I’ve never been that big of a Thrice fan (not that I didn’t like them, I just never got into their music - except for their song Deadbolt). Surprisingly I found myself looking up the band on Wikipedia then seeing that they have a new two-disk album out. Titled The Alchemy Index Vols. I & II, the CD released on October 16 is part of a four-volume series (Volumes III & IV will be arriving in April 2008) with a theme following the four elements: fire, water, earth, and air, respectively. Most of the song names (and seemingly the song styles as well) directly reflect the theme that the disk is following. The track listing for these two volumes is as follows:

Fire

1. Firebreather - 4:42
2. The Messenger - 2:09
3. Backdraft - 4:08
4. The Arsonist - 4:13
5. Burn the Fleet - 3:47
6. The Flame Deluge - 3:28

Water

1. Digital Sea - 3:44
2. Open Water - 3:47
3. Lost Continent - 4:30
4. Night Diving - 6:02
5. The Whaler - 4:09
6. Kings Upon the Main - 4:56

As you may have guessed, the disk titled “Fire” is a little harder than “Water.” Full of loud vocals and heavy guitar, Fire was definitely the disk that I enjoyed the most. Neither of the disks, however, sounded exactly like the Thrice that I knew. The band’s guitarist Teppei Teranishi had this to say about the album:

“We’re kind of doing something that’s the opposite of what a producer is supposed to do on a record–which is make everything make sense and kind of fit together–whereas this project is all about taking things apart and pushing them one way. We really wanted to try doing things our way this time around, and make this record sound the way we want it to sound, not the way it’s “supposed” to sound.”

While Fire is most comparable to Thrice’s sound in their last album Vheissu, the songs on Water are completely different, and they made me feel like I was listening to a Radiohead album. These tracks are very slow and contain a lot of electronic/synthesized sounds, which I wasn’t really expecting to hear. It’s good to see that they are trying something new, though, rather than repeating their old, successful style. Although The Illusion of Safety is still my favorite album, I’ll probably be listening to more of The Alchemy Index (and Thrice in general as a result) in the weeks to come - hopefully Volumes III and IV in April will be of the same, or even better, quality.

Link: Listen to samples or buy it from Amazon

	Thrice
	Deadbolt

We’ve all seen it - a photograph of some freaky looking metal band wearing spiked armor with one or two hands grasping a mace, sword, or some other medieval weapon (note: if only one hand is used for the weapon, the other is likely taking to be clenching an invisible apple). Today wasn’t the first time I witnessed such a thing, but it was more like the next-to-last straw.

As I was browsing Last.fm’s metal tags to find some new music, I unfortunately stumbled into the dark realms of VIKING METAL *queue mad riff, stage blood spewing out of guitarists’ mouths, and random Nordic chanting* Such music requires a very specific fanbase, and I’m wondering who these people are… To dig deeper, I sifted through some forum posts related to artists like Ensiferum and Moonsorrow (who produce songs like that unforgettable tune Kylän päässä and the jukebox classic Ukkosenjumalan poika) - there I saw devoted fans describing their relation to extremely distant Nordic ancestors. I can respect these bands’ connections to their ancestry, but when is it just going to far? Surely you don’t expect me to take you seriously when you’re dressed like you got here with Bill and Ted on their excellent adventure from 1,400 years ago (and in some cases actually riding a Viking ship):

Of course there are those more civilized Celts:

Luckily the bands (but not necessarily the fans) that I’ve seen so far actually hail from Scandinavia…that makes their outlandish acts a little more acceptable. It seems it will only be a matter of time, however, until I come across an all-American alternative. That would be the last straw! (and as 311 would say, “there is no reason to take it there at all”)

The silly band member photos aren’t restricted to just viking metal, though. Many genres categorized under the “metal” bubble follow this trend. I think one of my favorite metal bands, All That Remains, shares my pain:

Link: More photos of Ensiferum
Link: More photos of Moonsorrow

PS: If you’re Nordic…please…don’t take this personally.

