Metal Lite

This week I’m going to be writing about something I admittedly don’t know a WHOLE lot about: knee socks. Well, not so much knee socks as A Day To Remember I guess... (www.myspace.com/adaytoremember). Lets talk.

A Day To Remember (ADTR) has been “in the scene” for a while now and have wedged themselves between two unlikely genres: metal and tongue-in-cheek-high-school-style pop-punk. I know. Weird right? Right.

Anyway, I recently was introduced to these guys by a friend of mine who described them as “pretty alright” and “catchy.” Being that I was in a slump of new music (before all these wonderful CDs came out by Darkest Hour, Alexisonfire, Killswitch Engage, Poison the Well, etc etc) I decided to pick up their newest record titled Homesick. On first listen I was only moderately impressed. I mean, the songs were pretty well written in that they had catchy hooks, definite progressions, and an interesting dynamic. But it was nothing earth shattering. On a gear-head note, the tones of the record are pretty sweet…but I attribute that one hundred percent to the sentence in the upper left corner of the back jacket that reads “Mixed by Adam D.” Duh. Tonemaster City one hundred percent good fun time.

I’m going to go ahead and leave the notes and general geekology about the tone of the record for you, my dedicated reader, to play around with and dive into. What I really wanted to talk about is the genre crossing that these guys do. Imagine what it would be like if Blink 182 played metal. That pretty much exactly describes how these guys sound. Blink 182 to legitimate punk rock is like ADTR to legitimate metal/metalcore. Now, I don’t say this as a bad thing at all. I mean, look at Blink…their pools are heated if you know what I mean. What I’m more referring to is the way both of these bands adhere to their genre in a very casual, playful way. From the voicing of their songs to even the titles of them, both bands take an almost high-school, ‘immature’ approach to their music.

If you listen to the song “The Downfall Of Us All” you can hear some of the aspects I’m referencing. First of all, the song titles (maybe not as apparent in this one) are a bit of a joke. How do you take a band completely seriously with songs titled “NJ Legion Iced Tea”, “Another Song About the Weekend”, and “I'm Made of Wax, Larry, What Are You Made Of?” Anyway, once you hit play, the song titles don’t really matter anymore. So first off, most of the songs on this record, and in their catalogue in general, are very hook-oriented. In “Downfall” the hook isn’t necessarily a melody so much as a rhythm…which becomes immediately obvious with the crowd-chanting rhythm in the beginning of the song. The hook is repeated, reprised, and referenced through pretty much the entire song…as a good hook should be.

Next, it seems to be a stylistic mainstay of the metal scene for a band to be heavily focused on riffage and shredding. Verses are usually built around a repetitive moving guitar lick while the choruses typically will have some big rhythm guitar playing behind a different lead lick. The pop-punk element of ADTR comes from the fact that their songs are structured largely around simple power chord progressions. The metal influence comes from the voicing of these power chords. Rather than straight forward strumming, the guitars frequently attach a heavy, palm-muted, rhythm to the progression. This is exemplified in “Downfall” I the second verse which can be heard at about 1:28 and again at 2:20 into the song.

I’m admittedly not REALLY well versed in this band or their history, but this disk is heavy on the vocals. Since a lot of the guitar work is very lackluster, or at least very downplayed in its complexity, there is a lot of room for vocal styling. The singer really dominates these songs with respect to melody. It just so happens that they style in which he sings sounds a lot like a bubblegum pop punk band. However, again they blend in that metal element every once in a bridge when the singer puts on his angry face and screamy pants and lets a verse/bridge/breakdown get nice and mad. This would be at that second verse at 1:28. That’s a ten second metal song right there.

These thematic elements seem to comprise a large majority of this record and make for an interesting listen…at least with respect to genre. At the end of the day though…Poison the Well is back in the CD player. Sorry boys…

Tropic Ripe

Oh my god it’s finally here! It’s here! Poison the Well! The Tropic Rot! Eeeee [with hands flapping at nipple height]!! It’s not like I haven’t been pining over the release of this record or anything. Not like I haven’t stayed up at night viciously you tubing for precious in-studio clips. Not like I haven’t had their myspace page open nervously clicking refresh hoping for ANY news…be it updates from touring, new photos of the studio set up so I could geek the hell out of their mic set up and stuff, or little factoids for me to store in my vast bank of ALWAYS relevant musical knowledge (which occupies corners of my brain which used to hold useless information like how to formulate coherent sentences, act in professional settings, or function as a successful engineer).

