IC2S Playlist Update 14/10/2015

EDIT: I’ve been working on a little update for the blog, going through past, current and upcoming posts to tag them with their subject matter. If you’re interested in what I’m talking about in any blog post, click one of the labels at the bottom of the post and it’ll link you to all of my posts on the subject! Considering that I’m often calling back to previous topics, this should hopefully be quite handy for everyone, myself included!

So it looks like we’re going for an anti-war theme this week (or at the very least, songs which explore the human cost of war). This wasn’t entirly intentional, but as soon as I made my selections the theme clicked and I quite like how it all worked out. First up this week, we have “One” by Metallica from their album …And Justice For All. I decided to pick this song this week after a particularly epic air-drumming session that spontaneously commenced when this song came on the radio at the end of a late-night road trip. Like many people, I first got exposed to this song by Guitar Hero 3, and it really ignited a love for early Metallica music. “One” is just a natural fit for me – as you might have noticed from some of my earlier selections, I really love longer songs with a slow build-up which supports the epic musicianship/lyrics later and just makes them stronger overall. “One” is pretty much a text-book example of this.

I also like the story that the song tells: losing all of your senses but only being able to feel pain seems like it would indeed be the very definition of hell on earth. For the longest time I thought that the song was based on a real person, but thankfully not. It seems to be based on an anti-war novel and film called Johnny Got His Gun (or, at the very least, was based on the same concept).

Secondly, we have “The Price of a Mile” by Sabaton from the album The Art of War. The Art of War is, in my opinion, the first good Sabaton album, and “The Price of a Mile” is a good example of why. I’d argue that it’s one of their all-time best songs and stretches their usual formula of singing about great historical victories, this time singing about a horrific, senseless waste of life. It is especially resonant for me as a Canadian, since we are all brought up being told about the thousands of Canadian soldiers who died in the Battle of Passchendaele to win a few measly miles which were soon lost again. It’s a really sombre, and yet bad ass, song which really hammers home the meaningless nature that war can take on, and questions the costs that are associated with victory at all costs.

IC2S Playlist Update 07/10/2015

So I’ve got a bit of an ambitious undertaking that I have been formulating over the course of the last couple weeks. I beat the main story in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain just in time for the release of Metal Gear Online, and have been sketching out the beginnings of a review. However, I don’t just want to review The Phantom Pain: I want to do the retrospective to top all retrospectives and write up a comprehensive series review. Obviously this could take months to do (and that’s assuming that I do manage to make it through), so I’ll have to make up my mind on whether to write it all and then release or to put it out in chunks as I finish them. I’ll have more details soon as I get the project underway, so stay tuned!

Anyway, kicking off the playlist this week, we have “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum. I chose this song for little reason other than because I really like it. It’s extremely catchy and goes to show that people will listen to gospel music if you make it sound awesome (ahem, take a hint from that Casting Crowns). I also find it really interesting that it is seen as a really big gospel hit, and I can imagine that there are some people would say that it’s a “sign of the times” that songs like this don’t become radio hits anymore. However, this song is not really all that it appears to be – theologically, it’s kind of heretical at times when Greenbaum declares that he’s “Never been a sinner I never sinned”. This is in part due to the fact that Greenbaum was essentially making fun of how shitty gospel music is (and also explains why the lyrics are so simple).

Next up, we have “Get Back” by David Unger. Of all DUM’s “parody” songs, “Get Back” is definitely my favourite. For one thing, it has an amazing music video (of the kid torturing the bad guys in Home Alone). As soon as it begins you’re hooked, as the music is very catchy (is that a keyboard in guitar mode…?) and David Unger has a really great voice.

IC2S Playlist Update 30/09/2015

It’s apocalypse-mania this week on the playlist. While last week’s selections were loosely/unintentionally-themed, this week it’s entirely intentional. We’re checking out a couple songs about the end of the world, because… well, I love depressing music and it doesn’t get much more depressing than this! Cheekiness aside, while I have written in the past many times about my distaste for the so-called “Biblical prophecies” concerning the end of the world, it is nevertheless a fascinating subject and steeped in some great imagery… perfect ingredients for a moody song.

