Obscure Gems: Killer 7

Killer 7 was released in 2005 for the Gamecube and the PS2 (oddly enough most reviews claim the GCN version to be superior both graphically and control wise) by Capcom, and no one played it. Not a soul. I think the game sold 7 copies.
And it is a shame.
Killer 7 is a rail first person shooter that has you controlling 7 assassins each with their own unique ability, from invisibility to jumping very high to slitting your wrists and spraying blood everywhere (not joking). You move your character forward and backward with the A and B buttons (I played the GCN version, so this whole review is based off of that) while in a third person perspective and then must press R to go into first person mode in order to shoot. The camera angles change as you walk through levels and you can really see Capcom's Resident Evil influence. You can switch between characters on the fly (all except Garcian) and you have to use their abilities to solve different puzzles. Your enemies can only be killed by shooting them in certain weak points, and the more accurate you are the more blood you collect. This blood can be cashed in at the blood bank to upgrade your abilities to make them more powerful or last longer. This is important because it increases the importance of accuracy in the game. There is infinite ammo, so you can just run and gun, but there isn't much reward in it.
The graphics are all cel-shaded and super stylish. They fit the gameplay and story perfectly.
Speaking of the story, this is where the game truly shines. For the first half of the game you really don't know what is going on. The story is all over the place. You catch snippets of Garcian talking with a secret agent but you don't know if the conversations are taking place during the game, before or even after. You start off in levels with no idea why you are there. Whiny bitches like Anthony might be thinking "Well, that sucks. I want to know what's going on"...but trust, the mystery is well worth it and the story well paced enough to keep you interested. The final moments bring the story together so well I think it would make Tarantino shed a tear.
The game has received many awards ranging from Most Outrageous and Most Innovative game by Gamespot, to Best Game No One Played and Best Adventure Game from IGN.
I know none of you have played this game, so put in the ten or so hours it takes to beat it (maybe even less). You'll be surprised and entertained by this great gem.

-Dabs

Obscure Gems: Primer

Oh what a little gumption can do. Shane Carruth wrote, directed, produced and starred in this 2004 film that chronicles two tech geeks' experiments with time travel. His total budget? $7,000. What's that you say? A film about time travel for only $7,000? Are the special effects cheesy as hell? How many more rhetorical questions will I ask in this post? (My journalism professors are turning in their proverbial graves.)

Well, there are no special effects. No, ladies and gentlemen, this movie doesn't rely on CGI to move its storyline along. It relies on things like a great story line, excellent acting and some superb editing (how about those positive adjectives).

Primer follows two engineers who are trying to build a zero gravity device when they realize they've accidentally built a time machine. The film moves quickly, with the characters talking about things the audience probably doesn't understand (unless they are engineers) without stopping to explain. They talk in quick mutters, referring to past events that we don't know about and to people we have never met. This makes the film so believable, so real to life, that you wonder if it is a documentary (the lazy cam filming adds to the effect). It is just two engineers trying to figure out what they've built and how to control it. There is no made up metal or electrical force or giant gizmo that no one could ever create to serve as the time portal. It's just a box. Something so simple yet so believable that you don't even miss the special effects, in fact, you don't even wonder where they are.

The story twists in and out and if you aren't paying attention it is easy to get lost, but that is the fun in it. You are supposed to be lost, the main characters are too. The plot works around theories of time travel, and the consequences of it, in a realistic manner. Well, as realistic as I can imagine time travel to be.

I wanted to say that before Primer I didn't think I had seen a truly remarkable film about time travel. But then I did some research and found some great time travel movies, like Flight of the Navigator, 12 Monkeys, Terminator (how could I forget) and the Philadelphia Expirement. These were all great time travel movies, but Primer stands out among them and proves that low budget can mean very high quality. Maybe that's the line you should use on the corner, Anthony.

-Dabs

Obscure Gems: The Boy Least Likely To - Best Party Ever

I wish I had been there when instrumentalist Pete Hobbs and lyricist Jof Owen got together and started making music as the Boy Least Likely To. First, just to see all of the different instruments Hobbs uses, and second to see if they really tried for the sound they came up with for "Best Party Ever".
I had a friend listen to this 2005 album just recently and after the first song she said, "This is the perfect happy sound." And it is. Hobbs uses washboards, banjos,triangles and a slew of other percussion instruments that you don't normally hear in an album. The result is the sound of walking through a park on the first day of summer while a friendly blue bird lands softly on your shoulder and starts bobbing its head with you to the music.

