"We Stitch These Wounds" by Black Veil Brides - Serious Snark Review

A hybrid review! While I tried to be analytical towards today's subject, I found myself unable to keep a straight narrative voice, and thus the strange blend of comedy and criticism you see before you arises.

Believe it or not, that IS a guy on the cover. I was surprised too.

So today's review is a bit of a treat. While my past reviews of books and movies have ranged from mixed to negative, the lowest I've ever really placed an album I reviewed was Endgame by Rise Against, and even then I spent a good deal of time praising a large chunk of the album. This is mostly because, while I can usually force myself through a bad movie just by making fun of it, I have difficulty making it through an entire album from a band I hate. But I figure variety is the spice of life and thusly decided to review the first album by the infamous post-hardcore band Black Veil Brides.

For those of you lucky enough to have never heard of these musical wastes of oxygen, here's a quick history. Headed by Andy "Sixx" Biersak (The very effeminate young man pictured on the cover) they've been around since about 2006, gaining a big following among the Hot Topic crowd the past year or so. This is them:

Only one person in this picture has a cervix.

Yeah, it's safe to say we're not dealing with subtle artists here. I mean dear god, just look at them. How can you even take that seriously? When you're making Twisted Sister look masculine, you have some problems. This isn't to say that people trying to be androgynous is bad, just that these people are doing it very, very wrong.

Track 1: The Outcasts (Calls To Arms)
Just the title of this pisses me off. I've never understood the use of parenthesis in song names. With the exception of the song ((Holy Shit) I Can't Believe I Still Don't Have) A Girlfriend) it's always seemed melodramatic and stupid. But that's just a nitpick. Now we move into the music. If you can even stand to call it that. This track is just an intro, with some spoken word recording that I'm sure would have been an interesting way to start an album 30 years ago before every Metal band in existence had done it. Way to innovate guys.

It's gonna be a long one, isn't it?

Track 2: We Stitch These Wounds
Oh hey, another power-chord heavy intro that sounds like something off of nearly any metalcore album to come out in the last 10 years. And the vocals are clearly altered in post because there's no way an inexperienced vocalist like Sixx could managed anything like this. Also, maybe I'm just wanting to listen to some better music, but I swear the clean vocals sound like Weird Al. I've honestly and truly heard Goregrind bands that could make a catchier melody than these morons. You know how people will criticize a movie or book for having cliche and overly-familiar story telling elements? That's basically what I have to say for this entire song. I mean, at least bands like brokeNCYDE and Design the Skyline are bad in an interesting kind of way. This just sounds like I'm listening to a 3 Days Grace song with bad speakers.

Track 3: Beautiful Remains
Okay, I've gotta say it. These song titles are so bland I swear they were taken from the titles of poems written by goth kids on LiveJournal. All I'm asking for here is a little ingenuity. A little tiny bit of creativity and originality to give this band's music any type of discernible character. I don't get it from this song. I am honestly not convinced I'm listening to a real band. I am damn near convinced somebody just took a bunch of random interchangeable deathcore and metalcore bands and put their songs in random order on an album. I'm already out of things to say to this. The drumming is the typical metalcore "just drum in really quick bursts throughout the whole song" style, the vocalist is so covered up in post that I would never be able to discern his real voice, and the guitar work is uninspired. Nothing is cathy enough to stick in your head. Hell, I've been listening to the song while I've been writing this, and I can't even remember how it began. Eating a bowl of packing peanuts with water would leave more of an impact on me than this song.

Track 4: Children Surrender
I have a bit of a conundrum. Can you fail at something you weren't trying to do in the first place. I really want to say that this band fails utterly at being engaging or emotionally sincere in their musical delivery, but I feel that saying that would be giving them to much credit. Because they damn sure aren't trying. If they were, there would have been SOME sort of discernible change in Sixx's vocals between these songs. But no, not at all. You could have switched the vocal tracks for these songs and I would not have known the difference save for the inflection. I am fishing blindly for SOMETHING to write about this, but there is nothing at all here. I mean for the love of the gods, H.I.M. has more going for them than Black Veil Brides

Track 5: Perfect Weapon
Okay, maybe things will look up. This is a single from the album after all. Singles are usually the songs that are made more catchy and palatable in order to draw an audience. That has to mean there will be SOMETHING different that sets this song apart from the ones before it, right? Right? Nope. That would imply these sacks of mediocrity had some sense of intelligence. Hell, I'm not entirely sure they have the ability to make their music sound distinct. The drumming and guitar works is near identical to the last 4 songs. How do you manage that? Statistically you would have to, by sheer chance, stumble upon some sort of melody that hasn't already been done. I can't tell you how generic this song is, especially the solo that is obviously phoned in.

Track 6: Knives And Pens
It's official, I'm listening to a Bullet For My Valentine album in disguise. Nobody else could possibly have such an unerring ability to make every single song completely absurd in its banality. They're not trying anymore, if they ever were. There's nothing here special or interesting or worth merit. I would listen to practically anything else instead of this if given the choice because nothing could possibly be as generic as this song. From the long, autotuned to hell "woah" in the chorus to Sixx's pathetic attempts at growling to the psuedo-deathcore drum work, everything needed to make a cliche filled pile of drivel is here.

Track 7: The Mortician's Daughter
Well, at the very least we get a little variety with this song. It's an acoustic song because these people have no original ideas, so they might as well copy the Insincere Sweet Sounding "Heart-felt" acoustic Ballad that has been a cop-out staple since the late 80's. Sweet Buttery Jesus I cannot impress upon you how boring this song is. This track is so dull it makes Built To Spill sound like arena rock. This is what happens when the criminally untalented attempt to be deep; a beige nightmare of stale nothingness that leaves your head as soon as it's over, if it ever managed to hold your attention to begin with.

Track 8: All Your Hate
Aaaaaand we're right back where we started again. Boring, unoriginal chord progression, lack-luster drumming, and a dull as dog crap vocal performance. There's nothing else to add here. To paraphrase South Park, if boredom were made of strawberries, we'd all be drinking a lot of smoothies right now.

Track 9: Heaven's Calling
I swear this is the same song as the last one. It starts off nearly identically, the vocals come in at the same time, and they follow the same exact pattern. I usually gauge how bad music is by asking myself the question "Would I have made the same observations when I was 14 when I was just getting into music?" and that helps me tell where something stands. After all, back then I had very different taste, and was a lot more vulnerable to listening to crap (I'm still a bit ashamed about my Linking Park phase) but I can proudly say even when I was just first searching out music, I would have found this characterless drivel boring. 