First up this week we have “The Great Fear” by Impending Doom from their album There Will Be Violence (note that someone on Spotify screwed up and labelled it as “Walking Through Fire” – this is incorrect; each song has been shifted down 1 position, with the opening song being replaced by the closer). I know that there are some Impending Doom fans who think that the band’s first 2 albums were their best, but I couldn’t disagree more – they were basically unlistenable in my opinion. There Will Be Violence really marked the point where they evolved their sound and (let’s be honest) watered it down just enough to make it sound really appealing to more people. And I don’t mean that in a Dead Space 3-style “mass appeal” way – I mean that there is a handful of people who are interested in listening to loud, chaotic noise while what sounds like pig grunts are overlaid over it. However, more people will be interested if you reign in the music somewhat and replace the pig grunts with death growls and screams. Sure, a few people are going to be disappointed, but it’s hard to argue when the results are so strong and accessible to more people.

Anyway, while “The Great Fear” is yet another Christian metal song about the Rapture/Tribulation, it is a pretty great one. Impending Doom has a really great talent for creating catchy hooks in their songs which make you want to scream along. “The Great Fear” has many of these moments, particularly in the chorus and basically the entire latter-half of the song.

Secondly, I don’t think I’m overstating things by calling Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” from American IV: The Man Comes Around a modern classic. I imagine a lot of people first experienced it in the fantastic opening credits of Zach Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, but my aunt was actually the one who introduced me to it. I have a hard time saying that I’m a big fan of Johnny Cash because, honestly, a lot of his music really sucks. However, I’m as big a fan as anyone of a really good Johnny Cash song, and “The Man Comes Around” is definitely one of them.

IC2S Playlist Update 23/09/2015

(Whoops, published this a day early!)

First up this week, we have “Alive” by XXI, from their debut album Inside Out. If you’re a regular reader of the blog*, then you’ll know that I’ve been following the rather tragic transition of A Feast for Kings to their current status as XXI. The Hell on Earth EP was fantastic, and their tribute to fallen singer Eric Gentry was fantastic, so I was hoping for great things with Inside Out. Unfortunately, the final product has left me a little underwhelmed. Now, to be fair, I have only listened to it twice now, and normally it takes me a few listen-throughs to really form a solid opinion on an album, but I do feel that I’m already getting a good grip on it. Overall, Inside Out is a technically proficient album, but it fails to live up to the promise that the band members set with their debut EP. Part of the reason for this is that very few of the songs really stand out (“Alive” and “Say It Again” being the two best imho) – most sound like typical teen angst/Christian hard rock and don’t seem to go beyond the basics of this sound. It also kind of stings that they toned down their sound slightly, but this isn’t a major complaint – they could have swapped to rhythmic bongo dance music for all I care as long as the music was good. This feeling was made even worse when I went right back to Hell on Earth immediately after finishing the album, and the difference in quality between the two products was night and day. I don’t regret purchasing Inside Out by any means (it is a decent album after all), but I can’t help but be disappointed that XXI seems to have taken a musical step down following the “Memories” single. Hopefully they learn from this and step back up for their sophomore effort.

Secondly, we have “American Dream” by Casting Crowns from their self-titled debut album. I would argue that, for their first 3 albums at least, Casting Crowns was one of the best bands to ever out of the contemporary Christian music (CCM) market. While they did their standard CCM duties and put out some really heartfelt, quality worship music, they also had a strong desire to call out the church and society where they saw things were problematic (hell, their first two songs on their very first album call out the church for not doing its duties, and they have a whole album dedicated to the inaction and judgmentalism of Christians). “American Dream” is a good examplar of this, and is actually subtle enough that a non-Christian could actually conceivably enjoy it.

However, by the time they released their fourth album, Until the Whole World Hears, something had gone amiss. Did they get too much power and influence within the evangelical church? Did they feel like they couldn’t bite the hands which fed them anymore? Did they end up in bed with American right-wing social politics? Did they believe that they had to neuter themselves to sell more records? Whatever the case, their music began to sound more generic and toned down, while also being far less critical (not that they were breaking ground anyway, but they were proficient and clearly sincere before). Until the Whole World Hears is basically just a generic CCM/worship album with only a couple good songs and no critical asides to show that they actually care about the health of the church. Their fifth album, Come to the Well is a little better, but it actually does do some milder social critiquing at least. However, it also has a distinctly, uncomfortably American-political vibe to it at times which makes me wonder what the nature of their criticism is coming from – issues within the church itself, or perceived political issues that require a religious voting bloc? Their most recent album, Thrive, is arguably their weakest effort yet, with generic, toothless worship music and a lack of conviction.**

Anyway, I guess that’s the theme for this week: disappointment, squandering of talent, failing to grasp your potential, etc. I hadn’t really intended for this to be the case, but it’s what we’ve gotten. So… uh… enjoy the music.

