MUSIC REVIEWS - Drink The Fire Hose Episode 001

[The following is a transcript for the video. I get more clicks on the blog, so there's more chance that someone will read this than watch it, but I'd really appreciate if you watched it. I put a lot of hours into it (partly because the open source video editor I use has CRIPPLING rendering times) and I want to share this humble, fun little thing I did.]

And now...It's time to Drink The Fire Hose with your host Nick Nutter

Hey, what's goin' on, it's Nick Nutter.  The show's called Drink The Fire Hose because there's more pop culture to experience in any given year than we can ever meaningfully experience.  So let's get as much in as we can while we still can!  Put that fire hose of content right in my face and blast me with it!  Some of it'll get down my throat!  We'll deal with the ocean later!  Right now, we've got five albums to review today, so let's get started!!!

Trivium "What The Dead Men Say" *** and 1/2

Until now, I've never sat through a single Trivium song.  They've always sounded...a touch generic, and it took me until about track four on this thing to not feel an itch to hit skip, but once I settled in, once I was determined to give them a chance, I see why they've stayed popular going on fifteen years now.

The album doesn't stop for anything, and it's pretty much full speed ahead thrash for the whole runtime, which got old by track seven, but as soon as I thought that, the song "Sickness Unto You" hit me with these lyrics:

"I felt your heart stop beating
With my own two hands
I felt my life lose meaning
I'll never be whole again"

That right there, that visceral connection to one of the worst parts of being human: Loss.  That's what made me invested.  They finally had something to say.

Lyrics don't usually grab me anymore, especially in this kind of music where the instruments are usually the show, but that one jumped out.  And the next song "Scattering The Ashes" continued the theme nicely.

All of the lyrics on this album are at the same time poignant and about the darkness of the modern world, and would be at home on any hard metal album in the last forty years.  Until I read the Genius annotations, I didn't put two and two together that these weren't just generic metal lyrics, but I guess that might put things into perspective:

Bands have been singing about terrible, dark shit going on in the world and in personal life for a long time, but it used to be for shock value, or added a bit of hyperbole to better illustrate the dangers of what could be coming if we don't do something.  And now everything's been on fire for years and it feels really mundane hearing people try to be dramatic about the ashes.

Maybe that's why I don't like this album as much as I wish I did?

Don't get me wrong, Trivium are talented as shit; they're shredding their ass off on this album, but the songs all start to sound the same real quick.  There's enough twists and turns to keep you from checking out, but there were three or four times where I came close.  Not necessarily an album I'd return to a lot, but if metal was my main drug of choice, this fix would do nicely.

DaBaby "Blame It On Baby" * and 1/2

"Thought I was a one hit wonder 'til I dropped the album" -DaBaby "Drop"

So...is that why he keeps putting albums out?  Like, he forgot that he already released one and proved that statement, then did it again?  Cuz...this is his third album in thirteen months.  And he has a fourth on the way later this year.

Thing is, on Google Play alone, this is his eighth album since 2016.  Yeah, everything before 2019 is listed on Wikipedia as a Mixtape, but if it's on a commercial streaming service, it's a fucking album.  No one buys for a second that The Big Day was Chance The Rapper's debut, especially when they keep saying it's such a step down from Coloring Book and Acid Rap.  Those were albums, they fucking count.

Anyway, dude has put out so much music he's oversaturated already.  Baby On Baby and Kirk were breaths of fresh air in a somewhat stale trap-scape, but this one...oof.

So there's a lot more autocrooning on this, which simultaneously a) Shows DaBaby continuing to try new things, b) Shows he really sucks at these new things, and c)These new things make him sound just like everyone else.

The first song I even liked on this project was "Jump" and that was track eight.  "Champion" had a cool "vwOOMP" noise in it.  It's not even a good beat; it just had a cool noise.  Rest of the song is trash.  "Blame It On Baby" is pretty cool, but he has to go and say "Special Ed; I'm a ree-ree", so fuck that.  "Nasty" is the best song by a fucking landslide, but it's still like a three and a half.  "Amazing Grace" sounds decent enough, and I'm finally starting to think this album might turn around but a) That's the last song, and b) it's only a minute and a half.

What the fuck, Baby?  What is this shit?  You didn't have to do any of this.  Yeah, you're getting paid, but if you were a company, you're short selling your own stock.  Stop planning for your own crash, focus up, take your time and map out your next steps.  You're still incredibly hot right now, but if you keep putting out forgettable (or even trash) shit like this, you're gonna fuck it up.  I don't wanna see that.

Body Count "Carnivore" ***

Body Count are 100% out of ideas.  Two of these songs were covers of old Ice-T songs (and one of them was a slightly sub-par cover of Motorhead's "Ace Of Spades").  But most of this was still fun, so if they stop here I guess we're still cool.

Green Day "Father Of All Motherfuckers" *** 1/4

Based on everything I've heard about this album, I was expecting a train wreck of epic proportions, but I actually enjoyed it.  Was it lame?  Yes.  Was it bad?  Not really.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say I didn't dislike a single song, which makes me a unicorn because even the positive reviews I've seen of this say it's a mixed bag.  The only disappointment I had was after it was over; I actually wanted more.

I understand why someone who's a diehard (or even casual) Green Day fan would turn their nose up at this: from note one this is not trying to be a Green Day record.  I'd say it's not trying not to be either, but on the surface it's...something else.  I don't even like falsetto vocals, but the title track had me interested from the first time I heard it last year.  It's got energy and swagger; they commit to the bit.  "Fire. Ready. Aim." is basically part two, and it comes barreling in the same way.

