Third Day Of A Phantom Limb Storm

To my amazement, the last week has turned out to be extremely prolific in terms of surprise releases on the most unexpected fronts. It feels like Christmas has come early this year, and that's not necessarily a coincidence, since Halloween is apparently turning into the new Christmas for hard rock and heavy metal fans.

Naturally, none of this extends to Metallica, who are still not willing to release any new material whatsoever till Hell freezes over. But that's something we're all used to living with at this point. And, if you're too hungry for Metallica releases, you can always order that $400 live box set. You can just as well pre-order one for me, if you have $400 to spare and feel like doing me a favor LMAO But who the fuck am I talking to, if I don't even have readers in the first place?

Never mind.

This lucky string of releases began on Monday, when I woke up (at whatever time that might have happened LOL) to discover that there was a brand new Marilyn Manson song out there. I had a certain suspicion that something like this might happen after his website was recently updated to reveal a new MM logo, but I wasn't expecting him to strike so quickly.

I was obviously wrong.

The track in question, interestingly titled Third Day of a Seven Day Binge, is meant to serve as a first taste of his yet untitled ninth album, due to come out in early 2015, and to prove that, once you've done having record label trouble, things can start to move way, way quicker.

Because, ovbiously, the time has come for a new Marilyn Manson record to drop. I hadn't even taken the time to sit back and realize it's already been about two and a half years since Born Villain came out. It honestly didn't feel that long, perhaps because I've had plenty of stuff to keep myself entertained. Or perhaps because Manson has somehow managed to not disappear from the public eye during most of that time, which is not a small achievement in this day and age.

His media presence has been especially strong during the last few months, mostly thanks to his recurring role in the final season of Sons Of Anarchy (which is being aired in the States as we speak), so it's not surprising he has chosen this specific moment to launch the pre-campaign for his album release - whatever the hell that means now.

"I love my job"

Far from the brutal aggression of I Am Among No One (the bizarre 30 second snippet that preceeeded the release of Born Villain), Third Day is a melancholic mid-tempo song with a certain new wave-ish High End Of Low feel, much in the spirit of Leave a Scar, only somewhat more depressing. It's a pretty classic Manson tune, but still beautiful.

Marilyn seems to be finally finding comfort in what I've come to designate as his DIY period - which encompasses all the works he has released since his relationship with Interscope started going sour, about ten years ago. As the budgets started shrinking (along with the media attention they bring) and his larger than life public persona started losing value in the middle of an increasingly disperse cultural landscape (with some help from the back PR team at Cherrytree Records *cough*), it became clear that it was time for him to become a different type of artist. And that's exactly what happened, eventually.

It wasn't always easy, going from being one of the most recognized (and feared) personalities on the planet (one powerful enough to make the kids pass on Marilyn Manson stories in the school playgrounds) – a gigantic pop culture superproduction – to operating with the means (and getting the recognition) of an obscure niche underground artist, but he did it, and the result seems to be paying out.

Now that he no longer has to play the second coming of the Antichrist, the androginous alien transplanted to Hollywood or the satirical embodiment of the American society, he can finally focus on being the poet of doom; a 45-year-old artist with human thoughts and human experiences, who operates more as a singer-songwriter than as a creative director. He has pretty much given up political commentary in favor of introspective observation, and he seems to be enjoying himself in that role – and so is his audience.

Against all odds, Manson seems to have finally found a place for himself in this post-cultural society. And I personally celebrate that.

If you're interested, the song is available as a free download on marilynmanson.com in exchange for your e-mail address. There might be some big data conspiracy there, but who cares... I don't really mind them having my e-mail address (I mean one of my many e-mail addresses *cough*) if they really use it to send me updates on MM activity. I kinda like the idea of resurrecting the newsletter as a concept, as old-fashioned as it might sound. However, if I start getting Cheap Viagra offers in my inbox, I'll know it was you, Brian Warner.

You have been warned.

But not even the release of a new Marilyn Manson song, along with the surprise announcement of an upcoming Marilyn Manson album, can compete with the astonishment caused by the premiere of a brand new Alice In Chains video.

That's right – from out of nowhere, Alice have come up with a music video for Phantom Limb because why the fuck not.

After reading an interview Mike Inez did this summer (which, by the way, included some hilariously self-deprecating depictions of his domestic life) where he explained how they all need to take some time off between album cycles to do some normal people stuff, and knowing that they are not exactly media-loving people, I was morally prepared to not hearing from the band AT ALL until their next record came out... sometime in 2016 LOL Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon some actual Alice news only a couple of months after their tour ended. My eyes almost popped out.

The announcement was accompanied by a new picture of the band which, unfortunately, turned out to be a Photoshop composition, because photographers don't even know how to just take a goddamn picture anymore... and also because the guys who run your marketing can never be trusted, and because the four band members probably aren't even in the same city right now.

What is Photoshop?

It's always weird when people you care about get the Photoshop treatment, but hey... at least they don't have a creepy gang of German pedophiles sampling their voices and putting them into shitty disco songs they did not write, which is more than some other bands can say *cough*

We should just call it Artist's Conception – Sketch of what might have been an actual photograph.

But that's not even the point.

I had somehow assumed that their final 2014 tour date also served as the final nail on the coffin of the Dinosaurs era, but it seems like that's not necessarily the way things work for Alice.

Answering to a fan who had asked him what was the ideal number of songs to put in an album (quite a freaky question, IMO LOL), Will once said that, given the current state of things in the industry, it could be four or twenty-four, or whatever the hell you want, because it doesn't really matter. I guess that pretty much sums up the band's view on the music industry game. In the current  climate, there's no real way to suceed – therefore there's no way you can fail. So, if you want to make a seven-minute-long music video for the heaviest and most radio un-friendly song you can think of one year and a half after the actual album came out, then do it, 'cause You got, got / Nothin' to lose.