*And if you are then, holy shit, make a comment below because I’m under the impression that no one reads this thing…

**I actually had a bit of an increasingly depressing day because of this. I decided to listen to Casting Crowns’ discography from start to finish to ensure that my recollection of their music was accurate. If anything, post-The Altar and the Door Casting Crowns was actually worse than I remember. Their music just gets so much worse as you go on and shows a really pronounced difference between their good-bad split… especially with the incredibly dull Thrive thrown into the mix (I had not listened to it before this), which makes the weakest bits of The Altar and the Door sound absolutely inspired.

IC2S Playlist Update 16/09/2015

First up this week is the title track “American Capitalist” by Five Finger Death Punch. I chose this song for a couple reasons. First, because FFDP just released a new album recently. Secondly, I quite like the song (although I would have picked “The Bleeding” if that had been available on Spotify). Thirdly, and more importantly, because FFDP are such a disappointingly awful band. I didn’t realize just how prevalent this assessment was until very recently, but I have been so disappointed by their music for a while now. On paper, they seem to be my sort of band – really heavy, angry, pump-up and anthemic metal. However, in practice, they tend to be absolutely awful. This comes down almost entirely to their lyrics, which typically consist of stringing together profanities and threatening to commit violence, all in an attempt to sound “tough”. I mean, this can work at times (I do like Disturbed quite a bit after all). Unfortunately, FFDP go so far overboard with their lyrics that they read like some kind of self-parody. They come across as less “tough guy you don’t want to mess with” and more like “whiney little bitch”.

That said, when they grow the hell up, they can be pretty enjoyable. Their best songs tend to be their ballads or their radio-friendly tunes… but basically everything else is unlistenable. American Capitalist is about the only album of theirs that I can listen to from start to finish, but even it has some moments that I have to grit my teeth through.

FFDP: you have a lot of talent. You have some pretty good songs in your catalogue. You’re a band that I want to like, but please attempt some maturity. Stop telling us how much you hate everything, how you’re going to kill people, or how you’re going to abuse your girlfriend – you think this makes you tough, but it makes you sound like thou dost protesteth too much.

Uhh… anyway, after that little rant, we have a palate cleanser in the form of “Washed By Blood” by Brian “Head” Welch from his album Save Me From Myself. I think I have said in the past that I really like Brian “Head” Welch and am fascinated by his life story. I also think that Save Me From Myself is the best album ever made by a member of Korn. The album loosely chronicles Welch’s rough upbringing, his drug-fueled life, his salvation and then some struggles he encountered within the church. “Washed By Blood” is the culmination of all of these struggles and marks the promise of salvation.

That said, I think that the album, and “Washed By Blood” in particular, does have one Achilles heel: the lyrics. Yeah, I guess I’m touching on a theme this week. Welch was never really a song writer in Korn, but following his conversion he felt like God was speaking to him to write music. Well, if God did write the lyrics to these songs, then he can be pretty corny at times to say the last. That said, I think that the heartfelt nature of Welch’s lyrics and singing offsets this negative, so the album comes out on top in the end. I’d definitely recommend giving it a listen-through if you find this song interesting.

IC2S Playlist Update 09/09/2015

So it’s been a week since Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain dropped, and holy shit is it ever amazing. I have been savouring it thus far – I’m only about 1/5 of the way through (just captured Emmerich… not a spoiler, it was in the trailers), but it has been an incredible experience. The freedom to approach situations and the ways that every system interconnects is just jaw dropping. Becoming skilled enough to sneak into a base and achieve your objectives undetected is very gratifying. My only real complaint thus far is a pretty obvious one – Quiet looks absolutely ridiculous. Like… embarrassingly so. It’s obviously not a major issue, but I can’t wait until I can actually unlock the XOF uniform for her so that I can actually play the damn game when there are other people present without having to explain what the hell I am playing.

