Music News: AIC's William DuVall Says He Was Detained Because of Race

The news just seems to keep getting worse and worse lately - that is, if you're black. And apparently, being rich and a rockstar doesn't help.

New Alice in Chains frontman William DuVall claims he was detained outside his West Hollywood home for 30+ minutes. Here's the tweet:

 DuVall's use of the hashtag #AliveWhileBlack further makes the point that race played a part.

This is my take on the whole thing: if a white officer choking a man to death - ON TAPE - isn't enough to get him convicted, I don't know what will be. I'm appalled by the unrestrained, racist brutality of some police officers, and their continued ability to get away with it. The video of Eric Garner makes me sick. People who think racism is dead need to wake up. And the rest of us should be doing what we can to get rid of it.

Album Reviews: Black Veil Brides, Black Veil Brides

Like Dave Grohl, I don't believe in "guilty pleasures." If you like something, listen to it. For example, I've been listening to a lot of Iggy Azalea's "Black Widow" lately. (I know, people who listen to pop should be consigned to a hell of Hank Williams playing on constant loop.)

So when I say I like Black Veil Brides, a lot of so-called "music purists" are probably freaking out, because BVB are, unfortunately, a band that gets a lot of hate. There are several reasons for this.

One is that back in the early days, the band had a penchant for dressing like eighties hair metal icons. And apparently, people are still threatened by the idea of a guy in tight pants and eyeliner.

Another reason is the fangirls. Judas on a jackrabbit, the fangirls. Just scroll through the YouTube comments on any BVB video. It's a minefield of terrible grammar and exclamations on how hot various band members are, or what color their fingernails are painted, or what their favorite day of the week is.

Guess what, folks - welcome to EVERY BAND EVER.You can find the same comments on HIM videos. And Halestorm videos. And Alice in Chains videos. And in case all you music "connoisseurs" out there don't remember, this is what a Beatles concert looked like:

Look familiar? Now, I'm not bagging on any die-hard fans. When I was in high school, I loved Green Day so much that my parents wanted to lock me under the stairs like bloody Harry Potter so they'd never have to hear three-chord punk again. The people that bother me are the ones who care more about what BVB lead singer Andy Biersack's hair looks like than what he's singing.

Which is a shame, because they are a good band. And their latest self-titled effort only proves that.

I remember when Black Veil Brides first started making music. They were your standard melodic metalcore band, nothing special, kind of a dime-a-dozen. Then they got an all-new lineup, ditched the metalcore screams and sluggish guitars for clean-yet-rough vocals and dueling solos, and they became something else. Around the time of their sophomore effort, 2011's Set the World on Fire, they really hit their stride.

The latest album starts off a little wobbily with the generic anthem "Heart of Fire." Biersack's voice sounds more strained and less natural than it does on the rest of the album.  Luckily, it gets better from there.

You can see them going back to their stadium-rock influences, particularly on such songs as "Walk Away," which includes synth, echoing arena guitars, and backing chorus. It feels like a reinterpretation of that era, and I'm kind of intrigued by it, though I don't think it sounds as genuine as the intricate guitar textures of "Goodbye Agony."

There is plenty of metal to be had throughout the rest of the record ("Faithless" and "Last Rites"). The tempo moves up to thrash in "The Shattered God," and that's the thing about Black Veil Brides. Glam rock, thrash metal, and punk come together well, primarily because of the musical talent involved. You can't mix styles without technical proficiency, and like predecessors Avenged Sevenfold and Trivium, these guys have it in spades.

Stream the full album here.

Best tracks: "Goodbye Agony," "The Shattered God," "Crown of Thorns," "Last Rites"

Music News: Nine Inch Nails Back in the Game

Ever since Trent Reznor formed his new band, How to Destroy Angels, with wife Mariqueen Maandig, people have been griping more than ever, wondering where the "old" Nine Inch Nails went.

Well, wonder no more. Reznor announced in an interview with Billboard that NIN weren't calling it quits, just taking a holiday, and that proved to be correct with Reznor's announcement this morning that NIN will be touring extensively this year and next. "The band is reinventing itself from scratch," Reznor said. "...The first shows will begin this summer, followed by a full-on arena tour of the US this fall, and lots of other dates to follow worldwide through 2014." Read Reznor's full statement here.

Personally, I wish they'd just do a new album, but that's my opinion. 

Album Reviews: ">album title goes here<," Deadmau5

Like I've said before, I respect industrial/hip-hop/house producers as musicians probably even more than I respect traditional musicians, because they are literally a one-man (or woman) gluestick holding a project together.

And yeah, it seems like everyone thinks they can DJ these days, but that doesn't mean there aren't some good house artists out there.

One of my favorites has been Canadian producer Deadmau5. He gets a lot of flak for being a "skinny white boy," but he's a great artist. I like the range his songs exhibit; for example, "Strobe," from 2009's For Lack of a Better Name, goes from the soft flow of rainstick-percussion to punky synths and drum machines.

One thing that I think is problematic with dubstep, though, is that it tends to rely too much on digitally created sounds. If house artists aren't careful, they can get pigeonholed into a certain system of sounds that they rarely deviate from. Skrillex is one such example; I don't see much variation in his work.