With this move, the band is basically showing the world that they have completely run out of fucks to give. And, damn, man... I'm really thankful for it.

Just like I'm thankful for the fact that they've chosen precisely Phantom Limb as their next sort-of-single. I can't say that it's one of my favourite tracks on the Dinosaurs album, because that would be like stating that I have some least favourite songs on it – which is totally unconceivable LOL It is, however, one of the three first Alice songs I ever liked (along with Hollow and Hung On A Hook), and that is bound to create a special bond for life. 

It's also the only song on the record co-written by Will, and the only one to feature his vicious soloing along with his killer vocals.

The video is built around a mindfucking paradox, exactly like I was expecting it to be (well, I might have not necessarily predicted its paradoxal nature, but I definitely expected it to be mindfucking, because that's what Alice do best LOL): a young intruder breaks into an old man's house, they put up one hell of a fight, the old man gets killed... and then mindfuck happens – all pretty much in the spirit of the song.

Like all previous music videos for this album (except for the title track), the visual companion to Phantom Limb was directed by Robert Schober (a.k.a. Roboshobo), who is also responsible for Metallica's All Nightmare Long (among tons of other stuff I'm not that familiar with).

It's funny because, when I found out that he counted Metallica anmong his clients, I knew he had to be the director of All Nightmare Long straight away. And the reason why I identified his style so quickly is because, for me, All Nightmare Long had exatly the same problem as Hollow and Phantom Limb. I'm calling it problem because it's not a real PROBLEM, but rather a personal issue.

At the height of his idealistic days, Edie Vedder explained his strong dislike of music videos by saying: "Before music videos first came out, you’d listen to a song with headphones on, sitting in a beanbag chair with your eyes closed, and you’d come up with your own visions, these things that came from within. Then all of a sudden, sometimes even the very first time you heard a song, it was with these visual images attached, and it robbed you of any form of self-expression." Well, even though I can't subscribe to his total rejection of the music video as a format, it's undeniable that he did have a point.

And so, my issue with the Robo-man is not that his visuals for the songs differ from the ones I have, but rather that his approach to how these visuals should interact with the music sometimes enters in conflict with mine. So, what happens is that, whenever he has a video with a complex storyline (like in the case with the three aforementioned videos), as opposed to a more general/abstaract concept, is that he tends to use the music as a backdrop for the dramatic action, instead of treating the song as the central character and let its structure set the pace for the unfolding of events. Or that's the way I perceive it anyway.

So, my thing with the Hollow video, for example, is that, even though I think it's really good, whenever I see it all I want to do is close my eyes and look away, just because I don't want to be distracted from the song. I really like the video – I just like the song more.

But I guess that's a problem you face when working with songs this big.

That said, however, it's undeniable that the the first impression of seeing Hollow (song and video combined) is one that never leaves you, just like it's undeniable that the Robo-man really has a talent for coming up with strong and original concepts, as well as a special sensitivity to detect certain elements that are present in the music and incorporate them into his set of visuals: the weird sense of ingravity in Hollow (thus the action being set in space), as well as the limping nature of its 6/4 riff (the main character actually starts limping half-way through the footage); the hilarious Cold War-themed horror/sci-fi fantasy extravaganza of All Nightmare Long (which seems to have been made up by twelve-year-old Kirk Hammett); the quarry in Stone (because obviously LOL); the depth of Jerry's love for Seattle in Voices (I assume Jerry is not the only Seattle-loving member in the band, but he's the one who wrote the song anyway, so the merit goes to him LOL), or the concepts of mutual damage and supernatural revenge in Phantom Limb (which he preserved in his storyline, with a paradoxal twist), as well as the blank TV screen... I can't really say what's the deal with that. All I know is that my own personal vision of the song also included blank/malfunctioning screens. Guess that must have been encoded in the music somehow...? O.o LOL

To make the release even more original, the video comes as a BitTorrent bundle (i.e. a download), which means you can't find it online. Well, you can now, because fans are not stupid and some of them have already uploaded it, but you definitely won't find it on any of the band's official accounts. Or, at least, not yet.

I have spent many hours mentally debating the potentially evil connotations of this type of partnership, but then again, partnering with an entity like BitTorrent is not that different from partnering with YouTube or Vevo, which they have also done. And it's also not that different from posting my thoughts on a Google-owned platform, like I'm doing right now.

When walking through a swamp, there's only a certain amount of steps you can make before you hit some mud – and no one here is a fucking lotus flower. It's all good, as long as you don't get sucked into quicksand. I guess.

While I was putting myself through the not-so-immediate process of installing the BitTorrent software and downloading the actual video, I realized the degree to which file sharing has become a retro concept of sorts. In a time when pretty much everything is available on (and controlled by) YouTube and/or Spotify, there's a certain outlaw-ish feeling to using file sharing as a form of distribution. Knowing that you have that obscure file somewhere on your hard drive gives you an old-fashioned sense of intimacy with the band you don't really get through streaming, and it also allows you to bypass the hateful tirade of "Jerry Cantrell is old" "that black guy is a fag and a poser" "they'll never make another record as good as Dirt" comments, which is nice for a change.

It all reminds me of the time when kids would sit on MSN Messenger (RIP) all day, sending music files back and forth, not for the sake of piracy, but because music still had a hint of cultural relevance, and, back then, that was the only way you had of discovering music that was under the hit industry radar (which was pretty much all of it). Some of those files came from records people had actually bought. Others, of course, didn't. But, at least, people talked and exchanged impressions, which is so much more than they do today.

The problem is never in the channel – it's in the culture... or the total and absolute lack of it.

And there, my friends, is where we're really fuked up.

By the way, if you're still curious about those Mike Inez quotes, I dug them out just for you:

"I have a wonderful wife. I walk in the door and she hands me a dogshit shovel and says, 'The dog yard is over there, rock star. Get to work.' It's funny. And, 'Here's some light bulbs and get the ladder out. You've got work to do.' She slaps me down pretty good. So [we] just need to get home."

