REVIEW: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Rick Wakeman
Journey to the Center of the Earth
© 1974 A&M

If you like Progressive Rock, don’t waste time; click on the Amazon widget below and get yourself a copy of Rick Wakeman’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. While by no means the greatest Prog album ever made, nor, possibly, even Wakeman’s best, it nonetheless is the perfect showpiece for the audacity, scale, pretension, and sense of adventure that characterized the movement’s heyday.


Journey to the Center of the Earth is, as the title suggests, based on the eponymous Jules Verne novel. The story is told with narration, song, rock instrumentation, The English Chamber Choir, The London Symphony Orchestra, and, of course, Wakeman’s signature synthesizer style. Because of the size and expense of the operation, the whole thing was recorded live and only slightly edited afterwards (Wakeman could not afford to re-record certain orchestral portions). The result is a diverse, sprawling arrangement that shifts freely between every possible configuration of its parts in the telling of its story. And, for the most part, it thrives.

As is usually the case with genre-blending experiments like this, success and failure depend entirely on how effectively the different aspects are mixed. When the parts are working in concert, as in scenes like the sea-monster battle in “The Battle,” the album successfully evokes its grand story. When they fail, however, the result is dull and awkward, such as the encounter with a giant, primordial man in “The Forest.” It is a testament to Wakeman’s vision that, in the face of all the obstacles he had to overcome—a restricted budget and reluctant labels in addition to technical challenges—that there are more moments of success than failure.

No clip of this mountain of music can do the whole work justice, but here are two all the same. The quality is, unfortunately, not the best. Be assured that the sound on the album itself is (taking into account that this is a live performance) clearer.

Near the beginning:


The climactic, Grieg-esque finale:


Any long-term influence of this album is dubious as, by the end of 1974, Progressive Rock as a movement was on a sharp decline; some of the biggest groups had disbanded and Punk Rock was on the way to becoming the next big thing. Because of this, Journey to the Center of the Earth has become something of an artifact, a symbol recalling the energy, virtuosity, and overreaching pomp of a musical era come and gone.

MUST HAVE IF… you are a fan of 70s Progressive Rock or if you consider yourself something of a rock historian.
RECCOMENDED IF… you enjoy symphonic rock past or present or if you like concept albums which tell a story.

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REVIEW: Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy

múm
Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy
© 2007 Fat Cat
www.mum.is

The fourth album from Icelandic artists múm, Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, is a bit of a removal from their previous releases, in part due to the departure of bandmember Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir. Featuring live instrumentation, new vocal talent, and a livelier sound, the album may be, at first, disconcerting to those familiar with múm’s previous efforts while also becoming more accessible to new listeners.


The most important question to ask when a band experiments with their style is if that experiment succeeds; is the change an improvement? Or, at least, an even exchange. Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy is not a failure, but I would be hard pressed to call it an improvement. The glacial beauty, cascading rhythms, and wispy vocals that were the greatest strength of their previous albums have been downplayed to make room for the new sounds. For those looking for another Summer Make Good, you’re looking in the wrong place.

Don’t get me wrong; this is a very good album, just different. The greatest strength of Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy exercise in new sounds is the experimentation itself. The album is wonderfully varied, whimsical and eccentric in all the right places, while still being able to achieve moments of arctic beauty. Kristín Anna’s voice is missed, but the new vocalists are well suited, particularly for the increased role of vocals on this album.

Of course, florid adjectives are all well and good, múm's music needs to speak for itself. So I will conclude this with the wonderfully surreal videos for "They Made Frogs Smoke Til They Exploded" and "Rhubarbidoo", which are excellent samples of an album that nonetheless evades accurate representation.

"They Made Frogs Smoke Til They Exploded"


"Rhubarbidoo"


(For comparative purposes check here for the video to ”Green Grass of Tunnel” off the album Finally We Are No One)

STRONGLY RECCOMENDED IF… looking for a beautiful, surreal, and intriguingly experimental experience. If you have tried múm and found them too minimalistic for your tastes, give them another chance. Existing múm fans, you have been warned: expect something different, but don’t let it scare you away; you’ll be missing out.

