Rad rats dude

My pick for best album of 2008 was a hard one, coming down between Weezer's Red Album and Amanda Palmer's debut solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer. The latter ended up with the claim of the year, but Weezer is still just so good. I seemed to forget that, because this year's release didn't really interest me until I forced myself to listen to it.

Raditude by Weezer (2009) is the follow-up to The Red Album and, while not as good, delivers everything Weezer always has brought to the musical scene. Weezer is weird for me and many friends like me that they are nothing that would fall into our favorite music genres but they somehow make it onto our list of favorites anyhow. In fact, someone I work with claimed to not like them at all only to get picked up by the first single off this latest album on the ride home and has come to love them. I seem to be saying this a lot, as I think I've made it close enough to the end to make assumptions, but this may be the best album of the year.

To give blanket statements, the writing on the record is up to River Cuomo's standard of writing with very few exceptions which I feel are present on every Weezer album, the guitar work isn't as memorable as Hash Pipe days but it gets the job done, and the album is really a joy to listen to. Songs like (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To, I'm Your Daddy, Trippin' Down the Freeway, and Let It All Hang Out are great songs, written with Weezer's typical wit and charm. After seven albums, they still manage to experiment with songs like Can't Stop Partying (a bass-ridden party beat featuring Lil Wayne) and Love is the Answer (a song laced with Hindi language and vocals), which are really well done for such a bold attempt. Put Me Back Together and I Don't Want to Let You Go are perfectly listenable, but don't necessarily bring anything special to the album. The two songs I skip over are The Girl Got Hot and Patrick Wilson's In the Mall. The writing on both the songs are just subpar for what Weezer is capable of.

The deluxe edition that I bought has four bonus tracks which I feel are good enough to have been on the album proper. Get Me Some is almost a hard rock party song, where Run Over By A Truck is like classic Weezer. The Prettiest Girl In The Whole Wide World reminds me a lot of The Greatest Man That Ever Lived from the Red Album and I really appreciate the lyrical work put into it. The Underdogs is really just a fantastic ending for the album, giving the whole experience an over-all feel.

What really sucks is the reason I started listening to the album is because I had gotten Weezer tickets for my girlfriend, the show being last night, and Rivers Cuomo's bus spun out on black ice and ended with his family needing to be dug out of the car using the jaws of life. Rivers has broken ribs, but the rest of the Cuomo's are thankfully unharmed. My best wishes to the Cuomo family, but I hate winter disappears and never comes back. If they reschedule, I will be among the first to get replacement tickets.

Expect some end of the year lists coming out over the next few Saturdays.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Co-headline

It's kind of clear that I review most of the same stuff over and over. Video games, movies, television, with an occasional review of a book or a restaurant. I try to be eclectic in my reviews, not always jerking off in the name of self-indulgence and actually talk about "new" and "interesting" things that people other than myself care about. With that in mind, I decided to write a review on two music albums that I find myself interested enough in to listen to that have been released in the last month.

Killswitch Engage II by Killswitch Engage (2009) is the second self-titled album by New England metalcore act, Killswitch Engage. To start, I need to bring up my personal biases by stating that I love Killswitch Engage. I've seen them live several times, hung out with Howard Jones (the singer of the group) worked many shows for them back when I worked for Roadrunner Records, and even have a line from one of their songs tattooed on my leg. So yeah; it's safe to say I'm a fan. Looking back, their first studio album, Alive or Just Breathing, and The End of Heartache were some of my favorite albums in high school, and As Daylight Dies rocked--but perhaps not as hard as the other two did.

Killswitch Engage II continued the unfortunate downfall set up for the music set up by 2006's release. From listening to the album for the better part of a month, it is very unimpressive. The writing and guitar work present in all their other work is severely understated, and the songs get downright repetitive. There are a few songs on the album that kick it up to something on par to what they usually do, but the songs are incredibly short. Some of the tracks on the new album are barely two and a half minutes long, which don't work with the slower pace of the songs present in this album. There are about two songs that stick in my head as being good, both of them very near the end of the album, and this is after trying very hard to find something about this album I liked.

Tri-Polar by the Sick Puppies (2009) is the Australian rock band's second major studio release, and again I love all that I had heard before from them. Dressed Up As Life was one of my favorite albums of 2007. So imagine my disappointment when another album from another band that I consider myself a fan of releases another (relatively) crap album two weeks after my favorite metalcore act.