	All That Remains
	The Air That I Breathe

As far as cultural warfare goes, the Cold War is so passé–mostly because, in a few years, a majority of young musicians won’t be old enough to remember it at all. But back in 1987, when the Berlin Wall still stood as a concrete reminder of entrenched ideological differences between the USSR and the United States, the supposed resistance to American cultural influence in the Eastern Bloc was put to the test through the efforts of none other than Billy Joel. Though I’m not sure how effective “Uptown Girl” is in improving diplomatic relations, Joel’s sojourn through the Soviet Union took the first steps in the process in reconciling the consumerist cool of the New World and the tradition-rich culture of the Old World.

And though it’s been over 15 years since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the seeds Mr. Joel so courageously sowed have finally borne delicious musical fruit. The rise of Beirut, led by 21-year-old wanderlust Zach Condon, in the indie scene is built upon meandering European folk music rhythms and a decidedly pragmatic Soviet-era aesthetic (as the cover art for 2006’s brilliantly-titled Gulag Orkestar will attest).

On the other side of the ruble exists Gogol Bordello, a New York-based band peddling a sort of gypsy/punk rock fusion. Fronted by Eugene Hütz–a man whose style exists somewhere between Fiddler on the Roof and late ’80s club kid–the band’s eight-year reign has sounded (to WASP ears, at least) a lot like the fun ethnic weddings at the community center that you were rarely invited to. Yet what comes through in their most recent single, “Wonderlust King,” is something even more, something that connects with the fact that a semester abroad in Prague is just as coveted now as one in London or Paris. Apparently there’s a killer party somewhere east of the Rhine, and Hütz wants you to come along:

Fans of Slavic folk music the world over salute you, Billy Joel.

I recently stumbled upon two really great ways to waste my time- the webcomic site XKCD and the blogspot site Postsecret.

XKCD (Randall Monroe says “It’s not actually an acronym. It’s just a word with no phonetic pronunciation”) is an online comic website started by Randall Monroe compiled from the margins of his old physics and math notebooks. It’s for anyone who has taken an advance math class, gotten their heart broken, or appreciates sarcasm, or has an uncanny fear of velociraptor attacks. There is a comic featuring these stick figures for almost every situation.
Some of the comics are a little above my head, talking about physicists and mathematicians such as Turing and
Others are totally hilarious and capture the little moments of college life perfectly

After going through withdrawal from Katamari Damacy- one of my favorite PS2 games of all time (Katamari Damacy is a game where you roll up objects on Earth that are bigger than you are into balls in order to make stars.), a friend of mine sent me this one:

Do you get it?
This website also has jokes that are made for the science-nerd or math-geek in all of us:

Finally, there are the three or four panel comics that simply and uniquely encapsulate human emotion:

and

I spend way too much time laughing at this website, and I encourage you to do the same.

Postsecret is a community art website run by Frank Warren that receives postcards from all over the world with peoples’ secrets written on them. He posts a new card with a secret on it every Sunday. The cards range from sweet to hilarious to heartbreaking. There are also a few books compiling the postsecrets that they have received.They’ve gained so much popularity (they even have a book tour!) because the postcards are so easy to relate to and they make you want to send in postsecrets of your own.

Here is this past Sunday’s:

Chase This Light, the sixth studio album from toe tap-inducing band Jimmy Eat World is out in stores today. Listeners looking for that great, familiar sound from their previous albums like Futures and Jimmy Eat World (formerly known as Bleed American) will not be disappointed. With the perfect blend of upbeat and mellow songs, Chase This Light preserves the band’s feel-good sounds and thought-provoking lyrics that fans expect. This comes as a big (yet refreshing) surprise after their latest release, the 2005 EP Stay on My Side Tonight, which brought a radical change to JEW’s typical sound. The track listing is as follows:

Click track titles for previews!

