I read the novel World War Z, by Max Brooks, this summer, and it blew me away. If you haven't read it, you should - it's a genuinely original, well-thought-out take on the standard zombie apocalypse theme. It would also make a pretty awesome film - the problem is, that film does not exist. What we have instead is a film that's called World War Z, and has zombies, and is connected to the book only by those two things. Seriously, if it weren't for the name, it would be impossible to tell that this film is an adaptation of the book. Basically, the book World War Z is an account of how the world fell to the undead, and how humanity eventually recovered. It takes the form of a series of interviews with characters from various countries, and is written like a real history - Brooks is clearly very knowledgeable when it comes to international politics and world history (though he clearly knows fuck all about Clement Attlee) and he tells a thoroughly plausible story. If the world ever were to be taken over by zombies, I'm sure it would go down a lot like it does in World War Z.
The film World War Z is about Brad Pitt running away from zombies. He has a family, and for some reason we're supposed to care about them, though they're on screen for about ten minutes and the scenes that do focus on them contain about half as much character development as an advert for dog food. the sad thing is, Pitt's wife and daughters (I think they might have names, but I honestly can't remember) are the most well-developed characters in the film. There is also an Israeli soldier who gets bitten on the hand (making this the only zombie film where I was momentarily rooting for the undead) but it's ok, because Brad Pitt cuts off her hand and thus stops the infection. That's how the audience finds out that amputating a bitten limb can stop someone becoming infected, and the only purpose of that character seems to be to demonstrate that. Which would be fine, if the audience didn't already know that because it's been in every fucking zombie film ever made. The plot consists of Brad Pitt being saved from the zombies by various people, and eventually finding way to beat the zombies. I won;t tell you what it is, because I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise of just how mind-bogglingly idiotic is is. M Night Shyamalan could come up with a better plot twist than this. If he was in a coma. And could only speak in pronouns.
There are some good things about this film. Firstly, the zombies are very impressive - firstly because they're fast (monsters are scarier when you can't escape them by powerwalking) and secondly because they're very well acted. That may sound weird, but the way that the zombies move in this film is great. They look properly inhuman, like some kind of predator rather than just some walking corpses. Secondly, there is one very impressive shot where Brad Pitt etc. are in Israel, and the Israelis have built a wall to keep the zombies out. The camera pans to show a tower of zombies clambering over one another to get over the wall, and that is a very nice peice of staging. Watch that one shot. Then turn the film off, and spare yourself the ninety minutes of tedium that surround it.
This film reminds me of the scene in Trainspotting where Renton dives into a toilet full of shit to retreive some opium suppositories. There are some good things buried in there, but you;ve really got to ask yourself whether it's work digging through all that crap to get at them.
Rating: 3/10
Sunday 29 September 2013
Saturday 14 September 2013
Review - Elvis Costello and the Roots
Elvis Costello and the Roots
Wise Up Ghost
I've never listened to the Roots before, and I've only heard a few songs by Elvis Costello, but after hearing this collaboration between the two, I'll definitely be checking out both. Costello's snotty rasp sounds fantastic spitting out the lyrics to "Walk Us Uptown," and "Stick Out Your Tongue" proves that age hasn't mellowed him as he rages against "the fag-ends of the aristocracy". The Roots play fantastically throughout - they're the ones that really make the album, providing a cool, jazzy background for Costello's bile. They give the record its swing, its swagger, that cool, low sound that comes all the way down the line from Lighting Hopkins and the other old masters. On the album's tenderer moments, such as "If I Could Believe", Costello proves he can do more than just rant. His voice is heartfelt, pained, dripping with emotion but never melodramatic or forced. This is a fantastic album.
Rating: 8/10
Wise Up Ghost
I've never listened to the Roots before, and I've only heard a few songs by Elvis Costello, but after hearing this collaboration between the two, I'll definitely be checking out both. Costello's snotty rasp sounds fantastic spitting out the lyrics to "Walk Us Uptown," and "Stick Out Your Tongue" proves that age hasn't mellowed him as he rages against "the fag-ends of the aristocracy". The Roots play fantastically throughout - they're the ones that really make the album, providing a cool, jazzy background for Costello's bile. They give the record its swing, its swagger, that cool, low sound that comes all the way down the line from Lighting Hopkins and the other old masters. On the album's tenderer moments, such as "If I Could Believe", Costello proves he can do more than just rant. His voice is heartfelt, pained, dripping with emotion but never melodramatic or forced. This is a fantastic album.
