A Very Relative Pitch Christmas

Okay, guys.  I know you're expecting some sort of diatribe on the pitfalls of Christmas music or something else seasonally appropriate, but I really just wanted to toss up a quick message wishing everyone reading this a very merry, safe, and musically satisfying holiday season.  Surprising, I know.  But what can I say?  The presents are piling up under the tree, the smell of delicious food is filling the house, the world outside is covered in snow, and everyone is just generally in high holiday spirits.  And I can be a sucker for that sometimes.  So, from this humble blogger to whatever far-reaching corner of the interwebs you happen to hail from, Merry Christmas.

And by the way, you might be lucky enough to see another review here before the end of the year.  You know, if you behave yourself.  Santa's watching.  But if you don't quite make it to the Nice list within the next week (or, more accurately, if I don't manage to get off my ass and actually finish a review in time), make sure to ring in the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 in style.  Thanks for sticking with me this whole time, and I'm looking forward to posting more opinionated craziness in the coming months.  See you next time.

Review: Coheed And Cambria - Year Of The Black Rainbow

Coheed And Cambria have always been a couple steps away from your typical rock band.  While most of the band’s peers in the alternative/punk/whatever-you-want-to-call-it scene would be content to release album after album filled with suitably fist-pumping guitar riffs and catchy choruses, C&C have bigger things in mind - like, for instance, crafting a five-album-long epic sci-fi narrative told from the viewpoints of a wide cast of characters and spanning decades of storyline.  If nothing else, these guys are sure ambitious.  But what comes first - the story or the music that’s telling it?  For the most part, C&C’s music has been a perfect match for their storytelling ambitions, both complementing each other and creating satisfying results.  But for the first time in the band’s career, 2010’s Year Of The Black Rainbow sees the scale tipping in the direction of conceptual grandeur, which is all well and good, except that it comes at the sacrifice of the actual music.

Year Of The Black Rainbow is something of an oddity in C&C’s catalog for both musical and conceptual reasons.  For starters, in terms of the story’s progression, this is a “prequel” album - rather than continuing the established (if hopelessly convoluted) storyline set in motion by previous albums, this album goes back to the very beginning of the story in George-Lucas-like fashion and tells of the origin of well-established characters and events.  Aside from the many reasons this is rarely a good storytelling idea (and being a massive movie/TV/book geek in addition to a music nerd, I could go into those in great detail; for the sake of space here, though, I’ll spare you from that particular rant), this narrative backtracking gives the whole album a forced, pre-decided feeling - the constraints placed on the direction of the story seem to bleed through and put similar constraints on the music, precluding any serious progression in songcraft.  It’s as if Claudio Sanchez, the band’s lead singer/guitarist/lyricist/general mastermind, felt obligated to go back and tell this part of the story instead of being genuinely inspired to do so, and painstakingly forced out an album’s worth of musical material just to serve as a vessel for his narrative.  Which is a pity, because Sanchez has written some damn catchy songs in his career.  On YOTBR, however, catchy hooks are few and far between, and compelling lyrics to sing along to are even rarer.

Spotty writing aside, YOTBR is also hampered by some highly questionable production choices.  The mixing throughout most of the album seems muddy and poorly defined, a sharp contrast to the clear, satisfying mixing of the band’s last few outings.  All the intricate guitar work and touches of keyboard and sound design are simply a chore to pick out of the mix, rather than being enjoyable to listen to.  In certain places, the presence of electronics and other Pro Tools touches are just a little overbearing, such as “Guns Of Summer,” with its programmed industrial-breakbeat rhythms overpowering the positive aspects of what would otherwise have been one of the stronger songs on the album.  To put it simply, the mixing and over-production makes the album much more difficult to listen to than it should be.  There are some bright spots on YOTBR, however - Sanchez’s songwriting skills aren’t entirely absent.  Single “World Of Lines” is a short, satisfying blast of energetic prog-punk, and one of the album’s most fun songs to listen to.  Another highlight is the pulsing, down-tempo quasi-ballad “Far,” an instance in which the album’s abundance of studio sound-design techniques actually works in favor of the music instead of obfuscating it.  These tracks, along with a couple others - “When Skeletons Live,” “Made Out Of Nothing (All That I Am),” and “In The Flame Of Error” are all fairly enjoyable pieces from the latter half of the album - are, unfortunately, exceptions to the rule.  C&C’s future is uncertain at this point.  According to Sanchez, this  chapter of the story is the last that needs to be told.  Will the band continue writing music around its grandiose concept, move on to other, more accessible subjects, or simply dissolve and pursue other projects?  No one knows at this point - perhaps not even Sanchez and company.  If this does end up being the last album from C&C, however, it’ll be a shame that they couldn’t have exited on a higher note.

Rating: 2.5/5

Standout Tracks:
“World Of Lines”
“Far”
“When Skeletons Live”
“In The Flame Of Error”

Release Date: April 13, 2010

Review: Karnivool - Sound Awake

Every once in a while, I come across a band that deserves to be a lot more famous and widely recognized than they are.  Sometimes these under-appreciated groups come out of left field with an album of unexpected technical skill and emotional impact, and I’m blindsided by appreciation.  Writing objectively about albums like this and avoiding the pitfalls of fanboy-like adulation is tough sometimes, but I’m attempting it here by reviewing the most recent album by Australian prog-rockers Karnivool, Sound Awake.  I have no shame in declaring that this album, released in North America in February 2010 (having been available in the band’s home country since the previous summer), is one of the most impressive pieces of work I’ve listened to in quite a while, and has quickly earned a place alongside my favorite albums of all time.  Seriously.  It’s that good.