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REVIEW: Day & Age

The Killers
Day & Age
© 2008 Island
www.thekillersmusic.com

As is their wont, Day & Age marks yet another new musical direction for The Killers. Where Hot Fuss relied on big, bright-lights sounds that evoked their hometown of Las Vegas and Sam’s Town paid homage to quintessentially American artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, Day & Age evokes David Bowie and disco. As before, The Killers have taken these borrowed elements and combined them with their showy, post-punk revival style, creating an experience that is at once unique and a continuation of their previous efforts.


A representative highlight of this album is “Spaceman,” which combines a wall of sound well that evokes the best of Glam Rock, Brandon Flowers’ desperation-tinged vocals, and a triumphant crescendo.

Other highlights include the disco-beat “Human” and “The World We Live In,” which could easily be a cover to an 80s Bowie song.

All is not perfect though, and the problems that affect Day & Age are the same that have affected previous Killers albums. The first may be the most forgivable; as a band who constantly are trying to reach new ground, they tend to stumble hard. With so much New, there is very little Old for them to fall back on. Throughout the album, there are instances where the various sonic themes fail to mesh properly, with “Neon Tiger” standing out as particularly off.

Some of the album’s failings also owe themselves to Brandon Flowers’ voice which, at times, clearly shows its lack of range. The sound that fit “Spaceman” so aptly comes across as overly whiny or small in other times.

The final chief difficulty rests with the music itself. Underlying their genre-mixing themes is a rugged, if simplistic, alt-rock base. While this is a vital anchor for the music, it is also limiting. Had they allowed themselves a little more slack, perhaps they would not have tripped up quite so often.

STRONGLY RECCOMENDED IF… you enjoy other “big sound” artists, such as U2, David Bowie, and the Rolling Stones. Those who were disappointed by the grittier sound of Sam’s Town compared to Hot Fuss may be glad to see The Killers’ flashier side returning, albeit in a somewhat different form.

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REVIEW: Free Me

Emma Bunton
Free Me
© 2004 Polydor.
www.emmabuntonofficial.com/

The problems with some albums are painfully obvious on first listen. See the previous review (Warriors of the World) for an example. With other albums, the trouble is more general. Such is the case with Free Me, Emma “Baby Spice” Bunton’s second solo album.


On Free Me, the former Spice Girl has attempted to set herself apart from the crowded UK Pop scene by harkening back to an earlier Pop heyday. Her recipe borrows heavily from the Motown cookbook, throws in a few exotic spices, and mixes that into a stable base of contemporary pop. An intriguing combination except that—to extend the metaphor—instead of allowing the ingredients to slowly simmer and blend into each other, she pressure-cooks. The result is a bland paste, not satisfying enough for seconds, but not so displeasing that you need to slip it to the dog when nobody is looking.

Having taken that metaphor farther than I should’ve, on to specifics.

In an almost absurd display of radio-friendly album structure, the first three tracks of the album are the album’s first three singles, in the same order they hit the airwaves. And it is these three songs that demonstrate the album’s problems most clearly. “Free Me,” the title track and lead single, in particular stands as a microcosm for all that is good and bad in this album. On the good we have a clear showing of the neoMotown sound, a concise chorus, and a beat equally suited for dancing or listening. On the bad, we have a sound that is so polished and cleaned that it has lost all texture. This is particularly a problem for Emma’s voice, which has had any sort of emotion (if there was any to begin with) thoroughly edited and digitized into oblivion.

The album livens up at times, such as her catchy and pleasantly silly take on the Latin Jazz staple “Crickets Sing for Anamaria.” But these moments, where Emma’s voice and the music show a hint of natural roughness, are short-lived, leaving even the better songs as “almosts” rather than successes.

All told, while not an abject failure, Free Me leaves itself with very little to recommend it. It is almost sad as, if it wasn’t overproduced, the concept could have been a success. Assuming, of course, that its star would have been able to do the material justice without aid.

