Gucci Mane - Writing on the Wall 2: B+

"Brrrr (Supa Cold)"

Give it time, give it time. I know I said that Gucci Mane’s last release, Return of Mr. Zone 6 was the death knell of the Atlanta rapper’s career, and I still believe that. The fact that the man has followed up that atrocity with his best mixtape to date does not deter me. Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, Gucci won’t go away with one album. Writing on the Wall 2 will regardless be a reassurance to longtime Gucci fans, and, in some sick way, I feel a little bit of goodness knowing that he can still pump out a considerable amount of above average tunes.           

The album, it should be noted though, is not a vast improvement on Return of Mr. Zone 6 because of anything on Gucci Mane’s part. Rounding up, I’d say that the man comes away with one solid line on the entire mixtape; one line that made me think, “Oh man, maybe I’ve been wrong about this guy all along.” In actuality, what helps Writing on the Wall 2 is that Mane’s presence is relegated to the textural or the background entirely. On the album, Gucci steps aside so that the real talents that have gotten him to this point can shine through.

In this manner, almost all the best parts of Writing on the Wall 2 are the beats. Where Return of Mr. Zone 6 and the majority of Gucci’s 2010 mixtapes were attempts at establishing the now hackneyed Drumma Boy/Lex Lugar constant barrage of sound, Writing shows these beat makers agreeing on a style and then branching them out into more tuneful arenas. On “Guilty” and “Tax Free”, Drumma Boy incorporates piano and synths to add more depth to his regular assault of mindless hooliganism. On “Recently”, he even opts for a smooth bassline to make the track flow like an excellent Curren$y song, all the bells and whistles dropping out to fantastic effect when 50 Cent takes the mic for a surprisingly memorable verse. Needless to say, when “MVP” emerges with a sung hook, it’s an unbridled success, making it an immediate album highlight. 

Drumma Boy’s not the only producer here who takes chances with excellent results. Writing is teeming with subtle risks that consistently impress. Many of the tracks surprise with the inclusion of boisterous horn parts. Their presence on “Hard On A Bitch” is a nice, silly touch on an otherwise tame track. They turn “Play Your Cards” into a veritable epic, with a malicious chorus from YC and a ¾ bass on the verses that adds welcome tension. However, it’s “Brrrr (Supa Cold)” that takes the cake on Writing on the Wall 2. Frequent Gucci collaborator Fat Boy creates a rather buoyant hook that’s harmonized vocals borrow as much from The Beach Boys as Waka Flocka Flame. The verses’ light and playful brass make the track sound like the most streamlined thing Gucci’s ever rapped over. Coupled with characteristically unrelenting bass, I’d say it’s the best track Gucci Mane has ever put his name on. The guy sounds so lively in this environment, it’s a wonder he hasn’t made more songs like it.

Although Writing on the Wall 2 will likely satiate Gucci Mane fanatics, it has many obstacles that will inhibit the uninitiated. While many of the record’s beats deserve praise, songs such as the Fat Boy-helmed “Camera Ready” and Lex Lugar’s “Lil Friends” sound like boring, grating Gucci by numbers. And, of course, considering this is a Gucci Mane release, the man is bound to surface from the background to deliver some truly crass, humorless lines. If you can look beyond terribly derivative couplets like “Pussy, pussy, I smell pussy,” then you’re pretty much in the clear for Writing’s enjoyment. However, if you’re looking for a good rap record in the traditional, lyrically brilliant sense, you’ve been barking up the wrong tree for far too long. Writing on the Wall 2’s positives may override its negatives, but, if you’re expecting more from Gucci Mane than cheap thrills, I’m tempted to ask why you’re reading this review in the first place. 

Gucci Mane - Writing on the Wall 2: B+

Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact: A

"Adult Goth"

“I can hear everything. It’s everything time.”