Oh, marriage, sweet marriage. Who wouldn't want it? ;)

Tuesday was a great day under the shadow of the Space Needle (that is assuming that the Space Needle ever does project a shadow, given Seattle's usual weather conditition LOL), not just because of the surprise release of the Phantom Limb video, but also because Soundgarden dropped a brand new song. Just like that.

I have been getting into Soundgarden lately as a part of my ongoing grunge education, and I've really come to like the band so far. They are much more on the psychedelic side of things than Alice (and are even more 70s influenced... if that's even possible LOL), but when they get heavy... man, they do get heavy. Their love for Zeppelin, Sabbath and even the *sigh* Beatles is very palpable throughout their work – just as much as their fondness for low tunings.

Their songwriting is not as grandiose as Alice's, but that's just because Cantrell's songwriting is the size of classical music, and that's definitely not something you can expect to find every day. I could feel tempted to say that their sound is stronger than their actual songs, but that's exactly what I thought of Alice after I first heard Dinosaurs... and look at me now.

And then again, my knowledge of the band's work is by now limited to their best known album (their iconic 1994 release, ironically titled Superunknown), so I can't exactly talk like I'm the biggest expert.

Flaming youth gonna set the world on fire

This new song, however, doesn't stray too far from the Soundgarden I know.

Storm is a heavily psychedelic number with some serious Superunknown vibes. It features some nice harmonized vocals made in Chris Cornell and tons of weird Soundgarden guitars, which is pretty much everything you'd want to hear in a Soundgarden song. Its progressive, atmosferic and somewhat mystic nature is underpinned by a very muscular rhythm section (definitely one of the band's biggest strenghts), which creates a certain urgent feel, and therefore qualifies it as a road song – the type you'd like to hear while driving down a stormy desert highway (apparently, my ideal driving scenario LOL)... or that's the way I see it, anyway.

It feels like time hasn't really passed for Soundgarden... and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Interestingly enough, Storm wouldn't sound out of place on a playlist with Alice In Chains' 1993 track A Little Bitter, which, on the other hand, is not that surprising, if you consider how close both bands have always been. They have given and taken a lot from each other through the years, and that's bound to show every now and then :)

This surprise release, by the way, comes in advance of Echo Of Miles: Scattered Tracks Across The Path, which, as its brief and totally un-pretentious *wink* title indicates, will be a compillation of rarities and B-sides. It doesn't sound like a type of release I would be especially interested in – at least, not at this point anyway. I still have to get through a lot of Soundgarden normalities before moving on to the weird stuff ;) Hardcore grungers, however, will most definitely celebrate the news.

Just like I'm celebrating this Third Day of a Phantom Limb Storm.

Whatever the hell that is.

Vinyl Dreams, Endless Questions

I had one of my strange awakenings today. 

I woke up around 9.30 and, for a while, I somehow didn't feel the need to fall asleep again. Instinctively, I reached for my phone, just to see what the outside world had to offer.

After discovering that a Japanese S&M clothing store I followed on Twitter a couple of days ago (don't ask) had decided to follow me back for whatever reason (LOL), I went on to chek out my Instagram account. To my surprise, somebody had liked the picture I took of my then brand new copy of The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here - that's right: the one with the Baby Jesus I posted on this same blog about a million years ago.

Not a million years, actually, but 19 weeks: the exact amount of time that has passed since this CD first landed in my hands. Ironically and unknowingly, the stranger had chosen a very special day to perform his virtual interaction, and I'm glad he did, because if it wasn't for him, I would have definitely missed the occasion. It's been exactly five months since the day I first sat down and listened to this very album; five months since I realized I had become a fan of Alice, and my love for the band has only grown exponentially during this time.

It's hard to believe how long and how short these five months feel. In some ways, it still seems like it all happened just yesterday. But then, when I look back at all the things I've learnt and all the (countless) hours I've spent listening to their records and realize I've only been a fan of this band for five fucking months, all I can say is: 'Jesus Christ!' LOL

Alice is the first IMPORTANT band I've ever discovered through streaming, and I guess that explains some of it. Never before had I acquired such a deep knowledge of a band's body of work in so little time. With all the other bands, it took so much longer to complete the picture... You only got to see one piece of the puzzle, one record at a time, till you finally had all of them and could fill the gaps. There was fun in that, I won't deny it. But what happened with Alice (mostly thanks to the impossibility of playing un-shuffled albums on Spotify mobile LOL) was that I had a clear vision of the big picture almost since day one. I feel like I've known all these records for a lifetime now, which is still mindblowing; I can talk to people who have been fans of this band for years without feeling retarded, and they never even suspect how much of a newbie I am LOL

I guess this just proves what an awesome tool streaming can be. If only teenagers used it to expand their non-existent musical culture instead of just doing whatever the fuck they do with it... oh man.

But they don't even have a reason to do that, because music isn't worth shit today, thanks to twenty-five years of consolidation and 'container over content' politics.

In this apocalyptic context, I obviously had to find out who had unearthed my ancient picture, and why.

The like came from an account named metalvinyls. Unsurprisingly, it seemed to belong to a vinyl collector with a predilection for heavy metal records, whose avatar I happened to recognize as the cover of Daniel Buhszpan's The Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal - a book I have proudly read from A to Z B)

Not his avatar, but actually my copy of the book ;)

The reason he had stumbled across my picture became clear as soon as I saw his last two pictures, introduced by the following (and curious) caption:

"So this picture is part one of two awesome picture disks I got today at HMV. This is of course from Alice in Chains's album The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here. Now I know they aren't exactly metal. But rock/hard rock non the less and I couldn't pass up showing off these records! #aliceinchains #thedevilputdinosaurshere #picturedisk #colouredvinyl #vinyl #vinyljunkie #part1 #nowspinning #rock #hardrock"

Photo: metalvinyls

"I know they aren't exactly metal". This sentence sounded really funny to me, and it led me to ask my first trascendental question of the day: why is Alice In Chains generaly labeled as a 'hard rock' band while Black Sabbath is universally aknowledged as a 'heavy metal' band? 

