New Feature: Band Spotlight

(Not like I'm actually going to start updating this more often, but here goes...)

I'm going to start running a new feature about new, relatively under- appreciated or unknown bands that I want to rant about for some reason or another. I'll run an article or two talking about the band and why I think you should check them out or stay away from them entirely, as well as a review of one of their albums.

Basically, since I try not to talk too much about a band's history or my previous feelings about bands in my reviews, its a chance for me to really dish it out to bands that have a long history of sucking.

My first Band Spotlight will be on a relatively new Band called "Mutiny Within"

Album Review: Brand New Eyes

Brand New Eyes

Paramore

6.4

Released 2009

Rubric:

Musicianship: 6

Musical Cohesiveness: 7

Song Structure: 6

Lyrics: 6

Emotional Energy: 8

Emotional Landscape: 6

Variety: 5

Album Structure: 6

Production: 9

Lasting Impression: 5

I think it’s best that I start out this review by stating that I am and have for a long time been a Paramore Fan. This doesn’t mean I think they are a good band, it just means that at certain times during my life, I enjoyed their music (and may or may not have had a crush on Hayley Williams.) Over the last few years my friends have given me a lot of shit for this, and Brand New Eyes serves as a wonderful reminder as to why they are right. Usually. In a nutshell, Brand New Eyes is an inconsistent, incoherent and utterly uninspiring album. Fortunately there is more to life than nutshells, and Unfortunately I am a (self proclaimed) music critic, so I am obligated to crawl out of said shell and tell you guys what doesn’t suck about Paramore’s latest album. Most of what is worth listening to here is Hayley, and this not just because I find her very attractive. Her voice continues to mature, and she actually delivers a really spectacular performance on Brand New Eyes. Her vocal prowess provides the only saving grace to The otherwise dreadful ending song “All I Wanted” as she belts out an absolutely beautiful scream at the 3/4 mark of the song, almost making it worth the listen. Other bright spots on this album include Zac Farro’s drum work which is pretty consistently solid throughout. It won’t blow your mind, but it’s definitely worth noting when a pop band like Paramore actually has a good drummer. Unfortunately The guitar section of the band is monotonous as ever, consistently churning out boring riffs, progressions, and “solos.” The only spark of life comes with the first riff of “Careful” which could almost fit as the opening riff to a emo-prog album, but there is no other instance of any kind of guitar related excitement on the album, so in the end the intro riff just feels like a waste of energy.

The last, and most exciting positive aspect of “Brand New Eyes” is the fact that a couple of their songs are actually really well written. They are carefully constructed around strong melodies and clever lyrics, and knit together with effective (but entirely unoriginal) song structures. ‘Brick by Boring Brick’ stands out as the strongest track on the album, and probably one of the best songs they’ve ever written. Its an entirely appealing and convincing pop-rock anthem that picks a strong emotion, tells a simple but intriguing story about the dangers of living in a world of fantasy, and keeps the listener entertained for all three and a half minutes. Brick By Boring Brick isn’t just a nice song though- it is proof that Paramore can craft a song efficiently and deliberately, using build ups and strong, diverse melodies to create a range of moods that help to make a song enjoyable even when each individual part isn’t particularly musically exciting or original. The other songs that exhibit more meticulous crafting include “Careful,” and “Ignorance.”

Paramore shows us that they can write a good song on Brand New Eyes, making it even more frustrating that the rest of the album is entirely uninteresting. The key reason that Brand New Eyes falls flat on its face, is Paramore’s inability to consistently implement strong writing that maximizes the effectiveness of each song. Their melodies are appealing, and their choruses are catchy, but many times it just feels like they didn’t know how to piece each song together. Almost every song follows the verse chorus verse structure, and not only does the repetition get boring by the end of the album, but in many cases it feels like the ideas in the song would have benefited from a different formula. “Turn It Off” is one of the album’s better songs for just this reason; it benefits from a really nice and unexpected outro that takes the song to a different space, and helps to break from the monotony of predictable verses and choruses. The problem is that this kind of release almost never happens, and when it does, it often comes too late, diminishing the impact of the change and leaving the album wallowing in a unappealing mess of predictability.

