Album and Concert Review Thread
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Skairipa Matrix
3 Time Elite Openweight Champion
i just got 2 new CD's today and they were Haley Reinhart's debut album Listin Up! and James Durbin's debut album Memories Of A Beautiful Diaster so i thought id give a short review of both.
Listin Up! I liked this CD I have been a big fan of Haley sense i heard her last year on American Idol thought she had a cool sound to her voice that made her different then the typical pop singer and she still has it here the album was more then worth the 8 dollars i spent on it the first 2 songs were my favorites but the whole album was good.
Memories Of A Beautiful Diaster again like Haley i have been a fan of James sense i heard him on American Idol last year i loved his voice and hes god a great rock voice the first song is killer Higher Then Heaven but again the whole CD is good theres a good rock balad as one of the last tracks and this was well worth my 10 dollars
Listin Up! I liked this CD I have been a big fan of Haley sense i heard her last year on American Idol thought she had a cool sound to her voice that made her different then the typical pop singer and she still has it here the album was more then worth the 8 dollars i spent on it the first 2 songs were my favorites but the whole album was good.
Memories Of A Beautiful Diaster again like Haley i have been a fan of James sense i heard him on American Idol last year i loved his voice and hes god a great rock voice the first song is killer Higher Then Heaven but again the whole CD is good theres a good rock balad as one of the last tracks and this was well worth my 10 dollars
jsmizzyy reviews channel ORANGE by Frank Ocean
channel ORANGE by Frank Ocean
channel ORANGE by Frank Ocean
You may or may not have heard Frank Ocean's name by now. Ocean's phenomenal vocals opened one of 2011's best albums, Watch the Throne, with his performance on "No Church in the Wild." This was my first exposure to Frank Ocean. I didn't see his name again until I delved deeply into my fandom of the movement, OFWGKTA, in which Frank is a member of. I then downloaded whatever material he had available, and finally, as of Tuesday, Frank put out his first studio album, channel ORANGE, in which I wasted little time obtaining.
This won't be track for track, but a simple overview of Frank's first studio album, in which I attempt to persuade you to listen as well.
channel ORANGE opens with an intro appropriatley named "Start." This was similar to the way he opened up an earlier EP entitled Nostalgia/Ultra, only this time the intro did not transition into a cover of Coldplay's "Strawberry Swing," but rather a Frank Ocean original entitled "Thinking About You."
[youtube]TWXC6Tz49OE[/youtube]
This song is an absolutely incredible vocal performance. And this is coming from a guy who can't stand falsetto vocals or R&B, but Frank's performance was too good for me to ignore on this track, as well as the simple, clear lyrics he produces with this voice I am raving about.
The album then slows down for about 5 minutes until the track "Super Rich Kids" comes on. This song is highlighted by the short verse from Earl Sweatshirt, who I've noted in this forum as one of the better rappers coming up currently, as he's 18 and drawing comparisons to all time greats. Pretty good song but doesn't carry the album.
Next song is "Pilot Jones" with an odd intro, sounds a bit like Johnny Depp, transitioning into another great, mellow song highlighted by Frank's vocals. You'll find yourself snapping along with this song.
Next song you have "Crack Rock" which is a very good song on this album. The instrumental to this track is more upbeat than anything to this point, which is a bit of fresh air, but the song itself is very catchy, even when the subject is literally about someone trying to get a fix of crack. Regardless of the subject, I buy into the lyrics because it was written well and tells a strong story.
[youtube]FKMbPqDIIbU[/youtube]
"Pyramids" comes next and is ten minutes long. One of the more hyped songs of the album. I enjoyed it at times, other times I really just wanted to see the track number finally advance to the succeeding number.
Following that marathon is "Lost" which in my opinion is among the strongest three songs. This is the song the would appeal to nearly every music fan as it flashes his great voice, lyrics, including a contagious chorus, and absolutely great beat backing it highlighted by an awesome piano riff.
[youtube]VsCjM7Y5JNY[/youtube]
I'll skip to the last song now, entitled "Forrest Gump" which is among "Lost" and "Thinking About You" as the strongest songs on the album. This song is laid out over a sexy guitar lick and the chorus sounds like he's singing along with arena of 20k plus.
[youtube]s7HyAJAQuXc[/youtube]
Noteables: He also features John Mayer on the "White" and Andre 3000 on the song "Pink Matter."
Rating: 7.5/10
1. The Future Is Now
2. Secrets from the Underground
3. Days Go By
4. Turning Into You
5. Hurting As One
6. Cruisin' California (Bumpin' in My Trunk)
7. All I Have Left Is You
8. OC Guns
9. Dirty Magic
10. I Wanna Secret Family (With You)
11. Dividing By Zero
12. Slim Pickens Does The Right Thing and Rides the Bomb to Hell
I bought the album almost two weeks ago. I had found out the album was finally out and obviously had to buy it as I am a huge Offspring fan. I've listened to the album all the way through about 20 times at work, and probably another two or three at home.