Track 10: Never Give In
I'm out of stuff to say. Completely. You want a description of this song? Take anything I've said about the last 8 tracks and just copy/paste it below this paragraph. That would essentially simulate what I feel right now as I subject myself to this duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll pile of rat feces that these flamboyantly dressed mutants expect people to enjoy.

Track 11: Sweet Blasphemy
I've been listening to this album on youtube, rather than downloading it and listening to it on my MP3 player as I usually do. This is because I refused to sully my computer's hard drive with such worthlessness. I bring this up because over the entire time I've been listening to it, I've been reading some of the youtube comments, and they are far more interesting than anything in this song that's the same as the last one and the one before it and blah, blah, blah. People have been constantly and consistently praising these creative vacuums and on this one, somebody actually said this music is "epic". I won't get into my issues with people overusing that word to the point of meaningless. Instead I'll simply say that anyone who is capable of calling this song "epic" in even the most banal of senses, should have their ears and frontal lobes removed, because clearly they would be put to better use feeding the homeless.

Track 12: Carolyn
This song is exactly like the other acoustic track with minor differences but guess what  I don't care because I'm finally fucking done with this piece of shit.

So yeah, this album, and this band, are worthless. Every last thing they do with their sound has been done before, and done better. They contribute nothing, absolutely nothing to music. The only thing even slightly interesting is their image, and even that's only because of their severe lack of shame or dignity. Avoid this band, avoid ever giving them any money or support. Let them die like the worthless fad that they are.

"Cupcakes" By Sergeant Sprinkles - Snark Review

Originally written on Monday, July 25, 2011

Today's review is something very different from my regular review topic. You see, instead of reviewing an Album, or a Movie, or even a Book, I'm reviewing fanfiction. Not only that, but fanfiction for a show none of you have probably seen, and NONE of you would ever admit to seeing. Today we're looking at Cupcakes, a fanfiction for the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

If you're still reading this, that means you didn't die of laughter at the mention of the show. Kudos. But to understand the complete insanity of this fanfiction, you'll need to get a little history on the source material. Essentially, Friendship is Magic is the most recent incarnation of the sickeningly sweet 20 minute toy commercial known as My Little Pony. Now, until now I've never had much exposure to the series outside of the occasional Toy Commercial, and that alone was enough to make me avoid it like the plague, but something...different happened with this series.

Since its debut late last year, it's garnered a downright MASSIVE following on the internet, especially among Males in their late teens to mid twenties, who have taken to calling themselves "Bronies". This is exceedingly strange considering where the popularity first  came from: 4Chan. That's right, the biggest scumhole of the internet, the place that houses nearly every jaded, hateful, rage-filled internet geek who's ever read Encyclopedia Dramatica was the same place that started the most vocal fandom for a show called Friendship is Magic.

This intrigued me. After all, I've spent enough time online to get the basic feel for what 4chan usually likes. They hate everything that isn't Cats, memes, or Cat memes. So what was it about this children's show, targeted at young girls, that would make this many adult Males latch onto it with so much zeal and ferocity? I decided to find out on my own, and watched some of the series. It's surprisingly decent for a kid's show. Not to say it's anything brilliant or amazing, but depending on your tolerance for girly names and cheesy morals, it's not half bad. It's certainly a damn sight more intelligent and well written than anything called My Little Pony has the right to be.

But we're not here to talk about the show. We're here to talk about Cupcakes, a fanfiction that turns this:

What I expected

into this:

What I Got

Cupcakes has become infamous in the FiM fandom, for being "GRIMDARK AS FUCK" and taking the cheeriest, friendliest character in the show and turning her into an equally cheery and friendly serial killer that makes Hostel seem tame by comparison. It's written by a person known only as Sergeant Sprinkles, and from what I can tell is the most well known Fic in the fandom, with it being mentioned or referenced in tons of other fanfics and having dozens of "alternate" endings written for it by other users.

So let's dig right into The Ponyville Chainsaw Massacre.

It starts off innocently enough, with one of the characters named Rainbow Dash (Possibly one of the manliest names in the series. Not even kidding.) a Pegasus, rushing over to Sugarcube Corner (the most masculine name for anything in the show. Again, not even kidding.) to meet Pinkie Pie (pictured above) for some chore she needs help with. When she gets there, Dash is greeted by a very mysterious Pinkie who dodges answering the questions pertaining to what they're there for. Pinkie tells Dash they're going to make cupcakes! Until Pinkie feeds her friend a drugged cupcake, knocking her out. This is about the time things take a dark turn.

Dash wakes up strapped to a table, unable to move. Understandably freaked the hell out by this, she attempts to get free, but finds she's unable to escape. This is when Pinkie shows up, wearing a dress made of the skin of her past victims, a necklace of severed unicorn horns, and the amputated wings of 3 separate Pegasi. It's revealed the Pinkie Pie, in the show an expert at throwing parties and decorating, has also decorated the room they're in. Only in lieu of streamers, intestines are hung along the walls, the furniture is made from the bones of dozens of dead Ponies, and their painted skulls used to top a cake made of Pony meat.

Yeah. And that's the lighter stuff.

Pinkie Pie explains that she apparently has been doing this for a while, with nobody seeming to notice the sudden disappearance of numerous Ponies, and that she has assigned everyone in town a "Number" in a lottery, and when their number comes up she tortures, kills, and eats them. Why? Because she's Pinkie Pie and that's just what she does. Throughout this explanation, it's important to keep in mind that Pinkie here keeps talking like this is the most normal thing in the world (“ 'You can’t do this Pinkie! I’m your friend!' 'I know you are and that’s why I’m so happy that I’ve got you here. We get to share your last moments together, just you and me.' Pinkie was skipping again.") and this keeps up throughout the ENTIRE story. Its' rather admirable that somebody was capable of writing a fanfiction where the characters act completely contrary to their established character, while simultaneously STAYING IN CHARACTER. It's kind of admirable in a disturbingly creepy way.

