Remember when...

Forgive Durden - "Razia's Shadow"
Release Date: October 28, 2008

Forgive Durden first appeared on the indie scene with their release of Wonderland back in 2006. The band felt great about the record and loved the music they created, but poor record sales and personal issues between band members were discouraging until three of the four members left in 2008. The only member who remained was vocalist Thomas Dutton, who, at the time, was writing a musical for the band's next album. Dutton felt defeated, but stuck with his ideas and began working with his brother on getting an album released. Together, they wrote and composed Razia's Shadow: A Musical. With no band and minimal experience with instruments, the pair opted to use software to create each track.

As far as vocals go, Thomas Dutton has one voice, and there are over a dozen characters in the story. Guest vocalists were essential to make something interesting. So he asked a few friends to lend their vocals for the album, and almost everyone that was asked accepted. Dutton really chose an amazing line-up from the Alternative/Pop/Rock music community. Some are on the album solely for their talent with singing - Lizzie Huffman, Max Bemis, Chris Conley, to name a few - but some were selected for simply being unique. Shawn Harris plays a demented, evil doctor, and while not vocally pleasing, the voice he creates really gives him a creepy personality. Aaron Weiss was not asked to do vocals, but instead plays the role of the narrator, boasting a really great storytelling voice. He's very sincere; each word is packed with strong emotions. Hearing a new voice on almost every track is refreshing and pleasant and helps break the monotony of a single vocalist.

The song composition is great and really helps set the focus on the vocalists, but nothing really stood out on the album. No two songs sound the same and I guess the uniqueness is something to appreciate, but I can't help but imagine how the record would've sounded with a few powerful guitars or something. I think that's the biggest problem with creating music through software. It takes much more effort to make something big when you're not playing the instruments yourself. Not bad enough to call it a disappointment, but there's definitely room for improvement if Dutton ever decides to create a sequel.
 
The storyline in Razia's Shadow is complex and somewhat confusing, but if you follow along with the CD booklet and listen to the entire record a few times, you should be able to pick it up. Initially we follow Ahrima (Dutton), an angel who's tired of being ignored for all the good deeds he does. He meets the love of his life, Nidria (Huffman), who comforts him and recognizes his genius. The love of Nidria is enough for Ahrima to forget his problems, until he meets an evil spider named Barayas (Bemis). Barayas tells Ahrima the only way for others to realize his potential is to burn down the city. By doing so he'll finally be recognized, even if he's seen as a villain instead of a hero.

Ahrima goes through with it and burns down everything they'd ever created. The townspeople are frightened and banish Ahrima to live on his own in the Darkness while the rest find a new place to live. Ahrima separates the world into two halves, the Light and the Dark, two sides destined to fight each other until an ancient prophecy is fulfilled. The story then skips forward 100 years to Ahrima's great-grandchildren. I've rambled, but it's really something you need to completely experience. It's not perfect and it won't make you a fan if you don't like Forgive Durden's sound, but for those who like the music, the storyline is an awesome addition that can really get you thinking and make you enjoy the album that much more.

It's not your ordinary album and it's understandable that most people probably won't get into it. The album is definitely best when listened to in one run, so if you find yourself on the fence, just try the whole thing. The genius is not in the strange idea or crazy melodies, but in the lyrics and lessons that Razia's Shadow will teach you.

Remember when...

Jonny Craig- "A Dream Is A Question You Don't Know How To Answer"
Release Date: August 18, 2009

I'm going to begin by saying that I've got serious bro-love for Jonny Craig. I first heard of the guy when he began his run with post-hardcore/screamo band "Dance Gavin Dance" and have subsequently followed him to his new band "Emarosa". I appreciate the music of any band he's in just because I believe he has one of the greatest voices I've ever heard from anyone.

Needless to say, I've been waiting with great, great anticipation for this album since it was first announced months prior. Jonny stated he was recording a solo-album as a side-project with Rise Records as his label, but that's about all we heard until four weeks ago. He's shown his voice can be very versatile, doing guest vocals for an assortment of bands of many different colors and flavors. Fans of Emarosa and old Dance Gavin Dance alike were more than ready for a solo effort from Jonny.

The album is entitled A Dream Is A Question You Don't Know How To Answer. It contains ten tracks and has a run time of 33 minutes. Songs focus largely on Jonny's vocals and an acoustic guitar, though each song has a variety of instruments to keep the music interesting.

The disc starts with the song "So Many of Us Hide Our Black Hearts", an unfortunate negative for the tracks yet to come. The sound is rough, Jonny's vocals are off, and it comes off as unfitting for a Jonny Craig track. This poor start is identically recreated with another "filler" song on track eight, which runs two minutes and just doesn't seem like something Jonny Craig would do.

Suffer past the minute-long intro track to hear "Istillfeelher Part III", a song that shows Jonny's true style. Jonny's smooth vocals are combined with an equally soothing melody, accentuating Jonny's powerful voice and telling a story of an old lover or dear one. The ride doesn't stop with the next track, "What I Would Give To Be An Australian", and continues all the way to track five, "7 AM, 2 Bottles, and the Wrong Road". Jonny doesn't throw any curveballs with these songs: admittedly, some tracks sound similar, but there's plenty of differences from track to track to keep you interested and excited for many playthroughs.

