The Hammer of Thor

When I write a music review, I’m not getting paid for it.  I’m not being assigned an album and told to review it.  When I write an album review, I review an album that I either specifically like, or by a band that I like.  I don’t review music that I don’t like because I don’t want to listen to it (i.e. rap “music” – at least any rap music you’d hear on the radio.  Contrary to popular belief, I actually do like some rap music.  Good rap music is very hard to come by.)  For an album to deserve a review from me requires that I either like the album upon listening to it or that it is by a band that I enjoy listening to and would consider myself a fan of.  Naturally, this would appear to make me a little biased in my reviews, and I think that’s a fair statement.  You probably think I only give 5 out of 5 (or 6 out of 5) star reviews.  This isn’t true (case in point, read my review of VersaEmerge’s self titled album).  However, most often I’ll write a review for an album because I’ve been listening to it and have fallen in love with it, and the review is usually my explanation of why.

Given that this is my blog, and mine alone, with no quotas or expectations, only freedom, I write what I damn well please without worrying about a superior being upset about it, or about anyone who happens to read it thinks of it.  Frankly, I write what I want, and if you disagree, that’s your right.

It is with these disclaimers that I bring forth The Four Masterpieces.  I’ve been listening to music for as long as I can remember, and I would honestly rather go blind than deaf because I don’t think I could function without music in my life.  Music can speak to every fiber of my being.  It can speak to my heart and emotions, bringing tears to my eyes, anger to my lungs, and a smile to my face.  Music can also speak to my mind.  It can challenge me with lyrical depth, astonish me with instrumental complexity, and frustrate me with unrivaled creativity.  That is why I love music and listen to music and write music and play music.  It is what I am most passionate about, it is what challenges me and frustrates me and astonishes me and moves me.

My friend Andrea told me that, when I speak about music, I use the word “masterpiece” too much.  I begged to differ, and explained that there are only four albums in my music library that have earned that title.  The Four Masterpieces are the four albums that have a special place in my heart and mind.  They are four albums which, from start to finish, have no weaknesses.  They are perfect through and through.  They are, in my honest opinion, four of the best albums ever written.  I know people will disagree, but the beauty of this is that it’s my opinion and yours doesn’t matter in my selection of The Four Masterpieces.  I don’t care what your favorite music is, that’s not what this post is about.  This is about my elite four albums that have changed my life.

They are as follows:

- THE FIRST MASTERPIECE -
The Felix Culpa - Sever Your Roots

The Felix Culpa - Sever Your Roots

Most of you have never heard of this band.  I am so sorry for you, and consider the knowledge of them my favor to you, that you may listen to their music and have your mind completely blown.  I was shown The Felix Culpa in early high school by a youth group leader who knew the band personally.  This was back in the days of their EP Ancoro Imparo.  This band embodies everything that is good about music.  Their honestly original writing and undeniable passion saturates every second of Sever Your Roots.  No one could listen to lead singer Marky Hladish belt out his lead lines and say he’s faking it.  With every word his voice is inundated with passion and emotion.  You won’t find auto-tune or any form of vocal correction on SYR;  everything you hear is indeed how it was sung.  Every little imperfection and strain and falter in his voice has an intentionality that shows that this is a real person with real emotions and feeling, not some digitally perfected ideal voice.  It is really refreshing to hear someone put so much passion into his voice without worrying about it being perfect, because we’re human beings and we aren’t perfect and none of us can sing perfectly.  Beyond Marky’s vocals is the instrumentation.  The Felix Culpa’s guitars have a trademark dirty sound that is consistent through all of their work; one of those telltale characteristics that always lets me know I’m listening to a Culpa song.  It’s an unmistakable, unique and quintessentially trademark sound.  Their writing and song structure I would describe simply as being genuine and honest.  There is nothing contrived or recycled in their notes, chords, melodies, rhythms or hooks.  Everything is thoughtfully constructed into giving the feeling that says “look, this is who we are.  We’re the Felix Culpa and you haven’t heard anything like us before.”  If I had to come up with a band that is similar to The Felix Culpa I would have to say Come Now Sleep-era As Cities Burn, simply in the fact that they have a unique guitar sound and original writing.  Sever Your Roots will always hold a special place in my music library.  Ironically, Sever Your Roots seems to hearken back to the roots of music writing and recording.  It isn’t over-produced.  Much of it was recorded live with numerous musicians in a room playing together to capture the emotional ebb and flow that is only present in live performance.  Some of its spirit reminds me of Thrice’s The Alchemy Index Vol. IV: Earth.  In its complexity, it is simple.  It has an earthy, grassroots feel to it that hasn’t been tainted by big budget labels ordaining the next pop icon.  It is the most primitive of The Four, and thus, the least forced and most sincere.  It’s raw.  It’s perfection.  It’s raw perfection.