Anyway, Pinkie then proceeds to cut the skin off of Dash's flank, then use a dull knife and a hacksaw to sever her wings. After Dash passes out, Pinkie forcefully revives her with and Adrenaline shot, and tells her that it's rude to fall asleep at somebody's house when you're a guest. We then find out that while Dash was blacked out, Pinkie had been cutting out the meat from Dash's legs and eating it, then proceeds to force-feed some to Dash. Then she drives a couple of nails into the bottom of Dash's back feet, uses copper wire to connect the nails to a car battery, and proceeds to electrocute Dash until she pisses herself and her feet are nearly cooked off.

After that, we enter what Pinkie calls "the last round" which can be summed up with this quote from Pinkie:

" 'In a few minutes, you won’t be able to feel anything below your ribcage. Then you’ll be able to stay awake to watch the harvest.' ”

That's right, Pinkie proceeds do disembowel her friend and make her watch. And believe me, vivisection has never been so punny. First she flosses with the small intestine, then wears the large intestine as a scarf, and then we get this wonderful quote as she starts speeding things up.

" 'I know I can be a real pancreas, but you know I’m just kidney with you. You really got to learn to liver it up. Boy, these jokes are getting bladder. Guess ya gotta develop a stomach for them.' ”

There is literally nothing I can think to add to make that any more bizarre than it already is. Oh wait, I know, the story gives me something right here, Pinkie rips out Dash's stomach and part of the esophagus, and plays it like a set of bagpipes. Because hey, we're in this deep in the insanity shit storm, why not go full force?

After that, Rainbow Dash gives up and dies in the middle of Pinkie skinning her head. You'd think that would be the end, but you'd think like somebody with a modicum of decency and sanity. After that we get an epilogue, in which Pinkie Pie, ever the innovator, decides that since there's not too much damage to the corpse, she can put everything back together, stuff Rainbow Dash, and keep her around forever. After all what are friends for?

This...defies reviewing. At least for me. I mean, what can I really say about this? How can I judge it? Where exactly is the bar set for Pony Evisceration Fiction? I mean, the writing is decent, in some places pretty good considering it's a fanfic. There's a few grammatical and spelling mistakes but nothing that wouldn't get caught by a good editor. It's short, at only about 5-6 pages. That's all I can add to it really, the rest speaks for itself. It's a Pony called Pinkie Pie drugging her friend named Rainbow Dash, then proceeding to skin her, amputate her wings, electrocute her feet off, vivisect, and finally stuff her.

Sweet dreams!

"Insidious" - Snark Review

Originally written on Saturday, July 16, 2011

So hey, I've been waiting to get to do a more negative review of something. Thankfully, this cliche-ridden, unfocused mess of a modern horror movie has provided me with more than enough material to tear it a new one.

Insidious essentially contains everything I dislike about modern horror films, and it tosses it all together in an amateurish pile in a choppy attempt to be scary or creepy in the slightest. And not only does it not succeed, in a number of places it made me actually laugh.

The story starts out as your basic horror premise; Perfect family with a perfect life move into their new perfect home, but then it becomes apparent that something is wrong with the house. Renai and Josh are the parents of 3 children, Dalton, Kid Who is Not Important and Quickly Forgotten About, and Crying Baby That Is Also Quickly Forgotten About. The latter 2 are completely superfluous and essentially just there for a few padding sequences.

Anyway, at the beginning our protagonist is Renai, as she starts to notice strange things around the house. Books that she stacked up are mysteriously knocked on the floor, there's a staticy whisper that can be heard over the Baby monitor, and their house is apparently about to fall apart since just about every step they take makes the floor creek, and the door hinges need to be oiled. Pretty soon, while our ever attentive parents are playing with the other 2, Dalton goes into the attic exploring and decides he'd like to try for a Darwin award by climbing an old ladder that's falling apart and can barely support its own weight. Gravity decides to teach him a lesson and he falls down and gets knocked out. The parents find him, and make it obvious that the kid's stupidity is genetic by having him go to bed when he finally wakes up. Because having a kid with a possible concussion go to sleep is a brilliant idea.

The next morning, shockingly, little Dalton is in a coma and won't wake up. After the doctors find no sign of brain damage and are thus unable to explain why he's a vegetable, they just decide to set up a feeding tube and heart rate monitor at the family's house. Because that's totally what they do with somebody who's inexplicably unresponsive, send him home and NOT try to run more tests. Not long after this Renai starts seeing strange things around the house. The door inexplicably close, she think she sees a man standing over the baby's crib, and Josh starts randomly have sepia-toned visions of a small kid in bed. Eventually one of the specters that Renai has been seeing attacks her and, in a move that shows the writers were at least TRYING to be a little original, the family makes the brilliant decision to get out of the obviously haunted house. They move to a new place, but it appears they hired the Real Estate agent from Hell because there's ghosts in this one too. Also, after they decide to move we never see either of the other 2 kids, and are instead introduced to Josh's mom to take their place. Say goodbye!

So anyway, Renee is talking with Josh and his Mom about what she's seeing, and the mom tells them that she had a dream about some demon that's trying to hurt the still vegetative Dalton. Then she sees him for a split second jump-scare and they hear crashing coming from Dalton's room. The go in to discover him still knocked out, but the room's been trashed and wrecked. This convinces Josh to let his mom call in some Medium she knows and we're introduced to Elise and her two poorly placed "comic" relief duo in the form of her two assistants, a pair of guys dressed as Mormon missionaries who make the 3 douchebags on Ghost Adventures look intelligent and subtle.

It's also about here that we jump from one protagonist to another.

You see, until this point the story had been about Renai. She's the one who saw the spirits and the strange things going on in the house, she was the one who had to convince Josh to move, she's the one who knew that something wasn't right about Dalton's coma. But right about here, when the medium starts explaining what's going on with Dalton and the strange demon they saw. It becomes about Josh's story and HIS quest to save Dalton while Renai is downgraded to essentially spiritual cheerleader for her husband.

Elise explains that Dalton is a natural at Astral Projection, the ability to send one's spirit out of their body, and that he's being doing that in his dreams for years. What REALLY caused his coma wasn't the whole head injury combined with terrible parenting, but rather his soul has been trapped away from his body by a demon who is now trying to figure out how to take control of Dalton's body and wreak havoc in the living world. Elise calls the place Dalton is trapped the "Further" because she wants to make sure that nobody watching will actually take her seriously.

