Nonpoint - Vengeance CD Review

Did anyone even know that Nonpoint was releasing a new CD this year? I thought they had long dropped off the musical radar with their most recent release being last year’s live album, Live and Kicking, and their last proper release being To the Pain in 2005. It seemed like the band was probably closing up shop, especially since their sound hasn’t really been popular in a while. Still, Vengeance appeared on store shelves in the middle of November with little to no fanfare. Maybe part of the problem was that it was released through Bieler Bros Records instead of their previous label, Lava.

Regardless of who released Vengeance, as soon as you listen to it you’ll know that you’re listening to Nonpoint. They haven’t changed much and this album feels like a natural progression from To the Pain where the band took on a more hard rock oriented approach with little of their early career rap-metal influence showing through. Vengeance is definitely Nonpoint’s most stripped down and raw album to date, that's for sure. The production is just good enough to keep the instruments separated, but beyond that this album feels very gritty and raw, which isn't necessarily bad.

This is also probably the band’s least heavy album, outside of Development. The nu-metal edge that some of their songs used to have is all but gone and replaced with a hard rock tone and feel. The only elements that feel “metal” anymore are the occasional pseudo-breakdowns (such as on “March of War”) and the rare scream (as heard in “Wake Up World”). The music often moves along with a strong bar rock influence that, at times, makes the album feel very basic, but on the flip side it also gives it a very “real” feel that has been lacking in previous albums. Knocking the sheen that glossed over their previous albums off gives the band a little more attitude as well.

Of course this wouldn’t be a Nonpoint album without the requisite slow tempo, hard rock ballads, in this case the songs “Breathe” and “A Way Out”. “Breathe” is actually one of the better songs on this album, showing a band pulling back their sound to make a more sparse and moody piece. It would easily fit in on modern rock radio between anything from Evans Blue or Trapt, which to most won’t really sound like praise, but it sort of is supposed to be.

In the end, though, it all comes down to whether you’re still aching for the brand of nu-metal tinged hard rock that Nonpoint is playing. Its peak in popularity has already been reached, but kudos to the band for continuing to do what they love, no matter what the current trends. If you don’t go into this album with too snobbish of an attitude, you might find some moments to enjoy.

More Snowblower Goodness

First, why do all of the service reps call a snowblower a snowthrower. I've lived my entire life in Minnesota and never heard a snowblower called that before this year. I guess that must be what they call them in Phoenix or Texas or wherever it is that Sears' call center is located.

After numerous more calls with Sears by both myself and my parents, it appears they just don't give a flying crap about their customers, but since I don't have a truck to haul the snowblower back to them to return, I'm trying to deal with their service as best I can.

Oh, and here's an interesting thing of note if you buy an appliance at Sears--you can't return the item to any old Sears. No, you can only return it to the Sears you bought it from because of some stupid-ass commission scheme they have. So I would have had to return my snowblower at the Sears my parents got it at, which is like 100 miles away.

Anyways, after more grueling telephone calls, Sears is supposed to be showing up today while I'm at work to fix the thing. I left it outside so they can work on it, but they have no clue what's even wrong with it as they never asked. And I'm still skeptical as to whether they'll actually show up at my place or go to my parents' house again, like they moronically did last time.

Anyone want to take bets on whether or not I have a functioning snowblower when I get home? I'm gonna say it's still sitting there totally broken.

Catching Up With Friends

We've all had friends we've, for whatever reason, grown apart from. It could be they moved far away, your common interests diverged, there was a traumatic experience, they got married... whatever, really. The end result was that you lost touch with that friend. It sucks but it happens. In time, though, there are moments when you have a chance to reconnect with those friends and, to me, this is the litmus test to prove whether that friendship was solid or a matter of circumstance.

When you haven't seen a friend in a long time (I'm talking months or even years) when you get back together for that "reconnecting" moment, the results are almost always the same and fall into two different situations.

The first result is the awkward, "umm... so... how you doin'?" situation. Let's face it, with some friends you were friends at the time because of one shared interest, a forced living arrangement, or out of necessity. It's these quasi-friends it is hard to reconnect with. Your common frame of reference can no longer sustain what you had, especially if one or both people have moved on from what used to bring them together.

I'm not advocating that you don't try to stay friends or stay in touch with these types of friends because that connection isn't there, but if you can't find a new connection to build or rebuild that friendship, it's probably best to temper the expectations of where that friendship will go and what levels it can possibly attain going forward. You may never have that "close" friendship that you used to have.

On the flip side, there are those moments where you see a friend you haven't seen in ages and, despite the amount of time that's gone by or the amount of things that have changed, it doesn't feel like a single moment has passed since you last saw each other. It's these moments that let you know you have something more than a superficial commonality drawing you together in your relationship. There's something deeper, more refined, and almost unidentifiable that speaks to you both and reminds you that you actually know each other.

