One year and one day after they launched their last album, let's talk about Papa Roach - Part 1

One year and a day ago Papa Roach launched their latest album, "The Connection". I intend to review it, but I think "The Connection" is better understood if given a little backstory. Not that it isn't a bad album in itself, just that it is better understood.

Papa Roach started around the 90's Nu Metal Era, so naturally most of their EP's and their first album "Infest" were heavily influenced by the trend.

"Infest" came out in 2000 and, as I said, it came with the trend. Linkin Park, Slipknot, Limp Bizkit and P.O.D. (for a while now, at the time) were doing it, so Papa Roach became "one more". It wasn't original, no. But hell, it had soul. You could hear it in every riff, every word. That shifty, crazy character, Jacoby, screaming at the world not to sell music, but to be heard. To get a message passed on.

The album has two concepts: In one of the concepts the band shouts at the world, tries to wake it up, tries to get people to see what's wrong. Those I will refer to as the "revolution songs". Then there is the concept of self-hatred, not being able to cope with pain. Those will be the "suffering songs".

At the time, "suffering songs" were the mainstream, so that was a plus for them. I'm not saying that the other bands did it for the songs or for the money, but something about most of "Infest" 's "suffering songs" was special. Maybe because it was more raw, more like "Here, this happened and I'm screaming about it to a mic. Guys, you know the story too, put together some riffs to go along and we're good.". "Last Resort" is like a fucking anthem and it's just Jacoby doing a big man's voice, Jerry with a great riff and then it all explodes into awesome towards the end. "Broken Home", too, I bet many kids crying during the year of 2000 while listening to that song and saying "this is me, this is me".

The "revolution songs" are great. I mean, who the fuck are "Papa Roach" to come here and tell people to wake up? But they didn't care, they did it anyway. And so "Infest" and "Between Angels and Insects" came along, with some of the most powerful lyrics to the day. They were ready to make the change, they had it planned on their heads. "My name's Coby Dick / Mr. Dick if you're nasty / Rock a mic with a voice that's grapsy / 'Cause I'm poetic in my operations / My God given talent is to rock all the nations". I mean common! They were ready for it.

The young face of crazy revolution

So yeah, "Infest" was a fucking great album. Only one slow song (and it still rocks) and even has an hidden track, which I think it's awesome (and you don't have to wait 7 fucking minutes for it like with "Slipknot" to hear "Eyegore" after "Scisors"), both the idea of a hidden track and the track itself, "Tightrope". I like the original better, but hey.

This album introduced us P Roach, La Cucaracha and their mottos, "suffering" and "revolution". We'll get deeper into that afterwards. For today we stick with "Infest".

Me out.

PS: Come to Portugal, for fuck's sake, it's the third time you've come to Europe IN ONE YEAR and you haven't passed by. I'll keep bugging you with this.

Sign of the Times - 1 Year and 6 days later, let's review the latest Three Days Grace album

I think that one year later it's as good a time as ever to review an album. Think of it as an anniversary review (six days late, sorry about that TDG).

Let's talk about the band first. I like Three Days Grace, a lot. They're simple, straight up "let's put our anger into this" guys. All of the songs are sad or angry. They're all about situations you relate to at some point in your life, maybe some people relate more than others.

They've had huge hits like the obvious "I Hate Everything About You", "Animal I Have Become" and "Riot" (the latter without a gay chorus, *wink* *wink* Bullet For My Valentine) and all the other songs, specially from "Three Days Grace" and "One-X" are great and I love listening to them, no matter what mood I'm in.

Then there came "Life Starts Now". I like the album too, but it's not the 5* the others were. There are some songs that are "meeeh", like "The Good Life" and "Going Down", while there are others that are as sad as ever "Last to Know"!!!) and others that I love ("Lost In You", "Break", "Bully" and others).

So we've come to "Transit of Venus", which I think followed the steps of the album before it. So I can't really complain. But this one has less "really great" songs. They're all just "great". It starts fucking awesome, with "Sign of the Times" where Adam Gontier starts of slow and you're listening carefully without knowing what to expect and then BAM, he blows you away with his amazing voice and an exploding guitar riff. "Chalk Outline" is also great, though it made me think. I couldn't figure out whether that intro riff was really distorted guitar or something more dubstep-ish. Even before I tried to look it up I figured "Fuck it, rocks anyway". And yeah, "Chalk Outline" may very well be the best song on the album.

Like I said, no "really great" songs in the album, but that doesn't change the fact that the album is pratically made of "great" songs. The only ones I don't think are great are "Expectations" and "Broken Glass", something doesn't sit right with me with their verses and lyrics. So, if out of 13 songs, 2 are less good (because they aren't bad), that's awesome.

To kick it off, it's a shame Adam Gontier left the band after the album. I don't really know if it would be fair to say that not only his voice but himself was the spirit of the group, so I won't say it. But you'll know part of me thinks it was. Here's hoping Three Days Grace will still make it and keep being awesome and true as they always were with Adam. Best of luck and rock on!

Me out.

Hail To The King

Take a look at the new stage set-up for the tour on Avenged Sevenfold's most recent album!

Holy Confessions - Let's talk about Avenged Sevenfold's uprising

Avenged Sevenfold... What a great band! If I am to rank the bands I like, these guys would be second, behind the never-reachable Metallica.

Just to start this off, I will tell you this: This is the only band in a very long while that had caused the Metallica effect on the metal audience: everybody loves them, but everybody hates them. The kind of band that is so popular that in every debate there are people that hate them and others that love them, both to the extreme. If they managed to pull a Metallica effect, being that Metallica are by many considered the Metal Gods, that can only be good.

