Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Sound Writer
http://soundwriter.blogspot.com/
Thanks for your support!
-Bryce
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
2009 Grades
Now that I have graduated high school, survived an unfortunate event in my life, and am back to being mentally stable (for the most part), there will be frequent posts here. I know you have no reason to believe me, but it's true this time. To get things started, here is a list of 2009 album grades. Let me know if you want a review of any of these or if you have any questions or opinions on these.
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead- The Century of Self (C+)
1349- Revelations of the Black Flame (B)
311- Uplifter (C)
Absu- Absu (B)
Adagio- Archangels in Black (B+)
Alestorm- Black Sails at Midnight (B)
Alexisonfire- Old Crows/Young Cardinals (B)
Amesoeurs- Amesoeurs (A-)
Amorphis- Skyforger (A-)
Anaal Nathrakh- In the Constellation of the Black Widow (B)
Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion (A)
Art Brut- Art Brut vs. Satan (B+)
Black Dice- Repo (B)
Black Lips- 200 Million Thousand (C+)
Black Moth Super Rainbow- Eating Us (B+)
Bob Dylan- Together Through Life (B-)
Bonnie "Prince" Billy- Beware (B+)
B-Real- Smoke & Mirrors (C)
Bruce Springsteen- Working on a Dream (C+)
Cage- Depart From Me (C+)
Cannibal Corpse- Evisceration Plague (C+)
Cattle Decapitation- The Harvest Floors (B)
Chickenfoot- Chickenfoot (C)
Chimaira- The Infection (C)
Chris Cornell- Scream (F)
Crooked X- Crooked X (C)
Cursive- Mama, I'm Swollen (C)
DÅÅTH- The Concealers (C+)
Dalek- Gutter Tactics (B-)
Depeche Mode- Sounds of the Universe (B)
Destroyer 666- Defiance (B)
Devin Townsend Project- Ki (A)
Dinosaur Jr.- Farm (B)
Dirty Projectors- Bitte Orca (A-)
DOOM- Born Into This (C-)
Dream Theater- Black Clouds and Silver Linings (C+)
Dredg- The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion (A-)
Eels- Hombre Lobo (B)
Eluveitie- Evocation I - The Arcane Dominion (B)
Eminem- Relapse (A-)
Franz Ferdinand- Tonight (D+)
Goblin Cock- Come With Me if You Want to Live (B)
God Forbid- Earthsblood (C+)
Graveworm- Diabolical Figures (B)
Green Day- 21st Century Breakdown (B+)
Grizzly Bear- Veckatimest (A)
Hammerfall- No Sacrifice, No Victory (B-)
Heaven and Hell- The Devil You Know (B+)
Hurt- Goodbye to Machine (B-)
If These Trees Could Talk- Above The Earth, Below The Sky (B+)
Isis- Wavering Radiant (B-)
J. Tillman- Vacilando Territory Blues (B)
John Frusciante- The Empyrean (B)
Killswitch Engage- Killswitch Engage (B)
K'nann- Troubadour (B+)
Korpiklaani- Karkelo (B-)
K-Os- Yes! (B)
Kreator- Hordes of Chaos (B)
Lacuna Coil- Shallow Life (D)
Lamb of God- Wrath (C+)
Lazarus A.D.- The Onslaught (B+)
Manic Street Preachers- Journal for Plague Lovers (A-)
Marilyn Manson- The High End of the Low (D+)
Mastodon- Crack the Skye (B)
Meat Puppets- Sewn Together (C+)
Method Man & Redman- Blackout! 2 (B)
Mono- Hymn to the Immortal Wind (B+)
Morrissey- Years of Refusal (C)
Mos Def- The Ecstatic (B+)
Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band- Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band (B)
My Dying Bride- For Lies I Sire (B)
Napalm Death- Time Waits for No Slave (B-)
Neko Case- Middle Cyclone (C)
Obituary- Darkest Day (C)
Obscura- Cosmogenesis (B+)
Old Man's Child- Slaves of the World (C+)
P.O.S.- Never Better (A-)
Papa Roach- Metamorphosis (D)
Phoenix- Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (B)
Pure Reason Revolution- Amor Vincit Omnia (B-)
Queensryche- Amerson Soldier (C)
Riverside- Anno Domini High Definition (A-)
Royksopp- Junior (C+)
Rumpelstiltskin Grinder- Living for Death, Destroying the Rest (B)
Sepultura- A-Lex (C)
Sonic Youth- The Eternal (B)
Spinal Tap- Back from the Dead (D)
Stream of Passion- The Flame Within (B)
Street Sweeper Social Club- Street Sweeper Social Club (C+)
Stuck Mojo- The Great Revival (F)
Suffocation- Blood Omen (B)
Sun O)))- Monoliths & Dimensions (B+)
Tech N9ne- Sickology 101 (B)
The Crystal Method- Divided By Night (C-)
The Decemberists- The Hazards of Love (B)
The Gathering- The West Pole (B+)
The Lonely Island- Incredibad (B-)
The Mars Volta- Octahedron (C+)
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart- The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart (B-)
The Prodigy- Invaders Must Die (B+)
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus- Lonely Road (C-)
U2- No Line on the Horizon (C-)
Wilco (The Album)- Wilco (C+)
Wolves in the Throne Room- Black Crusade (A)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs- It's Blitz! (C)
Zu- Carboniferous (B+)
Saturday, April 11, 2009
After a long delay...The Top 10 Albums of 2008
10:
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
9:
Gojira
The Way of All Flesh
8:
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes
7:
Ihsahn
angL
6:
Sadistik
The Balancing Act
5:
The Hold Steady
Stay Positive
4:
Steven Wilson
Insurgentes
3:
Atmosphere
When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold
