Ghost - Meliora

Returning to the 70s hard rock that informed so much of their early sound, the Swedish devil-worshipers deliver a tightly written collection of supremely catchy Occult-themed arena rock 

Ghost have been walking the tightrope between "gimmick poser" and "trve retro" status for some time now since their previous record left a mixed impression. Whatever you thought of Infesstisumam, the anonymous members of this bizarre Satanic rock group present their latest offering: Meliora, which hilariously translates to "better".

Right from the insanely cheesy keyboard of opener "Spirit" you get a good idea of what Ghost seems to be aiming for here, and hook-laden follow-ups "From the Pendulum to the Pit" and "Cirice" only confirm their intention to return to the taut dark-pop of 2010's Opus Eponymous", and it speaks to their ability to produce this kind of stuff with such consistency that Meliora doesn't feel like as much of a retread as it truly is. "He is" sounds frighteningly similar to Fleetwood Mac during the chorus and the heaviest material seems to be cribbed from Deep Purple and Blue Oyster Cult at times, but they still manage to rock good and hard, with late-track sleeper "Absolution" stealing the show (check out that Journey-style outro and keyboard break!).

Meliora isn't shy about it's pop leanings (it's longer than Opus by nearly seven minutes but feels much shorter somehow and the instrumental interludes have been cut down almost entirely), and while there may be a bit of long-term replay-ability that it sacrifices to achieve this level of consistency and ear candy that doesn't diminish the level of Ghost's accomplishment here: an occult-themed rock record drawing heavily from the ancient aquifers of hard rock and metal pioneers that practically gleams with songwriting and production polish.

OSI - Fire Make Thunder

The progressive super-duo's 2012 release sees the two principal members' talents woven together more effectively than since their debut, marrying thick, groovy riffs with excellent atmospherics and lyrics

Quietly plugging away on the fringes of the progressive scene, OSI have operated like a modern-day Alan Parsons Project with a revolving cast of guest musicians adding their weight to the vision of the main drivers of the project -- Kevin Moore and Jim Matheos. Characterized by a bizarre back and forth between the more subdued electronic inclinations of Moore against Matheos' fat riffs and industrial/grunge tones, the quality level of OSI albums resembles that of smoothies: the best of them smoothly blend these disparate styles together so that removing just one of the two can't be done. Likewise, the lesser records tend to be chunkier and less free-flowing -- you can distinctly identify which songs are Moore's and which are Matheos'. Releasing in 2012, Fire Make Thunder is not particularly new - but it may very well be OSI's last album. More importantly, it's the perfect smoothie blend of the two figureheads' respective styles and the best thing they've done since their debut release.

The disc starts off strong with one of the group's better straight forward metal tunes in "Cold Call", delivering a forcefully repetitive riff that feels groovy as well as robotic, and is a perfectly solid opener that continues into the follow-up track "Guards", which displays a bit more of the group's progressive bent. Fire Make Thunder doesn't really start to click until mid-album instrumental "Enemy Prayer" shows up, however, as the boys lay down a fierce instrumental that rivals trademark "how to write a good instrumental" example "Sirius" for brevity and hooky songwriting (hint: the out-of-nowhere guitar crescendo at 4:00 and Gavin's in general on this album are both amazing)  before bringing things back to a somber mood with the evocative "Wind Won't Howl". The rest of the album, "Big Chief II" and "For Nothing", are excellent -- the former seems almost too catchy to be a Kevin Moore song, whereas the latter reaffirms the somber mood found throughout the disc. It's with the darkly winding river of closer "Invisible Men" that Fire Make Thunder reaches it's zenith incorporating an almost David Lynch-esque atmosphere with some not so subtle Pink Floyd references that close the book on the most cohesive and well-written collection of songs the band has ever put out. Despite it's gloomy aura, what's really sad about Fire Make Thunder is the possibility that OSI never delivers a follow-up.

Trials - This Ruined World

Top-notch riffing and an impeccable sense of timing, Trials comes out of nowhere with this excellent sleeper hit.

While re-thrash is no longer the de facto face of metal, a devoted group of bands is still trying to solve this musical Rubik's Cube left seemingly broken and unusable by the founding fathers of the genre, and Trials' This Ruined World lines up at all the right angles.

Adopting a similar approach to Skeletonwitch's blending of styles, This Ruined World is a razor-sharp splice of high-speed riffs a la Havoc tucked in among some of the best riffs this side of Lightning to the Nations with a very impressive grasp of optimal song length -- like the 'Witch and Revocation, Trials knows how exactly how long they need. One of the best re-thrash releases ever and certainly one of the highlights of this year.

Chroma Key

Kevin Moore's unexpected departure from Dream Theater in 1994 apparently gave him the freedom he needed to begin recording his own music as the head honcho of a new outfit, called Chroma Key, most of which is pretty interesting. Their first record was released in 1998 and, as you may have guessed, is called Dead Air for Radios. Beginning the Kevin Moore tradition of mixing genres less-than-seamlessly, it's basically a couple of laid-back electro-pop songs (think Peter Gabriel but more "chill" and less David Byrne-y) nestled among some pretty cool pieces built around interviews Moore recorded himself while living in Santa Fe and some strange random found-sounds.

It starts slow, but if you're willing to follow along here Dead Air turns out to be a pretty solid little album. If you're annoyed by the lack of commitment to either full-on synth pop or whacked out samples with drum loops over them, Kevin Moore isn't for you, especially once you hear me tell you (or is it see me write to you? Both I think) that his next album is more of the same.

Released in the far off year of 2000, You Go Now is basically Dead Air for Radios songs that fermented in Moore's head for a bit longer -- as a result this is a very iterative album. The pop songs are sharper and the spaced-out ones are more trippy, bro. If you've got a seat on the Kevin train then you'll eat this shit up, otherwise look elsewhere.

