Curation vs Criticism in the Streaming Era

Back when the only way to find out if you liked an album was to either buy it, listen to in the store (if they even let you) or hear a song on the radio, traditional music criticism served a purpose. It still had problems, and even if it was just some random newspaper's ignorant opinion it still had some weight to it, acting as a flimsy meatshield between the ocean of garbage music and your hard-won money.

Nowadays, though, none of us have to suffer those critics any longer. Regardless of the "score" the record gets you can just listen and decide for yourself, obviously making traditional reviews seem kind of superfluous. Unfortunately, the increased ease of both accessing and creating music has resulted in an increase of the amount of shitty music that exists -- and the shitty music is just as easy to find as the good stuff.

It'll be interesting to see if criticism shifts to more of a "curation" model, kind of a "if you like X, you'll love Y!" type of thing, or if the division of communities stay similar to how they are now as a bunch of walled gardens and the old "objective" standards of critical writing are continuously propagated.  

Tempel - The Moon Lit Our Path

Imposing yet accessible, the Arizonian instrumental "post-doom" duo serve up an incredibly solid iteration on their brilliant debut album without straying from their particular style

When I first came across the Arizona-based duo Tempel, I remember thinking "This is where the growls start....right......now! hum?!" many times over the course of On the Steps of the Temple, their crushing debut disc -- I couldn't believe that their ridiculously groovy blend of monolithic riffs and acoustic palette-cleansers could exist without some sort of vocals taking advantage of it. After a couple more listens, however, it became clear that Tempel with vocals would just distract from the sheer quality of the writing on display.

Now just a year and a half later we have their sophomore effort: The Moon Lit Our Path. Tempel stick to their guns on this one, delivering a hefty hour-long package, full of dark atmospherics a la Opeth accompanied by their particular mixture of doom-style riffs and death-esque blastbeats. Much like On the Steps of the Temple the songs stretch out into the 10 minute mark -- it's impressively cohesive and it actually feels natural to listen to the whole thing in one go -- despite the lengthy run-times the music scrolls past you almost like a mural or mosaic, chapter by chapter. The instrumentation is spare, with a tasteful bit of keyboard work rounding things off on the excellent closer "Dawn Breaks Over the Ruins". The rest of the album is similarly well-written, especially powerful opener "Carvings in the Door" and the title track.

The Moon Lit Out Path is a strong album, and Tempel have shown that their stellar first attempt wasn't just beginner's luck. With their chops properly demonstrated, I'm looking forward to the next evolution of their sound.

Supershine - Supershine

With riffs as titanic and immovable as any black hole, this one-off album joins the soulful vocals, massive bass tone and psychedelic-tinged power chords of two of hard rock's most legendary outfits for an occasionally repetitive, yet thoroughly enjoyable disc

Besides being one of the more interesting ways a bunch of established musicians can attract attention to a pet project, supergroups can also somehow distill the combined personalities of their members, from the off-beat, funky hard rock of Them Crooked Vultures to the Beatles-tinged progressive fusion of Platypus, all the way off the cliff to the avant-garde craziness that is Fantomas. Frequently these groups create music that harks back to their respective main bands in some way, but rarely does the combination of talents align with such complementary interests to create an album like Supershine.

This (tragically) one-off disc is the result of the efforts of King's X frontman Doug Pinnick and Trouble members Bruce Franklin and Jeff Olson -- basically a who's who of underground rock titans. With King's X guitarist Ty Tabor behind the boards, the album sounds just like the cover -- dark and enveloping, with Pinnick's voice guiding us through it all like glints of light through deep space.

Song-wise, Supershine is a marriage of the power-chord plodding of Trouble with the soul-infused prog-grunge of King's X, although it tends much more towards the Trouble side of the coin with a distinct lack of vocal harmonies and and the knotty compositions Pinnick's group is known for. Instead, we have some of the crunchiest and most satisfyingly bottomed-out riffs and grooves that any of the members have produced in their careers. Honestly, there are better grooves in "Take Me Away", "Going Down", "I Can't Help You", and "Automatic" than in any band not involving Scott Weinrich. For a palette cleanse, you've got polite little numbers like "One Night", "Candy Andy Jane", and an excellent cover in "Shinin' On". Pinnick is in fine form, though even his powerful pipes get drowned in the the throbbing wall of guitar and bass at times, which is just what you'd expect from these resident riff-warriors. Clocking in at just under 50 minutes, the boys keep things at a respectable length and don't overstay their welcome, although the few stinkers that sneak in drag things out a bit, in particular "Love" and the unfortunately anti-climactic closer "Shadows/Light", the latter being the only song here that would probably have worked better as a straight-up Trouble song.

