Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Album Review: Lamb of God (self-titled)


LAMB OF GOD
self-titled
(Epic)
The 10th studio album in roughly 20 years from metal stalwarts Lamb Of God is heavy on the usual themes yet seems more relevant than ever. The opening track "Memento Mori" (translates to "a reminder of death") seems to point to everyday signs as singer Randy Blythe observes: "The hardest hour, the cruelest sign / I'm waking up from this wretched lie / I fight it the same, don't waste this day / Wake up, wake up, wake up!" It's a blistering opening track whose dreamy musical intro morphs into the gotcha metal moment of the album.
"Checkmate" further comments on society's current situation, dubbed "The American scream": "A coup d' etat on full display, a liar's sick charade, a traitor's grand parade / Narcissistic masquerades for those without a say, systematic disarray." After a bluesy intro, the instrumentation is the classic "new American thrash" that LoG has mined for decades, with searing insight as well: "Divide and conquer and close them in and bury secrets deep / Make America hate again, and bleed the sheep to sleep."
As the album release got delayed due to Covid-19, fans didn't fret about the creative arc (they haven't strayed from their brutal yet more groovy riffs in years) but about the departure of drummer Chris Adler. New drummer Art Cruz ably delivers those rapid-fire beats for the smoothest of transitions. "New Colossal Hate" is one of the groovier tracks with big guitar hooks and an extended imusical breakdown toward the end.
"Gears" indicts the addictive nature of commercialism ("commercial gods keep you in line...while you are dying for always more"), while "Reality Bath" questions "is this the new abnormal?" that we "slip so easily into dull indifference / When horror has been normalized." Blythes growls in resolve that this is "a cynical defense, but I can't sit there silently / And watch it all go by."
Showing range as a vocalist, Blythe uses clean vocals on the soft opening of "Memento Mori" and even more during the more melodic verse parts of  "Bloodshot Eyes."
"Poison Dream" features guest vocalist Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed). Blythe handles the bulk of the lyrics amid some tight guitar riffing with Jasta coming in for half a verse delivered rap-style and backing vocals on a chorus that harmonizes well with Blythe's gruff tone.
"Routes" features another guest vocalist--Testament's Chuck Billy--an uptempo, thrashing send-up of solidarity--musical and otherwise.

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Album review: Kvelertak's "Splid"

Kvelertak's new album "Splid" translates to "Discord"
KVELERTAK
*Splid*
(Rise Records)
Face-melting guitar solos are a universal language. 
Case in point: There is a moment in Kvelertak's song "Bratebrann" when the frontman breaks from singing in his native Norwegian tongue to exclaim in English, "Air guitar, c'mon!
A multi-layered and extended guitar solo follows (air guitaring optional) and is just one of the latest catchy, high-intensity hard rock composition on the band's newest album, "Splid," the band's fourth all-time and the first with its new singer, Ivar Nikolaisen (replacing Erlend Hjelvik).
Yes, most of the album is sung in Norwegian, but the spirit--the energy, melodies and layered guitars--taps into something universal and makes Kvelertak one of Scandanavia's best metal bands.
Two of the 11 songs are sung in English. This doesn't make them any better than the other tracks, just noteworthy: "Crack of Doom" features Mastodon's Troy Sanders on backing vocals, and Nikolaisen sings "Discord" in English as well. The latter track showcases the band's frenetic punk-rock energy well. And although different in tone than Hjelvik, the new singer maintains the same manic Viking ethos. This might turn out to be one of the best metal albums of 2020.
9/10