Don't get me wrong - I don't have much appretiation for the 'heavy metal' tag. In fact, I'm glad Alice don't have to deal with it because I know, from my long experience as a Metallica fan, how limitating it can be, but it just makes no sense to me that two bands as essentially similar as Alice and Sabbath happen to be separated by this Berlin Wall of genres.

I first noticed this when I came across LoudWire's '10 Best Rock Albums of 2013' list. I was very pleased to see Dinosaurs on the top spot (where it belongs), but I was equally surprised that they had apparently overlooked Black Sabbath's 13. Had they forgotten about its existence, or did they just consider it was so bad it didn't even deserve to make the top 10? LOL

But of course, they hadn't forgotten about Black Sabbath - how could they? It turned out 13 was on number 5, after all... of their '10 Best Metal Albums of 2013' list, squeezed between Dream Theater and Deafheaven (whothefuck???), just a few spots away from Motörhead (don't think Lemmy would approve being in the 'metal' list either *cough*). 

I found that so mindblowingly absurd it hadn't even occurred to me that those two albums belonged in two different lists. Hollow and Phantom Limb are actually heavier than anything on 13; Alice's Dirt abum is more aggressive than any Sabbath record... But they're still not a metal band. And Sabbath are.

Because... yeah.

Photo: metalvinyls

I didn't, however, let that question distract me from what I was seeing: Dinosaurs on picture disc... 'like what the fuck is that?' It took a few seconds for my drowsy brain to figure out it was (obviously) the limited edition picture disc vinyl release of the Dinosaurs album. 

It comes in two parts because it's so fucking massive you can't just squeeze it into a single disc. The album is split in FOUR sides, with three tracks on each... which obviously doubles its price. If they had to do this with Dinosaurs, I wonder how they would have handled the vinyl release of Jerry Cantrell's 2 hour 20 minute-long (!) Degradation Trip Volumes 1&2. Would it come in some sort of weird vinyl box set or something? Unfortunately for vinyl die-hards (or fortunately for their pockets), it seems it never got a vinyl release, so I guess we'll never know LOL

But that's not the point.

As I kept looking at these pictures, it started to dawn on me just how solid vinyl records really look. It's not like I didn't know it; I just had forgotten the feeling. At those early hours of the morning, however, the idea suddenly seemed so tempting...

I browsed through his gallery for a while, looking at what else he had. There wasn't much I could relate to musically, but I couldn't keep myself from appreciating his love for collecting only the flashiest picture discs known to mankind... Tons of beautiful records from bands I couldn't care less about. I wasn't that impressed by the different albums' cover art as I was by the thousands of weird things you can do with the disc surface. And man, I have to admit the idea was making me drool.

And the more I thought about it, the more I started to enjoy the idea of holding a BIG vinyl record in your hands, looking at the BIG cover art, touching its surface and feeling the grooves...

I have been a notable vinyl skeptic for a while, especially since the format became trendy again in the last few years, mostly because I saw it as a hipster thing, and as an industy trap to sell us the same records AGAIN at a much more expensive price, after making sure we tossed our pre-CD vinyl collection into the trashbin, discarded as obsolete.I still believe that, because most of it is true, but I also know that, being the rock and roll dinosaur I am, it's just a question of time before I fall in the arms of the ancient format.

Being a kid raised in the age of CD and far away from the family vinyl collection I had to leave behind in Siberia, I never really got to have a first-hand vinyl experience, and, to a certain degree, that's something I miss.

The audio quality of LPs is universally aknowleged to be notably better than that of CDs. Like my friend Ducky (who is an avid vinyl collector herself) pointed out in a post she wrote regarding her vinyl collecting hobby, LPs have an incomparably wider frequency range, which makes the difference between the two formats something you experience with your body rather than something you can discern by hearing. I can't confirm it due to my aforementioned lack of first-hand experience, but I'm pretty sure it's true.

...Just like I'm pretty sure that all the glorious records from the 70s, like Queen II (especially Queen II) or the Ozzy era Black Sabbath albums, to name just very few, never really recovered from the conversion to CD, no matter how many remasters they've been through. Vinyl is probably the only legitimate way of listening to those records, and that's something I have to live with.

 

Queen II in beautiful vinyl

And I'm gonna live with it for quite a while still, because there are way too many things pushing me away from vinyl collecting right now.

First of all, vinyl players are expensive as fuck.

Second: both the player and the records need space, and I mean they require TONS of space I totally don't have. I already have trouble organizing my CDs, so I can't even imagine what it would be like to deal with HUGE vinyl records.

Third: LPs cost three to six times as much as CDs (I'm not counting overpriced new CD releases), and that's when they're not diabolic double LPs like Dinosaurs LOL

Collecting vinyl is such a bottomless money pit I don't even want to think about it until I have my own stable (and abundant) source of income.

Everyone is entitled to a 'rich bastard' hobbie. I guess collcting vinyl is gonna be mine. But I still have to be a rich bastard first.Until then, the only vinyls in my collection will be my decorative exemplar of Hotel California and a tiny bunch of Queen singles I inherited.

Amazing Hotel California vinyl release. Not mine, but a similar one.

Another thing that makes me cautious about vinyl collecting is that it really is a collector's affair. When you're a vinyl collector (and you only buy vinyl when you're a vinyl collector these days), you don't just walk in the store and buy whatever you find; you're supposed to know exactly what you want to buy, because there are so many different versions of everything, and limited editions and all sorts of weird shit to drive you crazy and suck the money out of your hands like a goddamn vacuum cleaner. I have to admit that perspective makes me pretty scared. But then again, I guess that when you're a rich bastard you have the time to dig deep into your rich bastard hobbie, and you're not afraid of how much it's gonna cost, so I guess I'll just worry about that later.