Rating: 8/10
Wednesday 11 September 2013
Review - Bring Me The Horizon
Bring Me the Horizon
Sempiternal
I'm kind of ambivalent about BMTH. Sure, most of their output is a sea of rancid cockdrippings, but their last album was actually kind of ok, and I quite like the singer's voice. Plus, my sister keeps telling me that their new album is pretty good, so I decided to give it a listen. Here's a detailed explanation of why it's terrible.
1. The lyrics. Apparently, Oli Sykes is "surrounded by vicious circles". What does that even mean? Are they concentric circles? Or is he surrounded by a circle that is itself made up of circles? What kind of geometrical nightmare is this? That's pretty representative of the lyrics on this album. Adolescent, whiny shite.
Still, though, all metal bands have shit lyrics - that's practically a requirement. It's only a problem if you can hear them. Which brings us to reason number two.
2. The vocals. Thanks to Sykes' perfect enunciation, every godawful, emo, sixth-form word is as clear as a bell, if that bell was made of shit and talentlessness and the broken dreams of orphaned puppies.
3. The song. The one song. That they play over and over again, with different lyrics and titles, for fifty-seven minutes. Seriously - by the fourth or fifth song, I could predict exactly where the slow part with the gang-shouted vocals would be, exactly where the half-arsed electronics would come in...fuck this record. Fuck it in the arse with a cactus until it promises to stop existing.
Choice lyrics:
"Can you feel my heart?"
No. No I can't. Your heart is inside you.
"Should I sink or swim, or simply disappear?"
The third one.
"Go to Hell for Heaven's sake"
Ha! Do you see what he did there? Do you see? Get it? DO YOU? DO YOU SEE WHAT HE DID THERE? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHkill me now
Sempiternal
I'm kind of ambivalent about BMTH. Sure, most of their output is a sea of rancid cockdrippings, but their last album was actually kind of ok, and I quite like the singer's voice. Plus, my sister keeps telling me that their new album is pretty good, so I decided to give it a listen. Here's a detailed explanation of why it's terrible.
1. The lyrics. Apparently, Oli Sykes is "surrounded by vicious circles". What does that even mean? Are they concentric circles? Or is he surrounded by a circle that is itself made up of circles? What kind of geometrical nightmare is this? That's pretty representative of the lyrics on this album. Adolescent, whiny shite.
Still, though, all metal bands have shit lyrics - that's practically a requirement. It's only a problem if you can hear them. Which brings us to reason number two.
2. The vocals. Thanks to Sykes' perfect enunciation, every godawful, emo, sixth-form word is as clear as a bell, if that bell was made of shit and talentlessness and the broken dreams of orphaned puppies.
3. The song. The one song. That they play over and over again, with different lyrics and titles, for fifty-seven minutes. Seriously - by the fourth or fifth song, I could predict exactly where the slow part with the gang-shouted vocals would be, exactly where the half-arsed electronics would come in...fuck this record. Fuck it in the arse with a cactus until it promises to stop existing.
Choice lyrics:
"Can you feel my heart?"
No. No I can't. Your heart is inside you.
"Should I sink or swim, or simply disappear?"
The third one.
"Go to Hell for Heaven's sake"
Ha! Do you see what he did there? Do you see? Get it? DO YOU? DO YOU SEE WHAT HE DID THERE? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHkill me now
Sunday 8 September 2013
Review - Carcass
Carcass
Surgical Steel
A few minutes ago, I saw a picture of a sloth in pyjamas and utterly lost my shit. I was once almost paralysed with happy when I was in the same room as David Ian Rabey. I get excited easily, is the point I'm trying to make. But even by my standards, this ranks pretty high - a new album from Carcass. One of the greatest metal bands of all time. Co-inventors of grindcore. The kings of gore. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect - this is a band renowned for being constantly in motion, changing with every record.
Actually, it's pretty much the same variety of melodic death metal that they played on Heartwork. Whether that's good or bad depends on your opinion of that album - personally, I love Heartwork, which is strange, because I normally run a mile when I hear a metal band described as "melodic".