Karnivool’s beginnings were relatively humble - the band’s early material found them focusing on a style of melodic alternative metal that wouldn’t sound out of place next to Sevendust or Breaking Benjamin - but even on releases like 2005’s Themata, their experimentation with time signatures, polyrhythms, and song structure suggested that they might have a little more in common with Tool or Meshuggah than their peers.  Both of those bands’ influence on Karnivool’s sound continues to be pretty obvious on Sound Awake (lead singer Ian Kenny’s vocals in particular owe a massive debt to Maynard James Keenan), but their sonic palette has expanded quite a bit to reflect the influence of other bands like Radiohead and Porcupine Tree.  What this all adds up to is a record that, while not as immediately metallic or riff-laden as its predecessors, is overflowing with ideas from all across the musical spectrum.  Sound Awake may not be quite as heavy as Themata, but what the band sacrificed in heaviness it made up for in ambition and dynamic control.  The album is, in a word, epic.  Practically every song is a roller-coaster of crescendos and decrescendos, dissonance and resolution, restraint and release.  The band hasn’t lost its metallic edge, that’s for sure; they’ve just learned to bring the heavy when it counts the most.  Case in point: “New Day” and “Deadman,” two of the album’s finest songs, both stretch out for well over eight minutes (in the latter’s case, over ten) and take every single second to build meticulously from subdued openings to ominous, building passages (a verse here, a bridge there, with little regard for the order in which these things usually come), finally reaching explosive, anthemic conclusions that make the entire journey more than worthwhile.  Even the shorter, radio-friendly songs on Sound Awake feel huge and expansive.  “All I Know” trudges along relentlessly while its melodies weave seamlessly around each other, buoyed by Kenny’s soaring vocals.  Album opener “Simple Boy” begins with an eerie marimba line before the rhythm section (comprised of Jon Stockman on bass and Steve Judd on drums, both delivering world-class performances on the album) storms in with a filling-rattling groove; however, guitarists Drew Goddard and Matt Hosking subvert the traditional headbanging guitar riff and take a more atmospheric, effects-laden approach throughout the song, making it all the more intense.  It’s this creative, expectation-defying mentality that makes the album so thrilling to listen to; Karnivool is clearly a band of unusual maturity for its members’ ages, and on Sound Awake, they display an incredible amount of songwriting and compositional talent.

Of course, this amount of conceptual ability wouldn’t be quite as impressive if the band didn’t have the chops to follow through.  Luckily, the gentlemen in Karnivool are more than up to the challenge of turning in killer performances to match their songwriting acumen.  As mentioned, Stockman and Judd provide a rhythmic foundation beyond reproach; Stockman’s bass playing in particular is quite impressive, alternating between a chugging low-end rumble and high-register countermelodies that provide great interplay with the guitar lines.  And both guitarists prove themselves as consistently creative, tasteful, and fun to listen to; their explorations with alternate tunings and effects lend each song its own distinct sonic identity, while the album’s heaviest moments feature detuned riffing that’s chunky, tight, and more than satisfying in every case.  Of course, Kenny’s vocal performance is top-notch, displaying the singer’s impressive range and tonal control.  Even the lyrics, often an Achilles’ Heel in bands such as this, are consistently good, without a single cringe-inducing or high-school-poetry-esque moment among them.  Clearly, I love this album.  Listening to it is always a great experience; it’s intricate enough that there’s almost always something new to notice, but visceral enough that it resonates on a deeper, emotional level every time.  Know that feeling?  Listen through to the climax of “New Day” and I guarantee you will.  Sound Awake is an amazing record, and Karnivool are positioned to become one of the biggest bands in the genre; if there’s any justice in the world, many more music fans will become aware of this incredibly talented band’s existence in the near future.  And I personally can’t wait to hear what they do next - if Sound Awake is any indication, Karnivool have a very bright future ahead of them.

Rating: 5/5

Standout Tracks:
“New Day”
“All I Know”
“Deadman”
“Simple Boy”
“Change (Part 2)”

Release Date (North America): February 16, 2010

Review: 30 Seconds To Mars - This Is War

From the beginning of their career, 30 Seconds To Mars have always had a penchant for big statements.  The band, led by actor Jared Leto on lead vocals and guitar, has released three albums in the past decade, and each one has been chock full of the kind of huge, anthemic rock that’s tailor-made to fill stadiums and blast out of car windows.  The band does have their progressive leanings - most heavily showcased on their self-titled debut, released in 2002 - but at their heart, Leto and company just want to make people sing along and pump their fists.  That fact has never been more obvious than on their 2009 release, This Is War.

30STM’s sound has evolved pretty drastically from album to album, and This Is War continues to take steps away from the chugging, theatrical industrial-metal that made up the majority of their debut.  One of two things that stick out like sore thumbs here is the heavy prevalence of synths and electronics - the band was clearly indulging their love of old-school synth-rock throughout the writing and recording process.  And for the most part, it works pretty well; most songs benefit from the programmed percussion tracks and 80’s-influenced keyboard patches that abound on the album.  Heck, “Hurricane,” one of the more enjoyable songs on the album, is based entirely around a pulsing electronica backbeat and synth-orchestra backdrop to Leto’s always-melodramatic singing - quite a big leap away from their blistering first single back in the day, “Capricorn (A Brand New Name).”  This isn’t a bad thing at all, though, since it’s actually a very satisfying song.  Of course, there are a fair share of rockers on This Is War, but the vibe this time around tends to be much more uplifting and less brooding than their earlier material.  Tracks like “Kings And Queens,” “Closer To The Edge,” and the title track are some of the most anthemic, singalong-inspiring songs 30STM have ever recorded, almost coming across as a heavier, goth-ier U2.  You’d think that the soaring, triumphant melodies in songs like these would be enough to incite plenty of singing along from the band’s fanbase, but it seems like 30STM didn’t want to take any chances, leading to the album’s other glaringly obvious trait: almost every song prominently features crowd vocals backing up Leto’s singing at key moments.  A small, lucky group of die-hard 30STM fans was invited into the studio to record these gang-vocal touches, and to their credit, their contributions really do add to the feel that the band was clearly going for - rabid throngs of followers hanging on Leto’s every word.  In a few places, it actually sounds like the crowd at a live show rather than a studio flourish.  In fact, if the band is guilty of anything on this record that would detract from its enjoyability, it would be simply laying it on way too thick.  The crowd vocals really don’t seem all that necessary sometimes, and the already-busy mix would be a bit less cluttered without them.  Also, Leto’s vocals are so over-the-top sometimes that it’s distracting - instead of coming off as earnest and convincing, his over-singing gets to ridiculous extremes on occasion.  30STM really did craft a good album with This Is War; it just seems like they were trying so damn hard.  With future releases, if the band lays back a bit and lets things come more naturally, the results would likely be even more inspiring.  Until then, This Is War will make a welcome addition to their repertoire, and fans of the band should certainly enjoy singing along to every word.