REGARDLESS! It was all NOT in vain! I now have, quite literally in my hand, my copy of the newest release from Poison the Well entitled The Tropic Rot. AHHHHHGGGGG!!

What the title means? No idea. But they’re from Florida (and not completely useless human beings…who knew Florida had ANYthing to offer?) so maybe it has something to do with that? Don’t care. The music! If you couldn’t already tell by my rant of disjointed nothingness…IT’S EXCELLENT! Let me dissect:

As Versions progressed from You Come Before You, The Tropic Rot left the comforts (?) of the winters in Scandinavia (where Versions and YCBY were recorded) and took Poison the Well to sunny Garden Grove, California to the studios of producer Steve Evetts (Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die, etc). Under his watchful eye and with his hands off approach, Evetts and the band crafted a record that built off the successes and innovations of their previous recordings under the more than talented knob-turning hands of Eskil Lövström and Pelle Henricsson and pushed the envelope of what it is to be an eleven year old hardcore band in 2009.

Sometimes when you listen to a record, what you end up hearing isn’t necessarily the talent of the band itself but rather the talent of the producer. Look at Bleeding Through’s most recent release Declaration produced by Devin Townshend…Case. And. Point. When the band is lacking in certain aspects (be it song writing, song structure, or things generally outside the actual band member’s abilities to play their instruments), it’s the job of the producer to step in and gently (or brutally) push a band in the “right” direction…please use big obnoxious finger quotation marks around the word RIGHT. RIGHT is defined to be, in this case, the artistic vision of what the producer deems a successful song or collection of songs given the current musical trends of the times. Blood has literally been shed over this subject. I heard once Art Garfunkel knifed a producer for saying his chorus wasn’t catchy enough. I’ll verify it on Wikipedia. But I digress.

One of the more interesting things I immediately noticed in this record was the influence of the band on the producer, rather than the other way around. Steve Evetts’ mixes usually come out sounding pretty conventional with respect to guitar tones, drum tones, vocal tones, etc. His snares are usually sampled to even out each stroke (meaning he’ll overdub a second snare drum hit on top of each “real” snare drum hit…this normalizes out the consistency of each snare hit), his guitars are usually pretty conventionally balanced between crunchy distortion, beefy gain, and some noise suppression for the electrical hum/fuzz in the guitar, and the vocals are usually pretty clean. To his credit, the mixes always sound good. Conventional, but good. I think where he excels is in his ability to take bands with a more alternative musical styling (like metal and hardcore) and subtly nudge them towards a more globally appealing product. Usually you can listen to a collection of records by the same producer and hear similar tones and similar song structures. On The Tropic Rot, what you hear instead is Poison the Well (PTW) pushing Evetts to use more bluesy tones, stripped down drums, raw guitars, alternate vocal processing (like putting distortion on sung lines among other stuff). Whether it was an intention of PTW to come in and “direct” Evetts to lay off the gain/distortion or whether it was a fortunate accident, the tones and sounds on this record are, first of all, atypical to Steve Evetts’ mixes, and second of all, fantastic! If anything, it’ll be a feather in his cap! An arrow in his quiver! A…um…another rock in his sling? Another missile in his arsenal? You get it. It’s proving that he can not only be accommodating but versatile.

One more quick note on the tone before I move on. I always listen to PTW and think of them as being heavily influenced in old southern blues. But I couldn’t really put my finger on exactly why I thought that. But I figured it out. The tones on their records, at very least the last three major releases, have all used VERY bluesy tones…more so in The Tropic Rot and Versions. The music is still heavy and raucous, but if you solo out the guitars and played through whatever amps they use, the tones of the guitars are very reminiscent of blues and jazz. But when played hard, the amps’ tubes naturally distort (as opposed to solid state pedals or forcing a bunch of gained overdrive) in the way a blues guitar would. Interesting stuff.

