hitting the airwaves.  I saw their name in a magazine and ordered their fourth album "Foiled" just because I liked the name of the band.   I remember getting the CD in the mail in early 2006.  I popped it in, and, the first moment I heard Justin Furstenfeld's growl on "You Make Me Smile", I was hooked.  The sheer poetry and power of his words, the bizarre juxtaposition of soft music and lyrics about disposing corpses was nearly titillating.  One song would be mournful with an equally morose violin, and the next would be raw and angry, accented by Justin's painful roar and buzzsaw guitars.  This album soon became a favorite of mine, but not just me.  My wives and children also fell in love with this album,  Soon after, the singles "Hate Me" and "Into the Ocean" dominated the radio, and then everyone knew who Blue October was, much to my chagrin.

Since then, I have been able to enjoy their back catalog, as well as live and acoustic releases.  Then have come out with a couple of albums since then - "Approaching Normal", which is one of my favorites, and "Every Man In America", which was an angry album that even shocked many fans.  (Still good, though.)

But in my mind, none of these releases matched the artistry, cohesion, and the emotionally gripping intensity of "Foiled".  Until the new album "Sway".  This is Blue October's 7th album!  Most bands seem to lose their artistic integrity after a few albums.  How is it that a band can release that many good albums, and then years later release one that is even better?  It boggles my mind.  Do you know how rare that is?  It is well known that Furstenfeld suffers from mental issues.  Maybe there is a proverbial method to the diagnosed madness.  Maybe the cliche is true that from pain comes beauty.  Because this album is beautiful.  It is fresh and raw and there is none of the tiredness that seems to settle on bands that have been around a long time.  Blue October will be around a long time.  Hopefully.

Along with the many Blue fans I have acquired over the years, I started hearing whispers of the new album earlier this year.  One of my closest Blue friends, Becca, told me that the album even reminded her of Cocteau Twins.  I was one of those people who sat and pathetically listened to every song preview on Amazon before the release of the album.  Upon listening to the previews, I could see what Becca was talking about.  It was definitely a different sound for Blue October.  It was less edgy with a more textured and swirly vibe.  I liked what I was hearing.

Last week, the album was released, and I was able to download the new album, along with its accompanying acoustic EP, "Debris".  Luckily, I had a short road trip planned, and I got to drive through the vivid landscapes of Northern Arizona while listening to the new album.

The album starts languidly, beautifully with an acoustic guitar and violin, starting with Justin's soft voice, whispering:

How did he make the waves crash over?

The song is called "Breathe, It's Over", and this piece is short and wafting with the reverb that seemed to dominate this album.  It is a great way to start the album.  Then it blends into "Sway", the title track.  The song is simple, driven mainly by a pounding bassline and stripped down lead guitar, and cemented by an infectious drum beat.  The song reminds me of something either by The Cure or early New Order, if it was sung by Peter Gabriel.  It finishes out with a haunting violin solo by Ryan Delahoussaye.

The following track is "Angels In Everything", which is an anthem that is worthy of Blue October.  I don't want to say that Blue October has a "sound", because their pieces are very eclectic.  But this song does have their signature.  "Bleed Out"  is one of my favorites.  It starts out with a plaintive piano, and then explodes into a chorus with Justin begging:

Hear my plea!

The next song, "Debris", is probably my favorite.  Which surprises me, because it was not one of the song that grabbed me on the first listen.  The song is subdued and soft, like an early morning drive, sustained by Justin's hoarse whisper.  It reminds me vaguely of something by Placebo.  Then the song builds up until it finishes with a wash of guitar that would make Robin Guthrie (of Cocteau Twins) proud.

The album has a few soft ballads that are pleasant to listen to - "Fear" (which has a chorus at the end that reminds me of Of Monsters and Men), "Things We Don't Know About", "Light You Up", and "Not Broken Anymore".  The thing I notice about Justin's lyrics - they resonate with a lot of people.  One thing I hear from many of my friends is, "It's almost like Justin wrote that song just for me."  And I am no exception.