Rating: 3.5/5

Standout Tracks:
“Kings And Queens”
“Closer To The Edge”
“Night Of The Hunter”
“Hurricane”

Release Date: December 8, 2009

Review: The Swell Season - Strict Joy

If you’ve been following this blog at all, you’ve probably figured out by now that I’m something of a metalhead.  Most of the reviews I’ve written have been geared towards the heavier end of the musical spectrum.  Not one to be pigeonholed, however, I also spend a good deal of my time listening to lighter music; particularly over the last few years, I’ve been getting familiar with a wide range of indie-rock, folk-rock, post-rock, and various other hyphenated, hipster-friendly genres of music that rarely, if ever, involve screaming vocals, detuned guitars, and double-bass drums.  However, since I really haven’t been immersed in that scene for very long, I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m sort of a novice when it comes to intelligently writing about it.  Surely my opinions of a genre I’ve only been into for a couple years wouldn’t carry as much weight as my opinions on the kind of music I’ve listened to since high school.  (Of course, this assumes that any opinion I have carries any weight at all, which is a pretty tenuous concept to begin with.)  But gosh darn it, I just like the stuff, so why the hell shouldn’t I write about it?

That caveat aside, I’ll come right out and say this: one of the best albums of the past year or so is Strict Joy by indie-folk group The Swell Season.  The group’s Oscar-winning songwriting duo of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova may have started their rise to renown as actors in the movie Once, in addition to performing most of the movie’s soundtrack, but their most recent album expands on their sound in marvelous ways.  The sheer quality of the songwriting and performances on Strict Joy proves beyond a shadow of doubt that the success of Once and its soundtrack was much more than a fluke or Hollywood-induced trend.  Hansard and Irglova - assisted by a full lineup of other musicians, some migrating from Hansard’s previous band, The Frames - are incredibly talented musicians, and possess a musical chemistry that, if there’s any justice in the world, people will be writing about and admiring for years and years to come.

It’s fairly clear that Hansard is calling most of the musical shots on Strict Joy (of the album’s twelve songs, all but two feature Hansard on lead vocals and primary songwriting credits), which is fine by me, because his writing and delivery are unfailingly excellent.  His lyrics are simple and accessible but not watered-down, and the arrangements are varied enough from one song to another to keep the listener interested throughout the album’s runtime.  Bluesy opener “Low Rising” is an immediate highlight, as well as “The Verb,” “High Horses,” “In These Arms,” and “The Rain,” to name a few.  Hearing Hansard perform these songs is akin to reading an earnest, heartfelt letter from an old friend - he aims right for the melancholic sweet spot and scores a bull’s-eye almost every time.  Irglova’s offerings are much more subdued, but don’t detract from the album in any way - if anything, they serve as a welcome break from Hansard’s methodology.  “I Have Loved You Wrong” in particular is fantastic - the bassline and faint drumbeat combine with Irglova’s just-above-a-whisper vocals to wash over you and make you feel just a little bit more at peace with the universe than you did before.  Well, maybe nothing that extreme, but hyperbole notwithstanding, it’s a truly excellent song, and yet another highlight on a very good album.  Strict Joy is the kind of listening experience that doesn’t come around often enough.  It’s the kind of record that absorbs you from the second you hit Play to the last note.  The songs are the kind of songs that inspire you to pick up a guitar and write your own.  It’s music that’s personal enough to feel intimate, while remaining accessible enough for just about anyone to relate to and be moved by.  It isn’t quite perfect - Irglova’s other featured song “Fantasy Man” and the final two tracks don’t quite reach the sublime level of most of the rest of the record - but it’s damn close.  And if nothing else, it sure was enough to melt the heart of this metal-hardened blogger.  Enthusiastically recommended.

Rating: 4.5/5

Standout Tracks:
“Low Rising”
“I Have Loved You Wrong”
“High Horses”
“The Rain”

Release Date: October 27, 2009

Review: Between The Buried And Me - The Great Misdirect

Say what you will about Between The Buried And Me - and people, fans and haters alike, have plenty to say - but one indisputable fact about the band is that they’re not afraid to take chances.  BTBAM have gained renown and notoriety for being one of the most ambitious and stylistically versatile bands in the current metalcore scene.  Really, the band deserves quite a bit of credit for heightening the metalcore genre’s overall level of quality and exposure amongst fans of other genres, taking a depressingly mediocre and incestuous musical culture and injecting it with new energy.  Ever since their self-titled debut, BTBAM have unflinchingly blended their roaring, highly technical brand of metalcore with snippets of all kinds of other genres.  A power-metal bridge, complete with King Diamond-esque falsetto in between the growls?  Sure, why not?  Acoustic ballads?  Got ‘em.  A straight-faced bossa nova track to close the fantastic Alaska album?  Heck yeah.  I mean, Christ, the track “Ants Of The Sky” off of Colors has a freaking hoe-down section.  That takes balls.  Despite their widely-ranged musical detours, though, it’s obvious by now that BTBAM are prog fans to the core.  Colors ended up being one of the most epic and intense albums released in 2007 - more so than even Dream Theater’s effort that year (whom several members of BTBAM cite as influences).  Although many old-school BTBAM aficionados were disappointed by a reduced amount of pure, undiluted brutality compared to their older albums, the band gained a hugely expanded fanbase in the prog community.  So the big question on everyone’s mind in late 2009 was: will the new BTBAM album, The Great Misdirect, measure up to Colors in terms of sheer musical audacity, crushing heaviness, or jaw-dropping epic-ness?

Well, the answer isn’t quite a simple yes or no, but The Great Misdirect is a hell of an album, no matter what you compare it to.  One of the key differences between this album and Colors is that each song is a more-or-less independent piece of music, instead of being separate-but-connected parts to an overall whole.  This isn’t a bad thing at all - it gives each of the six tracks their own identity and makes for an even more varied listening experience.  And while the album does engage in its share of genre-jumping, it seems like the band has reined in some of their more bizarre musical impulses this time around.  Nothing as out-of-left-field as the infamous hoe-down pops up this time - the most head-turning passage is probably the intro to “Fossil Genera - A Feed From Cloud Mountain,” which features out-of-tune circus-piano chords and Mike Patton-esque, vaguely creepy “la-la” vocals.  It’s certainly disorienting enough, however, especially coming out of the pulverizing ending of the previous track, “Disease, Injury, Madness.”  None of this is to say that these songs are any less schizophrenic and meandering in nature than you’d expect from the band.  Their digressions are just a little less weird, that’s all.  If any sort of influence rears its head often enough to be considered a theme, it’s that of straightforward, headbanging groove rock riffs: the aforementioned “Disease, Injury, Madness” and epic album closer “Swim To The Moon” both feature lengthy instrumental sections in which the band gets a chance to stretch out and jam on a musical idea, explore it, play some solos over it, and move on to the next one.  Some of these passages hearken back to the old-school metal and prog-rock that the members of the band were raised on, such as the fantastic, restrained-yet-relentlessly-building solo section of “Obfuscation;” others, however, show a bit more contemporary influence, such as the industrial programming in a particular section of “Fossil Genera.”  Even though they’ve dialed back on the eccentricity, this stuff isn’t boring by a long shot.  (To drive the point home, just listen to the two shortest tracks on the album: the jazz-influenced opener “Mirrors” and the late-album acoustic ballad “Desert Of Song.”  Not only are they the farthest the band strays from their core sound on this album, they’re two of the best songs here, and the band sounds just as confident and self-assured playing this material as they do blast-beating away with all their might.)