I’m kicking myself right now for opening this review with that line, because I know that so many other publications will quote it to begin their own reviews. Despite this, I have made a concerted effort to have it lead into my review, because there is nothing that I could say about Gang Gang Dance’s newest album, Eye Contact, that isn’t already encapsulated by those seven words that begin the group’s fifth release. At once emotionally cold and uncomfortably intimate, Eye Contact is the most jarringly eclectic dance music you are bound to hear this year.

That line comes to introduce first single, “Glass Jar”, a sprawling, eleven-minute behemoth that, like Destroyer’s recent “Bay of Pigs (Detail)”, begins with a cavernous atmosphere of reverberating synthesizers before getting into a groove that is all the more worth the time waited. The guy who utters those words reappears throughout the song’s six-minute build up. He lets out a passionate “Yes” as a musical palette slowly materializes, comforts with a “Don’t worry” and informs us it’s “Dream time” at various points in the song. The aura in which this guy says these things is so precious, it almost feels as if he’s commenting on your lovemaking while he’s in the same room as you. And while that is a radical way to look at “Glass Jar”, it is representative of the song’s humor and its willingness to drop all pretenses, like only the best modern hippies can.

And this is not even with the mention of Liz Bougatsos, the actual lead singer of Gang Gang Dance, whose inimitable coo appears when the beat to “Glass Jar” finally drops. While I could probably count the number of lines she sings on Eye Contact that I understand on one hand, her voice is so emotive that she is just as rapturous as a foreign ingénue as she is as a comprehensible frontwoman. Her indecipherable squeals on tracks like “Chinese High” and “Sacer” sound like an extra instrument, imbuing each track with a new, valued layer of depth. Her vocal presence tends to ground Eye Contact’s songs firmly in the realm of dance music, tying the gleefully disparate ends of “Mind Killa” with the utterance of the song’s title for example. Despite that clear hurdle of comprehension, you will find yourself singing her notes back to her, adding nonsensical words to reconcile their meaning within each song.

But Eye Contact, as that guy so well explains, is a time for everything, and, if you’re getting the impression the album is just some hipster electroclash, it’s far from it. “Glass Jar” does sound like the work of a high-minded outfit of Brooklynites, but it fades into the subversive refrain of a recording of an Italian singer, an intriguing choice of transition into the slippery Eastern guitar melodies of “Adult Goth”. The entire album flows like a DJ set, three interludes giving listeners context before another glorious dance track erupts through their speakers. This dense style of songwriting is most evident in “Mind Killa”, a veritable microcosm of chaos and creativity. It surges seamlessly through about five musical movements, all unique and all infectious. If the song were remixed to about an hour’s length, you wouldn’t need another song to play for a crowded dance floor. Elsewhere, Eye Contact wonderfully contradicts itself from track to track, experimenting with Caribbean jams on “Chinese High”, a spooky organ that would soundtrack a Nikki Minaj-hosted haunted house on “Thru and Thru” and the voice of Hot Chip’s Alex Taylor on the soft rock of “Romance Layers”.

Eye Contact may sound strange on first listen, but its many talents grow stronger with time. The album may very well be a time for everything, but it’s surprisingly manageable, the group very professional in making sure its innumerable elements are all kept in check. The album is very dense and its styles always fascinate and keep the senses sharp with wonder. It’s not as difficult to digest Eye Contact as you may think from this description, but, even if you find that it is, it’s all the more better. Sometimes the senses need to be overwhelmed. Keeps ’em fresh.

Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact: A

Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2: A-

"Make Some Noise"

Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2 is such a return to form for Beastie Boys that it almost works against them. After releasing the middling To the Five Boroughs and the questionable instrumental The Mix-Up, in addition to postponing Hot Sauce Committee for a year due to MCA’s diagnosis of throat cancer, it seemed like the pioneering rap trio was aging in the exact opposite way longtime fans were hoping. But Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 hits so hard with the traditional sounds that made Beastie Boys so unique that it often goes over the nostalgia deep end, making it open game for naysayers who believe the group has long lost its potency. Hot Sauce Committee has a muddy production that can often make the group’s rhymes difficult to hear and the Boys bask in numerous lyrical clichés. As evidenced by “Funky Donkey”, perhaps the most unsurprising Beastie Boys song name of all time, if you were planning on hating Hot Sauce Committee, you’re going to hate it. If you weren’t, then this shit’s gonna be tight.

