I heard a lot about this band (though had never even heard of them never mind heard anything by them) and resolved to try them out. Before I start though I would like to bring up one of my old bugbears --- there he is: ain't he cute? --- that being the propensity of bands who have had more than one album to self-title one of their subsequent offerings. I don't get it. I can understand at the beginning, starting out, a band wants to get themselves known, wants their name out there, so they may title their debut album the same as their band name. But once they've been established, why do this on later albums? To me, it's pure laziness: what will we call the new album? Ah, let's just use our name! Fu
ck that. Genesis did it and I was not happy. Metallica did it and nobody was happy. I'm pretty sure Beyonce did it, but then who cares?
There's no excuse for it. And not only that, but anyone who doesn't know the band might think they are buying the debut album, so it's a little disingenuous too I feel. This is Nothing More's sixth album, in a career spanning over a decade now, so why be so bland about the title? It's not like they've struggled to name other albums --- “Madhatter's bliss”, “Save you/Save me”, “The Few not fleeting” ... they've obviously got ideas, but this time around they've opted just to call the album “Nothing More”, and that sets me personally off on a bad footing. Now, admittedly, this then marks their tenth anniversary, so maybe there's something in that; maybe they're setting down a marker and saying we remember our roots.
But I still don't like it.
And it's not a good way to go into a review of an album by a band you have never experienced before. I'm not saying my mind is made up or anything, or that I'm already biased against them, but in a subconscious fashion I'm telling them they had better live up to the hype I've heard about them, because they have performed the equivalent of my cat pushing in my door and waking me at 4am from a lovely dream, and I am less than well-disposed towards them.
Nothing More --- Nothing More --- 2014 (Eleven Seven Music)
Seems this is the first album to be released on a professional label, as the other five are all under “Nothing More Music”, which you have to assume is either their own label or a code for self-release. Either way, Wiki has little on them and nor, surprisingly, does
Encyclopaedia Metallum, which makes it a little hard to give any background on them. If they have their own website you can bet it will be a ... oh. Okay. It's not a Facebook or Myspace or even Bandcamp page, it
is their own; however there is again no information about the band, so at the moment all I can tell you is that they're from San Antonio (Texas, boy!) and as I mentioned already have been around for ten years this year.
“Ocean floor” does not begin as I would expect it to, with a kind of backward-masking technique on the vocals (not really, but it's what it reminds me of) and a beat I would have more associated with a pop than a rock band really, but it's quite short and hammers in due course into “This is the time (Ballast)”, with a rough vocal from Johnny Hawkins, quite impressive in its range, and the man on the guitars is Mark Vollelunga. Sort of a growly vocal coming in every now and then, but this is still not quite as heavy as I would have expected, though this is the hit single from the album I believe. Are these guys then nu-metal? Alternative Metal? I suppose it doesn't matter but so far I don't hear too much of what I would really consider any sort of metal. Well, it's early days yet I guess. The track ends abruptly and skitters into “Christ copyright” (good title) where the guitar settles down after a while, and the beat comes together quite well. It's a faster song, quite melodic with a good vocal from Hawkins, some interesting effects and a sort of stuttering drumbeat from Paul O'Brien. Using some overdubs of evangelical speakers it's pretty clear what this song is about, and they're of course not the first to tread this path, nor will they be the last. The message, for me though, is a little lost in the sort of high-pitched, excited vocal that makes it a little difficult to make out the lyric over the thundering guitar and drums.
“Mr MTV” has some clever ideas, with an introduction ripped from Dire Straits' “Money for nothing”, and then interesting wordplay ---
”MT nation, MT youth of inspiration” --- a slower song with a quite aggressive punch to it, possibly the closest I've yet heard these guys come to true metal. Nice kind of reel almost on the guitar there near the end, sort of sounds more like keyboards but none are credited. There's a big guitar punch, rather appropriately, to “First punch”, and it's quite anthemic in its approach, no doubt inducing much air-punching on stage. The whole thing though has too much of a grunge feel to it to really interest me, at least so far. The growled vocals which are occasionally added seem like they're just put on there for effect, or because the band feel this is what they should be doing, what's expected of them. It's a decent song, certainly, but I'm not finding anything here that's winning me over to their side. I'm not saying I don't like them, but the claim of one member that this is the greatest album this year is so far something I'm finding hard to support.
It's a long album too, with fifteen tracks, though the Spotify copy I'm listening to seems to have seventeen. Guess two are bonus tracks, although they're oddly placed in the middle of the album rather than at the end. Still, fifteen tracks seems more than enough to listen to, given what I'm hearing, so I'll skip those other two. That brings us then to “Gyre”, which opens on a nice acoustic-y guitar, then some nice looping percussion takes in it, but they decide to use the death vocal here, plus some taped effects which I don't feel work that well really. Actually, I take that back: as the song progresses they fit in much better, and I don't actually think there's going to be a vocal here, the death one at the start just there for effect probably. Quite a nice little laidback track in fact, and the first that has made me think these guys could have something.
