Bloodlined Calligraphy - They Want You Silent CD Review

It is quite rare to see a metal or hardcore band fronted by a woman, especially when you take into account the type of vocal performances that are usually necessitated by being a part of either of the two genres. A feminine voice isn’t exactly all that well suited to growling and barking. If anything, almost 100% of the time that you hear female vocals in a metal or hardcore song, it’s in melodic form, pre-recorded, usually as a part of an intro, outro, or interlude, and used to serve as the polar opposite of the extreme nature of the band’s music. Over the last few years There have been a few semi-successful female fronted bands to shine through—Otep, Kittie, and Walls of Jericho to name the most well known of the lot. With They Want You Silent, Bloodlined Calligraphy have thrown their hat into the female fronted metalcore arena, but don’t expect a lot of success to follow.

While listening to the 10 tracks contained on this release, you’ll be hard pressed to recognize the vocals as coming from the throat of one of the fairer sex. The ferocity of the screaming, yelling, and growling (yes, there are times when Ally French’s vocals sound uncannily like a masculine growl, such as on “I May Have Been Born Yesterday”) is not something you’d usually recognize as coming from a woman. There are a few scant moments when Ally uses her singing voice or talks instead of belting out the lyrics, but the majority of the time she sticks to the same, extremely loud, approach. The few melodic moments were actually very welcome and in the future it would do these guys good to utilize it a little more. On occasion the rest of the band will join in for some gang screams, so Ally doesn’t go at it completely alone, but these moments are few and far between.

The underlying music beneath Ally’s throaty performance is, unfortunately, your standard metalcore approach. The great majority of each song is loaded with chugga chugga riffs that either lead up to a breakdown or a thrash inspired guitar solo. If there were a stronger focus on the thrashy, more intricately natured aspects of their songs and less time spent on setting up breakdowns, I think Bloodlined Calligraphy would quickly turn into one of the must-hear bands in the HXC scene. As it is, though, there’s simply a lot of unfocused metalcore riffing going on throughout this disc which you will eerily feel you’ve heard somewhere else… which you probably have, and also done much, much better.

There are a few standout moments that deserve note, however. “A Variety of Damage” is actually a nice, quick paced, fun track. It moves along briskly with guitar licks leading the way, all the while your foot tapping along in pace. If any song on this disc could make someone spontaneously hardcore dance, this one’s it.

The track “Saturday Night in Dixie” is easily the best song on this disc for no other reason than it’s slightly different than the rest of the disc. It starts out with some basic thrashing followed by a chunk of metalcore chugging, but once the song hits its stride during the bridge, which makes good use of Unearth-esque guitar high-tones, it’ll hit you hard right before segueing into an interesting southern, Pantera flavored ending. If every song on this disc were to branch out in different directions such as on this track, you’d have a killer metalcore disc on your hands, but they don’t. The rest of the release sees them sticking firmly within the bounds of the basic metalcore template that so many other bands have used.

If you really need to get your Christian hardcore on and want to do it to a female fronted HXC band, you could easily do worse than Bloodlined Calligraphy, but like 95% of the metalcore audience out there you’ll probably be looking for something new and interesting in this flooded genre, which is something these guys (and gal) can’t give you.

Freaks Me Out

This morning I had to run my mom into the hospital in Austin for an MRI. She tore her meniscus and the x-rays they took didn't tell a whole lot about what they were going to have to do to fix it so an MRI was the next logical step. Personally, I think it's just another way for the hospital to milk money out of my mom and her insurance.

When I had to have an MRI and an ultrasound this last summer in order to make sure I didn't have a tear in my carotid artery, as I looked over the statements they sent me I noticed that all of my test results were examined twice. Why, oh why, would my results have to be examined twice. They were negative and my arteries were completely fine (they diagnosed me later on with exertion migraines). I could maybe understand having the test results examined twice if the first time through one doctor thought that he/she might have found something and needed a second opinion, but if the results look just fine, what's the point of a second opinion? More frickin' money, that's what. They could double what they were bringing in and give me some technobable reason as to why they needed to do it. I was more than a little pissed when that happened because it meant that I had to pay more out of my pocket as well as my insurance company paying more.