Those looking for a sampler platter of the best bands the music world passed by during the late 80s/90s, look no further -- same goes for anyone looking for a semi-rare artifact of one of hard rock's most enjoyable partnerships or even just a damn good rock album.

Leprous - The Congregation

Leprous move toward a blend of their previous disparate styles to mixed results on their fourth full-length

Striking an intriguing balance between their more traditional Dream Theater-influenced  prog brethren and the prickly heaviness of the djent and black metal styles, Leprous have been one of the more interesting and dynamic progressive metal bands around since they dropped their debut, Tall Poppy Syndrome, out of nowhere in 2009. Since then they've steadily shifted gears from a heavy-prog-tinged-with-avante-garde wackiness to an increasingly dark, groovy palette with a heavy use of repetition (Coal). Their eagerly anticipated fourth album, The Congregation is finally here, and, kind of like that album artwork its confusing to experience, seemingly made out of recycled bits, and doesn't seem to mesh with the music very well.

Luckily, things get off to a good start: opener "The Price" is probably their best lead track ever, with a pulsating groove, excellent chorus, and a tight runtime. "Rewind" is another highlight, and one of the most successful of the more experimental tracks contained here, as is "The Flood", which reminded me of "Valley" of Coal in all the right ways (Also, I can't remember the last time I liked an album's early-release singles this much in a long time). From here on out things get a bit murky, as the middle stretch of tunes - "Red", "Slave", and "Within My Fence" can't keep the fire burning hot enough, although "Slave" is kind of interesting lyrically and "Within My Fence" is only about three minutes long. Like every Leprous album, though, the back end of The Congregation is almost worth the price of admission: "Moon" is a forgettable but pleasant song, kind of a slightly-less-interesting "Passing" or "Painful Detour", but "Down" and "Lower" are both excellent tracks in their own right.

A lot of the buzz around Leprous is discussing where they're going, as Coal drew mixed reactions. The Congregation is definitely not Bilateral Pt. 2, but it isn't Coal: Reloaded either. The best songs here achieve an impressive fusion of the syncopated djent-y riffing going on in Coal paired with the things that Leprous does best: big, hooky choruses, weird compositions, and vocals that sound like a goth version of Freddy Mercury. Sadly, the good ideas here are weighted down with a sizeable number of weak songs put up against a lot of good vocal lines (although nothing crazy like "The Cloak" or "Mb. Indifferentia" which is a bummer), at times The Congregation really starts to sound like an Einar solo album. Considering how tightly-wound their previous albums were, its a bit of a bummer to hear a Leprous album with such a lack of memorable instrumentation.

That said, Leprous are the kings of the earworm so its entirely possible that The Congregation will grow on people (and me) over time. Just try not to leave right after the sermon.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Scummy, dangerous, and terrifically enjoyable, Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the best action films in recent years, featuring nerve-wracking stunts and the return of the franchise's'iconic weaponized vehicles.

One of the greatest joys of movie-watching is seeing one person's particular vision or style shining through the countless layers of editing, re-shooting, re-recording, re-writing, and general compromise that comes with shooting a movie, especially one with any kind of large budget. When hundreds of people you barely know are working on something like this, it takes a special kind of personality and guiding hand to maintain the film's style. With an ample supply of both money and talent, George Miller's post-apocalyptic touchstone roars back to life.

First off: Fury Road isn't a reboot. Its simply a direct continuation of the previous Mad Max movies with a new Max, Tom Hardy. Hardy's handling of the role is much like Kiefer Sutherland's replacing of David Hayter in the new Metal Gear games -- he seems good, but only had roughly five lines of dialogue so it's hard to tell for sure. To be fair, Fury Road has a pretty light amount of dialogue in general, but Hardy certainly has the "gruff mush-mouth" type down pat -- and for most of the movie, Max is just along for the ride as other characters drive the plot -- a plot that is pretty stripped down, with just enough hints and details to flesh things out while still serving as a series of, honestly, pretty compelling reasons to watch insanely tricked out vehicles crash and and explode.

The vehicles, of course, are the heart of soul Mad Max, and the ones created for Fury Road are nothing short of breathtaking. The chase/battle scenes are the centerpiece here, and the more than 150 (!) unique, hand-made cars and trucks created for them are fully-driveable works of art. These sequences are psychotic waltzes of sand-coated brutality with some very impressive stunt work and choreography -- roughly 90% of the action is practical, i.e. real. I would be remiss if I didn't give huge props to Colin Gibson, the production designer who brought Miller's automotive insanity to life.

As far as the story and acting goes, it's solid. There isn't a whole lot of exposition, but what little of it exists is delivered convincingly, and Charlize Theron wrings pretty much everything possible out of her character. On thing about the characters here: they die with surprising frequency and suddenness, and those deaths hit way harder emotionally than I thought they would.