Despite the slight changes in musical color and influence, however, this is mostly the same BTBAM we know and love from the last few records, and the material here packs no less punch.  Fans of the breakneck technical metal that has run through the band’s entire career should find a lot to enjoy - perhaps even more than on Colors.  Those who listen to the band for the sake of highly virtuosic playing will definitely not be disappointed - these guys continue to step up their game without fail in terms of playing ability and compositional audacity with every release, and this one is no exception.  And those hoping for something as huge and epic-sounding as their last couple albums should be more than satisfied by this one - “Fossil Genera” and “Swim To The Moon” in particular both feature two of the most sweeping, grandiose ending passages in the band’s catalogue, or anyone else’s, for that matter.  The Great Misdirect will eternally be compared to Colors, and that’s a shame, because it’s just as solid an album.  While it might not be quite as risky or cohesive as its predecessor, it delivers all the important goods one would expect from a band of BTBAM’s caliber, and that makes for an intensely enjoyable listen.  Just remember to buckle your seatbelts - it’ll be one hell of a ride.

Rating: 4.5/5

Standout Tracks:
“Swim To The Moon”
“Obfuscation”
“Fossil Genera - A Feed From Cloud Mountain”

Release Date: October 27, 2009

Review: Breaking Benjamin - Dear Agony

Okay, remember my review of Chevelle’s last album in which I railed against the state of modern radio rock?  To reiterate my stance, most of it’s pretty freaking bad.  A lot of the things that die-hard rock fans hate about straight-up pop - gratuitous over-production, emphasis on image over substance, and a general drought in any serious musical talent  or creativity - have leached into the rock scene to the extent that sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the two.  But of course, there have been exceptions to this general rule, or at least instances of genuine originality and talent infiltrating the airwaves.  Over much of the past decade, Breaking Benjamin was another light in the darkness, a band that actually had something new and interesting to offer.  Their riffs were a little more angular, their melodies were a little more unpredictable, and vocalist Ben Burnley’s singing and lyrics had a little more personality than most of the band’s peers.  Sadly, their latest release, Dear Agony, falls way short of the standard set by their previous material, becoming one of the biggest disappointments of the past year or so.

The biggest problem I have with Dear Agony is how sterile it sounds.  The guitar tone in particular seems flat and utterly devoid of any inflection, personality, or really any indication that it was tracked by an actual human being rather than programmed in Pro Tools.  It’s like every bit of signal-compression and noise-reduction in the studio’s arsenal was thrown at the guitar tracks - maybe in an effort to make things sound more precise and less messy - and the end result is something that sounds so mechanical and computerized that it barely even sounds like a guitar anymore.  The vocal tracks are just as bad, utilizing a liberal amount of auto-tune and, moreover, simply recorded with a minimal amount of variation in delivery and tone.  This is especially disappointing since Burnley’s voice, with all its quirks and smirk-to-scream attitude, was always one of the band’s defining characteristics.  Here, his voice seems blander than it ever has.  Only a couple songs on the album (such as “Lights Out” and opener “Fade Away”) hint at the old Breaking Benjamin, with particularly heavy guitar riffs and a bit of Burnley’s old vocal personality peeking through.  Most of the album’s other tracks, though, are generic and uninspired to a really depressing extent - and the suffocating amount of studio sheen applied to everything only hurts matters more.  Really, what all this means for the whole package is that everything is processed and over-produced to the extent that it all sounds almost robotic, and as a result, the final product is boring, homogenized, and predictable - in other words, the farthest thing possible from the satisfying experience a rock album should be.  Maybe all this production work was an effort to compensate for a lack of inspired songwriting, but no matter how hard they try to dress it up, there’s no making up for the lack of quality material here.  Sure, there are guitars, drums, a bass track in there somewhere, and vaguely angry vocals, but without good songs to play, it’s still no fun to listen to.  It’s like ordering a New York strip and receiving a big slab of bologna.  Yeah, it’s technically still meat, but it’s nowhere near as good.

Rating: 1.5/5

Standout Tracks:
“Lights Out”
“Fade Away” 

Release Date: September 29, 2009

Review: Thrice - Beggars

Thrice have proven by now that they can pretty much do whatever the hell they want.  For a band that started out in the post-hardcore scene along with the likes of Thursday and any number of other bands, their recent output has shown an astounding level of musical adventurousness.  Starting with 2005’s Vheissu, and kicking into full throttle with 2007 and 2008’s The Alchemy Index series, Thrice have stretched out from the heavy yet literary brand of post-hardcore of their earlier releases to encompass everything from sludgy, detuned metal to stripped-down acoustic blues and keyboard-and-electronics-driven ambient soundscapes.  The sheer ambition of this kind of diversity is staggering enough, but here’s the kicker: it was all really, really good.  Every new genre or style the band decided to take on fit like a glove, and it seemed that they could do no wrong no matter what they tried next.  And, following The Alchemy Index, that was really the question - just what would Thrice try their hand at to follow up on such a great success?  Well, they decided to defy everyone’s expectations and rein their ambitions in for an album, retreating to a musical space that felt comfortable and natural.  Beggars is the result.  Basically, if Vheissu and The Alchemy Index were Thrice saying “we can play in any genre of music we want to, and it’s going to be awesome,” Beggars is the band following up that statement by saying “. . . but this is the kind of music that we enjoy playing the most.”  And it shows in the final product - though it’s not as wildly varied as the band’s previous few releases, Beggars largely rises to the same uncommonly high standard of quality as anything Thrice have done yet.