These are the friends you know that will always be there, no matter what changes. Sometimes you don't even know that some of your friends fall into this category until you are away from them and you come back together.



...and with that, I'll bring today's run in with sentimentality to an end.

Some New Art

My living room used to feel really... naked, for lack of a better word. Above my couch was a gaping, open, white wall. I knew I'd eventually get something to put there, but never really knew what, mostly because I never really thought about it, I only told myself someday I'll put something up there.

It finally got to me how empty the wall looked, so while my parents were up visiting last weekend I visited some art stores with my mom to see what was out there. I narrowed down what I liked to a few large prints and pieces of art. Eventually, what you see above won out.

Yes, it looks a little lonely up there by itself, but there will eventually be other wall decorations to go with it. I'm thinking about that now, and not just in the ambiguous sense either. I have some ideas, just no money to do it right now (or at least none set aside for it at the moment).

What drew me to this piece is its simplistic nature. Some pieces of art can be extremely busy and overloaded with color, movement, and flair. I don't like to complicate things too much so something simplistic seemed natural.

The scene itself was also something I could relate to. The snow in the foreground gives it a definite Minnesota, or midwestern, feel to it. As you look through the trees there is definitely something coming on the horizon, something bright yet unknown. I know it's obviously me reading into it too much, but that gives me a sense of seeing that there is alway something approaching, something in the future coming your way and even though you don't know what it is, you know it's there and you can prepare yourself or anticipate it or enjoy the knowledge that something new is near.

I needed to put up something I could relate to and not get sick of looking at day in and day out. This managed to fit the bill, and fit it quite nicely.

Are You Kidding Me?

The snowblower fiasco continues. Sears never showed up at my place yesterday to fix my snowblower, which kind of really sucks since there is still snow in my driveway and I stayed home from work so that I could be there when the repairman came.

The repairman did show up to fix the snowblower, just not at my house. Even after leaving detailed instructions with the Sears repair center, they still sent a repairman out to my parents' house instead of mine. No one was home there during the day, obviously, and they called my dad's cell instead of me and left him a message.

When my parents called up to ask them about this snafu, they gave two options--wait until next Friday to have the repairman show up (hopefully at the right place) because that's the earliest open time they have or I can run over to a Sears store 20-ish miles away, get the broken cable myself, and install it myself. Seriously, why should I have to do all the work when my parents bought a $250 service plan on the snowblower?

Honestly, Sears screwed up. Their stupidity is keeping me from blowing out the rest of my driveway. Their faulty craftsmanship left me with a broken snowblower out of the box in the first place. I'm really tempted to tell them to come pick the damn thing up and take it back. I'll buy something somewhere else. If this is the quality of service I'm going to get, I don't know if I want to have anything to do with Sears. And they wonder why their stores aren't doing so well. Might this be one of the reasons?

I plan on calling them tonight to try and get things sorted out and hopefully get them over to fix things, get some type of refund, or make some sense out of the ridiculousness that is the Sears repair department. Screw Sears. Seriously.

Winter Has Arrived

...and with it about a foot of snow, my suffering from a cold, and a snowblower broken right out of the box. It's a little bit of a rough start to the winter months, but I'm sure it can only get better from here.

I was actually pretty stoked for the first snow. It's one of the few reasons I love Minnesota. I hate the cold, but when there's some snow to go with it, then it doesn't seem so bad. Really, there's no point to the cold if you aren't going to have something unique accompany it. So as the snow fell over the weekend, my dad and me unboxed my brand new Craftsman snowblower. Side note, who would ever have guessed how freakin' expensive these babies are? I sure had no idea.

The unboxing went well and we only had to put a couple of things on since it was nearly assembled right out of the packaging. As we pulled the boxing away, there was oddly a wire hanging from throttle lever on the handlebar. It was just dangling there, not attached to anything. As my dad examined it closer, since I don't really know jack about snowblowers, he saw that it was broken off and would need to be replaced. Before I could even use it, the bad boy was broken. How sad.

The snow came, fell, and made everything quite beautiful. With the falling snow came my falling further into a cold I had contracted last week. There was no way I could get out and shovel snow between coughing fits, sniffling, and trying to not take a power drill to my temple to relieve my headache. Being the wonderful people they are, my mom, dad, and housemate Caleb went out and shoveled the driveway. It was quite the task.

Of course, Mother Nature didn't want to wait until I got my snowblower fixed until she dumped another load on us yesterday. As it stands, we have a small path that my other housemate, Jared, shoveled for the time being. Sears is going to be coming out to fix the snowblower tomorrow so hopefully I can put it to its first use later in the evening.

I'm also hoping my cold subsides by then as I'm still battling it, winning slowly but surely. Every year, like clockwork, once winter arrives I end up with a knock-down, drag-out battle with the latest and greatest cold germs that have grown over the last year. I always win, but some years are harder than others and this year was a tough one.

