Review Summary: Textured, atmospheric noise rock that's not for the faint of heart
Let’s be honest: to call a band or album “disturbing” or “scary” is, well, dumb. Calling a piece of music scary just makes it sound like you’re trying to hype it up more than it really needs to be. However, there are some exceptions from time to time. Every once in a while, you hear something that legitimately frightens you. For me, it’s
Today Is the Day.
After listening to their 1996 self-titled effort, I’ve come to the conclusion that their front man, Steve Austin, must have some
serious issues. The music on this album is oddly textured; Instead of your typical guitar, bass, and drums set-up,
Today Is the Day features screeching guitars, synthesizers, drums, and some of the most hair-raising vocals imaginable. As mentioned, this album features synthesizers, and they add real spice to the album, adding strange samples and haunting leads to almost every track. They add real atmosphere to the record, but, as great as they are, the synthesizers are not the most fascinating aspect of the album. That credit instead belongs to the vocals.
Austin is an alarming person based on his performance alone. Most of the time, he simply screeches like a dying animal, other times he coats the instruments with a ghostly howl. If the vocals don’t frighten you, the actual lyrics will. The lyrics on the album sound like they were written by a man who’s in the process of mental deterioration. The slow chanting of
“Everyone is against you” on “Realization” starts out quietly and slowly builds up, giving the listener a real sense of paranoia, and
“I smell sex!” from “She is in Fear of Death” is nothing short of crazy. The only real issue this album has is the use of filler tracks here and there. The most notable being the 25 second “I Love My Woman”, which basically acts as an introduction to “Dot Matrix”. There’s simply no point into having it as it’s own separate track.
Today Is the Day is a troubling album, one that details the life of a mentally-ill man with the use of atmospheric synths, ear-scratching vocals and mind-bending lyrics. Today Is the Day perfectly use their talents to create a record that can strike fear into the hearts of many, definitely not recommended for the faint of heart.