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Band profile: The JAB

Page 20 of IE's January 2020 print issue
Moving Beyond Recovery
Even though frontman Jam Alker is a national figure for addiction recovery, after gaining attention following the release of his solo album “Sophrosyne” in 2017, don’t label The JAB a “recovery band.” It’s all about the collaborative music he’s making with his new bandmates.
Just a week before heading to Shangri-La Studios in Lexington, Ky., to record their first album, three members of The JAB (formerly the Jam Alker Band) huddled in an air-conditioned northwest side office space on July 1, 2019, reviewing promotional photos and a social media video on an Apple TV flatscreen mounted on the wall. 
The photos showed the five members standing stoically against urban decay that could’ve been shot just around the corner from their nondescript rehearsal space near the Nagel curve on the Kennedy. The video showed Jam Alker talking about the upcoming recording time booked with producer Duane Lundy: “[We are] looking forward to insulating ourselves as a band and creating great art.”
The band liked what they saw in photos and on video.
Later in the adjoining room, a livingroom-like practice space--featuring a poster of Jimi Hendrix toking on a joint--the band members, comprised of Alker (lead vocals, guitar), Tom Stukel (drums), Ryan Herrick (guitar), Terry Byrne (guitar, keys) and Alex Piazza (bass), listened to demo versions of the songs they planned to record early July through early August 2019.
Alker described the demo version of the song “Riot” as “a banger.” One particular lyric broke through the bluesy, upbeat rock: “Hard to see the truth when your mind is in the gutter.”
“Dank Mississippi,” the heaviest song they’ve written, according to Alker, was further described as ”Southern metal” or “blues metal” by Herrick. It was indeed a headbanging and sludgey blues mix with banjo highlights and clearly demonstrated the full band sound to be featured on the upcoming album, titled “Consume,” Alker said. 
Sony has signed the band to a distribution deal (under the boutique label name Medicine Records) with a Feb. 4, 2020, release date planned for the debut album. “Riot” was the first single released in mid-December with an accompanying video on YouTube.
For contrast, Alker then played “Analeeza” after describing it as a ”cool summer jam.” The song came across breezy and funky, with more banjo and mandolin accents.
Other than the music in the room, there was an undeniable sense of being on the threshold of a breakthrough for this band, a project that germinated in 2017 as a desperate solo album by Alker. He wrote three tracks of that album while in rehab for heroin, full of “hair on fire feelings of early recovery” while “going through all the pain and trauma” of trying to break his addiction. He said he wrote the songs “literally as a form of healing, as a form of therapy.” Music was his lifeline to recovery.
“What’s significant about my story is not that I was a heroin addict. There’s a lot of heroin addicts out there. What’s significant about my story is how I went into treatment, picked my guitar back up and music began to heal me at the deepest level and began to allow me to process the underlying trauma that manifests as addiction,” he said. “And then to be able to create a platform, to be able to use music as a way to help others, which is the foundation of my recovery--being in service to others.”
Alker continued to write music after he left treatment, eventually sharing demos with the recover community online. He found he was expressing things about recovery that others were unable to find words for, he said. People found the songs on his solo album inspiring, but really it “was just a therapeutic experience.”
He described the resulting solo album “Sophrosyne” as a “therapeutic snapshot” of his life then, just as he and the other band members reviewed snapshots of their current place in life on the flatscreen mounted on the wall: as a full band on the cusp.
The band opened for Garbage at the Metro May 20, 2019, in a benefit for Face the Music Foundation, which was created by Recovery Unplugged, a charity organization for which Alker works. He developed and implements a therapeutic music curriculum for recovering addicts. In one such session, he met Byrne, whom he would later recruit for the band.
“[Byrne’s] journey is another testament to what music can do in recovery,” Alker said. “I have seen it time and time again in the last four and a half years since I’ve been on this path of evangelizing the healing power of music in treatment and recovery. Using music as a way to show people how to connect and how to heal.
“Addiction is isolation, and recovery is community,” he said.
Richard Patrick, alternative rock singer of Filter and himself a recovering addict, joined The JAB onstage at Metro to sing Filter’s “Take A Picture.” To be embraced by such celebrity was a big moment for the band.