After a listen I was really ready to dismiss the album as a novelty, but I gave it another chance and found the music combined with the lyrics to provide many different layers.
The lyrics are dark, contrasting with the happy-go-lucky washboard driven instrumentals. They combine to make an album not about being a child (the music) and not about being an adult (the lyrics) but about being an adult and watching your inner child be crushed to death.
Take "Monsters" for instance:

And the thing that really frightens me
Is that the people I used to love

Are turning into monsters
Getting married having babies
Telling me how great their life is
And how happy I would be if I could
Just be more like them

Adult are monsters, get it? Leading crazy lives that involve marriage (stupid!). Owen also sings about a boy and his imaginary friend, a tiger, growing apart:
"It's hard sometimes to be friends with something/that eats butterflies and pencil sharpeners"
in such a way that you feel like a jack ass for not being seven.

Lyrically the album consistently and playfully tells you life sucks, but in the end you can't worry about the little things. The album is catchy and poppy as hell, I dare you to listen to Warm Panda Cola a couple times and not randomly have it pop into your head.

Of course, I do, like most albums, have a nostalgic attachment to this album. I was introduced to it while I was in Wales and it, along with a few other key albums which will probably get some airing on PtP soon, served as a delightful soundtrack for my travels.

And I, like Anthony, take an obscure gem to be an album most people probably haven't heard of. I know Pitchfork named this one of the best albums of 2005, but fucking deal with it.

So check out Boy Least Likely To, it's the best party ever!

-Dabs



*Insert something demeaning towards Anthony here*

Obscure Gems: M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us

So I hate to have two posts in a row about music, but just had to get this one out there.

M-83 is an electronic, shoe gaze, synth machine headed up by Anthony Gonzales. Before the Dawn Heals Us is the French artist’s third album and was released in 2005 and met with critical acclaim.

My friend from back home introduced M83 to me while driving to his house in the middle of a snow storm a couple years back, and I must say there was no better way to listen to Before the Dawn Heals Us. The album’s earthy tones and constant wall of music created a sound my ears had never heard before and offered a soundtrack to the blistery weather around us.

BTDHU opens with a stunning track titled Moon Child. A child’s voice is the opening note to the album, talking about singing so that the whole universe will glow. Then Gonzales makes your hair stand on end with an unbelievable drum break that gives way to a wave of sound that, when I first heard it, thought was the sound light would make if it had audio outputs.

Moon Child lays the framework for the rest of the album, something that many artists forget to do with their opening track. The album is meant to be listened to in its entirety, sort of like a Kid A or Dark Side of the Moon or any of Sigur Ros’ albums. While each track is great on its own accord, some of the magic is lost without the remainder of the album around it. The sound of the album reminds me of a cross between Sigur Ros and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.

That comparison being made, BTDHU is stunningly original. In the song Car Chase Terror, most of the music comes from the sound of passing cars and the sobs of a woman hiding in her car with her child from someone – or something:

“He was there... His car was parked there in the same gas station,
all dressed in green, dark green.
I couldn't move my head, but I was watching him in the mirror.
Oh, it was horrible!
His face was sort of erased, but I knew he was looking at me.
Two invisible eyes, two invisible and monstrous eyes.”

Creepy.

BTDHU is an ambitious work. It is meant to overwhelm the listener, like diving into a pool of musical notes when you don’t know how to swim. The album hits my musical buttons in all the right places. It has an ambient tone that lets the listener create a backdrop and meaning to the harmonies presented. It is the philosopher’s synth music, something meant to be contemplated and not danced to.

From the sweeping melody of Moon Child to the final dying note on Lower Your Eyelids to Die with the Sun, Gonzales creates a new universe of music with these 15 tracks. They can only be described as an experience. The album deserves full attention, not to be listened to in the background during a party or while cramming for an exam. Pop this in on a long car drive or while trying to fall asleep at night and you are taken away to a place of icy monoliths and mysticism.

You can try out the album here. Strap on the headphones and get ready for a ride.

- Dabs

Obscure Gems: Gary Allan - Tough All Over

In 2002 Johnny Cash covered a Nine Inch Nails song about drug addiction and isolation and made it his own.  The song took on new meanings as we reinterpreted the lyrics through the scope of a legend’s career.  The intertextuality of the music deepened it’s value, as our knowledge of the performer added weight to Trent Reznor’s words.

Music is malleable; taking on new meaning and attributes as the performers and the audiences change. 

Similarly in 2005 another country recording artist Gary Allan released the first track to his album, Tough All Over; “Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning),” a cover of a Vertical Horizon song.  For Vertical Horizon, the song was about a difficult breakup.  For Allan the song was still about the end of a relationship, but the circumstances made the bittersweet song even more poignant.