There are only two tracks that I really don't like - and even then, they are not that bad.  "Hard Candy" sounds like a bad rendition of '80s hair metal, and "Put It In", which is not a bad song, a bit like something by Collective Soul, but it doesn't really seem to fit the concept of the whole album, like it's out of place.

One of my favorite is "Things We Do At Night" which is the song that song that sounds like it could be from "Foiled".  Justin's stacatto vocals are offset by the ghost-like voice of Ashleigh Stone.  The album finishes out the way it started - with soft violins on "To Be".

This album is fantastic, and I recommend it to anyone.  I foresee this becoming one of my all-time favorite records.  While I was listening to this, many of my family members would walk by and say, "This doesn't sound like Blue October."  In fact, some of my Blue friends were a bit put off by the new sounds.  But change is good, right?  Especially if there is no compromise in artistic integrity.  This change of sound does not reflect "selling out", or trying to create a more marketable milieu.  This album represents a creative attempt to hone one's craft.

And if this album was not enough, there is a companion EP called "Debris" which features many acoustic versions from the new album like "Sway", "Angels In Everything", "Bleed", "Fear", and "Debris".  There is also "Sorry Hearts", which is an unreleased 5591 release (5591 being the number assigned to Justin when he was in a mental hospital and the alias he uses when he performs solo acoustic sets.)  Blue October's strength is their live performances, and many of their shows have been acoustic.  This EP represents the raw and stripped-down essence of their music.  I have enjoyed this EP as much as I have the new album.

I told both my friends Becca and Nikki, "I need music that I can fall in love with."  And that's not just because I grow sick of my collection.  I need music that will be in my head when I wake up, that vitalizes me, that will heal me, that makes me want to walk...

I got what I wished for.  Justin Furstenfeld, you're a frikkin' genius.

My Desert Island Top 10

There was a beautiful Tower Records store in Tempe right next to Arizona State University.  (Remember Tower Records??)  I sunk many a dollar there.  Every time you made a purchase, you were allowed to take a free issue of their in-store magazine - Pulse.  Every month, there was a section where readers picked their Desert Island Top 10.

The premise is this - if you were stuck on a desert island, but you had a chance to have with you ten albums, which albums would you pick?

This is always a tough one for me, because my top 10 invariably becomes my top 30.  I made a rule for myself that I could not list any band that I have previously reviewed on my blog.  So albums like Pixies' "Doolittle", anything by Cocteau Twins or Dead Can Dance will obviously not be on this list.

I also invite YOU to post your top 10.  You can know a lot about a person by the music that they like.  It is always interesting to see what music people like.

So here it goes, in no particular order:

1.  Avenged Sevenfold "Avenged Sevenfold" - This album represented to me a return to metal.  I belonged to a hotel renovation crew that worked all over the country, and, during our cross-country drives, we would always settled on Sirius's Octane station.  This was when I was first introduced to this band.  My daughter bought me this album for Christmas in 2007, and my next job took me to Albuquerque.  It was a cold January, and this album was on constant rotation on my mp3 player.  I have since acquired their entire catalog.  I think the thing that I have always liked about this band is that they remind me of one of my early favorites - Iron Maiden.  Just like Iron Maiden, this band has a flare for the theatrical - with their music ranging from Bible quotes to evoking Hunter S Thompson.  This album is no different.  From the Spaghetti Western "Gunslinger" (which reminds me of an episode of "Firefly") to the country twang of "Dear God".  My favorite track is the "A Little Piece of Heaven" which is obviously an homage to Danny Elfman.  It is a twisted piece complete with nightmarish orchestra that tells of a man who murders his woman.  Her corpse comes to life and exacts revenge, they forgive each other, and had a wedding in hell.  It was written by the Rev, the band's drummer who died tragically in 2009.  A7X is releasing a new album next month (which I will review).  It will be their first album written without the aid of the Rev.  It will be interesting to see how this album will emerge.