As a full-on action movie, Fury Road is incredibly solid -- an effective plot, solid acting, with an emphasis (honestly, a reliance) on over-the-top chase sequences that are both nauseatingly dangerous to watch and insanely well put together, with top-notch visual design and cinematography. It's definitely worth a test drive.

Soen - Tellurian

Moody prog-metal supergroup's second disc sees them move away from Tool-worship with this set of intricate yet intimate songs. 

Of all the big-name progressive acts that are frequently name-dropped as influences, Tool is one I don't see being mentioned much as one might think. Swedish prog supergroup Soen are clearly big fans of Maynard and the gang, as their debut album Cognitive drew equal amounts of kudos and condemnation for their very Tool-like sound. With their sophomore release Tellurian, do they step out of Tool's shadow? Yes, and what emerges is infinitely more interesting than mere hero-worship.

The most immediately affecting aspect of Tellurian is, unfortunately, how it sounds. The production here takes "bottom heavy" to a whole new level, with an ever-present layer of murky bass that constantly fights with the other instruments to maintain dominance. The drums also sound less than stellar -- the bass drums sound more like far-off machine gun fire than musical instruments during intense passages without other sounds to cloak them. While the guitars and vocals are fine, this production job is the single biggest thing that takes away from my enjoyment of this album.

Questionable mixing aside, if the songs themselves are good, then they should be able to shine through, correct? Yes, and in Tellurian's case, they certainly do. Tracks like "Ennui", "Pluton", and especially "The Words" are incredible pieces of music, and Soen do the "dark/heavy music with emotive lyrics" thing much better than Tool ever did after Aenima, striking just the right balance between proggy noodling (of which there is precious little here, thankfully), Opeth-like heavy passages and catchy, memorable choruses, and unlike most other prog outfits today, Tellurian clocks in at a pretty lean fifty-two minutes -- you won't find any filler here, which helps the songs maintain a more consistent quality. "The Other's Fall" is probably the worst of the lot, but Soen really stepped up their writing game and crafted each song with memorable hooks and choruses to keep you interested.

So yeah, Tellurian is more than just a step in the right direction -- it's a leap forward in evolution for these guys. (Plus, just look at that artwork. With sleeve art like that, it's gotta be good, right?)

Psychotic Waltz

Lumped in with the burgeoning progressive metal movement, Psychotic Waltz were one of the more interesting bands to come out of that scene. Originally formed under a different name, they started releasing music in '86 and made some waves with their debut album, A Social Grace, which was pretty much a straight-up progressive/tech death record a la Atheist (who's Piece of Time came out just a year prior) with some odd Jethro Tull-ish flourishes, like (seriously) flute solos and light keyboard.

If they continued down that path, though, Psychotic Waltz would not have been nearly as interesting. Their next album, Into the Everflow, came out in '92 and generated even more buzz than A Social Grace, as they began their metamorphosis into spaced-out psychedelic metal. Tracks like "Ashes", "Little People", and especially "Freakshow" kept up the "progressive" facade (which they would soon abandon), weird-ass pieces like "Out of Mind", the title track, and especially the album closer "Butterfly" showcase a band going totally off the reservation -- and they never really came back.

1994's Mosquito brought the Waltz's strange brew of trippy lyrics and spiky, intricate song structures to a boiling point. By this point they had more or less completely abandoned the "progressive" scene as it was now defined by bands like Dream Theater and Queensryche on the metal side of the spectrum and neo-prog revivalists like Spock's Beard, the Flower Kings, and Marillion on the softer, more traditional end of the continuum. Instead, they descended even deeper into the hazy depths of stoner and psychedelic music than ever before, turning in their most hooky, accessible record yet (or since). The first half of the album still holds up as one of the strongest opening salvos recorded -- tracks like "Lovestone Blind", "Haze One", "Locked Down", and the title track are insanely groovy, reaching an excellent balance between the whacked-out lyrics and soundscapes of psychedelia with the slammin' riffs of the best stoner music has to offer. Unfortunately, tensions within the band were high around this time, and Psychotic Waltz's last chance at real success passed them by, caused by a combo deal of poor promotion, being signed to a succession of obscure European-only labels, and the apparent bad luck that comes with being a metal band playing anything somewhat original.

They would end up releasing one more album. 1996's Bleeding which, while not quite a chore to listen to, is a far cry from their previous height, leaning more towards the technical style of their early years with decidedly less memorable arrangements than usual. After Bleeding, the Waltz broke up and seemingly went their separate ways, but in 2010 they began touring again and announced plans for a new album. It's been five years without any news, so I'm not holding my breath, but the legacy of Psychotic Waltz is still plenty strong as it is.