First up this week is “Prom Song” by Countless Thousands from their album We’re Just Really Excited To Be Here. I have been listening to this song a lot lately and I’d argue that it might be the most realistic song that I have ever heard about prom. The song starts out really sentimental, like it might be the sort of thing that a hired band might actually sing during a prom dance. However, as it goes on, it becomes increasingly bitter and angry… which, in my experience, sums up prom perfectly. Maybe I just don’t know enough people, but basically everyone in my social circles had a shitty prom. My best friend got dumped 3 days before prom, but had to take her there anyway. One of my younger brothers got ditched halfway through the prom by his date. One of my other friends almost got arrested when people thought he was going to stab somebody (an event which also irrevocably split my group of friends from that point forth – hooray for prom…). As for myself, I couldn’t get the person I liked at the time to go with me so I just said to hell with it and skipped it. So yeah, it has always been a pretty shitty time of year all round. Beyond all that, I think when we look back at prom, most of us realize that it was a waste of time and money, and that we don’t really care for or miss a lot of the people we left behind, or that those people that we thought we were close with turned on us. “Prom Song” covers that range of truth very succinctly.

Secondly, we have something a little different: “Runaway” by Kanye West (featuring Pusha T) from his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I had never really listened to Kanye West before I heard this song – I was, of course, well aware of his douche bag reputation in the media, but I had also heard that he was a musical genius in spite of all that. After hearing this song on the Cracked podcast a couple weeks ago, I can say that I am a believer now. “Runaway” is clearly a meticulously crafted song which bucks popular music trends and actually tries to tackle serious topics, while remaining eminently listen-able. I looked up the reception of the song out of curiosity, and saw that most people were tying it to Kanye’s (at the time) new-found fall from the public grace as an apology. While that may be a valid interpretation, I think that the song is arguably more important as a message against men who blame all of their own faults on women, who they view as little more than objects of self-gratification. It’s a pretty perfect fit for this blog and playlist as a result, and I just can’t stop listening to it.

IC2S Playlist Update 02/09/2015

Continuing the August 21st album analyses from last week, we have “Save Our Last Goodbye” by Disturbed from Immortalized. I haven’t entirely made up my mind on how I feel about Immortalized yet, but I’m starting to feel like it might be their weakest album in quite some time. Previously, I felt like Disturbed were improving with every subsequent album release, but Immortalized feels very “same-y”. I know that this is a complaint which has dogged Disturbed for quite some time, but it rings especially true on this album. The songs sound very similar to their Asylum-era stuff, but the real problem is that a good portion of the album feels like b-side material, with only a few tracks really standing out. This is especially problematic since they were supposed to change up their sound during the hiatus, but they sound the same as ever… if not worse. Now to be fair, they do change it up occasionally, with “The Light”, “Fire It Up” and “The Sound of Silence” all being quite different than we’re used to with Disturbed. However, of the three, I only really liked “The Light”. “Fire It Up” is ruined by ridiculously stupid lyrics, and “The Sound of Silence” didn’t really work for me (I do know that some people were really happy with it though so to each his own).

While I enjoy “Save Our Last Goodbye” and think that it’s one of the better tracks on the album, I think we were really spoiled with “The Vengeful One”. Nothing else on the album even comes close to being as good as that song. It also doesn’t help that The Awakening (released on the same day) was so good, it makes Immortalized feel much more inadequate in comparison. While I enjoy Immortalized overall, it is just a bit of a disappointment – I’d probably say it’s their 4th best album (out of 6).

Secondly this week we have “Way to Fall” by Starsailor, from their album Love is Here. The reason I picked this song this week is because of the monumental release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. “Way to Fall” was the end credits song in MGS3: Snake Eater, which was definitely my favourite game in the franchise. It’s also a great song in its own right, but when paired with the incredible ending sequence in Snake Eater, it takes on a whole new depth of tragic meaning. That said, I would have liked to get “Here’s To You” from MGS5: Ground Zeroes, but it sadly is not on Spotify.

I have been playing a lot of Ground Zeroes in anticipation for The Phantom Pain, and have had that song stuck in my head for weeks now. I’m really glad I jumped back in though – the game has a really rewarding skill curve. When I first jumped back in, I was getting spotted constantly by enemies that I didn’t notice, putting me in messy situations constantly. However, as I improved, suddenly I was able to go whole missions undetected, twitch-spotting enemies on the fly, consistently headshotting enemies at over 50m with my tranquilizer pistol, etc. It was quite fun and rewarding to improve so dramatically, when I was so hopeless only a few days earlier. Plus, I’d definitely recommend getting all the XOF patches – the Jamais Vu mission in particular is an extremely fun diversion. I imagine I have now gotten at least 10 hours out of the game, which makes me feel better about the $35 price tag which was so controversial when it released.

