the blog of Jerry Bolton
Posts tagged Rock
…i stole my confessions from a kleptomaniac
22 years ago
Title: Confessions
Artist: Pillar
Label: Sony BMG Home Entertainment & Essential Records
Length: 11 Tracks / 37:59
For More Info: http://www.pillartour.com | http://providentpress.com/
It’s just been a year since Pillar’s last release, 2008′s For The Love Of The Game. Not much has changed in a year – Pillar is still cranking out generic, derivative rock music. Pillar, as always, remains a competent band with decent money behind them and a reasonably-sized primarily-Christian fanbase.
That’s about all the good I can say here. I get the impression they’ve been really trying hard to do something interesting and different since rapcore died, but this album is a train wreck… and the Confessions should be about how many “hard” rock, grunge, and rock-and-roll bands they ripped off trying to make things sound different. Apparently, they were going for a reinvention of their approach to “songwriting and studio production as well as half [their] line-up”. This means, among other things Confessions sports “guest songwriters” (five of them – all from outside the band), a producer other than Travis Wyrick (a first), and most distinctly a grip of songs that is anything other than the “rich, melodic, transparent, and hard-hitting … with weighty appeal” claimed in the press release.
Confessions starts out with an “Intro” that’s basically 10 seconds of ramping-up guitars that segue into the lead track “Fire On The Inside”. I’ll warn you straight up, this is one of two songs on the album that actually sound like a Pillar track (the other being the last track on the album “You Are Not The End”). There’s very little rock happening on Confessions – perhaps the album’s title is meant to be a sign… that says in big, capital letters:
WARNING! PILLAR THOUGHT IT WOULD BE REALLY COOL TO MAKE A ‘SOFTER, GENTLER’ ALBUM. PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND EARPLUGS. AND CYNICISM.
The next couple cuts on the record display this perfectly, as well as hinting at a lot of what’s to come on the record: plagiarism.
Earlier I mentioned that Pillar ripped off other bands to make Confessions. What exactly did I mean by that? Well, when you reach track five and it starts up, you’ll be expecting to hear these words:
“Everything’s so blurry, and everyone’s so fake.
Everybody’s empty, and everything is so messed up.”
Why? Because the verses of “Better Off Now” snatch their chord progression, vocal pattern, harmonic picking, and general aesthetics from Puddle Of Mudd’s hit song “Blurry”. That song is almost 10 years old now. Maybe they thought nobody would notice. The only real change from the song they stole is that Pillar wrote a non-grunge chorus for the otherwise lifted music. Which could have been a good thing, except they replace it with their brand of soft rock radio-friendly jello. Not exactly a positive spin.
It’s one thing to borrow a page from great musicians, but Puddle of Mudd was basically a Nirvana cover band in disguise that ended up being essentially a one-hit wonder. Hearing this kind of drivel makes me wish Pillar had just called it quits after Above. Or before that, preferably.
If that weren’t enough, I used to think that Rob Beckley (Pillar’s vocalist) at least had a distinguishable voice – particularly after he gave up the rapping he was never any good at. Confessions does away with that concession, since it finds Beckley pulling a page from the vocal tones and styles of Our Lady Peace’s Raine Maida on various tracks – most distinctly on “Will You Be There”. He also borrows heavily from Thousand Foot Krutch’s Trevor McNevan on “Call To Action” and elsewhere.
The fact that Pillar chose this album to be their first LP with cover songs on it shouldn’t come as any surprise at this point. Late in the album, Pillar turns in an entirely unremarkable cover of Collective Soul’s “Shine” and a cover of a song that hasn’t even been released yet – “Call To Action” by Knoxville band Copper. In both cases, the reproductions are faithful but add absolutely nothing to the songs. In fact, Pillar’s covers are far less interesting, far less detailed, and far less listenable than the originals.
Cover songs aside, the original songs on Confessions are a confused bunch. Pillar’s intent to pull off some kind of softer, gentler side comes off as forced and uninteresting. Every once and awhile they try to bust out some kind of ‘hardcore breakdown’, but it falls flat and empty because it never fits nor does it actually sound heavy when its in the context of an otherwise ‘trying really hard to be both rich AND melodic’ song (see: “Whatever It Takes”).
Lyrically, there’s nothing here you wouldn’t already expect from Pillar – who have never been home to particularly deep, introspective, or… well… confessional lyrics. Their misguided attempt to go against the grain of what they’ve done prior to this comes off as awkward, forced, and derivative as the music and the vocals do.