Track six is where I was blown away. "The Garbage Pail Kid Gang Bang", as strange and disturbing of a title as it is, is an excellent track. Jonny's vocals are catchy and slick, the guitar is funky, and Jonny repeats "Before you open your mouth, let me make it clear: I can't be brought down while I stand so high...where's the lesson in this?". It's an amazingly constructed song, and one that's going to be put on repeat for some time to come.

Track seven and nine are much like two through five: great music, though nothing that'll give a blind man sight. The album closes with the song "Children of Divorce", one of the greatest pieces I've ever had the pleasure to listen to. Jonny is much more serious and distraught, and the song seems like something he really feels emotionally attached to. It's a song of a couple who became a pair too fast, only to realize they didn't really love eachother after they create a child. Jonny sings, "Sadly enough, this song's not to hurt you, just to show the world that I'm free." It's beautiful, and the song alone is completely worth the $12.00 pricetag.

Remember when...

Jason Mraz - "We Sing.  We Dance.  We Steal Things."
Release Date: May 13, 2008

The funny thing about music these days is that it seems one hit single is all that's needed to launch a successful career in the industry. Any well-known artist will make a million dollars off of a track with their name on it, and because of this I find I'm extremely critical of any song I hear ten times in one hour on the radio. When I first heard Jason Mraz' single "I'm Yours" I liked it, but I ignored his album because I felt it would be the only song worth listening to. It's a trick I've seen all too much with modern music: release one song the public will love, sell millions of mediocre CDs for twelve bucks each.

Jason Mraz classifies himself as an MC, mainly for his ability to spit out tongue-twisting lyrics rapid fire. It's one of his claims to fame, and it's very prevalent on his 2001 album Waiting For My Rocket To Come. I really don't care for it. It's unique but lacks any positive musical quality and I'd always find myself skipping tracks where the focus is set on his word flow. When the time came to take a listen to We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. I was very unenthusiastic.

My initial negativity may have something to do with it, but I was blown away by the album. What I expected was overdone love ballads with terrible lyrics and Mraz' "boop-boppidy-boop" beat boxing solos. While we still need to put up with the beeps and the boppidies, the album focuses on lively melodies, strong vocals, positive messages, and a style I've seen come from nobody but Mraz himself.

The album begins with "Make It Mine", an extremely funky track that really sets things off right. You'll hear a soft guitar playing in the background, but instrumentally the focus is on a few trumpets present at different parts of the track. Mraz doesn't do anything major lyrically or vocally in the verses and bridges of the song, but redeems himself in the chorus, when he sings "I don't want to wake before the dream is over...I'll make it all mine." This lyric prepares the listener for the rest of the album, which for the most part stays extremely positive.

The album rolls on with "I'm Yours", the track that's likely responsible for most of the record's sales. It's a slow love song, and Mraz accentuates his boopidy-boppidies multiple times (this time with a doodja-doo-doodja spin), but it's not bad. The beat is smooth and each verse flows pretty nicely. Besides, it could be worse: what if it was a love song featuring a female vocalist with a groany voice and sappy "other people don't understand" lyrics? What if it was like the next track, "Lucky"?

The song has absolutely no progression and shows that Mraz still isn't perfect. In fact, he uses the exact same formula in the songs "If It Kills Me" and "A Beautiful Mess". The song "The Dynamo Of Volition" shows he's still wants to show the world he likes to rap, but unfortunately it adds another song to my "skip" list.

Thankfully, these are the only negatives on the album. Mraz boasts his great song writing in songs like "Love for a Child" and "Live High". Lyrics like, "When you're young, it's okay to be easily ignored...I'd like to believe it was all about love for a child," remind me that he can still write a great song. Even songs like "Coyotes" and "Butterfly", which don't have any lyrics that really stand out, feature that Mraz-style funk that make the songs exciting and enjoyable.

The song that stands out most to me after multiple listens is "Details In The Fabric" featuring James Morrison. It's the slowest song on the album, but amazingly positive and very high-quality musically. Mraz and Morrison both sing, "Hold your own, know your name, and go your own way...if your shocked it's just the fault of faulty manufacturing."

We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. is a great record. It's a bit disappointing that I was only able to enjoy eight of the twelve tracks, but eight tracks is enough to justify twelve dollars. Mraz shows that he can pull off anything from funky/smooth trumpet rock to slow acoustics with powerful lyrics, and the variety of the album is something not seen in most records today.

New Release - Monty Are I "Break Through the Silence"

Admittedly, this is the first Monty Are I album that I've listened to. I figured this release was a debut album of what would be an excellent band, but some fans quickly informed me these guys have been around for a while now - they even have three other full-lengths. Nevertheless, I decided to give their latest release  Break Through the Silence a listen.