Despite this, they decide to hold a seance in order to get Dalton's soul back from the "Further". This apparently requires Elise to put on a gas mask with a microphone that feeds into a set of head phones that her assistant uses to take notation. However this needlessly complex seance doesn't go to well as the demon temporarily takes control of Dalton's body, and he goes all Gage from Pet Sematery and tosses one of the assistants across the room in a sequence that I'm sure would be scary if it weren't so hilariously ridiculous looking. They manage to get the demon (which looks like an extra from the last battle in Braveheart, essentially red and black facepaint and black clothes. ooooh scary.) out of Dalton's body, but the little bugger is still lost somewhere.

Then Elise reveals that the reason Josh's mom knew to call her was because the same exact god damned thing happened to josh when he was a kid, only he was stalked and almost taken over by some creepy old lady spirit. This begs the question why she didn't immediately call Elise when Dalton went into the coma, but then this movie might not have made the 70 minutes mark required for theatrical release. Anyway, they decide the only way to get Dalton back now is for Josh to astral project, go to the "Further" and find Dalton.

So Josh goes into the spirit world like he's the Last Airbender, wanders around until he finds the first house, goes in, is greeted with several more ineffective jump scares, and then goes up to the attic. He spots a red door in the wall and I had to resist the urge to hum The Rolling Stones. He goes through the door, finds where Dalton is being held, and we're treated to our first (and thankfully last) full glimpse at the demon who's been behind this whole thing and man, is it ever ridiculous. The facepaint and prosthetic teeth are already unconvincing, but we then see him sharpening his large, clawed metal hand that just scream Freddy Kruger, not to mention his feet, which are goat hooves that look way too big to actually belong on his legs. He spots Josh trying to save Dalton and...just kind of stands there while Josh runs off with him.

Dude, you're a demon, earlier during that seance you threatened to find Elise and rip out her innards, then bathe in them and eat her flesh, and you can't even stop a reverse kid napping? Laaaaaaaaaaame.

So we're presented with some non-tension as Josh tries to find his way back to his body and Renai starts shouting in his ear to hurry up. It seems the spirits of the astral plain are starting to physically manifest in the mortal realm and are very...very...sloooooooowwwwwwwwwlllllllllyyyyyyy approaching them. Why are they suddenly able to manifest like this? Hell if I know, I guess because "Then the father just strolls back to their bodies, everything is fine and dandy, cue end credits" wouldn't make as good a climax? It wouldn't really be much worse than this choppily edited, poorly shot mess of video.

Josh eventually makes it back to the house, and tells Dalton to go upstairs and get his body, while he stops for no apparent reason and tells the old lady spirit from his past to leave him alone. Well at least we know Josh is still just as good a parent as he was at the beginning of this mess. And that's literally what he does. He stares at the Old Lady (who is just inexplicably there) to "Leave [him] alone" a whole bunch of times, while the Demon finally gets around to chasing Dalton. She just starts laughing and slowly floats backwards because having your scenes have any sort of logical progression is too mainstream for these movie makers.

Anyway, Josh apparently gets back to his body, as does Dalton, and everything's going to tie up nicely. The dipshit duo or assistants are planning on writing a book about this whole thing and make a bunch of money, Dalton is back to being as uninteresting as his long forgotten siblings, and Josh has moved on from his fears of the old woman that he apparently had but were never mentioned. Yep everything is fine...

Oh Wait, If forgot for a second that this is a modern horror movie, which means there has to be a twist at the end to we can get an unnecessary sequel. As it turns out, Josh DIDN'T get back to his body. The Old Lady took over it instead and when Elise figures it out, she gets strangled for her troubles. Renai finds the body, puts together what happened, and then turns around in a shot lifted straight out of Evil Dead. Cut to Black, play one more SCARE!Chord, and cue end credits.

Now if I haven't made it clear, my problems with this movie run deeper than the fact that the plot was rock stupid and unfocused to the point where we just switch protagonists an hour in. It, like Drag Me To Hell before it, relies almost exclusively on jump scares, coupled with quick scare-chord crescendos in the music to try and startle the viewer. I dare those of you with high alcohol tolerances to watch this movie and take a drink every time the music crescendos or there's a quick cut to a jump scare. I guarantee you'll have Cirrhosis by the 45 minute mark.

The movie runs into the problem of trying to get quick, cheap scares from the audience every few minutes rather than trying to build a creepy or disturbing atmosphere. Not to mention that this pattern leaves the movie ludicrously predictable and as a result isn't engaging in the slightest.

Final Score: 3/10

"I Am Number Four" - Snark Review

Welcome to the first ever Snark Review, where instead of trying to by critical and offer and informed and civil opinion on things, I mock the thing I'm reviewing like it's nobody's business! Hope you enjoy!

Originally written on Friday, June 24, 2011

So I just watched I Am Number Four and I'd like to share my thoughts on it.

I went into this movie expecting it to be a mediocre action flic with some decent special effects and average acting and storytelling. Lo and behold, I got what I expected. Number Four is obviously a film set up to start a franchise, since it's essentially an origin story for the main character, the aptly titled Number Four (that's who he is). It's an interesting premise, if not a particularly original one. The Number Four and the 8 other "Numbers" are essentially last remaining survivors from the planet Lorien, which was taken over and destroyed by the Mogadorians (Yes, it's a stupid name.). The 9 children were taken to earth as infants to eventually become the protectors of earth, each with a sworn warrior protector to raise them.

The movie starts out with the Mogadorians or Mogs as they're referred to for the most part, kill Number Three, because they apparently need to got in a certain order because...the film makers thought the title sounded cool? There's never a mention in the film of why exactly the kids are numbered or why the Mogs insist on hunting them in said order, so I don't know. Anyway, we're then introduced to Number Four, who goes through the movie under the moniker "John Smith" because when you're looking to go undetected, it's best to get an alias that immediately sounds fake. As we meet John, his leg starts lighting up like a christmas tree, and when it's over he's got a new burn mark, symbolizing that Number Three is dead. He and his protector, Henri, take this as a sign to get right the hell out of there.

The pair end up moving to Paradise, Ohio where they're followed by a terrible CGI lizard that turns into a terrible CGI dog that comes to live with them. Because why not. After a brief argument, John makes the decision that he's going to go to school like a normal kid, because he's just such a dedicated student that he won't let something like an intergalactic man-hunt stop him from learning Calculus! No, that's just his shtick for the first half of the movie; He wants to be normal, and have a normal life, because he's just so sick of not being normal. At school he meets the inevitable love interest Sarah, a sweet girl who constantly looks like she's on the verge of tears even when she's happy and seems to have learned all her acting from Kristen Stewart. She likes to take pictures and wants to get out of her small town life and...that's about it. That's all she ever talks about. Ever. John also meets her Ex-boyfriend Mark who will be doing what every ex-boyfriend in every movie ever does; Act like an asshole to the main character and get his ass kicked. John's eventual side-kick, Sam, is also brought in to bring in probably the most interesting backstory of any of the non-aliens.