Despite Hot Sauce Committee’s muddy production, the musical ideas apparent here are positively fantastic and, for me, more of a draw to the album than the lyrical presence of the Beastie Boys, themselves. The skuzzy keyboard riff of “Make Some Noise” is perfect for silly two-steppin’. “OK” combines riffage and wonky synths with ease, consolidating its melodic prowess with a robotic voice that goes “Yeah yeah right right.” “Long Burn the Fire” similarly slays with organ and wah-wah pedal and “Say It” gets its inventive hook from the harmonics of feedbacking guitars. The bass is uncompromising, filling up any available space even when the group opts for full-on punk rock in the “Sabotage”-like “Lee Majors Come Again”.

Admittedly, the Beasties aren’t as memorable lyrically on Hot Sauce Committee. The album has about a dozen total outstanding lines, and they’re more notable for their silliness than their specificity. The album is highly self-referential and revels in throwback hip-hop clichés, so if you’re looking for something to rag on, you won’t have to look very far. The group goes on and on ‘til break of dawn on two tracks and Ad-Rock comes off as a curmudgeon in “OK”’s second verse (“I don’t give a fuck who the Hell you are / Please stop shouting in your cellular/ I never asked to be part of your day / So please stop shouting in your phone, OK?”). The best lyrical work on Hot Sauce Committee doesn’t even come from any member of the group. Nas’s surprisingly skillful verse on “Too Many Rappers” slays from the moment he bursts onto the track with “I have carte blanche.” When he’s finished, you can’t help but wish Beastie Boys were more dynamic on Hot Sauce Committee than just the funny voices they don for “The Larry Routine”.

So, although Hot Sauce Committee is not technically up to par with Beastie Boys’ greatest achievements, it definitely feels like a Beastie Boys album, which is more than enough reason to give it an excellent rating. When the album ends by cutting off the group while they’re yelling over each other, it shows they still have the vigor to be fun and absurd well into their forties. Hot Sauce Committee may lean significantly on spirit, but, man, if you were going to go with one spirit to lean on, you’re not going to find many livelier than the Beasties. The album is an outlier in terms of production and style in the context of where both hip-hop and electronic music are currently going. While we do have a Santigold collaboration here and a Wolf Blitzer reference there, in a way, Hot Sauce Committee brings the old school underground, and I don’t think I’ve ever danced so idiotically to an album so defiant of the mainstream.

Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2: A-

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra: A-

"Thought Ballune"

Well, at least they’re being honest. There have been a lot of bands come out recently from relative obscurity with only excellent music to speak for them, but it’s not like Unknown Mortal Orchestra ever attempted to deceive people when they first mysteriously appeared with nothing but a Bandcamp page. They’re obscure, they’re of this Earth, and they have the songwriting chops of a philharmonic. On their debut album, Unknown Mortal Orchestra don’t attempt to mask the listener with elaborate stories. Instead, they just play catchy vintage pop, and for that we should be grateful.           