RECCOMENDED IF… you are looking for something inoffensive to play over your grocery store’s PA system.

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Up and Running

Hello and welcome to “Strange Cube Listens to Music.” I am Strange Cube, also known to the world as John. The posts you will read here are devoted entirely to music; not to say that I will never mention other things, but I will always try to bring it back around to the music.

Below you will see three posts, which I consider to be a good representation of the kind of thing you should expect to see here: two album REVIEWS, and one personal-essay style post about one of my key musical INFLUENCES. See what I did there with the all-caps? That’s how you’ll know what sort of article you’re in for. Other tags will be invented as necessary, such as CONCERT reviews or music-related RANTS.

I intend to post one article per weekday from here on, with this Tuesday’s posting in the early AM.

Additionally feel free to follow my Twitter, where I regularly tweet about music.

Third, if there is anything you would like to see me review, whether it be mainstream or independent, let me know, and I’ll see what I can do. I’ll listen to pretty much every style under the sun.

And finally, if you like the sound of an album, please consider buying it through the Amazon link attached to each post.

With that out of the way, please read on. I hope you enjoy. Read more!

REVIEW: Warriors of the World

Manowar
Warriors of the World
© 2002 Nuclear Blast.
http://www.manowar.com/

Warriors of the World is, in many ways a quintessential Manowar albums. It’s strengths and weakness are the same ones that have plagued the loudest band in the world, for decades. Largely this is due to the fact that, over those decades, Manowar has deliberately clung to a formula that, while dated for the mainstream, has ensured a rabid, worldwide fanbase.


While huge in Europe, in their home-country, the American metal act’s fanbase is particularly niche, so here’s a little primer on what to expect from Manowar:
1987:

2007:

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but Manowar begs for it. The band is known for their bombastic, unabashed, 80s-throwback style of Heavy Metal, loud and lengthy shows, and “lyrics with an emphasis on the heavy metal genre itself, fantasy, themselves and mythological topics.”^[source].

And, in the start, Warriors of the World delivers precisely the sound one would expect, with the majestic “Call to Arms.” And then things go a bit off, like they do on many Manowar albums. Instead of hitting us with more grandiloquent, triumphant metal, we are given a succession of five power ballads. There is nothing inherently wrong with power ballads, but they do not play to Manowar’s strengths. The glorious cheese of their heavier works becomes here utterly forgettable shmaltz. The particularly odious “Nessun Dorma” (sung in Italian) is enough to send listeners reaching for the Stop button. Eventually, we reach “The March,” and instrumental that starts off pastoral, but builds in intensity, heralding the return of the good stuff.

The album returns to form, appropriately, with the title track, “Warriors of the World,” which sounds like a war-march for rotoscoped legions of Einherjar, whose glittering swords transform into laser-spitting Gibson Flying Vs, laying waste to their foes through the sheer power of METAL. This is followed by three blistering tracks of the purest Heavy Metal. They are almost enough to cause one to completely forget what came before.

Almost.

The unfortunate truth is that nearly half of this album is not devoted to worthwhile content. Even considering the excellence of some of the songs, there is not enough here to make this album a good value. Even more unfortunately, this problem is hardly unique to Warriors of the World; though some albums may be better all-around, Manowar often falls prey to excessive dabbling in mediocre power ballads and bland instrumentals.

RECCOMENDED IF… you are a Manowar fan. To general Heavy Metal fans, I would recommend grabbing the best tracks (1, 8, 9, 11) individually and seeing Manowar live, which is where they truly excel.

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INFLUENCES: Spawn: The Album

Various Artists
Spawn: The Album
© 1997 Sony

The 1997 live-action Spawn was not a good movie. Whether or not you were a fan of McFarlane’s comics, the weak plot, flat characters, and—if you were a fan—the departures from the source material, was enough to render the movie a thorough disappointment. There were two areas, however, in which the movie excelled in two areas: the excellent visual effects and this soundtrack album.


