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.

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.