Review Summary: One hell of a promising debut.
There are few things that every human being on the planet can unanimously agree on, and one of those is that
Limp Bizkit f
ucking sucks. A related consensus seems to have developed that LB guitarist Wes Borland was actually the only guy with any level of musical skill in said band.
So, quite a lot of people cheered when Wes left Limp Bizkit and started his own band. The result stands before us now:
Cruel Melody, an exciting and well-crafted debut album which seems to hint at great things to come.
The first track on the album, "Mesopotamia", starts in a rather creepy manner, with discordant strings and synthesized choirs, only to suddenly burst into a relentless heavy-metal groove raising a few comparisons with
Queens of the Stone Age, especially regarding the monotone one-note riffs employed. The song does work well (especially in the 3:21 breakdown) and remains rather unsettling. Interesting sidenote: Wes vocally sounds more than a bit like Trent Reznor.
Don't be fooled into thinking "Animal"'s title is ironic: it is driven by yet another robotic, relentless groove, and the predominance of synthesizers and drum machine recalls "Closer", not unintentionally. But the
Nine Inch Nails-ish (or is it DOR-ish?) verses quickly mass into a catchy chorus based on massive guitar overdubs and live drumming courtesy of everyone's favorite session drummer, Josh Freese (sound familliar?). A left-field turn around the 2-minute mark keeps things going on quite well.
"Lie" shows off an even bigger NIN influence (it actually sounds like an updated "Heresy"), and is the requisite "hard rock" song. It uses the old but still effective trick of "verses propelled by drum machine and atmospherics exploding into huge refrain with distorted guitars". Yes, that might sound really cynical in text form, but it's not discounting the song. Wes even shows off with a quick discordant guitar solo. In short: the early peak achieved on this album.
"Coward" starts off with yet another monstrous grindy NIN-ish hook, with one noticeable difference: as a whole this album is more tightly produced and less "low-tech" (well, that and Danny Lohner shows up as well on guitar). The song proceeds to do all sorts of weird experiments with arrangement, such as: suddenly shifting to clean melodies, moving back to refrain, adding more soundscapes, baroque synth melodies around 3:00, etc. On the whole, the song keeps the album's momentum going well, which to me is a compliment (too many albums I've heard with haphazard sequencing...)
"Cruel Melody" isn't as charged as its two predecessors, and works on a more low-key, atmosphere-based note. The beginning guitar melody is suitably memorable and good, and the added electronic touches make the song sound rather restless but still calm. This complements Wes Borland's, er, comparatively more "romantic" (optimistic?) lyrics well. There's also a good contrast between Borland's low-key droning and
Carina Round's backing vocals (you may have heard of her... I haven't...). At 2:42, the song suddenly switches gears. From now on 'till the end it's based on a simple strummed acoustic guitar riff, while Borland asks a certain person to
"take me away" in an increasingly intense manner.
"The Mark" brings yet another sludgy QotSA hook and arrangement to the table. As a whole the song is more spacey than what came before, relying on quick fast-paced guitar strumming and leaving enough space for the vocals. The worst you could say about it is that it's basically "more of the same". However it doesn't end up heavily diminished even if you could consider it "filler", and holds off well. This might have something to do with its brief 3-minute running time.
"I Have a Need" is... confusing. The song contains guitar and little else for the first minute (except for some unperceptible glitchy percussion), and then goes for the full band treatment. Its preferrence for quick guitar stabs does remind me a lot of "The Big Come Down" from
The Fragile. I do have to pick one nit: the distorted guitars in the refrain are a bit too overprocessed, and never sound powerful enough. But that's relatively minor. Wes again shows off with a nice, eerie guitar solo and Danny Lohner does some good things on guitar.
Fun fact: this song has Wes' former Limp Bizkit bandmate Sam Rivers on bass.