It's a damn solid album. Personal opinion it is an 8/10. More logically it's probably 6/10 overall. But it has some kickass songs and is fun. It's a pretty short album so if you want to listen to the whole thing it will only take 43 minutes of your life away. Days Go By (the single) is a solid song about the changes going on through life, and even at 22 years old I can see it from my own perspective and it opens my eyes a bit. Cruisin' California is just a fun song to listen to. At first I wasn't big on it, but it has grown on me a lot and it's a good comedy song.
As far as other songs that I personally love the most, I've got two. Slim Pickens was the first one that really caught my ear and I loved listening to it. I'd keep repeating it, and then adding Dividing by Zero since that's a good one too and leads into Slim Pickens. Hurting As One is the other. Just the beat of the song, the "whooas", and whole rhythm of the song just makes it catch and a foot tapper with the drums.
It's worth a listen. You'll either like it or find it meh. It's not a bad album, but it can leave something to be desired for some.
Uncle Phatso
Mid-Card Championship Winner
Chelsea Grin
Evolve (ep) 2012
Good news! Phatso now reviews music with his new 70 dollar skull candies! They have a bass amp sub woofer built in. So it makes for some really heavy shit in your ear holes. But the sound isn't over bearing. You don't take them off, and can't hear anything. Good mix of high quality, and bass.
I am not your typical reviewer, I have shit grammar, and I am just a fan. I play a bit of guitar, and I played drums for almost ten years. I am just a fan, I played this EP about 5 times before reviewing it. But while I review, I play the song and pick out things I like, and pick on the things I don't like. Have fun reading if you do. If you don't it's cool
1.The Second Coming
This song starts off with a really dark and creepy opening. Cool electronic beeps and boops are layered in the opening. Good stuff so far, JESUS CHRIST, Alex Koehler sounds like the devil! What is this guitar playing?! I read they picked up the dude from Born of Osiris. I thought their guitar work was above par before, >.> three guitars will do that for you though. Really it hasn't improved much over the last full album. Just a lot more layers.
Alex isn't the best guttural singer I've ever listened to. But his highs synched with his lows are rather good. Basically this song to me is CG in a dick measuring contest. Cool bro's, you have three guitarists. The drummer seems a bit weak on this. So the guitars are masking that. Good job, you sly foxes you!
2. Lilith
I reviewed this Ep because of this song. I found it just browsing one day, and was like daymmmmnn. The song really hooked me in with the first few seconds of the opening. It's not creepy, it just seems welcoming. Like hey, bro come listen to this... BAMMMM guitar riff to the face! Guitar is lighter at the beginning, and their drummer is starting to shine here. Good stuff, his slow blast beats really fit the song. What is this? A bass guitar I can hear? You sir, make this song really heavy.
Don't really like his first clean vocals at ALL."Come and watch my lips turn blue,I wrote this song just for you". Really seem to whiny, but first impressions were wrong. This dude has a good voice, well on this song he does. It fits to, it's like, ok Alex, We know you can growl, and all that jazz. But do more of this, just a little bit.
This kind of seems like a demonic love song. Good stuff, outside of his clean vocals they really cleaned up the growls and such. A few of their songs were really bad. I know this is Deathcore, and you wanna be brutal. But the only two men who get to do that, Are Corpsegrinder, and Glen B.
Good stuff, I liked that the focus on the almost overbearing guitars was put away in this song. The first song in my eyes was Meh because of that.
3. S.H.O.T.
Couldn't find a lyrics video for this. So I had to google the lyrics. This kind of seems like punk lyrics to me. To hell with you, I don't care what you think of me.
I like the small opening riff, and the vocals really hit hard with it. I saw the lyrics, and I was right. Sort of pushing down the walls here. Might have to put this on my Droid for when I lift weights. Good pumping iron song. I dig it.
This whole album is sort of start to finish different so far. The first guitars were really metal, the second song had clean vocals, and this song seems to have sort of a melodic death metal influence. Maybe it's because I had Wintersun playing earlier, but the guitars really seem to take influence from Melodic bands.
4.Confession
Not a whole lot here, I like the mix of semi clean screaming, with growls. The drummer really toned it down a bit here. The usual double bass, with sort of telephone in breakdown drumming at the end. Not a fan of that heavy end breakdown.
5. Don't Ask, Don't Tell
High pitched, high energy opening. I think this takes sort of influence from scremo to me. I know they were on tour with Asking Alexandria, and people dissed them a lot for that.
But I like this song, the high vocals, and light parts are really crisp. Kind of refreshing coming from a really deep band like CG. There’s a guitar part, about 17:30, that I really liked. That turn over wail, is the small stuff that I love. You can hear a song a hundred times and never notice little things like that. That's what I love about layered tracks in metal. With three different people playing guitar, you can literally find dozens of things in a song.
