scår søünd

I have been remiss in writing about music. I have written a few reviews in TextEdit, and they have been sitting on my computer. The truth is that I have not been listening to a lot of music lately, and I haven't even been paying a hell of a lot of attention to the current music pages. I've been downloading a lot of music, and I keep thinking that I want to write about it, but I'm always distracted by other things. I also have a tendency to use music as background noise and not actively listen to it, which becomes a problem for this sort of endeavor. Whatever the case I have not forgotten.

Whatever, I have reviewed two old albums, because I can't think of anything that came out very recently that I particularly care about. There's the new SlipKnot album, but I'll get around to that eventually, and I should probably review the One Day As a Lion EP, but I'll get to that when I get to it too. Oh, maybe the new Juno Reactor album, but that's been out for a while, and it is good. All in due time.

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless

Loveless is THE shoegazer album. If you want to define the sub-genre of shoegaze to your friends all you have to do is hand them a copy of Loveless and tell them to give it a spin. The warbling guitars, the understated vocals, the heavy distortion and reverb, those are the key elements of shoegaze rock. This album is also the pinnacle of the movement. Until the re-emergence of shoegaze in the past few years this was it what had defined the genre for more than a decade. Loveless was also the first indie rock album to cost upward of one million dollars to record.

The thing about My Bloody Valentine is that there isn't really a lot of talent in the band, but there is great deal of innovation, and creativity. Kevin Shields is not shy about his lack of guitar expertise, and his untrained method. He knows that he isn't ever going to be the best guitar player in the world, but he still does things with his instrument that are stunning all these years later. He makes noises with his Fender that make that fiddle into a third vocalist. Unlike some genres where the vocals become another instrument, Shields has turned his instrument into a new voice.

A lot has been said and written about this album. I don't know that my drop in the barrel is really worthwhile. What I do feel I can contribute is that the sound of Kevin Shields' guitar on This album, and Isn't Anything have more to do with the sound of my guitar when I play than anything else I can think of in recorded history. My second largest influence is Chino Moreno of Deftones, and it makes sense when you listen to them both. It is simple, but seemingly layered and complex.

I saved this and put it away, because I was listening to the album while I was writing this. I was going to let it settle in a bit, and then come back to it, but I think I've waited a bit too long. All I have are my notes scratched at the bottom of the document. Most of which are the names of other bands in the genre whom influenced My Bloody Valentine in the first place. Were it not for Dream Pop and Gothic Rock I doubt that Kevin Shields would have been inspired to do what he did in this band. Without bands like Sonic Youth, and The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Cocteau Twins Shoegaze might never have emerged, and bands like The Smashing Pumpkins would have been very different creatures.

I am always astounded by the small ripples that create huge waves in the music community. Some little indie band will influence some other indie band that will accidentally make it big. In this case Sonic Youth were inspired by John Cage, and Einsturzende Neubaute, and The Ramones, and they in turn influenced Dinosaur Jr. Who were the favorite band of Kevin Shields, the mastermind behind My Bloody Valentine. My Bloody Valentine in turn influenced The Smashing Pumpkins, and who inspired My Chemical Romance. In an even more esoteric turn of events The Wipers, The Vaselines, The Sonics, and Pixies influenced Nirvana who were the closest the america ever had to The Beatles, and they in turn influenced every band that released a record between 1991 and 1996. Sure no band is ever influenced by just one thing, but there are prevailing influences, and they become very obvious in some cases. Loveless is one of those far-reaching influential albums that not a lot of people listened to, but a lot of the ones that did became musicians and started their own bands.

9.8/10 Nothing is perfect.



Fear Factory - Concrete

Fear Factory didn't begin their career as an Industrial-Metal band. Their original sound was akin to early grindcore acts like Godflesh. It could have been described as death metal if it didn't break down into a plodding sludgy mess as often as it does. A number of the songs recorded for Concrete were rethought, and recomposed for later recordings. A lot of the more intricate themes that Dino Cazares began developing here became the (ahem) Lynchpin for the band's later sound. Raymond Herrera was already a good drummer, but he had yet to approach his later metronomic state. Former bassist Andrew Shieves did what he did, and was, like in a lot of metal bands, especially of that era, largely buried in the mix. Burton C. Bell showed some of the promise he would later exhibit with his singing/screaming style, but mostly he was stuck with the "cookie monster" vocal style that had yet to become associated with both grindcore and death metal.

For an album that's release was delayed for more than a decade it had a sound that would seem to be very influential. Concrete is rough garden stones, and was scrapped for just that reason. The Band's next effort, Soul of a New Machine wasn't a lot better, but it was a more polished attempt. They finally got it right when they recorded their third album Demanufacture which WAS hugely influential in both the metal and industrial communities. The band continued to grow and change and in most cases improve until they decided to break up due to conflicts with everyone in the band and Dino Cazares. After Burton quit Raymond and Christian kicked Dino out and reformed without him. The later efforts are less industrial and more metal, but they never recaptured the rawness of Concrete or the firey paranoia of Obsolete. It is too early to say, but thus far they have not been able to top themselves.

Concrete was more concerned with religious issues than the sociopolitical themes that the band would later confront. Instead of having a vague story line detailing the struggles of man against machine, and man against man the album focused on man against his creator. Conflict has always been the epicentre of Fear Factory's musical, and lyrical themes, and I assume they always will be. But before they had found Rhys Fulber, Macintosh computers, and Keyboards they didn't have a skew against them. What they knew was that at the time they were young, they were angry, and they only had themselves or the etherial to blame, so the latter became their target.

This was the first album to be recorded by both Ross Robinson and Fear Factory, and the rough edges are all there, but one would certainly expect to hear them. I think it is telling that a band like Fear Factory would be the first project taken on by a producer who would become a legend in his own time. They would both go on to make things that would revolutionize the heavy music world, and they would never work together again. They had the impact on one another that each needed.

Probably a 6.1/10