This album does have a few more songs saving it from being all-around crap, but the first half of the album is near unlistenable if you're looking for the clever writing of their prior album. The vocals for the first half ot the album is also disagreeable--just shouting. Not screaming a la Killswitch Engage or Bleeding Through, and not the singing from the first album. It was just plain non-melodic shouting and that's not fun to listen to. The second half of the album is saved, and is more like the Sick Puppies of old. It's saved, but barely.

Both of these albums are good in their own rights. The problem I have is that neither of them meet up to the potential the bands have working for them, and it's clear in the music. This is why I rarely buy CDs anymore.

In news of upcoming reviews, it depends on how far I get in certain games, what movies or television I have time to watch, or books I spend time reading. I've been told my retro reviews are fun, so expect a review on one of my favorite video game series at some point, as well as some classic games I haven't played until recently. Pseudo-obscure movies are going to be big as always, and reviews of British mini-series and television pilots.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Bird song

I haven't done enough music reviews here, and given how much music I listen to and the varied genres I go through, that seems a little odd. So here it goes, a review of the senior thesis of a Carnegie Mellon student.

The Things That Airplanes Do by Anna Vogelzang (2007) is someone I started talking to after I started the first-ever Dresden Dolls fan community online. Her music falls into a sound found somewhere between acoustic/piano and jazz with the themes usually centered around places she's been and the weather there and what she happened to be thinking or observing during those times. I have seen her play everywhere from cafes to churches, and she is goddamn talented. The Things That Airplanes Do is her second studio album after her first, Some Kind of Parade--which I loved--and her two live albums, Basics and Sounds--which I loved. As can be expected, when I found Miss Vogelzang's newest album on iTunes, I was looking to listening to it very much.

The first thing I noticed, from having been listening to her for about four years before the newest album was released, is that she's grown up a lot. Her vocal style is a lot more fluid and works a lot better with the music--not to say that her earlier work was bad, but this album seemed to be a lot more sophisticated. Opening with songs like Hexagon, Pittsburgh, and Philly give it a really, REALLY strong acoustic based open. July starts with a nice piano and then sparks up to a nice jazz beat. Family Band is one of my favorite tracks on the album, with simple vocals, delicate piano, and outstanding writing. The Kitchen has really great music and vocals for the centerpiece of the LP. The rest of the album gets a little weaker and less memorable, but they still give you a great feeling of relaxation and intrigue. This may even be my fault, for never being in the correct setting to really pay attention to the second half of the album, but the writing and music doesn't get weaker, just the attention you give to the songs. It's kind of like when you know what songs on an album you like, and after you know those songs, you just skip through the rest, even though they are also good songs.

Her writing is one of my favorite parts of her music, with songs like Hexagon, Pittsburgh, and especially Family Band. On top of writing the songs and signing, she also plays guitar and piano for her own songs. The other musical parts of the band are back-up players but as I have seen Anna live, I know she can play most any of these songs even without the accompaniment. That, and I can't find out who actually played on the album and I don't want to give credit to the wrong people--but fear not: you're all good at what you do too.

Anna Vogelzang is currently residing in Chicago, and if you ever have the chance to see her perform live I urge you greatly to do so. Her website is theanna.com, so go and check her tour dates. You will not be disappointed.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Geococcyx Records

I am into music the same way I am into movies, if not more. If you've read my film reviews, you may notice I go very far to point out the director, the writer, all the actors, the company who published the film, and even the cinematographer just so I can talk about who did such an amazing job--or, alternatively, who owes me $10 and two hours of my life back. The same is true with music, though the only people responsible for the music on the album outside of the actual members of the band is the record label and (on occasion) the notable producer.

Roadrunner Records is one of those labels I've always been able to get behind. Starting as a US-to-Europe import label for metal bands in 1980, they have been one of my favorite labels for years now, something it at one time would have been in contention with Victory Records for if they didn't turn pussy on everyone and signed Hawthorne Heights. In fact, I was a crew member for Roadrunner Records for about two years, promoting shows and seeing some of my favorite acts for free for the cost of passing out some swag. Recently though, my love for Roadrunner has been fading a bit--though not enough to make me stop buying their records--and I feel like I should take issue with it first here.

