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Treeboy

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  1. Treeboy
    Taking a break from my top 10 series to plug a bro and review some black metal. This review is gonna be short, because this release is only 11 minutes long and there's not a lot to talk about with music in this genre to begin with, since a lot of it tends to be simple (that's not a bad thing at all; simple music is good).
     
    Life Has No Meaning is a solo black metal project started by Djenty here on the forums in the vein of DSBM (that stands for "depressive suicidal black metal," in case you didn't know). As the name would imply, this demo has a very atmospheric, raw, and bleak approach.
     
    The guitar distortion is extremely brittle and hazy in the fashion of Burzum's "Filosofem" or any other very underproduced and raw black metal you can think of. The basslines are very ostinato and seem to loop endlessly into oblivion. There's not much to say about the instrumentation other than that it's simple and effective.
     
    That being said, the drum machine sounds rather amateur and preset. The kick drum and snare are especially lacking in presence, which I wouldn't mind if they didn't have much presence to begin with, but they start off very exposed, which throws the listener for a loop when they get buried a bit underneath the distortion of the guitars. Djenty has said he's working to get them to sound better, so the next time we hear anything from LHNM, it should be improved.
     
    This release shows a lot of potential for the Life Has No Meaning name, and if you're looking for some to-the-point, no-bullshit, and very dark black metal, this demo is available on Bandcamp for free.
     
    1. Faced With My Own Demise 7/10
    2. Without Reason 8/10
    Overall: 7.5/10
  2. Treeboy
    Possibly the most dauntingly impossible review I'll have to do for this series.
     
    Swans is considered to be one of the greatest bands in underground music, and with good reason. Ever since the early 80's, this Michael Gira project has put out album after album, with their style changing indescribably from era to era.
     
    The early 80's saw their contributions to no wave and noise rock with "Filth," "Cop," "Greed," and "Holy Money," moving into a style more reminiscent of post-punk (but still with their noise rock influence) on "Children of God." On "The Burning World," "White Light from the Mouth of Infinity," and "Love of Life," they became much more gothic and put a slight emphasis on harmony. From then on, from "The Great Annihilator" until today, they've combined all their previous influences with post-rock and drone elements, in addition to a ton of other things that I just can't begin to describe.
     
    The middle of this later period (or, the end of their career in the 90's before their breakup) saw the release of Swans' final album, "Soundtracks for the Blind." It would be fourteen years until they made a return in 2010. This was easily the most ambitious the group had gotten up to this point, and they may never top the innovation found on here.
     
    However, seeing (or hearing) this innovation may be difficult for more casual listeners, as this album is nearly two and a half hours long, and many of these tracks are based around musical themes rather than structure, and you can't tell who's playing what or even what's being played much of the time. It combines studio material with several live tracks, and these songs can be anything from ambient soundscapes to post-rock funeral dirges to old-school EDM to straight up noise and unnerving quiet energy.
     
    The album opens up with "Red Velvet Corridor," an instrumental of sorts which has some very interesting keyboard sounds in front of what feels like noise, and a few drones that enter and exit throughout.
     
    This cuts off suddenly and in fades "I Was a Prisoner in Your Skull," easily one of the high points on the record. An absolutely gorgeous synth chord introduces itself, with a tone that feels equally chilling and majestic. Juxtaposing with this wall of sound is a looped recording of a voice babbling incessantly, in an almost cynical and mocking way. The chord morphs into a sheet of noise and some drums come up in the mix in the back and the track evolves into what finally sounds almost like a band playing. As soon as it starts, however, it's cut short by more noise and a slide whistle.
     
    This is where the album takes a turn for something absolutely sinister. A voice appears in the track and says the following:
     

    Testing... one, two, three. Well... well fuck, I mean; I just don't know what to say. I'm very glad to be here with you tonight, I'll be able to talk to you about some things...that I know a great deal about. Everyone knows that you are fucked up. And everyone knows that I am fucked up. But, does everyone know that you are more fucked up than me? Well, I know that. And you know that. But our purpose is to tell everyone that.