Unknown Mortal Orchestra is cut from the same cloth of many lo-fi garage rock bands that thought 70’s fuzzy pop was just the bee’s knees. At times, some clear luminaries of the revisionist genre come to mind like Ariel Pink on the muffled “Nerve Damage!”. The group’s style is very much pop oriented, but their songs are shrouded in low rent technology. While vocals are almost always present, the only actual word that can be safely deciphered is “alligator” in the chorus of “Thought Ballune”, which probably tells you less about the song’s meaning. However, don’t lump Unknown Mortal Orchestra in with unremarkable groups such as Dum Dum Girls or Hippies. The group’s use of tracks for recording may resemble the visual of only a few pixels on a computer screen, but, if each of those pixels is vivid and electrifying, it shouldn’t really matter. The production may sound amateurish, but the group adds a variety of sounds to their tracks to make them sound complete, such as the emotive backup singing in “FFunny FFriends” and the oddball guitar introduction to “Nerve Damage!”. The drums on the album are so muted, the fills sound like they’re performed on the backs of rubber buckets, but each “thud” is endearing, giving an “aw shucks” quality to the group’s innocent pop.

So it’s a fun experience throughout Unknown Mortal Orchestra to listen to the group transcend their medium. The harmonies in “Thought Ballune” are intricate and well arranged. “How Can U Luv Me” grooves like some of the best pop songs of the 1960’s; I can imagine it being performed by The Jackson 5. “ Little Blue House” even features some clear vocals to place the song in a more modern context, both hinting that the potential of UMO reaches much farther than this record and that perhaps this whole lo-fi act is a put-on. It may sound rudimentary, but there are so many moments on Unknown Mortal Orchestra that signify a long and fruitful career for this group. As far as I’m concerned, they can stay as obscure as they like. I just hope this isn’t the last of them. 

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra: A-

Brian Eno - Drums Between the Bells: A-

"Sounds Alien"

U2 and Coldplay albums notwithstanding, you got to hand it to Brian Eno for being the OG oddball. The man’s been releasing albums nonstop for the past forty years, and has always maintained an air of strangeness to his tunes that would betray all of the mass acclaim he has received (the best track off MGMT’s newest album name checks him, so at least you know he’s good with the kids). He has often been labeled as the originator of ambient music, one the most confounding musical genres I have ever heard. And, for what its worth, from 1974’s Here Come the Warm Jets to this year’s Drums Between the Bells, you’d think nothing had changed.

Drums Between the Bells bristles with warped bass and mechanical noises, presenting a dystopian soundscape on which various vocalists can recite the poetry of Rick Holland. “Multimedia” undulates with wonky bass, “Cloud” features some spectral keyboards and “The Airman” is off-putting with its heavily reverbed bass drum. Eno makes these arrangements slightly off-kilter in order to keep the listener hinged on the range of topics Holland covers. When the vocalist on "Fierce Aisles of Light” passively mentions, “It’s a train again,” Eno accompanies it with the phased sounds of a moving train, adding literal drama to the otherwise spacious track.

The vocalists on Drums Between the Bells are all virtual unknowns. They range from people who work at the laundromat Eno goes to to his doorman, and the “recognizable” names will only be relevant to those already inclined to this genre of music. Nevertheless, all the performances on the album are well placed despite seemingly being plucked from anonymity. Male and female vocals share equal space and only a few times do they combine. Each seems to own the terrain Eno draws out for them, and they successfully add zest to Holland’s verses. A young, soft British female voice grounds Eno’s bouncy electronics on “Seedpods”. The male monotone on “Breath of Crows” envelops its ambience to create a dramatic if not show stopping album closer and the croak of the old British woman who graces many of the album’s tracks always gives a bookish nod and wink to the high-minded proceedings.

The voices of Drums Between the Bells seem recur in equal measure, so it often feels episodic. Eno spaces out his arrangements well so that when, for example, the old British woman comes back into the mix, she is welcomed by the listener’s familiarity. This is observed best on “A Title”, in which feral electronics swoop around the listener and that woman comes back in to regulate on the arrangement. As a side note, that old lady is a BAMF. She has a regal tone that sounds authoritative on the more ambient tracks and hilariously ironic on the more aggressive ones. Despite Eno being the main draw to Drums, it is clear that she emerges as the MVP, taking control on every track she appears.