Chroma Key's most "recent" release and definitely the most high-concept one (also maybe coincidentally the last?), Graveyard Mountain Home is the soundtrack to a 1955 film slowed down to 1/2 speed. You're supposed to be able to enjoy the music without the movie, but that seems about as fun and logical as drinking non-alcoholic beer.  This one is only for those in first class on the Kevin train.

Brian Eno / David Byrne - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

Masterfully assembled, the trailblazing duo's first work in 20 years combines Byrne's Gospel-shaded lyrics with Eno's digital beats to create an album as simultaneously inviting and foreboding as the famous house on its packaging

Few figures loom as large in the annals of pop music as Brian Eno and David Byrne. One is a mysterious trend-setter who has greatly expanded the domains of the "pop album", while the other is a gangly Scotsman who balanced experimental sounds with enduring staples of rock music. What happens when they collaborate after years apart?

Some damn good material, that's what. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is an album that other bands are jealous of -- just as the artwork depicts a well-crafted facade, the songs here seem so slickly put together that you can't imagine them playing out any differently. If pop music works best when it distracts you from the amount of work put into creating it, then Everything That Happens... is like one of the great pyramids: no one really knows for sure how it was put together, other than the fact that it must have taken a lot of work.

The overall atmosphere will be familiar to anyone who's familiar with David Byrne's oeuvre, but this time his springy voice is dampened by a musical palette that is at once light and hopeful, yet also reflective and slightly ominous at times. According to Eno, this album was intended to resemble Gospel music and that intention can be pretty clearly heard in the strangely pseudo-spiritual lyrics of tracks like "My Big Nurse", along with the ascending chorus of the title track and the swingy, almost-funk horns in "Life is Long". The album lazily sways between these more traditional numbers and their familiar comforts and more challenging and adventurous tracks like the word-salad of "I Feel My Stuff", the primitive groove of "Wanted for Life", all the way back to 1981 with the most Eno-ish song to be found here -- "Poor Boy".

These tracks are impressively consistent and thankfully lacking in filler -- even shorter semi-interlude "The River" manages to impress with it's interesting lyrics while "Strange Overtones" is one of the best pop songs you'll ever hear. While these two weirdos keep the compositions remarkably fresh throughout, the biggest problems most will have with Everything That Happens... is the more conservative (i.e., pop) bent that the material displays, or David's voice. All things considered, though, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is a catchy, smart, and reassuringly off-beat album that easily stands with the rest of this duo's impressive work.

King's X - King's X

Perhaps King's X most undersung masterpiece, this self-titled LP from the Texas trio presents a set of well written and meticulously crafted material that sees the band baring its' darker side for the first time

When a band transitions between styles, the gap between has always fascinated me: the difference between Haken's Aquarius and The Mountain, Opeth's metamorphosis from Still Life/Blackwater Park into Heritage/Pale Communion. What made them decide to move from one style to the next? Boredom? Ambition? Notions of artistic integrity or "being true to themselves"? Regardless of the motivations, a band emerging from the warm cocoon of a familiar style into some kind of uncharted territory can be just what's needed to progress their output to the next level.

King's X is one of the more interesting examples of this type of change (and one of the more interesting alternative rock bands in general), starting with a chunky blend of prog-laced rhythms and evocative harmonies before taking a leap of faith into the grunge movement that overtook popular music in the 90's with legendary success, delivering a stunning magnum opus in their 1994 album Dogman. Before Dogman, however, came the band's only self-titled record, which is coincidentally one of the less talked-about King's X records and the album that is responsible for bridging the gap between the cheerful, peppy releases that gained them notoriety in their early years and the alternative, darker, and more groove-minded discs that characterized their later years.

The self-titled album is perhaps rock music's best paradox: a record intended to distill a band's entire sound into one 45 minute package, hopefully equally appetizing to longtime devotees and new fans. While these goals are realistically one and the same for self-titled debut albums, bands that choose to wait before offering up an eponymous release face a bigger challenge: how do you capture a band's trademark "sound" after several albums (and oftentimes several years) of recording, touring, and general life that happens? It certainly seems like a tough task, and it seems like the only thing you can do is present your sound as you think it is at that point in time.

As a "pure" snapshot of a band's "trademark sound", King's X is probably not a great example -- it features relatively little of the unconventional compositions that marked their earlier albums, while also featuring less than some may have expected of the band's heavy side. Instead, the album is a time capsule of a group figuring out where to go next after three albums of the music they liked to play. Older followers would (and hopefully still are) be have their prog thirst sated by numbers like "Lost in Germany" and introspective closer "Silent Wind", while tracks like "The Big Picture", "Dream in My Life" and "Chariot Song" should've secured at least a modest amount of radio play and/or newer listeners. And then you have groove-drenched cuts like "Black Flag", "What I Know About Love", and "Ooh Song", which give clear indications of the trio's increasing knack for conjuring up the best riffs in rock since Diamond Head. In fact, right from the uncharacteristically aggressive opening of "World Around Me" King's X show off their new leaning right off the bat, only letting things slow down with more traditional tunes like "Not Just For the Dead" and the intriguing "Prisoner".

Throughout the album the band is dropping hints as to their new direction, from the the chunky breakdown in "World Around Me", the dirty bass line in "What I Know About Love", to the driving force of "Ooh Song".Yet without the abandoning the thing that made them unique in the first place or adapting unnecessary pop sensibilities, they managed to deliver a remarkable synthesis of the two disparate halves of their career and music in King's X. Few other acts have managed or will manage to pull off a self-titled album with this much sophistication and accessibility while simultaneously exploring a new aspect of their sound.

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.