Now while my mom was in having her MRI, I sat and listened to an audiobook that I had on my MP3 player which I brought along. I needed something to keep my mind off of everyone else there. You see, hospitals freak me out, which is why I try not to ever go unless something is terribly, terribly wrong with me. It's so eerie walking into the waiting room and being surrounded by all of these old people you know are just going to kick the bucket in a couple of weeks. Sure, I know, have respect for your elders and crap, but some of the people are just downright scary.

Like today, for example. While I was waiting this old man came in, no one accompanying him, and sat down a little ways away from me. As he sat there, I thought he had died because after a bit he completely stopped moving and his eyes were focused on some point way off in the distance. He didn't move at all for probably 10 minutes. When he did, I was pretty relieved, but then he went back into his statue impersonation again!

A few seats behind the fake dead guy was a hideously gigantic woman. In the waiting room they have chairs with arm rests on both sides and they have benches that can accomodate to people. This lady filled out one of the benches like a normal person filled out one of the chairs. If you remember how Violet puffed up to gigantic proportions in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you might just get an idea of her size. I can't imagine how people get to be so large. I can understand how some people get fat, but this is beyond fat. People shouldn't get this large unless they're eating junior varsity football teams for breakfast.

Rounding out the cast of creepy characters was an elderly man who I honestly thought might explode. As he sat, he was constantly fidgeting, and when he was up moving his entire body looked as if it would shake itself apart. I felt sorry for the old guy because it must feel like he's living his life in a blender or other such kitchen appliance that causes things to vibrate vigorously.

As much as I enjoy people watching, I don't enjoy the morbidity that it takes on when you do it in a hospital. More often than not I feel like I'm caught in a zombie movie. Hospitals are scary places.

MicroCon Minnesota 2005

I've been to the past couple of FallCon's in St. Paul, but I've never gone to the MicroCon Comic Book Convention that is held in the spring, until today that is. They used to host it at some hotel's conference room so I always assumed there wasn't much there. This year, however, the location got changed to the Progress Center at the Minnesota State Fair Grounds, and since I wasn't really doing anything I thought I'd go for the heck of it. It wasn't quite as big as the FallCon, but there was enough stuff there for me to spend money on. That and I got to meet and say hi to Brent Schoonover, one of the Viper family.

As I said, I did manage to spend a little chunk of change, but not as much as I thought I did (only a little over $50). What I was most stoked to get was the full Midnight Nation run for only $15. I've been loving every issue of J. Michael Straczynski and Gary Frank's Supreme Power so for a while now I've wanted to pick up their previous work which I luckily found on the cheap.

Also on the cheap I found a whole boat load of Superman Elseworlds prestige trades. I actually managed to pick up 7 of them, as well as the 3 issue Superman vs. Predator prestige format series. So far every X vs. Predator or X vs. Alien mini I've read has been crap, but at least the Superman vs. Predator mini has art by Alex Maleev so it'll be pretty to look at. What's interesting is the sheer number of Elseworlds Superman stories I found in the bargain bins. There weren't really any Elseworlds stories of other characters to be found anywhere (although I did find two Green Lantern ones).

What really got me, though, was that I found zero Batman Elseworlds comics. At past cons, there were usually tons of Batman Elseworlds comics to be had. My guess is that maybe they were kept out of the bargain bins this time because of the upcoming movie. I could see retailors holding on to all of their Batman stock in the hopes of selling a bunch of it the closer the movie gets to being released.

As for graphic novels, I picked up a fair share pretty much on a whim from a $1 per trade box. You can't really beat buying books for a dollar a piece, especially when the cover on most of them is between 10 and 20 bucks. In case anyone cares these are the ones I picked up: Terminator: Endgame, Aliens: Apocalypse, Aliens: Hive, Nevada (a Vertigo trade by Steve Gerber), The Truth, Spawn: Blood & Shadows, and Clive Barker's Tapping the Vein.