And with that... I guess I'm back. I don't know how often I'll feel like writing as priorities, people, and pressures have all changed a fair amount this last month or two, but I'll give it the ol' college try. It's the best I can offer.

Small Hiatus

I haven't really had the desire to write anything lately. Been busy with work and trying to deal with some other things going on in my life and it's left me somewhat drained. That and there are some things I really miss right now and I'm just trying to get by as best I can for the time being, which means that if I did write anything it'd be mopey, lame-o crap anyways so it's probably better for all that I just push away the keyboard for a little bit.

So, I'll be back to write sometime. I'm just taking a little time away.

Down

It’s not often that a band comes to town without an opening act, but that’s what Down did when they came to play First Avenue here in Minneapolis. With the venue completely packed with fans of all ages and sizes, before Down came on, we were all treated to a video montage of rock performances of some of the classic rock greats, such as Cream, AC/DC, and Black Sabbath.

After this quite lengthy montage (it was on for over an hour), the band finally came on stage to immense amounts of cheering. They busted right into playing, eschewing any pre-playing bantering. From that moment on, everyone was treated to almost two hours of stoner metal, and there definitely would have been more had there not been a curfew that needed to be enforced for all of the young ones that came out to the show.

Having been to a fair share of metal and metalcore shows lately, it’s seemed like so many bands are only concerned with how many breakdowns they can fit in or how “heavy” they can sound that they forgot about writing solid riffs and good songs. Down reacquainted me with the notion of heaviness in the classic sense of the word. They didn’t fill their set with breakdowns (in fact there were none) or resort to screaming as loud as they could, instead they played some of the sludgiest, heaviest riffs written in the past couple of decades. Not since the great Sabbath has a band been able to capture that classic rock vibe in a modern setting.

Phil Anselmo is a hell of a frontman, commanding in presence and getting the crowd into it. And he didn’t get people into their performance using the usual clichéd tactics most frontmen use, such as making people clap or asking for applause or telling people to get up. What he did was sing his heart out, talk a little with the crowd between songs, and sing his heart out some more. He’s always had pipes, but it seems like they were made for this type of music as his gritty, loud singing fit the band’s vibe perfectly.

Throughout their set, they managed to mix together a fair number of songs from all of their albums, focusing a little more time on songs from their debut and their latest, giving II a little less focus, but still covering the better songs from that album.

There was a phenomenal reaction to the songs from Over the Under with one of the biggest crowd reactions coming in the form of cheers for “Beneath the Tides”. It was also great to see the crowd get into things when they slowed everything down to play “Jail” near the end of their set before breaking into the crowd pleasing “Bury Me in Smoke”. Talk about a tremendous way to end a set. Everything about that song feels and sounds loud. Listening to it on CD is nothing compared to hearing it blasting at you in a live environment.

It’s really rare to see a band that seems to love to death what they are doing and who do what they do extremely well. Down is that rarity. Take the time to see them if you have the chance. It’s more than worth any price of admission.

Dragon-freakin-Force

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know they're a cheesy band, but watching the two Dragonforce guitarists shred it up is always fun. Jared emailed me this video and it definitely needed to be shared.

Oh yeah, and before I forget, this is the final song in Guitar Hero III and it totally dominated me... on medium. Man, I suck.

Lonely Halloween

Having Halloween in the middle of the week just isn't as fun as when it comes on a weekend. No one really wants to go do anything on Halloween when it comes on a Wednesday. I finished with a long day of work and knew I had a long day of work the next day so the last thing I really wanted to do was find somewhere to go out to and "celebrate" the holiday. If it was a Friday or Saturday, sure, I would have tried to do something interesting, but it was a freakin' Wednesday, probably the lamest day of the week. So I stayed home to hand out candy to kids...

...only not a single kid showed up. I live on a pretty main road and am only about 6 blocks from two different schools, so I figured I'd have at least a few little rugrats show up. I even know some of the people living on my block have kids, so at the least I thought they'd stop by. Instead, nothing. I had my porch light on, was upstairs watching TV in the main floor living room, and waited from 5:30 until 8:30 for any trick-or-treaters to come by. No one did, though.

It's a little sad that my whole night was spent looking forward to giving little kids I don't know candy that their parents probably don't want them to have in the first place, but I always remember Halloween being a fun day, so I wanted to pass some of that fun back on to the little ones in my neighborhood.

I talked with my parents to see if they got any kids out on the farm and they also didn't have a soul stop by. My mom mentioned that a lot of the schools, churches, and other kids groups in their area had Halloween activities that they did instead of trick-or-treating. That's cool, I guess, since kids aren't running around town but... dammit, I wanted to give away some of the candy I had building up in the house! Since I couldn't push it off on to kids, now I'm stuck with it and Lord knows I have no will power when it comes to candy. I might as well get prepared to put on a few more pounds. *Sigh*