When Roadrunner Records signed The Dresden Dolls, I was ecstatic. I had met Amanda and Brian at the WBCN River Rave in 2003 and went on to be the founder of the very first Dresden Dolls fan community on the web. I have since met both of them on several occasions and have even walked around my hometown of Gloucester, MA with Amanda Palmer, so while I would not go so far as to say that they are good friends of mine I do have an interest in their dealings. When The Dresden Dolls broke up, I was a saddened by it, I will admit, but at the same time, I was excited for Amanda Palmer's solo album. Now that it's been out for about a year and she is still touring on its success, she is growing tired of Roadrunner Records pushing her around and not letting her continue her artistic career--one that even I will admit does not really fit the Roadrunner image--the way she wants. Luckily, Amanda is a strong-willed woman and she does what she damn well wants with damn good reason, but Roadrunner is holding onto her and still holding her back. The contract she signed with the Dolls set up for a certain number of records to be released with the option to drop her after each. She has asked several times to be dropped (I believe she may have one more record to put out with them, but I could be mistaken) and they have met her requests with constant "no"s and not taking her seriously.

Now, I can appreciate from the company's point of view as to how losing a member of their roster is a bad thing, but Amanda constantly pisses them off by not following their request to re-cut the Leeds United video to show less of Amanda's stomach because she "looked fat", or by making a "commercially useless album" for a solo career. Not only that, but she isn't making them any money. Her only purpose to the label, as far as I can tell, is to draw the crowds they wouldn't be getting for all their metal acts. Amanda went so far as to write an entire song and perform it live about the tale of how she wants to be let go.

As far as their metal acts go, Roadrunner Records could not do any better: Killswitch Engage is one of my all time favorites, Slipknot, Cradle of Filth, Dragonforce, Black Stone Cherry, DevilDriver, Megadeth, Within Temptations. And that's not even mentioning the bands that aren't on the label anymore with 36 Crazyfists, Black Label Society, Coal Chamber, The Misfits, Spineshank, Visions of Disorder, Type O Negative, and other genres like Madina Lake and The Cult. Plus all the others I haven't heard or don't like--but someone out there has and does.

So, minus a few dickhead dealings, the label is pretty solid, and you can't really blame businessmen acting like businessmen.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Bo Burns Ham

As previously stated, I spend a lot of time on the internet. When friends of mine also spend time here, we double our efficiency at finding and sharing ridiculous and funny things. About three years ago, I was shown a YouTube video by a friend who said he used to hang out with this kid's older brother. This kid was pretty funny, at least the first few times you listen to it. Come to find out, he's on Comedy Central now and has an EP on iTunes and a full-length album in stores. Of course, I knew this, because I follow it and I've seen the kid at the local Denny's.

Bo Burnham, the cleverly named album by Bo Burnham has four studio tracks book ending a live performance. The kid is like, eighteen and has the same agent as Drew Carey and Dave Chapelle, so he must be doing something right. All the guitar and piano is played by Bo himself and he sings and writes his own songs. On a whole, the album is amusing, but I per usual have some piss to drain out of it before I'm willing to accept that it's decent enough to listen to.

Every song (except for the untitled bonus track) has been somewhere on the internet or his EP Bo Fo' Sho. The studio tracks are pretty solid and not overly produced as All My Family was on the EP. The live tracks, while funny, have some issues that seriously need to be pointed out.

First issue was with his live performance of his Bo Fo Sho rap song with no background music. I understand how this may have to be done live if he isn't playing a keyboard with built in beats, but it was seriously lacking--especially when he paused every other line waiting for the laughs. Rap is quick-paced and something you need to pay attention to to hear all the words and all the quips. Pausing in the middle, while is tolerable in his other songs, just breaks the flow of his raps. And if he couldn't play the piano part of Bo Fo Sho, why was it there in I'm Bo Yo?

Songs like Love Is... and The Perfect Woman are too close in proximity, because they are both "love songs" but are still good songs. His comedic remarks in between songs is pretty snappy and funny if not wholly inappropriate but I think that's what he's going for. The "Dicks and vaginas are kind of like Coke and Pepsi..." one was good, as with his lead into Klan Kookout. Ending the show on A Love Ballad was kind of lame, as it's not really a great finish. Think of Stephen Lynch if he ended on Taxi Driver instead of If I Were Gay.

