UnderØath has always been one of my favorite bands.
I know they broke up and now I guess they are back together. And while I think I have moved on from the phase in life where all I listened to was metal music --
When I was 14, I used to have a binary test for whether or not a metal band was good. It was:
Is the band UnderØath? Yes=1 No=0. I didn't make a lot of friends for a while.
-- I can always find myself crawling back to the accessibility in Florida-native UØ's brand of distortion.
--
I discovered UnderØath when I got a Tooth and Nail sampler of 96kbps tracks from their up-and-comer's. It was probably "It's Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door". I could never remember the whole track name. All I remembered was SCREAMING. And SINGING. And SCREAMING. And SCREAMING. It was SCREAMO
Then I borrowed They're Only Chasing Safety from Justin who was in the 10th grade, and listened to it on my Phillip's portable CD player with my Panasonic clip-on earphones, for probably three hours straight on a field-trip to the Phoenix Art Museum (or something like that). I was enamored with the noise. But I was mostly enamored with "I'm Content With Losing". I couldn't get over it. It was SCREAMO
Well, I had to give the CD back, but then I got it again and ripped it to my PC and it was bomb's away. Over a period of a couple months, it was all I could listen to.
Well, over the summer between 9th and 10th grade, I managed to borrow a copy of Define The Great Line from Thomas who was in the same grade I was. Over a period of a couple years, it was all I could listen to.
Well, over the summer between 11th and 12th grade, I managed to buy a copy of Lost In The Sound Of Separation with my own money. Over a period of a couple years, it was all I---
My dang brother managed to find the .mp3 files I made of that album and proceeded to over-play "Too Bright to See, Too Loud to Hear" (literally for hours, same song, repeat, for like a year). Well, Josh and I both had an appreciation for the juxtaposition of Aaron Gillespie's clean vocals against the heavy-shred bleeding esophagus of Spencer Chamberlain. I still really enjoy the album but it took a few years of maturity to get over the sibling-jealousy I had for My Favorite Band. I started listening to UnderOath because nobody else in my family wanted to listen to it and he had to go and "ruin" it by enjoying it like I enjoy it.
But I'm more hardcore, see? I actually think it is UnderOath's Ø (Disambiguation) that stands on the pedestal of Magnum Opus. I think it is the best album they ever created.
And innumerably I've been told I was wrong. Nobody likes it. Well, some people like it. But seriously, nobody likes it.
Why? Because UØ always ran on the fuel mixture, a stoichiometric concoction of SCREAM/CLEAN DISTORTION/EXPERIMENTAL LYRIC/INSTRUMENTAL HAPPY/ANGRY UPLIFTING/DEPRESSING music that got them the label deal, that got them millions of albums sold, that got them on the fathers of crossover music list. They were giving into that patriarchy, the one that said "you'll only sell music if Adam D likes it".
Subsequently, bands like Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, and HASTE THE DAY were winning the battle at the release of 2010's gooder metal album. I don't really like to talk about it.
No, Disambiguation was the kind of album that makes a person think twice about its merits. It isn't an instantaneous joy-ride. It's thoughtful, and deep, and tragic like the last famous battles of warriors long past dead. It's the kind of progressive that makes you uncomfortable because you didn't think music made you feel like this.
I'm convinced that it is the best metal album to ever come out of a Solid State band (with the exceptions of maybe The Chariot's The Fiance and The Chariot's Wars And Rumors Of Wars), sheerly due to the creative force that was unleashed by the depature of last remaining original member Aaron Gillespie from the band. (I love The Almost, and I think that Aaron is a very good musician, so this isn't so much an insult as pure observation and conjecture).
It really takes some listening with Ø (Disambiguation). It's an acquired taste. It's not easy like the previous stuff. You aren't given the respite of soft vocals with emotive lyrics. You're stuck listening to the whole thing;
like you're standing in the Tower of Terror line,
waiting to get to the place where you sit,
where they take up you up,
where they send you up and down,
and the whole thing is uncomfortable.
You have to let it grow on you. And then you reap the rewards of your patient ears, the feeling of microgravity for that split second where if you dropped your phone, it would float there with you all the way down.
And then the drop stops.
And shoots you up.
And then drops you again.
And then you're released back to the wild wondering what happened to your ears and why the breath in your lungs is aching for community.
That's Ø (Disambiguation) in a nutshell. I can only explain it by metaphor because there is no simile to suit it. It's incomparable. It's deep. But not deep in the bungie-jumping way. Deep in the "leagues under the ocean" fashion.
It isn't fashionable. And that's why it suits my fancy.
Recommended listens:
In Division
Paper Lung
Who Will Guard The Guardians
Vacant Mouth
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Friday, November 27, 2015
Music Recommendation: Jimmy Eat World: Clarity
"Hey man."
"Hey."
"Hey, I got a music question for you."
"OK, shoot."
"OK, so have you ever heard of Jimmy Eat World?"
"Yes! I love that band. They are probably my favorite band."
"Dude! Yeah me too. Like, Bleed American is so good, man."
...
end conversation.