2:
Opeth
Watershed
1:
TV on the Radio
Dear Science
"Shallow Life"- Lacuna Coil mini-review
Grade: D
Saturday, February 7, 2009
The Worst Song I've Ever Heard
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
2009 Rockstar Energy Mayhem Tour Info
Slayer
Marilyn Manson
Killswitch Engage
Bullet For My Valentine
Hot Topic Stage:
Cannibal Corpse
Behemoth
Job For A Cowboy
The Black Dahlia Murder
Whitechapel
Jägermeister Stage:
Trivium
All That Remains
God Forbid
Tour Dates:
Jul. 10 - Sacramento, CA
Jul. 11 - San Francisco, CA
Jul. 12 - San Bernardino, CA
Jul. 14 - Seattle, WA
Jul. 17 - Phoenix, AZ
Jul. 18 - Albuquerque, NM
Jul. 19 - Denver, CO
Jul. 21 - Kansas City
Jul. 22 - St. Louis, MO
Jul. 24 - Atlanta, GA
Jul. 25 - Indianapolis, IN
Jul. 26 - Chicago, IL
Jul. 28 - Toronto, ON
Jul. 29 - Scranton, PA
Jul. 31 - Cleveland, OH
Aug. 01 - Pittsburgh, PA
Aug. 02 - Detroit, MI
Aug. 04 - Boston, MA
Aug. 06 - Virginia Beach, VA
Aug. 07 - Camden, NJ
Aug. 08 - Hartford, CT
Aug. 09 - Washington, DC
Aug. 11 - Tampa, FL
Aug. 12 - West Palm Beach, FL
Aug. 14 - Dallas, TX
Aug. 15 - Houston, TX
Aug. 16 - San Antonio, TX
I honestly wasn't expecting to be excited by this news. However, Slayer, Behemoth, and Killswitch means I'll be there on the 14th. What do you guys think of the lineup this year? My personal opinion is that this is a hell of lot better than Slipknot and Disturbed, the former headlining being one of the reasons I didn't attend.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
First Two Reviews of 2009
Merriweather Post Pavilion is an album that is difficult to describe, but not difficult to grade. It's hard to point out what exactly makes it a masterpiece, but it's also easy to tell that it is in fact a masterpiece. There is so much going on here that it's hard to filter out what's coming from where and how everything has been put together. That, however, is the genius of Merriweather Post Pavilion. Each listener will have a completely different experience with the music, and not just in the way that you'd expect from a work of art. The album's first impression will depend entirely on what you pick up first, and Animal Collective haven't made one specific part of the album stand out more than another. Just about everything stands out, and again, it can be overwhelming. However, with each listen more and more of the album comes together, and eventually it will click. The fact that someone actually wrote music like this and recorded an album with as many layers as Merriweather Post Pavilion is staggering. It's simply genius, as nothing about this album is simple other than its genius, and each song is completely different from the last. As a whole, the album is noisy, catchy, trippy, intelligent, clever, and incredibly subtle. There's more here than what one can write about, and there's more here than what one can pick up on after even a few listens. Animal Collective have crafted a gem in Merriweather Post Pavilion, and any true fan of music should not only listen to it, but invest the time into understanding all that's going on in this beautifully chaotic album.
Grade: A
Stuck Mojo- The Great Revival
I'll admit that I don't know a whole lot about Stuck Mojo. I love rap and I love metal, but the combination of the two has rarely resulted in quality music, so forgive me for not remembering much about this late 90s rap-metal act. What I can say is that whether you like rap, rock, metal, previous Stuck Mojo albums, or even music in general, you should avoid The Great Revival. This is as awful of an album as there is, and I can't imagine anyone being able to stand it for more than a track or two. It is, however, hilarious. It's not trying to be, but it is. Songs like the Limp Bizkit-meets-Hannah Montana "Friends" and the nauseating cover of "Country Road" (where West Virginia randomly becomes North Carolina, even though the band is actually from Georgia) are guaranteed to make any fan of real rap or metal laugh, but most of the other tracks are just awful in the less humorous way. The songwriting is horrific on just about every level, the rapping is even worse than Fred Durst's, the lyrics are laughably bad throughout, and the same generic drop-d riff is played over and over again. On top of all of that, Stuck Mojo throws in random style changes at the most inopportune times, making it even more obvious that this band has absolutely no clue what they're doing. The "experimentation" adds nothing to the music, partly because the band doesn't seem to understand how to play the styles they add in. If The Great Revival is any indication, Stuck Mojo don't understand rap, metal, or any form of music they attempt to play. Other than for comedic purposes, there is no reason to listen to this album. Please, do yourself a favor and stay clear of The Great Revival. Even though it's one the first albums released in 2009, it will almost certainly be among the worst albums released all year.
Grade: F