The worst thing about developing an interest in vinyl records, however, is having to deal the those bitchy little people known as 'audiophiles' a.k.a. the purists of sound mixing.

You know I'm a huge lover of great music, and I love writing and talking about it (as you can see LOL), but hearing audiophiles speak just makes me want to chew my own head off. Because being an audiophile is not about being a 'lover' of recorded sound; being an audiophile actually means you can NEVER enjoy ANYTHING that's recorded, because nothing is ever good enough for your exquisite hearing.

While looking for some extra information on the Dinosaurs picture disc, I accidentally came across this review, which suddenly reminded me why I should NEVER read reviews of things I like LOL

 

First of all, the guy says some things about Alice that are extremely inaccurate.

He says Black Gives Way To Blue was a poppier album than Dinosaurs, which just makes me wonder if he accidentally swapped the albums without knowing. He says Dinosaurs is 'a return to the bleak and the sorrowful' as opposed to the 'happy' tunes on Black Gives Way To Blue. REALLY, BRO? Dinosaurs features a record number of huge life-affirming anthems that don't have a single 'bleak' or 'sorrowful' thing about them; in fact, no other Alice album has SUCH an amount of happy tunes, and definitely NOT Black Gives Way To Blue. 

 

He lists Stone, Choke and Scalpel as 'downer songs' along with Hollow, which also proves he has a rather curious perspective on life. Stone is a heavy tune, sure as Hell, but I wouldn't refer to it as 'downer', especially if Hollow is your most immediate reference of what a 'downer' song is. Choke is an epic mid-tempo Dire Straits-friendly ballad and Scalpel is a pretty happy country song that has nothing dark about it, aside from the title. Seriously: what the fuck was this guy listening to?

He also says that the band hasn't changed its sound since 1992, which would make me violently spit my drink out on his face... if only I had a drink.

But then my favourite part comes: loudness war and the never-ending audiophile rant.

Audio compression/loudness war is a subject that has fascinated me for years, because of how concerned all the purists of sound mixing seem to be about it. Obviously, the guy complains about Dinosaurs being as hyper-compressed as every other modern record, which is not entirely untrue. But the thing about audiophiles and loudness war is that, even if my brain knows they are surely right, my biker fist refuses to let them win.

I might start buying into their anti-loudness war campaing the day I finally hear a coherent explanation of why all the producers and sound engineers in the world seem to be conspiring to systematically over-compress every record that hits the shelves, but they all keep failing to provide me with one. The author of this review (ironically?) puts it down to the fact that mixers and producers are 'stupid, bad people', but that's not a big deal of a convincing argument (even if it's true that most producers are, indeed, BAD people).

But really: what's the point of 'loudness war'? 

Highly compressed records are supposed to be notably louder than not-so-compressed records... and yet I need to kick the volume of my players really high when I'm listening to Dinosaurs or Black Gives Way To Blue, because they don't really sound that loud.

Loudness war is also supposed to give songs some sort of 'advantage' on radio stations, but I haven't noticed that either. In fact, the mix of Hollow that reached the waves on local music TV over here was so quiet it was barely inaudible, so I can't really see it. Plus, when you pick Hollow as the first single from your new album, I don't think radio airplay is a priority. It's not like somebody was hoping it would land a spot between Avicii and Calvin Harris on top 40 radio, right? LOL

Making hyper-comopressed records is not cheaper and I don't think it's easier either. I don't see how it can boost record sales, but it can obviously push audiophiles away from buying them, so I really don't see what kind of secret benefit lies in there for the music industry.

The only (über-twisted) theory that kind of makes sense is that Ted Jensen (the guy who single-handedly masters every record in the planet) is deliberately fucking up the audio quality of CDs in order to force the audiophiles to buy vinyl, since they seem to be the only ones who care. And then, he fucks up vinyl records too, in order to make them buy better vinyl. Because that's another thing I've learnt from this review:

 

When you're used to listening to CDs, you assume that anything that comes on a vinyl has to sound good. Turns out you're wrong, because, apparently, even in the world of LPs there are ways mean sound engineers can fuck things up. Judging from what this guy says, picture discs sound awful too, so you can't even have beautifully-looking vinyls if you want to enjoy the REAL sound. Jesus Christ.

The only thing I don't understand is why he decided to buy the picture disc in the first place, if he already knew it would sound like shit.

 

He also complains about the quality of the red plastic sleeve and pretty much everything else he could possible complain about.

 

For a few seconds, he even made me feel guilty for feeling attracted to the picture discs in the first place, but then I just looked at myself and said: 'Fuck you!'

I think the problem about audiophiles is that they listen to the sound so much they forget to listen to the music. And, even if I can partly understand their concern for how records sound, their obsession of 'GOOD SOUND' borderlines on OCD.

Would I like to have a clearer mix of Dinosaurs? Sure.

Does that prevent me from enjoying the record? Nope.

But, given how inaccurate our critic is in all the musical aspects, I guess it does stop him from hearing what's really there. And that's a real problem.

So, kids, if you start becoming too obsessed with sound, just kick the volume up till you're too fucking deaf to care about your audio-shit.

You'll live happier.

 

 

And now, if you excuse me, I'm off to bed, to dream of evil dinosaurs and shitty-sounding picture discs.

Guess I'll never be one of them audiophiles ;)

Too Good To Be Real...?

I almost had a heart attack when I saw that afro hair in Metallica's YouTube feed. I caught a glimpse of it in a corner of the screen for just a tiny fraction of a second, and yet I knew what it was straight away.