So, you say you like Jimmy Eat World. You say you jumped on before they were ALL BIG. You got into them before they made the decision to change "Bleed American" to "Jimmy Eat World" because of post 9/11 sympathies. You heard "The Middle" and you liked it before the video, before the radio play, before everyone else saw them in concert. Well guess what. You're a poser.
You're a poser like your dad's love for the C3 Corvette. You're a poser like Christian butt rock. You're a weirdo who tried to be cool. You got left in the dust because the 90's weren't with you like you were with them. You were watching "Hey! Arnold" because it was on T.V., not because it was transcendent. You were sitting in the bathroom picking your nose in the stall. You were not listening to Clarity.
Clarity.
Now, I'll be honest and say this up front: I discovered Futures before any other Jimmy Eat World album came to my ears. I discovered them because my friend Nathaniel told me they were good. He had the "deluxe edition" and I had a CD player so I just borrowed the thing for nigh-near two years, just to give it back scratched and well-worn. Thanks Nathaniel.
McDaniel had this protomillenial habit of collecting myriads of burned CDs with low-fi MP3 tracks from all sorts of crap audio on it. Remember when the iPod was not a household name back in 2005? That's when we were burning CDs and dealing with the awful two-second pause in between tracks, because both iTunes and Windows Media Player were pathetic and weren't interested in giving us the full experience. We had to be economic. You had 80 minutes and it was a waste to use less than all 80 revolutions of the second hand. We weren't torrenting. Some of us had dial-up. We had to burn our stuff to laser disks because upload speeds were in the 128-768kbps range and we had time limits on how much we could use the computer. We were using MSN messenger. Or AOL. or Yahoo.
And myspace. oh myspace.
So anyway, Nathaniel gave me one of those plastic holders that came holding fifty blank CD-Rs, and he gave it to me with about fifty used CD-Rs. There's a long list of bands I could be thanking Nathaniel for, but really, this is about Clarity. This is about the time I discovered a CD full of Jimmy Eat World tracks and most of them were from Clarity. This is about the time I got used to the inevitable skipping that comes with the peeling surface of cheap CD-Rs. This is about the time when I discovered my favorite album and couldn't drop it.
No, I've carried Clarity with me for years.
So eventually I was able to scrounge up a couple bucks and find Clarity at Barnes and Noble. It was miraculous. Fifteen year-old me found an album he had been wanting since he heard the first couple tracks off of it. All the redbook audio quality. No more track skipping.
Enter "Table For Glasses." The beauty of the first track is its understatement. In fact. Clarity is an album of understatements. The first track is just the understatement of the album of understatements. It's the breaking voice in the middle of "hello". It's the gasp for air after you've exhaled and delayed breathing. It isn't so much deep as it is wide. That's not to say that Clarity lacks depth. But you have to get past the second syllable of the proverbial understatement to get anywhere. It takes a certain kind of viligence to keep listening for the subtlety.
You get to the first single of the song "Lucky Denver Mint". The chorus sings
You're not bigger than this
not better. why can't you learn?
I'm not really certain why this song got the "single". I'm not sure that there's any song here that really commands radio time. And that's alright. That's part of the charm.
"Your New Aesthetic" comes on and suddenly you're anti-nostalgiating forward to "Nothing Wrong", the only RADIO PUNK on Futures. This is the roots of the angry political JEW that we've all come to know or skip tracks.
"Believe in What You Want" is probably the only track I ever consider skipping. Why? I don't know. It's just as good as the others. I just have impossible standards.
"A Sunday" -- Now here's where the album gets good. Here's where the album goes from standard emo father fare to underproduced beauty. From this point forward, the album goes uphill and fast. You've survived the last three songs just to get to this one. You've pulled up to the top of the coaster and you're on the brink of heading to oblivion.
"Crush" -- The second "Believe in What You Want" but twice as good. It's got the typical Mark Trombino flare you find everywhere. It's because of tracks and albums like this that got me into Drive Like Jehu (Trombino drums for them).
12.23.95 - Merry Christmas, baby - Enough said.
"Ten" -- The trifecta begins with the under-the-table whiskey drink song. Listen to the chorus. Listen to the piano. Listen to the drums. Listen to the beat. The syncopation. And then listen to Blame no one. Blame no one.
"Just Watch The Fireworks" -- The second of the sweet trilogy. I'm always stuck between this song and the next for "best song ever". This song has the exposition of musical themes. Strings. That epic Jimmy Eat World build-up stolen by many a worship drummer years over.
"For Me This Is Heaven" -- The prestige. The reveal. The heart swoon. The nail in the coffin which drives in home this thought "Yes, this is the best Jimmy Eat World Album Ever." So famous is the chorus line that the re-master released in 2007 featured the lyric on the CD front.
"Blister" -- Good ol' rocking Jimmy Eat World.
"Clarity" -- The one before the big one.
"Goodbye Sky Harbor" -- The one that puts you to sleep. I don't mean that in a bad way. It goes from emo, to alternative-ish... to synthesizers. To the fade-out. It takes 13 minutes and you shouldn't ask for it back.
__
It's not my typical to do any track-by-track. I'm not even sure the above is good advice or good descriptions. But I swear this is my favorite album.
Lots of other bands that I like have made three albums in a row that correspond with the Jimmy Eat World format.