So I’ve discussed how the band successfully influenced the producer…But Matthew, how did the PRODUCER influence the BAND?! I’m dying to know! Please tell me? Well okay children, sit tight.

Listen to the structure of the songs on this album versus the previous two. You Come Before You and Versions were very experimental and more traditionally hardcore in nature. By this I mean that in some cases there weren’t really defined choruses and versus but rather repeating parts. Breakdowns or bridges seemed to be the focus of most of the songs, like the loooong bridge in the song “Letter Thing” on Versions featuring the wicked awesome slide guitar. Longer melodic passages spaced out the tone and pace of the record. On their newest release, there are still creative bits that exhibit the talents of the band nicely. I would go as far as to say Steve Evetts’ contribution or influence is actually pretty minimal…which is awesome! The guy has a tendency to let his musicians write and play what they want to write. What it seems that he does is take the parts they write and help arrange them in a fashion that both makes the song interesting when the parts aren’t by keeping the more uninteresting phrases short and creates space for the more interesting passages by helping arrange the parts around it…the jury is out whether that made sense to anybody else but me.

The beauty of this CD is that the end result is a record full of songs written and performed by Poison The Well as Poison The Well would want to be heard. They’ve taken tactics they’ve learned from other producers and records and blended them with the subtle styling of a new producer to mold and refine how they want their band to be heard and understood.

Good job boys! Thanks for not disappointing!

Guitarist Ryan Primack channeling the patented Angus Young rock and roll face.

It's A Hard Knock Life

It’s hard being a super mega nerdo fanboy these days. This is a rough life I lead. Burdened with the responsibilities and expectations placed on me by my friends, my family, myself, and my adoring throng of loyal readers…all like, 8 of you. I struggle through each day scouring the interwebs, the airwaves, and magazine stands pulling tidbits and factoids, soaking up information and knowledge like a leathery old broad who against all better judgment STILL sits out at the beach in the sun reading grocery store rags yelling at kids who kick sand on her towel all the while leering at the lifeguard who has no choice but to watch all the idiots in the water who think that since they’ve got a boogie board they’re impervious to the powers of the ocean. What are they thinking? Do they know how big the ocean is? Do they understand the force they’re dancing the dance of fate with? A sharkbiker could totally annihilate one of these kids should it be in the area and have the taste for flesh. Not that the life guard could really do anything about it. Sharkbikers are WAY more adept in water. It’s like they’ve lived there for thousands of generations! I mean, if a shark was on land and tried to start it with me, I’d TOTALLY be able to punch it right in its sharkface and run away cuz what chance does it have on land? None. We dominate the land. But I digress…

What do I do with this information I’ve gleaned? I digest. I analyze. I blatantly make stuff up and speak with conviction and surefootedness (Holy crap that’s a word? If spell check doesn’t pick it up that means it’s a word right?) in hopes that nobody questions the ridiculous claims I make.

So with this in mind, I’ve been doing my due diligence and do a pretty above average job at keeping all the inter-pages in my recent history, perusing the music magazine aisle at the book store, and keeping my ear to the ground for any tremor yet unheard. And what ho?! What’s this I hear?! The dawn of the new season! You’re damn right! New music season!

Let’s be honest, there’s no season for this, but somehow bands seem to put music out all at the same time…I think it has something to do with the average half life of Matthewkatzium…it’s the 111th element. No need to look it up. It’s fact. Either way, plastered all over MySpace, PureVolume, ReverbNation and all the respective record label websites (victoryrecords.com, ferretstyle.com, roadrunnerrecords.com, etc etc) are album presales! Woo!

For any music idiot super fan boy/girl, this is the golden harvest. What’s this? The CD I could buy in the stores for $10? Except that now, for the added cost of $9.99 (plus shipping and handling of course) I could have the VERY same CD but with an exclusive t-shirt?! A t-shirt that no one else will have unless they too feverishly refreshed their myspace page too? I. Must. Have. This. Immediately.