It’s telling that Pillar made it their goal to make “every song on this album … a great fit for radio”, because – bottom line – if you’ve listened to rock music on the radio during the last two decades, you have heard this album already. I can respect wanting to change and evolve, but in attempting to do so, Pillar has put together a selection of 10 songs that neither cohere nor rock, and the utter lack of originality or innovation conjures up but one utterly horrific comparison: Nickleback.
So, essentially, what you’ll get with Confessions is a couple bad covers, a handful of flagrant unoriginality, and an earfull of sounds you’ve already heard elsewhere. If you’re a Pillar fan, stick to their old stuff. If you’re not a Pillar fan, stay away from this one just like you’d stay away from Frankenstein’s ravenous monster.
Zero Klepto’s out of Five.
Standout Tracks: None of them. Sorry.
Jerry Bolton – for The Phantom Tollbooth.
September 28th, 2009
…sailing shallow
02 years ago
Title: In Shallow Seas We Sail
Artist: Emery
Label: Tooth & Nail
Length: 13 Tracks / 41:10
For More Info: http://www.emerymusic.com | http://www.toothandnail.com
I’m going to come right out with it: this is Emery’s finest album, and it all started in 2004.
The year 2004 was the year most people were introduced to a fledgeling genre we now remember as “Screamo”. Screamo blends the screamed vocals and technical guitars of post-hardcore with the pop sensibilities and pretty singing of mid-nineties Emo. It quickly fell out of fashion because of a litany of talentless copycats and extreme overcommercialization, much like Rapcore did in the late 90′s.
Emery’s 2004 debut, The Weak’s End, garnered quite reserved reactions. At first glance, they seemed to be another Screamo band sporting dual vocalists. I think this rubbed a lot of critics and listeners the wrong way because it seemed like a cash-in on the popularity of other acts of the time – after all, 2004 was the year of Underoath’s They’re Only Chasing Safety, as well as Dead Poetic’s New Medicines, and ultimately it was the year Linkin Park’s Meteora solid a gajillion copies.
The Weak’s End was a decent debut – nothing spectacular, but since Screamo was the flavor of the year it sold quite well. The melodies were pretty good, the screamed vocals were satisfying, and the heart-on-sleeve, honest lyrics resonated with many. The record was ultimately driven forward on the strength of its most visible track. That track is “The Ponytail Parades”, and it represented Emery at their best – soaring harmonies and impassioned, agonizing screams told the story of a broken heart in a way that continues to resonate with fans to this day. Emery has since released the song in both acoustic and live versions on subsequent albums.
Just as violently as the Screamo tides came in, so they left not too shortly after. Pioneers in the genre such as Underoath quickly abandoned it, largely citing what it had come to represent – a stale, pigeonholed genre that held little long-term interest.
Emery was right alongside such bands in leaving Screamo behind, and they did it quite quickly. Their sophomore 2005 effort The Question focused much more on sonics, melody, and songwriting… and left behind almost all of the screaming. Their third release, 2007′s I’m Only A Man entered more experimental territory, adding in electronics and dancehall beats (among other things).
Then came 2008′s While Broken Hearts Prevail EP… which, if you heard it, you heard a significant shift in their sound back toward where they began.
What makes In Shallow Seas We Sail the finest record that this band has put out is the very thing that they’ve been largely avoiding for all these years since The Weak’s End – that being the proverbial “Heavy”. This is a record that starts with a rather delicious, throaty yell. The opening 30 seconds of “Cutthroat Collapse” set the stage well – covering more than a few screaming styles, and hailing in the return of a more confident, more mature Emery.
One of the things that’s allowed Emery to survive and thrive in the years since 2004 is that they have had at their disposal two extremely talented vocalists – both of whom are excellent singers and screamers. This has allowed them a great deal of flexibility and freedom both to experiment and to push themselves in ways inaccessable to most. Throughout In Shallow Seas We Sail, Both vocalists are at the peak of their craft, trading harmonies and conjuring some impressive back-and-forth intertwining lyrics and styles all throughout. In addition, the band’s rediscovery of heavy musical intensity rises up to match their ever-present lyrical boldness and heightened emotional appeals. The combination of these factors, which is ultimately a culmination of the lessons and progress recorded on all of their previous albums, results in an extremely impressive, challenging, and enjoyable collection of songs.