There's the Clarity, the underproduced one that sounds perfect, but only in practice. It doesn't make sense until you've listened to that album as whole, and it cements itself as your favorite because this is the one where you suddenly see everything clearly.
Then there's the Bleed American, the one that everyone likes. The one with all the singles. The one that warrants the most track skips because you really only care about the singles. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, "Bleed American" is one of the hardest songs ever, bro. Nobody cares.
Lastly, there's Futures, the one that everyone should like. The one with all the brains. The one that somehow perfectly engineered the production process to keep all authenticity inward and all the pretension and pop-sensibility away. The one that you know should really be your favorite, but you wouldn't call it the "best" album.
See, bands like Death Cab For Cutie, and Sufjan Stevens have albums that fit under these. Not necessarily in the same release orders.
Clarity - Transatlanticism - Seven Swans
Bleed American - Plans - Illinois
Futures - Narrow Stairs - Michigan
I think about it now.
Just ignore that guy that says things like "Static Prevails was the best Jimmy Eat World album, and I really only listen to the Photo album. And Enjoy Your Rabbit was back when Sufjan was real."
I never really have gotten over Clarity. It's the album that started me down understated drums. It's the album that stopped me from listening to emo-pop (with few exceptions like Taking Back Sunday). It's the album that stopped me from thinking about death and more about learning to live. Futures was all about dying to me. A guy from high school named David passed and all I could listen to was "Pain" and "23" and think about growing old. Clarity was really about learning to live with consequences. Learning to move on. I guess I haven't learned that lesson yet.
Nick
"Hey."
"Hey, I got a music question for you."
"OK, shoot."
"OK, so have you ever heard of Jimmy Eat World?"
"Yes! I love that band. They are probably my favorite band."
"Dude! Yeah me too. Like, Bleed American is so good, man."
...
end conversation.
So, you say you like Jimmy Eat World. You say you jumped on before they were ALL BIG. You got into them before they made the decision to change "Bleed American" to "Jimmy Eat World" because of post 9/11 sympathies. You heard "The Middle" and you liked it before the video, before the radio play, before everyone else saw them in concert. Well guess what. You're a poser.
You're a poser like your dad's love for the C3 Corvette. You're a poser like Christian butt rock. You're a weirdo who tried to be cool. You got left in the dust because the 90's weren't with you like you were with them. You were watching "Hey! Arnold" because it was on T.V., not because it was transcendent. You were sitting in the bathroom picking your nose in the stall. You were not listening to Clarity.
Clarity.
Now, I'll be honest and say this up front: I discovered Futures before any other Jimmy Eat World album came to my ears. I discovered them because my friend Nathaniel told me they were good. He had the "deluxe edition" and I had a CD player so I just borrowed the thing for nigh-near two years, just to give it back scratched and well-worn. Thanks Nathaniel.
McDaniel had this protomillenial habit of collecting myriads of burned CDs with low-fi MP3 tracks from all sorts of crap audio on it. Remember when the iPod was not a household name back in 2005? That's when we were burning CDs and dealing with the awful two-second pause in between tracks, because both iTunes and Windows Media Player were pathetic and weren't interested in giving us the full experience. We had to be economic. You had 80 minutes and it was a waste to use less than all 80 revolutions of the second hand. We weren't torrenting. Some of us had dial-up. We had to burn our stuff to laser disks because upload speeds were in the 128-768kbps range and we had time limits on how much we could use the computer. We were using MSN messenger. Or AOL. or Yahoo.
And myspace. oh myspace.
So anyway, Nathaniel gave me one of those plastic holders that came holding fifty blank CD-Rs, and he gave it to me with about fifty used CD-Rs. There's a long list of bands I could be thanking Nathaniel for, but really, this is about Clarity. This is about the time I discovered a CD full of Jimmy Eat World tracks and most of them were from Clarity. This is about the time I got used to the inevitable skipping that comes with the peeling surface of cheap CD-Rs. This is about the time when I discovered my favorite album and couldn't drop it.
No, I've carried Clarity with me for years.
So eventually I was able to scrounge up a couple bucks and find Clarity at Barnes and Noble. It was miraculous. Fifteen year-old me found an album he had been wanting since he heard the first couple tracks off of it. All the redbook audio quality. No more track skipping.
Enter "Table For Glasses." The beauty of the first track is its understatement. In fact. Clarity is an album of understatements. The first track is just the understatement of the album of understatements. It's the breaking voice in the middle of "hello". It's the gasp for air after you've exhaled and delayed breathing. It isn't so much deep as it is wide. That's not to say that Clarity lacks depth. But you have to get past the second syllable of the proverbial understatement to get anywhere. It takes a certain kind of viligence to keep listening for the subtlety.
You get to the first single of the song "Lucky Denver Mint". The chorus sings
You're not bigger than this
I'm not really certain why this song got the "single". I'm not sure that there's any song here that really commands radio time. And that's alright. That's part of the charm.
"Your New Aesthetic" comes on and suddenly you're anti-nostalgiating forward to "Nothing Wrong", the only RADIO PUNK on Futures. This is the roots of the angry political JEW that we've all come to know or skip tracks.
