Jonathan Hill

A Soapbox for Uninformed Opinions

May
3

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Green Carnation The Acoustic Verses Review

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Green Carnation The Acoustic Verses

Artist: Green Carnation
Album: The Acoustic Verses
Genre(s): Rock
Subgenres(s): Art Rock, Progressive Rock
Released: 2006
Length: 43 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Sublife Records, The End Records

Track List:

01. Sweet Leaf
02. The Burden is Mine… Alone
03. Maybe
04. Alone
05. 9-29-045
06. Child’s Play (Part 3)
07. High Tide Waves

Green Carnation The Acoustic Verses Cover

The Acoustic Verses is the 5th and final album by Green Carnation. It shows a drastic shift in sound by taking the soft art rock/progressive rock sound that could be heard on parts of their previous album, The Quiet Offspring, and letting its influence seep out to create an entire album based on that sound. The Acoustic Verses is full of low key melancholic vibrations and unstrained, almost delicate singing from Kjetil Nordhus to match the theme. The Burden is Mine… Alone only consists of an acoustic guitar, keyboard ambiance and straightforward lyrics but it manages to neatly summarises this theme over its short duration.

While the title of album allures to acoustic instrumentation, there are still some electric instruments used including the bass, keyboard and theremin. The acoustic guitars often take centre stage with the biggest exception being Child’s Play (Part 3). It is the only instrumental piece on The Acoustic Verses and only involves the piano and keyboard. Songs such as Alone and High Tide Waves see Green Carnation go as far as bringing in a string trio (consisting of a violin, viola and cello) to add another dimension to the rich sound of The Acoustic Verses.

In a throwback to Green Carnation’s knack for writing long songs back in the early stages of their career, they wrote a 15 minute, 3 part suite called 9-29-045 (Part 1 My Greater Cause, Part 2 Homecoming and Part 3 House of Cards). This is at odds with the other songs being that they are between 3 and 5 minutes. Placing it in the middle of the album was certainly a bold move as it could throw off some listeners but Green Carnation pulls it off and melds all the elements of The Acoustic Verses together to make a fluid sonic journey out of it.

Drummer Tommy Jacksonville deserves a special mention for being able to play a diverse and often subtle role that could have easily gone against the soft nature of the music. The drums haven’t been mixed too loudly which prevents it from overshadowing anything which leaves Green Carnation and your own ears with the best results.

Long-time fans could be disappointed by the change in sound, or even the lack of distorted heavy metal guitar riffs, but Green Carnation proves to be adept enough to dive headfirst into their new sound that lets the band end their career on a well-deserved high note.

Feb
28

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Palms Palms Review

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Palms Palms Review

Artist: Palms
Album: Palms
Genre(s): Rock
Subgenres(s): Post Rock, Shoegazer
Released: 2013
Length: 47 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Ipecac

Track List:

01. Future Warrior
02. Patagonia
03. Mission Sunset
04. Shortwave Radio
05. Tropics
06. Arctic Handshake

Palms Palms Cover

Palms is a post rock/shoegazer super group made up of Deftones singer Chino Moreno and 3 members of Isis. The first thing you’ll notice about all of the songs on their self-titled debut is that they all lack hooks and grooves to grab your attention. Instead they rely on lengthy guitar soundscapes that focuses heavily on layering shimmering clean guitar tones alongside their fuzzed out counterpart (that sometimes boarder on becoming blue noise) with Chino Moreno’s ethereal voice sitting comfortable in the middle of it all.

Unfortunately the soundscaping that Palms indulges in also happens to be the major pitfall of the album. It becomes apparent early on that the songs lack definition and given that the song lengths average out at almost 8 minutes each, there is little variety and ever fewer memorable moments. This becomes frustrating when the songs sound like they are building up to something but then nothing significant happens, resulting in some rather lengthy songs that don’t appear to have any real momentum behind them.

Sadly the album isn’t what it could have been and while Palms have a lot of style in their well-crafted ambience, they lack the substance in the song writing department that makes an album memorable and engaging. If you hear a single song from Palms then you’ve heard the rest of the album. Stronger song writing would have given it the potential to be a sonic masterpiece but the lack of variety is what holds Palms back.

