Miscellaneous Music News

From a variety of sources. Feel the burn.

• EMI (UK) plans to release a 3-disc set of Pink Floyd's The Piper of the Gates of Dawn for its 40th anniversary. There will be a stereo disc, a mono disc, and a disc of b-side type material.
  
• The Cult has signed with Roadrunner Records for the release of their new album, and plans to tour in the USA this Fall.
  
• Metallica is still "hard at work" on their new album, and Kirk Hammett claims it's the best material they've done in 15 years (which isn't saying much if you do the math). They plan to drop the oh so stylish dropped tuning for this album (thank The Maker).
  
• Danzig says he has no plans to reunite with the Misfits. Color me surprised.

Echoes, a Review

This "best of" Pink Floyd compilation" is slightly tricky to review considering that two discs is nowhere near enough medium to begin to cover what one ought to have. That aside, I'll begin with my conclusion: this set is a good overview for those who do not have any Floyd and would like to know what they're about. It also does a good job of giving the Floyd fanboy something new and cool for their collection.

The first-timer gets most of the hits ("Another Brick Part 2", "Money", "Comfortably Numb") plus more than the average share of what makes the band unique ("Echoes", "One of These Days", "Shine...Crazy Diamond"). There are a few glaring omissions, ("Run Like Hell", "Mother", anything from Atom Heart Mother), but I chalk this up to "How the hell were we going to include everything on two discs?" syndrome. Certain fans could argue that less of the Syd Barrett and post Roger Waters stuff would've solved that problem and strengthened the quality of the set. I contend, however, that you have to have these eras included to give a new listener an accurate portrayal of the band's output.

The fanboy gets outstanding packaging done by longtime Floyd collaborator Storm Thorgerson, one song that was previously unreleased ("When the Tigers Broke Free"), and excellent mixing and mastering by engineer James Guthrie. The nifty song ordering and well executed segues make this album well worth listening to if you're a fan of the feel and flow of a Floyd album. Who would've thought that "Us and Them" merging into "Learning to Fly" would be so cool? And Guthrie was particular inspired when doing the end of the second disc:

• "Arnold Layne", by Syd Barrett, flows into:
  
• "Wish You Were", a song and album about Syd (no longer in the band). This is bookended at the other side by:
  
• "Jugland Blues", Syd's song which appears to be about how he knew he was being kicked out of the band, to:
  
• "High Hopes", an autobiographical song for David Gilmour, thus no doubt including references to Syd. It ends with the sounds of bells, no doubt referring to the division bell in the British House of Commons. This leads to:
  
• "Bike", which kicks off with a newly added sound sample of a bicycle.

Much has been made of the edited versions of some of the songs. Most of them aren't worth mentioning, but the smaller "Echoes" and newly recompiled, yet shrunken, "Shine" are.

"Echoes", the monstrosity that takes up nearly 24 minutes and the entire second side of Meddle, has been sliced to just under 17 minutes. I've always been of the opinion that this song is a bit exasperating, and I think Guthrie did a pretty good job of nipping and tucking the tune in the places it goes on for a just a few measures too long. The incredibly surreal "whale" and "seagull" bit does somehow lose something in its shortened state (art this weird gets its point across better when it batters the listener with no foreseeable end), but it isn't a humongous loss in the grand scheme of the work.

"Shine On You Crazy Diamond", however, doesn't work too well in its new form. Sadly, a great guitar solo has been removed from Part 3, and Parts 8 and 9 have been completely eliminated.

The other experiment, making the song an entire whole rather than split into two halves, makes the song ponderous. On the album version, revisiting musical themes after breaking from them for about 18 minutes, works well. The listener says, "Wow, I did like those passages, and hearing them again now, after I forgot all about them, is like a childhood friend paying a much needed visit."

But with the newly fused version, it just makes one realize that there's no need to hear the end of Part 6 and all of Part 7 because we just heard them a couple of minutes ago during Parts 4 and 5. In this situation, your old friend has come over, and not only refuses to leave, but has set up a shantytown in your living room. Did I neglect to tell you about the Stouffer's French bread pizza boxes and half-empty plastic gallons of milk he's left strewn all over the sofa and floor?

In the final analysis, however, one shouldn't make too much of these shortcomings. After all, the fanboy will own the original albums, and the newcomer will hopefully be enthralled enough to go buy them. What we have here is a package that is a lot better thought out and executed than your normal "best of" collection, which is just what the music of Pink Floyd deserves.

