Review Summary: lol
Between The Buried And Me and
The Silent Circus were so fun. I mean, here are some dudes playing incredibly technical metalcore infused with hundreds of different bits and bobs they probably got from some sort of garage sale, all the while not taking an iota of it seriously. They were just having mad fun playing their music. Sure they had probably the worst vocalist of all time ever to exist in the world ever (seriously, this dude is so bad). Sure they'd obviously never heard the words "songwriting," "moderation" or "structure." But hey, that rough playfulness was sort of their charm: they had this raw production, a grating vocalist , dense, complex instrumentation, out-of-leftfield musical inclusions and lyrics like "the lovely love from the love of my liiiife" which was all fine, really. They weren't the best band ever (see: Queen) but you didn't expect them to be, and it was obvious they didn't give a rat's. They were just terrible songwriters who could absolutely tear things up instrumentally and were lucky enough not to be massive douchebags What you got was some kind of metalcore or mathcore or whatever genre people made up to describe them that could either shine (Mordecai, Shevanel Cut a Flip) or suck tremendous amounts of ass (The Need for Repetition, Destructo Spin).
I came to this site in like 2009 or something and this album was getting dickloads of praise everywhere. I didn't understand it at all. Everything good about them was either gone or left undeveloped, though the opposite happened with the negatives. Big time. Had Tommy Rogers learned how not to sound like a bowel movement with vocal chords? Nah. He was easier to hear though! Had they learned how to connect their oft-interesting ideas and melodies so they didn't mash together awkwardly? Nah. There were more of them though! Did they still play around with sounds associated with other, very distant genres? HELLYEAH! Did they manage to make it sound like it wasn't a huge gimmick? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
The worst part for me was that the fun was gone. They had much shinier production and the mixing was a huge improvement, but suddenly there was this hour-long beast of progressive (lmao progressive my ass) metal divided up into tracks that were at best boring (Informal Gluttony) and at worst directionless, muddled pieces of shi
t (except Viridian, that track is pretty dope yo). Everything came off as forced. "Prequel To The Sequel," which is probably one of the better tracks on the album features a polka-ish (I don't know, it sounds like polka but the rhythm is too fuck
ed for it to be actual polka) section that completely throws off the listener, and not just because of its awkward musical contrast either. It feels fake. It feels tacked-on. It feels like "Obligatory Wacky Section #x". It feels like it's there to be there. I mean what purpose does it serve? So listeners will say "oh dude was that an accordion? these guys are crazy LOL" instead of hearing good music? The "forced" idea applies to so many places in
Colors that it's hard to listen to and even harder to enjoy. I don't mind it when bands change time signatures, I just don't understand the reasoning behind many of the changes in
Colors. Ok guys, I understand. You have a reallllllly good rhythm section. Well done and move on. What was the point of that la la la la la la la la part in "Sun of Nothing"? It brought
fuck all to the song and completely destroyed its momentum (although I sorta do love the sunny strummage at like 7 minutes in.) My gripe is that the band is increasing the volume (i'm not talking decibels) of self-defining aspects in the music to the point where songs feel overstuffed and it becomes pretty much the most tedious thing ever.
Oh yeah I just remembered another thing, why is White Walls 14 minutes long? Are you serious? fuc
k.
The Silent Circus featured wank, but the wank was less elaborate and felt like it was a means to an end.
Colors' wank on the other hand is directionless and irritating, something worsened by the band's increasingly prevalent kitchen sink attitude towards "progressive" music. This is lazy songwriting at its finest (or worst, whatever is correct) which is somewhat annoying considering the amount of talent in the band and the flashes of brilliance (including some truly great tracks) they've had throughout their career. Oh well.