I had already seen the movie by the time I stumbled across Spawn: The Album in a store; I vaguely remembered it having good music, but the weakness of the film itself was the stronger memory. I probably would have put the disc back on the shelf after first glace if it weren’t for the fact that it was the Australian limited edition, with cover art of Spawn¬—not the movie version—dressed as Santa. The chuckle I got out of that was enough to keep the disc in my hand long enough to give the track listing a look.

Whoever devised the concept for this soundtrack deserves a prize. Each track was a collaboration—whether a remix or original work—between a rock group and an electronic artist. At the time I had heard of a third, maybe half of these artists and counted some of them as favorites. I was intrigued and had a gift certificate, so I gave the album a chance and took it home.

Like most compilation-style soundtracks, not every song on this album was great. But almost every artist featured was. Over the following months, CDs from almost all of these artists found their way into my collection. In this way, Spawn: The Album defined a great deal of my musical tastes throughout tenth grade, with a few of the artists, such as Orbital, sticking around even longer as some of my all-time favorites.

Perhaps most importantly though, this album showed me a way of finding new music that was not dependant on word of mouth or the radio. I started buying compilations and soundtracks that grabbed my attention, sifting through them for gems and finding a wide range of new (at least, new to me) artists. I have long sense ceased to use this method; the internet makes finding parallel and related artists as easy as a clicks on Wikipedia and visits to bands’ MySpace pages. But back then, this process allowed me to establish a musical identity of my own, earning Spawn: The Album a permanent position as one of my major influences.

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REVIEW: The Shadow Out of Tim

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
The Shadow Out of Tim
© 2007 Divine Industries Inc.
http://www.thickets.net

The Shadow Out of Tim is the Lovecraft-inspired story of a man who witnesses something of sanity-devastating awfulness then, later, embarks on a journey to restore his shattered life, only to discover a web of secrets, lies, and primordial evil. The story includes numerous references to Lovecraft’s mythos, particularly to “The Shadow Out of Time,” which serves as the direct inspiration for the album’s story. As a Lovecraft fan, the concept alone was enough for me to give the latest album from The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets—a group I was not familiar with—a chance. I was pleased to discover that The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets deliver, not only a solid concept album—which tells its story effectively and compellingly through music—but a Geek-Rock opus of the highest caliber.


Structure weighs heavily in the success of a concept album. Some, like Yes’s Tales From Topographic Oceans, focus on philosophical themes, with each part focusing on one aspect of the concept. Others, like Nine Inch Nail’s The Downward Spiral, follow a story, with each song focusing on a specific incident or emotional state. The Shadow Out of Tim falls squarely in the later camp, with most songs being a direct continuation of the album’s plot. There are some exceptions, particularly at the end of the album, which act as footnotes, but even these still prove relevant to the story. Musically, each song is tailored to its role in the story, from the assured “Chapter 1: A Marine Biologist” to the disconcerting madness of “Chapter IX: Ride the Flying Polyp.”

Oh, and did I mention that it was funny? While not a straight comedy, The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets tell a story that could easily be suited to an overbearing Cradle of Filth album in a manner that, instead, remains energetic and fun, full of witty lines and playful barbs at the horror clichés that Lovecraft himself helped create. It is this energy and humor that truly sets The Shadow Out of Tim from other Horror-Rock, just as its adherence to its particular story sets it apart from other Geek-Rock. The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets have crafted an album that takes the best of these milieus and combines them effectively into their best album thus far.

MUST OWN if… you are a fan of Lovecraft and good rock.
STRONGLY RECOMNEDED if… you like horror or geek rock or are interested in getting to know these genres.

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Welcome

Hi. This is the site of my new blog. I haven't really started it properly yet, but in a few days we should be up an running.

I have one mission for this blog: to start writing about music more. I used to write album reviews/essays fairly often and have since fallen out of the habit. Coupled with my Twitter, I'm trying to get back in. What I plan to do is post one album review or at an least extended discussion of a band/album/song whatever every week day. So be sure to check back here in a few days when everything is up and running! Read more!