Let me first begin with what Break Through the Silence did right. Initially, what stood out to me was the lead singer's voice. He sounds very similar to Bert McCracken of The Used (albeit a bit more poppy), and while I'm not a fan of the band I think both vocalists have an excellent voice. A lot of these songs are set up with lots of focus on the vocalist, and he's good. While the guitar work on the album isn't outstanding, there are quite a few small, fun riffs every once in a while that are just pleasant to listen to. Whoever plays the keyboard does a fantastic job as well; while it's not always focused on I hear it in most songs and the little melodies that are repeated just blend perfectly.

But unfortunately that's where my praise ends. While I like the vocalist, the band is sometimes too poppy for their own good, and at points I wasn't quite sure if I was listening to a boy band or a rock group. The second track, "The Stand", is a great example. The lyrics for the chorus are, "Try and knock me down but I'm still standing. Try to knock me down but I'm still here. You'll fade away but I won't disappear because I'm not going anywhere." There are quite a few lines like this on the album that I'd like to forget I ever heard.

The previously mentioned chorus is also an example for my next pet-peeve: Monty Are I seem to love to take their song titles and make them into choruses. What I mean is that just about every other song on the album has a chorus with the name of the song in it. Some are slightly less guilty of this - in "Kaleidoscope", they only briefly mention at the end, "Like a kaleidoscope, when I give you a spin I'm in." However, in songs like "Making Sounds" and "One In a Million", the vocalist repeat the lines over and over: "Faced with a feeling I could never give up from the way we're making sounds, making sounds, sound, sounds, making sounds, making sounds, sounds, sounds..." I was looking for something more clever than that, and this album couldn't meet my expectations.

Stand out tracks on the album include "Break Through the Silence", "Kaleidoscope", and "Mirage" (guilty of the chorus problem), as well as the bonus track "The Patriarch" which I found to be the absolute best song on the album. "The Patriarch" sounds so much like the tracks on Forgive Durden's album "Razia's Shadow" in that it has similar orchestra instrumentals, as well as superb vocals and excellent lyrics. It really reminds me of "The Missing Piece". "The Patriarch" has me wondering if Monty Are I were using it as an experiment to see if fans like it - it definitely sounds different than the rest of the album, in a really, really good way.

I've said a lot of bad things about the album and it probably won't be my favorite release of the month, but I honestly did enjoy it. The band is too poppy for my tastes during a lot of the songs and almost every song has an extremely repetitive chorus, but the band does do a lot of things right. I can't say, "Go out and buy this album," and I won't tell you, "Avoid this at all costs," because some people are going to like it and some will hate it. Give a few songs a listen and go from there. Me - I think I'll just keep "The Patriarch" on repeat.

Remember When...

Say Anything - "...is a Real Boy"

Release Date: August 3, 2004

I don't believe there's a better way to start off this blog then by looking back at Alt. Rock/Punk band Say Anything's first full-length adventure into the world of music. "...Is A Real Boy" is an album that oozes feeling, an album filled to the brim with clever metaphors and witty one-liners, and an album absolutely no fan of the genre should go without.

"And the record begins with a song of rebellion," says singer/song writer Max Bemis, right before the rough guitar intro into "Belt". Blatant as it may be, it cleverly informs the listener of what to expect not only for the duration of the song, but for the entire length of the one hour record. Lyrics of rebellion, sarcasm, narcissism, love, and hate are the foundation for IARB's story. From fake friends and ex-girlfriends to rejection from record companies and bitterness towards fans, Max Bemis' story of life and music is as sad as it is interesting.

Along with lyrics and vocals, Bemis played every instrument present on IARB, aside from the drums. Though the style of music changes from song to song - think of heavy/punk guitar-driven jamming in "Belt" to acoustic love song "I Want to Know Your Plans" - the superb song structure and unique sound remain present throughout all thirteen tracks. Max does an excellent job giving each song it's own personality; small touches like the technical guitars in "Yellow Cat (Slash) Red Cat" and the vocal "Bop" harmony in "The Futile" really add to their song, despite being simple and not incredibly noticeable.

Though I feel every song on IARB is superb, there are a few tracks that really stand out to me, even after my hundredth listen. "Woe" is delightfully sarcastic, with the lyric, "I can't get laid in this town without these pointy fucking shoes," getting me every single time. "Yellow Cat (Slash) Red Cat" also boasts some great storytelling. Max shows a gradual slip out of reality with the lyrics, "I watch my cousin Greg watch MTV inside his home/I watch this dude, each night, same table/I watched my neighbor's son play with his shotgun in the street." And don't worry: even if you're someone who pays no attention to lyrics, IARB will not disappoint. The melody and presentation of songs like "Alive With the Glory of Love" will surely make you sing along every time.

I can't promise that you'll absolutely love Say Anything, nor can I say you'll definitely want to drop $12 on IARB. Fans of the Pop-Punk/Alt. Rock genre and those who have a huge sense of rebelliousness at least owe "Alive With the Glory of Love" a listen. I did (almost five years ago) and the album's still on repeat today.  IARB is Say Anything (and the punk rock genre as a whole) at its absolute best.