In keeping with picking up Straczynski material I also picked up the Rising Stars: Bright 3 issue miniseries. I figure I might as well start picking up the Rising Stars offshoot miniseries since I preordered the huge-ass hardcover that collects the entire series. From what I've heard, it's supposed to be great series and as far as I'm concerned Straczynski is a wonderfully gifted writer. I don't care if people hate his Spider-Man run, I still really dig everything he does. Personally I haven't read his Spider-Man stuff, but that's mostly because I'm not the biggest Spidey fan in the world and reading Ultimate Spider-Man is plenty for me.

Speaking of Spidey, I grabbed the 4 issue Spider-Man: India miniseries from some 3 for a buck boxes. I thought it was a novel idea, at least for Marvel, and the art looked pretty so for a buck and 33 cents I'd give it a try. A side note about this series: it must have sold abysmally since most of the retailors there had plenty of copies of it in their bargain bins.

Rounding out my comic buys were some random issues of stuff to fill in runs and a bunch of IDW titles. I don't know how that company stays afloat with their high cover prices. $3.99 an issue just seems like such a rip off so I've never bought an IDW title off the rack. When I see them in the dollar boxes I'll pick them up, but I sure as hell won't pay cover price. In my digging I found an entire run of 30 Days of Night: Return to Barrow and Meeednight Pulp Presents Secret Skull. Steve Niles' writing has been hit or miss with me, but I love Templesmith's art so even if the story sucks at least it's fun to look at.

As for the toy haul for the day, I didn't actually get much. At past cons I've brought home tons of Todd McFarlane figures, but not this time. I only found one that wasn't horribly overpriced or that I didn't already have--Rasputin from the Movie Madness series. A great figure, and wonderfully priced at $3! Instead of McFarlane figures, I found some sweet bobbleheads and at $3 a piece, you couldn't go wrong. I grabbed a Joker one for me and a Superman and a Catwoman for Kristin. The Joker will go in my cube at work with all of my other toys.

In the end, I think it was worth driving 100 miles for, even if I was only there for a couple of hours. Outside of the dealers' stock and meeting with Brent, there wasn't a lot to do there and I'm sure if I would have stayed and dug through boxes even more that I'd have no doubt spent the rest of my money in one fashion or another.

Live Music Archive

It seems that more and more as I continue writing this blog that it has become more and more music oriented. When it started out, it was mainly a place I wrote about college and things that pissed me off. If anything it was nothing more than a glorified journal. As time progressed it morphed a little to encompass some current events commentary as well as the ocassional bit about comic books here and there. Now, in recent months, and specifically the last week or two, I seemed to have focused at least half of my efforts on music related posts, and this is yet another.

I've always been a fan of live music. There is no other way to see how talented a band really is than to see them perform live. A good producer, tons of studio time, and lots of computer enhanced error correcting can make anyone sound good on cd (ie: anyone on pop radio at the moment), but when you're playing live you have to be able to play your instruments and be able to sing. If you're like me and don't always get the chance to go to a lot of concerts, you might enjoy the Live Music Archive.

Within this archive you will find hundreds upon hundreds of concerts by a myriad of different bands. Just for example of what you can find, yesterday I downloaded 3 Local H concerts from 2005, a Story of the Year show from back in 2003, and recent Clann Zu performance. You'd be amazed at how many different bands support the recording of live music and have it stored on this site. I heartily suggest giving it a look.

What Is In Easy Mac?

For the third time in about 2 weeks, I've forgotten to bring in my lunch to work. It's usually just leftovers since we only have a microwave here at work, but whenever I end up leaving my leftovers at home, my dad gets to them for his lunch. It's not that big of a deal, but I get so frustrated with myself for forgetting the food I made at home. Usually I'll make supper the night before and it'll be too much for me to eat in one sitting so I eat half of it for supper and then put the other half in the fridge to warm up at work the next day.