The only deterrent from Drums Between the Bells is that it is, in essence, a spoken word album. There have been some great spoken word releases this decade, the late Gil Scott-Heron’s I’m New Here and Laurie Anderson’s Homeland to name a few, but there is something about speaking over music that will always give people the feeling that they are literally being talked down to. If that kind of stuff skives you out, then Drums Between the Bells will not be much help. Holland’s verses are standard poetic rumination. “The Real” talks about the perception of what is real (yep, that kind of poem) and “Glitch” and “A Title” explore the nuance of diction in a few minutes of sweeping generalizations. The minute of silence (entitled “Silence”) that comes at the end of the album would seem to confirm this high-minded disposition, but I would disagree. After all those delicious swarms of electronics and vocals have bombarded the listener for more than an hour, it feels like an appropriate respite. You could even say Eno’s earned it. 

Brian Eno - Drums Between the Bells: A-

Curren$y - Weekend At Burnie's: B

"This Is The Life"

All you will ever need to know about New Orleans rapper Curren$y and his array of albums released in the last few years is embodied in the first line of his newest full-length, Weekend at Burnie’s: “Ain’t nothin’ changed.” The man says it on the very good Pilot Talk as well as its improved sequel. He has a natural laid back flow and the kinds of songs that put him in the best light are the ones of Ski Beatz, where light jazz floats through the mist seemingly conjured by Curren$y’s THC-addled recording sessions. The man loves to talk about sports, women and pot. And ain’t nothing changed. If you’re looking for evolution, variance, it ain’t here. Curren$y enlists producer Masta Beatz to lay down the tracks, but it’s all the same. It’s even more monochromatic without the occasional pseudo-aggressive jam like “The Day” was to the first Pilot Talk. And ain’t nothin’ changed. Address, the weather, the music, the man. Ain’t nothin’ changed, ain’t nothin’ changed. 

Curren$y - Weekend At Burnie's: B

Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer: B+

"Inn of the Seventh Ray"

Like Matt & Kim, much of the appeal of Eleanor Friedberger is that she treats her origins like a calling card. Her solo debut from her usual mainstay, The Friendly Fires, is peppered with specific references to New York City, and Friedberger flavors them with personal stories she tells in rambling, conversational candor. In fact, you could argue that that main draw of Last Summer is Friedberger as a personality, as the actual music that accompanies her is harmless soft rock, something that would not sound out of place on Marissa Nadler’s newest album. Where Matt & Kim, to continue this comparison, may keep their NYC inhabitance as a reference for their infectiously catchy tunes, Friedberger makes that inhabitance the main attraction. Luckily, this works in her favor.

The instrumentation of Last Summer is not at all revelatory. There are slight dabbles in funk (“Roosevelt Island”) and tropical rhythms (“Early Earthquake”), but the album mostly finds itself catering to the Brooklyn bohemian stereotype. Even if this was not intended (after all, who intends for the music on their album to be bland?), it ultimately helps Friedberger’s cause, because the rare variances in the music serve as foils for her forceful personality. Every time Friedberger says “ray” in “Inn of the Seventh Ray”, a rupture of echoes occurs, making her story all the more impressionable. While Last Summer will certainly not be remembered for any performance other than Friedberger’s, the music serves a clever purpose that helps to embolden the main attraction.

And the main attraction doesn’t disappoint. From what I have described, you’d think Last Summer was a musical travelogue… and it is, but it’s an excellent one at that. Friedberger speaks in a way that always makes her sound affable, so little throwaway phrases often become epic story-enders. “You got sick on the Cyclone,” she murmurs in “Roosevelt Island” as if keeling over from her own lovesickness. On “Scenes from Bensonherst", she bundles up her memories and moves on with the casual line, “Now it’s all of them in my inbox.” Friedberger may be intimidated by the passing days (“I said it wouldn’t come so close but it did,” goes one line), but she still sees 2010 as a glitter gold year. Last Summer gives a genuine impression of a girl in awe of the things around her, and Friedberger never ceases to describe scenes with brilliant simplicity.