"Believe in What You Want" is probably the only track I ever consider skipping. Why? I don't know. It's just as good as the others. I just have impossible standards.
"A Sunday" -- Now here's where the album gets good. Here's where the album goes from standard emo father fare to underproduced beauty. From this point forward, the album goes uphill and fast. You've survived the last three songs just to get to this one. You've pulled up to the top of the coaster and you're on the brink of heading to oblivion.
"Crush" -- The second "Believe in What You Want" but twice as good. It's got the typical Mark Trombino flare you find everywhere. It's because of tracks and albums like this that got me into Drive Like Jehu (Trombino drums for them).
12.23.95 - Merry Christmas, baby - Enough said.
"Ten" -- The trifecta begins with the under-the-table whiskey drink song. Listen to the chorus. Listen to the piano. Listen to the drums. Listen to the beat. The syncopation. And then listen to Blame no one. Blame no one.
"Just Watch The Fireworks" -- The second of the sweet trilogy. I'm always stuck between this song and the next for "best song ever". This song has the exposition of musical themes. Strings. That epic Jimmy Eat World build-up stolen by many a worship drummer years over.
"For Me This Is Heaven" -- The prestige. The reveal. The heart swoon. The nail in the coffin which drives in home this thought "Yes, this is the best Jimmy Eat World Album Ever." So famous is the chorus line that the re-master released in 2007 featured the lyric on the CD front.
"Blister" -- Good ol' rocking Jimmy Eat World.
"Clarity" -- The one before the big one.
"Goodbye Sky Harbor" -- The one that puts you to sleep. I don't mean that in a bad way. It goes from emo, to alternative-ish... to synthesizers. To the fade-out. It takes 13 minutes and you shouldn't ask for it back.
__
It's not my typical to do any track-by-track. I'm not even sure the above is good advice or good descriptions. But I swear this is my favorite album.
Lots of other bands that I like have made three albums in a row that correspond with the Jimmy Eat World format.
There's the Clarity, the underproduced one that sounds perfect, but only in practice. It doesn't make sense until you've listened to that album as whole, and it cements itself as your favorite because this is the one where you suddenly see everything clearly.
Then there's the Bleed American, the one that everyone likes. The one with all the singles. The one that warrants the most track skips because you really only care about the singles. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, "Bleed American" is one of the hardest songs ever, bro. Nobody cares.
Lastly, there's Futures, the one that everyone should like. The one with all the brains. The one that somehow perfectly engineered the production process to keep all authenticity inward and all the pretension and pop-sensibility away. The one that you know should really be your favorite, but you wouldn't call it the "best" album.
See, bands like Death Cab For Cutie, and Sufjan Stevens have albums that fit under these. Not necessarily in the same release orders.
Clarity - Transatlanticism - Seven Swans
Bleed American - Plans - Illinois
Futures - Narrow Stairs - Michigan
I think about it now.
Just ignore that guy that says things like "Static Prevails was the best Jimmy Eat World album, and I really only listen to the Photo album. And Enjoy Your Rabbit was back when Sufjan was real."
I never really have gotten over Clarity. It's the album that started me down understated drums. It's the album that stopped me from listening to emo-pop (with few exceptions like Taking Back Sunday). It's the album that stopped me from thinking about death and more about learning to live. Futures was all about dying to me. A guy from high school named David passed and all I could listen to was "Pain" and "23" and think about growing old. Clarity was really about learning to live with consequences. Learning to move on. I guess I haven't learned that lesson yet.
Nick
Friday, November 13, 2015
Music Recommendation: Norma Jean: Bless The Martyr And Kiss The Child
White tie. Black Jacket. I ain't see you in a while.
Your whites shine, black velvet. I ain't seen you in a while.
You're slick, a slick and polished mess. I ain't see you in a while.
Let's just face the facts. And get back to the basic form.
^^
The lyrics above belong to a song that's like SEVEN minutes long.
I don't know if I'm going to be making a point here. I'm just once again revisiting an album that I enjoy and endear to my adolescence.
Norma Jean is now a very recognizable metal band. But from back when Christian metal was a thing, this album probably set an impossibly high bar. Everyone can limbo but nobody can jump higher. Except for The Chariot but that's a blog for another day.
A Solid State pandora's box of slam-dancing, incoherent and illiterate guitar screeches, cacophonous crashing drums, with a dash of "God" here, "Jesus" - there. "Christ" speckled over the oblivion of screams, absence of overdub, guitar-flavored distortion, and the lyrics of a poet.
Have I talked about the lyrics?
Do you get it now?
By way of disclaimer, this album was done back before Josh Scogin split to raise up the screaming adulation of METALCORE fans with his third labeled band, The Chariot; a comparison with who would not be fair. Neither do I believe it fair to make Cory Brandan's headship face:face with Scogin's brand of incoherence. All this to say, I have two favorite Norma Jean albums, and this is one of them. The other one (NJ's latest which I've already talked about here) is a standup album by its own right. It has its own merits and it would be obtuse to compare this album from 2002 with a different headman to their recent releases.
