Protest The Hero: "Scurrilous"

While the lyrics may leave you wanting here and there, the overall feel and musicality of this album will satisfy any metal fan.

Selected songs (for listening whilst reading): "C'est La Vie", "Tongue-Splitter"

"Dammit! A smoker's got Francis!"

Anyone who reads this blog and also hangs out with me on a regular basis knows that I have become a very large fan of this band. Ever since a good friend of mine introduced me to the song “Sequoia Throne” (which is from another album, by the way), I have been delving more and more into their speedy math metal material and enjoying the trip the entire way there. I decided one day that I needed to own a physical CD to use in my car, and so I went out and bought this album without ever hearing any of the tracks. The interesting thing is that, while the whole album is very good, it proved to me that all parts need to come together to make an album great.

Generally speaking, we think of a few different categorized groups when we listen to an album. For example, we usually lump things into large ideas—such as the lyrics, or the production, or the actual music itself. An album’s overall enjoyment level comes from the integrity of each of these parts; any one of them that falls short brings down the whole experience. Each part needs to carry its own weight to make an album spectacular in our eyes. You’ll see what I mean later on.

Let’s start off by mentioning that these guys are outstanding musicians. I think that this fact is one of the reasons I like Protest The Hero so much: every member is a virtuoso at the instrument they play. No one sounds any less than excellent in their performance. Both guitarists run around the fretboard like crazed, cocaine-induced monkeys; and the bassist, when he’s not busy making his famous bow-and-arrow gesture, follows in suit. The drummer is excellent at all the polyrhythm beats that get cranked out measure after measure, and everything sounds delightfully tight and clear. I have to make special mention of the lead singer, who probably has the most talent in a lead singer that I have heard in a long time. High, clear tenor vocals? Check. Midrange, scratchy screams? Check. Low, thunderous growls? Check. He’s literally a one-man army in voice. Just check out two tracks—“C’est La Vie” and “Tapestry”—to hear all of this vocal range (you can even look at “Sequoia Throne” too, but I won’t mention it heavily since it is part of a different album). The vocal talent is definitely the most noticeable, but it also kind of should be since it’s just that good.

"Yo dawg, we heard you like dogs with your dawgs. So
we got some dogs to put with your dawgs so you could
have dogs while you have dawgs!"

Production-wise, the album sounds refreshingly clear and crisp. It’s been a while since I’ve heard a band sound so good with making everything so well-defined. All staccato notes are short and punchy; all polyrhythms are spot-on and clean. Everything is very, very well performed. It must have taken these guys a lot of work to get it that way. I can only imagine the hours of practice that took place to make sure that every 3/8 to 6/4 change was cleaner than bleached socks. Such discipline, and you can definitely tell. Also, all of the instruments are very well mixed; this more of a hat-tip to the audio engineer. I like being able to hear everything, including the ever-elusive metal basslines, and when I can pick out each and every instrument at any given part I always have to mention it in my review. Kudos to the man who mixed all of the craziness running around in this album and made it sound crisp and oh-so-delightfully clear.

So what do these guys sound like? Well, if you happened to start up the YouTube link at the top and are currently listening to the song as you read this (which I really hope you did; that’s its entire purpose), you probably have a good idea of the style of music. Definitely a high-speed math metal sort of thing with tons of great vocal additions. The fun part about this band is that I don’t know of anyone else out there that sounds like them. They are unique in style and feel as a whole; there are other bands that might have a couple pieces of the whole cake (i.e. a math metal band that only has screaming/growling), but no one else really comes to mind. If you know of another artist that comes close to Protest The Hero, let me know—I’m certain that I’ll want to listen to them too.

Judging by the way I opened this review, you know that there has to be some sort of fly in the lobster bisque. Unfortunately, it is true: this album has one major flaw, and that is the lyrics. Now, I’m going to approach this carefully, because not all of the lyrics are bad. In fact, the song “C’est La Vie” has some of the most innovative, clever lyrics I’ve heard in a long time. I love that song because it takes such playful math metal and adds grim satire and blunt, realistic imagery in a most agreeable manner. In fact, there are plenty of times in the album where a line will play around with words or say something much deeper than its surface meaning.