Jan
31

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Peeping Tom Peeping Tom Review

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Peeping Tom Peeping Tom Review

Artist: Peeping Tom
Album: Peeping Tom
Genre(s): Rap, Rock
Subgenres(s): Rap Rock, Trip Hop, Trip Rock
Released: 2006
Length: 44 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Ipecac Recordings

Track List:

01. Five Seconds
02. Mojo
03. Don’t Even Trip
04. Getaway
05. Your Neighborhood Spaceman
06. Kill the DJ
07. Caipirinha
08. Celebrity Death Match
09. How U Feelin?
10. Sucker
11. We’re Not Alone (Remix)

Peeping Tom Peeping Tom Cover

Peeping Tom is the debut album of Mike Patton’s rap rock music project of the same name. Put into motion in 2000, the album was recorded from then to 2006 and subsequently released that year. A wealth of guest performers and producers including Dan the Automator, Massive Attack, Kool Keith, Norah Jones and Rahzel amongst others are enlisted to bring a different sound to each song.

As this is a pop album of sorts, Mike Patton and his collaborators embracing rap, rock and downtempo music that is then blended into a broad set of rap rock and trip hop/trip rock songs with mostly conventional song structures and fewer of the eccentricities associated with many of his other bands (namely Fantomas, Mr. Bungle and his collaborations with John Zorn).

Some songs (Five Seconds, Mojo and We’re Not Alone) draw back to the rap rock sound of the late 1990s by alternating between rapping and singing to the well-established loud/quiet song structure dynamics. Thankfully the overblown angst ridden lyrics are out of the equation and this prevents it from becoming a pale imitation of the scene it draws inspiration from.

Mike Patton is a flexible vocalist as his long, meandering career has proven time and time again. He puts on a strong performance for the rock-centric parts of the album and while he can rap and beat box, it’s evident that it is not his forte and the guest vocalists often outshine him in this element.

Getaway, Your Neighborhood Spaceman, Celebrity Death Match and How U Feelin? favour a heavy helping of hip hop influences to balance out Peeping Tom’s sound while We’re Not Alone (Remix) is a brilliant summary of what Peeping Tom offers: hard guitar sounds, relaxed trip hop beats, diverse vocal performances and enough song progression to feed Mike Patton’s eccentric tendencies without alienating the listener.

Mike Patton never loses track of what he set out to accomplish with Peeping Tom and while it is certainly not a jarring effort, the breadth of styles used do give the album plenty momentum and a real sense of unpredictability.

Dec
27

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Alice Cooper Trash Review

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Alice Cooper Trash Review

Artist: Alice Cooper
Album: Trash
Genre(s): Rock
Subgenres(s): Hard Rock
Released: 1989
Length: 40 minutes
Language(s): English
Label(s): Epic Records

Track List:

01. Poison
02. Spark in the Dark
03. House of Fire
04. Why Trust You
05. Only My Heart Talkin’
06. Bed of Nails
07. This Maniac’s in Love with You
08. Trash
09. Hell is Living Without You
10. I’m Your Gun

Alice Cooper Trash Cover

Alice Cooper returned to the throng of commercial success with Trash in 1989. This was his biggest selling album since the mid-1970s and it isn’t hard to see why. Alice Cooper cuts the fat to leave you with the best possible experience; 10 powerhouse rock anthems with a plethora of catchy guitar rhythms and infections sing-along hooks that are bound to snare your ears.

He tackles 3 topics that more often than not make a pop sensation (sex, love and heart break) with a sleazy, tongue-in-cheek grin that will make you laugh and cringe simultaneously with his blunt refrains. Memorable lines go from “no one else gets as deep inside you as I do” (Bed of Nails) and “pull my trigger, I get bigger, then I’m lots of fun” (I’m Your Gun) to him portraying an obsessed stalker on This Maniac’s In Love With You.

The 8 boisterous rock anthems are balanced out with Only My Heart Talkin’ and Hell is Living Without You, the 2 slightly more sincere power ballads in which his tone changes fittingly to deal with heart break. It’s worth mentioning that while sincere next to the rest of the album, Only My Heart Talkin’ descends into an incessant animal yelps as part of a long fade out that cues Alice Cooper to get back to what he excels at on Trash. Spark in the Dark takes a nod to Alice Cooper rejecting the use of hard drugs with the line “we don’t need cocaine” after overcoming his own addictions in the early 1980s.

As far as the recording of Trash goes, it has a distinct 1980s sound to it complete with the era’s cheesy keyboard effects. Thankfully they are used subtly and are relegated to the background so when they come into play, they don’t have enough emphasis in any song to diminish its quality.

Trash possesses all of the hallmarks of a great rock album. It will have you coming back for more time and time again with Alice Coopers sleazy lyrics delivered in a high energy performance across a small set of songs that never feel played out no matter how many times you listen to them.

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