But back when, I was a child, see? And I spoke in hyperbole because metaphor was too similar. I said "This is the best Norma Jean album". And I was right, see? Because I had all the ideas figured out. Bless The Martyr... is the most crunchiest, distorted, absolutist, atonal, progressive,thrash drunken cousin metal rock band album to come out. Back in 2006 when the harmony of Underoath
--[Yes they are still a good band, and Disambiguation was the best they ever released]
--wasn't really RESONATING with my teenage tumult into romances and long nights wasting away with thoughts of holding hands and breathing shared air with a nameless ideal, I turned my face toward Norma Jean's Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child.
Resonance? DISSONANCE.
Meter? AMBIMETER.
Singing? SCREAMING.
Pose? POISE.
Dishes? MUSIC
Catharsis? SURFING ON LAVA
Guitars? Experimental music? WHATEVER MAN IT'S JUST NOISE
I don't know what I'm saying. I'm just saying that the ~16 minute Pretty Soon, I Don't Know What, But Something is Going to Happen is 16 minutes long, man, and it's gonna blow your mind. It's so long, they actually have a longer official name for it which Wikipedia used to reference but no longer does. Why? Because everyone who edits Wikipedia was my age when they were my age, and now they are older and they don't have time to remember obscure 16 minute song titles from an obscure album from their obscure teenhood. I don't either. I'm too busy listening to math rock to listen to mathcore anymore.
Did I tell you about the lyrics?
Norma Jean, the fathers of anthemic illiterate breakdowns. Here's a line. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Listen to the guitar do a thing. The drums are nuclear weapons exuding from the hamfisted percussionist. Just listen to it. Do you feel the ART?
NO! You feel DEATH. You feel like you're watching something dying. And it's not just dissonant. It's not just crashing noises and weeping and the gnashing of teeth. It's beautiful. Why? Because the music and unintelligible screaming require you read the lyrics and then you've realized: This is poetry. Poetry. Poetry read aloud in the middle of child-warfare battlefields and Orwellian martyrdom. "It's all worth while".
It was so worthwhile that I got my Zune 80 engraved with an abridged version of one of their lyrics on the back of it. I didn't need to exude creativity. My ears needed to absorb it. I owe all my teenage poetry to bands like Norma Jean and The Chariot and Converge and Botch. I was a sweaty mess. I was quitting basketball and picking up drums FOR REAL. 2006 was an interesting time for me. I now know that I'm mostly an uninteresting person (much less interesting now than I was back then and back then I was already boring) and that I can enjoy my music in my headspace and not have to share it with everyone. I don't have to say "This album is good and here's why" because now I've got nostalgia on my side and the only thing that defeats nostalgia is death. And when I'm dead, nobody has won the argument because, really, there wasn't an argument in the first place.
I digress. Why is this album one of my favorites ever? I blame my adolescence. I finally found some music that my entire family hated and that I loved. And they hated it for good reasons based on their decadent sensibilities, and I loved it because what produced such aural hatred in others produced sonic affection in me (the bitter taste of discordance has never gone away and I hope it is here to stay). I was on top of the world when nominal Christianity was starting to fade from my heart and meaning was found more than in the scribes of dictionaries.
Bless the Martyr is like a 180-proof shot of whiskey. It burns. It goes down hard. It lowers your blood temperature. You're not sure you could take another one. But the distilled product is the THING. It's so much the THING all other things are suddenly really small things.
I will leave you to ponder my motivation with the recommendations to listen to:
Memphis Will Be Laid To Waste
Sometimes It's Our Mistakes That Make For The Greatest Discoveries
Organized Beyond Recognition
Congratulations.
This is my escape.
A pen and a book
And if the world can see what I got
Then let's all have a good look.
A fortunate one.
Peace.
SDG
Nick
Your whites shine, black velvet. I ain't seen you in a while.
You're slick, a slick and polished mess. I ain't see you in a while.
Let's just face the facts. And get back to the basic form.
^^
The lyrics above belong to a song that's like SEVEN minutes long.
I don't know if I'm going to be making a point here. I'm just once again revisiting an album that I enjoy and endear to my adolescence.
Norma Jean is now a very recognizable metal band. But from back when Christian metal was a thing, this album probably set an impossibly high bar. Everyone can limbo but nobody can jump higher. Except for The Chariot but that's a blog for another day.
A Solid State pandora's box of slam-dancing, incoherent and illiterate guitar screeches, cacophonous crashing drums, with a dash of "God" here, "Jesus" - there. "Christ" speckled over the oblivion of screams, absence of overdub, guitar-flavored distortion, and the lyrics of a poet.
Have I talked about the lyrics?
Do you get it now?
By way of disclaimer, this album was done back before Josh Scogin split to raise up the screaming adulation of METALCORE fans with his third labeled band, The Chariot; a comparison with who would not be fair. Neither do I believe it fair to make Cory Brandan's headship face:face with Scogin's brand of incoherence. All this to say, I have two favorite Norma Jean albums, and this is one of them. The other one (NJ's latest which I've already talked about here) is a standup album by its own right. It has its own merits and it would be obtuse to compare this album from 2002 with a different headman to their recent releases.