IC2S Playlist Update 26/08/2015

First up this week we have “Am I Awake?” by P.O.D. from The Awakening. While I was a bit worried that P.O.D. wouldn’t be able to pull it off, I’m happy to say that The Awakening was fantastic. While I would say that they’re my favourite band, P.O.D. is typically rather uneven – even their best albums usually have a couple tracks which aren’t very good. However, The Awakening is easily their most consistently good album since The Fundamental Elements of Southtown from way back in 1999. My only real complaint is that I’m not a fan of the story interludes which tie the album together. On the one hand, they do make the album a little more meaningful by linking the songs together. On the other hand, the acting in them is usually pretty awful, the writing is very “on the nose” and they don’t really seem to follow on another very coherently. This doesn’t detract from my assessment any (if you even have a cursory knowledge of Audacity then you can edit these bits out or make them skippable), but it is a bit of an annoying blemish on an otherwise solid package.

Secondly, we have “Them Bones” by Alice in Chains from their album Dirt. I had to find a new internet radio station to get my metal fix because Weathered Steel sadly went off the air. I’m now listening to a station called Metal Rock Radio, which I am enjoying overall. On my first day listening, they played “Them Bones” and it brought back a flood of nostalgia. When I was a kid, my brothers and I would play ATV Offroad Fury on PS2 all the time. This song was one of the highlights of the game’s soundtrack, and has made me do some digging on Spotify to see if any of my old favourite game soundtracks are there. I haven’t dug too deep into Alice in Chains’ back catalogue yet (I own The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here and have heard a few things on the radio), but I do quite like them… in fact, I’d go far enough to say that they’re probably my favourite grunge band (suck it Nirvana).

IC2S Playlist Update 19/08/2015

To kick things off this week, I have some music news. I have been getting spoiled in the past couple months with new releases: XXI have announced their debut album, Inside Out, with a September 18th release date. You can pre-order the album for only $8, which is a ridiculously good deal. If you need further convincing, they have also released their first single, “Say It Again”, which you can listen to here.

First up this week we have “Empire Ants” by the Gorillaz, from their album Plastic Beach. While I still like Gorillaz, my interest in their music definitely peaked when I was in high school, around the time that Plastic Beach was released. “Empire Ants” was one of my favourite tracks from the album. It starts off really slowly, but by the time that Little Dragon joins in, the music picks up and the song just starts to get very mesmerizing. This song just really sticks out in the mind because it’s so unorthodox, but sounds fantastic. My friends and I actually saw Gorillaz in Montreal during the Plastic Beach world tour, and it was probably the best concert experience I ever had. It’s been ages since the band released a new album (and no, The Fall does not count), so hopefully we hear something new soon.

Next, we have “Far from Any Road” by The Handsome Family, from the album Singing Bones. As usual, I’m way behind on my TV viewing – while everyone else is complaining that True Detective season 2 was awful, I only just got done watching season 1. “Far from Any Road” was the theme song for the first season, and it was really evocative of the tone of the series.

As for the series itself, I liked the first half of the show quite a bit… but is it just me or did the second half of the series betray just how shallow it all was? The finale “concluded” with a ton of loose ends unresolved (and not in a way that felt intentional). I mean, horray, they killed the serial killer, but the asshole cops are still unpunished and there’s a cabal of child molesters still running free. These articles covered my thoughts on the end of the season quite well, highlighted just how obviously sexist the series was on the whole and also showed how the attempts to be “realistic” and “gritty” actually end up making it cliched in its own right. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed season 1 of True Detective, but I was left disappointed after the strong first half and from hearing so much high praise for the series.

IC2S Playlist Update 12/08/2015

Sorry that I missed last week’s playlist update with basically no warning, the last couple weeks have been extremely busy for me. I have been travelling all over the place recently, mainly between work and my brother’s wedding. The wedding was the main reason that I delayed the playlist for a week, since I was a part of the wedding party and had to head down to St. Catherines to attend. However, we’re back on track now and will hopefully continue to stay fairly regular.