Nit Picks, Pet Peeves and Guilty Pleasures 1.3: Reviewing The Review

Reviewing the Review Part 4d: The Rubric

Category 5: In The End...

Variety: One of the most important pieces of creating a good album is making it exciting from front to back, and the easiest way to do this is to create an album with a variety of sounds, so that the listener is kept on the edge of their seat, excited to see what the band will through at them next. Nobody wants to hear an album made of ten songs that sound exactly the same, are built around the same structure and occupy the same emotional space. In order to be awarded a high variety score, an album must have multiple instances in which the sonic or emotional textures are changed, and little change in tempo is always welcome.

Lasting Impression: Lasting Impression is pretty simple- it’s an entirely subjective category that looks at how much of an impression the album made on me. Was the entire listen enjoyable? Did I want to listen to it again after it ended? Did I ever find myself in the middle of Theory class just dying to hear that one sequence of songs from the middle of the album? The Lasting Impression score will often go up if there was something really creative or exciting on the album that I had never heard before, or if it in some way manages to separate itself from the pack. Conversely, the score will go down if a band constantly rehashes material that other bands have covered, even if the album is a particularly good example of that material. Lasting Impression is the final word on whether or not you should buy the album, since it attempts to look at the whole album, and asses how much of a mark it left on me and how exciting the album the album was as one coherent piece.

Nit Picks, Pet Peeves and Guilty Pleasures 1.3: Reviewing The Review

Reviewing the Review Part 4d: The Rubric

Category 4: Album Presentation

Album Structure: This looks at how well an album is put together. Do the songs flow nicely between each other? Are transitions logical? Is it too long or too short? This rewards a band (and a producer) that not only know how to write good songs, but knows how to put them together to make the entire album an enjoyable piece of art. For an album to get a good score in this category I have to be able to say that I enjoy listening to it front to back without skipping songs or gravitating towards certain parts of the album. The album should come together as whole piece that has a consistent flow and narrative. It should have carefully placed high and low points and should make listening as engaging as possible.

Production: Production is a pretty simple category- it takes into account how the album was produced. This category does not look at whether or not there was a lot of money thrown into the production of the album, but it looks at how well the album is produced. An album can be marked down for being over-produced as well as underproduced. Basically what I’m looking at here is how good everything in the album sounds. Does the producer bring all of the instruments and effects together to make a compelling and cohesive sound, without sacrificing the integrity of each individual part? Production is a particularly important category because it can affect other categories, most notably album structure and emotional landscape.

Nit Picks, Pet Peeves and Guilty Pleasures 1.3: Reviewing The Review

Reviewing the Review Part 4c: The Rubric

Category 3: Emotional Impact

For me, the Emotional Impact of an album is the most important aspect of an album. For an album to really bring me in, I need to feel some emotional connection to the music, whether it be through the music, the performance or the lyrics, “emotion” is very important. Emotion does not just refer to dark or sad emotions (I’m not talking about “emo” here), it refers to any emotion that can be felt through the music. It might be sadness, it might be anger, but it could also be excitement, or happiness. In order to look more closely at emotion in music, I split this category up into “Energy” and “Landscape”

Emotional Energy: Emotional Energy looks at how strongly the album makes you feel the emotion that it is trying to convey. If the music is fast and energetic, emotional “energy” looks at how pumped up the music makes you feel. If a piece is sad, this becomes a measure of how directly you feel that sadness. A band might be rewarded for using melodic and harmonic ideas that do a particularly good job of complementing the emotion mood of the song, but it may also have to do with the lyrics, or the individual performances (particularly of singers).

Emotional Landscape: Emotional Landscape evaluates how well an album creates a particular mood or world. This category looks at how interesting and immersive that world is and how well it is brought to life through musical ideas, lyrics and production. For me this is a particularly important piece of an album, because one of the things that makes music most powerful to me is it’s ability to take me out of my world and immerse me in the world of the music. That is when I am most impressed by an album or song, when I feel a deep connection and involvement with the music. This category is most important for concept albums and musicals, as it looks directly at the world of the album and evaluates the bands ability to create that world.

