Rising Enemy – Atheneum
There’s power in artificiality. For one thing, it takes away some of the expectations of poor, regular humans using their regular strength to do great things and to be original and perfect each time that they attempt something.
This is one of the reasons why beloved classic pop-rock has largely gone away. Can you really depend just on a guy or girl singing to create great songs? Can you really be entertained forever by someone playing the same lightning-fast riffs?
Modern rock bands have no faith in that and can’t afford to risk it all on human effort. They want perfection. They know that they have the technology tools to help, and if they do not reach it, they at least get close to it.
Rising Enemy’s “Atheneum” is a balanced, modern rock song. It contains anger, sure. But there’s nothing here that sounds dissonant. In fact, the distortion is managed like someone tasked with keeping a power plant going. The baritone register vocals are delivered confidently. Nothing of this would suggest that Rising Enemy could transition into being a jam band or that this was recorded live. But that’s the point. It’s meant to be a perfectly stable rock concoction.
Gooseberry – Dying To Meet You
Novel music genres tend to be spearheaded by angry bands making loud music in their garage. They then become famous. Audiences clap and rage along with them. Nobody cares if the guitars are in tune, or if the singer can sing.
Those are the halcyon days, but they can’t last forever. Fans start making demands like a wife trying to change a husband for the better after the ring has been slipped onto the finger.
Audiences start demanding professionalism. They want their singers to intrigue them with their voices. They want all the instruments to be in tune and for the guitar players to resemble some sort of modern wizards. They want the songs to be so good that they can be shared with strangers.
Gooseberry’s “Dying To Meet You” sounds like a band from the glory days of grunge and alt-rock, from the moment when only the best performers could still be regarded as viable commercial options. The highlight of “Dying To Meet You” is the singing, a blend between James Maynard Keenan and Scott Weiland. It’s classy, it’s well-performed, and, yes, it’s alt-rock.