Opening track "1985" does not get the record off to a promising start. It might be a pretty good intro, where it not for that shrill, paper-thin, irritating-as-fuck guitar tone that ruins so much metal. Fortunately, that song is only there to lull you into a false sense of boredom before Thresher's abattoir smacks you upside the head with a hammer made of riffs and drums. Oh yeah - the drums. The drumming on this album is fantastic - some of the best on any Carcass album.
Third track Cadaver Pouch Conveyor System suffers from some all-too-intelligible vocals. If you're the type of person who enjoys hearing metal lyrics, then this won;t be a problem. But then, if you're the type of person who enjoys hearing metal lyrics, then I suggest you seek medical help. The same problem ruins A Congealed Clot of Blood, or would if the drumming weren't so epic. Then that awful lead guitar tone turns up and kills it properly. It's a shame, because it would be a good guitar solo otherwise.
The vocals are a recurrent problem with this album - they're heavy, sure, but too easy too understand. That wouldn't be a problem if the band wrote good lyrics, but this is Carcass we're talking about. So the clear, precise phrasing really brings down what could otherwise have been a damn good album. That, and the guitar tone. That fucking guitar tone. Whenever a good, hefty riff kicks in (and this is Carcass, so that happens a lot) up pops that lead guitar, like an annoying younger brother, ruining everything with its inane yammering. That and the vocals together gradually suck the life out of this album, until after twenty minutes I'm wishing it was over.
The riffs, though, are fantastic. Thanks to them, this album is at least listenable. In fact, if you listen to them individually, the songs on Surgical Steel are almost all pretty good. In fact, they're very good. But if you listen to the album as a whole, it's just too long. The songs all follow pretty much the same pattern, and there's only so much up-tempo melodic death metal that I can take. Final track Mount of Execution is a welcome relief, even if the guitar tone does rob it of much-needed heaviness - I can see that slow, chunky riff causing havoc in a moshpit.
So, pros: great riffs, epic drumming.
Cons: Shite guitar tone, audible lyrics, lack of variety.
Rating: 6/10
Surgical Steel
A few minutes ago, I saw a picture of a sloth in pyjamas and utterly lost my shit. I was once almost paralysed with happy when I was in the same room as David Ian Rabey. I get excited easily, is the point I'm trying to make. But even by my standards, this ranks pretty high - a new album from Carcass. One of the greatest metal bands of all time. Co-inventors of grindcore. The kings of gore. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect - this is a band renowned for being constantly in motion, changing with every record.
Actually, it's pretty much the same variety of melodic death metal that they played on Heartwork. Whether that's good or bad depends on your opinion of that album - personally, I love Heartwork, which is strange, because I normally run a mile when I hear a metal band described as "melodic".
Opening track "1985" does not get the record off to a promising start. It might be a pretty good intro, where it not for that shrill, paper-thin, irritating-as-fuck guitar tone that ruins so much metal. Fortunately, that song is only there to lull you into a false sense of boredom before Thresher's abattoir smacks you upside the head with a hammer made of riffs and drums. Oh yeah - the drums. The drumming on this album is fantastic - some of the best on any Carcass album.
Third track Cadaver Pouch Conveyor System suffers from some all-too-intelligible vocals. If you're the type of person who enjoys hearing metal lyrics, then this won;t be a problem. But then, if you're the type of person who enjoys hearing metal lyrics, then I suggest you seek medical help. The same problem ruins A Congealed Clot of Blood, or would if the drumming weren't so epic. Then that awful lead guitar tone turns up and kills it properly. It's a shame, because it would be a good guitar solo otherwise.
The vocals are a recurrent problem with this album - they're heavy, sure, but too easy too understand. That wouldn't be a problem if the band wrote good lyrics, but this is Carcass we're talking about. So the clear, precise phrasing really brings down what could otherwise have been a damn good album. That, and the guitar tone. That fucking guitar tone. Whenever a good, hefty riff kicks in (and this is Carcass, so that happens a lot) up pops that lead guitar, like an annoying younger brother, ruining everything with its inane yammering. That and the vocals together gradually suck the life out of this album, until after twenty minutes I'm wishing it was over.