2.  The Church "Starfish" - The Church is one of several psychedelic, '60s-influenced jangle-pop bands that came out in the '80s.  But they are one of the bands that has had lasting influence on me.  This entire album is nostalgic, and, in particular, "Under the Milkyway", which is still a sort of personal theme to me.  The entire album is good, and the opening track, "Destination" is haunting, the lyrics having special meaning to me.  "Reptile" is an excellent guitar-driven song.  This whole album was written with nostalgia in mind.  Steve Kilbey wrote a poem that was included in the liner notes.  Here a part of it that sums up how I feel about this album:

Good, now and forever music reach and awakens

Swimming in the shallow end, down, down, remember

A need, a gnawing longing for what?

3.  Coldplay "X&Y" - Yes, I like Coldplay.  Thanks to "The 40 Year-Old Virgin", I must defend my heterosexuality every time I say that I like them.  Actually, I don't know how anyone could not like them.  Their songs are beautifully crafted and deliciously layered.  This is a band that I hope keeps putting out great albums, because every release has been spectacular.  I owned "Rush of Blood to the Head", but it was "X&Y" that sealed the proverbial deal, for me.  It was Father's Day in 2005, and my wives gifted me this album.  I took it with me to San Diego to do a particularly stressful hotel job.  This album was my only reprieve, parking at Ocean Beach, listening to this album over and over.  I love it all - the emotive ballads "What If" and "Fix You", the R.E.M.-inspired "The Hardest Part", and multi-faceted "Talk".  I can still listen to this album and not get sick of it.

4.  System of a Down "Mezmerize", "Hypnotize" -  Okay, this is cheating, because it's really two albums.  But they were released six months apart and are part of the same concept.  This is a band that I loved from the first time I heard them, and they have remained a favorite.  They are part Dead Kennedys, part Frank Zappa, and part Armenian folk music - and this is about the best and most accurate description I could give them.  Hard-driving guitars interspersed with the the quavering voices of Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian ("Killing Rock N Roll", "Stealing Society", and "Revenga") mixed with political satire (B.Y.O.B.", "Violent Pornography", "Sad Statue"), the absurd ("This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I'm On This Song", "Vicinity of Obscenity"), the obscene ("Cigarro"), the sad and contemplative ("Holy Mountain", "Lonely Day", "Soldier Side") as well as my favorites - "Radio/ Video" with its bridge of nothing but Armenian music, and the beautifully crafted "Lost in Hollywood".  This is not just a heavy metal band.  These are artists, and these two albums always stay on my phone in their entirety.

5.  Blue October "Foiled" - This is a band that will always be special to me.  They, also, will have a new release next month that I will review.  Temple, the mother of three of my boys, gave the best description of this band - soft violins combined with Justin Furstenfeld's growling vocals creates a pleasant effect, as in the plaintive "Let It Go".  This album is proof that beauty can indeed come from pain.  Furstenfeld has admitted to having mental illness, and this produces some starkly beautiful lyrics - the softly melodic "She's My Ride Home" about disposing of dead bodies on the way home, and "Drilled a Wire Through My Cheek" about torture.  My other favorites are "You Make Me Smile" with its Pixies-like tune and beautiful poetry, the hard-rocking "What If We Could", the Depeche Mode-ish "X Amount of Words", and the romantic "Sound of Pulling Heaven Down".  I accidentally stumbled upon this band in 2006, and they have become one of my favorites.  I have made some online friends who love this band just as much as I do, if not more.  (Hi, Becca!)

6:  Heather Nova "Oyster" - My brother, Tony, introduced me to this album around 1996.  I had just moved to my ranch.  I had no electricity, no power - the only way I could listen to this was in the car.  I gravitated to it.  It represented, in my twenties, a hope of things to come as my life unfolded in front of me - in contrast to now, where I have a sense that my life is essentially over.  Heather Nova wasn't just a beautiful hippie chick with a guitar - although I really like beautiful hippie chicks with guitars.  Her songs were wistful, sung in a deliciously breathy voice, sad, plaintive, and sometimes angry.  "Walk the World" could be an anthem to me - not in the sense of its sexual metaphors, but my true desire to walk this world again.  "Light Years" and "Verona" show that this hippie chick can rock.  "Heal", "Walking Higher", and "Doubled Up" demonstrate how much she can do with just a guitar and her voice.  My favorite song is "Island", which is about escaping your problems to a remote island.  It has a trudging pace, offset by her haunting melody and a cello.  There was a time in the '90s where this album was mostly what I listened to.  It still stands the test of time.

