Rants In E Minor: "Screamo", its bastard children and why idiots should not be allowed instruments...

Yes, it's another feature, and yes I'm fairly rubbish at regularly updating the blog (massive apologies) but I'm putting that down to a) my laziness, b) having a megaton of stuff to before uni and 3) it's summer, gimme a break! But I digress, "Rants In E Minor" will be me, letting out my inner Bill Hicks and basically spewing a lot of hate and bile into a post, whilst panning for a bit of comedy gold.
Basically what I'm addressing here is bands who scream/roar/whatever in every single song. Obviously it's impossible to reprimand everyone of these tools, and I'll admit one or two bands pull it off (namely Gallows), so I'll focus on the main culprits. First up; Enter Shikari. You do have to feel a little sorry for the St Albans troglodites as they're one example of the NME's cycle of building bands up to knock 'em down. But ES are one band who deserved it, in my humble opinion. Welding a few rave synths, bleeps and bloops on to nu-metal does not equal genius. It barely equals music! In essence, Enter Shikari are an English Limp Bizkit. I'll admit I had a soft spot for "Sorry, You're Not A Winner" when it came out, but apart from that everything else is an assualt to my fairly small ears. Take recent single "Juggernauts", the musical (I use that word lightly) equivalent of a piece of play-doh that's been under the sofa for a decade and accumulated god-only-knows-what onto it. Sounds that should be left on a Gameboy, lyrics on "community", maaaan that even the most pretentious 6th Former would reject, banal action moive shout outs ("(What the hell will happen now? I really don't know man!")...it baffles me how people can actually listen to this claptrap and deem it "awesummm!!11 :P lol". What's even worse is the video for latest single "No Sleep Tonight". A piss-poor metaphor, basically the masses against the classes. The lead singer bumps into some guy who looks pretty well off, proceeds to stalk him and then with an army of idiotic fans tells him he "won't be getting any sleep tonight. Pure genius, I'm sure you'll admit, but the problem is Enter Shikari are most likely the offspring of the smarmy middle class type of guy shown in the video, so all they're doing is shouting at Mummy and Daddy for not getting them the right Christmas present, or something just as petulant.Accross the Atlantic, there's even more to make you want fill your ears with cement. Starting with Brokencyde, or as they prefer to be called; brokeNCYDE (The name apparently comes from the idea of their music "being broken or "broken inside" due to their relationship problems"...real deep). You only have to look at what the band call themselves before deciding someone has to be physically punished. "Se7en", "Phat J", "Mikl", and "Antz" are four white-than-white suburban boys from New Mexico who make an unholy mixture of screamo and "crunk". That's probably not even the most hateable thing about them. Only one of the band plays any form or instrument and one guy is there for lighting. LIGHTING! Controlling lights does not make you part of a band! And I haven't even got to the lyrics yet. If you thought normal hip-hop was bad for sexism, cast your peepers on these words of wisdom; "I walk into the club looking kind of sexy now/I see these shorties in the corner, they started making out/They pull their panties down, they take their pants off/Then they started getting freaky on the dance floor/Shake it mommy give it to me like you need some love/I got some bottles in the caddy that we can open up/Let's get drunk tonight, baby we don't have to fuck/And bring your friend along, maybe we can have some fun". You read them in Stewie Griffin's voice too, right? You know the world is messed up when John Lennon is murdered, yet music like this is allowed. If you're going to kill someone, you should have some taste.


The final part of this tripod of evil is Attack Attack!, who are more hilarious than they are hateable. Don't get me wrong, they are still everything that is wrong with the world but you can't help but chuckle...possibly in disgust or horror. Effectively an American Enter Shikari, concocting a mix of electronica and nu-metal. For an NME-esque reference, Funeral For A Friend and Aqua. Yes, Aqua of "Barbie Girl" fame. They have someone lip-syncing the screams of the old singer, they have a song called "What Happens If I Can't Check My MySpace When We Get There?" which I suspect isn't ironic, and the video for "Stick Stickly" shows what is possibly the worst guitar playing style ever. Between this bollocks, X-Factor pap and donk, it's hard to decide what to hate more.

Folie A Deux

"Nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy". So goes "Disloyal Order Of Water Buffaloes", the first song from Fall Out Boy's latest album. Dontcha just love irony? Going on general opinion, FOB aren't the most popular band around at the minute, unless you're a 12-18 year old girl with a rainbow coloured range of skinny jeans, ears with more holes than Swiss cheese and a hairspray addiction that could be the reason for global warming. But it appears that there's an actual army (rivalling the MCRmy) of these girls buying FOB albums, explaining why they've become so popular in the last 3/4 years.

"Folie A Deux" means in English "a madness shared by two". Some of you may be thinking, "why could they just have kept their 'madness' to themselves?" But then who would we have clogging up various MTV channels, and who would the hardcore metalheads/hipsters hate for the next two or three years?

FOB have definitely become a guilty pleasure for people with taste. They're undeniably catchy but so's chlamidya. There's something about Pete Wentz too, he was meant to be the freaky, geeky outsider who listened to Morrissey. Yet now he's a multi-millionaire, emo pin up, record label boss and he's getting married to Ashlee Simpson. Methinks something doesn't add up here.

Anyways back to the album. All I can really say is average. It's got the usual pop-rock anthemics, trampling over the grave of punk, though where as the last album had more of a hip-hop influence on it, "Folie A Deux" aimed straight for the pop charts. But this is where it fails. It's a mess of bad lyrics, overthought musical ideas and an oveload of guest stars (Brendon Urie, Pharell, Debbie Harry, whatshisface from Gym Class Heroes, even Elvis bloody Costello). I don't even want to reference any individual songs since they're all one big mess of powerchords and utterly bad titles ("Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet"? What in the name of Joe Strummer is that?). Only the first 3 or 4 songs hold my attention the whole way through, and even they're pretty blah really.

I must admit I'm a fan of FOB. Not in the "OMG I luv dem!!11one1 fob rawkk, peet wents if fit" way (those kind of people should be rounded up and locked in an underground bunker), but I appreciate that they know a good pop tune/melody when it hits their lugholes. Saying that, their apparent "gift" has deserted them this time around, with a complete lack of hits here. The last two albums had, and I may get some stick for this, some solid gold pop/rock/emo classics in the shape of "Dance, Dance" and "This Ain't A Scene..." whereas now all we have is "I Don't Care", which a lobotmised sloth could have written. At least there'll be a good few years before the next album.

5/10