The riffs, though, are fantastic. Thanks to them, this album is at least listenable. In fact, if you listen to them individually, the songs on Surgical Steel are almost all pretty good. In fact, they're very good. But if you listen to the album as a whole, it's just too long. The songs all follow pretty much the same pattern, and there's only so much up-tempo melodic death metal that I can take. Final track Mount of Execution is a welcome relief, even if the guitar tone does rob it of much-needed heaviness - I can see that slow, chunky riff causing havoc in a moshpit.
So, pros: great riffs, epic drumming.
Cons: Shite guitar tone, audible lyrics, lack of variety.
Rating: 6/10
Friday 6 September 2013
Review - Blister Unit (Part 2) and some free music by me
Blister Unit
Dengar Demo
Split w/ Bruxism
This is the second part of my attempt to catch up on all the awesome Blister Unit music I missed over the last few months.
Firstly, the Dengar demo, which the band's Bandcamp page says is their second demo - recorded in 2010 but not released on Bandcamp until June this year - and it's a very different beast from their first. While A Storm Of Corpses And Fire was standard, competently-executed grindcore, the Dengar demo is much, much bassier, more powerviolence-y, and that is a very good thing. The songs are considerably shorter - not one over one minute forty - and they all foreground the bass, to the point where the guitar is relegated to the background. That focus on the bass gives the songs a low-end heaviness and brutality that was slightly lacking on the previous demo, and it also provides that same adrenaline rush that would later make Christ Ape such an engaging record. I can't find a download button anywhere, but you should definitely listen to this one.
Rating: 9/10
Finally, there are four tracks available from the band's split with Bruxism, whose name apparently refers to an excessive grinding of the teeth (excesive grinding - geddit?). Once again, the tracks are short, the longest being one minute and forty two seconds, but in contrast to the Dengar demo the band stick more to the treble end of things; the guitars cut like razors and the vocals sound slightly higher-pitched, while the bass sits in the background, providing a solid, er, base for the songs. This is a damn good set of songs - they hit fast and hard, and quit before you have time to acclimatise. I still prefer the Dengar demo, but these tracks are well worth the five minutes it will take to listen to them.
Rating: 7/10
Free music
Lastly, here's a new track from yours truly - it's off my upcoming album Fireworks.
https://georgejones1.bandcamp.com/
Dengar Demo
Split w/ Bruxism
This is the second part of my attempt to catch up on all the awesome Blister Unit music I missed over the last few months.
Firstly, the Dengar demo, which the band's Bandcamp page says is their second demo - recorded in 2010 but not released on Bandcamp until June this year - and it's a very different beast from their first. While A Storm Of Corpses And Fire was standard, competently-executed grindcore, the Dengar demo is much, much bassier, more powerviolence-y, and that is a very good thing. The songs are considerably shorter - not one over one minute forty - and they all foreground the bass, to the point where the guitar is relegated to the background. That focus on the bass gives the songs a low-end heaviness and brutality that was slightly lacking on the previous demo, and it also provides that same adrenaline rush that would later make Christ Ape such an engaging record. I can't find a download button anywhere, but you should definitely listen to this one.
Rating: 9/10
Finally, there are four tracks available from the band's split with Bruxism, whose name apparently refers to an excessive grinding of the teeth (excesive grinding - geddit?). Once again, the tracks are short, the longest being one minute and forty two seconds, but in contrast to the Dengar demo the band stick more to the treble end of things; the guitars cut like razors and the vocals sound slightly higher-pitched, while the bass sits in the background, providing a solid, er, base for the songs. This is a damn good set of songs - they hit fast and hard, and quit before you have time to acclimatise. I still prefer the Dengar demo, but these tracks are well worth the five minutes it will take to listen to them.
Rating: 7/10
Free music
Lastly, here's a new track from yours truly - it's off my upcoming album Fireworks.