Last night I made rotinni noodles with some spicy marinara meat sauce. Since I'd made about two helpings worth, I packed up half of the meal into a tupperware container and stuck it in the fridge, reminding myself mentally that I can't forget it in the morning. As I went about my evening activities, I didn't forget that I had my lunch in the fridge.

As I awoke this morning I did my normal morning routine and headed off to work. As 11:00 rolls around, which is my lunch time, I suddenly realize that I left my lunch at home. The thought, from out of nowhere, creeps up and smacks me across the face and then laughs at my forgetfulness. As I'm stuck eating easy mac for lunch I can feel my subconscious laughing at me and I can sense my rotinni noodles slowly being eaten by my dad.

Easy mac isn't all that bad of a meal, but it sure can't beat homemade food. One thing that always bugs me about easy mac is the color of the cheese powder. It's like a neon orange color, which is totally unnatural. I can't imagine everything that went into manufacturing a powder that turns into a cheese substitute upon mixing it with water. I can hardly imagine that there's actually anything natural in the powder at all. All of these thoughts are carelessly tossed to the wind as soon as you take your first bite of easy mac, though. It's just so good. For all I know, Kraft could be putting in some type of adictive additive to make me keep wanting more easy mac because I usually have a hard time stopping after just one packet. I always want more, despite the sketchy nature of the ingredients.

Frisbee Golf Course Guide

If you've ever played frisbee golf, thought about playing it, or even wondered anything about it, check out this site. Jared showed it to me today and it is seriously one of the best disc golf resources I have ever seen. Heck, it's one of the better sports resource sites that I've seen. It's amazing all of the work that has gone into detailing all of the courses that are on display.

When browsing through the courses they have online, I found the course that I played on Sunday with Jared. It was really amazing to go through the navigation of the course online and see what the course looks like when the trees have bloomed and everything is green instead of the dead brown it was when we played it.

Looking through some of the other courses listed, there are a few that I'd like to go visit next time I'm in the Twin Cities. When looking through their list of courses I did notice that none of the St. Cloud, Austin, or Rochester courses were cataloged yet. Since they have an open submission policy, I might just have to get ambitious, grab my mom's camera that has the sniper lens, and head out for a couple of games of disc golf.

Pretty Mess - Greyscale Broadcast CD Review

It would be so, so easy to start off this review by making some type of pun using the name of the band to describe the cd’s overall quality. It would be so simple to use “pretty” if the cd was good or “mess” if it was bad or even use a combination of the two if the cd was neither. Since I hate puns, that is a route I would rather not travel, but I will say that this release manages to fall into the third category—not too bad, but not very good either.

When making your way through this release, you’ll be very hard pressed to keep any interest in it whatsoever. After listening to the first few songs, you’ll have this band’s style nailed down and in realizing that they’re nothing more than a derivative of so many past light rock bands, the rest of the cd won’t do anything interesting enough to make you want to listen past those first few songs. By mixing your basic radio friendly light rock stylings with a fair dose of British rock influenced vocals, all the while imagining the band playing at a spoiled private college campus, you’ll have easily described Pretty Mess.

Greyscale Broadcast has a very dated feel to it, almost as if it was forgotten sealed away in a dank, musty cellar somewhere only to be let loose many years later, far after it was supposed to have been. I’m sure that if this disc would have been released in the late 90’s or early 00’s that it would have been huge, but for the most part, the audience of this type of watered-down, melodic rock has waned considerably. College campuses used to feed the melodic radio rock machine since it was seen as the answer to all of the crappy pop and rap that was on mainstream radio. That was in the late 90’s. Today’s college campuses have moved on to the greener pastures of artsy indie rock and bludgeoning metalcore as their answers to mainstream music. Much like an orphaned child, melodic rock in the vein of Semisonic, Blur, and Supergrass has been left abandoned by those who used to be the ones to embrace it.