The beat kicks up for “The Matthew effect” and I'm reminded of Tiamat in places, Ten in others, and also Evanescence. Decent song but nothing special really; expectations falling after rising on listening to “Gyre”. The first ballad then comes in the shape of “I'll be ok”, with echoing drumbeats and a rather nice emotive guitar from Vollelunga, really like the vocal here. Another one that raises the possibility that this may be more than just another album. Maybe. “Here's to the heartache” is a bit punchier, with a very singable chorus, very catchy, almost Christmassy! Like this a lot I must admit. “If I were” is okay too, but there's something a little formulaic about it that disappoints me, almost alt-rock-by-numbers. Decent guitar solo though. There's a nice low-key opening to “Friendly fire”, then it explodes all over the place with guitars salvoing left, right and centre and drums hammering like falling bombs. Good stuff.
A telephone ringing kicks off a rather frenetic “Sex and lies”, which betrays influences from Maiden and Manowar with a striding, chugging guitar riff but a rather choppy, confused vocal line which I don't like. The chorus is, again, quite catchy though. The bridge manages to slip in the name of the band (and thus of the album) which I guess unofficially makes it the title track. The opening lines of “Jenny” pay homage to Nick Cave, so that's given them a boost in my book, and it's not a bad song either, as they dial back the frenzy for a short while before it goes into overdrive in what is becoming a slightly predictable manner. The closing tracks are the longest, with “God went north” clocking in at just over six minutes, though that's nothing compared to the almost-ten-minute final track. Before that though, there's a very progressive feel to the atmospheric opening of the penultimate track, and if keyboards are not used then I'm surprised because I feel it would be hard to make all these sounds on a fretboard. Anyway, it's a pretty epic song and features one of the strongest vocal performances yet from Johnny Hawkins, really impressive. The song develops really well as it goes along, hitting its apex in the fourth minute when Hawkins almost strains his voice hitting those higher notes but with real class. If more of the album was like this I think I'd be heaping praise on it for sure.
The song is slightly overextended however, with admittedly a nice almost
acapella vocal ending that takes up nevertheless the last minute of the track, so it could have ended on the five-minute mark. So this just seems unnecessarily stretching the song out for no real reason. We've already had “Gyre”, now the closer is “Pyre”, which fades in slowly with wind sounds, distant thunder, very ambient, and considering it runs for just short of, as I said, ten minutes, I guess they're allowed to play with the intro a bit. It does go on like that for over three minutes though, before some spoken vocal chant or something comes in, so is this really necessary? Now some soft guitar is breaking in, very slowly, but we're now at the four-minute mark as slow percussion cuts in, now the fifth, and I have the uncomfortable feeling there may not be any song --- oh okay here it comes, but again it's pretty much instrumental played over some sort of lecture or something, very deep but I feel very much cheated that a ten-minute track has used half of that time to, well, do nothing really.
Now we get a vocal of sorts, but it's kind of just singing two lines as the lecture, symposium or whatever it is goes on in the background with the music as a backdrop. It's a clever idea sure, but do I want to hear nine minutes and fifty-five seconds of it? No, I do not, and if I were to play this album again (not by any means a certainty) I would probably skip this last track. I guess it's what you'd call ambient music, as the voice drops away and leaves only the music to fade us out, and I have a lot of time for ambient music, but on a supposedly rock album this is just too confusing for me and it leaves me with a vague feeling of being cheated.
Oh, and the last full minute has nothing but rain, wind and effects like those that started the album. So add up all the non-music parts and you get a staggering total of six minutes out of slightly less than ten which is, nothing really. So although I appreciate they had to build up the atmosphere and set the tone, realistically that song could have run for four minutes. A whole lot of padding, far too much for my tastes.
TRACKLISTING
1. Ocean floor
2. This is the time (Ballast)
3. Christ copyright
4. Mr. MTV
5. First punch
6. Gyre
7. The Matthew effect
8. I'll be ok
9. Here's to the heartache
10. If I were
11. Friendly fire
12. Sex and lies
13. Jenny
14. God went north
15. Pyre
Yeah, I'm just underwhelmed by this. I don't know what to make of it. It's absolutely in my opinion not metal; in places it's alt-rock, then it's almost pop and though Nothing More show their metal teeth once or twice, other times it's like some new-age effort where I keep expecting someone to try to convert me to their religion or at least sell me insurance. I don't know which way to jump, and in the end I'm just left frustrated. I wouldn't say it's a bad album, and given the diversity on it that's not of course a bad thing, but diversity can be a two-edged sword, and here I feel it is.
I get the impression that if I listened to the album a few more times I might get the hype, but as it says in my sig, I'm programmed to be very busy, and really most albums will only get one chance to impress me. This, on first listen, has not done that. I don't hate it but I don't love it. I actually don't know what to make of it.
But album of the year? The next big thing? Nah. It's a decent, interesting album.
(You know it's coming...)
Nothing more.