1. Big Casino - 3:42
2. Let It Happen - 3:28
3. Always Be - 3:06
4. Carry You - 4:24
5. Electable (Give It Up) - 2:58
6. Gotta Be Somebody’s Blues - 4:48
7. Feeling Lucky - 2:35
8. Here It Goes - 3:26
9. Chase This Light - 3:29
10. Firefight - 3:53
11. Dizzy - 4:56

Big Casino, released as the first single on August 28, is likely to be the album’s “big song” (radio play and other mainstream popularity, comparable to their previous single The Middle). This relentlessly upbeat song got me hooked on JEW once again and force me into eager anticipation of the album’s full release.

Following this track is Let It Happen with a similar upbeat tune. The chorus features female backup vocals and the typical JEW style of incorporating sounds in the lyrics, which makes several appearances throughout the album. Always Be, Electable (Give Up), Feeling Lucky, Here It Goes, and Firefight all contain the same buoyant style while still preserving a level of uniqueness with each track through varying lyrics, backup vocals, and instrument usage.

While Carry You Dizzy, and the title track, Chase This Light, provide moderately slower tempos with less guitar than the aforementioned songs, the most unique track on the album is certainly Gotta Be Somebody’s Blues. When the album’s demo recordings were first leaked on the Internet, this song was purely instrumental. With the official release of the album, however, much was added to the song to make it the excellent track it is now - the slow and soothing vocals, mysterious lyrics, and use of symphonic instruments made it my instant favorite.

Now…stop reading and start listening! If you’re a fan of Jimmy Eat World or alternative rock in general, there are no excuses - Chase This Light is a must have.

Link: Buy it now from Insound.com

	Jimmy Eat World
	Gotta Be Somebody’s Blues

Ugly Beauty “You Are Unique (Just Like Everyone Else)”

Cows and whales are arguably the two worst animals you can have on an album cover. This is because neither affiliates with any form of music, or, at least, any viable form of music. Somehow, Michigan’s Ugly Beauty managed to fit 10 cows and 2 whales on their cover (plus another lone cow on the back). The band also has an annoying penchant for oxymoronic phrases. This is to be expected, i guess. They ARE called Ugly Beauty, afterall. And check out the album title. Deep stuff man. It seems that everything cancels itself out in the Ugly Beauty idiom. You can be ugly, but still win a beauty pageant. You can be unqiue, but still be another face in the crowd. And whales? Well, they can fucking FLYYYY.

But enough discussion about the laser-printed flap. The music is a fusion of 80s glam metal riffs, and hardcore-lite (oxymoronic!) vocals. Perhaps the most annoying thing is that it’s not as funny as the album cover suggests. It’s only bad. And merely being bad, as opposed to being holy-fuck-hide-the-children-bad, might be the worst kind of bad there is.

Rabid “Skull”

What is it with this trend? So we get a CD and there’s some arbitrary animal on it- lets say, an emu, a bald eagle, or, in this case, a rabbit, and although we know it’s going to be 12 tracks of pure awfulness, we still have high hopes for something strange or satanic. But once we pop the disc in, it’s just a regurgitation of the worst glam metal cliches: scale shredding, toms and more toms, etc.

And has anyone ever read “Bunnicula”? Cause the album cover is totally reminiscent of that.

DLo “I Dare You To Love Me” (single)

There’s bit of a mystery with this single. If you look close enough, you’ll notice that the front and inside cover features the exact same head! So who is DLo? And why did the people at MTM Entertainment need to place his cropped-off cabasa on two seperate bodies? And who do those bodies belong to? These questions are undoubtedly far more intriguing than the song itself.

“Dare You To Love Me” is your standard R&B fare that longs for the days of Boys II Men. If you can’t get enough of it, the second track adds saxomophone to the mix, and the third is all instrumental (just in case you want to play it over your Fergie acapella cuts). We’re not touching this stuff, even if DLo (if he even exists) names it “Double Dog Dare Ya.”