We fan-people don’t deal in dollars and cents. We deal in “making-of DVDs” (in one of Killswitch Engage’s presale offer packages), “limited edition t-shirts” (Poison the Well’s presale goodie), “signed screen printed posters” (as featured in Darkest Hour’s presale), “limited edition packaging” (one of the better gimmicks…same cd…different box), “exclusive 7 inch record complete with never before heard b-side recording and alternate version of a song already on the record” (unnecessarily part of August Burns Red’s presale bundle), and the ever popular bonus tracks as featured in pretty much EVERY pre-sale come-on ever.

Do I resist? Never. Do I nerd out about every single piece of paraphernalia? Absolutely 100% yes every time. Will I ever stop? Signs point to no.

This is one of the August Burns Red pre-order packages. I hate them for making me choose between the bundle with the t-shirt + poster and the one with the 7" vinyl. Decision: pending.

The FEAR

This could be the cause for celebration in the belly of the beast.

I've realized recently that the "scene" I've attached myself to has come to a critical breaking point. The bands that have established themselves in this genre (your Killswitches, your Every Time I Dies, your Alexisesonfires, your Poisons in the Wells, et cetera) are reaching the point where they've managed to separate themselves from the masses and made names for themselves in their own right. Their labels realize the cash cow that's been created by a gaggle of kids who throw some screamed, witty lyrics over discordant verses. The suits fan the fire by throwing money, tour buses, and producers at these lucky few in hopes of the big dream of commercial success. And this is all fine and dandy. I mean, who doesn't love money right? On top of that, who doesn't love screwing around with your closest friends on a stage and making sweet moolah hand over fist? Nobody...that's who...except maybe communists.

So all this "corporation"-, "major label"-, "the man"- bashing isn't really what I'm getting at. Hell, when I hear of a band I like getting signed to a major label I'm excited! It usually translates into bigger venues, higher production value (on record and live), more extensive tours, longer sets...all in all it's a good time for all! Growth. Hell ya.

What worries me is the machination of the whole process. At a certain extent, some ear at some label hears the potential for a certain sound from a certain band. So the push comes not towards creative liberty but towards chart-topping. With the commercial success of bands like Killswitch Engage, Every Time I Die (ETID), Alexisonfire, Poison The Well, and others, I can't help but sit back and wonder if Epitaph is going to start pushing ETID towards a more mainstream sound for example. Or maybe Poison the Well will start shopping around to major labels again like they did with "You Come Before You" which was put out on Atlantic. Will these larger labels whittle away at the uniqueness of these homegrown success stories? I honestly couldn't tell you. But with new records on the horizon for all four of those bands (not to mention several others, Evergreen Terrace and August Burns Red to name a couple more) I can't help but worry a little. Look what happened to Atreyu...Avenged Sevenfold...Norma Jean...All That Remains.

To end on a positive note though, its hard to ignore the roots. These bands managed to "make it" in a time when power pop, faux-metal, nu-metal, and general teenie-bopper "punk" dominated the airwaves in the forms of anything from American Idol, Linkin Park, Finger Eleven, Breaking Benjamin, Newfound Glory, to Blink 182, these small garage bands managed to grow to national recognition. Sans help from MTV, sans help from mainstream radio, sans help from Rolling Stone, this scene has flourished. How can a band leave behind what has been doing for the past decade and hop onto that gravy train? It's hard to imagine. I'm not going to pretend like it DOESN'T happen...but I'm gonna say that I'm hopeful for the future.

Hopeful with a pinch of trepidation.

A Steady Eye To The Future

I'm excited. Let me tell you why.

New stuff, yo! There's been a bit of a dry spell recently in the way of new metal/hardcore coming out and finally there's land on the horizon!

Darkest Hour is back in the studio with their new guitar player (replacing Kris Norris). They've put up a couple pictures on their myspace site of the recording process which, to gear junkies and all around nutjobs like myself, is very exciting. From what I can garner from what few pictures they've got up, they're still holed up in a practice studio somewhere writing. I'll be interested to know who they wind up having produce the record, I can only hope it'll be Devin Townshend again, but I've got a feeling they're gonna want to try someone else. More on that as it comes...