     
    He begins to tell everyone just that, using this and other examples as proof:
     

    Take for instance, the time you went to the bathroom, to take a shower. You had some soap, a towel, shampoo, washcloth, a brush, everything was set. But you had to call me to come turn on the water for you. You didn't know where or how. That is one instance of how fucked up you are.


     
    It's almost like the voice you're hearing is your conscious reminding you that he's necessary in your day-to-day life to keep you from being unable to do anything, and it's where the album first introduces these themes of insanity and dependence.
     
    Now of course, I can't break down the whole album like this (we'd be here all day), so I'll touch down quickly on some highlights and you can fill in the details once you've listened to them.
     
    "Yum-Yab Killers" is a live track that draws heavily from punk rock, featuring a female vocal (which I can only assume is their keyboardist Jarboe) and it's possibly the most accessible moment across this record's two discs.
     
    "Volcano" is another track with a female vocal, featuring skittering hi-hats, a four to the floor kick, and a lot of uplifting chord progressions to mask its (once again) haunting lyrics.
     
    "Animus" is the second of three or four of those post-rock funeral dirges I was talking about earlier; once you've heard one, you've heard them all, but that being said, they're all very unique for having such similar themes.
     
    "Minus Something" features one of many spoken word bits across the album. The voice on this track speaks of feeling deteriorated, upset, and drained of life, much like a lot of the music on "Soundtracks for the Blind" feels.
     
    This is easily the most diverse album I've ever heard in my life, and it certainly takes a well-trained ear and a long attention span to allow the secrets of "Soundtracks for the Blind" to unfold. But once you're in the proper time, place, and mood, everything about it begins to make sense.
     
    Number seven is on the horizon, and it may be the most esoteric album on the list.
  3. Treeboy
    This is something I've wanted to do for a while, and now I'm doing it. My top 10 albums of all time. You may be able to guess what's going to be on here, but I'd like to surprise a lot of you.
     
    Anyone who knows jazz has to know Miles Davis. There's no way around that. His impact on the genre is so immense that I can't even begin to put it into words. He was at the front of so many movements in the style, from the bebop of the 1950's all the way into the 70's and 80's, pioneering modal jazz in "Kind of Blue" in '59 and a strange fusion of jazz and rock music ten years later with "In a Silent Way," among countless others.
     
    This is where "Bitches Brew" comes in. This long, sprawling, 90-minute experience is the divider between the events leading up to Miles' fusion years and the albums that expanded on these ideas later. Compared to its predecessor, "In a Silent Way," this record has much less of a defined groove and much, much less of the melodic and soothing atmosphere.
     
    One could say that Miles went pretty much all out when he was putting these songs together, and getting all the performers he got on one single track. Every track has at least two drummers and two keyboard players playing on it simultaneously. The names on here range from Wayne Shorter (saxophonist extraordinaire), Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul (piano virtuosoes), and John McLaughlin (crazy guitarist), in addition to Miles' sparse yet energetic trumpet sound. This is worth mentioning, since a lot of his playing up until this point was in the lower range and much more subdued, but he tends to go more all-out when he has the forefront.
     
    If anything is noteworthy on "Bitches Brew," it's how much post-production went into every one of these songs. Looping, tape delays, re-sequencing, et cetera. In a genre like jazz, this was something that wasn't even considered in the creative process, but it only serves to make every track more interesting than they may have been otherwise.
     
    I can't say much more about this record, other than that even if you're not a jazz fan, give it a shot. These tracks are really long sometimes, but they're far from boring. This is my definitive piece in the Miles Davis catalog, and I hope it can eventually be the same way for you.
     