I believe that they have finally laid to rest “The Ponytail Parades” as their magnum opus. From its subject matter to its hooks to urgent crescendo, “Inside Our Skin”, is proof positive that Emery is presently in the best place they have ever been. When the song’s climax hits, and you hear the appeal “WISDOM LIGHT MY WAY INTO THE DARK / WE CAN’T MAKE A CHANGE ‘TIL WE KNOW WHO WE ARE”, these conclusions are utterly inescapable. A close runner-up is also on this record – the incredible “Dear Death”, which is split into two parts, the first quiet and sombre, the second pulsating, energetic, and impassioned.
If there’s one downside to this outing, it’s that Emery’s lyrics often don’t stray from the mold they set five years ago. Much of the album’s textual content is spent on relationships, and without much in the way of insight… instead focusing largely on venting emotions and feelings that most (myself included) would associate with high-school drama. Frankly, Emery’s most impacful songs are the ones where they deviate from that path – and although this record has a decent number, it would have been nice to see a wholesale shift in emphasis.
Ultimately, Emery builds on years of experience and their handful of previous releases and delivers to us their finest work to date. If it is truly In Shallow Seas We Sail, the seas are calm, the water is perfect, and the music is just right.
Four and a Half Sailboats out of Five.
Standout Tracks: Inside Our Skin; The Smile, The Face; In Shallow Seas We Sail; Churches And Serial Killers; Dear Death (Parts 1 & 2).
Jerry Bolton – for The Phantom Tollbooth.
September 10th, 2009
…a story about falling in love
22 years ago
Title: it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright
Artist: mewithoutYou
Label: Tooth & Nail Records
Length: 11 Tracks / 44:55
MewithoutYou has always numbered among those bands whose sound is an “acquired taste”. From the start, there has never been a shred of pop-informed accessibility to their work.
Remember back in 2002 when [A->B] Life came out? Remember the first time you heard vocalist Aaron Weiss’ bizarre mix of talking and shouting? Remember being sucked in by the energy of it all – the broken heart of the protagonist, the churn and ferocity of the music to match?
Remember 2004, when Catch For Us The Foxes came out? Remember the intricate bass lines and the swirling crescendos of the guitars? Remember hearing Aaron talk quietly and, in his fumbling but endearing way, sing?
Remember how well all the new instrumentation introduced on 2006′s Brother, Sister seemed to fit? Remember how it added a lot to the depth and variety of their sound?
Remember falling in love with mewithoutYou?
If you’re like me, there are two key things that made it happen.
First, excellent musicianship. I know I’m not the only one who wept on the inside when Dan Pishock left after Catch For Us The Foxes – taking his ridiculously complicated and beautiful bass work with him. I know I’m not the only one who can’t help but dance or at least make spastic body movements when the opening peals of “January 1979″ rise up, carrying with them a wash of joy.
Second, Aaron Weiss. Don’t his lyrics have a way of shining light on such difficult things? Don’t his words get stuck in your head such that you find yourself using them as profound poetic injections in the middle of conversations about God, theology, and life in general? Doesn’t his delivery make you grin?
MewithoutYou’s strengths have always been the music and the man in front – and they have been such great strengths that those who enjoy them might even consider them to be superpowers. Such is the draw that mewithoutYou has upon their fanbase – faithful, passionate, and intensely proud of the intimate and meaningful work that ‘their’ band has given them.
I’m one of them. I first heard the band shortly after the release of their debut, and was happily carried along through second and third releases. Each one has been unique, yet all bear threads of similarity – music and man. I was sucked in first by the lyrics. Long before I grew to love and enjoy Aaron’s unique and, for most people, unlistenable delivery… it was his words that caught me. Consistently insightful, consistently grappling with the difficult yet most important things of life – meaning, existence, God, pain, relationships, and most of all the complicated realities of following Jesus in our present world. The grooves and pulses of the music didn’t hurt, either.
As you know, mewithoutYou has a new album and it comes out very soon. It is called it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright, and for many, just like me, the album’s title will summarize their first response upon hearing it. After some thought, I have a feeling that this kind of initial response actually provides a good framework for understanding this new album, as well as the many differences (and occasional similarities) it has with everything the band has done before.
So, without further ado:
It’s All Crazy!
When you start up this new album, and the opening carnival-organ notes of “every thought a Thought of You” hit your ears, it should be apparent very quickly that musically, this isn’t the mewithoutYou you’ve become accustomed to. What’s incredible is that this first track is about the closest to their “old sound” that you’ll find here. A couple of lines in, the band’s trademark guitars make their entrance (and, in many ways, take their leave – more on that in a second).