- THE SECOND MASTERPIECE -
Emery – …In Shallow Seas We Sail

Emery - ...In Shallow Seas We Sail

Emery has always either shared or held sole position as my favorite band ever since I heard them in the days of The Weak’s End.  Their dual-frontman approach instantly captivated me because it opposed the dogma that you need a lead singer, not more than one.  There’s seemingly a false belief that bands must have a leader, and can’t be led by committee.  Emery takes that claim and turns it on its head, proving that, indeed, two are better than one.  Having two lead singers instead of one opens the door for complex vocal layering and harmonies that would be impossible otherwise.  Sure, one lead singer can layer his own voice in the studio, but you don’t get the best of both worlds as you do with two.  Emery has Toby Morelle, who’s voice is has more of a raw side compared to Devin Shelton’s velvety smoothness, while both possess the support for powerfully driven vocals while often brandishing the oft forgotten vibrato.  Having two excessively capable vocalists to command dual vocal parts has proven to be a boon as Emery has taken it’s place in the upper echelon of Seattle-based super-label Tooth and Nail Records.  My full review of ISSWS is viewable here.

- THE THIRD MASTERPIECE -
Underoath – Ø (Disambiguation)

Underoath - Ø (Disambiguation)

I believe I wrote my longest blog post/album review ever when I reviewed Underoath’s new album a little over a week ago.  Seeing as that was a 1700+ word post, I’m not going to go into it much here beyond saying that I believe Ø (Disambiguation) is indeed the album of the year 2010.  It is, quite simply, an astonishing accomplishment by a band that, by modern measurements, should have been dead a long time ago.  Instead, they rolled with the punches and released an 11 track magnum opus born out of adversity and battesimo del fuoco.  It is truly an epic and firmly holds its seat as one of The Four.  There is not a moment of weakness in it’s 38:25 runtime.  It is, fittingly, a masterpiece.  The full review of it is viewable here.

- THE FOURTH MASTERPIECE: THE MAGNUM OPUS -
The Receiving End Of Sirens – The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi

The Receiving End of Sirens - The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi

What can I say about this band?  From the first time I listened to “This Armistice” on TREOS’s debut album Between the Heart and the Synapse I was hooked.  So many things made me enamored with TREOS.  Their vocal complexity was the first.  When they recorded BTHATS they still had now-departed Casey Crescenzo in their ranks beside Brendan Brown and Alex Bars, giving them not one, not two, but three lead singers!  Given my love for Emery I knew that I would love The Receiving End of Sirens.  The rich aural canvas they paint with layered vocals on top of layered atmospheric tapping guitars and deliberate electronics and synth brings a sonic cornucopia of textures and melodies and harmonies that no other band that has hit my ears could possibly pull off.  Their sound is very busy, but not messy.  It is lush and vibrant, holding new surprises with every listen, which is what keeps them in lasting position as my favorite band.  Every time I listen to specifically their instrumentation, I am dumbfounded.  Dissecting parts of every track reveal new guitar lines or synth lines or bass lines that blend in unless listened for.  The parts don’t get lost, but instead fit in like a tree in the background of a forest painting.  Sure, one probably wouldn’t notice if it was missing, but once heard, it is evidently a critical part, even given it’s status as a background texture.  The depth is astounding and what gives TREOS’s music lasting appeal for me.  When The Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi was released, I had followed it closely, read about it, listened to tracks, and waited with great apprehension the day when I could drive to Best Buy and pick up a physical copy.  Upon popping it into my CD player, I drove.  And drove.  And drove.  From the industrial beat of “Swallow People Whole” to the scorching guitar riffs and regretful sorrow of “Stay Small” to the ultimate climactic zenith that is “Pale Blue Dot” I listened.  For an hour and 22 seconds, I drove around Shoreview and Roseville just to listen.  No album I had listened to, from start to finish, felt like such a masterpiece.  Every song played a part, told a story, and while there isn’t a song with the “get up and move” feeling of BTHATS‘s “Planning A Prison Break,” collectively these songs are each a thread in a weaving that must be viewed as a whole to be truly appreciated.  TREOS’s ambition with this album towers to heavenly heights: to write an album around the two conceptual pillars of the breakdown of a family and Johannes Kepler’s theories on the tonal qualities of planets in their orbits, particularly earth as she sings “mi fa mi – misery famine misery” is a daunting task that they boldly attempt and triumphantly complete.  Beyond their musical prowess is their lyrical intelligence.  TREOS has always amazed me with their lyrical sophistication.  Wielding a diverse vocabulary, an affection for alliteration, and deep and challenging themes that capture the feeling of each record, their lyrics paired with the intricacies and deftness of layering of their vocal lines remain a talent most sought after in my musical writing attempts.  Their music is layered in such a way that all parts fit and aren’t stepped on.  Each part has it’s place and purpose, and they all complement each other.  Familiar melodies are borrowed too, and while it might sound corny, the use of the melodies of “The Ants Go Marching” and “This Little Light of Mine” do not sound childish or juvenile in their execution, embellishing the nature of “The Crop and the Pest” and “Wanderers” respectively.  The lyrics address some very difficult topics, as well, from the pain and emotional damage experienced by a child of divorce in “The Salesman, the Husband, the Lover” to the regret of bringing someone into this world in “Stay Small”.  ”Stay Small” is one of the most challenging songs I’ve listened to, where from the perspective of a parent the question is asked “is it love to bring my child into a world full of pain and despair where they will dance with demons and be corrupted?  How I wish my child would never grow old and stay innocent.”  The entire album comes to a head with the twin seven minute epics “The Heir of Empty Breath” and “Pale Blue Dot.”  In particular, “Pale Blue Dot” is the perfect apogee to the oeuvre of TESMFM.  I can think of no better way to close an album than this prodigious track, which is brimming with quiet, latent apprehension and tension that explodes on the second chorus and leads into a thundering denouement where, as per word of the band themselves, a vocal line from every track of the album is knit into a sonorous fabric of aural bliss that is as devastating as it is beautiful.  ”Heavy, we’re so heavy” rings out amongst decorative guitars and glockenspiel bell tones and the track hits its climax.  It then dies out as delicate strings, synth and guitars sing under angelic bells and the guitar lingers as long as it possibly can before dying in conclusion.  ”Pale Blue Dot” is the crown jewel among a sea of precious stones.  It takes all respective parts and sets them into their seats in the collective crown, bringing to conclusion an album of extraordinary vision and exceptional implementation.  The result is what I believe to be the best album ever written.  Every time I think I’ve found something that could push its envelope, I listen to TESMFM again and am reaffirmed in its superiority.  It is truly, genuinely, ultimately, and undoubtedly a complete masterpiece.  A work of art, not just an album.  Not twelve songs slapped together and thrown to the masses, but twelve precious stones, twelve Mona Lisas, twelve slices of perfection, twelve masterpieces.  Indeed, masterpiece may be on too small a scale for this record.  Its twelve tracks form a bona fide, quintessential magnum opus.  It rises above the other three masterpieces and holds its place as Magnum Opus, The Great Work.  To not listen to this record is tragedy.