You see, Sam's father was a conspiracy theorist who spent his offtime dragging his son into the mexican wilderness in an attempt to find aliens. After going out on an expedition on his own, Sam's dad disappeared. Sam eventually grew to become ashamed of his father's history and wrote the man off as a nutjob. It's eventually revealed that Sam's dad was meant to bring the 9 together for some reason they were going to explain in the sequel. This is important because it gives Sam a stake in the whole Alien mess. The same cannot be said for Sarah, who spends the majority of the movie in woeful ignorance of everything, and only manages to scream and run around once she's let in the loop.

Anyway, this is where the movie grinds to a halt for a while. It stops being about the Mogs or Lorien or any of that interesting stuff, and instead we're presented with Smallville: The Motion Picture. Seriously, that's what it is. John discovers he and the other 8 (Well, 5 now) are gifted with "Legacies", essentially super powers, and that they are destined to protect earth from being destroyed from the Mogs. But John can't be bothered with all that crap because he's IN LOVE! The people who eliminated his entire culture in a planet wide genocide? That's not important when he's got to worry about the school quarterback pulling pranks on him! Spliced in with this are shots of the Mogs travelling, trying to track John and Henri down. This would be the time to set them us as threatening antagonists...except the most memorable scene of them is when one of the looks out the window of their car and uses makes a face to scare some chubby kid in the car next to them.

So let's see, we've got a Hero who's more concerned with high school than his impending murder, a female lead about as intriguing as a hunk of plywood, a Mentor that hasn't actually done anything, and Villains that are less intimidating than a teenager in a cheesy Halloween costume. This is a rough 2nd act.

Eventually though, the plot DOES finally pick up when the Sheriff (Mark's father) gets suspicious about the two people living in a foreclosed house that have no previous records or ID's. Henri rightly decides to leave and start over somewhere else, but John refuses because he can't bear to live without Sarah, a girl he's known for, oh, about a week, maybe two? Henri rightfully tells him to get his priorities straight, but then decides he needs to track down the webmaster of a website that has a video of John's Electric Lights and Magic scar from earlier, since apparently video evidence online of where they used to be is a risk to where they currently are. As it turns out though, the Mogs did in fact have a youtube account and set up a trap for Henri. John is then instructed to come to where they are if he wants to see Henri alive. John rushes in valiantly once he gets Sam to give him a ride.

To make a long story short, they go in, get Henri, are attacked by Mogs, Henri's injured and dies because he's the mentor and he has to die. John goes to tell Sarah goodbye, while Sam decides to root through his dad's old things to find a glowing rock that will apparently help them find the other Numbers. It kinda makes sense in context.

So John heads to a party that Sarah's throwing at her house after he hears on the news that the police have searched his house and now suspect he and Henri are terrorists because apparently having more than one computer in your house makes you a terrorist in Ohio. As it turns out, going to a party that is being attended by every teenager in the small town, including the Sheriff's son, isn't the best way to avoid cops. The police show up and John has to show off his telikinetic powers to get out, bringing Sarah along with him. They then decide that the best place for 2 teenagers running from the cops is at the school! Of course!

Following this, they're predictably cornered by the Mogs and are about to get their asses turned to dust when they're saved by a mysterious young woman who's also been tracking John. After killing 2 of the Mogs while making it look easy, she introduces herself as Number Six. She reveals that since her protector was killed by the Mogs a few years back, she decided to hunt the mogs down instead. While also trying to reunite the rest of the Numbers. And I think it's time I just say it now: I want to see a movie called "I Am Number Six".

If Six had been the main character of this movie, I would have liked it a LOT more. First of all she's already got control of her powers, she comes armed to the teeth with Alien technology, and she's all around just a more impressive and interesting character than Johnny boy and his "I just wanna be normal" bullcrap. Plus she rides a motor cycle, that's just cool.$ Alas, she's only around for the last 15 minutes.

After a big and admittedly impressive final action scene in which Six is firmly established as being better than every other character, and it's revealed that the terrible CGI dog is able to turn into a terrible CGI monster to fight off the Mogs' two terrible CGI monsters, the Mogs attacking them are all killed and John, Sam, and Six use the tracking rock to find out where they need to go to find the others. Sarah, as she has no actual stake in this other than she wants stick her tongue down John's throat, is left behind in her podunk town and they drive off into the horizon as John tries really hard to sound badass as he narrates.

Overall, the movie had some promise, with some interesting ideas about the various powers and abilities, but it comes off as trying too hard to start off a franchise, when it should be concerned with just telling a good story. The second act is pretty weak, with it feeling derivative of Spider-man and Smallville in a very bad way. The third act is definitely the highlight of the whole shebang, and the effects are used fairly well, awful CGI animals aside. It's not a great movie, but it has enough to offer that I don't regret watching.

Score: 6/10

"Sounds of a Playground Fading" by In Flames - Serious Review

Originally written June 16, 2011

The last few years have been pretty controversial for In Flames. In 2008 they released their 9th studio album A Sense of Purpose to a rather unanimous "Meh". I became of fan of the band around the time this album came out, and I can attest that, compared to everything they'd made before, it was pretty underwhelming. While the album before it, Come Clarity, wasn't amazing, it still had the signature power and energy that In Flames have been known for, that just seemed lacking on ASoP.

2 years later, and the founding member of In Flames, Guitarist Jesper Stromblad, left the band in order to deal with his own personal demons. This lead more than a few fans to claim that In Flames was officially dead. Though really, you'll need a quick history lesson to get up to speed on that debacle.

Essentially, back in the early 90's there were 3 bands that all formed around the same time, in the same city of Gothenburg, Sweden, and they became known as the godfathers of Melodic Death Metal. These 3 bands were In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, and At The Gates. They didn't necessarily start the sub-genre, but they were the ones who defined the sound and made it big. In Flames would stick with roughly the same sound for what would come to be called their "Golden Era", with their first 5 albums (Lunar Strain, The Jester Race, Whoracle, Colony, Clayman) but come 2002, things took a drastic change.