Behind the producer’s desk is none other than Dan Smith, who you might be familiar with from his work with Sufjan Stevens as well as heading up Danielson and all of its variants (Tri-Danielson, Danielson Family, Danielson Famile, etc). His fingerprints are all over the sound that mewithoutYou has adopted here – high falsetto background vocals make numerous appearances, not to mention generous and sprawling instrumentation from such varied sources as tubas, violins, xylophones, squeaky hinges, trumpets, pianos, banjos, and ultimately an entire orchestra. The trademark guitars still bring the heavy from time to time, but such occasions are few and far between – typically only at the climax of certain songs. If they’re present otherwise, they are mixed low and the other instruments take center stage. That said, there’s a lot more acoustic guitar (and bass) than electric, and really, that’s the craziest thing about this new album. Musically, this is really much more of a folk record than the post-hardcore or “artcore” we’re used to hearing from these guys.
Think about the coloured Spider vignettes on Brother, Sister and imagine them expanded to album-length, surrounded with lush accompaniment, and just generally tweaked in all manners of interesting, perhaps even “crazy” ways. That’s really what’s ‘crazy’ about it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright - it represents a huge shift in sound. To think that the direction taken on this new project was hinted at most clearly by the brief and incidental “arachnid interludes” of the preceding album makes it all the more perplexing.
It’s All False!
This album will probably be controversial, but you could have said that about any of their records – remember “Seven Sisters”, when Aaron said “Oh my God – I want to shoot myself just thinking about it!” and followed that up with “You think I don’t mean what I say? Well I mean every word I say!”. It’s not as though mewithoutYou have shied away from tense subject matter before – thoughts of suicide being the most easily recognizable.
The reason this album might be controversial is handily summarized by the title of the last song on the record: “Allah, Allah, Allah.” It’s the content rooted in faith and theology that will be most upsetting and divisive for both long-time fans and new listeners. Sometimes, it will be in a very good way – for instance Aaron’s proclamation on “a Stick, a Carrot and String” of Jesus as “our Lord”, come to replace the sacrificial system with his willing and obedient sacrifice on the Cross. Other times, as in the above example of “Allah…”, the knee-jerk reaction will likely be negative or at least confused. Let’s examine this.
Now, particularly in the West, we associate the word “Allah” with the specific god of Islam. Generally, the result of combining a song title such as “Allah, Allah, Allah” with our Islam-specific association is that we might conclude that mewithoutYou has converted to Islam. Listening through the song likely wouldn’t do much to assuage those fears, either. The problem lies in the association. The word “Allah” is merely the word for “God” in the language of Arabic. Aaron and his brother Michael (who plays guitar for the band) grew up with one of the most interesting religious heritages one might conceive of. They grew up with Sufi parents, their father a convert from Judaism and their mother from Episcopalianism. Sufism, for lack of a more concise description, is like mystical Islam – they believe, contrary to traditional Islamic teaching, that God is personal and personable rather than lofty and removed. For this, and other reasons, Sufism is about as close as any form of Islam gets to many of the most important distinctives of Christianity. It’s not the Truth, but it has elements of truth in it – many of which have inspired Aaron from the very beginning. None of this is a secret to fans of the band, who have likely already spent some time in the past investigating the Sufi poets and writers that Aaron derives much of his inspiration from. That said, this kind of far-from-normal background behind the lyrics creates an interesting and complicated set of juxtapositions for the listener. Begun on their sophomore effort, Aaron continues his pattern of utilizing Arabic primarily for purposes of praise (think back to “My Exit, Unfair”). With these things in mind, I would suggest that his use of “Allah” on the final track is simply that – just using another ‘name’ for God. It’s akin to calling Jesus “Yeshua” or “Haysoos” or perhaps the Arabic “Isa” – which, incidentally, Aaron has already done on Brother, Sister’s “The Dryness and the Rain”.
More than ever before, Aaron draws from his Sufi roots on this album – less from his usual source (the poet Rumi), and more from the “shiek” Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, who seems to be big on writing children’s stories – some of which Aaron retells. With all of this in mind, there’s a lot on the record that might cause some to cry “False!” reactively. However, I am certain that repeated listens (and a good, thorough time checking out the lyrics) will reveal that Aaron has delved into these Sufi proverbs and stories and dug up a lot of actual truth. The numerous places where Sufism parallels Christianity seem to be a treasure trove for interesting, thought-provoking content. Resist the initial urge to call it all “False”.