But back when, I was a child, see? And I spoke in hyperbole because metaphor was too similar. I said "This is the best Norma Jean album". And I was right, see? Because I had all the ideas figured out. Bless The Martyr... is the most crunchiest, distorted, absolutist, atonal, progressive,
--[Yes they are still a good band, and Disambiguation was the best they ever released]
--wasn't really RESONATING with my teenage tumult into romances and long nights wasting away with thoughts of holding hands and breathing shared air with a nameless ideal, I turned my face toward Norma Jean's Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child.
Resonance? DISSONANCE.
Meter? AMBIMETER.
Singing? SCREAMING.
Pose? POISE.
Dishes? MUSIC
Catharsis? SURFING ON LAVA
Guitars? Experimental music? WHATEVER MAN IT'S JUST NOISE
I don't know what I'm saying. I'm just saying that the ~16 minute Pretty Soon, I Don't Know What, But Something is Going to Happen is 16 minutes long, man, and it's gonna blow your mind. It's so long, they actually have a longer official name for it which Wikipedia used to reference but no longer does. Why? Because everyone who edits Wikipedia was my age when they were my age, and now they are older and they don't have time to remember obscure 16 minute song titles from an obscure album from their obscure teenhood. I don't either. I'm too busy listening to math rock to listen to mathcore anymore.
Did I tell you about the lyrics?
Norma Jean, the fathers of anthemic illiterate breakdowns. Here's a line. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Listen to the guitar do a thing. The drums are nuclear weapons exuding from the hamfisted percussionist. Just listen to it. Do you feel the ART?
NO! You feel DEATH. You feel like you're watching something dying. And it's not just dissonant. It's not just crashing noises and weeping and the gnashing of teeth. It's beautiful. Why? Because the music and unintelligible screaming require you read the lyrics and then you've realized: This is poetry. Poetry. Poetry read aloud in the middle of child-warfare battlefields and Orwellian martyrdom. "It's all worth while".
It was so worthwhile that I got my Zune 80 engraved with an abridged version of one of their lyrics on the back of it. I didn't need to exude creativity. My ears needed to absorb it. I owe all my teenage poetry to bands like Norma Jean and The Chariot and Converge and Botch. I was a sweaty mess. I was quitting basketball and picking up drums FOR REAL. 2006 was an interesting time for me. I now know that I'm mostly an uninteresting person (much less interesting now than I was back then and back then I was already boring) and that I can enjoy my music in my headspace and not have to share it with everyone. I don't have to say "This album is good and here's why" because now I've got nostalgia on my side and the only thing that defeats nostalgia is death. And when I'm dead, nobody has won the argument because, really, there wasn't an argument in the first place.
I digress. Why is this album one of my favorites ever? I blame my adolescence. I finally found some music that my entire family hated and that I loved. And they hated it for good reasons based on their decadent sensibilities, and I loved it because what produced such aural hatred in others produced sonic affection in me (the bitter taste of discordance has never gone away and I hope it is here to stay). I was on top of the world when nominal Christianity was starting to fade from my heart and meaning was found more than in the scribes of dictionaries.
Bless the Martyr is like a 180-proof shot of whiskey. It burns. It goes down hard. It lowers your blood temperature. You're not sure you could take another one. But the distilled product is the THING. It's so much the THING all other things are suddenly really small things.
I will leave you to ponder my motivation with the recommendations to listen to:
Memphis Will Be Laid To Waste
Sometimes It's Our Mistakes That Make For The Greatest Discoveries
Organized Beyond Recognition
Congratulations.
This is my escape.
A pen and a book
And if the world can see what I got
Then let's all have a good look.
A fortunate one.
Peace.
SDG
Nick
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Questions for Ann Coulter
This is in response to her article "The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth, But They Shouldn't Be President". Anybody who reads her loyally and agrees with her and is in her purported demographic (Conservative, Evangelical, Republican, Christian, etc.), I would love to hear your responses. Thanks.
__
1. Who exactly do you believe the "meek" are? Since you are using scripture, give me some scriptural references to the "Meek" and which qualities they possess which would bar them from presidency?
2. The country needs a man. And it needs a man all the time. What kind of man? And also, how do you judge the qualities of a man? What qualifies a "man" as president-material? Bible verses?
3. Please give the context of Job 12 which would apply positively to Donald Trump.
4. Does your understanding of this context apply when Mr. Trump says he has never asked for forgiveness? Is that not pride? Isn't the entire life of Christian one of repentance (I'm paraphrasing German reformer Martin Luther)? How could you expect an apparently unforgiven man to run the U.S. appropriately? What does the bible speak of ungodly rulers (and an unforgiven man has no capacity to be a godly ruler unless he repents and is forgiven)?
5. On which basis do you call the "concept of America" the "last hope for Christianity on the planet"? It seems there are many other last hopes for Christianity, a majority of which are popping up all over China. Do you really believe that if America went down the tubes, there would be no hope for Christianity on the planet? The kingdom grows with each dying martyr.
6. Where's the biblical basis for your views on immigration flow? Do government borders limit people or governments? If they limit people, then you're encroaching on the ideals of socialism. Tread carefully here.