“We have a ridiculously loyal fan base of people who are rock fans and are in recovery who are just our army out there constantly sharing everything on social media, coming to the shows,” Alker said. During summer 2018 after first forming, the band played shows in Baltimore, Ohio and Detroit, among other locales. 
“[The recovery community] is a beautiful community,” said drummer Stukel, who has taken a leave of absence from his suburban high school teaching job to devote himself full-time to The JAB. “I go to Detroit and I meet the same people that I saw in Baltimore.”
But Alker said there is a bigger picture beyond focusing on drugs.
“This isn’t just about drug addiction,” he said. “Addiction is the end result of that underlying trauma or inability. This is relevant for all types of numbing behaviors. If you don’t work through your emotions, it’s going to come up. That shit doesn’t stay down. It could be insomnia, it could be depression, it could be anxiety, overeating, gambling, numbing yourself in front of the TV... 
“I’ve seen it help people who are not just identified as addicts or alcoholics. Anyone can use music as their own form of therapy. There’s nothing else out there that can more quickly take you out of your head and take you into your heart and soul where true healing takes place than music. There’s nothing else out there that can do that in the same way.”
Coincidentally and perhaps ironically, Alker is insistent that The JAB not be pigeonholed as a recovery rock band. He wants them to be known as a hard-rocking band first. The other members agree.
”It’s not recovery music, whatever that may be,” said Byrne, who marked one year sober on June 1, 2019, at the band’s concert in L.A. “When I am putting music out there, I am writing it for everyone. I know not everyone is going to vibe with it, but it is meant [for everyone]. This could very well be a song I started writing about struggles that happened to me that pertain to alcoholism, but at the end of the day the song is going to be a song about struggle and about overcoming adversity, which is something we all have to do whether it’s through alcoholism or it’s that you hate your job.”
Still, the band’s overall ethos prevails.
“I’m just not playing music in a band,” Stukel said. “I’m doing so much more. And that’s what’s really cool. The focus is this community. We are going to do what’s good for the song. And what’s good for the song is good for the community.”
Herrick met Alker at a songwriter’s showcase at the Cubby Bear. After the two bonded over their mutual love of Alice In Chains and meditation, Alker asked Herrick to contribute lead guitar tracks for “Sophrosyne” (Greek for “excellent character and sound mind”). You could say he’s been there from the start.
“First and foremost, this is conscience music,” Herrick said. “There aren’t a whole lot of rock bands out there who are willing to wear their emotions on their sleeves.”
Alker agreed.
“[There are] lots of bands that do what would be considered conscience music but are maybe a little bit more granola or earthy,” he said. “But as far as a hard rocking band, we aren’t talking about girls and drinking. We are talking about real issues and real things that are going on in the world.”
-----------------
The band was back in their northwest side studio on Aug. 26 playing together for the first time since recording their album in Lexington. They ripped through “Riot” before taking on the more melancholy melody of “Genuflect.” The song features Byrne on piano, Herrick on electric guitar and Jam on acoustic, singing about a “high, high, beautiful high.” Later, they listened to the final mixes of a few tracks.
”[‘Genuflect’] appears to be a love song but it is really a song about unhealthy co-dependence,” Alker explained.
Compared to the demo version, the studio recording of “Analeeza” is even more soulful, with richly layered guitar production and a Hammond B3 Organ. The song jumps right into the catchy chorus of “Oh Analeeza, tell me the reason.” Jam’s emotive vocals, at times delivered almost scat style, are further augmented by a gospel chorus near the end.
The band played some new songs live for the first time in front of an audience at the Chicago House of Blues on Sept. 19. In addition to songs from Akler’s solo debut “Sophrosyne,” they played “Riot” and “Consume” (the title track of the forthcoming album) to the crowd’s approval, ending the 45-minute set with a spirited cover of Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen.”
Now,  it’s all about the healthy relationships the band has forged, especially given the intense studio time they spent together in July.
“The investment [in the band’s mission] is deeper by everyone,” Alker said. “This whole process over the past couple of years has really been this evolution for me doing my first album as a solo artist to this really becoming a band...So this is everybody’s project rather than just mine with four guys behind me helping me make this happen.”
Click link to access PDF file of print version of this article in the January 2020 issue of Illinois Entertainer. Navigate PDF file to page 20.


