Album reviews

As albums went last year, the release of “Icky Thump” did not escape the general public or my eyes. There was an air of excitement to it all, but to my hindsight, I was not the biggest White Stripes fan. It took some time but I really got to dig a lot of the Stripes early work. It was within their previous album I saw they finally reached a real plateau that I almost didn’t expect to rise above; man I love being wrong. “Icky Thump” is one of the few albums that leave you absolutely shocked; not for being offensive or being something alternatively new but is just exceptionally fantastic. While the added note of being a two man band kind of adds to the sheer feat of making music like they have previously produced, the fact they have excelled beyond most big name bands in producing an imaginative and actually “good” album gives them their own merit. The album traverses genre and flair with each song and does so with ease. There was only one song on the entire album I didn’t enjoy and it’s easy to spot from a mile away but even then, the album retains its poise and just works beyond a doubt.

In the first of hopefully many submissions from a musically inclined friend of mine, Kyle Schmelz, my student submission this week is “Comalies” from Lacuna Coil. Comparable and mistaken for Evanescence more often than not, this is a very different band from anything I’d previously experienced. Defining their own sub genre of Gothic Metal in the band’s career, “Comalies” is their “creative explosion” as stated by one of the lead singers, Christina Scabbia, for Lacuna Coil. Not being a die-hard metal fan, musically this album is quite good and breaks out of the conventions one would associate with popular power metal. The lyrics are well thought and provocative which is decent compared to some of the more over used lyrics in the metal genre. Just from initial impressions and all comparative ideals aside, I like the album and as a CD buy, I’m satisfied overall. It’s a good album but it’s not a great album and as metal goes, it’s really something different which is always a plus.