All of this is not to say that Greyscale Broadcast is a bad cd or that melodic rock is dead. Neither is completely true. Greyscale Broadcast is a competent cd, but a boring one that is firmly planted in a genre that has been done to death and is far from enjoying the heyday it was years ago. If you are still clinging to your Train and Sister Hazel cds like a child to a pacifier, then by all means buy this cd. If you are like the majority of the people who used to take in this style of music, you’ve no doubt moved on, as well you should have since there has been very little of note in this genre over the last few years. Pretty Mess, unfortunately, aren’t going to be making the mark that they need to be successful.

Smoke Free Clubs? Awesome!

As much as I complain about The Quest Club in Minneapolis, our lovely government has helped make it a venue that is a little more bearable. Instead of fighting my way through a dense haze of cigarette and marijuana smoke, I can now actually see farther than 5 feet in front of me clearly. I don't know if it was the city of Minneapolis or the county that the Quest is in or if it was a club decision, but the venue is now completely smoke free. I can actually stay for an entire concert without my eyes wanting to burst out of my head and my lungs wanting to cough up all the poison I sucked down while breathing.

I found this out last night when I went with Jared to go see Underoath and Hopesfall. We didn't get in free to this show, which kind of sucked, but you can't get a media pass to every concert even though I try. As usual, we ended up having to wait outside the club for about 45 minutes in a gigantic line that went around the block. Since the Quest is still insistent on only having one small entrance into the club, it takes forever to get people in. Thankfully, though, the majority of the crowd was under 18 so the balcony was pretty well open when we got in. As much fun as it is to release a little pent up rage in the pits now and again, I also enjoy just watching a show from the upstairs.

The opener was a band whose cd I really, really hated--Fear Before the March of Flames. Seeing their live show didn't make me a fan. Seriously, their entire set was a half an hour of noise according to my ears. My eyes also cringed throughout most of their "songs" as they had strobes continually going off behind them making me want to simultaneously puke and have a seizure. Their music really isn't music as much as it is each of the band members thrashing the hell out of their instruments, sort of in the same manner attempting to make music, but for the love of all things holy I couldn't appreciate their spastic attempt at post-modern, angst-ridden, quasi-artistic music in any way. It was noise, plain and simple.

After their atrocious set was out of the way, The Chariot took the stage. These guys are another band whose cd I really didn't enjoy very much, but I hoped their live show would be better, and it was. Their music wasn't all that great. It was standard tough-guy metalcore, but the stage performance of the band was amazing. They were moving all over the stage like a bunch of wild men hopped up on a double dosage of grade A speed. To add to the chaos, they had guys running from the back of the stage and cannonballing onto the top of the crowd. Everyone on the floor was going just as nuts for these guys as the band's onstage performance. To help cool down the crowd towards the end of their set they went back stage to grab a few supersoakers to spray the crowd with. Even though their music wasn't the greatest, their performance was unbelievably chaotic and the crowd ate it up.

After The Chariot, I knew that Hopesfall would have a hard time matching their energy level, and they didn't even get close to being as crazy, but they managed to put on the tightest performance of the night. The first two bands played a style of music that could be pulled off sloppily live and still be ok because it was all about the energy. Hopesfall's style of music is drastically different in that it has slower tempos and mostly melodic vocals. I thought the crowd would hate them, but even though they weren't moshing like crazy, everyone seemed to have their heads nodding along to the grooves of their songs. In my mind, Hopesfall were the best performers of the night. They didn't resort to crazy stage antics or trying to rile up the crowd, but instead just played their music well and let the crowd get into it if they wanted to.

Last on the bill and headlining the tour was Underoath. When they first started playing it was obvious that there were some mixing problems. The guitars were mixed in too low, the vocals were hardly audible, and the symbols were overpoweringly loud. After the first couple of songs, the mix got a little bit better, but it was still problematic throughout their set. I had a hard time getting into Underoath's set. First, their keyboardist doesn't do anything and his thrashing around in his little corner of the stage seemed kind of, I don't know, sad I guess. It's like he's part of the band, but he's not--like when you were forced to take your little brother somewhere with you when you were younger because your parents told you to, but you sure as hell didn't want him tagging along. He was happy to be with you, but you were simply annoyed.