My problem lies within the fact that such great writing also reeks of bad writing. Let’s use the song “Tapestry” as an example; it has the line, “This is our Versailles—palace on the swamp”. Great imagery for a line of just eight words, and it has plenty of metaphoric meaning behind it. However, we look elsewhere in the song and see the line, “Drunk as hell/ Dumb as all get out/ So pucker up those pretty lips of yours and/ Kiss my ass and shut your mouth”. I’ve tried to find a good reason for the way this line is written, and I honestly can’t find one. Where did the clever alluding go? What happened to our nice, imaginative pictures? This happens over and over throughout the album, and it is honestly depressing since I know that they have the potential for such greater lyrical mastery.

Too bad the red shirts always die first...
But at least the bassist is safe.

The biggest offender, however, is (sadly) the last track on the album called “Sex Tapes”. The entire lyrical content is an obvious, poorly-worded, grotesque rebuttal towards certain media. After further review I can possibly see an underlying point, but the problem is that I get so distracted by the terrible writing that I basically miss it completely. The surprising thing is that this song was written by the same guy (the bassist Arif) who wrote not only the song “C’est La Vie” but also the entirety of another album “Fortress”, which is also known for great lyrics. What happened here? Where did our genius disappear to? The problem is that I know that Protest The Hero knows better—as opposed to another band like Five Finger Death Punch, who have terrible lyrics in more or less all of their songs. Since they can’t claim ignorance on this one, it’s inexcusable—I have to be more critical about the degeneration of their lyrical content as the album progresses away from “C’est La Vie” and two of the other opening tracks. It is unfortunate that such great music has to be paired with such sub-par writing that had all the potential to be something much greater.

As a whole, Protest The Hero has made headway with this latest addition, but in some ways they have also taken a step backwards. While the music remains excellent as always, the lyrics have taken an unfortunate slide downhill into a more boring, straightforward nature. Luckily, the album does save itself lyrically a few times here and there, but the overall disappointment of matching amazing music with mediocre words is too blatant. However, I feel that I am putting a large amount of importance on something that is probably trivial, so I will say this: “Scurrilous” is a great album. It’s probably not their greatest, but it is still very enjoyable. I have had this CD in my car’s player for a long time now and still listen to it all the time because the musicality and virtuosity is more or less addictive and very enjoyable. Go pick this album up if you want to try something refreshingly unique. Protest The Hero’s “Scurrilous” receives a solid:

5/7. Which is probably a time signature they made up,
despite impossibility.

Cloudkicker: "Beacons"

A true beacon of light in the music world, this album is basically everything anyone could ask for in an instrumental.

Less physics, more amazing metal!

I’ve been wanting to do one of these albums for a while now, since this artist has become one of my favorites over the course of a few months. You may also know “Cloudkicker” by the name B.M. Sharp (or just Ben Sharp). Ring any bells? If not, I’ll explain: this man has a ton of acoustic guitar stuff on YouTube that is downright genius. Seriously, go look it up—he’s one of the better guitar players I’ve ever heard. So how does that sort of brilliance translate into another genre? Very well. Very well indeed.

For those of you that don’t know, which may be the majority of you, Cloudkicker is a project by Ben Sharp that simply involves instrumental metal music. There are two exceptions, the albums “Loop” and “Let Yourself Be Huge”; they are more acoustic and lighter in nature, with the latter being an album of serene greatness. But the other albums in Cloudkicker’s repertoire are metal instrumentals that equal and surpass his acoustic songs. Before I move on into reviewing this album, however, I’d like to mention something that is important to realize about this specific artist—and also this specific CD.

You see, the idea behind an instrumental is for the listener to provide their own ideas as to what the song is representing. What story is being told, if you will. Songs with lyrics force us to follow what the singer is saying; we can’t help but be influenced by the words being spoken. The brilliance behind an instrumental album is that it allows our ears and minds to form original pictures and ideas simply from musical stimulation, causing the scope of what the songs mean to reach levels of infinity. We are allowed to create the world that the album lives in. I realize that this sounds like an odd notion, but before you raise your eyebrow too far just give it a try.