7. That's a very cute plug for your book there. Have you noticed the self-fulfilling prophecy in your book? "If illegals enter the states, they will ruin us. I hate them. And look how they don't want to vote for my team. That's why I hate them." What does the bible say about the sojourner? What does God's law say about the sojourner?
SDG
Nick
__
1. Who exactly do you believe the "meek" are? Since you are using scripture, give me some scriptural references to the "Meek" and which qualities they possess which would bar them from presidency?
2. The country needs a man. And it needs a man all the time. What kind of man? And also, how do you judge the qualities of a man? What qualifies a "man" as president-material? Bible verses?
3. Please give the context of Job 12 which would apply positively to Donald Trump.
4. Does your understanding of this context apply when Mr. Trump says he has never asked for forgiveness? Is that not pride? Isn't the entire life of Christian one of repentance (I'm paraphrasing German reformer Martin Luther)? How could you expect an apparently unforgiven man to run the U.S. appropriately? What does the bible speak of ungodly rulers (and an unforgiven man has no capacity to be a godly ruler unless he repents and is forgiven)?
5. On which basis do you call the "concept of America" the "last hope for Christianity on the planet"? It seems there are many other last hopes for Christianity, a majority of which are popping up all over China. Do you really believe that if America went down the tubes, there would be no hope for Christianity on the planet? The kingdom grows with each dying martyr.
6. Where's the biblical basis for your views on immigration flow? Do government borders limit people or governments? If they limit people, then you're encroaching on the ideals of socialism. Tread carefully here.
7. That's a very cute plug for your book there. Have you noticed the self-fulfilling prophecy in your book? "If illegals enter the states, they will ruin us. I hate them. And look how they don't want to vote for my team. That's why I hate them." What does the bible say about the sojourner? What does God's law say about the sojourner?
SDG
Nick
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Music Recommendation: Citizens & Saints: Join The Triumph
Two consolations:
I know I haven't posted a music recommendation in a while.
I know this album technically came out last year.
Citizens & Saints (formerly Citizens) released this album almost a year ago as the time of this blog's writing. I'm just here to make a couple observations and link a Spotify thing.
Observations:
1. Even less contemporary guitar-bass-piano-bass. Lots more synth.
The band has gotten a lot more comfortable with the almighty synthesizer. Expect more artificial noise. I personally think these sorts of things detract from the musicianship, but I'm saying this as a drummer who prefers to hit real drums. Take my salt with a grain of feelings. The sound works for them, and for that, I am glad.
2. Even more clean production.
Production value is an all-time high for this band. I prefer the dirtiness of their first EP (back when they were a Mars Hill band). But this is not necessarily a detraction.
3. Even more hymns.
Criticisms of Mars Hill's church strategy aside, I do believe there has been an increase in the proliferation of the hymns of the last few centuries, in no small part due to the influence of Mars Hill's worship music and its stylistic pervasion into the CCM sphere. The helpfulness of the old forms is not to be dismissed; and the hymn+modern music sensibilities formula never sounds terribly formulaic. Advantageous to hear these words because of how malleable the media is.
The verdict:
Citizens... sounds kinda like what I expect. A non-nonsense 80's-tinged indie rock worship album with clean production and classic hymns.
The Recommendations:
The Strife Is Over
Be Thou My Vision
Father You Are All We Need
I don't give out letter ratings, but if I did, I'd give this one a B.
I guess I give out letter ratings.
SDG
Nick
Spotify:
I know I haven't posted a music recommendation in a while.
I know this album technically came out last year.
Citizens & Saints (formerly Citizens) released this album almost a year ago as the time of this blog's writing. I'm just here to make a couple observations and link a Spotify thing.
Observations:
1. Even less contemporary guitar-bass-piano-bass. Lots more synth.
The band has gotten a lot more comfortable with the almighty synthesizer. Expect more artificial noise. I personally think these sorts of things detract from the musicianship, but I'm saying this as a drummer who prefers to hit real drums. Take my salt with a grain of feelings. The sound works for them, and for that, I am glad.
2. Even more clean production.
Production value is an all-time high for this band. I prefer the dirtiness of their first EP (back when they were a Mars Hill band). But this is not necessarily a detraction.
3. Even more hymns.
Criticisms of Mars Hill's church strategy aside, I do believe there has been an increase in the proliferation of the hymns of the last few centuries, in no small part due to the influence of Mars Hill's worship music and its stylistic pervasion into the CCM sphere. The helpfulness of the old forms is not to be dismissed; and the hymn+modern music sensibilities formula never sounds terribly formulaic. Advantageous to hear these words because of how malleable the media is.
The verdict:
Citizens... sounds kinda like what I expect. A non-nonsense 80's-tinged indie rock worship album with clean production and classic hymns.
The Recommendations:
The Strife Is Over
Be Thou My Vision
Father You Are All We Need
I don't give out letter ratings, but if I did, I'd give this one a B.
I guess I give out letter ratings.
SDG
Nick
Spotify:
Friday, August 28, 2015
Wisdom from Miracles by C.S. Lewis
Reading through Miracles. I may have accidentally saved the best of the apologetic
in the "essential collection" for last.