Rush MVI Pushed Back to June 26

The date has been changed a few times, and now sits at June 26. The Rush Backstage Club is reporting that they're sold out of their stock, so if you want a copy, better get your order in to Amazon, Deep Discount, or Best Buy now.

Monster Magnet Back On Track?

According to Blabbermouth, Monster Magnet is back in business and working on their follow-up to Monolithic Baby. This is a bit of a surprise considering that their main man, Dave Wyndorf, has been out of it for over a year due to a drug overdose.

The news appears to be courtesy of guitarist Ed Mundell's web site. There's still no word on how Dave is doing.

Happy 30th, Star Wars

Star Wars is 30 today - happy birthday! You don't look a day over 1 (I'm not speaking to you, Special Editions).

John Williams' score to Star Wars revolutionized soundtrack music, which is fast becoming a lost art. Every now and then someone will do something spectacular (Howard Shore's work on Lord of the Rings comes to mind), but for the most part, movie music stinks. This was made all too clear to me recently, when my fiancée and I were watching Die Hard, and she recognized that its music was better than what's passing for movie soundtracks these days. If Die Hard is looking like Beethoven compared to the Sanjaya of modern flick music, there's a problem.

So what was it about the Star Wars music that made it a watershed recording? There are many reasons: the use of themes to introduce characters and plot, its ability to establish mood and evoke an emotional response from the audience, and perhaps Williams' ability to successfully infuse a variety of different musical styles.

What makes it special for me, however, is the fact that the music, all by itself, tells the story of Star Wars. There is no need whatsoever to watch the movie or listen to any dialog. I can simply put on the CDs (the latest 2-disc edition is fairly complete, and very closely matches the running order of the film) and watch the story unfold in my mind. This is due to two factors: 1) almost every minute of the movie has music to accompany it, and 2) every plot point has a unique and instantly recognizable piece of music associated with it that cannot in any way be mistaken for any other part of the story.

Take, for example, this excerpt from "Burning Homestead". Here, Luke comes to the realization that C-3P0 and R2-D2 are being sought after by The Empire, so he races off in a futile attempt to save his aunt and uncle from the inevitable Stormtrooper attack. I still feel anxiety every time I listen to it.

The entire soundtrack works in this fashion, and it is why anywhere I can play a CD, or store away an mp3 player and a set of headphones, I can have Star Wars unfold before me at a moment's notice. And that makes this old fanboy as happy as a mynock sucking on power cables.

Star Wars Anniversary

Star Wars is 30 years old tomorrow - Happy Birthday! How are you going to celebrate? Since I'll be stuck at work, I'll make a point of dragging my soundtracks out (sadly, I own a billion different versions) and recite lines from the movies as they play. I can hardly contain myself!

Be sure to catch The History Channel retrospective Monday at 9 pm Eastern. How can anyone miss the opportunity to hear for the umpteenth time about Kurosawa's influence on George? At least it looks like we'll get to see Stephen Colbert wave a lightsaber (or "laser sword", if you're feeling the need to hit 11 on the nerd-o-meter) around. You can't beat fun like that.

A Pocketful of Pink

Against my possible better judgment, I ordered a copy of Pink Floyd's 2-disc "best of" set, Echoes, for under $10. This package been taunting me for some time due to the inclusion of the movie version of The Wall's "When the Tigers Broke Free" (plus a few other tracks that are a bit hard to come by, like "Arnold Layne").

From what I've read, disc masterer (er) extraordinaire James Guthrie spent a hell of a lot of time bickering with the various members of Floyd regarding the tunes to include. He also did a fair amount of work remixing from the original tapes, deciding song order, and working on editing new to make a new flow for the record. Considering how good a job he did on the 5.1 SACD mix for The Dark Side of the Moon, and that this release has the band's blessing, I am more than a bit curious to hear how it turned out.

I briefly considered getting the 2004 remaster of The Final Cut because it also features "Tigers" on it. I gather the original 1983 release was supposed to have the song, but it was removed at the last minute. Color me kooky, but there's a part of me that keeps saying there was a reason it was eliminated, so I've never caved and bought this version (even though everything I've read says a good job was done sticking it in there). I guess when push comes to shove, I prefer my Final Cut as it was originally released. As my faithful blog readers know, I'm 0ld sch00l when it comes to stuff like this.