Nit Picks, Pet Peeves and Guilty Pleasures 1.3: Reviewing The Review

Reviewing the Review Part 4B: The Rubric

Category 2: Song Presentation

Song Structure: The basic question with song structure is, “Are all of the elements of the song put together in such a way that it maximizes the emotional impact of the song?” This category looks closely at how well a band uses different types of song structures. A band might be rewarded for using an uncommon song structure that moves away from classic verse-chorus-verse. A band will not be marked down, however, for using verse chorus verse, as I think that such a structure can at times be the one that best fits the song, and best carries the themes and emotional weight of the song. That being said, it should be used sparingly, and appropriately, because, let’s be honest, we’ve all heard it a thousand times. A band will get marked down for having structure that doesn’t promote the song well or that makes the song overly confusing and hard to follow. One thing that will really help a band out is their ability to build a song up. Having a strong build and a fulfilling climax is one of the most important things in a good song and any band that consistently turn out songs with good build (but not the same build!) has won some major points in my book. A song that is carefully constructed, with a strong build (sometimes a de-build works too!) often carries considerably more emotional weight and power than a poorly constructed song, even if the latter song contains the stronger melodies.

Lyrics: Lyrics are an obvious choice for a category here, but it can be very hard to judge lyrics, and every listener is drawn to different lyrics. For the most part, this is a category where I will talk about what appeals to me and what doesn’t when I’m listening to the album, but There are a few things that should generally be avoided. I will call a band out on some of these, such as meaningless and or immature subject matter, poor phrasing and grammar, and of course, lousy cliches. I think its pretty safe to say that no one wants to here any of these in their music... That being said, I think the most important thing with this category (as with almost every category on this list) is that the lyrics help to maximize the emotional potency of the song. What this means specifically for lyrics is, words that work well with the melodies and that they are put to. Usually this means matching like with like (for instance, dark lyrics with dark melodies), but sometimes this can be an intentional shift of the two, like using a cheerful melody for dark brutal lyrics (see Coheed and Cambria’s “Three Evils”). Lyrics can be a tricky area to judge, but in general I look for this kind of harmony between the lyrics and, well, the harmony, and I look for lyrics that flow well together with strong evocative language, and clear and interesting concepts and themes.

Nit Picks, Pet Peeves and Guilty Pleasures 1.3: Reviewing The Review

Reviewing the Review Part 4a: The Rubric

Category 1: Musically Speaking

This category as a whole looks at how adept the writers are at creating intriguing musical lines that are both musically complex and exciting, but also musically fulfilling and appealing.

Musicianship: Musicianship is a pretty common subject for the analysis of a musical work. My personal interpretation of an album’s “musicianship” looks directly at the musical ability and talent of the performers on the album. How technically proficient are they? Do they play things that are above the average for that type of performer? For guitarists, this might be the the ability to play really complex lead lines or solos. For singers this category might reward performers who deliver a performance that demonstrates an impressive range and vocal quality. The main thrust of this category is that high scores are given to albums in which the individual performances really stand out and show that each performer is at the top of their respective class. A musicianship score may also increase for a group that shows knowledge of complex time signatures or advanced harmony, and likewise will decrease for a group that treads over the same musical ground that has been covered a thousand times. This category as looks at (to a lesser degree with studio music) the ability of the band to play together coherently and in time.

Musical Cohesiveness: “Musical Cohesiveness” May be one of the most uncommon and unclear categories on this list. Musical Cohesiveness looks at a groups ability to weave together cohesive and appealing lines in a way that sounds like music. This category is meant to counteract “Musicianship” because so many groups today write entire albums showcasing their virtuosity, but pay little attention to how strong and appealing their melodies are. This can be summarized in one simple rule: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. The obscure metal band “Behold the Arctopus” (check them out in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq89wxYlKtM)* is a perfect example of a band that would receive a high musicianship score and a rock bottom “musical cohesiveness” score. They can play their instruments like nobodies business, but they couldn’t write a good riff to save their lives. The musical cohesiveness score rewards bands that string strong melodic sections together smoothly, like Mastodon on Rush who are able expertly switch between vastly different sections and time signatures without sacrificing a cohesive and appealing sound. Many bands that receive high Musicianship scores, get poor Cohesiveness scores, so the trick is to balance the two categories to get the maximum effect, and create a sound that is both appealing, and complex.

Stay Tuned for the Next Segment of Reviewing the Review part 4- Category 2: Song Presentation.