    1. Pharoah's Dance 9.5/10
    2. Bitches Brew 10/10
    3. Spanish Key 9/10
    4. John McLaughlin 9.5/10
    5. Miles Runs the Voodoo Down 10/10
    6. Sanctuary 10/10
     
    Overall: 10/10
     
    Stay tuned for numbers nine through one.
  4. Treeboy
    AtDawnTheySquee and RD92 are making reviews, so I feel as though I want to take a stab at this as well and review one of my favorite albums of 2010. You read the title, you know what you're in for, let's go.
     
    Deathcore is a genre where the very same-y nature of many of the bands in it has been a deterrent for many; one-note breakdowns, extremely repetitive song structures, et cetera. However, there is an exception to every conceived notion in music such as this. This is where The Contortionist comes in and delivers "Exoplanet," deathcore's breath of fresh air.
     
    Yes, they incorporate chugga-chugga nuances countless times. Sure, they give in to the "br00tality" now and then. But the way it's done on this album is much different. The combination of these ideas with surpirisngly progressive concepts inspired by bands such as Meshuggah (that djent-y tone, if you will) and The Acacia Strain, as well as spaced out lyricism ("The rebirth of intelligent life will restore this planet's cosmic status / As the surface draws into focus, every variance and nuance realized" from the second song on here, "Flourish," for example) creates an atmosphere very akin to floating in nothingness, looking down on Earth; much like the cover of the record displays.
     
    This mood is owed largely to this band's guitarists, Robby Baca and Cameron Maynard, who play some extremely angular riffs all over this album, and pull of some incredibly technical lines every now and then. Jonathan Carpenter's vocals and keyboards also blend into the sound of this album when they need to.
     
    It doesn't just stop at the heaviness of it all, however; "Exoplanet" displays an incredible sense of harmony and beauty when it needs to, such as the "you have been defined" refrain of "Primal Directive" or the post-rock midsection of "Flourish," and there's even an acoustic guitar interlude in the track "Axiom."
     
    And of course, there's the trilogy at the very end of this entire experience, named after the record itself. What needs to be said about this above all else is that The Contortionist really saved the best for last. The pacing of these three tracks and the motifs introduced and re-introduced make the cohesion second to none.
     
    "Exoplanet" is one of those albums whose presence in modern metal music is absolutely essential. It's a far cry from the vast majority of Suicide Silences and I Declare Wars who hold so much power over the deathcore scene. If you will, this is one of the genre's diamonds in the rough, and a must have for any metal enthusiast looking for something new.
     
    9/10
     
    That's it for review #1. If there's an album you want my opinion on, let me know.
  5. Treeboy
    Incoming classical music.
     
    Steve Reich is one of those composers in the minimalist category, whose music may seem repetitive and simply made as a novelty. Pieces like "Piano Phase," "Pendulum Music," or "Four Organs" can get stale for an untrained ear. However, his evolution from this phase (no pun intended) in his career, he began to write works that were more fleshed out and had a lot more depth, like "Eight Lines," "Six Pianos," and what could be considered his best work, "Music for 18 Musicians."
     
    What we have here is an hour long piece with some extremely odd instrumentation. It requires multiple marimbas and xylophones, two clarinets, four female voices, various auxiliary instruments, and nine piano players. The piece is also based around an eleven-chord cycle, each chord being given their own section of the piece; this cycle is book-ended by two sections of "Pulses."
     
    This is where things get complicated to talk about, because these sections are so similar to each other, and yet they're also so incredibly unique. Just about the entire piece is built around sixteenth notes of varying lengths (mostly short) that provide a chordal background for a few sparse melodies that introduce themselves once in a while. As boring as that sounds, it's actually very engaging, as many of the pulses fade in and out, giving the piece some interesting dynamic qualities.
     
    Some of the sounds featured here have some very contrasting timbres; the bass clarinet's very sharp and keen tone together with these wordless and round female vocals, for example, or the marimbas together with the pianos. Reich was very careful in the instruments he chose and how many of each there would be. There's an astounding number of marimbas and pianos on stage, but they're all necessary to bringing out the harmonies and melodies found in every section.
     