Starting with their 6th album, Reroute to Remain, they would begin utilizing a more modern sound, taking influence from Alternative Metal more and more with each release. This has caused a huge schism in the fanbase, between fans of "Old" In Flames and "New" In Flames. Needless to say, the founder's departure only exacerbated the whole thing. This meant that there was more than a bit of pressure for the band, now a 4-piece, to bring something big with their 2011 release Sounds of  A Playground Fading.

And believe it or not, they did.

Since I've already made this review needlessly longer than it needs to be, I'm not going to give a lot of info for each track, just a basic breakdown and my opinion on it.

Track 1: Sounds of a Playground Fading
This song starts off with an acoustic intro, followed by a good hard dose of stadium rock inspired guitars. It's clear straight away that this album has better production than ASoP did, especially towards the drums. The guitars sound very reminiscent of the last album, but that's not a bad thing since the major problem wasn't how the album sounded, but how it never went anywhere. Here, things are starting off damn strong with Anders Friden giving probably the best vocal performance he's done since Clayman. The riffs are full of energy and this is overall just a great way to start things off.

Track 2: Deliver Us
This is the lead single of the album, and it definitely shows in the sound. While it's not a bad song by any means, it lacks the atmosphere of the rest of the album, opting for a more metalcore inspired, synth heavy sound. Anders makes use of layered vocals to do what he's been relying on for the past few years: Scream-singing. It's essentially where he records the vocals twice, once with clean singing, then once with a harsher, screaming tone. This sets up for a unique, but at times off-putting effect. He uses it at other points on the album too, but for some reason it's just more conspicuous here. Still the song is enjoyable, even if it is pretty weak in comparison to the rest of the album.

Track 3: All For Me
This song starts off with another acoustic intro that quickly gives way to a powerful, bombastic quitar riff that builds up the energy brilliantly. This song is a bit different from it's predecessors, in that when the chorus comes around, it doesn't feel like the typical chorus, but rather just feels like a logical progression in the build up of the song. The highlight here is Anders' vocals, which are in top form and full of more emotion than the entirety of A Sense of Purpose combined. He's utilizi ng the scream-singing again, but with very few exceptions, it's used spectacularly here, channeling the melancholy of the lyrics with the kind of Power I've rarely heard from him before.

Track 4: The Puzzle
On this track, In Flames pauses from the overall melody-driven songs that the last 3 songs were, and instead goes for a more break-down heavy track to spice things up. And while I'll usually criticize a band for making a song like this, it strangely works here. Maybe it's the fact that the drums keep up such an energetic pace that it keeps things from slowing down on the rest of the track, or that Anders is still in top-form Vocally. Whatever the reason, the entire song is loud, full of passion, and the outro is just wonderful.

Track 5: Fear Is The Weakness
This track has been described by several reviewers as "synth-heavy" but I just don't see it. The intro riff does have some smatterings of a synth in it, the rest of the song is pretty much just guitar, bass, and drums. This is however the first song that feels most reminiscent of past material. Not in a bad way, but rather in a way of paying homage to some of their earlier albums (specifically Reroute and it's follow-up Soundtrack To Your Escape) with the melody sounding like it would fit in perfectly on STYE.

Track 6: Where The Dead Ships Dwell
Now this is a track I would call synth-heavy. If the last song was similar to STYE then this song could probably a bonus track off of that album. There's a very atmospheric sense to the whole song, especially in the way Anders does his clean vocals. Several reviewers (myself included) have used the word "melancholy" to describe the tone of SoaPF, and nowhere is it more clear why than here, with the synthesizer's presence adding an eerie nature to the whole thing.

Track 7: The Attic
This is the first song to deviate from the overall sound of the album. It's quiet, slow paced, the vocals are subdued, and oh yeah, the melody is carried almost exclusively by accordion. It's certainly different, but it does a damn good job of channeling the bleak nature of the lyrics (which is only 2 verses, no chorus or bridge.). It's a stripped down, slightly experimental song that the band hasn't really tried since Come Clarity's "Your Bedtime Story is Scaring Everyone" way back on '06. Despite the inherent eccentricity of it, the track works damn well, and I can definitely see it being used as a halfway marker at live shows.

Track 8: Darker Times
This song is similar in several ways to "The Puzzle", not least of which being that it again has the melody take a backseat to a more "Chugga-Chugga" style riff. Like "The Puzzle" this is miraculously pulled off very well, and the melody does make itself known during the chorus, as well as the last half of the song. There's also a part of the lyrics that has become sort of an inside joke among fans. You see, Anders, for whatever reason, seems to love using the word "plan" in songs. It's occurred several times, and here it's especially egregious when he repeats 3 times in a row "I Have a Better Plan!". But smirk worthy lyrics aside, this is a damn good song with 2 guitar solos and a lot of great guitar work from Bjorn Gellote, as well as a rather interesting outro that I can' really describe.

Track 9: Ropes
Some have called this song "Swim" 2.0, due to it's intro's similarity to the song "Swim" off their 5th album Clayman. And while there are several similarities betwixt the two, "Ropes" is still a damn good song in it's own right. For the verses Anders uses purely clean singing (that's right, no scream-singing until the chorus) and it's definitely an adjustment to get used to it. It's just kind of...bizarre that the guy who recorded "Morphing Into Primal" is actually singing hear. Though this won't be the last time this happens on here.

Track 10: Enter Tragedy
This song...just doesn't hit me like the rest of 'em do. There's lots to like here: the guitar work's good and reminds me a lot of some of the songs off of Come Clarity which I really enjoyed, Anders vocals are fine, no shakiness or anything, and there's plenty of energy. It's just that, when they get to the chorus everything just kind of feels muted. It's like this is where there should be this big, epic sounding chorus, and instead it's kind of a step down from the rest of the song. it all just comes off as a bit one-note. Not something I'd necessarily skip on relistens, but not something I wanna sing along withe either.

Track 11: The Jester's Door
You remember how I said "The Attic" was slightly experimental? Well that's nothing compared to "The Jester's Door". The first quarter of the song is essentially the sound of creaking floorboards and a whistle. Then a slow accordion starts up, followed by 2 verses delivered by Anders in spoken-word in an almost stream-of-consciousness speech referencing the departure of Jesper Stromblad. As he delivers the last line, suddenly the synth breaks loose alongside the accordion in a semi-tribal beat for the last minute. It's strange, nothing at all like the songs before or after it, and damned if it's anything short of beautiful. Second-favorite song on the album.

