Album Artwork / Dream Theater 2 - Systematic Chaos

      Now I’ve wanted to give my two cents on album artwork for a while, and with this entry I will start posting it with each new review. Album artwork is easily one of the factors that convince me to obtain an album. If the artwork is random and appears to make no sense to the title, I tend to avoid the album a little more because it’s less appealing. Bands use this to sell their work as a book writer uses a cover to draw you to the book. If it’s not interesting it’s boring and not worth my time usually. What are your thoughts on this?

Band: Dream Theater

Genre: Progressive Metal

Album: Systematic Chaos

Tracks: 8 (7)

Album Artwork:

     As I mentioned in a previous review this album is by far my all time favorite in terms of well, everything. I enjoy EVERY single song in their entirety. Now what’s unusual is that when you scan my listed track count you’ll notice that the number (here) is smaller than the original and not larger… This is because of the two part epic and some consider it one song some consider it two. For the purpose of this review I will consider it as ONE song.

     Now the album opens up with the first part of the epic “In The Presence of Enemies” and I’m going to skip it for a little and speak first about track two “Forsaken.” “Forsaken” is a creepy track when it starts and man it’s a chill sender. The lyrics are FANTASTIC. Well done, the drums are crisp and the guitar just fits in so well I just love it. Track three “Constant Motion” is the song that made me ADDICTED to this group. The intro is crazy and it fits to the lyrical theme so very well. The solo is nuts, the piano is great the dual vocals are just amazing and Myung’s bass part is soooo nice. Track four is “The Dark Eternal Night” and the first few listens through I didn’t like it too much.  For a pretty light album a song this heavy was unexpected. But dang is it well executed. The piano ragtime seems really random though but it’s awesome sounding. Track five is “Repentance” and being part of the “AA Suite” as many have dubbed it, it’s quiet and if Alcohol has affected you or you have regrets you think about this song can be a large tear jerker. Track six is “Prophets Of War” and this song is another political one similar to “Sacrificed Sons” from Octavarium. I don’t like as much as the rest of the albums, but the lyrics are a mind jerker, depends on what you’re into.

     Track six is “The Ministry Of Lost Souls” which is my all time favorite Dream Theater song. It’s an astounding 14 minutes in length and is worth every listen. It’s an emotional masterpiece. I actually feel kind of sad when listening to it and it’s just riveting how nice the vocals are. You can imagine this song’s story in its entirety with some spots of questioning still open. It’s a shame that it never had a FULL LENGTH video made for it. I’d have LOVED it.

     Track(s) one/seven is the 23+ minute epic titled “In The Presence of Enemies” a song that I again wish they did a full song video for. You can do so much with the story telling in this song alone it’d phenomenal. The lyrics are dark, curious, and imaginative.  The song begins with a five minute instrumental section. This is unique and epically done. It’s so hard to discuss this song besides just explaining to you all how awesome and inviting it is. The best thing I can tell you is to actually LISTEN TO IT.

Overall: 10/10 Amazing in its entirety. Every song is good at one point and the like where if you like modern Progressive Metal you’ll ejaculate from how awesome this album is.

Recommendations: EVERY SINGLE SONG, EVERY PART OF EVERY SONG, EVERY SONG.

I'm also interested in having a fan insert their two cents and do a review with me sometime in the future. If you are interested post a comment below.

Album 3 / Dream Theater 1 Fever / Black Clouds And Silver Linings

Well I figure instead of two separate posts in one day I'll merge them into a large post.

Band: Bullet For My Valentine

Album: Fever

Release date: April 26^th 2010

Track count: 11 (12)

     Well, welcome to my first review where it’s an album I dislike. Now I loved Bullet before this album. I expected GREATNESS. But I sit here in amazement at how disappointing this album is. This is what happens when a band tries to experiment, its hit and miss, and in this case it’s a miss. Now they said in interviews that this was going to be a Hard Rock album, and according to a Wikipedia page (not reliable, but I want to cover it anyways) it says that they wanted to please themselves rather than the critics. Now I’m not sure if they were satisfied but it I know I’m not.

     Now with that out of the way, the first track “Your Betrayal” has one hell of an introduction. I mean WOW. It was good. But as the song progresses it starts to bore you and there is NO SOLO in the section where it could have been. Now I’m not an actual musician but that moaning ohhing part was just irritating. Interesting the first time, but the more I hear it the madder it makes me. Track two is the title track “Fever.” Now this track is one of the best songs on the album. It’s heavy like they always have been, but it also combines a great amount of hard rock into it. The lyrics are… Entertaining to me, but a woman may find them offensive. Track three is “The Last Fight” and it’s another good song, they did a music video and such and it’s more Rock than Metal. Good.  Now the next song is a softer song and it’s ok. Not a huge fan of them unless it’s an acoustic. But this is subjective to musical preference. Not dogging them for it. The next song, is disgusting and a mash of crap. The introduction words are bad the whole song is written badly it’s boring, I could go on for days.

     Now you might be asking yourself why at the track count it says “11 (12)” this is because if you preordered the album on Itunes, you got a bonus track titled “The Last Fight (Acoustic Version)” it’s a piano cover of track three and as usual it’s a great cover of their own work.