I bought the album on iTunes, so I missed out on the DVD that has his Comedy Central special along with all his YouTube videos, but the meat of the album is the music anyway. As a whole, the album is pretty decent and worth a listen as long as you're not subjecting yourself to it over and over trying to show all your friends who are just now hearing it for the first time.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

NEXT TIME (hopefully): Fallout 3: The Pitt

The Way of the Cyst

Now that the pesky first review is over, I can work on things I actually want to talk about. So here's one about an album I was recently exposed to while hanging out with some friends. We were hanging out, playing pool in the basement, and this came on my buddy's computer and I thought it sounded a lot like Motograter. Let's get one thing straight: I love Motograter. I saw them live at OzzFest back in 2003 and really liked the music, and the vocals were probably the best part. The writing for the songs also came as a surprise from most metal acts, and the songs ranged from brutal fight songs, introspective letters, to pointing out all thats wrong with the world--and it pulled them all off wonderfully. Come to find that Ivan "Ghost" Moody is the singer of both bands. It ended up being a band I had heard of more times than I could imagine but never actually heard.

The Way of the Fist by Five Finger Death Punch (2007) at first listen is a great album. Ivan Moody is a great vocalist, hitting all the right notes from his deep growl to his haunting melodies. The guitar work by Darrell Roberts added an almost classic metal feel with squealing solos. Some of the best songs on the album are the bonus tracks from the 2008 re-release like Never Enough, Stranger Than Fiction, and Hate Me. The best song on the original release of album by far was their single The Bleeding with one of the most intense music videos I've ever seen from a metal band.

It's when you listen to the album from start to finish you start to notice something. The themes in the songs are used and reused ad naseum with very few exceptions. The album opens with Ashes with the anti-Midas image of "Everything I touch turns to ashes." Nice opener for the album even if the song for some reason appears a little lackluster due to the brutal verses followed by a kind of lacking in brutality and melodie chorus. The album title track, The Way of the Fist is a fight song that reminds me of some really good UFC fights, especially since the video for the song is a typical metal video with montages of cage fights mixed with the band performing in a cage of their own.

Salvation is where the repeating theme starts. The song is more or less about how he is looked down on for not believing in the their God or whatever--a message I can appreciate at its base by being a lapsed Catholic myself. The songwriting is dead on, with a really good chorus "I won't bow to something that I've never seen/I can't believe in something that doesn't believe in me/I'm not blood of your blood, I'm no son of your god/I've no faith in your fate/Still I find salvation." The melody melding into painful screaming counters the heavy-handed pre-chorus that screams how the followers of said belief are just "puppets on strings," which is technically not how you make friends. Other songs that echo this I'm-not-good-enough/ You're-just-a-follower/Why-doesn't-daddy-love-me motif are...almost all of them! Seriously, A Place to Die, The Devil's Own, Death Before Dishonor, Meet the Monster, Never Enough, and Hate Me. I mean, these are all great songs with good writing and good vocals and guitar in each of them, but we don't need an entire metal album about the same damn thing. The only other songs are the already mentioned amazing The Bleeding, White Knuckles which could be misheard as a fight song but really has some amazing writing behind it, and Can't Heal You which could almost fit in the other theme.

Each of the songs on the album is worth a listen and they're all very well done, but to listen to the whole album in one sitting you start to hear the repeating and unoriginal ideals the music is throwing at you. The songs are just too frequent and in too close of proximity to another on the album. The re-release also included an acoustic version of The Bleeding if you're into that kind of thing. I like it a lot, as do some of my friends, but there are arguments that "metal bands shouldn't do that." I think those arguments are full of crap, because I like when people do things differently than they're used to or if they make something their own. Five Finger Death Punch does exactly that in their album, if only they did a little bit more variety in their themes.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor

Biases and Preferences

I realize that part of the reason my Killzone 2 first impression "review" was so long was I kept interjecting with reasons why I felt certain ways, comparing to other games--especially when it came to online multiplayer. So I figured to avoid that in the future I'd make a short list of things that will be present in my reviews and why I may say some of the things I will usually say.