It’s All a Dream!
Aaron isn’t shouting! At all! Well, he might for a brief second at the beginning of “Bullet To Binary (Pt. 2)”, but that may have more to do with paying homage to the original song than with any desire to revisit old territory.
Actually, “breaking new ground” might be the best way to describe the lyrical content of the record… “storytelling” also comes to mind. There is, after all, a truckload of stories on this record – fables and tales and parables, as it were. They range from the apparently light-hearted (“the Fox, the Crow, and the Cookie”) to the biblically-inspired (“the Angel of Death came to David’s room”), to simple and elegant spiritual metaphor (“the King Beetle on a Coconut Estate”), to what can only be described as a Christmas song (“a Stick, a Carrot and String”). The cast is equally as varied, from animals and bugs, to baked goods and the ingredients needed to make them, to vegetables and plants. I’m reminded of Brother, Sister‘s “O Porcupine”, which reminded us that “all creation groans… listen to it!”. This record feels like a response to that admonition. In many ways, these stories could very well be called ‘dreams’. Each one serves to share a moral or a collection of thoughts, touching on subjects like mortality, the mystery of God, and the fleeting and ultimately empty fancies of our sexual appetites. The aforementioned ‘Christmas song’ (“a Stick, a Carrot and String”) is perhaps the best example of the approach Aaron has taken this time around. Shifting the focus from one stanza to another, the story of Christ’s birth and sacrifice are told through the animals that feature in those accounts (ie. the sacrificial lambs, the manger’s horse, the donkey Christ rode into Jerusalem, and of course the titular Snake – our Enemy). The song is powerful, despite its loose pacing and the warbles of the accordion that permeate it. Ultimately, it captures some of the incredible wonder induced by considering Jesus’ willing and obedient sacrifice on the cross. So, in that sense, this is a record full of ‘dreams and visions’ in the form of parables and fables and stories – believe me when I say that the lessons therein are helpful and worthwhile.
It’s Alright.
In the pair of months I’ve had to preview this album, I’ve gone back and forth on myself many times as to whether or not I enjoyed this new direction taken by mewithoutYou. After much reflection, primarily on what I’ve written about above, I trust you can understand that despite the “craziness”, the “falsehood”, and the “dreams”, this record is alright. MewithoutYou has taken some pretty massive steps away from their “sound” (many of them steps towards the folky, experimental sound of guys like Sufjan Stevens, Danielson, and the Psalters). Further, a new and less Aaron-centered lyrical direction and much more listener-friendly vocal style has opened the content up to a much wider audience. As much as I might want to play the snob and say it’s “not as good as old mewithoutYou”… I’m not convinced. For the first time ever, my wife could stand listening for more than 10 seconds. Call me crazy, but in my books that counts for something. MewithoutYou has chosen not to keep making Catch For Us The Foxes, and I believe they’re all the better for it.
So, it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright is crazy, false, dreamy, and ultimately… it’s quite alright in spite of these massive changes. Lyrically, it’s more sedate and thoughtful. Musically, it’s restrained in tone yet expansively layered. This is a worthy addition to the mewithoutYou canon, an unconventional but very enjoyable collection of songs that will alienate many long-time fans, but will create many more new ones.
Remember falling in love with mewithoutYou? I do. It just happened to me all over again.
4.5 Cookies out of 5
For More Info: toothandnail.com | mewithoutyou.com
Standout Tracks: every thought a Thought Of You; the Fox, the Crow, and the Cookie; a Stick, a Carrot and String; the King Beetle on a Coconut Estate; Allah, Allah, Allah.
Jerry Bolton – for The Phantom Tollbooth.
May 15th, 2009
…put the drum beat back in my heart
03 years ago
Title: Daylight Is Coming
Artist: Remedy Drive
Label: Word Records
Length: 11 Tracks / 34:40
If there’s one thing this world has a shortage of, it’s piano pop-rock bands – specifically, good ones. For all the Switchfoots and Coldplays out there, there’s 100 million other bands I won’t dignify by naming who fill radio airwaves with the most inane drivel. Remedy Drive is, for lack of a simpler way to introduce them, none of the above… exactly. Remedy Drive is more like what happens when you pump your stereo so full of the aforementioned Coldplay and Switchfoot that it starts to pour out this kind of gelatinous, filial harmony.