Of course, the $64 question is: after toning down the experimentation, just what kind of sound did Thrice settle on?  The answer is a little hard to place.  It’s a credit to the band, don’t get me wrong; they’ve carved out such an effective niche that it seems like they’re a genre unto themselves sometimes.  But the prevailing sound on Beggars tends towards rootsy yet heavy alternative rock with occasional hints of the band’s post-hardcore past.  “Talking Through Glass” and “At The Last” are the album’s fastest, heaviest tracks, and it’s here that their past musical tendencies peek through the most.  On the other hand, the album’s slower, more expansive songs (such as “Circles” and “The Great Exchange”) contain the kind of atmosphere and sonic experimentation exemplified on releases like Vheissu and The Alchemy Index (particularly the latter’s Water disc).  But the band seems to strike its best grooves on the mid-tempo songs, like album opener “All The World Is Mad” and “In Exile.”  It’s clear that the majority of the material here was based around the results of four guys in a room jamming out, rather than any lofty, cerebral concept like the one behind The Alchemy Index.

All four of those guys turned in great performances for Beggars, but the one that stands out the most by far is that of vocalist/lyricist/guitarist Dustin Kensrue.  Thrice has always been known for featuring Kensrue’s great lyrics (or at least I’ve always loved his work, and I doubt I’m in the minority here), and on Beggars, he turns in some of his best work yet.  Kensrue has become a master at fitting his lyrics perfectly to the cadence of the song; barely a word on the whole record seems rhythmically awkward or out-of-place.  His sense of meter is almost Shakespearian.  And yet his words carry true emotion and meaning behind them - just look at “The Weight” and “Wood And Wire” for examples of Kensrue’s incredibly poignant lyrical work.  His vocal delivery has taken leaps and bounds as well: he’s clearly taken a lot of the bluesy influence of the band’s recent work to heart (not to mention his acoustic solo record, Please Come Home), evidenced by his soulful, husky inflection on a lot of the material here.  Of course, on the heavier tunes, his raspy hardcore bark comes back for a bit; by and large, though, it seems that Kensrue has evolved into nearly a full-fledged blues crooner.  Which works surprisingly well with the music backing him up; the four-piece has clearly developed into a well-oiled machine that’s comfortable with playing a very wide range of music, and Beggars displays just enough of that versatility to prove that there’s still a whole lot of uncharted territory left to hear Thrice explore.  And I, for one, can’t wait to hear what they decide to do next.

Rating: 4/5

Standout Tracks:
“The Weight”
“In Exile”
“Wood And Wire”
“The Great Exchange”

Release Date: September 14, 2009

Road Trippin' (Yes, That's Actually A Song Title)

So I went on a road trip last week.  It should go without saying that it was one of the most enjoyable things I've done in quite a while - I mean, who doesn't love a good road trip?  Of course, I had the chance to do all kinds of fun stuff: I got to hang out with lots of old friends from school, I made some new friends and forged some very strong bonds with people I had previously only known a little, I got to see some amazing live music, I had some time to walk around and explore a city (Louisville, KY) I had never been to . . . but none of those things really have anything to do with what Relative Pitch is about (except maybe the live music part, but I'm saving that for a potential future post).

One thing that goes hand-in-hand with a road trip, though, and that I enjoyed getting a chance to do almost as much as all the things listed above, is simply the act of driving and listening to music.  Rocking out behind the wheel of an automobile is something everyone enjoys at least every once in a while, and doing it for an extended period of time is something I look forward to every time I schedule a vacation for myself - cramped legs, sore neck, and high gas prices be damned.  Even if you're not on a big road trip, it's still exhilarating - whether you're cruising around town at 30mph with the windows down or setting the cruise control for 75 and barreling down the interstate, the sheer act of movement combines with the energy of what you're listening to and really gives you a rush, if you're doing it right.

Of course, you can't play just anything to get this effect - you have to make sure you have the right tunes for driving.  Just like anything involving musical taste, this is vastly different for any given human being.  What gives one person that adrenaline rush of combined music and momentum may very well bore or annoy the next person.  So, with that caveat in mind, here's a breakdown of my favorite road music and why I love it:

- Instrumental, very guitar-driven progressive rock/metal.  Being a guitarist myself, this kind of stuff is always fun to listen to (whether or not it's over-the-top enough to be lumped into the "shred guitar" category), and the energy behind the virtuosic playing is what makes it really satisfying to crank up in the car.  Sometimes the urge to play air guitar interferes with the need to steer, but this hasn't resulted in any accidents yet.  Examples:  John Petrucci - Jaws Of Life; Scale The Summit - The Great Plains

- Catchy, melodic alternative rock/indie rock.  Ideally, the best of this stuff combines an energetic, driving instrumental factor with great vocal melodies and good lyrical work - making it perfect to sing along to.  This is great for getting weird looks from other drivers.  Examples:  Silversun Pickups - There's No Secrets This Year; The Airborne Toxic Event - Sometime Around Midnight

- Heavy - and I do mean heavy - metal.  For similar reasons to the first genre mentioned, but instead of technical proficiency (or, in many cases, in addition to it), the driveability comes from sheer heaviness.  Detuned guitar riffs, double-bass drumming, screamy/growly vocals (as long as they're performed with some degree of talent) . . . there's nothing like headbanging behind the wheel to a great metal band.  Examples:  Lamb Of God - Contractor; Opeth - Ghost Of Perdition

- Relatively ambient, mood-inducing music.  Let's face it, sometimes you're not in the mood for headbanding or sing-alongs; on a rainy or cloudy morning, something more subdued will make your drive just as enjoyable.  All kinds of genres fit the bill here, from trip-hop to post-rock - the most important factor is the vibe it sets.  (Of course, you have to be careful here - you don't want to put in anything so chilled-out that you fall asleep at the wheel.)  Examples:  Massive Attack - Everywhen; Explosions In The Sky - It's Natural To Be Afraid

Naturally, this is an incredibly subjective list, so your ideal driving music might be completely different than mine.  Therefore, you are hereby encouraged to leave a comment with the type of tunes that make your commute all the more enjoyable.  Whether it aligns with my tunes perfectly or stands as a polar opposite to my picks, I'm looking forward to seeing what other people like to crank up behind the wheel.  Post away!