In 2004 Allan’s wife committed suicide after suffering from migraines and depression.  Following her death, Allan took a break from performing, but soon returned to the studio to record what would become 2005’s Tough All Over.  

His wife’s death is never directly referenced in the album, but themes of love and loss pervade the record.  Tough All Over is a reminder that there is room for greatness in all genres of music.  Allan has always existed in the genre of radio ready country, and Tough All Over is no exception.  “Best I Ever Had”  and “Life Ain’t Always Beautiful” both made it to the Top 10 as singles on the Country charts.  

There is a forwardness and urgency to the lyrics on the album.  On Puttin’ Memories Away Allan sings about boxing up his wife’s old things.  He sings,

With red wine and tears I've been gatherin' all the years we spent together

I need to move on

'Cause I know that you're gone forever

On Ring Allan sings to his wife’s old wedding ring:

Yesterday you used to hold her

In Life Ain’t Always Beautiful he tries to reconcile with loss

And I wish for just one minute

I could see your pretty face

Guess I can dream, but life don’t work that way

Still, in the chorus he tries to find a silver lining:

But the struggle makes you stronger

And the changes make you wise

Nickajack Cave thematically stands out from the rest of the songs of the album, as it deals with the legend of Johnny Cash’s quest for redemption in Nickajack Cave.  The song is about Cash seeking salvation in spite of his past sins, and perhaps Allan is battling with his own guilt, and seeking a sort of rediscovery.

In the album’s final track, Puttin’ My Misery on Display Allan sings about the demands of performing the heartbreak of his songs on a nightly basis.  The song is all about music as a coping mechanism.  It’s a lonely life on the road, but a necessary evil for Allan, he sings, “It soothes my soul and keeps my sanity,” later adding, “I don’t know any other way, than putting my misery on display.”

Country music has always favored themes of love and heartbreak, and Tough All Over exists very much in that same space.  The album, however, is a reminder that there is room for greatness in all genres of music.  It’s an album borne out of tragedy, a mix of heartbreak, remorse, and determination.  Tough All Over is the sort of albums most artists should hope they never have the opportunity to write.

-Anthony

Obscure Gems: The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

The Hold Steady kick off their motivational-speaker-esque titled album with a driving overdriven guitar in Constructive Summer.

The opening track starts with vocals/guitarist Craig Finn singing,

This whole town is lifeless

been that way all our whole lives just

work at the mill until you die

work at the mill and then you die

A Stinkin’ Lincoln product like myself can relate to that, but he keeps an optimistic outlook on the situation.

We're gonna build something this summer 

we'll put it back together

raise up a giant ladder

with love and trust and friends and hammers

The Hold Steady is a recent discovery for me, and they are the band I never knew I wanted.  They are the ultimate bar band.  The rock that you are screaming over in the best night out on the town of your life.  Stay Positive is the soundtrack of that great night out, and it’s got everything that such a night would demand.  After the rocking opening they go sing-songy with a track that may be the greatest drunk anthem ever written (or at least since “I Got Friends in Low Places”...don't ask).  

In Sequestered in Memphis Finn sees a drunken meet-up with the girl of the night as a business interview.  He sings,

In bar light she looked alright. 

In daylight she looked desperate.

That's alright, I was desperate too.

I'm getting pretty sick of this interview.

The song is almost too much fun.

Their sound just wreaks of barstools and solo cups, you’ll almost swear you can smell stale beer through the speakers.  They sound sort of like a small town E-street band backing the lead-singer of Counting Crowes... if the Counting Crowes lead singer had a blood-alcohol content of .56, and segued back and forth from raspy-bellows and almost spoken-word verses.  This is all much better than it sounds.

They manage to mostly adhere to the album title, with positive jams that, gasp, actually rock pretty hard.

Even when the band goes slow-jam in Lord I’m Discouraged you get the sense of a guy propped on the edge of a bar pouring his heart out, more so than a dude ready to open some veins in a warm bath.

In Lord I’m Discouraged Finn takes a tale that could be mopey and corny: a song from a lovelorn who semi-stalks a lost love as she goes man-to-man and is abused by her new suitors.

The song is mostly a prayer and he sings,

She says that she's sick

But she won't get specific

The sutures and bruises are none of my business

As the song closes, he seems resigned to his fate,

Excuses and half-truths and fortified wine

I know it's unlikely she'll ever be mine

So I mostly just pray she don't die

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the Hold Steady is the raspy voice of its lead, but I think that Finn’s rasp adds more than it hinders.  He sounds like he frequents the parties that he sings about.  I’ll pass on the drinks, but I’d like to go for the music.

-Anthony

Obscure Gems: Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!