All of which is to say… it takes something special to be an unsigned, independent band for ten years. This is what Remedy Drive did, mostly under the name “Remedy”, and prior to that, “The Aslan Band”. Blessedly, they tagged a “Drive” on the end of “Remedy” and avoided future confusion as a David Crowder Band record. I’m not even gonna touch “The Aslan Band”… yikes.
Remedy Drive is four brothers. They harmonize well. They play their instruments well. The brother who does lead vocals sounds like a rather direct cross between Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Switchfoot’s Jon Foreman. Quite direct. In fact, when I first heard Remedy Drive, my immediate thought was that it must be a Switchfoot side-project (not that Jon Foreman doesn’t have his hands full). I was surprised to learn that no, it wasn’t Switchfoot and no, it wasn’t Coldplay either. I was intrigued.
I went from intrigued to quite interested when I found out that their final independently released disc, 2006′s Rip Open The Skies sold over 20,000 copies.
Daylight Is Coming is Remedy Drive’s first album as a signed band. It shows. The production is clean and doesn’t get much in the way of the sound, the harmonies, the essence of what they were up to. Thus, they avoided the “first-time we have a budget” blues which are known to be caused by over-production and losing your vocals and instruments in 800 pounds of sonic effects. Put more simply, the production is clean, fitting, and draws attention to all the bright and enjoyable moments the record has to offer.
Musically, Remedy Drive is about what you’d expect from a genetic mishmash of Coldplay and Switchfoot: lovely piano, lovely singing, and best of all, lovely harmonies that are made all the more glistening because of the foursome’s family ties – they all have similar voices, so uniting them results in the kind of harmonious cascade that only genetics can produce. It’s a beautiful thing, and because they couple it with ten years of songwriting experience, it has plenty of opportunity to shine.
The only real downside to the record is lyrical.
First, the positive: the lyrics are hope-permeated, uplifting, and center around the ideas of rebirth, salvation, and regeneration (a stark example is the stellar track “Heartbeat”).
Second, the criticism: There’s not a lot of lyrics – many of the songs have fewer than 15 lines, most of which are short lines. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, however one of the challenges which that kind of approach poses is that you need to say a lot, meaningfully, in just a little space. I didn’t really feel that they were up to that challenge, and I felt as though the lyrics were very straightforward, and at times they seemed very much like I had heard them somewhere before (cliché, perhaps?).
Try this on for size:
All of my castles in the sand – washed away again
And I’m left back where I began tonight
The only thing that can ever fill me up
Has been right in front of me all the time
(from “All Along”)
In the same vein, quite a few of the songs clock in at under 3 minutes… consequently the 11-song album clocks in at just over 30 minutes – quite short even by pop-rock standards. By means of comparison, Coldplay’s recent and critically acclaimed 11-track Viva La Vida came in at 50 minutes and Switchfoot’s latest, Oh, Gravity, clocked in at 12 tracks and 45 minutes of playtime. Put in contrast like that, and taking into account the shortness of the lyrics, it’s hard to miss. You really begin to notice that the songs are mostly chorus (generally a fault of dodgy pop-rock) and that they’re over just when you’re starting to feel them.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, the best song on the record is “Heartbeat”, which sports the longest verses as well as (in my opinion) the best writing on the album. Further, it captures Remedy Drive at their strongest… the album is full of vagueries and generic talk, and when the lyrics really develop there’s actually a lot to chew on; it just doesn’t happen often enough. It also has a really great refrain involving some “oh oh oh” back-and-forth harmonizing-slash-chanting that really hits the spot.
So, what can I say? Musically, Remedy Drive hit the jackpot. Although they sport a tonne of feel-good Switchfoot and Coldplay likeness, those bands are rightfully acclaimed for their excellence and so to be compared to them is definitely a strength and not a weakness. The music is crisp, sharp, clean, clear, harmonious, and masterfully executed. The lyrical content is minimalist and often falls short of really developing the ideas and the themes of the record. That said, when they really apply themselves, the lyrics are more than just listenable, they’re excellent.
If this was Remedy Drive’s debut, I’d be saying they’re full of promise and heading in the right direction.
However, since they’re old indie stalwarts, my advice is this:
Invest more time in writing your lyrics and developing your songs so that they’re not all over before they begin and aren’t mostly chorus. Your music, harmonies, instrumentation, and production all hit the mark, but your content is sorely lacking. Man up and write us a remarkable, meaningful, and well-thought-out sophomore label record and we’ll crown you part of the pop-rock trifecta.