The songs "Oh Yeah!" and "Meet Me On The Roof"?  I get why people would find them insipid.  There's a lot of pop on this record because it is a pop record made with rock instruments.  But "Oh Yeah!" works for me (even the Joan Jett sample) because it pulls the same trick as "Hey Ya!" by Outkast.  It has dark lyrics being masked by a would-be stadium anthem.  It's about how fucked up we've let America become and the cognitive dissonance it takes to just keep living through each day, heaped on top of the constant vigilance.  "Meet Me On The Roof" doesn't have that excuse.  That one I know is trash, but in context with the album, I find it tolerable.

"I Was A Teenage Teenager" is also pretty trash, but in an enjoyable mid-period Weezer deep cut kind of way.  "Stab You In The Heart" is trying to be a pissed-off version of an early Beatles song (which explains the injection of crowd noise from what sounds like that time period).  "Sugar Youth" is the closest Green Day gets to sounding like themselves on the whole project, reminding me a little of "Letterbomb" from American Idiot.  "Junkies On A High" is languid, but lyrically consistent, not only continuing the themes of "Oh Yeah!" from an adult perspective but referring back to them.  "Take The Money And Crawl" is about having to ignore the atrocities of wealth and power to get a paycheck and the closer "Graffitia" is a study of two groups done wrong by power in two different ways: One is people who lost their livelyhoods when manufacturing jobs moved out of the rust belt and the other is black kids getting shot by Chicago P.D.

The themes are subtle and if I hadn't been listening for them or reading along on Genius, I might not have picked some of them up.  There's a lot of garish music to parse through and it is distracting, but that garishness is sort of the charm in places.  It doesn't always work, but I think it succeeds more than it fails.

Daedelus "What Wands Won't Break" ****

Ah, the music of my people!  I've never heard a musical act that's really reminded me of The GV Crew before, but I think I've found it in Daedelus.  Lots of really fucked up noises, speaker-destroying bass, glitches everywhere, but weirdly a kind of pretty harmonic sense to it.  Beauty in strangeness.  I like; would smash with again.

Carly Rae Jepsen "Dedicated Side B" *** and 3/4

[doot-doot-doot doot doot doot-doot-doot] Late breaking news: Carly Rae Jepsen just dropped a new album right when I was making this, so I guess we're doing this now!

I've never really clicked 100% with Carly Rae Jepsen's music before.  I've always found something to like about it, but never much to love.  I've always felt like her music is a bit too plasticky and her lyrics are a little too basic.  She's able to set a mood, but I can't help but feel like it could use...any metaphor at all.

But with Dedicated Side B...Okay, yeah.  She finally got me.  This album's pretty dang good.

The first song "This Love Isn't Crazy" is not really my jam but it's not like I mind it.  It's track two "Window" where things starts to connect.  It's breezy but has a groove to it, and the next song "Felt This Way" melts into it nice and easy.

Track four is the biggest bump in this road, though, so we've gotta talk about it.  "Stay Away" has the same lyrics as "Felt This Way", but instead of a smooth, relaxing jam it's trying to be a generic dance pop thing from ten years ago and it just doesn't work.  If the lyrics weren't the same as the previous track, it might've been tolerable but yeesh.  It also has that particular style of pitched vocals I despise.  Y'know the [PUT SAMPLE HERE] kind?  Yeah, that.  Can't stand it, and it sounds dated.  Producers need to cut that shit out.

The album bounces back with track five "This Is What They Say", and I do mean bounces.  The song has a buoyant feeling that matches the "walking on air" ideal of falling in love she's singing about.  "Heartbeat" slows things down, being a ballad that shows a hesitancy in becoming more intimate because Carly Rae's afraid of losing control of her emotions and going overboard.  It's the agony of trying to walk the tightrope of being sensible and being in love.

"Summer Love"?  This song is dope.  Major in the vibe department, the production is the perfect balance of organic and airtight.  There's groove to it beyond any song of her's I can remember.  Next song "Fake Mona Lisa" is a really decent 80's pastiche that steers clear of cliche, which ain't easy to do with 40 years of 80's music to choose from.  "Let's Sort The Whole Thing Out" I like because it's unabashed in it's sunshine-y joy, like it does not give a FUCK about how saccharine it is, it's gonna live its truth, and I respect that.

"Comeback" has the only feature credit on the album, with Jack Antonoff's Bleachers project joining the fray.  The synthesizers are nice and full, but the chorus really goes dangerously close to sounding like Walk The Moon's "One Foot In Front Of The Other", like it's about to break into a commercial for a Jeep Cherokee, but it manages to restrain itself and keep the shreds of respectability it has.  That being said, it's still a solid tune.

"Solo" has the most egregious examples of that vocal warping effect I pointed out earlier, but it's still enjoyable outside of that being the post-chorus.  The sentiment of "Don't be down just because you're single; life has things to enjoy in all its states" is nice.

"Now I Don't Hate California After All" is one in a long line of album closers this year that just don't sound like the last song on anything.  I think that's a trick to make you hit play again and I can see it working.  You feel like "...that's it?  Naw, fuck that, we're going again," and you wanna keep the same vibe so what's easier than just listening to the same album again?  This trick only worked on me once so far (which we'll get to next episode), but here?  I was satisfied.

Overall, I dug Dedicated Side B more than any other album in Carly Rae Jepsen's discography.  I feel like she's trying new shit, which is something I like to hear.  There were still some of the things I didn't like about her sound, but they were the least present they've ever been, so definitely a plus.  Three and three quarters stars.


Okay, that's all we've got for now.  I'ma hop back in the life raft and swim away, you do what you do and we'll meet up again next time to tell each other what we've discovered out here in the vast.  Don't give up hope, don't give up the boat.  Stay afloat.  Take it easy.