Quantcast
Channel: Doitindy » Music with MP Cavalier
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 29

Music Notes #37, 15 September 2014

0
0

You are cordially invited to Join The Dead

As rock music’s most maligned sub-genre, “metal” has taken quite a licking over the years. There’s no denying, however, that metal and hardcore and all of the other classifications that fall into that particular bucket have one very powerful common denominator; the fans. They’re like a gang. Dissing a metal band isn’t like dissing Sigur Ros. It’s the musical equivalent to knocking over a motorcycle: prepare for battle and to possibly get your ass kicked.

I’ve never been “metal” myself, or “hardcore” or whatever. I’ve had to ferment an appreciation for heavier music over a long period of time, since the new wave of british heavy metal was actually NEW. But that seems to be how it is, with very few exceptions, you’re either metal or you ain’t. And there’s a forensic-level science that goes into one’s personal level of metal-ness. I love the band Opeth. Absolutely one of my favorite bands. And anyone that knows me is surprised by it. For the entire first half of their career, Opeth was a first-tier death-prog-metal band – cookie monster vocals and all. Opeth then decided to explore its own personality, its love for “other” music especially 1970′s prog. The result of that navel-gazing was an almost 180 degree shift in their style. Gone now are any trappings of “heavy” music. Their last two albums have been jaw-dropping jazz-rock-fusion steeped so deeply in the 70′s prog movement its amazing the band doesn’t drown.

That’s the Opeth I adore. But that’s also the Opeth that made me want to hear what else they had to offer. So I sought out those earlier records, and I didn’t hate them. Quite honestly, it’s the one or two albums of theirs where they somehow balanced their split personality that rank as my favorites. You have to appreciate a band that acknowledges its multiple personalities, and you have to love a band that embraces them.

 

IMG_8921

“We love to write very heavy intense parts and we also love to write very melodic squishy hooky parts and…put them together”. James Sweeney of local face-melters Join the Dead is interwebbing. I have been asking him about the band’s now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t approach to its screamcore dispositions. “That just happens naturally…and the last song on the record features both sides of that, as do a few other songs.” Indeed, by the time you reach the end of the band’s new album DISTORTED COGNITION, you have come to both acknowledge and embrace the many sides of this Join The Dead.

The build up to that last track, “The Great Divide”, the entire album practically, is a mostly high-speed chase through Join the Dead’s burning desert. This is certainly one of the smarter bands around. They understand that even if you’re not going to do everything in moderation, you still need to vascillate every so often so as to keep some people in the room. So it feels very natural, as the album progresses, that most of the record alternates between the bands throat-shredding dramatics and their expert takes on melodic metal.

Opening with the strictly no-bullshit free fall “Wake Up”, JTD hits the ground with a flurry of gymnastic arpeggios, giving way almost immediately to vocalist Sahar Montalvo’s fire and brimstone. But as his screams of “WAKE THE DEAD!!!!!!!!!” fade, JTD shifts down a gear with one the albums best songs, and one of its most melodic. “The Night” is simply a great hard rock song. It’s tempo is head-banger ready and its chorus is a fist pump set to music. Then, JTD goes back into overdrive with “House of Cards”, another boiling cauldron of “metal”, or is it?

“That is a word we are really finding a struggle with”, says Sweeney. “The thing is, we don’t consider ourselves metal. I guess we have qualities of metal in parts of our songs and the intensity at times, but we also fall way to the upbeat/melodic side of hard rock.”

Clearly, Join The Dead has spent a little time analyzing itself, and finding its comfort zone. How else would they be able to place songs like “Oceans” – which is actually a beautiful ballad wrapped in a thunderous hard rock song – next to hardcore scream-a-thons like “Valkyrie”, the main sentiment of which is “I don’t give a fuck!” And it’s this in-between that gives Join The Dead some much deserved confidence. Sweeney says it doesn’t really matter how the band is classified as long as people like what they hear, because Join The Dead’s ability to straddle the melodic rock and heavy metal worlds means that “we can be the heavy band on a hard rock night or the not so heavy band on a metal night. Either way”, Sweeney says, “we’ll rock it and have fun”

Sweeney says some of DISTORTED COGNITION’s sound was a result of the bands natural curiosity about its own ability. “The was our first time in this group with this chemistry so we’re still just getting started seeing what our sound is really about.” From that chemical curiosity comes some interesting experiments. Local singer/pianist Sarah Nelson guests on “Accolade”, a very strong slower-tempo track perfectly placed at the center of the record.

The second half the album wastes no time wiping out the lines in the sand drawn during the first. From “Master Plan” right through to “The Great Divide”, Join The Dead is making a very specific and measured statement about its intent. It’s not some grand pronouncement from a band that thinks too much of itself (we’ve seen enough of that shit in this town) – quite the contrary – DISTORTED COGNITION quite effortlessly burns that kind of posturing to the ground. And in those last four tracks, one can already hear future seeds being planted. “The sound is growing and evolving…the mind set is curiosity”.

One thing Sweeney states the band doesn’t concern itself with is it’s place in the local scene. “We love Indy and we have all played here is various project for years. That’s what makes JTD fun, all of us bringing that experience together.”

Join The Dead releases DISTORTED COGNITION on Friday, September 19 with a release show at the Rock House. Also gathered for the feast will be Pragmatic, Standout Story, and Dead Man’s Grill.

 

Join The Dead, “Valkyrie”

 

MP Cavalier co-hosts The DoitIndy Radio Hour, broadcast live each Monday at 8PM on Radio Free Indy.

Support independent music live and local.

The post Music Notes #37, 15 September 2014 appeared first on Doitindy.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 29

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images