There is another thing that has to be discussed before dissing on people that say that Avenged Sevenfold are the next Metal Gods. That thing is that people tend to forget what Metal is. They're all like "what they're Metal? What about Slayer? What about those other bands that don't get recognition like Black Dhalia Murder? They're so much heavier! A7x are pussies compared to them!". Metal is Metal and Avenged Sevenfold are Metal. They're not Thrash Metal, they're not even Heavy Metal anymore, they're not Hardcore for sure. So yeah, they are a great METAL band.

For the sake of comparing to the only other band considered the Metal Gods, like I've been doing, Metallica were considered Metal because went through Thrash to Heavy to Metal to Alternative to Metal to Heavy. So as icons as they were and for that slow Era they had they are considered The Metal Gods. Look at A7x now: They went through Metalcore to Heavy to pure Metal (having some trouble classifying the Self-Titled Album, but Nightmare and Hail to the King are pure Metal), so I think considering the best recent Metal band isn't as farfetched as the haters from the Metal community seem to think.

Now for their much deserved uprising. I think it's deserved because they are all great musicians, exceptional ones, in the case of Matt Shadows, Synyster Gates and the late Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan. Matt has one of the best voices in the rock industry, comparable to idols like Axl Rose in his prime, Synyster is a great guitarist and, until the time I heard they were being considered the "future Metal Gods", I thought he was pretty underrated and The Rev was a great drummer and if you listen to any (ANY, even the Self-Titled) album he made with the band you'll have to agree that it's not just because he passed away that we fans say he was great. And his singing, holy shit.

They have been improving from album to album (except the Self-Titled, was a bit of a step back but I still like it, specially because it includes some of their most iconic songs). Ranking it, I'd say that the Debut album is the one I like the least (because I'm not really into metalcore, but I still listen to it and enjoy it), then Self-Titled, then Waking the Fallen, City of Evil, Nightmare and Hail to the King (this one being my favourite is another discussion that I'll probably get to, eventually). So as a band that changes their style every single album (seriously, none of the albums are the same) I think it's good that they can create such good material while still trying to find what they want, where they want to settle. That being said, we can be sure they have lots more to give until reaching full potential, so it's only right they get the recognition that they're getting now and be considered the "future Metal Gods", while we patiently look forward as they bless us with their music.

Touring, of course, is definitely an aspect to evaluate when saying that a band is good or bad. I got to say I like their live performances, their show, their connection to the crowd. Matt can sing almost perfectly live, except for the screaming of Waking the Fallen (which sucks, but he grew, voice changed, had cirurgy, yeah yeah; they only play Unholy Confession anyway, so...), Johnny has a good, chilled presence, Zacky and Syn play very well live, specially giving the difficulty degree of some of their riffs and the harmonies and they're a great match, that lefty-righty back-to-back is epic (maybe not original, but still epic) and Arin can play very well The Rev's parts and has a good presence, specially in this last tour - I guess he's feeling more secure, which is great. I also love this thing they did when I saw them live, June 23rd 2011, when it was The Rev's singing parts, they playback'd them while Matt pointed to the sky. Beautiful.

Unfortunetly they're not perfect, so I can't only say good things. There are minor things, like Lost's auto-tune (they were experimenting, every band does it at some point, trying not to get repetitive, thank God they didn't do it again), their appearance (I honestly never thought that was such a big deal, but many of the haters seem to only talk about how they dress and are wannabes and they hide their music with appearance, bah. One note though: Matt - The solution for your long hair was shave it all, not only on the sides; and Syn - you had the perfect Vegeta hair, why would you shave the sides too? :( ) and stuff like that.

No, I'm going to focus on more important things like their concerts. I said I liked their live performances and the show they put on, but I don't actually like their concerts and it breaks my heart to say so. But I can't bring myself to like a concert from a band I love that they go and play 13 songs, each averaging 5 minutes. Common! Because of that stupid thing of theirs they're even forced to leave out classics that they should play like Almost Easy, sometimes in this last tour Beast and the Harlot, Second Heartbeat and even (thought I'm glad that, if it's only 13 songs, they put this one out) A Little Piece of Heaven.

Common guys, if you wanna step it up you gotta actually step it up! All the grow ups are doing it, it's time you've showed everyone what you can do.

To finish it up, just something I noticed (not their fault, but I feel I have to mention it), they may be "future Metal Gods", but when on the same stage that Thrash Masters and Heavy Metal Kings, Slayer and Iron Maiden, there's no way Avenged Sevenfold are in the middle, like in Rock in Rio 2013, in Brazil. "Future" is the key word here and as much as I liked them they are still the new guys.

Still, to finish it off: You go boys! I want the word "future" out of your "future Metal Gods" title soon alright?!

Me out.

The Young Oldies

Today I was talking about this song... Man what a great band. Look at them, they take a life problem and instead of being all winey and sad they this excellent, catchy song with that great voice melody that we all love to sing and that freaking bass line...

Way to go Offspring!

Damn you, non-fully-customizable post background!

So I can't put the post background transparent enough for you to see the background image, I can only make it so you see to much of it and can't read. Since I'm choosing it's better for you to read my bollocks, I'll post the image here and you can see my favourite bands, probably the ones I'll talk about the most (and I must say, it's a pretty good image that I put together):

To Buddy

Man, I didn't even know a person could get so attached to a fish. And it wasn't even at my house!

Too bad Buddy's gone, I liked teasing him and make him dance in the fish bowl and boy did he rocked with me when I played Guitar Hero there in front of him!

You go rock the skies Buddy! Goodbye.

PS: Don't get used to this kind of post, but I had to do this, 'cause I'm gonna miss the little blue bastard.