Bang Your Head with Brendan: Three Reviews and a Eulogy

By BRENDAN TENAN
Staff Writer

Welcome to another edition of “Bang Your Head with Brendan.” I’ve got plenty of new music to discuss this week, as well as the tragic loss of a beloved figure in the metal community.

A Great Big World, Is There Anybody Out There? - It’s been nearly impossible to go anywhere in the last four or five months and not hear the song “Say Something.” The intimate, heartbreaking torch ballad (an industry term for a specific type of breakup song) has gone multiplatinum and helped launch the career of indie pop-rock artists A Great Big World thanks to a great collaboration with Christina Aguilera.

Coming fresh off the massive success of “Say Something,” the duo of Ian Axel and Chad Vaccarino released their debut full length album, Is There Anybody Out There?, back in January. The album is a bit more eclectic than I was expecting. While the majority of the material falls under the pop-rock umbrella, there are hints of blues, folk, and roots music.

The songs are well structured and range from solid to great in terms of lyrical and orchestration quality. The production value is of a very high quality and shows the true musical talents Axel and Vaccarino have. This came as a breath of fresh air, since too many indie acts seem to have become overly reliant on reverb and delay effects. My hunch has been that this is done to cover up their shortcomings musically. Fortunately, A Great Big World appears confident enough in their craft that they don’t use these techniques as much as some of their peers have.

Some of the album’s highlights, aside from the aforementioned “Say Something” (both the original version and the collaboration with Aguilera are included on the album) included the jubilant and optimistic “Rockstar,” the call for equality in “Everyone is Gay,” and the catchy jam session vibe in “Shorty Don’t Wait.”

As strong as this debut is for A Great Big World, I can’t help but feel that there is more these two have to offer us lyrically and musically. The thought that Axel and Vaccarino are only starting to reach their potential has me looking forward to future efforts from this duo. 8.5/10

U2, “Ordinary Love” and “Invisible” (Singles) - The New Year started off with a great deal of promise for fans of the legendary U2. The Irish rockers first released the single “Ordinary Love” as part of the soundtrack for the film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. Then they made the new song “Invisible” a free download after the Super Bowl. (The song is still available to download, with proceeds going to the RED project.) Add to that terrific live performances at The Oscars and Jimmy Fallon’s debut on The Tonight Show, and it seemed like it wouldn’t be long before fans could listen to a new album of material from the band.Unfortunately, fans will have to wait a bit longer. A recent article on Billboard’s website revealed that the new album U2 is working on has been delayed until next year. The silver lining to this news is that the two singles they’ve released thus far are solid efforts and should leave fans encouraged with the direction the band is heading in.

The overall sound and feel of “Invisible” is certainly encouraging to me. After not being terribly impressed by their last full-length effort, 2009’s No Line on the Horizon, it sounds like the band is moving away from the utilization of keyboards and synthesizers that they employed to create a certain ambiance and EDM feel to their music. There is a synthesizer used in “Invisible,” but it’s done sparingly and to enhance The Edge’s guitar leads.

“Ordinary Love” is a song that I have mixed feelings about. Perhaps I was unfairly expecting a more traditional U2 sound when I first heard it, but I just wasn’t crazy about the incorporation of other musical styles and sounds of nature into the song. I probably am also biased towards the great acoustic rendition of the song I heard on The Tonight Show and the Oscars. There are aspects of this song that I like. Bono’s lyrics are as visual and enigmatic as ever, and his voice sounds strong. The Edge created another memorable guitar lead and solo, while bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. hold things down as the always dependable rhythm section. Still, the song as a whole just didn’t quite meet my admittedly lofty expectations.
“Invisible” 8/10, “Ordinary Love” 7/10

Metallica, “Lords of Summer” (Demo) - It seems hard to believe that more than five years have passed since Metallica finally returned to their classic thrash metal form with the very good Death Magnetic album in the fall of 2008. While the band did release an EP of unreleased songs from those sessions in 2011, fans have been patiently waiting for a new Metallica album for a long time, even by Metallica’s standards.

That’s why the band’s latest tour through South America has been so highly anticipated around the world. Metallica announced that they would be unveiling a brand new song during this tour, and fans worldwide knew it would only be a matter of time before the latest song would be up on the internet for everyone to see, hear, and dissect. Thankfully, the wait appears to have been worth it. The newest song by Metallica is called “Lords of Summer,” and it finds the guys in fine form. (There are many different live versions circulating the internet, so for the purposes of this column I will be focusing on the official “garage demo” version the band personally uploaded to their Metallica TV YouTube channel a few days after the initial concert footage was posted.) At nearly eight and a half minutes in length and featuring several different riffs and tempos, “Lords of Summer” has all the hallmarks of a classic Metallica thrash song.

The song starts off with a slow, ominous dirge of a groove. Things quickly pick up in terms of pace and excitement with another memorable riff from lead singer and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield. There are several changes in tempo and rhythmic patterns throughout the song, one of many hallmarks of Metallica in their thrash heyday. Hetfield sounds powerful and confident, displaying a good mix of melody and aggression in his delivery.

The rhythm section, consisting of bassist Robert Trujillo and drummer Lars Ulrich, sound locked in from the very beginning. It was nice to hear Lars utilizing the double kick pedals throughout the song, something that he seems to have used sparingly on recent albums compared to earlier efforts. Unfortunately, the two solos played by lead guitarist Kirk Hammett left something to be desired. They weren’t bad and do fit the song well, but they didn’t quite measure up to what I was expecting either. Additionally, I am not a fun of the sludgy sound Hetfield and Hammett have been using in their guitars’ distortion effects. I’m not completely opposed to it, but I do prefer the crisper tones we heard on their earlier recordings, like Master of Puppets and …And Justice for All.

It’s too early to tell if this song will make the cut for Metallica’s next album. The guys in Metallica have admitted as much themselves, and it’s still too early to be able to say when this next album will be released. Lars joked recently that he was confident the first three numbers in the year of the release will be “201,” so we could still have quite a long wait before we get an entire album of material. Still, if “Lords of Summer” is any indication, it sounds like Metallica are once again going back to the sound and musical style that helped launch their careers in the first place, and that is a very good thing. 8/10

And now it’s time for the eulogy portion of this week’s column. It is with great sadness that I have to pay tribute to Dave Brockie, better known as the lead front-thing Oderus Urungus of Gwar. Brockie, just fifty years old, was found dead in his home last Sunday (March 23). He earned the status of a beloved and highly respected figure in the metal community thanks to the three decades he spent with the “space warrior scum dogs” known as Gwar. He was revered for his creativity, songwriting, and uncompromising sense of humor. He never made equivocations or concessions for mass audiences when it came to his work; people either got it or they didn’t.
In addition to being the lead singer and founding member of Gwar, Brockie was a talented makeup and special effects artist. He built many of the amazingly grotesque costume and set pieces seen in Gwar’s concerts over the years in a workshop in Richmond, Virginia. His uncanny sense of humor would often mix with his political beliefs during Gwar’s infamous live performances. His hilarious in-character rants helped him land appearances in his Oderus persona on TV programs like The Jerry Springer Show, Fox News’s Red Eye, and The Dan Patrick Show. All the while, Brockie stayed true to his beliefs and never broke character, much to the occasional chagrin of those interviewing him.

On behalf of his numerous fans everywhere, I would like to offer my condolences to Dave Brockie’s friends and family, especially the members of Gwar. He was a hell of a representative for the community and will be a tough act to follow. Rest in peace, Dave Brockie. Have a safe trip back to your home planet, Oderus. You apparently are needed much more there than you are here on Earth. We’ll miss you.