Review: Porcupine Tree - The Incident

You know the saying “less is more?”  Well, if you’re a progressive-rock musician, odds are you either (a) have never once heard that saying before, or (b) dismissed it as a bullshit excuse reserved for the musically unadventurous and faint-of-heart long ago.  Yep, prog-rock and the people who make it have never exactly been known for their restraint or conservatism - songs lasting, on average, at least six minutes tend to be the genre’s equivalent of the three-minute pop song, and of course, the more solos and odd time signatures, the better.  But the true test of any prog band’s mettle is the extended-length epic: compositions usually clocking in at around thirty minutes or longer and made up of enough separate-but-linked musical themes and motifs to fill any lesser bands’ entire discographies.  Dream Theater are pretty adept at this; prog supergroup Transatlantic have based their entire existence around the concept; and naturally, Rush did it before anyone else did with 2112.  So, it was only a matter of time before Porcupine Tree, flag-bearers for a new breed of prog-rock, threw their hat in the ring and released their own hour-long epic musical journey - The Incident.  But how did it turn out?  Depends on how you like your prog.

The trouble is, Porcupine Tree have never made particularly grandiose music.  It’s not that the music isn’t complex enough, or that it doesn’t carry the emotional weight of the band’s peers’ output - on the contrary, Porcupine Tree’s music tends to be some of the most moving material you’re likely to find in the genre.  However, the mood prevalent in most of the band’s music tends to swing between downcast, shoegazing melancholy and biting, acidic outbursts of vitriol, neither of which lend themselves to the epic-sounding Overtures and Grand Finales that bands along the lines of Dream Theater have trademarked.  Steven Wilson doesn’t have an operatic bone in his body, which makes his songwriting refreshingly free of bombast.  So it really shouldn’t be that surprising that, hot off the heels of recording his first solo album, Insurgentes (you can read my review of that one here), Wilson penned a fifty-five-minute-long suite that covers much of the same emotional territory as his previous releases.  That’s not to say The Incident isn’t musically adventurous; between the 14 tracks the title-suite is split up into (henceforth referred to by their individual track names; only in prog-rock does something as simple as naming songs become this complicated), a lot of stylistic ground is covered.  “The Incident” and “Circle Of Manias,” for instance, are some of the heaviest material the band has recorded to date.  On the other hand, “The Yellow Windows Of The Evening Train” and the suite’s conclusion “I Drive The Hearse” are positively tranquil.  The best material in the piece seems to rest comfortably between these extremes: “The Blind House” is a high-energy rocker that charges along mostly in 5/4, while “Time Flies” is almost an epic-within-an-epic, stretching out for nearly twelve minutes of acoustic verses, a chorus featuring some of Wilson’s best vocals yet, and a suitably indulgent guitar solo.  The problem is pacing: the placement of something as somber as “I Drive The Hearse” at the end of an epic composition such as this is a big part of why the whole piece doesn’t sit as well as it should; it seems that something so ambitious deserves to go out with a bang, not a whimper.  It’s great music when taken at face value, though - Wilson knows how to take a melody or a lyric and twist it, knife-like, right into your heart.  It simply seems anticlimactic as part of the bigger picture.

It’s definitely worth noting that The Incident also includes a second disc of material that wasn’t composed as part of the suite (confined to the CD release’s first disc).  They’re not b-sides, though - the four songs on the second disc are high-quality Porcupine Tree in their own right, especially the atmospheric “Flicker” and the bitter but somehow smirking “Remember Me Lover”.  In a way, the quality of the songs on the second disc further underline the weaknesses of the first.  Porcupine Tree seems much more comfortable writing music that’s self-contained into reasonably-sized capsules.  Even the specific sections of the first disc that stand out seem to work better when viewed as their own individual songs instead of being forced into a larger concept.  Who knows - maybe if the band had focused on developing all the ideas contained in The Incident as their own separate songs instead of pigeon-holing them in as sections of an epic, some of the shorter, almost interlude-like pieces (such as “Great Expectations,” “Kneel And Disconnect,” and “Your Unpleasant Family”) would have been fleshed out further into much more satisfying individual compositions.  Food for thought.  Really, though, Porcupine Tree is an incredibly talented band, and a lot of the music contained in The Incident is some of the best they’ve released.  Their music is just more powerful when delivered on a slightly-smaller scale than the standard prog-rock epic.  Maybe in their case, “less is more” really is advice to be followed.

Rating: 3.5/5

Standout Tracks:
“Time Flies”
“Remember Me Lover”
“The Blind House”
“Flicker”

Release Date: September 14, 2009

Review: Muse - The Resistance

Muse used to be a fairly underground band.  Origin Of Symmetry and Absolution were very hip albums to have even heard of, let alone be familiar with; they were an automatic bastion to a person’s Cool Music I’m Into That No One Else Has Heard Of quotient.  They were getting lumped in with Coldplay as Radiohead-wannabes by non-believers - probably because of their British origin more than any actual musical resemblance to either band.  They were darlings of the critics and their visibility was still on the rise.  Somewhere in the last few years, however, Muse went from being a promising up-and-coming group of musicians to being one of the biggest bands in the world.  Maybe it was playing to sellout crowds at Wembley - one of the biggest stadiums in the world - in a pair of gigs documented in their HAARP DVD/CD release.  Or maybe it was their inclusion in the Twilight soundtrack, making them fixtures in the musical accompaniment to millions of teenage girls’ lives.  Whatever the cause, Muse is definitely not an underground band anymore.  They’re huge.  And if The Resistance is any indication, they know it, and you’d better damn well recognize it too.

The album starts off with the fairly straightforward “Uprising,” a classic Muse track which serves as a cover for the amount of grandiose musical statements to come later.  The simple guitar-bass-drums-vocals approach to this first track (notwithstanding a few requisite synth fills - after all, this is Muse we’re talking about) is a somewhat deceptive way to kick off the album - after this point, the band starts pulling out one over-the-top idea after another, resulting in tracks as wide-ranging as the Depeche-Mode-influenced dance grooves found in “Undisclosed Desires” and the rock-opera-worthy, Queen-worshipping “United States Of Eurasia (+Collateral Damage),” the latter complete with full orchestral accompaniment.  Many of these ideas work, especially when the band indulges its classical side: the album ends with a three-track piece titled “Exogenesis: Symphony” which also features an orchestra, and makes for a very satisfying conclusion to all the craziness and genre-jumping.  In fact, the “Exogenesis” suite is so good that much of the rest of the album seems just okay by comparison.  The scattershot approach to genre and influence works against the band here; many of these tracks, while enjoyable on their own, simply can’t stand up next to one another and create a viable whole.  One of the other main drawbacks of the album is that, when the band simplifies their approach as on “Uprising” and a few other tracks, they seem to go on autopilot, as if their creative energy was expended on the more out-there tracks.  Overall, though, The Resistance is a good album, and what it lacks in cohesiveness is almost made up for by how much fun it is to listen to.  Only a band with the confidence of knowing they’re one of the biggest acts in the world would dare create music this bombastic and over-the-top; if they focus their confidence on a more unified vision, they may yet create another truly fantastic album.  Until then, though, The Resistance should be enough to tide their new-found legions of screaming fans over.

