Bring Me the Horizon - That's the Spirit [Review]

Genre: metalcore, hard rock, nu metal

The title of the British ex-metalcore group's Bring Me the Horizon's new album, "That's The Spirit", almost suggests some sort of cheeriness. Since, as I mentioned, they used to be pretty heavy metalcore (the remnants of that are still apparent, but they've definitely softened up since 2013's "Sempiternal", which itself was less heavy than their previous works), "cheeriness" is not a word you'd expect to hear in connection with their music. And, indeed, the title is misleading, as in the title of single "Happy Song", which is most definitely not a happy song, being a conglomerate of horribly depressing thoughts that can be willed away by singing "a little fucking louder to a happy song". This is all backed by a drop tuned headbanging riff that slams home every time it hits. 

The three lead singles are packed together back to back to back, with "Happy Song" immediately followed by "Throne", and then "True Friends". The first two of these are two of the best songs on the album, a curious phenomenom that often leads to a very mediocre album. Not so here, since the rest of the album lives up to those two tracks excellently. "Throne" is reminiscent of "Sempiternal" opener "Can You Feel My Heart", with an electronica influenced riff and innate hugeness in the already massive hook. "True Friends" has a rather grating melody, absolutely terrible lyrics, and a riff that's pretty similar to "Happy Song", though there's a lot of emotion in it, and the riff is pretty great. It also contains some screaming, as does "Happy Song" and a few others, so they haven't totally abandoned metalcore, just moved away a little. People on metalcore forums like to say they've gone "full pop", which is absolutely ridiculous, because maybe 1 or 2 of the songs on this album would be considered anything resembling pop by 99.99% of the general population. It's still a very heavy record, just not bone-crushingly brütal. 

"Follow You" is a powerful ballad, the poppiest track on the record, and one of the best. Lots of emotion to be had here as Oli Sykes tells an unknown person "you can drag me through Hell, if it meant I could hold your hand". "What You Need" marches on with a rumbling, rolling bassline, and continues the larger than life, awe inspiring choruses that can be found all throughout the album. "Avalanche" invokes an avalanche in its slamming synths and drums. A rerecording of year old single "Drown", retitled "Drown (New)" is mostly the same as the old version, with the same power. "Blasphemy" has one of the hardest rocking choruses on the album, and "Oh No" closes out the album with a pulsating synth bassline and a sax solo, bringing it all to an oddly dance-y flawless landing. 

Overall the album is very, very, strong, despite its panning by the metalcore community. While it may not be metalcore, if taken as it is, it's a really damn good hard rock record, and I think "That's the Spirit" deserves more credit for what it is, which it's actually getting in most critical reviews outside of very small sectors.  I know I've had it on repeat many times since it came out, and I'll continue that. 

Two tracks with spirit: "Throne", "Blasphemy"

Overall score: 82/100

The Wonder Years - No Closer to Heaven [Review]

The Wonder Years- No Closer to Heaven

Genre: pop punk

This album is incredible. I usually save that for the end of the review, but this album is too good, too perfectly formed, for me to be able to reasonably review the majority of the record without the readers going into it knowing already that I absolutely love it. Now that I've got that out of the way, I like The Wonder Years. "Suburbia" is an excellent album, and "The Greatest Generation" is very good one. In the pop punk realm, I believe they occupy a second tier along with bands like All Time Low, below the legends tier of Green Day and Fall Out Boy, but still excellent. So I was reasonably excited to hear this record, especially after the singles ("Cardinals" and "Cigarettes & Saints" had me hooked). In a week where new albums by Iron Maiden, The Dear Hunter, and FIDLAR were released, TWY definitely had to fight to be noticed, and boy, did they pull it off or what. 

From the reverb drenched chords and post-rock-esque tremolo picking of "Brothers &", this is something special. The crowd chants "we're no saviors, if we can't save our brothers", a quote that shows up again a few times. The song builds up before dropping into the infectious opening clean riff of "Cardinals", which explodes into one of the most powerful and intense songs I've ever heard (and the second most powerful and intense song on the album), coupled with a chorus that worms its way into your brain for a long while, before returning to the crowd's refrain and some more tremolo picking before slamming to a stop in the form of "A Song For Patsy Cline". If we're looking for emotive melodies, we found it. The verse of this song is just serenely gorgeous, but do they sustain it? No, that would be too easy. Instead, Soupy and co. slam into one of the heaviest riffs in pop punk as hard as they can, before returning to that verse melody. But wait: there's more. The chorus is an explosion of frantic arpeggios as Soupy howls "It's hard to watch you walk away", before the main riff returns. This song is really just something else. I can't quite put it into words in a way that captures it, all I can say is that you have to listen to it. It's amazing. 