First up this week is “Fight Test” by The Flaming Lips from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. This is far and away my favourite Flaming Lips album and song, and happens to be the song which first hooked me into them. When I was in high school, a friend of mine asked to borrow my flash drive so that they could listen to some music on the school computer. However, they forgot to take the songs off of it afterwards, so when I got home I found some new music to check out. I had expected to like the They Might Be Giants stuff that was on there because I had heard a lot of good things about them, but I ended up getting disappointed. There were a few other artists as well, but none of them really appealed to me. Finally I came to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and wasn’t expecting much. However, “Fight Test” immediately transfixed me and left me saying “holy shit, this is actually very good”, before I went and listened to the rest of the album.

If you haven’t listened to them before, The Flaming Lips are a rather experimental psychedelic rock band. Yoshimi is easily their most accessible album, and arguably their most polished as well. “Fight Test” is one of their most resonant songs in my opinion, wrestling with the questions of when it is appropriate to take the high road and when it is necessary to stand up for yourself.

Secondly we have the title track “Laniakea” by Sovereign Council, which just went up on Spotify in the last week. Hopefully you will have ready my album review already, in which case you’ll know that I’m really digging it. Ideally, I would have chosen “Morta”, “Nona” and “Decima” for this week in a heartbeat, but unfortunately they would have to be three separate tracks (sure, I could have just put them in sequentially, but if you put the playlist on shuffle then that gets totally ruined). As a result, I chose the title track since it’s one of the strongest on the album. I saw Sovereign Council perform this track live on the first of August and the performance actually made me like this song even more than I did before. It’s pretty indicative of the overall sound of the album, so if you like “Laniakea” then be sure to check out the rest of the album.

IC2S Playlist Update 29/07/2015

So I’m trying something a little different this week and going with a bit of a loose theme in my song selection… I’ll let you figure it out, because it should be pretty obvious when you listen to them. First up is “Just One Dance” by Caro Emerald from Deleted Scenes From the Cutting Room Floor. This might just be the absolute best Caro Emerald song, and I’m actually kind of surprised that I like it so much. I’m usually not a huge pop music fan, but I can see this slotting into a Top 40 playlist very easily. The song is just really catchy, with Caro’s fantastic singing voice and extremely classy style (in spite of the decidedly seedy subject matter) leading the way.

Second this week is “Maybellene i Hofteholder” by Volbeat from Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood. Guitar Gangsters… might just be my favourite Volbeat album, and “Maybellene i Hofteholder” is definitely my favourite song from it. Besides sounding awesome, the lyrics are also really interesting and tragic, in a kind of a strangely pathetic way. The song is told from the perspective of a creepy old bastard who becomes obsessively infatuated over an exotic dancer at the local club, Maybellene. When he tries to tell her how he feels, she rebuffs him. He doesn’t take this particularly well, and he chases her back to her apartment, where she locks him out. In desperation, he sets a fire to try to smoke her out of the house, but accidentally ends up burning down her home and kills her in the process. For whatever reason, the fact that the main character is such an obvious idiot endears me to this song quite a bit. Perhaps it is because it’s such an unorthodox, self-aware, tongue-in-cheek “love” song.

IC2S Playlist Update 22/07/2015

EDIT: Well shit… I just noticed that this has been up here for 2 months now and I had forgotten to add “Southern Man” to the playlist. Worse, it looks like it isn’t even on Spotify yet. I guess this one will just be a gap in the playlist for now, although if Spotify gets After the Gold Rush on there sometime soon then I’ll be sure to add it.

Starting off this week with something a little different for me, we have “Southern Man” by Neil Young from After the Gold Rush. Considering that my last post was all about the current Confederate Flag controversy, I felt that it was an appropriate and timely inclusion. It might also be my favourite Neil Young song (although “Powderfinger” is up there too), and is just such a scathing indictment. It’s unfortunate that things haven’t gotten much better in the last 35 years…

Moving on to something a tiny bit more upbeat, we have “Paperthin Hymn” by Anberlin from Never Take Friendship Personal. I have always considered NTFP to be one of Anberlin’s lesser albums, so I actually don’t listen to it all that often. However, I listened to a live version of this album recently and it reinvigorated my feelings towards this album and “Paperthin Hymn” in particular. That said, I still think it’s one of their weaker albums, but the fact that I quite enjoy NTFP just shows how solid their entire catalogue is. I’m still pretty sore about the shitty weather that caused them to cancel their last live show in Toronto though…

Geez, all of that and I haven’t even gotten to the song itself yet. Lyrically, it’s very well-written and sombre. It deals with the sense of loss, and apparently it was written as a response by lead guitarist, Joey Milligan, to the death of his sister (hey, I did say it was only a tiny bit more upbeat).