"If it is maintained that anything so small as the Earth must, in any event, be too unimportant to merit the love of the Creator, we reply that no Christian ever supposed we did merit it. Christ did not die for men because they were intrinsically worth dying for, but because He is intrinsically love, and therefore loves infinitely. And what, after all, does the size of a world or a creature tell us about its 'importance' or value?"
"If it is maintained that anything so small as the Earth must, in any event, be too unimportant to merit the love of the Creator, we reply that no Christian ever supposed we did merit it. Christ did not die for men because they were intrinsically worth dying for, but because He is intrinsically love, and therefore loves infinitely. And what, after all, does the size of a world or a creature tell us about its 'importance' or value?"
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Life Is Short. Repent.
The recent Ashley Madison dumps reveal two things about our secular media.
They love when the righteous fall.
They hate when unrighteousness is exposed.
The cognitive dissonance is astounding. On one hand, there are now millions of men and women whose "private" cheating has been brought to the watching eye of the public. On the other hand, there are now millions of men and women whose lives will be utterly changed by this. And it trickles down to the family, to the children. Divorces are likely. Huge personal ramifications are likely. People will despair of their sin, and attempt to cover the ugliness.
Everyone can see how ugly it is. But is the ugliness in the questionable practice of the data dump (namely, the hacking, the deception inherent in pulling out large swaths of personal information and exposing it to the world)? If it is, then we ought to remember the uglier sin of adultery. The uglier sin of breaking the wedding vow. The uglier sin of turning one's back on the wife of their youth. The uglier sin of David and Bathsheba's adultery and the ugliness of David's attempts to cover his sin with the death of another man.
Wasn't Nathan also deceptive? For he drew out David's hypocrisy with his own ruse, speaking as the mouthpiece of God. Then we must concede that there is such a thing as righteous deception.
The Ashley Madison data dumps are merely unwitting calls to repentance. Who knows why the hackers did it. But we know why God orchestrated them to do it:
Everyone can see how ugly it is. But is the ugliness in the questionable practice of the data dump (namely, the hacking, the deception inherent in pulling out large swaths of personal information and exposing it to the world)? If it is, then we ought to remember the uglier sin of adultery. The uglier sin of breaking the wedding vow. The uglier sin of turning one's back on the wife of their youth. The uglier sin of David and Bathsheba's adultery and the ugliness of David's attempts to cover his sin with the death of another man.
 | |||
Wasn't Nathan also deceptive? For he drew out David's hypocrisy with his own ruse, speaking as the mouthpiece of God. Then we must concede that there is such a thing as righteous deception.
The Ashley Madison data dumps are merely unwitting calls to repentance. Who knows why the hackers did it. But we know why God orchestrated them to do it:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”
Romans 1:18-32 ESV
The interesting backlash and moral outrage by those who approve such practices against the release of this data is epitomized by this scripture. And yet, there is silence among them, in the form of selfrighteous gloat, when the sins of people like Josh Duggar are further revealed. Now Edom is laughing. Beware, Edom:
“But do not gloat over the day of your brother in the day of his misfortune; do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their ruin; do not boast in the day of distress. Do not enter the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; do not gloat over his disaster in the day of his calamity; do not loot his wealth in the day of his calamity. Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off his fugitives; do not hand over his survivors in the day of distress.”
Obadiah 1:12-14 ESV
So what to make of this news? 39 million accounts were created by aspiring adulterers who had already committed their sins in secret, in their hearts. And God sees them all. And now God has exposed it all. Chances are there are adulterer pastors shaking in their boots, waiting to see if they will be found out. Men and women are seeking to cover their shame with the indignant blast against those on higher moral pedestals. Yet the only way to cover the shame of sin forever is to let Jesus be your covering.
If you are a Christian, Jesus died for your sins before your adultery, he died for your sins after they were covered. But he didn't die to cover them so that they wouldn't be revealed. Rather, the only way Jesus covers sin is by uncovering it. The confession of the Christian is not a non-admission of guilt, but the admission and transfer of that guilt to Jesus, where it was swallowed up on the cross. We give Jesus our sin, and Jesus gives us his righteousness. Nothing has changed. Christian, were you found out? Then repent. Repent before you're found out, so that when you are found out, you are pointing people to Jesus and the sin you transmitted to Him. Give Jesus the glory of your repentance.
God's response to Edom is more fearsome and quakening than the crash of the ocean of iniquity unleashed by the revelation:
“For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head. For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually; they shall drink and swallow, and shall be as though they had never been. But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken.”
Obadiah 1:15-18 ESV
Esau dies. Esau burns. The church is the agent of God's flame. God will blot Esau out, by changing their names, or by giving them escape through the cross of Christ.
Every human being was born in Esau's tent.
Christians should be reminded of Paul's exhortation:
““Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
1 Corinthians 6:13-20 ESV
But before this, Paul commands we remember the why:
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV
Such was I. And such were some of you.
Were the Christian's sin revealed to them, they need only rejoice in repentance and come back to God's fold. But for those who gloat at the fall of the righteous,
““Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink— you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness! You will have your fill of shame instead of glory. Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision! The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory!”
Habakkuk 2:15-16 ESV
The glory of the unrighteous is the fall of the righteous, and their just deserts will be utter shame.
SDG
Nick
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