This is best exemplified on “Inn of the Seventh Ray”, ironically the only song on Last Summer that doesn’t deal with a New York locale. Instead, Friedberger’s tale unfolds in California as she insists to go to the restaurant during trips. “If Highland Park isn’t close enough / There’s that place on the way / And into the Seventh Ray.” The words tumble out of her like someone that would be indicating they want to go somewhere without explicitly saying so. Her personality is well established, so it’s campy as opposed to grating when she follows up with this non sequitur: “Take a lecture in stereoscopics to show us the way / To see with one eye open and one eye closed.” At that point, you see it as business as usual.

In fact, I believe the biggest reason Last Summer is a very good as opposed to excellent album is that there aren’t more non sequiturs like that line. Friedberger has great poise that I would love to hear say more ridiculous things; perhaps cede more realism to fancy. Despite Last Summer being essentially held up by one vice, I crave more Friedberger. Perhaps a trip to a more exotic locale is in order, like Tatooine or Castle Greyskull.

Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer: B+

Washed Out - Within and Without: B

"Before"

It was the middle of 2009, arguably the worst year for music in all the 2000’s. Albums kept pouring in but hardly anything was sticking. As if this feeling of stagnation was contagious to all genres, the summer yielded a plethora of artists that were playing a brand of pop that steeped itself in hazy electronics and indistinct vocals. If nostalgia came in a can, these groups would have sprayed their songs with it until they were thoroughly soaked. Nostalgia was their lifeblood, and the movement, formally known as chillwave, was either a refreshing deviation in texture or a further degradation of indie pop, depending on whom you asked. However, with all these arguments taking place, all that knew of the genre’s emergence could agree on one thing: that it was all ushered in through Washed Out’s “Feel It All Around”.

While far from revelatory, “Feel It All Around” always had an advantage because it did an excellent job of embodying pure bliss. Its analog keyboards were muted, its guitar chords light. Like much of the music that tried to copy its success, it seemed to embody less the good times of the past and more of the dreams recalling those good times, a song that could only truly be appreciated while watching something fun happen in slow motion as opposed to just experiencing it. It was a very agreeable summer jam, but I don’t think even Washed Out mastermind, Ernest Greene, knew how influential it would turn out to be.

Two years later, the state of chillwave in the musical lexicon is just as harshly debated as its musical merits were when it first emerged. There is no doubt that what is called the “blissed out” sound has had a significant effect on this decade’s popular music. However, if you ask this critic, that influence has not been particularly fruitful since that fateful summer of 2009. Many of the genre’s defining qualities have been dissolved into the sounds of lo-fi garage bands that no one should really care about, Toro Y Moi’s follow-up to his 2010 debut was good but not great, and Washed Out’s finally released debut album is hardly something to marvel at.

Washed Out - Within and Without: B

Vampillia - Alchemic Heart: B+

"Sea"

For those of you who checked out my list of favorite albums of 2010, you may have noticed another list on there of considerable length of all the albums I had yet to grade. Since that December 31^st posting, I have listened to and graded a lot of the albums on that list. Some of them I have enjoyed quite a bit, enough to place them in the top fifty of that massive aggregate.

An album released in 2010 that particularly peaked my interest post

-2010 was a collaboration between UK trip hop producers The Orb and Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. Metallic Spheres was made up of two tracks, each a part of a metallic sphere whole. Each was made up of around twenty minutes of warped voices, reverbed guitars and indelible hooks that were perverted into dystopian dance rhythms. It was the optimal thing you could expect from a forty-minute album that consisted of only two tracks; oscillating odysseys that hardly got stale.