Rating: 3/5

Standout Tracks:
“Exogenesis: Symphony” (Parts 1-3)
“United States Of Eurasia (+Collateral Damage)”
“Undisclosed Desires”

Release Date: September 14, 2009

Emotional Maturity And Music: "Well, I Guess This Is Growing Up"

I was listening to my iPod on Shuffle the other day, and something came up that I hadn't listened to in years.  This in itself isn't remotely noteworthy - I have a ton of music on that thing, a lot of which is pulled from CDs I've owned since high school or earlier and that I haven't sat down and paid proper attention to in quite a long time.  But the particular song gave me pause, because it used to be one of my favorites.  It was "And All That Could Have Been" by Nine Inch Nails, and as a lad of about sixteen, it had encapsulated my angsty little world almost perfectly.  Here's a link to the song if you're curious enough to listen.  (Be warned, though - it's pretty damn depressing.  You might want to have a box of tissues close at hand, or alternatively, make sure there are no razors or other sharp objects within arms' reach before clicking Play.)


Now, I was a pretty angsty sixteen-year-old.  (Then again, who wasn't, right?)  A song like this, one that forces the listener to share in whatever incredibly miserable experience inspired it in the first place, seems perfect favorite-song-ever material for a kid with tons of negative thoughts and emotions swirling in his adolescent psyche but without any sense of perspective on any of it, much less any way of expressing anything more complicated than deep, malignant sorrow.  Screw looking at things from different angles, this is my angle, and nobody but Trent Reznor understands me.  Of course, even at that young age, I was a budding musician, and I appreciated the compositional and production aspects of the song too, such as its masterful use of atmospheric effects to create mood and its clever switches in time-signature.  All in all, I had thought "And All That Could Have Been" was pretty much the epitome in songwriting, musicianship, and storytelling-through-lyrics.  And it was, like, deep, man.


Listening to the song again eight years later, my impression was decidedly different.  For one thing, it's so oppressively dreary and dark that listening to it really wasn't that much fun.  I guess in the intervening time since I was a dark and brooding high-school sophomore, I've gained more appreciation for major-key songwriting.  Plus, Reznor's complete lack of musical or lyrical subtlety leaves nothing left to interpretation - it's like getting whacked in the face with the gloomiest sledgehammer ever.  I guess I don't feel like I completely share his outlook on things as much as I thought I once did.  But what made me stop and think the hardest was the fact that, when I was the kind of kid who listened to this stuff all the time, I'm sure I was just about as depressing to be around as the music I listened to.  (For what it's worth, though, I still think the song is cleverly produced and arranged from a musical perspective.  I'm still a NIN fan, and for all his lyrical shortcomings, Reznor was - and arguably, still is - a damn good musician overall.)

This got me thinking about how our emotional reactions to music change and mature as we grow older.  When I was a sixteen-year-old NIN-obsessed adolescent, I latched onto the emotional wavelength of that kind of music because it was painted in broad enough strokes for me to recognize with my primitive understanding of human emotion.  NIN has never been known for subtlety or emotional ambiguity: it's venting music, and when you're a teenager, you need music, movies, and other media that lets you vent a bit.  Since most kids that age view things in similarly broad, black-and-white strokes, this ham-fisted approach to emotion is tailor-made for those needing an outlet for all that hormonal tension.  Not that it all has to be dark and dreary: enter Blink-182, whose smart-ass pop-punk was just as much of an outlet for me and my peers as NIN's emotional dirges.  (See "Dammit," which is pretty unsubtle itself and from which I shamelessly lifted part of this entry's title.)  It laid it all out there, and it just begged to be sung along to, to be transcribed from memory in the margins of your American History 1 notes, and to be totally taken to heart as God's honest truth and a clear window into the human experience.  Any number of other bands or genres could fit the bill just as well - the point is that it didn't take any effort to identify with, it just was what it was, in the most obvious tones possible.


When you get older, though, you learn that things aren't so cut-and-dry.  You learn to view situations from other people's perspectives than your own.  You learn that there are better ways to get a message across than screaming it in people's faces - in other words, that subtlety can be a very good thing.  Most importantly, you learn that an isolated instance of heartache or angst isn't the end of the freaking world, and you'd probably be better off getting over it than wallowing in self-pity.  From the perspective of a 24-year-old who's done at least a little bit of growing up since 2002 (then again, maybe I'm flattering myself unduly here), it seems pretty damn silly and immature to put as much emotional stock into a song like "And All That Could Have Been" as I once did.

This isn't to say that I'm some kind of Vulcan-like stoic with no reaction to anything, though - it's just that different types of musical content and lyrical imagery strike a chord with me these days.  If I feel like listening to something with emotional resonance, I'm much more likely to spin some Death Cab For Cutie or The Swell Season than NIN.  Maybe I've just softened up in my old age.  And It's quite likely that in another eight years, I'll look back on the music that tugs my heartstrings today and feel the same way.  So maybe there really is no "growing up," and we're all just drifting from one self-pitying musical experience to another, slightly less morose one, only to move onward again.  Whatever the case, it doesn't change the fact that, no matter how old we get or how mature we think we are, we all need something to vent with in one way or another - and those sources of emotional outlet are as subject to change as our emotions themselves.

Review: Chevelle - Sci-Fi Crimes

Modern radio-friendly hard rock has earned a pretty bad name for itself in recent years.  The airwaves have been flooded with new, up-and-coming bands grappling for a piece of the pie, armed with frat-party-friendly lyrics and chunky, detuned guitar riffs plagiarized from their idols and contemporaries.  A lot of it really does suck horribly (I’m looking at you, Saving Abel), but amidst the dreck, there are a few bands that had a hand in establishing the sound all these also-rans are aping and that are still putting out material that rises above the trash to at least a passable level of listenability.  One of these bands is Chevelle, and their fall 2009 release Sci-Fi Crimes, while not quite Album Of The Decade material, is quite enjoyable anyway, especially when compared to its competition.