James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich interviewing Alice In Chains for almost forty minutes. Forty fucking minutes. That's an album-long Hell of an interview. And it happened - back in 2009.

Some things seem too good to be true, and this is obviously one of them.

It seems so good, in fact, that I can't possibly force myself to listen to it, because just the idea of it makes me way too nervous and scared.

Perhaps I'll find the courage to finally do it at some point in the next few days or months.

Or perhaps I'll never listen to it, just because the idea of what this is could turn out to be better than whatever the actual thing is for real, if that makes any sense.

Of course, there is also a chance (and it's not a small one) I would absolutely love it... which is also dangerous, because I don't think my body could take such an overdose of good stuff.

Whatever the case, I'm definitely not ready to go through this just yet. At this point of my life, I'm perfectly happy just knowing that this happened and that I might eventually get the chance to hear it... if I ever feel morally prepared.

You might call me paranoid, but for me people are like Japanese sweets: I'd rather see them on picture and fantasize about how delicious they are than try them and discover they taste of azuki... or something worse. Yikes.

In fact, I see the world like a huge minefield. Underneath every thing I don't know there might or might not be a landmine waiting to blow my whole world away. The more I appreciate someone, the bigger chances are the landmines are on their field, so I take very small steps and enjoy every breath of life... because I know it could be the last one.

If you thing that's exaggerated it's only because you haven't taken a walk with me down Tokio Hotel lane. I've blown so many limbs on that field I'm barely a human being anymore. And yet I'm still alive, which is already something. And the good thing is I'm no longer scared of going down there, because, even if there are still a few landmines left unexplosioned, they can't possibly hurt me anymore. I'm a bulletproof cyborg - like the fucking Robocop.

But we're still stepping on virgin ground with Alice, and I want to enjoy the trip as much as I can before things start getting ugly. That's if they ever do. But they always do, eventually. You just have to hope you'll be able to get back up and keep walking. 

That's pretty much the story of my life.

Quoting Metallica...

Landmine has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in Hell 

+    +    +

Here's the actual video. Hit play at your own risk, but don't give me any spoilers.

*   *   *

I realized today that I've been a fan of Metallica for ten years now. TEN solid fucking years, y'all.

It's been ten years since I first heard S&M and said "YEAH MAN". Ten years arguing with fans and haters alike about everything related to this band; struggling to play their songs with bandmates who apparently disliked them (like I could possibly take that in consideration LOL). Ten years since I first heard that record and decided I wanted to sing like James Hetfield... which I finally sort of achieved... even though none of you are here to hear it because you all suck.

Yes, I'm telling that to you - the guys not reading this; my firends.

You all suck.

Just so that you know.

Me wearing my Some Kind Of Monster T-shirt during a school trip back in 2004. Time really flies, man.

Australian Summer pt. II - Japanese Winter

"My guitar after the Singapore gig. March 7, 2014"

+    +    +

I told you he was a vicious bastard.

Definitely not the kind of guy you'll catch spraying his fretboard with Finger-ease.


And take a look at just HOW great this picture looks under my blog header. You're an artist, Will. You already know it.

*    *    *

"Rottnest Island, Australia. March 2, 2014"

Soundwave Festival is over, and the caravan of bands who can't afford to sit in their comfortable So Cal homes throughout the American winter (like KISS or Metallica do) starts slowly moving up from the cosy warmth of Australian summer and into the realm of the freezing Japanese winter.

Black T-shirts get covered with black leather jackets; jeans remain in place. The occasional scarf pops up to protect delicate throats from the dangers of cold air. At least, there's one aspect in which the life of a rock musician is pretty easy.

And the good thing about the freezing Japanese winter is that, like all things Japanese, it happens to happen in Japan.

It's precisely at this point of the trip where Dir En Grey put on their vicious bastard sunglasses and show a silent (and friendly LOL) middle finger to all the other bands who have followed them north from the Antipodes as they say to themselves:

"Welcome to the Land of the Rising Sun, gaijin bitches."

[Dir En Grey in full-on vicious bastard mode LOL]

Dir En Grey are obviously bigger than Alice in their homeland. Tangible proof of that is the fact that, on the two nights previous to Alice's tour-end concert, Dir En Grey played TWO SHOWS at the legendary Budokan (we could be talking about a total 28.000 people, if they sold out), while AIC had to do their thing at a 2.500 capacity club.

Yes, you heard that right: Alice In Chains play fucking theatres and clubs because... who needs justice anyway? Keep that in mind the next time you see One Direction selling out fucking stadiums or Kanye West doing fucking arenas.

It's even funnier if you consider that the next act to play at the Budokan after Diru was... Il Divo.

Il Fucking Divo, ladies and gentlemen.

How's that supposed to make you feel?

[Budokan vs. AgeHa. Not the most flattering comparison.]

Of course, it's remarkable that such an extreme band as Dir En Grey (especiall since they started turning the metal up and the visual down more than half a decade ago) can mobilize such amounts of people in their home country (just to make a comparison: 14.000 is more than Tokio Hotel ever sold on a regular show - excluding festivals, obviously -, and they were supposed to be a boy band LMAO).

This is just another proof that we still have a lot left to learn from Japan... probably.

 
+    +    +

"Freezing in Tokyo post-show. En route to end-of-tour family dinner with band & crew. 3/10/14."

And so, this tiny little Pacific Rim tour has ended much earlier than I thought it would... and what a strange journey it's been.

A strange beautiful journey to the other end of the world.

And, like all good things in life, it ends with a Japanese (don't think they'll go looking for an American BBQ restaurant in Japan, right? LOL) dinner somewhere in the beautiful Tokyo.

Not bad, if you ask me.

 
+    +    +

Like the coldest winter will

Heaven beside you... Hell within

And you know you have it still 

Heaven inside you

HOLLOW

At this point, I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm obsessed with Alice In Chains.

Surprised? You should be. I am as well.

