System of a Down to Headline Download 2011

After a 4 year hiatus, nu-metal revolutionaries System of a Down are reuniting at this year's Download 2011 festival. The news comes as a great relief to many of the System of a Down fans that have been closely following the “will they or won't they?” rumors that have been circulating since immediately after the hiatus was initiated.
In the time between the break up and now, most of the members have moved on to various solo and collaborative projects. Lead singer Serj Tankian has had a relatively successful solo career, releasing two albums. Guitarist and backup vocalist Daron Malakian and drummer John Dolmayan went on to form the band Scars on Broadway. The one album they released received a lukewarm critical reception at best. Bassist Shavo Odadjian has done work with the RZA and funk legend, George Clinton.
Based on the wording of the statement issued on System of a Down's official site, it doesn't seem as though the reunion will be anything but temporary at the moment. “We are excited to announce that System will be playing some dates together in 2011,” the band's front page states. All of the dates will take place in between June 2nd and June 19th and will take place in western Europe and Britain with the Download festival at Castle Donington in Britain with Avenged Sevenfold, taking center stage. You can find the specific dates, times, and ticket information over at www.systemofadown.com

REVIEW: Serj Tankian - Imperfect Harmonies

For the past few weeks I've been listening to new albums by bands that I listened to incessantly throughout high school. Most of these experiences were disappointing at best. Disturbed's Asylum? Boring. Linkin Park's A Thousand Suns? Losing focus. Mindless Self Indulgence's Heart? Entirely out of tune and overprogrammed. Stone Sour's Audio Secrecy? Generic and safe.

I came into Serj Tankian's Imperfect Harmonies with tempered expectations. After all, he was the lead singer of one of my top 3 bands in high school, System of a Down (SOAD). However, I am pleased to report that he has managed to create a truly interesting and enjoyable record here.

The album ranges from merely competent to truly phenomenal. He takes Elect the Dead and takes it in it's logical direction by focusing more on the use of orchestral sounds and a greater focus on programming throughout. Vocally it is very much like SOAD was; a little out of tune, but harmonically competent. Most songs on the album start slowly and layer on instruments as it progresses. A very well-paced album, as well. The 52 minute album only feels like it takes about 30-40 minutes to listen to.

The best and most consistent aspect of the entire album is undoubtedly the awesome destruction that takes place on the drums in every track. Serj manages to inject an almost unbelievable amount of energy into his songs using drums. Listen to “Borders Are...,” Left of Center,” and “Electron” for some perfect examples.

In summation, if you enjoyed Elect the Dead or any form of melodic/symphonic rock (Apolyptica, you should pick this up. The songs range from hectic and loud (Elecron, Left of Center) to soft and melodic (Deserving?, Peace be Revenged), but overall it is a truly enjoyable record.

REVIEW: Weezer - Hurley

Hey man, do you like Weezer? If so, you'll probably like this album. Pretty much everything you've come to expect from them over the years. Simple instrumentation, sort-of to really dumb lyrics, moderate attempts at genre shifts from one album to the next. One thing I don't get is I why I found this under “indie rock.” While it's certainly more indie than “Raditude” was, by no means does that make this indie. The album is pretty mediocre, with the exception of one song: Time Flies.

Oh, this song. Where do I begin? The whole song is played out of tune and then, on top of that, is distorted to such a degree that the song is completely unlistenable. On top of that, there's a full 25 seconds at the end of the song where there is nothing at all. I was actually getting physically angry about halfway through the track. “How can anyone possibly think this sounds good?” “How could such an abomination be allowed to be commercially produced?” “What the hell were they thinking?” Just a few choice statements that ran through my head throughout the song. Time Flies is the worst thing I've heard in the past 12 months, bar none.

Besides that song, however, the rest of the album is trademark Weezer. Strange dissonance occasionally that can be jarring. A track or two for various commercial radio formats. Save for a few tracks, the whole album just sort of blends together. Brand New World is probably the closest thing to a stand out song on the album. Other than that, you've really heard it all before.

Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns

Linkin Park's music has been morphing into a pop-rock/soft rock/hip-hop/adult alternative mish-mash for some time. Their latest album, A Thousand Suns, seems to exist to showcase the final stages of this
transformation. This is a textbook case of the cliché "jack of all trades, master of nothing." While all the styles the band plays are executed competently, there is nothing that stands out from the pack. You have your three songs that are tailor made for various formats of radio (hip hop, soft rock, and pop rock), and everything else is just sort of bland and is seemingly just there as filler. The fact that six of the album's fifteen tracks are 30 second long transitional bits (two of those are for the intro) seems to back up that statement.

The lyrics are just the same as they've ever been with Linkin Park. Very moody and angst-ridden lyrics that make you want to lock yourself in your bedroom, apply copious amounts of mascara, and cry yourself to sleep at night.

Vocally it's pretty good. Some interesting stuff with chords and multi-track vocals. However, none of that matters when you notice that all of the vocals are HEAVILY autotuned up and down the album. Also, you can't even hear the instruments on most of the album. Even when you can hear the instruments they've been programmed, quantized, and leveled down so much there's really no point in them being there at all. The album may as well just be "Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda - Occasionally Singing With a Jamaican Accent."

I can't say I can recommend it to anyone who is resistant to modern pop music, like myself (obviously). If you like listening to top 40 hits stations on the radio I can heartily recommend this to you because it is tailor made specifically for your personal enjoyment.

