Now to don my music critic hat....

My music addiction is nearly as disturbing as my constant need to read and write fiction.  I’m always looking for new artists in a variety of genres.  And there are numerous artists whose new releases I will always buy.  My love for music coincides with my writing. If not for my "thinking and writing" playlists, frequently packed full of Radiohead, Opeth, Tool, Steven Wilson, Ulrich Schnauss, and various ambient numbers, I wouldn't get nearly as much writing done as I do....

Anyway, since there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the online force that is Badwater Press (or to the contents of my brain), I will use this blog entry for two purposes: 1) To escape my bar exam prep course and 2) To offer my thoughts on three recent CD purchases….  

(First, a parenthetical preface: Yes, whenever possible, I still buy CDs.  When a storm begins raging in the Cloud, I'd like to know that most of my music collection is still sitting on a shelf in my house.  I enjoy creative packaging and reading liner notes.  And I still enjoy the anticipation and experience of going to the store and buying an album from one of my favorite artists.)

Traveller by Chris Stapleton

I grew up listening to country music, but I don’t enjoy most of what is glitzing out of Nashville nowadays.  Twangy pop is what most of it is. Over-produced, glossy anthems about jacked up pickups, bonfires, and coolers full of beer.

Now, I’m not against pop-influenced country.  Country has been wielding heavy pop influences since the seventies and eighties. But the pop influence in country throughout the seventies, eighties, and nineties mostly concerned song structure, hooks, and vocal delivery.  Strong country roots still mattered, as did substance.  Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” did extremely well on the pop charts, but it is arguably one of the greatest country songs ever written/recorded.  Dan Seals’s “Everything That Glitters (Is Not Gold)” is an under-appreciated country classic….  There is simply nothing like either of those songs coming out of Nashville today....

Not even from the true subject of this section, Chris Stapleton.  HOWEVER, Stapleton’s Traveler is probably the best new country CD I’ve bought in five, maybe ten, years.  There’s no glitz here, just an entire CD of decent, and sometimes brilliant, songwriting, delivered by a man who can sing and play his own darned guitar.  As such, this stuff is pretty raw.  Not Bruce Springsteen Nebraska raw….  But Traveller sounds like Stapleton went into the studio armed only with his guitar, a very small supporting cast, and a notebook full of lyrics and chords… and they got this thing recorded in a couple of days.  Maybe that’s exactly what happened, I don’t know.  Either way, it’s a good thing.  The title track is a memorable, mid-tempo number with quality lyrics.  "Whiskey and You" is everything a country song should be.  "When the Stars Come Out" is the closest thing this disc gets to pop.  Its hook is strong, and it's one of the album's best tracks.  "Nobody to Blame" is a tired song that flirts with outright silliness, and it sounds a little bit too much like the title track.  It's the album's weakest moment-- which is a good thing, because it's certainly not bad.  

Notice my aforementioned Springsteen reference.  Stapleton, to me, harkens back less to past country stars and more to the singer-songwriter camp of Mellencamp, Petty, and Springsteen….  With healthy doses of steel guitar, of course. In fact, there are certain points on this album in which I swore I was listening to one of Springsteen’s twangier numbers.  And I think that’s appropriate.  

Given the direction country music has taken in the last ten or fifteen years, artists like Springsteen have occasionally been doing country better than most of the guys and gals in Nashville, anyway.  

Out of the Wasteland by Lifehouse

I discovered Lifehouse shortly after the release of their first album, No Name Face.  To me Lifehouse too frequently get discarded by “serious” music folk as just another mainstream, post-grunge/pop act.  To be fair, sometimes that’s exactly what they are.  But when Lifehouse are at their best, they transcend any such label.  Numerous tracks on their first three albums are worthy of serious recognition: “Sick Cycle Carousel,” “Breathe,” “Spin,” “The Beginning,” and “Blind” come to mind.  

As with most artists who stick around a while, Wade & Co. have lost a little bit of their youthful angst and edge.  They’ve never released a bad album (though Almeria just didn’t seem like a Lifehouse record to me), but recent releases (particularly Almeria) have seen them fall into the trap of overproduction.

Out of the Wasteland doesn’t quite recapture their edge.  Nor does it quite shed the overly-glossy dressing of their recent releases.  But it’s a huge step up from Almeria, and it’s at least as good as 2007’s Who We Are.  “One for the Pain” is a new direction for the band— it sounds like something Chris Cornell might’ve put on one of his pop-oriented solo albums.  “Flight” is a classic Lifehouse song that showcases everything they do well.  “Firing Squad” and “Central Park” are both quality tracks as well.  

Overall, in terms of quality, Out of the Wasteland falls somewhere in the middle of Lifehouse’s discography.  It’s better than Almeria and might be better than Smoke and Mirrors and Who We Are….  But as good as some of this material is, there isn’t a song on here that comes close to the brilliance of the previously mentioned tracks from their first three albums.

Shadows of the Dying Sun by Insomnium

Yes, I love metal.  All different types of metal.  Sometimes I must escape the traditional and predictable.  If not for metal, I might’ve grown bored with music a long time ago.  It provides contrast and balance for all those three and four minute country/pop/grunge songs I listen to.  

But if not for certain bands in Europe, I might’ve grown bored with metal a long time ago.  

Speaking generally (and I'm a guy who enjoys many genres of music; I am not a walking encyclopedia of heavy metal, as some metal "purists" are), American metal bands want to be seen as badasses, while their European counterparts prefer to be seen as thinkers.  This, of course, is not altogether true.  Tool is an American metal band, and I don’t think frontman Maynard James Keenan gives a rip about being seen as a badass.  Agalloch are from Oregon, and they’re another example of a band who cares much more about atmosphere and lyric quality than they do proclaiming themselves as brutes of brutality.

Anyway, much of the modern metal I enjoy hails from the other side of the Atlantic, including the subject of this review, Insomnium, and their 2014 release that I recently discovered, Shadows of the Dying Sun.  These guys remind me of Blackwater Park-era Opeth, and that is absolutely nothing but a good thing.  This music is complex (though not as complex as Opeth’s), brutal, beautiful, atmospheric.  Everything good metal should be.  Not a single minute of this album will bore you.  And while I’m not always a fan of “growled” vocals, I am also capable of enjoying them if they’re done well.  Before discovering Insomnium, I could name two bands whose “growled” vocals I thought actually added to their music instead of hindering it: Opeth and Dark Tranquillity (no coincidence, likely, that both Mikael Åkerfeldt and Mikael Stanne are exceptional traditional vocalists, too….  Break the rules for artistic reasons, not to cover up the fact that you CAN’T follow them….)  Insomnium is the third.

Highlights of Shadows of the Dying Sun include the transition from the introductory track, “The Primeval Dark” to the driving second offering, “While We Sleep.”  “Lose to Night” is a beautiful, more traditional track with exceptional lyrics.  “The River” is an eight-minute epic that begs to be listened to as you read the lyrics.  And “The Promethean Song” is a dark number that also deserves mention.

Metal can be as weak and predictable as any other genre of music, no matter how physically challenging it is to play.  Good metal, as I said earlier, should be complex, brutal, beautiful, and atmospheric.  As such, I enjoy albums that cannot possibly be ingested properly in one listen….

Shadows of the Dying Sun is such an album.