 Here is what I advise: start playing the album, making sure your player is not on shuffle or anything of those sorts. Listen to the album all the way through, taking in every layer of music that is presented. Hear the high notes, feel the bass, and sense everything in between. Now, look around you. Look out a window at the picturesque panorama if possible; or look at the objects around you, creating ties between the audio and the visual. Look at the album art and the name of the songs. What story is being told? Who is that, and what is he reading? Why is there extensive complex machinery behind him? Close your eyes; hear what is being played. What do you see or feel? Allow your mind to make a story that fits the music. Let your imagination paint the pictures with the colors provided by the musical stimuli. Just think about, with, and beyond the music.

I can see forever...

The reason I have spent the last paragraph being weird is because of two things. The first is that I love instrumental albums, as well as albums that give a lot of instrumental time (i.e. Between The Buried And Me’s newer albums). They allow and force you to think about what you are listening to—there is no guide in their sonic landscapes. It is the enjoyment of music in its purest form. The second reason is that Cloudkicker must be approached in this method, or else everything will sound very redundant. If you walk into this album with a normal approach, it will not be nearly as enjoyable as it could be.

So let’s get started: how does this album sound from an engineering standpoint? Comparative to previous albums, Ben Sharp has definitely honed his mixing skills since his last (popular) Cloudkicker opus, “The Discovery”. One of my main complaints in my early listening experiences with that album was that it was not very well balanced. There are plenty of places where I wish I could hear some of the more intricate layers in the songs because the overwhelming distorted guitar shoved them soundly to the side. This has been fixed in “Beacons”: everything comes through very clearly and intentionally. I enjoy the crispness of the sound that is heard, even though the distortion of choice is fuzzier than most. This may have something to the cleverly selected kick drum beats that highlight many of the strums on the guitar; this gives the guitar a sharper sound without having to reduce the fuzzy distortion. Speaking of drums, I will have you know that the drums are all programmed in this album. And yet they still sound great! It is not a drum machine; instead it is the use of a ProTools plug-in that turns MIDI into amazing drum tracks. This is a one-man project, after all, so why not use such a thing to ease the recording process?

As for actual songs, I personally think each song has its own slice of genius grafted right in. Even the most mundane-sounding track has purpose in the whole scheme of the album. There is an obvious reason as to why each one was placed into the slot where it was placed. Intentionality screams forth from this album, and I would advise other artists to have the same purposefulness in their song writing and selection for albums. The list of songs creates a home with many rooms for each song to have its own individuality and yet still be found under the same roof.

The genius behind the genius in the genius.

You may be wondering why I have not complained about repetitiveness in this album yet. It is repetitive, and I am fully aware of that. But, you must take into consideration a few things. First of all, the repetitive nature is limited to the bounds of the song itself. There is a MASSIVE difference between a repetitive song and a repetitive album, the former being okay and the latter being not so good. The difference is that a song is one idea; if it repeats itself a few times or decides to extend a riff out longer than you might expect, it’s okay because it’s still the same idea. However, if an album is the same idea over and over again, then it becomes boring. With “Beacons”, the songs may be repetitive, but they are their own idea contain in separate packaging. Plus, if you were to listen very closely and attentively, you might notice that most of the time there is a new layer of sound being added with every repetition. What I’m trying to say is that yes, the album can sound repetitive. But at its core, it really isn’t, and that can be heard with multiple careful listens.

There is something about this album that makes it even more unsettlingly interesting. Have you looked at the titles of the tracks yet? If you have, you might have noticed that they are strange, to say the least, for normal song names. That is because every song name is a phrase that was recorded from a pilot whose plane was going down, meaning that he was facing an inevitable doom in a fiery wreckage of twisted metal and smoke. Let that sink in for a moment. The titles of the tracks are someone’s last words. That always gave me the chills.

As you may have noticed, I am partially in love with this album and failed at hiding it. But what is the point in hiding it? It’s amazing. This is the kind of diamond in the rough that music seekers like me love finding or hearing about from friends. This is proof that the Top 100 lists are a load of crap, that the terrible popular music out there falsely shadows music that is actually good, that true artists aren’t always the ones making millions of dollars and the media headlines on a daily basis. This is beautiful music that paints an even more gorgeous picture with your own imagination. This is penultimate perfection. Cloudkicker’s “Beacons” flies above and beyond expectations, cleanly earning itself a well-deserved:

7 out of 7. What else can be said? Bravo, Ben Sharp. Bravo.