https://georgejones1.bandcamp.com/
Tuesday 3 September 2013
Grindcore for Beginners Part 7 - From the Sublime to the Ridiculous
Anal Cunt
The 88-Song EP
Anal Cunt. Now there’s a name. If ever there was a band
whose name was their mission statement, it’s these guys. They set out with the
intention of being the most hilariously, parodically offensive band in the
world, and they managed it. With album titles like 20 More Reasons To Hate
Us and Everyone Should Be Killed, and songs like “You Only Converted
To Judaism So A Guy Would Touch Your Dick”, AxCx (as they have to be known on
album sleeves) took the in-you-face, look-how-confrontational-I-can-be attitude
of many grindcore and death metal bands and parodied it mercilessly. Their
lyrics – when they had them – were (to begin with) concise, to-the-point and
utterly hilarious. The music was stupid in the extreme – apparently largely
improvised, it sounded like what it was: a couple of blokes trying to make the
noisiest racket they could. I’m not sure if the late great John Peel ever heard
Anal Cunt, but they sound like the band of his dreams. The 88-Song EP
was their second release, and it captures the band in that brief moment when
they were still funny, before frontman Seth Putnam started to buy into his own
shtick and the band crossed the line between hilarious bad taste and boring,
childish shock tactics.
There are an awful lot of comedy bands in grindcore: there
are also a lot of awful comedy bands in grindcore. Basically, Anal Cunt is the
one band that rises above the level of Tenacious D. Grindcore has always had a
certain stupidity at its heart, like all punk – grand opuses and incisive
social comment are all very well, but sometimes it’s fun to just listen to
something so brilliantly idiotic that it’s fun. So give it a listen, if only to remind yourself that music doesn't have to be smart to be good.
Sunday 1 September 2013
Review - Blister Unit (part 1)
Blister Unit
Split w/ Cybearg
A Storm of Corpses and Fire demo
Blister Unit are a band I first came across back in March, when I found their second album, Christ Ape, on Bandcamp. They blew me away, and the album ended up in my top 5 albums of the year so far. After that, though, I kind of forgot about them, until yesterday evening, when I gave their Bandcamp page another look and found that they've a veritable smorgasbord of new material available. So, in the first part of a two-part post, I'm attempting to catch up on what I've missed.
Firstly, three tracks from an upcoming split with a one-man band called Cybearg, which apparently will be coming out soon. I've got to be honest - I found these three tracks a little lacklustre. There's nothing especially wrong with them, but there's nothing especially right with them either (apart from the growls which are fantastic). It's just the same, garden-variety grindcore that hundreds of other bands play just as well.I'm sure all three of these songs would absolutely slay live, but on record they just don;t have that immediacy, that sudden rush of adrenaline that Christ Ape does. Where Christ Ape grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and dragged you along in its wake, these three songs seem content to ask you politely if you;d come with them.
Rating: 4/10
Fortunately, A Storm of Corpses and Fire is a different story. It starts off just as uninspiringly as the split, but halfway through first track The Alchemist, something clicks, and they become recognisable as the band who made Christ Ape. It's not a perfect record - it's clear that this is a first demo - but it's a good one. It's fast, relentless and heavy as balls, particularly on standout track Endor Apocalypse. My one criticism would be that the samples really don;t need to be there.
Rating: 7/10
Split w/ Cybearg
A Storm of Corpses and Fire demo
Blister Unit are a band I first came across back in March, when I found their second album, Christ Ape, on Bandcamp. They blew me away, and the album ended up in my top 5 albums of the year so far. After that, though, I kind of forgot about them, until yesterday evening, when I gave their Bandcamp page another look and found that they've a veritable smorgasbord of new material available. So, in the first part of a two-part post, I'm attempting to catch up on what I've missed.
Firstly, three tracks from an upcoming split with a one-man band called Cybearg, which apparently will be coming out soon. I've got to be honest - I found these three tracks a little lacklustre. There's nothing especially wrong with them, but there's nothing especially right with them either (apart from the growls which are fantastic). It's just the same, garden-variety grindcore that hundreds of other bands play just as well.I'm sure all three of these songs would absolutely slay live, but on record they just don;t have that immediacy, that sudden rush of adrenaline that Christ Ape does. Where Christ Ape grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and dragged you along in its wake, these three songs seem content to ask you politely if you;d come with them.
Rating: 4/10
Fortunately, A Storm of Corpses and Fire is a different story. It starts off just as uninspiringly as the split, but halfway through first track The Alchemist, something clicks, and they become recognisable as the band who made Christ Ape. It's not a perfect record - it's clear that this is a first demo - but it's a good one. It's fast, relentless and heavy as balls, particularly on standout track Endor Apocalypse. My one criticism would be that the samples really don;t need to be there.
Rating: 7/10
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