    It's not quite enough to talk about what's contained in "Music for 18 Musicians;" it's much more interesting to discuss the emotions it brings out of the listener. For me, it's a sense of dreariness and majesty. When done right, this piece sounds alive and bigger than anything one can possibly imagine. It's flowing, it's monolithic, and it's one of the few pieces in instrumental music history that says so much by saying nothing at all. When I hear this, I get lost in it. I shut my eyes and let Reich's magnum opus take me wherever it may.
     
    10/10
     
    My personal favorite performance of this piece:
     

  6. Treeboy
    Let's do this.
     
    Meshuggah has always been a great band for delivering progressive metal without too many overly fancy complications attached to it. Their music hasn't usually included noodly guitar work, 10-minute epics, or lots of added instrumentation. Albums ranging from all the way back to "Destroy Erase Improve" and "Chaosphere," with their thrashy and fast-paced energy, all the way up to "Nothing," "obZen," or "Koloss," all focused on slow and pummeling grooves with more complex riffs. Their music seems to take more influence from bands like Pantera and Sepultura than Dream Theater or Porcupine Tree.
     
    "Catch Thirtythree," however, is easily Meshuggah's most intricate release. Rather than a collection of ten or so songs, this thirteen-track piece is just that: a piece. One complete work. Every track flows into the next in one unbroken stream of consciousness. This cohesion makes the music feel more unified, in addition to the interesting lyrical themes (which we'll get to later).
     
    What's strange to note straight from the get-go is that the first three movements of "Catch Thirtythree," "Autonomy Lost," "Imprint of the Un-Saved," and "Disenchantment" all sound nearly identical to one another. The reason these tracks are divided like this--at least in my mind--is to demonstrate how slowly the same riff can change over the course of the five minutes that these tracks encompass. Almost all the parts of this album do this, and it serves a purpose in the understanding of the music.
     
    That's what this entire piece is based around. Riffs in really odd time signatures that morph slowly and dig into the listener, beating them over the head with note after note. This is something we have guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Mårten Hagström to thank for. It's a very low end and unique tone that this band pioneered, utilizing 8-string guitars, and a lot of gain and distortion. You can see it used in a lot of more recent bands, like Periphery and the like, but it all started with Meshuggah.
     
    Another thing that's peculiar about this album that I didn't know about for a while after I first heard it--and still forget sometimes--is that the drums on this album are programmed. The hits were all recorded by Tomas Haake and made into a virtual drum kit called the "Drumkit from Hell," which a few other bands like Agoraphobic Nosebleed have used. The reason I forget that it's a machine from time to time is that they feel so real. I don't doubt Tomas' ability to play these parts live; there's even video of him doing so.
     
    Probably my favorite two parts of this album are the tracks "Mind's Mirrors" and "In Death - Is Death," which focus more on the absence of sound rather than the presence of it. Tomas delivers some vocoded spoken word on the former, and there's a lot of fantastic silence and higher-end guitar work on the latter. These tracks provide a necessary relief from the constant chaos Meshuggah brings to the rest of the album.
     
    The lyrical themes that I hinted towards are also a huge factor in dissecting the layers of madness on this record, as they're all about paradoxes ("Catch-22," "Catch Thirtythree..."). Tomas' provoking lyricism is brought to life by the ravenous pipes of Jens Kidman, who has one of the best harsh vocals I've ever heard in my life. Look at these lyrics and tell me you don't want to see them worked into something badass.
     

    Non-physical smothering. Asphyxiation by oxygen hands.
    Drowning in the endless sky. An ever-downward dive, only to surface
    the sewage of indecision, on which all sense of self is afloat.
    The vortex-acceleration a constant. Resolute in purpose its choking flow.


     
    Sweet.
     
    For being simply an experiment from Meshuggah, what was brought to the table on "Catch Thirtythree" could easily pass as a true full-length in their discography. It has more substance than anything they'd done personally and serves as a reminder that they're one of the best in the business.
     