August Burns Red is also in the studio recording with Jason Suecoff turning the knobs. Nooooot too sure how I feel about this. As excited as I am for new ABR, Jason Suecoff (Trivium, All That Remains) seems to be pushing the whole radio-friendly thing too hard...which is one of the things about this band that appealed most to me. If the band lets Suecoff push them, I'm guessing this record will sonically sound great, but will be heavy on straight forward rhythms (less of the awesome August Burns Red mathiness), more singing, and more guitar solo passages. In my opinion, the LACK of all three of those things was what I thought put the wind in that bands' sails. Either way, I'll hold judgement till I hear it. After all, I have been wrong before...sparingly...

Protest the Hero and As I Lay Dying have live DVDs in the works...both are AWESOME live bands and I hope to all hell the energy and cohesiveness of their performances are appropriately captured! Oh man...ya...these bands play concerts in my head all the time and I'm definitely stoked for you all to see/hear what I see/hear while spacing out...at work...

Every Time I Die just got signed to Epitaph too! That's a HUUUUGE move for those guys, the music they play, and the scene they represent. Epitaph is still an indie label I guess, but they're definitely one of the bigger ones. It's owned/operated by one of the guys from Bad Religion and is REALLY heavy on the idea of leaving music making in the hands of those making it. By all accounts they treat their bands well, and have the budget to do huge things with their bands. Also, maybe an ETID/Parkway Drive label-mate tour could be on the horizon? God I hope that happens... Anyway, under this label, ETID is going back into the studio with Steve Evetts in April. So I'm thinking new music in Fall '09? Sweetnuts!

Poison the Well are also in the studio...ironically enough with Steve Evetts... I expect nothing but good things from this...although I really liked their work with those two Swedish dudes (don't feel like looking up their names, but I think one of them is Pelle something or other and the other's last name starts with H?) I've got trust that Poison the Well won't disappoint. Plus I've got the third installment of their limited edition records that I can't listen to to look forward to!

So all this is good and nice...but in all honesty, what's really got me all antsy in my pantsy is...new Alexisonfire! Yowza! Boom! Yes! Probably the undisputed champs of fun-time-Canadian-indie-hardcore, Alexisonfire is back in the studio (I think they're at about day 4 of tracking) with the same dude who did their last record, Crisis. I can all but guarantee that this new disk is gonna sound freakin' sweeeeeeeeet. Vintage in tone, progressive in arrangement. Wrap your noodle around THAT tasty gem! I highly recommend any one who doesn't own Crisis to run out and pick it up. It's genre hopping, energetic, melodic, caustic, it's everything! It's probably what a Canadian version of Versions by Poison the Well would sound like...but a little bit more silly. Do this: go to their myspace every day. www.myspace.com/alexisonfire They're posting blogs/videos/pictures every day they record. You can witness the slow onset of the insanity that never fails to permeate a control room. Back in my glory days with the Awakend, I damn near lost my mind after 4 days of tracking/mixing...Imagine what fun will develop over several weeks?! In Canada!? In a studio down the road from a brewery no less... Let the hilarity, and fantastic tunage, ensue. View this video and understand why I can't wait: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=52921041

Get excited yo! I am!

Poison the Well

In that insufferable gap between when a band finishes up touring to go back to the studio and the impending release of the record they had been tirelessly toiling over, Poison the Well has decided to release some of their B-Sides from their previous record, Versions. They spaced out the release of six songs into three limited edition 7" vinyl records with 2 songs each. Long story short, I decided that I should purchase each of these records as they came out. I've become a bit of an annoying super-fan who pretty much refreshes the band’s myspace page on an hourly basis looking for any updates, bulletins, or tasty morsels of auditory deliciousness. Pretty much the SECOND the record presale is announced I all but throw my credit card at the band and stand anxiously by the mailbox… only to receive (in due time) my previously unheard, limited edition, special presale packaged...record...which I can't listen to...because I don’t own a record player. I've tried jamming it in the cd player, putting it in the computer, scratching it really gently with my fingernail, and rubbing it on the dog and haven't been able to pull ANY sound out of the damn thing. Thank god for technology. I bought the songs on iTunes. So on top of buying the damn record and having no other real use for the thing other than to hang it on my wall as a seven inch circle of decoration...I bought the same songs online. I paid for the same thing twice. Because I'm "that guy." Super.

