Cruel Melody Review
I recently saw Limp Bizkit open for Alice In Chains and I remembered how awesome of a Guitarist Wes Boreland is, and how bad Limp Bizkit sucks. I thought Wes quit a long time ago, so I went online to do some research to find out why that turd of a band was still playing music. I really liked Big Dumb Face, but unlike so many other people, I did not take that at all seriously, and still enjoy listening to it for what it is; a very talented joke. When I read that Wes had started another band, with some of the members of Nine Inch Nails and Puscifer, I immediately ordered the album off Amazon and eagerly awaited it's arrival. I was so excited to hear what such talented musicians would create with their collaboration. When I listened to the album, I was pleasantly suprised. It was not at all what I expected based on previous Boreland work, but it is awesome none the less. It is a great cd to listen to for almost any occasion. It's not overly brutal for relaxing to, it's not too weak to rock out to, it's just right no matter what mood I'm in. My wife and I both love this album, and listen to it often. I can only hope that Wes will create more music like this, and less music like Limp Bizkit, but I know the guy's gotta pay his bills, so if Limp Bizkit floats Mr. Boreand enough cash to crank out some awesome albums like this then I'm happy for his success, and I hope he can continue to make enough money to create what he is so good a creating.... Awesome Music!
Cruel Melody Overview
He's been a) an underground metal mercenary, abetting the likes of brainy young upstarts From First to Last and He Is Legend, b) a fearless visual artist whose unsettling images will appear on his forthcoming CD, and most famously c) the chameleonic lead guitarist for Limp Bizkit, who have sold over 30 million records worldwide. Now, for Wes Borland’s next trick, he’s putting on the guise of frontman, leading both a studio and live supergroup to even darker depths as Black Light Burns. And the new look suits him well. Borland has flirted with his big post-LB breakthrough on and off over the last five years, first with the idiosyncratic Big Dumb Face, then with his brother Scott in Eat the Day before hooking up with bassist Danny Lohner (Nine Inch Nails) and drummer Josh Freese (A Perfect Circle) in proto-industrial powerhouse the Damning Well, whose crushing Underworld soundtrack contribution "Awakening" featured Richard Patrick (Filter, Army of Anyone) on vocals. Now Borland has taken Lohner, Freese and sound designer Josh Eustis (Telefon Tel Aviv) to super-producer Ross Robinson’s upstart I AM: WOLFPACK label and delivered Black Light Burns’ harrowing debut, Cruel Melody, 180 degrees from what you think you know about the eccentric axeman. From the post-Ramones surf rock freakout of opener "Mesopotamia" and the slow-build confessional spit of "I Have a Need" to the introspective, epic closing tandem "New Hunger" and "I Am Where It Takes Me" (the latter featuring the smoky siren call of Concrete Blonde’s Johnette Napolitano), Cruel Melody is one hell of a curveball. "For the most part, [the record’s] more about melody," Borland says. "It’s a big drums record, because Josh Freese goes bananas. A lot of it was thought about in terms of beats and attacking the songs beatwise. And the riff kind of followed second to that, if it was appropriate. "The record starts real aggressively, but toward the middle it gets a little more hurtful and hurting, lyrically, trying to express painful feelings, but still in an aggressive way. Then it kind of opens up in the end. And that was the purpose: to attack, then explain, then release and be done with it." Cruel Melody was originally going to be an esoteric, dirge-heavy solo project with a variety of singers, but as Borland started writing heavier material, he finally decided to take the reins behind the mike. It didn’t hurt that he got inspiration not only from Lohner, who doubled as the album’s producer, but Lohner’s famous former employer. "I was talking to Trent Reznor, playing him these tracks in their infancy," Borland remembers. "And he said, ‘You’re singing like somebody’s sleeping in the next room. You should try to open that up.’ You know, it’s really easy to do cool electronic music that’s instrumental and put soft vocals over it, but it’s a lot harder to write actual songs and have them hit people." With Cruel Melody locked and loaded, Borland’s planning an evocative new onstage persona for Black Light’s maiden voyage, boasting a live band with guitarist Nick Annis (Seether), drummer Marshal Kirpatric (Today Is the Day, the Esoteric) and, for now, a laptop to wreak ambient havoc. ("Screw it," he laughs, "there’s a computer in the band.") In the interim, he’s just striving to perfect his unique approach to making art. "The paintings and the music kind of chase one another, trying to keep up with some other third element that’s the idea," Borland considers. "It’s almost like when you see a little flash in the corner of your eye and you’re not sure what it was. My music and visual art is me trying to look really fast to see what that third thing was. I’m always trying to hit this place that gives me some satisfaction."
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