Track 12: A New Dawn
This song is nothing but a 6-minute love note to their "Golden Era" material. The leading riff sounds like it'd fit right in with the songs off of Colony. Everything sounds powerful, and Anders gives a good number of the sparse growls on this album. They also made use of a 5-piece quasi-orchestra to accentuate the interludes, and while I dislike using it there's only one word to describe the effect: EPIC. It's far and away my favorite song on the album, and I cannot praise it enough.

Track 13: Liberation
Ohhhhhh boy. This is where things get a bit sticky. In Flames purists will hate this song. I mean fucking loathe. This will be the song "Old" In Flames fans will point to as the biggest evidence of In Flames "selling out". And you know what? to hell with them, this is a damn good song. It's by no means a metal song, rather it's more comparable a hard-rock ballad than anything else, probably the softest non-acoustic song in the band's history, but it's also a beautifully composed, emotion driven, well crafted song and does an awesome job closing out the album. Anyone who refuses to listen to it because it's not "metal" enough for them is doing themselves a disservice.

Overall, this album is more than the much-needed return to form I had been hoping for. After nearly a decade of experimenting and working to find a new sound, In Flames has managed to make a strong, enjoyable album that pays respect to their roots while simultaneously defining themselves for a new decade. If you're hoping for another Whoracle or Jester Race, than you're spit outta luck, but if you want a solid, powerful, melodic metal album, than you'll love Sounds of A Playground Fading.

"Endgame" by Rise Against - Serious Review

Originally written on March 24, 2011

So today I review Rise Against's latest album Endgame. I'll start this by giving my overall opinion on Rise Against. I really like their first 2 albums (The Unraveling and Revolutions Per Minute) but anything after that is a mixed bag for me. It's not to say I find the albums bad, but that they're just uneven. There's always a few songs that I like, but starting with Siren Song of The Counterculture there are always a good number of songs that I either find boring, or outright dislike. As it turns out, Endgame is no different.

Track 1: Architects
Rise Against have made it a habit of giving each album opener a fast-paced, building intro that they can use to start off shows, and Architects are no different. They also have a habit of taking a fast-paced, bombastic song and slowing it down in the last 1/3 in order to give Tim McIlrath time to show off his pipes. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes it can all but ruin a song (I'm looking at you Worth Dying For). Thankfully this is a case of the former. With callbacks to lyrics from their earlier songs, they also have a shout out to Against Me! and their song I Was A Teenage Anarchist. This is definitely a good way to start the album, filled with energy and hype and promising a powerful performance from McIlrath.

Track 2: Help Is On The Way
The second track unfortunately doesn't follow up well from Architects. It's one of those songs I mentioned before that are just kind of boring. There's some good bits, especially McIlrath's screams about 2 minutes into it, but overall it's just kind of one note, and in all honesty sounds like a song that didn't make the cut on their last album Appeal To Reason. Lyrically it's also pretty behind the times. It's about the slow reaction when it came to aiding the people of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It's thankfully not a generic "Republicans are evil" song that the band has put out in the past, but it just feels a little late to bring it up.

Track 3: Make It Stop (September's Children)
This is my favorite song off of Endgame and with good reason. It has some of the best guitar work on the album, McIlrath is in prime form with a voice full of emotion, and it has probably the most touching sentiments of the whole thing. As the title alludes, this song is about the Teenagers who committed suicide in September of 2010 as a result of homophobic bullying. The part I love about the song is that it isn't about placing blame, it's about getting rid of the system that caused it before it happens again, calling people who have been victimized to not give up, but to stand up for themselves ("It's always darkest just before the dawn, so stay awake with me, let's prove them wrong!") It's something that manages to be inspiring rather than just impotent anger, and I really enjoy it.

Track 4: Disparity By Design
After a song as great as Make It Stop it's a shame that it's followed by what ends up being a very forgettable song. It starts off pretty well, with a tempo similar to the opening of Architects but it feels kind of one note. McIlrath doesn't really deviate his voice until about 2 minutes in, when there's an enjoyable but terribly short bit of screaming that could have really improved the song. After that it's right back to the same as before, and I'm kind of bored, not liking the song enough to enjoy it, but not hating it enough to skip to the next track.

Track 5: Satellite
This track is a definite improvement from Disparity By Design, but it's again song that isn't that memorable. There's parts that I like, especially the first two verses, and the chorus has some good drum and guitar work, but overall it's nothing amazing and nothing that hasn't been done better on earlier albums. The last half of the song is rather dull, with the bridge just repeated a couple of times with some more wailing that quite honestly sounds whiny. It's got enough redeeming qualities to keep me listening, but nothing to really get me singing along.

Track 6: Midnight Hands
This is a pleasant little treat for the mid-point of the album. Right off the bat the guitar sounds hugely different from anything Rise Against has done on their last few albums. The song takes a big influence from hard rock and heavy metal songs, with more layered guitar riffs and a type of vocal delivery that McIlrath hasn't used since Revolutions Per Minute and it's definitely a good recovery after the disappointing previous songs. After Make It Stop it's definitely my favorite song off of Endgame.

Track 7: Survivor Guilt
This is another good track, partly because it uses another technique that Rise Against hasn't used in quite a while; soundbites. I'm not entirely sure where the soundbites are from, but they fit the song very well, giving one of my new favorite quotes ("You're a shamelessl opportunist! What you don't understand is that it's better to Die on your feet than live on your knees." "You've got it backwards. It's better to live on your feet than to die on your knees.") and the vocal delivery is very reminiscent on their older style, especially on the bridge. It's definitely more polished than the older albums, but at it's heart it's still got the same power as before.

Track 8: Broken Mirrors
This is another bit of a style shift, with the guitars sounding similar to, of all things, ZZ Top. It's got a bit of that southern rock vibe during most of the first half, and it keeps the same kind of groove throughout all of it. The chorus can be a bit boring, saved only by McIlrath channeling a lot of emotion into his voice during an otherwise unenthusiastic part of the melody. The ending is again a bit dull, but overall it's still an enjoyable heartfelt song that I never feel like skipping over.

