Review Summary: Since when was “Protest the Hero on crack” a compliment?
Bands like Journal are making the tag “tech metal/ metalcore” into a Scarlet Letter, rather than a badge of honor. Some time ago, the term meant something; where sheer talent and bountiful creativity translated into unique and impressive feats of musicality. Utilizing the mentality of speed and frenzy trumps articulation, these bands have become a dime a dozen. This is where newcomers Journal come in, as they further misconstrue the idea by using every trick in the book to appear groundbreaking. Sweeping more than Cinderella, Journal try their damndest to come off as technically impressive, but really, it’s just ends up being far too convoluted and unpalatable to be anything more than a cheap ploy.
You see, it’s as if Journal took the bombastic nature of Protest the Hero, the frenetic energy of The Dillinger Escape Plan, and the erratic songwriting of Between the Buried and Me and threw them in a wood chipper. Whether it be from sheer laziness or general lack of trying, Journal didn’t clean up the mess, nor did they try and reassemble the remnants. Instead the opted to coat the rest in a saccharine glaze and call it an album. The product: a jumbled up heap of grotesque proportions, consisting of the horrific, mangled bits of other artists, better artists, than themselves. Thus,
Unlorja came into being.
Above all else,
Unlorja (Journal rearranged, for all of you anagram lovers) just can’t seem to properly get itself across to the listener. It’s like getting lost in translation, with Journal desperately trying to vocalize its point (if there is one), but failing miserably. This is where the band’s biggest fault becomes apparent; it’s utterly incoherent. Quite literally, it’s nearly impossible to glean anything remotely comprehensible about the album. Whether it be because of too many ideas, or a complete lack of organization,
Unlorja comes off as an absolute mess. The individual parts are sort of endearing, as Journal really do hold some talent, but the band is too busy sweeping and riffing incessantly to care about whether or not it all makes sense.
This leads to the songwriting, which Journal clearly had a difficult time with. It’s got the energy and speed, but so does a freight train going off rails. Although to be honest,
Unlorja is incredibly varied, as the band really did a decent job incorporating a lot of ideas into each track. Unfortunately, their general lack of writing ability only furthered the incoherence of the product. They try--probably too hard, mind you-- which leads everything to sound so forced. The guitarists leap around the fret board like it’s on fire, causing chain after chain of endless hammering to sound so serpentine and convoluted that the whole band appears perplexedly aimless. The vocals are amiable in their own right, as they fit the nature of the music. While a little on the irritating side, they do hold quite a lot of energy, and the dual vocalization is a neat feature, as it actually transcends “gimmicky.”
While we’re on the topic of “gimmicky,” the completely inane concept behind
Unlorja comes to mind. It’s about magic and epic quests and whatnot, and there’s some mystical ribbon, and a guy named Cecil, I believe, who’s evil brother has ascended to god-hood or something. It takes itself way too seriously, and in the end it’s just a completely ridiculous yarn. Yeah, the concept is about as asinine as the music behind it, but that isn’t the biggest failing of the would be “epic.” The story fails mainly because it isn’t translated well throughout the piece at all, save for the glaringly cretinous retelling in the thirty minute long track, “Affinity.” Instead of subtle nuances sparsely placed about, telling the feats of hero Cecil,
Unlorja places an atrociously unnecessary spoken word segment at the album’s end. Not only is it a literary nightmare, but the female speaker has the drama and flair of an elementary school thespian. The concept would have been fun and, well, sort of
cute, but Journal decided to adopt a melodramatic flair, making it largely juvenile and silly.
Journal have style, and they sure as hell have passion, but they need to get their heads together and write a damn coherent song.
Unlorja isn’t terrible, in fact, the variety and energy contained within are sort of endearing. However, like a half finished jigsaw puzzle,
Unlorja is poorly put together. Yet there is something there, buried beneath the M.C. Escher style of songwriting, something displaying a promising and somewhat creative band. Hopefully Journal can someday realize this potential --shedding all of their absurdities and unrefined mannerisms--and create something indicative of their deep seeded ingenuity.