In other Floyd buying news, I got their second album, A Saucerful of Secrets, this weekend. This album is weird. Out of the three pre-Meddle albums I own (this, Atom Heart Mother, and Piper at the Gates of Dawn), the only one I really can get into is Piper. The other two are just too much - good bits here and there, but really far out most of the time. Floyd got better at focusing, and thus making weird listenable, once they did Meddle.

Floyd, Waters Play at Syd Barrett Tribute

A couple of weeks ago both Pink Floyd and Roger Waters played at a tribute gig for founding Floyd member Syd Barrett. They did not play together as Pink Floyd, which may be a blessing, since I rather thought that the official reunion in 2005 was a bit lackluster and anticlimactic. But maybe I'm just bitter that I couldn't be there.

Black Aria

Sadly, Danzig hasn't put out any new material with his band lately, but he did decide to release his second CD of music to play Dungeons and Dragons to, Black Aria II. If it's anything like the first Black Aria release, it's ok, but I'd rather listen to the Lord of the Rings soundtracks while getting my Magic Missile on.

Allmusic gets a special reward this week for their review, where they state that this album "sounds like the soundtrack to every PC video game that involves recovering an ancient amulet, defeating a dark lord, or hacking away at subterranean beings with a flaming sword."

Hrm, on second thought, since I own and dig the original Doom music, maybe I should buy this.

Stream of "Tarantula"

You can now listen to Smashing Pumpkins' new single, "Tarantula", in its entirety here. And boy is it a throwback to their old sound. Rah!

New Pumpkins Album Cover

Share and enjoy the cover for the new Smashing Pumpkins album, Zeitgeist. The album is due to hit July 10, and so far the only returning member to the band is drummer Jimmy Chamberlain (not including Billy Corgan).

The first single, "Tarantula", hits radio May 22, and you can listen to a clip of it here.

Megadeth Streets Today

Megadeth's new disc, United Abominations, hits the stores today, and it's a damn good effort. This record actually sounds like what it should sound like, which is more than I can say for Metallica lately. It has crunch, searing solos, and more than a little of Dave's political stance smeared in there. This bugs me a bit, especially when he does it via commentary/voiceover, but I'll learn to live with it (it populated The System Has Failed as well).

I'll even forgive him for lifting the main riff from Maiden's "Wasted Years" for his "Washington Is Next!" It's cool enough to be used twice.

Guitar Solos Come Back?

Marilyn Manson releases his long awaited new CD, Eat Me, Drink Me, next month. It's quite a good record, which makes it easier to swallow the fact that he's been absent for the last few years

What's most astounding is the number and quality of guitar solos on the disc. Manson's co-collaborator, Tim Skold, crafts some damn impressive (and emotional) screamers. Skold really put forth tons of effort, and I don't believe I've heard this caliber of soloing in some time.

Bravo to Marilyn for putting back in one of the ingredients that's been missing from straight out rock music for far too long.

Rush DVD Album Format to Include Hi-Rez Stereo

The official Rush website updated their news section on May 4 regarding the DVD Album of Snakes & Arrows, stating that it will include a 96 kHz/24-bit stereo layer. No word as to whether it will have a high resolution surround layer. It's unclear to me if this 96/24 layer is a DVD-A layer or one that any DVD player can decode, but since there is no mention of a high resolution surround mix, I bet that it will be a digital PCM track (thus, any DVD player can play it).

In addition to the typical stuff one expected from this release (documentary, wallpapers, screen savers, etc.), they are also touting the ability to buy ringtones of the album for your phone. Not any old ringtones, mind you, but the exact part of a song you like, rather than simply the clip they want you to have. Of course anyone with a simple audio editing program and half a brain can already do this (my Battle of the Planets alert sound is très l33t), but who am I to stand in the way of new business schemes.

I preordered my copy from Amazon last week, and will give my opinion on it upon arrival next month.

Snakes & Arrows, a Review

I've had the record for a few days now, and have given it a handful of listens, so it's opinion time.

As I mentioned earlier, the best thing about the album is that it's produced and mastered tons better than Vapor Trails. Sad that this should be a plus, but considering how bad we had it five years ago, I'm grateful for the little things.