I never expected this to happen... but the fact is I've been compulsively listening to them since last Thursday, when I first decided to check out their 2013 album The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here - which you might or might not remember for being home to the über-doom-metal lead single Hollow.

Hollow was, in fact, my very first point of contact with the band. I watched the music video when it first came out, following Vevo's recommendation. I had no real reason to succumb to the dictatorship of targeting, but I decided to give it a try, just because I'm always curious to see what modern rock bands are up to. Of course, at that point, I didn't know that Alice In Chains are nowhere near as young as I expected them to be. They are, in fact, almost the age of Metallica (a.k.a. around the age of Marilyn Manson), which probably explains something.

And what happened with Hollow was the same that happened the first time I heard/saw most of the stuff I ended up loving: I didn't like it. I can't say I didn't like it at all - I just dismissed it as some other average prog-metal song in the spirit of Dream Theater or Porcupine Tree... Nothing to be especially impressed about.

Then, there was the issue with the music video. I can't say it's a bad music video, because it's not. In fact, it lives up to the spirit of the song quite well. But it's definitely not the most enjoyable music video to watch. Actually, I found it pretty disturbing (I guess a music video for a song like this IS supposed to  be disturbing LOL). It gave me the same space-claustrophobia I experienced while watching Sunshine back in 2008 (a movie I don't really wish to see again - or perhaps I do now, just because of this song? LOL), and that wasn't a funny association.

But with disgust comes the fascination (or at least sometimes it does), and, good or bad, it was undeniable that their song and video had made a certain impression on me.

A few weeks later, however, I found myself extremely surprised to discover that that strange creepy space thing for prog-metal snobs had managed to get airplay on our local music TV - the one that only plays heavy bands like Metallica when they are promoting Through The Never and AC/DC when they are the soundtrack to Iron Man. My first thoughts were, of course: "WTF?! These guys are getting airplay with the least radio-friendly song of all time?! Somebody must be investing some major money in this thing... And I can't even understand why." I still have no clue of what kind of dark magic was involved in this unexplainable programation choice, but I guess I'll find out, eventually.

My impressions on the song and the video, however, didn't change much since my first Vevo experience. Hearing the music on shitty TV speakers and at moderate volume didn' t help much either... but more on that later.

Eventually, the promo cycle ran its course, Hollow flew off the playlist, and I never thought about it again.

That was until Spotify decided that my music choices were compatible with Alice In Chains' newest album (Targeting! There you are again!) and suggested it to me. I have to admit that the perspective of getting to hear that disturbing song again was strangely attractive, so I hit play.

And there it was, at the head of the tracklist, just as fucking creepy as I remembered it. And there was something cool about it... even though I wouldn't admit it LOL

I sat through a few of the songs that followed... and once again I was unimpressed.

But Spotify kept on insisting, and it creeps me out to admit that, for once, they got it totally right. But, hey, after suggesting me to listen to Adam Lambert and Kansas for months, it was about time for them to get SOMETHING right, wasn't it?

The thing is I finally decided to do things right and solve my issues with Alice In Chains once and for all: grab my headphones and my evaluation notebook and listen to the whole record FOR REAL.

And man, that was one really wise decision to make.

The idea of listening to Hollow with my headphones on was exciting and scary at the same time. 

I only had a few seconds of white noise to prepare before the doomiest riff of all time (with permission of Black Sabbath's self-titled song, of course) stormed in. And, man, was it heavy.

The heaviness of the sound blew me away quite literally. That crystaline production, THAT guitar sound. Holy Jesus Christ.

I didn't feel 'that' thrilled about the strangely ghostly harmonized vocals at first (even though I really love them now LOL), but the overall quality of the production was undeniable since minute zero.

THAT SOUND.

And those lyrics:

Hollow as a mountain

All tunneled and drilled bellow...

The power of that image alone made me shiver. Probably because I had a morbid fascination for tunnels and quarries back when I was a little kid. All the violence involved in the process of making them really creeped me out. Of ourse, I also felt intimidated by the hostility of the mountains themselves, so we can say it's all a pretty long story LOL (yup, I had tons of strange phobias when I was a kid - used to think a bit too much about stuff).

There was something in this song that tickled my deepest subconscious primal fears... And, for some reason, I seemed to enjoy that in a pertty twisted way.

Once it was over, I still was unsure about whether I liked it or not, but one thing was objective (aside from the über-awesomeness of the production and the deliciousness of the guitar work): Hollow definitely WAS a memorable song.

And the sound of the record and I were just about to start a musical love story. That's a very curious phenomenon I've experienced a few times before: liking the sound of a band more than I liked their actual songs. I had a very similar thing with Green Day back in 2004 (with the difference that Alice In Chains kick Green Day's ass into outer space, of course). So, at first listen, I found myself wanting to like the songs on The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here more than I actually did.

Of couse, Dinosaurs is nowhere near being an immediate type of record. It takes some time and patience to get to REALLY enjoy it... but so do most of Metallica's albums, and that doesn't diminish their greatness in the least.

I finished the album with a 5,5 rating (even though I'd give it a 9 if I had to revise it right now - I'll have to do that, eventually) and three essential track picks: the ever-haunting Hollow, the super heavy Phantom Limb and the strangely beautiful ballad (?) Hung On A Hook.

Those three songs were still playing in my head on Friday while I was travelling to the big city, probably because I had spent the entire day with them stuck on repeat. And I still wanted more.

And they didn't want to leave me alone either.

I was destined to meet them yet again, during my usual visit to the record store. As soon as I walked into the 'Hard Rock' department, I saw it. We were meeting in the physical world for the first time. And there it was, staring at me from its five slots on the privileged top shelf, with its bright red almost satanic cover, and that creepy dinosaur skull on the front. Lord, the temptation was so big...

But I didn't do it.