I like that they keep it light, and then run a few heavy growling parts. Nothing that lasts, but they keep it fresh. The ending drumming was really cool for me. The really lose snare wires, it just added a cool element like the guitars did earlier.
This song to me sealed the whole ep. This song was packed with everything. Really showing the whole range, good growls, good clean vocals, great guitars and drumming, with perfect backing track sound. Alot of older fans will give this song shit. But I like seeing bands evolve. And Chelsea Grin has evolved from a just typical Deathcore band.
I give this ep, 4/5
Evolve (ep) 2012
Good news! Phatso now reviews music with his new 70 dollar skull candies! They have a bass amp sub woofer built in. So it makes for some really heavy shit in your ear holes. But the sound isn't over bearing. You don't take them off, and can't hear anything. Good mix of high quality, and bass.
I am not your typical reviewer, I have shit grammar, and I am just a fan. I play a bit of guitar, and I played drums for almost ten years. I am just a fan, I played this EP about 5 times before reviewing it. But while I review, I play the song and pick out things I like, and pick on the things I don't like. Have fun reading if you do. If you don't it's cool
1.The Second Coming
This song starts off with a really dark and creepy opening. Cool electronic beeps and boops are layered in the opening. Good stuff so far, JESUS CHRIST, Alex Koehler sounds like the devil! What is this guitar playing?! I read they picked up the dude from Born of Osiris. I thought their guitar work was above par before, >.> three guitars will do that for you though. Really it hasn't improved much over the last full album. Just a lot more layers.
Alex isn't the best guttural singer I've ever listened to. But his highs synched with his lows are rather good. Basically this song to me is CG in a dick measuring contest. Cool bro's, you have three guitarists. The drummer seems a bit weak on this. So the guitars are masking that. Good job, you sly foxes you!
2. Lilith
I reviewed this Ep because of this song. I found it just browsing one day, and was like daymmmmnn. The song really hooked me in with the first few seconds of the opening. It's not creepy, it just seems welcoming. Like hey, bro come listen to this... BAMMMM guitar riff to the face! Guitar is lighter at the beginning, and their drummer is starting to shine here. Good stuff, his slow blast beats really fit the song. What is this? A bass guitar I can hear? You sir, make this song really heavy.
Don't really like his first clean vocals at ALL."Come and watch my lips turn blue,I wrote this song just for you". Really seem to whiny, but first impressions were wrong. This dude has a good voice, well on this song he does. It fits to, it's like, ok Alex, We know you can growl, and all that jazz. But do more of this, just a little bit.
This kind of seems like a demonic love song. Good stuff, outside of his clean vocals they really cleaned up the growls and such. A few of their songs were really bad. I know this is Deathcore, and you wanna be brutal. But the only two men who get to do that, Are Corpsegrinder, and Glen B.
Good stuff, I liked that the focus on the almost overbearing guitars was put away in this song. The first song in my eyes was Meh because of that.
3. S.H.O.T.
Couldn't find a lyrics video for this. So I had to google the lyrics. This kind of seems like punk lyrics to me. To hell with you, I don't care what you think of me.
I like the small opening riff, and the vocals really hit hard with it. I saw the lyrics, and I was right. Sort of pushing down the walls here. Might have to put this on my Droid for when I lift weights. Good pumping iron song. I dig it.
This whole album is sort of start to finish different so far. The first guitars were really metal, the second song had clean vocals, and this song seems to have sort of a melodic death metal influence. Maybe it's because I had Wintersun playing earlier, but the guitars really seem to take influence from Melodic bands.
4.Confession
Not a whole lot here, I like the mix of semi clean screaming, with growls. The drummer really toned it down a bit here. The usual double bass, with sort of telephone in breakdown drumming at the end. Not a fan of that heavy end breakdown.
5. Don't Ask, Don't Tell
High pitched, high energy opening. I think this takes sort of influence from scremo to me. I know they were on tour with Asking Alexandria, and people dissed them a lot for that.
But I like this song, the high vocals, and light parts are really crisp. Kind of refreshing coming from a really deep band like CG. There’s a guitar part, about 17:30, that I really liked. That turn over wail, is the small stuff that I love. You can hear a song a hundred times and never notice little things like that. That's what I love about layered tracks in metal. With three different people playing guitar, you can literally find dozens of things in a song.
I like that they keep it light, and then run a few heavy growling parts. Nothing that lasts, but they keep it fresh. The ending drumming was really cool for me. The really lose snare wires, it just added a cool element like the guitars did earlier.
This song to me sealed the whole ep. This song was packed with everything. Really showing the whole range, good growls, good clean vocals, great guitars and drumming, with perfect backing track sound. Alot of older fans will give this song shit. But I like seeing bands evolve. And Chelsea Grin has evolved from a just typical Deathcore band.
I give this ep, 4/5
tomthebodz
Pre-Show Stalwart
Good review, I hated the first EP (self titled I think), Love The Desolation of Eden, though My Damnation was nothing special.