Might TWY decide to follow up that one-two punch with one of the weaker songs, just to hide it and hope no one notices? Well, strictly speaking, they do, with the single "I Don't Like Who I Was Then". But one of the weaker songs on the record is one of the stronger songs of the year still, and it's the most hurried song on the album, really strongly punk. And then? Oh, and then you get punched in the face with a glass fist of emotion. This is "Cigarettes & Saints". "Cigarettes & Saints" is... something else. In one word? It's powerful. Soupy's lament for a missing friend just overflows with pain and regret, with every word threatening to crack with tears, but he holds steady. He stays strong, even on lines like "now you walk with Jesus, so the drugs that took your life aren't gonna cause you any pain". It all adds up to one of the most poignant and perfect, goose-bump inducing experiences of 2015, almost a threat to take over Steven Wilson's "3 Years Older" as the best song of the year. 

Any song would have trouble following that up, and "The Bluest Things on Earth" is no exception. With a distinct lack of a hook, and not much else going on, it doesn't leave much of an imprint, which is fine because you're probably still in shock from the last song. "A Song for Ernest Hemingway" opens with some very nice harmonies, and goes into a good song. Not much else to say about it. "Thanks for the Ride" addresses a "Hannah", thanking her for the good times while pleading her not to leave, over a earworm of bendy riff. "Stained Glass Ceilings" has something in it's downtuned and downtempo intro that strikes a chord, and a passionate feature from letlive.'s Jason Butler, followed by two emotive (they all are, really) tracks of regret.

The grand finale, "Palm Reader" features a similar bending riff to "Thanks for the Ride" but with some more emotion added in for good measure, and a slower chorus where Soupy proclaims he's going to "clear (his) throat and speak out unafraid", giving off a lot of Gerard Way vibes vocally, which fits with the very emo-punk feeling of this album, there's definitely an abundance of My Chemical Romance influence. This is a fitting bang to go out on, before the calm-after-the storm-epilogue in the soft vocals, acoustic guitar, and electric piano of the title track, "No Closer to Heaven", which is also the closing line of the album, and definitely the leading theme. 

The heavy religious undertone helps the feel of the album, and it feels like an album, which the single most important factor in album making. This record is a fantastic and cohesive set of fantastic songs, and I can't wait for more as soon as I can get my hands on it. Despite this, it's only number 3 on my year list, because 2015 is the nest year for music I can ever remember, and it's borne THREE bona fide masterpieces (Steven Wilson's "Hand. Cannot. Erase" and Between the Buried & Me's "Coma Ecliptic", in that order). And it's not over yet. The Wonder Years have exceeded high expectations and crafted a masterpiece of a record, and no one should ignore it. 

Two songs that bring me closer to heaven: "Cigarettes & Saints" and "A Song for Patsy Cline"

Overall score: 84/100

Halsey - Badlands [Review]

Halsey- Badlands

Genre- pop

Note: I reviewed the standard edition, as I do with reviews. The deluxe is what was pushed mostly and seems to be how Halsey planned it out to go, but I have to review the standard, just because it's the standard. The deluxe is what I recommend buying though, it's got a few more songs and the existing songs are swapped around a little. 

Halsey is in an odd state of being ridiculously famous, and yet no one has ever heard of her. She's insanely popular in some places, and almost nonexistent in others. I saw her this year in an arena opening (as the first act on a 3 act bill) for Imagine Dragons and Metric, and yet, judging by the sheer volume and adoration of the comments on her Instagram posts (mostly from people who, very creepily, like to call her "mom", often in all caps and with repeated letters), she could easily fill a good sized venue anywhere in the country. Interestingly, the split of popularity tends to be on the pop side, the VMA side. I say this is interesting because (along with twenty one pilots of artists from that scene), she's really good. Like, really good. The control she has over her voice is absolutely insane. The songwriting is good, and the voice is incredible. Her 5-song EP from last year, "Room 93" contains all high quality songs, one of which made it on to "Badlands" ("Ghost"), with another ("Hurricane") on the deluxe version, and another of which did not, but is my personal favorite ("Empty Gold"). 