By way of conclusion, I submit this to you, dear reader: This is a great album. My wife LOVES this album. It’s a dissapointing album, when I consider the potential the band has to deliver something downright PERFECT… but it’s great nonetheless. If you’re into pop and rock and you’re a big fan of Switchfoot and Coldplay and singing along with wonderful harmonies and great instrumentation… you’ll really, really dig Daylight Is Coming. Get it, love it, and join me in hoping that they hone their text-crafting skills and beef up their quantity for the next go ’round.
3.5 drum beats out of 5.
Standout Tracks: Heartbeat, Something Made To Last.
Jerry Bolton – for The Phantom Tollbooth.
November 2, 2008
…boost all my stats
13 years ago
Title: For the Love of the Game
Artist: Pillar
Label: Sony BMG Home Entertainment & Essential Records
Length: 17 Tracks / 58:02
Before I begin, let me first clear the air. I haven’t heard Pillar’s entire back-catalog, nor have I thought much of them to this point.
I thought Pillar’s first record, 2000′s Above, was awful – trite, cliché, formulaic, riding the rapcore bandwagon (poorly), and chock-full of boring music and decidedly sunday-school lyrics. I wrote them off, and to be honest I was surprised that they not only survived that first record, but managed to put out a listenable and marketable sophomore product in 2002′s Fireproof. Fireproof wasn’t anything too spectacular, but it was a night-and-day improvement – engaging, slightly less predictable, and the lyrical content actually contained some decidedly less regrettable songwriting. Particularly once they had the album re-mixed and remastered in 2003, I enjoyed it. For the most part my exposure to Pillar has been minimal since, other than hearing snatches of 2004′s Where Do We Go From Here. I haven’t heard any of their EP’s (which they started to release inbetween albums following Fireproof), and I haven’t heard their 2006 effort The Reckoning.
So, with that as my background of exposure to Pillar, I must report that their new record, entitled For The Love Of The Game, to my mostly uninitiated ears, sounds like a lot of other bands right now. Specifically, it sounds like a lot of other bands whose genres are dying or dead. In this case, Pillar started out as rapcore, segued into nu-metal, and now that both genres are dead they are trying their hands at the same kind of “rock and roll” that a lot of other bands in similar situations have been lately. The best example to reference would be Linkin Park, who recently abandoned their rapcore/nu-metal roots in favour of a similar rock sound on their recent 2007 outing Minutes To Midnight (with similar results). As a side, sometimes it sounds inescapably like Pillar’s Rob Beckley is channelling Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, particularly when yelling.
What you have here, basically, is a rock album. Nothing too fancy, written to appeal both to those who like their music “Christian” and to those who like their music suitable for play at the local sports venue. Lyrically, Pillar isn’t particularly preachy, and their lyrics aren’t even remotely what we saw back on Above. Indeed, I found them enjoyable as a whole, if not particularly challenging or thought-provoking. A notable would be the second track, entitled “Turn It Up” – a failed experiment in trying to fridge-magnet lyrics together out of the names of notable albums and songs from Christian music history. The fun and/or depressing thing about it was identifying each reference offhand. As an example:
I’m drawing a black line
Define the great line
Maybe I just feel so alive
It’s a super good feeling
So I’ll keep waiting
(from “Turn It Up”)
(If you recognized album titles by Project 86 and Underoath as well as song titles by P.O.D., Bleach, and Stavesacre in there, you get bonus points.)
So, while I admire Pillar for referencing some of the great musical juggernauts of the past 15 years all in half a verse here, the song comes off as filler… ie. “we couldn’t write anything good so here’s something we spent 15 minutes throwing together”. Can’t say as much for the music – the track is one of the more enjoyable on the album – and maybe that captures my response to For The Love Of The Game as a whole: mixed feelings.
This is fairly run of the mill alternative radio-rock music: at times anthemic, at times touchy-feely, and between lyrical and sonic content… pretty consistently less-than-challenging. Just like the aforementioned Linkin Park album.
If you’re a big Pillar fan, you’re probably already in love with The Game. If not, you might want to look elsewhere to satiate your alternative rock needs.
Two Team Flags out of Five.
Standout Tracks: For The Love Of The Game, Throw Down, Forever Starts Now.
Jerry Bolton
08/17/08