    1. Autonomy Lost 10/10
    2. Imprint of the Un-Saved 10/10
    3. Disenchantment 10/10
    4. The Paradoxical Spiral 9/10
    5. Re-Inanimate 9.5/10
    6. Entrapment 10/10
    7. Mind's Mirrors 10/10
    8. In Death - Is Life 9.5/10
    9. In Death - Is Death 10/10
    10. Shed 10/10
    11. Personae Non Gratae 9/10
    12. Dehumanization 9.5/10
    13. Sum 10/10
     
    Overall: 10/10
     
    Number eight will be here soon.
  7. Treeboy
    Because I do what I choose.
     
    There's a gut feeling the typical independent music worshiper like me gets when they listen to a major label pop release such as this one that tells them they shouldn't enjoy it. However, "The 20/20 Experience" holds its own as a fantastic piece of soulful and well-produced R&B.
     
    One of this album's strengths lies in its fantastic production. The beats on this album are so lush and beautiful (especially "Don't Hold the Wall," "Tunnel Vision," and "Blue Ocean Floor"). There's a lot of orchestral elements mixed with synths ranging from pads to bass sounds with an almost liquid-like quality, and there's even beat-boxing in a few places; the lengths of these songs would be all for naught if the production on all of them wasn't as strong and as varied as it truly is. There are a few duds, mainly the two singles ("Suit and Tie" (Jay-Z's feature subtracted more than it added) and "Mirrors" (lyrically uninteresting)), as well as "Strawberry Bubblegum," but even those tracks are enjoyable.
     
    Timberlake also gives his trademark blend of soulful singing mixed with falsetto covered in longing and romantic energy; however, as opposed to his material in the past, his multiple deliveries come off as being much more serious and less boy-band-ish. The lyrics he's singing are also atypical enough of your everyday love song to be quite engaging.
     
    "The 20/20 Experience" is a record like none other in the modern pop music scene; it has the personality and sound that is needed to keep the movement interesting, especially since groups like Gnarles Barkley have fallen off the radar. If I have to compare it to anything, it would be "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," albeit without Kanye's obnoxious attitude. That's what I pull away from this; a record that isn't trying to make a statement about the performer, but rather just have fun with its own sound.
  8. Treeboy
    Blazing into chapter 2 of this never-ending anthology of music reviews, I'm going to touch down on one of hardcore's most jarring albums.
     
    Botch, for the short time they were around, certainly did a lot to push the envelope for a genre that was already doing so much to push the envelope in the 90's (metalcore began to pop up at this time with Coalesce, Norma Jean, Deadguy, Converge, etc.); their debut album "American Nervoso" serves as proof of that, with a strong absence of any sort of key or set time signature on many songs. That being said, those things did show up now and then, but when they did, it was a welcome break from the constant barrage of noise that the listener was subject to. This formula is followed closely on "We Are the Romans," but if anything, Botch perfected their craft with this one.
     
    From the get-go, this album begins to come down on the listener with a very primal energy with the track "To Our Friends in the Great White North." This track features numerous different time signatures over the course of only a few seconds, going from 5/8 to 6/8 back to 5/8 again and doing as much as it can to keep the listener engaged in some way, which the track pulls off to a T. The slow section that ends the song also changes the pace well enough to make the track extremely interesting as well as fun.
     
    This formula continues throughout most of the album, with notable highlights including "Mondrian Was a Liar" and "Saint Matthews Returns to the Womb," among others (the song titles kick ass, if you haven't noticed already).
     
    The slower portions of this album help to ease the tension as well, such as "Swimming the Channel Vs. Driving the Chunnel" and the title track that closes the album. The latter is more of a sludge or doom song than anything else, and the fashion it which it end is nothing less than spectacular; I won't ruin it for you here.
     
    "We Are the Romans" is the pinnacle of metalcore in the 90's. Many bands tried to live up to it, but Botch knocked out their competition and rose swiftly to the top of the game.
     
    9.5/10
     
    Once again, I'm open to any requests for any albums that anyone may want any sort of opinion on.
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