Chevelle have been fairly consistent in output throughout their career, with each album taking a modest step in a different direction from the previous one.  Added up over almost a decade, though, this means that the band has come a long way.  Today’s Chevelle is, on average, quite a bit more up-tempo and energetic than the plodding, moody alt-metal that made them famous in the first half of the ‘00s.  Sci-Fi Crimes definitely continues this trend, started in earnest on their previous full-length, Vena Sera.  One of the other things that sets this album apart from what came before it, paradoxically, is that it really isn’t all that heavy.  Sure, there’s a good amount of super-low-end riffing, but it’s used a bit more sparingly this time around, interspersed with a wider variety of guitar tones, lyrical vibes, and general changes in mood and dynamic.  Opener “Sleep Apnea,” “Jars,” and “Roswell’s Spell” are classic Chevelle, not completely terrible by any means but bordering on the upper end of average.  However, tracks like these coexist with surprisingly subdued songs like “Shameful Metaphors” and the entirely acoustic “Highland’s Apparition.”  These two tracks, along with the driving “Letter From A Thief,” showcase some of Pete Loeffler’s best vocal work and most memorable melodies to date.  The album does drag a bit towards the end, however; a few tracks seem tacked on as filler, and the unnecessary and unimpressive instrumental “Interlewd” adds a couple minutes of running time that the album really didn’t need.  Sci-Fi Crimes is a spotty, inconsistent album, but the best material on here is really very good, and for a band currently in the modern rock scene, that’s praise to be cherished.

Rating:  3/5

Standout Tracks:
“Letter From A Thief”
“Shameful Metaphors”
“Highland’s Apparition”

Release Date:  August 31, 2009

Dream Theater - Black Clouds & Silver Linings

(Note: I actually wrote most of this review over a year ago, before the Great Relative Pitch Drought, so what you see below is my largely unaltered opinion of an album that's over a year old.  I know, I know, like I said, I'm behind and I have a lot of catching up to do.  But I still do like the album, and for most of the same reasons I initially wrote about.  Keep reading to find out what they are.)

Few other bands that have been around for nearly a quarter of a century have the same amount of musical energy and vitality as Dream Theater.  Almost undeniably the biggest name in modern progressive metal, Dream Theater have made their career out of pushing the boundaries of musicianship and composition, churning out new albums like clockwork over the last decade.  But even the most forward-thinking musicians can fall into a predictable pattern, as a few of Dream Theater’s more recent releases have displayed.  As impressive as super-fast guitar and keyboard solos and twenty-plus-minute compositions may be, it became something of a formula with the band, with almost every song following a loosely varied, but rarely abandoned, structure of tempo changes, solo sections, and singalong choruses.  The irony of a progressive band falling into such conventional habits was perhaps the most discouraging thing of all.  With their tenth full-length studio album, however, Dream Theater have proved that they still have more musical creativity and passion than many bands half their age - Black Clouds & Silver Linings is an exciting, varied, and unpredictable album that, in many ways, redeems a band that some had feared were beginning to stagnate.

As its title would suggest, Black Clouds & Silver Linings is all about contrast: dark and light, fast and slow, intense and soothing.  Take the opening track, “A Nightmare To Remember,” which kicks the album off with one of the darkest, most menacing passages in Dream Theater’s catalog.  The next six minutes are mostly standard Dream Theater, though definitely showcasing their heavy side.  The song soon takes an abrupt left turn, however, giving way to a calm, atmospheric midsection with soothing guitar arpeggios and vocal harmonies.  This respite (which would have worked well as its own song) doesn’t last, though - the mayhem soon breaks loose again, bringing the song full circle with some of the band’s most headbanging passages yet.  These musical twists and turns add up to one of the most satisfying musical journeys Dream Theater have created.  The album’s other extended-length suites - “The Best Of Times,” a touching tribute to drummer Mike Portnoy’s deceased father, and the dramatic album closer “The Count Of Tuscany” - display similar ups and downs in dynamic level.  The overall impression of these three tracks is of a band truly stretching their songwriting limits and branching into new territory, perhaps acknowledging the complacency of their last couple releases.  The album’s pair of shorter, “radio-friendly” tracks, “A Rite Of Passage” and “Wither,” are much more standard fare for the band.  Though they may not be as groundbreaking as the rest of the material here, they’re still fun to listen to, and should satisfy listeners looking for something easier to digest than 15-minute-plus epics.

After all, though, this is a Dream Theater album, albeit a very good one - and no DT album would be complete without the requisite amount of over-the-top solos and generally dramatic displays of virtuosity.  Critics of the band’s technical self-indulgence will find just as much to complain about here as on any previous release.  Questionable lyrical choices have also popped up in the band’s catalog in recent years, and a few clunkers slipped through this time around as well.  But Dream Theater’s strengths have always been geared toward the big picture rather than the minute details of songcraft, assembling roller-coaster-rides that leave the listener with the feeling of having gone on a journey, of having really experienced something.  In this regard, Black Clouds & Silver Linings is more than satisfying, and DT fans should embrace this album as one of the band’s best in a long time.

Rating:  4/5

Standout Tracks: 
“The Count Of Tuscany”
“A Nightmare To Remember”
“The Best Of Times”

Release Date: June 23, 2009

Clearing out the cobwebs.

Alright, I confess: I'm a lazy bastard.  I haven't posted any reviews in over a year.  I'm not really sure what happened - I was doing alright, getting something written up just about every couple weeks or so, then all of a sudden, I just got busy or preoccupied with other stuff, and this humble little blog fell by the wayside, blah blah blah, excuses excuses, etc.  The truth is, I let you down.  I betrayed my loyal readers (all five of you), and I feel bad about it.

But as Sting said in that song you know you actually kind of like even though you'd never admit it, it's a brand new day.  With that in mind, I've decided to give Relative Pitch a second shot.  Things might be just a bit different from what you'd remember - obviously, I've reformatted the place in an effort to make it look a little snazzier.  I think my writing style has evolved a bit in the past year or so, too.  Hopefully for the better, although I guess you'll have to be the judge of that.  A ton of music has been released since I fell off the wagon here last summer, and I'll be attempting to pick up where I left off by reviewing some of the most noteworthy releases to come around since then.  Yeah, I've got a lot of catching up to do.  But it'll be fun (at least for me; I can only hope you have as good of a time reading my opinionated ramblings as I did writing them).

And so, like a phoenix rising from the ashes (or maybe more like a lethargic twenty-something rising from an overlong afternoon nap), Relative Pitch makes its triumphant return to the interwebs.  Read on.  Send praise, or troll me up if you want.  But have fun.