SOUND BITES

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." -Albert Camus It may seem a little strange for this review to be headed by an Albert Camus quote, but I swear it's a quote that speaks volumes in the context of this sprawling behemoth of a record, even though it isn't directly quoted anywhere on it and despite the fact that the band has made references to Camus as far back on their first record. The Most Lamentable Tragedy (hereafter TMLT ) is just so effective in its story and enthralling in its execution that, after a few proper listens (accompanied by the group's excellent, meticulous Genius annotations on my last run, an experience I highly recommend), that Camus quote hit with force and purpose. We can (and should) talk about the music, which finds Titus Andronicus (hereafter +@) balancing the grand vision of the rock opera and all the extracurricular sound adventures that entails with a steadfast allegia

  The growing trend of supergroup releases continues with Teenage Time Killers, the brainchild of Mick Murphy and Reed Mullin (members of Birds of Satan and Corrosion of Conformity, respectively). Having been recorded at Dave Grohl's studio, it's not surprising that he would lend a hand musically but, while he does technically appear on over half of the twenty tracks, it's only in the capacity of bass player. While it would have been nice to hear him belt out a vocal or give one of his world-class drum performances, there are plenty of other guests to distract us: Neil Fallon (Clutch), Randy Blythe (Lamb of God), Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys), Matt Skiba (Alkaline Trio), Corey Taylor (Slipknot/Stone Sour), Mike IX Williams (Eyehategod), Tommy Victor (Prong), Lee Ving (Fear) and many others get turns at the mic over the course of the album. Then, there's the guests playing instruments, including Nick Oliveri (formerly of Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age), Pat Smear (The

  I didn't hold out much hope for the sixth Finger Eleven record (seventh if we're counting their 1995 record as Rainbow Butt Monkeys, which I'm more than willing to); after a few solid records, they finally caught a break with acoustic ballad  One Thing  in 2003, which (in my humble opinion) set them on a course of self-destruction. Hear me out: for their first post-mainstream success record (2007's  Them vs. You vs. Me ), Finger Eleven sought to build on the success with more ballads ( I'll Keep Your Memory Vague, Window Song, Talking to the Walls, Change the World ) and, most notably, one out-of-left-field attempt at trendy dance-rock ( Paralyzer ). The strategy worked;  Paralyzer  became their biggest hit, they earned themselves another gold record and, by the time 2010's  Life Becomes Electric  was released, they seemed to be completely out of ideas. Lead single  Paralyzer II   Living in a Dream  failed to connect, as did half-baked attempted lite rock hit 

Whereas most metal bands heading into their seventh album (counting their 1999 album as Burn the Priest, this is actually Lamb of God's eighth, but hey it's their title not mine) have either settled into a stagnant role in an effort to keep their fans happy or drifted away from metal in an effort to find new ones, Lamb of God find themselves in a more peculiar position. Through a tragic episode that saw a fan die and vocalist Randy Blythe incarcerated and charged with manslaughter, Lamb of God unwittingly have a lot riding on their seventh album; through the inevitable publicity Blythe's indictment brought to the band, there are a lot of ears paying attention to this record, curious as to what the band would do to respond. As it turns out, all that turmoil acted as a very efficient means of inspiration; in addition to a recently published book, several tracks make passing references to the ordeal ( 512 , the album's lead single, is named after the jail cell Blythe occ

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but the noise wasn't my favourite element of Wilco's sound in the late '90s and early '00s, when they were cranking out a trio of nervous, anti-mainstream, mind-altering pieces of art (speaking, of course, about the Wilco Holy Trinity of Summerteeth , Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born ). Sure, I was as taken aback as anyone by the discordance that crept into otherwise unassuming songs such as A Shot in the Arm and Via Chicago , but what elevated those songs for me wasn't the presence of the noise, but rather its circumstances; these now classic passages were often the result of a thick, palpable tension in the music that demanded to be released. So, when it was (usually in a gnashing cacophony of sound), listeners got that release too. There's a telling line on The Joke Explained , a song from Wilco's surprise-released ninth album Star Wars , wherein Jeff Tweedy (doing his best Lou Reed), exclaims "I clim

The signs were all right there: from the 2011 covers album The Anatomy of... that featured relatively faithful versions of songs by artists such as Queen and Jethro Tull to the increasingly numerous quiet passages and interludes that entered their own songs, enough evidence was present to suggest that an album like Coma Ecliptic was imminent. Listening to the way Between the Buried and Me conduct their business on  Coma Ecliptic , it bears repeating that this feels like an album you could have seen coming about eight years away, from when they kicked off fourth album Colors with 90 seconds of sparse, piano-led balladry before plunging into the dizzying brutality they were better known for. I've long held the belief that one of the greatest risk/reward scenarios any metal band can face is the one where they take strides away from what most term "conventional" metal. It's a risk in that you stand the chance of alienating fans and/or giving the impression of a pe

The way things ended with the original lineup of Veruca Salt didn't leave much hope that Ghost Notes could ever exist. As private matters between dual frontwomen Nina Gordon and Louise Post manifested in a public dissolution of the band as we knew it, an ugliness to the split spoke of the sort of betrayal that puts permanent ends to relationships. This was reflected on the third Veruca Salt record Resolver , which found Post the last remaining original member, left alone to deal with her heartbreak and rage. By the time a fourth record was released in 2006 (featuring Post with another mostly new lineup), the band's heyday was a distant memory. It's not like Nina Gordon's solo career gained much traction either; aside from the minor hit Tonight and the Rest of My Life and a little Internet fame for her acoustic cover of N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton , nothing else really registered for the public the way those first two Veruca Salt records did. It was made cle

  As influential as Refused was to turn-of-the-century punk, a case can be made for Failure being just as influential on hard rock of the same era.  The Nurse Who Loved Me  was famously covered by A Perfect Circle in 2003, while moderate U.S. hits  Saturday Savior  and  Stuck On You  bear seeds of what bands such as Staind and Deftones would later use to inhabit the dark corners of nu-metal (you know, the slow, morose stuff far removed from yelping rappers). Their third album, 1996's  Fantastic Planet , counted all three of those songs among its fourteen (plus three segués) while filling out the remainder of its 68 minutes with one hidden gem after another. There's the thunderous, melodic darkness of  Smoking Umbrellas  and  Dirty Blue Balloons , the nimble fury of  Pillowhead  and  Leo , and the sprawling bombast of closing pair  Heliotropic  and  Daylight . Put simply,  Fantastic Planet  is one of the most criminally overlooked records of the '90s. In a strange turn of ev

If you were looking for the harbinger of punk rock's future in 1998, chances are you scoffed at Swedish noisemakers Refused and their cheekily titled third album The Shape of Punk to Come ; who dares make such a ridiculous claim? Of course, if you followed up your scoffing by actually listening to the record, chances are your laughing diminished to tiny, nervous coughs. As word of mouth slowly spread about the record's stunning quality and adventurousness, more and more grew to appreciate Refused; eventually, as the legend continued to grow, new bands picked up what Refused were putting down, incorporating the style and sound into new sonic directions and rendering The Shape of Punk to Come a self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, the band wasn't around to support or dispute any of this, as they'd disbanded just months after the album's release; in fact, nearly all of Refused's stature as punk/rock vanguards was forged after they packed it in. As years roll