I have never been a big fan of "classic rock." It always makes me think of those summer fests you go to when you're a little kid. And your parents (or my Dad) "rock out" to the old music that you are not at all interested in.I had a bad feeling about Joe's CD, Robert Plant's Dreamland. I went in knowing a few facts.
1. Robert Plant is the lead singer of Led Zeppelin
2. I've never liked Led Zeppelin
3. Robert Plant is old.
Ladies and Gentlemen: if you are looking for a midlife crisis set to music, this is your album.
I know that Led Zeppelin is an incredibly famous rock band. But I hate. His. Voice. It is grating and breathy, and he moans in almost every one of the painfully long tracks.
As I sat listening to the CD, I found myself staring at the little song progress bar of Windows Media Player, attempting to mentally move it quickly across the screen. But the bar dragged along slowly, mocking me with every useless repetition of lyrics or pain-filled howl.
The first track, "Funny in My Mind," starts with a grating synthesizer that kind of sounds like a siren. And that noise never quits. Not anywhere during the entire song. Same annoying sound over and over. The song could have been over in about 2 minutes. Unfortunately it went on for 4:45. Ouch.
Luckily the next track, "Morning Dew," was more subdued and dreamy. I needed a break after all that synthesizer. But the instrumentation of the song, which wasn't half bad, was overpowered by the fact that Robert Plant was singing. Maybe it's just me, but I don't enjoy hearing old washed-up former rock starts singing ballads. It fails miserably.
"One More Cup of Coffee" had a cool drum break and some Spanish guitar. But I just kept sitting there wondering if Plant was going to have surgery preformed on his vocal chords soon. It must hurt to make such grating and annoying noises with your voice for such an extended period of time. And he repeated the chorus more than enough times. He wants a cup of coffee. I get it.
Of all the tracks, if I were forced to pick a favorite, it would be "Song to the Siren." The instrumentation is beautiful, with wonderful guitar accompaniment and a swelling string section. It was a sleepy and dreamy song, and would have been great all around if Robert Plant wasn't a part of it.
As I was looking for a theme to this album, I began to ask myself a question: Why does he sing all these songs to his mama? In the track "Win My Train Fare Home," he sings to his mama for the umpteenth time and the music isn't very good, so you're left without any sort of scrap to enjoy. There is a weird and annoying "waaaah" continually in the background. Maybe he has a sore throat. You shouldn't sing with a soar throat. That's bad for you. And your fans. And people forced to listen by one evil Joe DeMartino.
The longest song on the CD, "Darkness, Darkness," weighed in at a heavy seven minutes and 25 seconds of repetition. I was incredibly bored while listening. It was easy to have the music on in the background, ignore it, pay attention a good two minutes later, and feel confident I had missed nothing in the least bit entertaining. Maybe you need to be on drugs to like this music. Then I could at least not realize how bad it is.
Ironically enough, the worst song on the album was entitled "Hey Joe." It is a story-telling song, with Plant singing all the characters. Now, if I was telling a story, I think I'd speak so that people could understand what I was saying. I literally had a headache by the time the song was over.
Overall, I was annoyed and bored by this album. Robert Plant is a washed up rocker who needs to realize his time has long since passed. Overuse of synthesizers runs rampant, and apparently Plant thinks it sounds wonderful. Too many years standing next to all of those great big amps must have dulled his hearing. Or he never had good taste. The fact that the tracks all range from 4 minutes to almost 8 made for a painful experience. Every song fades into the abyss... just like this review...
- Jamie Madison
Honestly, for about thirty-nine seconds, I thought AFI was a power metal band in the vein of Iron Maiden.
That's how long it takes for "Initiation", the opening to The Art of Drowning, to set a mood that's both ominous and mysterious. Unfortunately, it takes AFI less than fifty minutes to add "whiny" and "irritating" to that list.
The Art of Drowning brings to mind a number of comparisons, none of them flattering. Imagine, if you will, a fourteen-year old who has just been turned down for a date, relegated to the chorus in his high school play, and gotten a D on his latest English paper titled "The Dark, Dank, Depressing Pit of Despair That I Call My Life". Now imagine that same kid listening to nothing but the worst songs ever put out by Green Day and Korn. Now, give that kid a journal to write in. Think of the horrible, overblown poetry that would come out of that mess.
Congratulations, sir or madam! You now have a pretty good idea of what a typical song on The Art of Drowning sounds like.
Consider these lyrics from the song "The Despair Factor" (kind of like "The O'Reily Factor", except the inanity is sung instead of shouted): "My whole life is a dark room / One big...dark...room."
That's just peachy-keen, isn't it? Lead singer Davey Havok (note to Mr. Havok: Nikki Sixx almost died of a drug overdose, and Rikki Rocket is probably the most pathetic member of Poison. Watch your back once you hit thirty.) is going the route of thousands of bands before him by catering to the notion that no one really understands or cares about the troubles of middle-class teenagers.
The whole thing seems incredibly lazy. Were AFI determined to bring something new to the table of punk rock, they'd do well to consider songs that say: "Hey, little Jimmy! Don't be so depressed! Stiff upper lip, buddy! Here's a little tune to cheer you up!"
Instead, they're content to spew out such drivel as: "Assimilate into a culture of post morality/from what I've seen/I hate humanity/Rot with repulsion" from the song "Smile". How can you title a song "Smile" and include LiveJournal-esque crap like that? Oh, wait. It's supposed to be ironic and deep...and lame. It's a wonder the band members can summon the energy to get out of bed in the morning and face their eternal lives of nihilism, agony, and randy goth groupies. It doesn't help AFI's cause that Havok sings these lyrics in a voice reminiscent of an Olsen Twin on speed. Every line he belts out sounds like it's coming straight out of his nose. Because of this, most songs follow this structure:
1. Introduction
2. Insane, high-pitched caterwauling that only a chipmunk could understand
3. Chorus. Occasionally intelligible
4. Variation of the word "Whoa!" or "Oh!"
5. Repeat until sufficiently angst-filled
Here's a suggestion for the lads of AFI: Replace all your lyrics with the
word "monkey". It's a tough word to screw up and quite frankly, is a lot
more entertaining than what you've already got. Let's look at an AFI song with this new formula in place:
1. Introduction
2. Insane, high-pitched caterwauling—but he's saying the word "monkey!"
3. Repeat until happy.
There. Problem solved. If only more of The Art of Drowning could have followed this simple formula, then I'd be a much happier man today. Instead, I got forty-eight minutes of bunk. The Art of Drowning shows what happens when punk gets an unhealthy injection of angst. Frankly, it's scary to listen to. Only a healthy dose of James Brown will allow one so exposed to The Art of Drowning to recover—and any band that makes it necessary to bring out the big guns like that isn't worth a second listen.
In contrast to Jamie, Joe's Halloween outfit involves duct tape and empty beer cans. Though Chronoween isn't quite sure if he's trying to go as a giant beer can or a recycling center, we support his candy pursuit nonetheless.
- Joe DeMartino