IC2S Playlist Update 15/07/2015

You’ve probably noticed that my writing output has dropped somewhat lately. Honestly, this is partially due to a bit of writer’s block – I have been plugging away at a third part of the Christian media industries series for a few weeks now, but I have been coming to the realization that it’s basically just a series of rants about aspects of Christian culture that I don’t like. If I can’t get it to a reasonably objective standpoint, then I’m either going to drop the article entirely, or strip it down to a more essential core.

Anyway, first up this week is “Hard Sun” by Eddie Vedder from the Into the Wild soundtrack. I have been hearing this song on the radio for years now, but it wasn’t until the past couple months that I realized that I really liked it. Whenever I hear it, I just love to sing along; it’s extremely catchy. I didn’t realize it was off the Into the Wild soundtrack though, I would have thought it was significantly older than that. It has been a really long time since I watched Into the Wild, but I quite enjoyed it. It’s a rather tragic film where the protagonist thinks that he knows everything and desires existential enlightenment, but fails to see the blessings in front of him until it’s far too late. I’d highly recommend it. It also happened to be the first movie I saw with Kristen Stewart, which made me realize that absolutely no one was actually trying in the Twilight movies… not that it matters what I think, the poor girl’s career is probably never going to go beyond “awful actress from Twilight”.

Secondly, we have “Take the Hill” by Project 86 from their album, Wait for the Siren. I’m starting to get into the point where I’m reusing artists on the playlist, so I figured that I should start with Project 86 since the blog’s name comes from one of their songs (not to mention that they’re just really freaking awesome as well). “Take the Hill” is the closing track from Wait for the Siren, which is easily one of their top 3 albums. I’d personally argue that “Take the Hill” is one of their best songs, full-stop. It’s quite heavy and aggressive, but knows well enough to build up to that payoff. It also has quite an interesting sound – Wait for the Siren was their first independently-produced record, and as a result, was a little more experimental than most of their previous efforts. Throughout the album, they utilize such non-traditional hard rock/metal instruments as the uillean pipes, mandolin and hammer dulcimer. Of course, I have said for many years that Project 86 would be absolutely nothing without Andrew Schwab’s poetic lyricism, and this song is characteristically strong in that regard. It uses Project 86’s familiar themes of revolution and is just a great culmination to one of their strongest albums. So yeah, I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do!

IC2S Playlist Update 08/07/2015

First up this week on the playlist is “She is Beautiful” by Andrew W.K. from his debut album, I Get Wet. This has to be one of the most badass love songs ever. Between the really fast tempo, the heavy sound and Andrew W.K.’s harsh vocals, it just creates a freight train of awesome barreling straight towards your pleasure centers. I have warmed up a bit towards Andrew W.K. since I last posted a song of his (although, for whatever baffling reason, he is apparently a program host on The Blaze!?!). I rather like I Get Wet, but I was really disappointed to see that Andrew W.K. ditched the harsh vocals in his later albums. This basically killed any interest I might have had in those albums, but at least there’s still some good stuff on his first 2. I dunno, I don’t really have any more to say about it than that, “She is Beautiful” is just a pretty straightforward, but awesome, song.

Stepping into something a little darker, we have “American Made” by Living Sacrifice from their album, Ghost Thief. I have been aware of Living Sacrifice for quite some time (one of their former guitarists played for P.O.D. from 2003-2006), but I never actually listened to anything of theirs until this past year. “American Made” has been on regular rotation on Weathered Steel for the past year, and it hasn’t become tired in all that time for me. The song doesn’t exactly break any new ground (very heavy sound, anti-consumerist message, etc), but it is very technically proficient and sounds great, even if you can’t tell what the hell the vocalist is saying about 95% of the time. I’m going to have to start digging into Living Sacrifice’s back catalogue to see just how good they can get, but if “American Made” is any indication, then I’ll probably be in for an enjoyable time.