And at the outset of this album, it appears that Deadmau5 is making this mistake. "Superliminal" and "Channel 42" showcase the same Nintendo-esque synths and poppy percussion that shot the artist to stardom.

However, these songs become a warmup to the somewhat creepy "The Veldt" and the explosive "Professional Griefers" (featuring Gerard Way, lead singer of My Chemical Romance), which has appropriately punk sensibilities.

The tracks I was most intrigued by were "Sleepless" and "Failbait." "Sleepless" is a lonely, existential, yet delicate exploration, and it's a good example of how Deadmau5 is using more genuine strings instead of created sounds. "Failbait," which features Cypress Hill, shows that Deadmau5 is equally at home creating rap beats or instrumental EDM. It's a true-blue rap anthem with chunky bass.

All in all, this is probably one of the better albums Deadmau5 has put out to date. And like a good book, though it lags a little at first, once it gets going, you don't want the ride to stop. I'm definitely going to pick this one up.

Stream the full album here.

Introducing: Blacklite District

 Dubstep and rock are becoming more and more compatible, thanks to collaborations by the likes of Korn and Skrillex. And honestly, they have a lot in common, with heavy-hitting bass and wicked drops. So why not combine the two?

That's exactly what the band I'm introducing today, Blacklite District, does. "Hearing the same sounding rock albums over and over is what I believe has almost killed the rock scene. The way we look at it is, we should be embracing new technologies, and not sticking to the same formula," says guitarist Kyle Pfeiffer, who lists some of the band's influences as Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Linkin Park, and Metallica.

This strategy has clearly paid off for the band. The first single off their upcoming 4-song second EP "Take Me to the Grave," has received extensive airplay on Sirius XM Radio, recently making the Top 5 on the "Big 'Uns" countdown and climbing to #1 in airplay last month. The band also had the chance to play the hugely famous Whisky-A-Go-Go in LA. "So many of our favorite bands launched their careers at the Whisky. It's the only venue still around that's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," says Pfeiffer.

The music lives up to the hype. It shows all the possibilities of combining genres that are becoming more and more prevalent in today's interconnected music world. If Linkin Park came right up to the edge of electronic nu-metal, Blacklite District leaps right off that cliff, experimenting boldly with new hybrid forms.

Blacklite District goes on tour with Sevendust in May. That's going to be a show to see, trust me.

Facebook

Twitter

ReverbNation

YouTube

Album Reviews: "House of Gold and Bones Pt. 1," Stone Sour

Corey Taylor is perhaps the only person I know who is the frontman of two wildly successful bands. Stone Sour's latest album, House of Gold and Bones Part One, proves why: Taylor is incredibly talented, both lyrically and musically, and he works with some great musicians.

What many people don't know is that Stone Sour was the original project, not Slipknot; Slipknot just happened to become famous faster. But in Stone Sour, you can see more introspection, more elegant  pain in Taylor's lyrics, and more musical exploration than Slipknot's traditional pounding double-percussion hits. Musically, it's the better band, especially with Taylor's characteristic clean-to-scream vocals winding through Jim Root's intricate guitar solos.

The latest record, which is part one of a two-act concept album (part two to be released in May), doesn't disappoint. While it's definitely angrier than 2010's Audio Secrecy, with more of a punk sensibility on tracks like "Absolute Zero" and "RU486," there are also the delicate piano and acoustic guitar of "The Travelers (Part One)" and "Taciturn."

I'll be honest: When I played the opening track, "Gone Sovereign," I was a little underwhelmed: it sounded like a harder-edged version of Slipknot's "Snuff." But everything spiraled upward from there. This album is indeed a journey, and by the end of it, you feel like that journey is your own.
Taylor recently said in a Loudwire interview: “It’s really a morality play. It’s about a person trying to find himself, or herself. You know, everyone in their lives finds themselves inevitably at a crossroads when it comes to personal evolution and whatnot. Trying to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives.”

With the recent fizzle of record-now-release-later multi-part albums such as Green Day's recent three-part set, I had grown wary of the genre. But this is one album sequel I am definitely anticipating.

My favorite tracks: "RU486," "Last of the Real," "The Travelers (Part One)"

New Alice in Chains Video

Alice in Chains has just released the video for their latest single, "Hollow," online, from their upcoming fifth studio album, and their second without late frontman Layne Staley. I've gotta say, I've become pretty open-minded about the new lineup. Though vocalist William DuVall is certainly no Staley, their new sound is good. Staley wasn't the only talented member of AIC; Cantrell is possibly one of the best guitarists alive today, and the heavy blues feel was the course the band was going to take anyway - see "Heaven Beside You" off their self-titled 1996 album if you don't believe me. And hey, surviving members Cantrell, bassist Mike Inez, and drummer Sean Kinney were respectful enough to Staley's memory to wait more than ten years before reforming the band.

I will always be a diehard fan of old school Alice, particularly their first two albums, 1990's Facelift and 1992's Dirt. But the new stuff is solid, with soaring blues melodies and chugging riffs that take over where Staley's powerful vocals left off, helping to carry DuVall's less immediate voice.

Bonus: check out my favorite AIC concert vid with the old lineup: their title hit, "Man in the Box," in Seattle in 1991, just before Facelift broke the band onto the grunge mainstream.