Video games - I am a gamer. Most of my reviews will probably be for things of this type. I own an Xbox 360, a PlayStation 3, a Nintendo Wii, a Sega Dreamcast, and a PC. With very few exceptions, any game that is multiplatform I will play for the Xbox 360. I enjoy all kinds of games, from first-person shooters to in depth role-playing games to fighting games. I like a lot of artistic games as well as the exploration of game as an actual art form. Graphics are important, but do not make or break gameplay, except in the case of overly chibi-anime graphics that I cannot stand and won't play past the first few hours. Persona 4 is a good example for this. The gameplay was fantastic and I was really into it, but the graphics couldn't let me enjoy the game properly. As previously mentioned in my Killzone 2 impression, I don't spend a lot of time with online multiplayer. My reviews of games will not always be positive, as I work at a gaming retailer and have access to all kinds of games. My reviews of games will not always be new titles; a lot of them will be retrospective titles that I have a lot to say about, especially if I find the game hasn't garnered the attention it should have.

Movies - I do not watch as many films as I used to, with school and work eating my life. I like a lot of gore, but I also enjoy comedy, drama, and pretty much anything that will entertain me. From seeing movies with friends, I find I do not watch films the way most people do. I named In Bruges my best film of 2008 not to be contrary from most people swooning over The Dark Knight as many have accused me of, but because the entire movie was fantastic. The acting, the soundtrack, and--most of all--the directing was out-of-this-world good. The directing of a film can break a film that has a lot going for it (ie The Da Vinci Code) but it cannot--or at least very rarely--save a bad film (a la Silent Hill). When the art direction of a game is also good, such as Sin City, a lot of other things can be forgiven. The characters of a film also must draw attention and be relatable in order to feel some form of sympathy for them. The first three Saw movies did this well, making you feel that the victims didn't necessarily deserve to die for their "crimes"--something Saw IV threw out the window when it was rapists and wife-beaters being killed as they rightly deserved, taking away from the sympathy and therefore the unpleasantness that should be expected from watching a torture-porn film. Classic movies are also a favorite of mine, and I hope to review some of them as well. With the current spewing out of half-assed films, a lot of reviews on newer movies may not be very positive.

Television - My favorite television show of all time is M*A*S*H. I own all eleven seasons on DVD and watch them regularly. Some of favorite currently airing shows are House, M.D. and Doctor Who. I enjoy a lot of comedy in my television watching, but a taste of drama is necessary to keep me coming back. When I review a show, I may review an entire season, a single episode, or perhaps even the series to date, depending on the life of the show. A lot of my TV watching is spent either on DVD or Nick at Night, when I'm doing homework in the background, so it is safe to assume a lot of my reviews of television shows will be from the past, but the new season of Doctor Who will lend to a few interesting reviews regarding that show and the history of it's 45-year life. A lot of what I said for films is also true for television, so expect different opinions on shows than your used to.

Books - I also don't get to read as often as I would like, outside of books for literature classes. My favorite authors are Chuck Palahniuk, Mike McCormack, TA Barron, and Christopher Rice. I tend to not read books I don't like, so a lot of my reviews on books will be positive. There probably won't be as many classic reviews as with other mediums as I don't particularly enjoy the classics, but I do appreciate some of them. Some of my book reviews may be closely related to poetry or an art form of some kind. Some reviews may be based off books I read in my youth, and if I feel particularly venomous, I may give my scathing opinion on JK Rowling, the stupid bitch.

Music - I am a metalhead, but I also listen to a lot of different music. The only thing you will not hear me listening to on a regular basis is rap music. I listen to avante garde stuff, some straight rock, some soft acoustic music, thrashing metal, folk, punk, alternative, and really anything that catches my ear in a good way. My pick for best album of 2008 was Amanda Palmer's debut solo album Who Killed Amanda Palmer after her departure from one of my favorite groups, The Dresden Dolls. The choice for best album for me to the wire between Ms Palmer and Weezer's Red Album. I am the host of a radio show, which you can listen to 9PM to midnight EST on Mondays on http://www.wmwmonline.com.

Other reviews I post, such as for concerts or sporting events will probably be limited to UFC events as I am a big mixed martial arts fan. I do not base my reviews on any outside sources, only on my own experiences. Being articulate and having an opinion is something I enjoy, so there will hopefully be all kinds of reviews coming here in the future. With more reviews will hopefully come a readership, so I hope this will turn into a regular happening.

-Evan "Dez" O'Connor