7.  The Hush Sound "Like Vines" - What do you get when you combine a rock guitarist (Bob Morris) with a classical pianist (Greta Salpeter)?  You get an awesome band like the Hush Sound, who were probably ahead of their time.  With their ragtime piano, vocal styles (both his and hers) that sound like they come from the Prohibition Era, they would fit right in with today's steampunk motif, taking a note from the Dresden Dolls.  Produced by Patrick Stump (of Fallout Boy) this album also has a Danny Elfman feel, like in the circus-themes "Lion's Roar".  Many of the songs are just dulcid - "Sweet Tangerine" and "Magnolia".  Some are haunting like the piano melody, "Lighthouse".  My favorite is "Wine Red" which is a funky piece driven by the piano and vivid lyrics:

The sea is wine red

This is the death of beauty

The doves have died

The lovers have lied

The Hush Sound broke up in 2008, but they recently reformed with talks of a new album.  I am excited.

8.  Dream Theater "Metropolis Pt 2: Scenes From a Memory" -   When I was in high school, all of the and geeks were into Rush, who admired their technical precision.  Dream Theater - one of the last surviving hair metal bands - are one of those precise bands who seem more like jazz than metal.  What I mean by this -  long, extended jam sessions where each musician in the band gets some time to showcase their unique ability.  "Metropolis Pt. 1" was a part of a previous album, and the second part encompasses an entire concept album.  On the surface, this album could seem pretentious - written and divided into scenes and overtures and movements.  But it works.  The album tells the story of a man obsessed with a love triangle in the 1920s that ended in a murder.  This is progressive music at its best - ranging from hard and heavy to sounding like a Broadway musical.  As it should.  This album needs to go onto Broadway.  James LaBrie sings all of the roles, but this is definitely a theatrical piece.  Almost fifteen years later, I break out this album and still enjoy it.  It is such a concept that one song does not sit well by itself.  You have to listen to whole album.

9.  Modest Mouse "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" -   Around 2004, I was hearing a lot about Modest Mouse in magazines, and such.  So I decided to see what the big deal was, so I bought their album "The Moon & Antarctica".  I hated it.  Over the next couple of years, I would periodically pull it out and listen to it, only to have the same low opinion of it.  Then, I remember, it suddenly made sense.  I finally "got" it, and I loved it.  By then, "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" had come out, and it was much more palatable than their previous releases.  The catchy "Float On" and "Ocean Breathes Salty" reminded me so much of Wolfgang Press, but it is nice to see bands that are influenced by the same music I grew up listening to.  This band has a delightful penchant for the discordant as in "Bury Me With It" and "Dance Hall".  "The Devil's Workday" is a jazz song from hell played on brass.  My favorites are the songs that feature the stand-up bass and banjo - "Bukowski" and "Satin in a Cofin".  The album ends with a guest appearance from Wayne Coyne (from the Flaming Lips).  I have loved everything this band has done since, but this album is the one that stands out to me.

10.  Tears For Fears "The Hurting" - For my last album, I have to say - I am not a Tears For Fears fan.  In fact, they kind of annoy me.  No "Songs from the Big Chair" for me, no "Shout, shout let it all out", no "Sowing the seeds of love"...  I only like this album, and that's it.  This album is enough to establish them as musical geniuses in my book.  It is dark.  It is moody.  And that was enough for me when I was a teen.  This album encapsulated every heartache I experienced back then.  But it really is an original album.  "Mad World", with its infectious rhythm, has been covered ad nauseum.  But the original version is really the best.  Of course, everyone recognizes the early MTV staple, "Change".  "Pale Shelter" and "Watch Me Bleed" are unique, because in the days when electronica was new, they combined acoustic guitars with keyboards, something that other dark wave bands like Clan of Xymox later imitated.  "Memories Fade" and "Start of the Breakdown"are just dripping with angst, just what I needed as a surly 15 year-old.  I think this album stands the test of time.  It is an ingenious arrangement of piano, keyboards, and percussion.

So that's my list.  Now tell me yours...