Overall: 5/10 A lot of the tracks are not good old Bullet I know and love. Now I’d suppose that you could add two to this score preference pending. But it’s not all bad. It’s hit and miss.

If you want to consider buying this album listen to: Fever, Your Betrayal, Pretty On The Outside and Pleasure and Pain. These are a good mix of my likes and dislikes.

If you’d like to read the Wikipedia page I pulled information from here is the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fever_%28Bullet_for_My_Valentine_album%29

 Band: Dream Theater

Album: Black Clouds And Silver Linings

Release date: June 23, 2009

Track count: 6 (12)

     Why review this album with Fever? Well, I have no clue. I felt like it. Now, when this album came out I was PUMPED. I had recently discovered this band through Rockband's Download-able Content (DLC) for their song "Constant Motion" from Systematic Chaos (guess my next review anyone?) Now I waited a LONG time to get this, and it was WELL worth the wait. I got the collectors edition for my birthday and I proudly display all four CDs on my shelf.. Now the reason I mention all of this is because of the track count, and how it's six or twelve. Depending if you count the cover songs or not. Disc 1 is the actual album. Disc 2 is the cover songs. Disc 3 is the instrumentals for all the album songs. Disc 4 has each individual instrument broken down so that if you want to learn it you can isolate it.

     Now to the actual REVIEW. All the songs on this album are VERY LONG. First I'd like to mention: If you dislike songs any longer than 8 minutes: Don't even bother trying this album. You won't make it. The first song is a decimating 16: 11 long and it's easily the best song on the album. "A Nightmare To Remember" is a song that takes you into the mind of the lyric's author when he endured a near fatal car crash. The instruments are exciting, the lyrics are dark and inviting, the sound effects are awesome, the solos are works of art that are slightly overdone, and oh man amazing stuff.

     Track two is "A Rite Of Passage" and it's the second shortest song on this album at a little over eight minutes. This song is mysterious and just so great I have yet to make sense of the entire song, and honestly the crappy cut music video doesn't help much either. Track three is the shortest song on the album at a bit over five minutes and it's just a nice slower song, this is a song that you should get without the whole album if you prefer shorter works.
     Track four is an odd song and part of Portnoy's 12 Step Suite. Familiar melodies and lyrics and themes, but yet still adding new work to the table. Track five, I am not going to talk about because this one is very personal to Portnoy himself, and I don't want to bash it or the like. The final track is the longest song on this album and one of the best/worst. It's such a LONG song with a very amazing Continuum solo from Rudess and it makes e just relax. Great song for a 20 minute drive.

Overall: Personally I give this album a 9.5/10. For the average person it's about a 7/10 and for people who like short songs that are just singles 3/10.
Recommendations: All of the songs. In order. No stopping.

Now as a final note, I would like to point out my bias on Dream Theater, as they are easily my all time favorite band. I'd like to know which albums of theirs you know of and would like to see reviewed.

PS:Props to ANYONE who can name my all time favorite Dream Theater song. If someone can do this, I will post 7 reviews in one week. Hints: Systematic Chaos, Metropolis Pt. 2, Train of Thought and Awake / Images And Words.

Special review 1: Banelings – HuskyStarcraft / Happy Thanksgiving!

     Hello everyone! Happy Thanksgiving and I hope your turkey was absolutely delicious. I know mine was. Since today is a special day, I decided I’d not do a review of an entire album, but of one song in particular. This song is a parody of “Baby” by Justin Bieber.

     Now to start, I was iffy on even listening to it because I despise Bieber and his lack of talent. But because HuskyStarcraft is awesome I watched it anyways. Now if you don’t play Starcraft Two, this song will confuse you immensely. That’s not a great thing, but you can look up all of the terms and such. Now this song is VERY enjoyable.  The lyrics are hilarious and the music video just adds to the hilarity. There’s nothing funnier than a nerd humping a Lamborghini. Much less RAPING. Anyways, the original song’s beat sucked. It still does. Can’t change it. My only complaint is the ending lyrics “Now I’m Terran” because I don’t understand them perfectly but my assumption is that the main singer of the video switches his race and stuff you probably don’t care about.

     Overall the song gets a 9/10 the only reason it’s not a 10/10 is that they picked the WORST possible song to parody, and in all honesty they made it almost epic.

     On a last note I encourage you all to go on Itunes and buy this video because the proceeds are going to a charity. Below is a link to the music video, and that link contains a link to buying it on Itunes. I also recommend you subscribe and watch all of Husky's videos.

Happy Turkey Day and stay safe,

- Midnight
Music Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzMhh8zhTiY

Album 2: I Am Ghost

Band name:  I Am Ghost

Album name: Those We Leave Behind

Track Count: 14

     When you hear this album’s intro it sends chills down your spine. Seriously, this band’s always been FANTASTIC with its imagery.  Not that you’ve probably heard any of their music before, because like To-Mera they’re an underground band. But all of that aside besides the note about the intro… The songs transition very well, but the problem is that they’re all alike in sense of the lyrical content. No it’s not about vampires and such, but in the fact each song is literally a short story.  The short intro songs (tracks 1 and 9) are both absolutely relevant to the following songs and it’s amazing. I will say not all the songs are good. Track twelve is just slow and disgustingly modified vocal wise. But as for specific tracks to talk about I’d like to touch on the one called “Smile Of A Jesus Freak” which is more than likely to offend someone who has never listened to this song, but honestly if you listen to it you’ll understand it easily. Be prepared for a pretty angry album. It’s got a very high energetic feel to it.

