I didn't buy The Quicksilver Meat Dream last week, last month, or even last year. It was long enough ago -- more than two and a half years -- that I don't even remember why I bought it. tQMD was the last gasp of I Mother Earth, a Canadian ensemble whose sound could approximately be described as "hard progressive alternative rock with Latin American influences." Since being dropped by their label in late 2003, the band has been on an indefinite hiatus. It still makes me sad whenever I think about it.
As a result, tQMD isn't the most readily accesible record. You'd be hard-pressed to find a physical copy in a store, though their commercially successful second album, Scenery and Fish, is still readily available (and quite good).

Really, "not readily accessible" is accurate both literally and figuratively: on first listen, some parts of tQMD seemed needlessly abrasive to me. The distorted guitar texture is thick, grinding, growling, so much so that you'd think you were listening to metal at times if it weren't for the fact that Brian Byrne can sing. The man has the lungs of Chris Cornell backed by the strong sense of pitch that Cornell so sorely lacks. Byrne can deliver intimate whispers and screeching howls with grace to match the likes of Maynard James Keenan.

Byrne wasn't IME's original vocalist. I was distressed when Edwin, the single-named sex symbol who fronted the band for their first two albums, departed to pursue his more mainstream rock interests. How could anyone leave a band like I Mother Earth after an album as good as S&F? IME's first album with Byrne, Blue Green Orange, wasn't spectacular, and I was afraid they would just wither away. I was partly right, they did wither away, but not before releasing one of the best albums I have ever heard.

Yes, tQMD is that good. It's worth Edwin's departure and then some, because while his attractiveness helped the band to commercial success (and Byrne's homeliness probably didn't help them), he couldn't have sung the way Byrne did on tQMD. That's not a criticism of Edwin, I didn't mind the music he went on to make; Byrne is just that good.
There is no filler on the album, apart from some silence and then some quiet chirping between the end of the last song and the "secret" bit of quiet, clean guitar that closes the album. The songs don't meander, they're focused without being repetitive. I'll admit that it took a few listens for me to get used to the guitar texture on some tracks, becuase it's such a departure from the over-produced "distorted but still clean" textures that are common in hard rock (and especially nu-metal) nowadays. Growls and loose harmonics like the opening of Choke aren't the sort of thing you hear every day, but I'm still listening to the album years later, and it's not in spite of this stuff.

I've seen I Mother Earth live twice, both times with Byrne fronting, but only once after the release of tQMD. Based on the latter show, I can unequivocally say that they are the most talented band I have ever seen perform (for reference, my other favourite rock shows include the Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, and Sigur Rós). IME's collective musicianship is, in my experience, unmatched, and tQMD is the best recorded example of it. If you like hard rock, alt-rock, prog rock, or all three, hunt a copy down and we'll see if you're still listening to it a couple of years down the line.

The Record: The Quicksilver Meat Dream (I Mother Earth), 2003
One-line verdict: One of the best albums I've ever heard.
Standount Tracks: Hell & Malfunction, Meat Dreams, No Coma

The first time I heard Speed of Sound, this record's first single, I thought: "wow, what an obvious attempt to just write Clocks again." And yes, X & Y is a natural progression down the path suggested by Clocks, Daylight, and the tail end of Amsterdam in particular. They just... well, they haven't gone terribly far. I initially resisted buying X & Y because I figured that one Coldplay record was plenty. Thankfully, X & Y isn't a rehash of A Rush of Blood to the Head, but in addition to not being a marked progression there's an even greater sense of stylistic sameness to the sonic landscape this time around. They try to change the pace a bit in the latter half of the album, but it isn't quite enough to keep things from blurring together. A Rush of Blood to the Head was much more diverse, and that's saying something.

I refused to buy X & Y on CD because I made a decision about a year ago to refrain from purchasing copy-protected CDs. What ultimately made me cave in and buy the album on iTMS was the strength of Fix You. I really wish Amsterdam's coda was longer, and Fix You delivers -- the coda, far and away the most sweeping and epic piece of rocking I think Coldplay have ever put together, is something like half of the song's length. I'm not sure that even qualifies as a coda, but I don't really care. I get goosebumps from listening to it at times. Chris Martin called it "our attempt to write a gospel song," but I think that does Fix You a disservice.