"You don't even like it 'that' much", said that stupid voice in my head. "It's only those three songs you sort of fancy."

And so I walked away. Just like that.

How stupid, heh?

I started regretting it as soon as I got home the next day and gave the album another spin.

Because Alice In Chains ARE awesome after all... even if it's taken me so long to get to know them for real.

They have everything I love about grunge music, taken to its finest extreme. They are much more subtle and skilled than Nirvana ever were (which doesn't mean I don't enjoy listening to Nevermind every once in a while), and they're also much heavier. They've really had a hand for guitar sounds since their early years, and it's only grown better with time.

The crystaline transparence of the mix of Dinosaurs is only comparable to the masterful production of Depeche Mode's Delta Machine, and, just like the latter does with electronics, Dinosaurs sort of makes every other guitar album sound obsolete: distorted guitars dense and well-oiled like butter; acoustic guitars that ring like bells; bass roaring like a furious gang of bikers; drums bouncing like basketballs; mix clean and loud like digital; crisp and dirty like analog... THAT's my concept of what a record should sound like... and I hadn't seen such a brilliant example of it ever since KISS released Monster back in 2012.

Freaking awesome.

And then there's the songwriting I overlooked so badly at first (I'm not even sure why).

Despite the first impression you might get from Hollow, you should know that Alice In Chains are not THAT creepy all the time. Hollow is, in fact, a pretty unique song in their catalog. That's probably one of the things that make it so special.

Dinosaurs is quite abundant in more uplifting grunge/Americana mid-tempo songs that go through a wide variety of moods. And, of course, there is a great deal of killer riffing too. But nothing gets quite as dark as the album opener, if that makes you feel better LOL

A couple of songs (like the aforementioned Hung On A Hook) could be called ballads... sort of.

But, even at their poppiest, Alice In Chains never cross the Dave Grohl barrier of indignity, like so many other grunge and post-grunge bands do. And, even when their songwriting gets dangerously close to Americana, they always have that unexpected chord change that shifts the course of the song in a brand new direction (see Scalpel); that mesmerizing guitar solo (see Low Ceiling... and every song on the album), and they DO use fancy guitar effects a lot <3... They are surprisingly good at crafting ambient sounds, and they also have a talent for melodies outside of the tritone doom metal area they don't often get credited for.

If the members of the band formerly known as Tokio Hotel ever have a future, I hope this is the sonic path they are reborn into.

And then there's William DuVall. Even though I wasn't a fan of his vocals (well, in fact it's a bit inaccurate to call them his vocals, since he and Jerry Cantrell are singing in harmony most of the time) at first, I've grown to appreciate them a great deal... as well as the man himself. In fact, I have to admit I like him more than the band's original (and deceased) vocalist Layne Staley (AIC purists, shoot me now). I know this probably makes me a racist, but I have a strange fascination for black men who play in rock bands (probably because it's a pretty rare phenomenon). I had the same thing with Sepultura's Derrick Green, and even with King's X's Doug Pinnick (which reminds me I should give their self-titled album another chance...). And there was also that man... the one with the guitar... what was his name again? Oh, yeah, right, I think it was something like 'Jimi Hendrix' LOL (In case you're wondering - no, this does absolutely NOT extend to Lenny Kravitz).

By the way, did I mention that DuVall plays rhythm guitar too? Heh. Heh. Heh.

So, yeah, the fact of having a black singer (and rhythm guitarrist) on board is a big plus for me. But don't worry... I like a lot of white rock musicians too! LOL Especially Germans ;)

Talking about white musicians - it was fun to discover that James Hetfield actually considers himself a fan of Alice In Chains. Usually, I don't rely too much on my idols' musical tastes because you never know what you can find in there *ahem*, but, in this case, having James Hetfield's appoval sort of makes me feel supported in this new adventure. After all, Alice In Chains might have had a role in shaping Metallica's mid-90s sound... How cool is that? :D

Now that Hollow no longer feels like a menacing stranger, but rather like a friend I love spending time with, I've had the chance to appreciate what a masterpiece of songwriting and guitar work it really is.

The entire song is actually based on just four guitar riffs, tuned really, really low (just the way I like it :D), and yet it's a symphony of masterfully crafted guitar sounds - thousands of them - so delicately entwined with the rhythm guitar and the vocals it's often hard to even understand where they are... or how many of them are there for real. William DuVall and Jerry Cantrell (lead guitarrist, other lead singer, primary songwriter and only blond in the band) create an incredibly complex atmosphere of guitar sounds that serves as the soul to the rhythm guitar's muscle (honestly, I'm not even sure about who plays what LOL), and yet feels completely unintrusive. The truth is I was pretty sure they were using synths at first... until I realized they weren't.

Even the guitar solo in Hollow is subtle. In fact, it's sort of played in the back, while the heavy riffing takes center stage... and, man, that solo is pure evil :D

The secret to the song's sinister monotonous yet unstable limping groove probably resides in its curious 6/4 size. It only shifts back to the traditional 4/4 during the two choruses - which makes the mood change even more intense. When those power chords finally storm in, it feels like Hell is breaking lose right upon you... and yet there is a certain degree of relief in it.

But you won't get any of that stuff until you turn up the volume... which, in my case, turned out to be a problem, because the mix that got played on TV was barely audible (same thing happened with Depeche Mode's Heaven, BTW), and, at that volume, all you get to hear is a creepy monotonous mess.

Such an injustice for such a magnifficent song. Thank God it's never too late to ammend it :)

...Or perhaps I should thank the Devil for putting dinosaurs here in the first place? ;)


The only important thing now is that, the next time I walk into that record store, this album is coming with me. Period.

Until then, I'll have to rely on Spotify, YouTube and the shitty Spotify mobile shuffle play.

Thousands of hours of Alice In Chains playing on repeat are already happening.

...And I though I could never fall in love with a band again.

How awesome is that? :D