Overall: 7/10 my reasoning being the fact all of the songs have similar (but oddly different) lyrical content, well done vocals and the fact not all the tracks are great.

Tracks I recommend: 5 and 7 if you’re into harder songs, 6 and 13 if you like less heavy songs.


Please excuse the less through review, I'm quite tired and really wanted to put something new up for you. I may edit this in the future.

Album 1: To-Mera – Transcendental

Since this is the first review please bear with me on the format. It's in the works. Occasionally it will start similar to this one with side commentary before the review it's self. In these cases I will bold the following format so you can skip to the review if you wish: "REVIEW # BAND NAME - ALBUM NAME"

     Many of you, like me, have wide views of what you would consider a “good” album/band/artist. When I am listening to album I do not keep a score sheet, or a specific guideline. I go with what I can enjoy. But with entertainment value I do think of each instrument as one instrument and then overall. I will think things along the lines of: “the vocalist needs to stop screaming, he sucks.” To things such as: “wow this song is hard to imagine on the guitar.” With this short introduction to how I think of albums, I see it only an opportunity to do my first review.

REVIEW 1: To-Mera – Transcendental

Band name: To-Mera
Album name: Transcendental
Genre: Gothic Progressive Metal
Track count: 8

     This album starts off with an absolutely creepy dark tone. But it slowly adds in the guitar and sends you into the feel that you’re on a journey, also: cue piano. Then the first song with actual lyrics comes in and darn is it interesting. This song (titled "Blood") not only starts off quiet and gets louder, it smacks you in the face with the fact some of the words you will think to be random gibberish, in reality it’s the Hungarian language. The songs are very difficult to understand from one listen, not only in terms of figuring some of them out, but in trying to know the meaning. We’re not even to the second song, Dreadful Angel, which just keeps aggressively pounding you in the face, and then slows down at points. It’s amazing work. The lyrics are phenomenal.

      Now after the first three songs you’ve seen most of the aggressive nature of this band and this album. The rest of the songs start slower and quieter just to go to the aggressive nature you saw in the first songs. The album as a whole I would say is almost perfect. My only concern is that they did put most of their power into the first few songs. The songs are amazing and sometimes insane. But overall, if you like out of the norm underground music that’s very difficult to find, you will enjoy most if not all of this album.

Overall: This album get’s a 9/10. The songs are great, but I think maybe one more fast paced song somewhere on the album (preferably the end of it) would have been great.

Suggested songs: Blood, Dreadful Angel. 

Additional information about this album and the band can be found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_(album)

http://s298973778.websitehome.co.uk/

If you’d like to request an album or something else to be reviewed please post a comment below or e-mail me at: Re.Ven_Ge@yahoo.com

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to all of you who have either stumbled here by accident, by random, or on purpose.

I'd like to start with a nice bunch of information for you all.

Who am I: My name is Austin Larson. Most people think of me as an absolute elitist that hates everything. Hopefully this blog proves that this is not completely true. I'm new to the idea of blogging, and new to this website. Please bear with me as I attempt to make this blog to my liking and keeping neat.

Goal: To review music in a manner in which isn’t overtly technical. This is more words means that I’m reviewing music by the album. I’m not going to go into whether the song is written badly in terms of the notes and scales and such.  I want to review the album mostly as a whole, but occasionally I will try to single out songs so that you can listen to what I think is the best songs on the album.

Disclaimer: I lack any professional experience. This is something I want to do because I enjoy commenting on things. Take what I say with a fine grain of sand.

Music I review: I will review almost anything. But being the somewhat elitist people claim me to be I cannot eliminate all bias. So I ask that you avoid the following bands in suggesting music because I cannot eliminate my bias on them.

Coldplay

Nickelback

Hannah Montana / Miely Cyrus

Justin Bieber

Lady Gaga

The Beatles

Coldplay

Request: That some of you post the name of a band and the name of an album you would like reviewed. If you wish to add or discuss something I post in a future review, offer critique of my review, please do. This is for you not for me. I know what I think, and it's not always going to be straight forward.

Also I ask you check out this blog because he's the one who pretty much made me think this idea is worth trying. http://theforceofsound.blogspot.com/ He's a good guy, and our content will hopefully be unique to each of us, as our own tastes are different.

The format: This is so subject to change within the first few times that I cannot provide a good one outside a basic outline. It also varies based off if I want to banter on about genre or something else.

Final notes: I won’t always review music. I might also post little things about how I think of it. Such as how I classify my genres, what makes a good album to me, occasionally a picture, anything almost. I’d love any feedback or discussion as like I said this for you, not me. Reviews will be posted at random and in random amounts per day. So please check back frequently.