“Who is this great burdensome slavering dog-thing that mediocres my every thought? I feel like a vacuum cleaner, a complete sucker, it's fucked up and he is a fucker, But what an enormous and encyclopaedic brain, I call upon the author to explain”

Anthony recently added a “pixels to polys recommends” section to the blog, good call. There’s some good stuff on there; Maddox is the man and that Dino*Run game has completely monopolized my spare time. Glad to see that Metacritic was also included, I want to be the first to say that Metacritic can be a decent place to stumble upon new music.

Most of the time my music searches through Metacritic come up empty handed, with me completely displeased that I wasted my time trying to listen to some ungodly-whiny-piece-of-shit-band that received accolades for sucking. Ok so I lied, Metacritic’s not usually a good place to find new music...

However, I month ago I downloaded Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds completely on a whim, Metacritic gave it an 87 so I said why not. Good call.

Unlike my last Obscure Gem, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! takes absolutely no time to fall in love with. Its rock music that’s both fresh and familiar: fresh in the sense that its different than what you’re accustomed to, familiar in the sense that its everything rock music should be; loud, dirty, intelligent, and dripping with sex (four things that Nickelback has sucked at being for years…I’ll save that for another rant).

The first question I had to ask myself when writing this post was what to consider these guys as. They’re definitely rock, but that’s a pretty broad description. Its like carelessly describing herpes as “something you exchange”, lack of details can get you into trouble… Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds somehow manage to wrap blues, punk, and funk in a sleazy garage rock package; sleazy enough that my herpes analogy above actually fits.

There’s something appealing about Cave’s vocals that’s reminiscent of a Vegas lounge singer; it’s smooth and crooning. If Warren Zevon, Bruce Springsteen, and James McMurtry could somehow impregnate a groupie after long drunken gangbang, their bastard child would be Nick Cave, and his band would rock.

Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is in many regards a concept album (something I get a hard on for); think Dark Side of the Moon, which revolved around themes and ideas, and not Tommy, which revolved around a unifying story. The album tosses around biblical accounts placed in a modern setting in way that I’ve yet to figure out: is it blasphemous or brilliant?…probably both. At the same time the album proves to be deceptively dark, you’ll likely catch yourself tapping your toes to some song about death and poverty, and think nothing about it.

Songs like the title track, Today’s Lesson, Albert Goes West, and We Call Upon the Author really shine, but again, the whole album is great. In the end, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is a must listen…period.

-Matt

Obscure Gems: Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures

The other night I got thinking about possible ideas for ongoing threads, and the idea hit me to have a series of posts that introduce music, movies, and games that would be obscure to most people... offer up something different than what everyone’s normally accustomed to (for better or worse). With that in mind I figured I'd write about Joy Division's 1979 album Unknown Pleasures; an album that I liked a lot but that I'm sure won't be popular with everyone...

For those who are unfamiliar with Joy Division, they are one of the main bands responsible for ushering in what is known as post-punk, or a more experimental and complex sounding version of punk. Named after a prostitution wing in a Nazi concentration camp, the band has a unique sound that can best be described as hypnotically eerie; and Unknown Pleasures really pushes that sound more than anything I have ever heard. A disclaimer before you check out this band: If you are depressed or have ever considered suicide, stay the hell away! (The last thing this blog needs is a rep for causing people to kill themselves...well...actually that might be cool too...)

Unknown Pleasures is undoubtedly one of those albums that is rewarding if you give it a second chance; with a single play through you're likely to dismiss it as about as enjoyable as hearing a eulogy. On the second listen, however, the album truly shines. Whereas previously the songs seemed relatively simplistic and monotonous, they somehow take on a new depth that wasn't there before. Sure, the album is technically an exercise in minimalism, but it somehow manages to be grandiose with an emphasis on bass, weird ambient noises, and of course, Ian Curtis’s tortured baritone vocals. Tracks like Shadowplay (recently covered by The Killers), She's Lost Control, and Disorder really stand out but to be honest, the album is consistently good the whole way through

In the end, Unknown Pleasures is an enjoyably vile concoction of angst, depression, and self loathing that somehow manages to grow on you. It’s incredibly personal, and has no qualms about cramming a hefty dose of despair down your throat. While dwarfed by its successor Closer (which is absolutely superb), Unknown Pleasures holds a special place in my heart for being my first foray into Joy Division.

Somewhere on the internet I was reading that the early 1980's killed punk (one more thing I forgot to include on my rant about the 80's). Although I am not a punk expert, it seems entirely fitting that the death of punk was greeted by a band that sounds like funeral. At any rate, give this album a try, you might be surprised…

-Matt