On a less positive note, I was sorry to discover that Martin still relies very heavily on rhyming couplets, to the point that it actually hinders my ability to enjoy the music. "Guide you home" and "ignite your bones?" "If you should decide" and "by my side?" "I could write a song / a hundred miles long?" It's almost a formula: the music recedes, the vocals move to the foreground, and Chris Martin delivers another childish rhyme. The emphasis on the vocals at moments like these make it clear that the band think this is serious, profound stuff but it... isn't. It's also much worse than the analogous offences on the System of a Down records I picked up over the holidays.

I heard a lot of buzz about this album when its release was imminent, reports of critical acclaim and whatnot, but really, it's another Coldplay record. Not unlike their previous efforts, it contains a number of solid entries despite taking itself more seriously than its depth merits.

The Record: X & Y (Coldplay), 2005
One-line verdict: What's all the fuss about?
Standount Tracks: Square One, Fix You, Low, Twisted Logic

The opening track on this record made me think of the "filler" tracks on Tool's Ænima, the ones I almost never listen to -- (-) ions, Cesaro Summability, that one with the angry voice shouting a recipe in German, ending with the refrain "Und keine eier!" ("And no eggs!"). As it turns out, it wasn't just the opener; this style is Sunn o)))'s bread and butter. Every track on the album, even the one that's 16 minutes long, sounds like it could fit between a couple of real songs on a Tool album. Oddly enough, that's not a criticism. In fact, this is what I wish those filler tracks on Ænima were like.

Take those "filler" Tool tracks, cross them with Sigur Rós, and you'll more or less be in the same ballpark as I am. It isn't something I ever would have thought of listening to or something I thought I'd enjoy, but I can see myself coming back to it. Occasionally. This isn't one to listen to on your morning commute. There's a surprising amount of detail in the mixture of guitars and, well, noises.

It also reminds me of the song that Radiohead sampled on Idioteque. It was an experimental electronic piece, some 30 years old now, using a medium the composer calls "computer-synthesized tape." I think that one clocked in at about 18 minutes. It's the same principle as a lot of Sigur Rós material -- long, slow phrases. Sunn o))) is a lot like that, but heavily distorted guitars are the driving melodic force. From the way the chords sound you'd expect double-bass metal drums to kick in at some point, but they just don't. This is all there is. There is occasionally some distorted screaming in the background, but don't let that distract you. The guitars are what it's all about here. It's a good thing they don't use a full drum kit, actually, because that would make the material sound ponderous. Sigur Rós escape this by, well, not playing metal; it seems Sunn o))) don't have that luxury, but it works for them.

The Record: Black One (Sunn o))) -- yes, that's "Sunn o)))"), 2005
One-line verdict: I'm surprised I like it, but I do.
Standount Tracks: Cry for the Weeper

This is one of the most upbeat records I've purchased in some time. It's almost insipid in its infectiousness. When I'm in the mood for it, it's quite an enjoyable listen.

Unfortunately, I'm almost never in the mood for it. Lately, I'm in the mood for System of a Down. :P I thought about waiting to write this until I had a chance to absorb Twin Cinema when I was in the optimal frame of mind, but I settled on trying to alter my frame of mind by listening to it anyway. So far, it seems to be working. Like I said, it's infectious.

The New Pornographers are one of the bigger names in the Canadian indie rock scene. They've been doing this for a while now, and it shows in their attention to detail. On Twin Cinema they strike an agreeable balance midway between the spartan writing of bands like Metric and the cacophony of groups like the Arcade Fire. A very agreeable balance.

The only significant problem I have with the record is that it's a bit long. Kind of an odd criticism for me to make, given that it's 48 minutes and some of my favourite records approach the capacity limit of compact discs. But 48 minutes is too much of this. I can only handle the band's insatiable upbeat grooving for so long, and 14 tracks is a few too many. I start to space out around track 9 or 10. It's too bad, because the last track in particular is one of the best ones on the album. Two or three of the ones in the middle could probably be cut to make the whole thing feel a bit tighter. Still, if my only criticism of it is that there's too much of a good thing, that's not so bad at all.

And, if nothing else, I feel good about myself for supporting independent Canadian artists. ;)

The Record: Twin Cinema (The New Pornographers), 2005
One-line verdict: Poppy. Really poppy.
Standount Tracks: The Bleeding Heart Show, The Jessica Numbers, Stacked Crooked

I keep asking myself why I don't love this record. I still don't fully understand it. I bought one of the singles, The Ghost of You, on iTMS because I liked it so much. I'm not generally one to buy singles on iTMS -- I shuffle by album when I'm listening to my iPod -- but The Ghost of You is an outstanding song with a beautiful music video.