While they played through most of their big hits from their latest cd, everything just seemed a little sloppy. You could make out what song it was they were playing but because of the combination of crappy mixing and somewhat sloppy playing everything seemed kind of murky. Besides playing a good mix of songs from their first and second cds, they also played one new song, and this new song was easily their worst song of the night. I hope they don't continue down the road that that song was taking. If you've listened to Underoath you know that most of their music has a quick tempo to it. Well, their new song was very slow as they appeared to be going for a "wall of noise" metal approach and it just didn't work. In the end, though, they were a decent band to watch as they were genuinely energetic and seemed to be having a fun time.

The show was over by 9:00 pm, which was really weird considering that most of the shows I've gone to as of late have run until 11 or later at the least so I had plenty of time to get home, but instead when I got back to Jared's place I laid down on his couch for a minute and before I knew it, I was asleep. Who knows why. Maybe Underoath were too boring! Unlikely, but they could have been better.

Not Going to Hell! Yay!

I saw this on Johnny's site and had to take it. I remember reading the Inferno and being very interested in the different levels of hell so it was interesting to see an online quiz to see how I stacked up against the various levels.

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

Mindless Self Indulgence - You'll Rebel to Anything CD Review

Mindless Self Indulgence are one of those bands that will leave you either amazed at their unique breed of music or completely confused as to why so many people are caught up by what they do. Knowing that, You’ll Rebel to Anything is actually the best MSI release for a listener new to their style of chaotic music to try out. As opposed to previous efforts, this release is actually quite song oriented and even has a more polished feel than anything they’ve done in the past. There’s still a good amount of crazy, dark, schizophrenic, industrialized, new wave antics to keep MSI fans happy, however, so people already familiar with what MSI do don’t have to worry about a watering down of their style.

After the six years it’s been since their previous release, You’ll Rebel to Anything has some very high expectations attached to it. For the most part these expectations are met. There isn’t anything outright disappointing about the album other than that there really isn’t much to it. With only 10 tracks playing out over the span of a little more than 26 minutes, this supposed full length feels much more like an appetizer that was thrown out to whet over our appetite until something more substantial can be created.

Oddly enough, the schizophrenic nature associated with MSI is both at its creative peak and it’s most restrained on this album. Instead of every track being a random piece of craziness, each track can definitely be pinned down as a song. In fact, by taking on a very song oriented approach, MSI are able to keep themselves from wandering down paths that would lead away from the focus of the album. In the past this was easily one of their biggest problems, but it has now been solved… for the most part. From the length of the cd, the number of tracks, and the application of some rudimentary math, you can probably figure out that each song averages out to be about two and a half minutes long, which isn’t always a lot of time for MSI to express all of their inherent musical insanity.

With their newfound restraint, each song on this cd is very accessible while still maintaining the very distinct MSI sound that has been mimicked but never successfully copied. A few tracks that deserve particular mention are “Tom Sawyer”, “Straight to Video”, and “Stupid MF”. Of all the artists for MSI to cover, I never would have thought Rush to be one of them, but on here they give “Tom Sawyer” a definitive MSI overhaul, creating what may be one of the most interesting covers to be made in quite some time. “Straight to Video”, being the longest song on the disc at nearly 4 minutes long, is also easily the best track on the disc. It feels very restrained, by MSI standards, throughout the first 2 minutes before it hits a killer patch of keyboard craziness to segue into the last minute and a half where everything slows down, again by MSI standards, to give you a unique take on the band’s new-found song oriented approach. “Stupid MF”, on the other hand, is just uptempo, crazy fun that every MSI fan will get off on.

Again, the biggest drawback to this disc is the lack of material on it. After waiting nearly six years, a lot of fans are going to feel cheated, but even at only 26 minutes this cd is 10 times better than a good majority of the crap that’s been put out during that six year wait, so enjoy it for what it is—a breath of fresh air and a unique musical creation.