So yes, feel free to put this disc on some big speakers and turn it up, because that will increase enjoyment of the album. It's a little hot (welcome to 2007 disc mastering), but the sound separation is very good, and one can easily hone onto any instrument and easily follow what it's doing. Dynamics are in bloom, with parts of a song getting quiet, then loud again.

All is not perfect with the production though. Fanboys on various Rush forums have noticed some editing mistakes here and there. This is a byproduct of the digital age; if engineers aren't careful when working with the tracks, the end result is a dropout or a skip in the beat. I won't bother to list the problems here (they do exist; I've listened closely to the parts in question), because it's simply better to ignore these small imperfections. They undoubtedly plague most new releases (I've noticed a couple of dropouts on Slayer's remaster of Reign In Blood, for example), and in my opinion, they're too small to get all hot and bothered about it.

So enough about the sound quality - what's with the music? In my opinion, it is good, albeit a bit on the slow burn side. My issue with the record is that there are very few songs that rock and groove. Most are mid-tempo, which disappoints on the first few listens. I also hypothesize that most of the songs were written around the lyrics, which makes for some less than cool riffage out of the gate.

Once I ditched any preconceived notions I had about the album, however, I started to appreciate the time that went into crafting the songs, and especially the order and placement of each tune on the disc. Overall the flow from beginning to end is pleasantly smooth.

There's little point in mentioning Geddy's and Neil's playing, because it's always good, and that hasn't gone away here. Neil's lyrics still seem a bit on the "Life Sucks" side, but I can forgive him if it takes more than a few years to figure out how to deal with the death of his wife and daughter. The best news is that Alex seems to have ditched any hint of modern/muddy/fiercely downtuned tone. He also remembered that Rush fans like guitar solos, and made us proud by playing a few. The one in "Faithless" is a true screamer; it's good to hear his trademark style back in force. And if you want a change of pace, dig his blues influenced noodling on "The Way the Wind Blows." SRV lives!

Much has been made of the three instrumentals on the album. Forget anyone who says they're better than "La Villa Strangiato", because that's just crazy fanboy talk. The first, "The Main Monkey Business", bored me at first, but that's before I realized it got really cool at about the 2:30 mark with some very spiffy riffing and a fair solo (would've been better if Al used the bridge pickup and a bit more treble, but oh well). It quiets down again until 4:30, but then picks up from 5:30 until the end.

Al treats us to an acoustic instrumental entitled "Hope", which is well played, but could've used a change of tempo somewhere in there. The final one, "Malignant Narcissism", features a crazy-cool bass line, nifty bright open chords, mini-instrument breaks a la "YYZ", and is hands-down a l33t Rush jam. But where's the solo? Argh.

Conclusion: the album probably won't gain any new fans. But if you like Rush, and can forgive them for not partying like it's 1999 (or 1989. or 1979), then you'll appreciate that they tried very hard this time around, and in large part, succeeded. So that pushes it a smidgen above the three star rating I was originally contemplating (since it's not nearly as ponderous as A Matter of Life and Death):



Note to the guys: Just try to rock out a wee bit more often next time 'round, please?

IGN Review of Snakes & Arrows

Share and enjoy here. Definitely worth a read, especially since it concentrates on an aspect of the album that I wouldn't have noticed until another 100 listens. What can I say; I barely listen to lyrics.

More on the DVD Album

This posting way back in August implies that there's the possibility that the MVI version of Snakes & Arrows may have a true DVD-Audio layer. Still no word yet if this is the case. I'm tempted to order it for insurance purposes, especially since it's going to be limited to 25,000 copies, but it'll just be disappointment if there's no true high resolution audio layer. I guess we'll know more as its June 5 release date approaches.

In the meantime, treat yourself to the CD version. It does appear to be much better mastered than Vapor Trails. The drums aren't muddied, and the intro guitar lines don't instantly lower in volume once the other instruments kick in. It's still loud overall, and there's probably clipping in there somewhere (everyone rip to .wav and inspect those sound waves closely), but it sure is a hell of a lot better than their last effort. Rush: now with bonus dynamic range!

Edit 05/05/07: Sales of the regular CD have been phenomenal, and it looks like Rush will debut at #3 on Billboard. So I decided to order the MVI, figuring I can always cancel. I'd hate to miss out on a copy if it does have true hi-def sound on it.