30 Second Album Review: Stone Sour - Audio Secrecy

Let me preface this by saying that I am a huge fan of Corey Taylor's vocal style. Good register, decent screaming, decent singing. Just soothing to listen to in any capacity. It's a good thing I like his voice because it's the only interesting thing on this whole album. The instrumentation, with the exception of the drums in the intro and chorus of Nylon 6/6, is very simple throughout the album. Whenever there was a guitar solo it oftentimes completely finished before I realized it was supposed to be a solo.
The album sounds like if you added an extra guitar to Daughtry's outfit and replaced him with Corey Taylor. Unfortunately, this leads to fairly generic tracks. Most tracks go a little something like this: acoustic lead in, half band with growly verses, “epic” full band instrumentation with melodic and catchy vox in the chorus, bridge with screaming, repeat the chorus a few times. It gets a little tedious in a 14 track album. At least they try to do interesting things with the chords and key changes, I guess. Musically the album is fine, it's just a bit boring.
The worst track, by far, is Miracles. Seriously the sappiest, most melodramatic emo crap you've ever heard in your life (at least moreso than the usual Stone Sour/Slipknot fare). It was almost unbearable. Definitely drifting more towards pop rock, rather than the pop metal range where they've been sitting since their creation, with this album. The main problem with the album is the overabundance of programming and multi-track vox. It just gives me this feeling that it's all just artificial; its really unsettling.
If you're really into radio rock/metal then give this a shot. Otherwise I can't say I'd recommend it.

Isis - Panopticon/MC Frontalot - Zero Day reviews

Isis - Panopticon



Good music to have on while doing other stuff. Tried to actively listen to it for 4 of the 7 tracks, but wasn't interesting enough to hold my interest any longer than that. I'm sure the 8 minute average track length wasn't helping. Started writing at that point and wrote an article and a half by the time the album finished. So, I can definitively state that Isis increases productivity by 200%.

MC Frontalot - Zero Day



Not metal, I know. Liked his other stuff, saw he had a new album out, had to listen. Hooks are generally catchy as hell; Jacquelyn Hyde, Disaster and Your Friend Wil in particular. John Hodgman has a pretty phenomenal skit performance. Pretty good stuff.

Disturbed - Asylum review.

I have been following Disturbed pretty closely throughout their 10 year careers as one of the top dogs in the nu-metal/modern rock scene. I think that this album is their least interesting or inspired. While the songs have plenty of variation within themselves, I just can't help but feel that they have lost the hunger to push themselves in new directions. Believe, Ten Thousand Fists, and Indestructible were all revelations on their sound; Asylum just sounds like more of the same. You have songs that mainly comprise of staccato growling intertwined with stretches of growl-singing. Nothing that they haven't been doing for the past decade. I honestly could barely tell the difference between tracks 2-6 on the album. If you really, really like Disturbed and just want more of their sound but with different lyrics, then go for it.

Should have an MMA article and a few other album reviews (some stuff that Zune told me I should like, as well as the Scott Pilgrim game soundtrack by Anamanaguchi) up this week.

Speed Cameras not a Quick Fix for Budget Woes

Speed cameras are a wonderful concept. They take two photos of your car as you drive past to determine whether or not you're speeding. If you are speeding, the camera recognizes your license plate number and mails a ticket to the address of the offending party. The speeder then mails a check to the police department and learns a valuable lesson in the process, right?

Not necessarily.

The Des Moines city council has approved and is setting up speed cameras on stretches of roads across the city. Each of the speeding tickets issued by the automated system range from $65-85. The city of Des Moines is expected to make at least $100,000 per camera off of the system. However, this number doesn't take into account the amount of people who will refuse to pay their tickets or those who will file appeals because there is no proof that the driver of the car is actually the owner.

The state of Arizona, the first state to implement this kind of system, shut down it's speed camera program last month after nearly 2/3rds of all speeders caught by a similar system never sent the money they had been fined. The state had set up cameras on interstates in addition to residential roads where speeding is likely to occur. Even with the added coverage, the state failed to earn even 1/4th of the $12 million that it was projected to earn in the first year of activity over the entire length of time the program was active.

The state of Minnesota stopped using most of it's red-light cameras (cameras that automatically ticket a driver when their car runs a red light) when a large number of disputes were filed on the grounds that there is no proof that the owner of the car (and the person whose insurance rates the ticket will affect) was the person who committed the traffic violation. In essence, someone could steal your car and go on a high speed joyride through several areas surveyed by these cameras and you'd have a half a dozen tickets in your mailbox and be short a couple hundred dollars in a week or so when the ticket gets sent to you.

Therein lies a third problem with speed cameras: the delay between the time the illegal act is committed and the time the punishment is brought down.

Let's say someone drives through a poorly marked 35 MPH section of road at 50, and has done so consistently on his way home from the graveyard shift at the plant for a few years now. All of a sudden a speed camera is set up on this road without his knowledge. Between the time of the first offense and the time that the notification that he committed an offense has been delivered, he has likely driven through that section of road numerous times. With each ride home from work in that time period, most of his daily pay flies out the window until he receives notification that he had done something wrong.

While sure the couple hundred dollars he'll have to pay will likely get him to change his driving habits, a single $65 fine probably would have sufficed, and if he would have been pulled over and given a ticket, the change could have taken effect immediately and more cheaply for the offender.
The city council of Des Moines' response to these three major problems? “We'll set our profit projections lower”, “deal with the fine within your own home, insurance rates be damned,” and, “...,” respectively.

A total of six states have outright banned speed cameras from their roads: Arizona, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, and West Virginia. However, even as more states and communities are shutting down their cameras, Des Moines and the surrounding area has plans for even more cameras to be put up.
However, after the camera experiment inevitably fails after much controversy there is one golden carrot still hanging in front of law enforcement institutions the world over: Satellite-based speed tracking.