On "Badlands", she sounds mostly the same as on "Room 93", which is understandable considering they came out less than a year apart and feature a couple of the same songs. It's also fine, since an extended "Room 93" is something people have been waiting for ever since the EP came out. The opening track, "Castle", is one that was not available as a recording before the album's release, but one Halsey has been playing live for a while (including the show I saw, where she opened with it). It has a powerful hook, and gets stuck in your head. It also displays the forcefulness in her voice, low, powerful, completely under control at all times. It moves into two of the pre album releases, lead single "Hold Me Down" and fan favorite "New Americana". "Hold Me Down" is one of my favorites from the album, with a hook slightly borrowed from Panic! At the Disco's "Miss Jackson", but it redeems through pure force, backed with lyrics that paint a vaguely creepy picture. We move on to lyrics of a less… subtle nature on "New Americana". The music is the best it's been on the album, her voice is on point, the chorus is ridiculously catchy, and the song absolutely destroys live. The lyrics leave something to be desired ("we are the new americana, high on legal marijuana". Bonus points for being topical, I guess.) but I've always cared far more about the music, with lyrics as a far secondary concern. 

"Drive" introduces itself with an absolutely gorgeous synth line, that continues through beautiful vocal melodies, and a nice, if slightly jarring acoustic guitar joining in the chorus. I only say jarring, because as far as I can tell, it's the only traditional instrumentation found anywhere on the album. It's all synths and drum machines, which only warrants mention because of how much that goes against everything I usually listen to, which is mostly metal (which, admittedly, does use a drum machine occasionally, looking at Meshuggah) and harder rock. And yet, I love it. "Roman Holiday" is a nice ballad, and "Colors" is fantastic, with the exception of the spoken word bridge, which is grating, and the clunky lyrics don't help it. Forcing *way* too many colors in there, even for a song called "Colors". 

"Colors" is followed up by two solid tracks, "Coming Down", a slow ballad, and "Haunting" which has a memorable autotune opening. After those? "Control", easily one of the better songs on the album. Halsey kind of sounds like an über angry, terrifying, less immediate Taylor Swift here. This is followed by "Young God", which is frankly incredibly boring. Other than the shock value of dropping the f-bomb out of nowhere, nothing interesting comes out of the song. The album closes out with "Ghost", which is short, sweet, and one of the most beautiful songs of the year. It hits all the right places and brings the album to a smooth landing. 

Overall, the record isn't a masterpiece, but it's an extremely solid debut and shows a lot of promise for future releases from Halsey, who I'm predicting to easily be an A-list famous star by the release of her next album, she's on the rise and she is not coming down. At least hopefully she'll be headlining over Metric. 

Overall score: 76/100

Two songs from the Goodlands: "Control" and "Ghost"

Grab Bag for 8/21

Yes, it's very late

Grab Bag 8/21

So this is the Grab Bag. I do full reviews of 2 albums a week, the ones I'm most excited for, but there's always a couple more that interest me. So there'll be little mini-reviews of two more albums each week here in the grab bag. 

Carly Rae Jepsen- Emotion [synthpop]

This is pretty far outside of my usual territory, but the good people over at /r/recordreviews voted it highly and it's been getting positive reviews, so I felt I should take a listen. I was underwhelmed. It's certainly not bad, but it absolutely suffers from every song sounding the same, and it gets very tiring about 4 songs in. Some songs suffer a little from lyrics ("I really really really really really like you"), but there's a often nice catchy melody to counteract it. The saxophone that opens the opener, "Run Away With Me", is the best moment on the album, and it's part of the best song by far.  "All That" and "Making the Most of the Night" are also highlights, while "I Really Like You" stands out for catchiness, but it feels like too much of a hollow attempt at another "Call Me Maybe" to be great. The album is a lot of decent repetitive pop music with occasional flashes of something more, but it's a tiring listen due to lack of variety. 

Best song: "Run Away With Me"

Overall Score: 68/100

The Royal Concept- Smile (EP) [indie pop]

The new EP from the second Swedish band of the week is an EP. Which means it's short, which means I don't have much time to get sick of what I'm hearing. Since it doesn't offer me the time, I'm not sure if I would like this as an album, but as an EP, it's very enjoyable. I swear I've heard "Smile" (the song) somewhere. I can't tell if I actually have, or if it's just that kind of song. It's very catchy, and as the title promises, it puts a smile on your face. Some of the lyrics are lovably terrible, such as "I'll step on a grenade so you can see I'm the bomb". I don't know how you come up with that, but I like it a lot. "Fashion" is incredibly catchy, and again the wordplay creeps in. "Higher Than Love" is engaging, but it also gives me the feeling of having heard it before, and this time I know where it came from: the opening tag is straight out of LCD Soundsystem's "Dance Yrself Clean". The chorus is catchy, and that tag barely shows up, so the song still gets a passing score, especially once the guitar line comes into the bridge. The remaining two tracks are both incredibly catchy, and also reasonably fresh sounding, especially "Hurricane", which will never leave your head. Ever. Royal Concept have created an engaging EP that's gained them a new semi-fan, and I'm excited to hear more. 

Best song: "Hurricane"

Overall Score: 78/100