Track 9: Wait For Me
This track, on the other hand, is pretty dull and lifeless. It starts off slow and kind of phoned in, and never really picks up after that despite guitarist Zach Blair's best attempts at adding some spice to the whole affair. Probably the only song I'll freely skip each time, due to it's rather lifeless melody. Nothing ever really changes or advances. It's pretty much just the same tempo and melody from beginning to end, so much that if I'm not paying attention I won't even realize that the song's over until the next comes on. Speaking of which...

Track 10: A Gentleman's Coup
This track more than makes up for it's uninteresting predecessor. From the start out it's loud, bombastic, and catchy. I've found my self several times throughout the day without even realizing it. The message of the song is about the viscous cycle of a revolution repeating the same  mistakes of the regime it replaced ("We seize the throne, subjugate, we should have burned it to the ground.") and you can feel the passion the whole band has for what they're saying.

Track 11: This Is Letting Go
This is a song that took several listens to grow on me, but I eventually found myself really enjoying it. On my first listen to it, I was reminded far too much of the dull, phoned-in sounding songs off of Appeal To Reason that I always skip. Thankfully though, a few more listens got me to admit my initial reaction was unfair, and I started to get more into the whole thing. It's got a lot of the elements from songs like The Dirt Whispered and Kotov Syndrome, both of which are songs that I really liked, and the melody is really catchy. It's still not an amazing song, but a lot better than I originally gave it credit for.

Track 12: Endgame
Unfortunately, the album doesn't end on a very high note. The title track is another one of those songs that, while not bad, is just so "meh" that it really doesn't get a big reaction about me. At least some of the other dull tracks had some spots that I enjoyed. But this one just kinds of strikes me as background music. It's not offensive, but nor is it particularly impressive enough to leave much of an impression.

Overall, Endgame is a rather inconsistent album. There are some really good songs, even a couple that have made it into my all time favorites, but there's also a decent amount of tracks that just come off more as album filler than anything else. Still, if you've enjoyed Rise Against's last few releases, you'll definitely enjoy this one.

"Stand Up And Fight" by Turisas - Serious Review

 Originally written Monday, February 28, 2011

Stand Up and Fight is the 3rd full-length album from Finnish Folk-metal stars Turisas. The band entered the studio in March of last year, and effectively lived there for several months, hammering out and polishing their most ambitious release to-date. The band stated before started production that their plan was to make this the album where they started headlining tours, as opposed to the supporting roles they'd played up until then, and It shows. The album is extremely ambitious, incorporating real horn and orchestral recordings as opposed to the samples used in their previous album The Varangian Way.

Track 1: The March of  the Varangian Guard
Those horns I mentioned earlier? They're what starts this album out, and they immediately know what you're up for. This is an album that's going for a BIG feel. Turisas want you to feel like you're experiencing an epic tale of power and fantasy, and they definitely achieve it. This song tells you exactly what you're into; liberal use of violins, trumpets, and a choir backing the riffs that Jussi Wickström belts out on nearly every track. Those looking for a more conventional sounding metal album may be turned off, but for fans of Turisas' other work, this song won't disappoint.

Track 2: Take The Day!
This is, pure and simple, a stadium rock song. It's still got the metal overtones, especially with Tude Lehtonen's drumming, but at it's core I'm sure it's here to give the band something to get every butt at their shows out of the seats. There's a powerful, and more importantly LOUD bridge that absolutely blazes with energy. There's several bits in the beginning that act as build-ups to it, and it gets you pumped for the rest of the album.

Track 3: Hunting Pirates
While some Turisas fans would probably have my head for it, this song is reminiscent of the sound of the band Alestorm. Not to say that they're aping off of somebody else' s style, but it seems more an homage to the Pirate-themed metal band's jaunty aesthetic. Netta Skog shows her skill on the accordion during this song, with much of the aesthetic of the song coming from her.

Track 4: Veretoi! -  Prasinoi!
This track is pure, unleaded fun. Many times folk-metal bands make a more "dancy" tune, it ends up breaking the mood of the album, either by sounding too odd compared to the rest of the album, or the song being too one-note. Neither happen here, with the whole song keeping the feeling of the album despite it being (for the most part) much more upbeat. It's certain to become a favorite at their shows.

Track 5: Stand Up And Fight
This was the first and only single released for the album prior to release, and oddly enough it's probably the most forgettable track on the disk. It's still and enjoyable song, but comes off feeling too long, as if the band had the song done, but decided to slow it down to pad out the album. Not to say it's "bad" per se, but compared to the songs around it, it just isn't anything special.

Track 6: The Great Escape
This song starts straight out building up to a powerful, frenetic, and dark sound. This is the first track to feature Mathias Nygård growling a lot, and he pulls it off well. As a whole it's a big step up from the title track, with a much more layered sound, as well as reintroducing the Stadium Rock feel from Take The Day! I again feel it could have been shortened some, as there's a section towards the end that very much feels like it's padding out the length. Still, a strong track with a lot of energy.

Track 7: Fear The Fear
Hands down my favorite song on the album. It's long, epic, powerful, and feels like a microcosm of the entire album. It's got Mathias giving what is possibly his best vocal performance to date. The songs starts out loud, but then falls to a slowly building guitar strum that's almost reminiscent of Refused's song New Noise. The tune is majestic, bombastic, inspiring, and just about every other positive adjective I can think of. The song changes tempo and rythm numerous times, but it never feels uneven or sporadic, feeling very much like a journey in itself.

Track 8: End of an Empire
On each of their albums, it kind of become a tradition to put a long, epic, and choir-heavy track near the end of the album, and Stand Up And Fight doesn't break the streak. While Fear The Fear was long, it had a fast pace that kept it from feeling like it was 6 minutes. The opposite is true of End of an Empire, but that's not a bad thing. It's slow, but never feels boring, and overall feels much more somber. The first minute and a half are a soft, piano heavy ballad, with the guitars not kicking in proper until the 100 second mark. Everything about this song feels grand.

Track 9: The Bosphorus Freezes Over
Often bands will end an album with a loud, long, and energetic song to close everything out. Turisas decided to go a different path. The beginning of The Bosphorus Freezes Over is soft, and feels like something one might hear in a ballet. The drums slowly kick in, and Mathias performs the whole thing in somber spoken-word. The entire song feels like the aftermath of a great battle, sad but with a kind of catharsis about the whole affair.

Overall, Stand Up And Fight is an ambitious undertaking that's full of energy, power, intelligence, and most importanly emotion. Some long-time fans may be turned off by the more polished feel, but anyone interested in an album with a big sound should most certainly check it out.