Moving on.

So the second of the three Poison the Well (PTW) releases titled II/III, cleverly enough, came out this past Tuesday. This means my useless record came in the mail on Thursday and I just bought/downloaded the tracks on iTunes. So on the eve of this exercise in musical retardation, I thought it might be interesting to do a little stream of consciousness thing while listening to the two tracks I've downloaded. They are called "Shuffle" and "Bowie" and are the 3rd and 4th tracks released after “New Fast” and “Purple Sabbath.”

But first, a little background. Like I said, these tracks were recorded during the band's 2006/2007 "Versions" recording session with producers/engineers Pelle Henricsson and Eskil Loustrom (with two little dots over the o's...umlads? that what they're called? who cares, this isn't a linguistics blog). Mind you Pelle and Eskil (cuz we're on a first name basis) were the geniuses who produced and recorded the revolutionary record "The Shape of Punk to Come" by The Refused. If you haven't heard or heard of this record, do yourself a favor and give it a listen. I'll have to do a separate posting on that because I could/would go on WAY too long about it. Versions is one of my, if not THE, favorite record of 2007. Aside from the creative input from the producers that DEFINITELY provided a tighter, more purposeful song structure, they did a lot of live recording, meaning everyone was playing/recording together. This allows the guys to "vibe" off each other as the songs push and pull against the tempo. This allows for a more natural flow to the song that gets lost if every note were laid out on the grid of the metronome. On top of the recording process, the instruments were all mic'd and recorded in a very roomy setting. As much as you can hear the drums, you can hear the room they're in. Again, this makes the record sound natural and real. It's hard to describe, but if you listen to a track off this record versus, say, any Adam D mix ever ("Oncoming Storm" by Unearth, "Horizons" by Parkway Drive, "Thrill Seeker" by August Burns Red, or "The End Of Heartache" by Killswitch Engage to name a few) you can hear a natural reverb present in the Versions recordings. It comes off sounding like you were sitting in a room with the band as they played. This “room sound” comes from putting a microphone right up against the speaker of the guitar cabinet and another one deep in the room, catching the natural reverb of the live room. All this gave a very cool sonic feel to the record. What makes this tone fit music was the way in which the band progressed in their style. As a band, PTW grew away from the hardcore/punk beginnings and embraced their influences which lay heavily in blues. "Versions" has instruments like mandolins, tambourines, trumpets, Wurlitzer pianos, and banjos that, even in a heavier setting, texture the music in a very delicate way. The song "Slow Good Morning" is a GREAT example of this.

Alright, enough of that...on with Shuffle (1st) and Bowie (2nd)...aaaaaaand play:

a weird swing feel to the drums
grainy bass
Jeff’s voice always surprises me in its clarity at times
ooo! slide guitar
they're really riding the swung rhythm
more slide!
I think this is in a weird minor key that makes the swing feel dark...it's like an evil nursery rhyme
there's an organ in the background I think...fills out/opens up the sound
drums for a second sounded like "Hitching A Ride" by Green Day
kick drum is lost in the mix a little bit, I wonder if this song was mixed/mastered at the same time as Versions
cool ending

loose guitar playing
slooooow song
more clear vocals...more sing-song-y
whoa...big floor tom
harmonizing with a lower octave vocally, sounds dark
snare drum sounds awesome...perfect amount of "crack" and "rattle" (snare head and snare chain)
sounds like the song wants to build into an epic end/chorus
big tom again
there's a really cool slow drum beat with lots of ghost notes that
oo, chick back-up harmonizing? that's new
I hope the chick comes back...that was cool...different texture I haven't heard in PTW
slide guitar with a rotating speaker (like used for organs...)
huh...song stayed slow.

So that was that...interesting. Maybe you thought so too.