Part of it is that the band's talent is frequently obscured by the mixing, particularly the guitar texture. It's a heavily compressed tone that sounds too perfect to be real, and it makes it more difficult to pick out two-part harmony when it's going on (which is often). It also makes it difficult to play along with unless you have perfect pitch, but that isn't really a valid criticism. ;) The whole package sounds over-produced, like a Linkin Park record... but then, I own and enjoy Hybrid Theory, so that can't be it. There's a lot of emo influence in the band, sort of like Jimmy Eat World meets NOFX or something, with a huge dose of melodrama, but I don't mind Coheed & Cambria or H.I.M., so obviously melodrama isn't a huge problem.

I think the core of my reluctance to love Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge stems from the melodies and the rhythms. I think My Chemical Romance are at their best when they're playing hard in half-time, like in the chorus of Helena or the whole of The Ghost of You, and they don't do that too often. I'm not huge on this sort of mid-uptempo stuff as a general rule -- I don't mind AFI, but I don't love them either. I also find the combination of upbeat rock with lyrics this melodramatically angsty somewhat incongruous. I lean more toward the Eve 6 school of upbeat rock, I guess -- that is, clever lyrics about girls.

Like I said, though, they're definitely talented. You'd think I'd like them more, but I just... don't. The record is good, but not enough to pull me away from the two System of a Down records I bought at the same time.

The Record: Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (My Chemical Romance), 2005
One-line verdict: Muddy.
Standount Tracks: The Ghost of You
Standout Lyric: "You are never coming home."

Mesmerize and Hypnotize were separate releases, but they were definitely intended as a double album -- the Hypnotize case has a special flap that fits into the Mesmerize case, attaching them together. There's a small amount of melodic carryover between the first track on the former and the last track on the latter. The sound and production are consistent across both discs. I'm not sure why they were released seperately. Each one does stand passably on its own, but I think that if you've got one, it's worth your while to get the other.

I remember the first track on Toxicity, which opened with a single sting by the full band in perfect sync. I wondered if they really were that tight. I haven't seen them live, so I'm still not sure. The trademark rapid-fire bursts of sound and stop-on-a-dime tempo shifts are still in evidence, but whether it's good production or raw talent I couldn't tell you. These two records are easily SoaD's most accessible, though. There's still a lot of thrashing, of course, but the thrashing is milder and usually less sustained than Toxicity's, let alone their first (self-titled) effort. Still, if you don't have experience with any sort of metal, much of the music probably won't be an easy listen. I know Toxicity wasn't easy for me initially, but this stuff grows on you something fierce, because it's good. Really good.

SoaD's four members are all of Armenian origin, though they met in the U.S. The vocal texture might be jarring to people used to mainstream North American singers, or even to Western hard rock and metal vocalists. The Middle Eastern influence is overt in the band's melodies -- though mixed, of course, with a healthy dose of Western rock and metal.

One thing I've found is that when I listen to this record through headphones, I occasionally hear an irritating crackling noise. I initially thought it was a compression artifact since I use lossy encoding, but both a lossless rip and playing the disc itself back reveals the same noises. I think it's the distortion texture used on the guitars, which is something I remember happening to me in the early days of my home recording endeavours. It was something I went to great pains to avoid, even using what I felt were suboptimal (for live performance) textures on tracks to avoid it. Since SoaD's guitarist, Daron Malakian, shared production duties on the two records, I can only assume that he decided the tradeoff was worth the gritty texture he's using. I have to admit that crunch is pretty nice, full-bodied while still making notes nice and distinct.
They're as politically pointed as ever, so if you don't like politicized music or can't tolerate the occasional rhyming couplet, you may have some trouble here. I didn't. While some of the rhymes are painful and "most loneliest" is redundant, it wasn't enough to distract me from the power of the music itself.

The Record: Mesmerize/Hypnotize (System of a Down), 2005
One-line verdict: Fucking incendiary.
Standount Tracks: Question!, Soldier Side, Lost in Hollywood, Tentative
Standout Lyric: "Where do you expect us to go when the bombs fall?"