"4 Walls" is basically put in the middle to keep the album on the same track and simultaneously inject extra energy. Both of these goals are accomplished. Josh Freese gets to pound the kit like no tomorrow, and Wes comes up with a harsh dual-synth-and-guitar riff which recalls "Lie". As a whole, the song demonstrates Our Intrepid Hero (I love sarcasm...) has learnt a few things about groove from his NIN records. Around the middle, the track quickly goes into a breakdown which relies heavily on mood and sonic construction, and after that returns to the refrain. The song ends with a distorted Mellotron-sounding choir and heavily echoed guitar.
"Stop a Bullet" begins as if it's an outtake from
Maxinquaye, with throbbing vinyl noise and a lone synthesizer, but the melody that comes in and the lyrics make it really creepy (sample:
I've got something to say/I've acquired a taste for watching you in pain/That's pretty hard to admit/It makes me feel like ***, etc). Just as the song is building up and you expect a full-blown industrial rock riff at 0:43, the song takes a 2-second break before introducing drums. Avoiding the obvious, somewhat. The song does quiet down again at 1:22, only to go back to the pummeling beat and fuzz-distorted synths. This tactic of "calm down-go back" keeps the song interesting, and it eventually achieves a sort of catharsis when the Almighty Massive Chorus finally breaks in at 2:48, only to die out at 3:16 and return to the unease of the beginning.
"One of Yours" relies on a shreddy main riff, low rumbling piano, a high pitched synth and Josh Freese's stop-start drumming throughout its verses, keeping the tension level relatively high. And of course, the release provided by the refrain is appropriately hard, even a bit more melody-oriented. So for the rest of the song, the band continues to find new ways to keep the "jumpy verse meets big chorus" formula interesting, quite successfully, with lots of subtle additions (like that ringing sitar-ish guitar from 2:40). I'd say this song tends to spotlight Mr. Freese's skills a bit more.
"New Hunger" ends the series of more aggressive industrial rock tracks, and is more of a soundscape than a song. The song as a whole relies on its odd distorted synthline and the heavily filtered/compressed drums, with the requisite small touches/ear candy of course. Wes' vocals are mostly either stacked (refrain) or filtered and full of effects (verses) throughout. There are no distorted guitars to be found. At 2:30, a string section comes in, adding a good mournful melody which clicks with the overall arrangement well. The song itself keeps taking detours and generally sounding restless (I mean this in a good way), and slowly builds up to a climax followed by a fade-out.
If "Lie" is the album's early peak, "I Am Where It Takes Me" is the album's late peak. How appropriate too, as it's a true change of gears from the earlier industrial rock to soundscape construction, the kind Trent Reznor does. Put simply, the track is beautiful and ethereal. It's mostly reliant on the filtered strings and heavily reverbed guitars to build a mood, but once the mood is established the track achieves a sense of majesty. The verses all use a drum machine which luckily fades in the background quite well, and the refrain has some live drumming from Wes himself. For this song, he called in Johnette Napolitano to provide background vocals, something which enhances the track's overall
This Mortal Coil-esque feeling (I can't imagine this song working without her). The song is perfectly arranged, with subtle use of synthesizer which will be appreciated by headphone users, and a string section in the refrain. So: an excellent, melodic ballad.
"IAWITM" would have made a great closer on its own, but "Iodine Sky" lives up to the task just fine. The song is minimal to an almost Brian Eno-sounding point, made entirely of sparse synth melodies and a lone echoed piano. Mood music, essentially. "Iodine Sky" is relaxing, slow-building and very pleasant, so it might end a bit too quickly depending on the listener's attention span for ambient music.
Note: the song ends around 6:00, and the last two minutes are ambient noise, faint static and a hidden message.
Final note? This is one hell of a debut, and I look forward to more Black Light Burns in the future. Mr. Borland looks set on track to escape the dreaded shadow of his past.
Recommended songs:
Mesopotamia
Lie
Cruel Melody
4 Walls
New Hunger
I Am Where It Takes Me
Iodine Sky