Monday, September 16, 2019

Concert Review: Slayer at Riot Fest

Concert Review: Slayer at Riot Fest
Douglas Park, Chicago, Sept. 14, 2019


Kerry King projected on the big screen.
Slayer killed during a 90-minute headlining set that seemed to be cut short on a perfect late-summer evening in Douglas Park. At 9:56, minutes before the 10 p.m. curfew for music, singer-bassist Tom Araya told the crowd: “They are making us cut it short. Thanks for sharing your time with us.”
The massive crowd registered its disapproval with boos, but the band--who is in the midst of a “final campaign” if band retirement announcements can be believed--probably wouldn’t want it any other way: leaving the crowd wanting more.
The set ended with the seminal thrash metal classic “Angel Of Death,” making it hard to imagine a more fitting closer to perhaps the last ever Slayer show in Chicago (the band will play the appropriately named TaxSlayer Center in Moline, Nov. 14, for the last scheduled stop in Illinois). “Repentless,” one of the band’s most recent songs from the 2015 album of the same name, opened the set as a literal example of how the band hasn’t changed its death-obsessed brand of heavy music since forming in 1981--becoming one of the most ground-breaking and controversial bands along the way.
Guitarist Gary Holt--filling in for Jeff Hanneman who was an integral part of the band’s sound until his death in 2013--was possessed on stage. The big screen featured his tortured facial expressions  and string-bending guitar solos during “World Painted Blood” and “Hate Worldwide.” His shirt read “No Lives Matter,” with the “O” a pentagram and “kill the Kardashians” stitched on his wrist-bands. On “Raining Blood” and other songs later in the set, Holt played a guitar covered in what seemed to be the Heineken beer logo but instead read “Hanneman.” 
Hulking guitarist Kerry King--his pony-tailed goatee ever threatening to get tangled in his riffage--hunched over for his solo on “War Ensemble,” shredding the strings on his flying-V guitar with twisted horns. King’s frantic and discordant solo style is as iconic as his look: bald head and thick, tattooed arms like a villain from DC comics.
Even the heavens cooperated: a near-full moon rose just to the right of the stage with ephemeral clouds slightly obscuring its glow. Onstage, bursts of fire balls added to the pummeling beat and helped illuminate the anti-religious imagery in the background curtains.
A fire burned on stage for nearly the entirety of “Hell Awaits,” a song from the band’s 1985 second album. The song featured rapid-fire lyrics and the big screen may have caught  Araya fumbling the last verse. “Seasons In The Abyss” and “South Of Heaven”--perhaps two of the most evil-sounding songs in the band’s discography--had the crowd singing along, especially the heretical wail “before you see the light, you must die!” 
Testament and Anthrax, contemporaries of Slayer since the 1980s, played inspired sets on the same stage leading up to the headlining performance, further showing that Slayer is indeed going out on top.


Set List
Repentless
Evil Has No Boundaries
World Painted Blood
Postmortem
Hate Worldwide
War Ensemble
Gemini
Disciple
Mandatory Suicide
Chemical Warfare
Payback 
Temptation
Born Of Fire
Seasons In The Abyss
Hell Awaits
South of Heaven
Raining Blood
Black Magic
Dead Skin Mask
Angel of Death

Link to post of review on Illinois Entertainer magazine website
Anthrax played before Slayer took the stage.
Testament was the first of three classic thrash bands that day.

Friday, August 2, 2019

Roller Coaster Review: Maxx Force, Six Flags Great America

Not since the 2014 debut of Goliath has Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Ill., had the chance to tout a new roller coaster. Maxx Force boasts three world records: fastest launch roller coaster (obtaining 78 mph in under two seconds), fastest inversion and tallest double-inversion. 
But given the 20 second total ride time, the coaster should have been named The Flash, which would be in line with other D.C. comic-themed rides in the park. The launch is a thrill for sure, but the ride is over too soon.
I rode Maxx Force twice on Thursday, July 25, 2019, about three weeks after its debut. At 1p.m. I only had to wait 35 minutes, which made me seriously question the ride’s appeal. Later at around 5:45, I had to wait 1:15 minutes to ride, which included a 20-minute delay in service.
Here are my thoughts about each aspect of the ride:
The Launch: Anticipating the take-off and acceleration to 78 mph in two seconds is the best part of the ride. The operators keep you guessing--there is no countdown to launch. When it occurs, everyone around the park knows it: a deep “boom” marks the moment, adding to the anxiety of those waiting in line. On the ride, one doesn’t really hear the boom, only feels the g-force of being pressed back into the cushy seat. And, since riders are being launched up and into the first inversion, there are no stomach-flipping drops to endure.
The Inversions: Due to the ride’s speed, the inversions are smooth and over quickly.
The Seating: The coaster is designed like a race car (with faux wheels front and back seats like those in a car). Riders are secured by a lap bar (as in Goliath) and hold onto handles in front. Each train only holds 16 riders. A second train is loaded even before the first is launched. It’s a comfortable and secure ride.
The Waiting Area: This ride was erected at the park’s entrance, in the footprint once occupied by the Pictorium (touted as the “world’s largest motion picture experience” and Chicagoland’s first IMAX when it opened in 1979). The line area is compact and unfortunately architects didn’t include any shade for those waiting in line.
Bottom Line: This is a better ride than the past two revealed by the park in 2018 and 2017: The Mardi Gras Hangover is billed as the world’s largest loop at 100-feet tall, but is just a one-trick pony. And The Joker is an aptly named schizophrenic track that lacks multiple ride appeal.
Link to POV footage of Maxx Force.
Link to my review of Goliath
Link to my review of “Justice League: Battle for Metropolis”