The excellence of Metallic Spheres has left a great impression on me since I first encountered it, so I cannot help but make it a reference when listening to the second album by Osaka artist Vampillia, Alchemic Heart. It too is a forty-minute album comprised of two tracks that each exceed the twenty-minute mark; the first is called “Sea” and the second is called “Land”. And like songs that need to fill up a lot of time short of playing a medley of Led Zeppelin songs ala Dream Theater’s A Change of Seasons, Alchemic Heart moves very, very slowly.

Vampillia - Alchemic Heart: B+

Symphony X - Iconoclast: B+

"Electric Messiah"

If you’re a fan of modern screamo, you have probably heard the use of subwoofer boom in otherwise metal-styled songs. The sound often punctuates the endings of phrases in order to give a track’s hook an epic conclusion. It’s a rather disquieting method, regardless of context, and can draw much attention to a song’s transitions. Unfortunately, though, the sensationalist likes of bands such as A Day to Remember have co-opted this technique in order to try to make up for the strength that their actual music lacks. Like so many others, this technique has been bastardized beyond recognition by bands such as Attack Attack! The most traction it has ever gotten has been on System of a Down’s Mesmerize. Aside from that, it has never been used to good effect.

Iconoclast, the eighth album from New Jersey prog metal band Symphony X, has a few strikes against it, one of which is that it frequently incorporates that technique. As one would expect, riotous booms serve as periods for the ends of musical movements, giving unnecessary oomph to aggressive arrangements that would be just fine on their own. When used traditionally, the technique is very annoying, but it sounds even worse when used incorrectly. There are times that Symphony X will use the booming sound to introduce verses, which can completely throw the listener off, as that explosion is supposed to highlight a conclusion, not the thick of a track. As a result, many of the verses on Iconoclast sound weak and underwhelming because they are snuffed under the bass’s massive presence.

This may sound like nitpicking, but the inappropriate use of this technique is indicative of the half-baked nature of much of Iconoclast. The album feels a bit unsure of itself, a sentiment typified by its theme. Lead singer Michael Romeo said in an interview for Blabbermouth that the subject of Iconoclast was “of machines taking over everything, and all this technology we put our society into pretty much being our demise." On the album, Romeo goes about getting this point across by making grandiose statements as directionless as his intentions. “What’s done is done,” he sings on “Dehumanized”. “I’m dead inside / I’m what you’ve all become / Mindless and mesmerized / Dehumanized.” Songs such as “Bastards of the Machine” and “Electric Messiah” set up straw men for Romeo to demolish with rote sloganeering. The execution would befit a group of half Symphony X’s experience.

But guess what? Iconoclast is still an excellent listen. Its themes may be undercooked and the group may throw themselves too wholeheartedly into gimmicks, but Symphony X’s penchant for excellent musicianship and catchy choruses is something that cannot be taken away from them. “Dehumanized” may be laughably heavy-handed, but Romeo sings that aforementioned pre-chorus with palpable gusto, making it easy to vigorously sing along to, even if the words are patently silly. Tracks such as “Electric Messiah” and “Prometheus (I Am Alive)” are persistent earworms. The group has an undeniable talent for hooks and the performance of each of its members is something to be in awe of.

Also, the album’s theme shouldn’t count against it too badly. Romeo’s specious arguments may be reprehensible, but they’re really not all that different from what the late Ronnie James Dio was doing in his prime. With all its particularly nimble guitar work and Romeo’s soaring vocals, Iconoclast can often feel like a twenty first century update of The Last in Line. The fact that the group can still pull off such memorable songs with such clear limitations is a rather fitting tribute to the original proprietor of the devil horns.

I’m hesitant to give Iconoclast my full support, because those first criticisms I mentioned do tend to get in the way when I try to prod the album for its artistic worth. However, if you are a metal fan, Iconoclast will most certainly be satisfying, because it really can be a brutal and meaningful listen. It can be found in both single and double album versions, so you know it will be expansive and feel sufficiently worked upon in the four years since Symphony X released an album. It has its flaws, but they are far from crippling. Something tells me RJD would be proud of it.

Symphony X - Iconoclast: B+