Saturday, June 22, 2019

Album Review: "Gold & Grey" by Baroness


BARONESS

*Gold & Grey*
(Abraxan Hymns)

Baroness's glorious new double album wastes no time announcing what it is all about: perseverance. Singer/guitarist/songwriter/artist John Baizley declares in the opener "Front Toward Enemy"--a hard-charging, bass-driven rocker--"we're headed for disaster...we can only fight front toward enemy." It's a frantic start to what turns out to be one of the most heart-felt hard rock albums of its time: this is about survival, hope and desperate measures, a theme that makes sense in the band's timeline after a near-death and life-changing bus accident in 2012.

The second album since that accident, 17 songs in length, establishes Baroness (Baizley as the only original member) as survivors. Baizley wails on the ever morphing rocker "Seasons," "we fall, we rise, we bend, we break, we burn, but we survive" before breaking into thrash riffage along with new guitarist Gina Gleason, Baizley's nimble foil whose interplay meshes perfectly with the band's uptempo and emotive instrumental aesthetic. 
Short, free-form instrumental explorations bridge the gaps between sprawling compositions, a highlight being "Tourniquet": "Somebody throw me a tourniquet, I'm openhearted." Once again, a thudding bassline provides the backbone to Baizley's wear-it-on-his-sleeve, full-throated singing. "Throw Me An Anchor" ups the hard-rock tempo and furthers the theme: "This is an emergency." The mid-tempo tracks on the album showcase the band's subtlety best: On the sprawling "Borderlines," the band's tightness is on display--evidenced by the dueling guitar solos and Baizley's plaintive realization: "Borderline, get me out alive...When it rains, I am right where I belong."
9/10
Appearing July 23, 2019, at Durty Nellie's in Palatine, IL
Link to print version of review in July 2019 issue of Illinois Entertainer magazine. Navigate PDF file to page 28.

Album Review: Pelican's "Nighttime Stories"


PELICAN

*Nighttime Stories*
(Southern Lord)

There might not be a more thrilling trio of instrumental hard rock songs than three found on Pelican's new full-length album, the first since 2013. About three minutes into "Midnight and Mescaline" through the end of the song, the post-metal pace slackens and allows the band to explore stunted power-chord riffing amid a groovy, repetitious beat. It's that rough, groovy texture that Pelican has honed like no other band over a near two-decade career. The mesmerizing end to that track quickly transitions into the bouncy pop rhythm of "Abyssal Plain," which soon transitions into grindcore and then to wide-open mid-tempo jamming of layered guitars and headbanging time changes--and back to grindcore again. "Cold Hope" finishes the trifecta--a bottom-heavy and relentless burner with even bigger grooves and riffage than the previous two. It closes out the trio with air-raid siren guitar solos. The six other tracks help cement this offering as the band's best, most complete album: the title track ups the ante on the dirty-sounding, distorted riffage, and "Full Moon, Black Water" shows the band's widest range of hard rock styles over its eight minutes in length. At the four-minute mark of this track the band once again breaks it down into the muted and frantic riffing for which it is best known, only to end with a shoe-gazing passage that evokes the pleasurable feeling of awakening after a long night of dreaming.

9/10
Link to the print version of this review in the July 2019 issue of Illinois Entertainer. Navigate PDF file to page 28.