Scuzz Sundays: Evanescence – “Call Me When You’re Sober”

August 29, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘The Open Door’ (LP) (Released on September 25, 2006) (via Wind Up Records)

Good Morning to you! You’re reading the words of Jacob Braybrooke, I have returned from my short break away from the blog, and so it’s time for me to add another entry to our ‘Scuzz Sundays’ library, because it is – once again – my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! It has been a little while since we had a female-led band featured on a ‘Scuzz Sunday’ on the site and I like to be inclusive for all on the site, so I’ve decided to whip up a quick one from Amy Lee’s Evanescence today since, all things considered, they are a good quality group. The lead single from their second album – ‘The Open Door’ – released in 2006, ‘Call Me When You’re Sober’ reached the top five of the UK singles chart that year. For their second album, the Arkansas 5-piece group decided to head towards a Symphonic Metal direction and they used backing vocals from choirs when the album was written over an 18 month period. Evanescence have always sold well in European markets, and this album was no different because ‘The Open Door’ topped the album charts in Greece, Switzerland, Germany and Australia too. The record also won ‘Album Of The Year’ at the MTV Australia Video Music Awards in 2007, and the record has also been certified as Double Platinum according to the RIAA. Let’s revisit the lead single below.

The pressure was certainly mounting up for Amy Lee’s quintet to deliver the goods for the follow-up LP to their widely successful ‘Fallen’ debut in 2003, and they made small steps to repeating their huge success with ‘Call Me When You’re Sober’, a single that reached ten of the different component Billboard charts in the US. Lee wrote the anthemic single about her dwindled relationship with Seether’s lead vocalist, Shaun Morgan, and she recorded the soon-to-be hit of the time with co-producer Dave Fortman (Slipknot, Simple Plan) as she penned the lyrics about how addiction issues had terminated the ties with her former love interest. To change things up, Lee’s band transformed the Grunge sounds of ‘Bring Me To Life’ and such earlier hits for a more sultry mix of strings and delayed pedal effects for ‘Call Me When You’re Sober’, while the rest of ‘The Open Door’ included a few classical Piano ballads. This single would have played out as more familiar for their fans though, with hard-hitting lyrics like “Don’t cry to me/If you loved me/You would be here with me” and “Sick with shame, Must be exhausting to lose your own game” being recited above a fairly radio friendly style of melodramatic guitar riffs and mascara-wearing aggression. Lee still seems very confident in what she’s going after here, however, and she delivers these lines with a cool confidence that suggests a little bit more than simply selling units. While the instrumentation is admittedly a little on the forgettable or even predictable side of her usual angle, the whimsical Piano breaks and the sweeping bass melodies are packaged together neatly. There’s some nice personality to the slightly evil sort-of chuckle towards the end, and the assortment of Strings towards the melodic chorus decorates the proceedings with a solid coat of polish. Overall, this is a haunting monologue that may come off as a bit bland or a bit too pop-oriented at times, but it certainly does more good than it does any real harm. Amy Lee’s vocals are lovely, as always, and the swooping mixture of different instruments feels very neat overall. It definitely has a lot of polish to it, but it has enough substance to stand out nicely enough by the time it stops spinning. A solid, if not quite up to personal best, offering.

Pictured: Amy Lee (Lead Vocals/Keyboard), Troy McLawhorn (Lead Guitar), Jen Majura (Rhythm Guitar/Backing Vocals), Tim McCord (Bass Guitar) & Will Hunt (Drums) (2020) (Photo via Concord.com)

If you want to revisit another taste of Evanescence’s 00’s days, then make sure that you are ‘Going Under’ with me for an in-depth dig through their prior discography here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/10/11/scuzz-sundays-evanescence-going-under/

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Fallen” (Released on 3rd March, 2003) (via Wind-Up/Epic Records)

That’s all for now! Thank you for your patience in allowing me to deliver some new content to your eats when the time suited me, and I’ll be kicking off a brand new week of daily music recommendations tomorrow with a sleeper hit from a British female indie rock singer-songwriter from Ripon, North Yorkshire. She started to gain attention by attracting new viewers to her acoustic YouTube performances in their hundreds when she was only twelve years old, and, in 2015, she was nominated for the BBC’s ‘Sound Of 2016’ Award.

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Scuzz Sundays: Korn – “Freak On A Leash”

January 31, 2021 — Leave a comment

All I have got to say to you is: Da-boom-na-da-noom-na-na-me-na. It’s Scuzz Sunday!

Pictured: Cover Art for “Follow The Leader” (LP) (Released on August 18th, 1998) (via Epic Records)

Good Morning to you – my name is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for another entry into our weekly Scuzz Sundays feature on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write about a different piece of music every day! The last seven days have really flown by, and it’s already time for us to revisit a classic from the Emo-Rock and Pop-Punk genres from the late-90’s to the mid 00’s to see how they hold up, named in honor of the long-lost Scuzz TV channel. Korn’s “Freak On A Leash” was released over 20 years ago, and the track had got to #24 in the UK Singles Chart. Released from the California-bred Nu Metal band Korn, this was the lead single from their third studio LP, “Follow The Leader”, which has been certified as 5X Platinum by the RIAA of the US. Although the album was their first not to be produced by Ross Robinson, with that mantle being taken up by the duo of Steve Thompson and Toby Wright instead, it peaked at the #1 spot on four charts, and it sold over 14 million units worldwide, thus remaining to be Korn’s most commercially-oriented album. In fact, this single is most notable for it’s music video in particular, where the lines between computer animation and live performance were blurred. The video itself garnered wins and nominations for both the Grammy Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards, and it’s twinned to the ‘Family Values Tour’ of the LP. Let’s mosh to “Freak On A Leash” below.

One fact that you might not know about Korn’s “Freak On A Leash” is that Korn once included an instrumental section of the track which they used to call the “noisy guitar break”, but this interlude had been edited out by Korn, as per their fans request of removal, yet it had still managed to hit #6 on the Billboard Alternative Songs Chart and #10 on the Mainstream Rock Songs chart in the US. With a simple “Boom-na-da-noom-na-na-ne-ma”, a crossover hit was born. Don’t get them wrong, “Freak On A Leash” is still a distorted and aggressive track, as dissonant guitar breaks mesh with rapid drum beats to craft the heavy, angry tone. The lyrics are opened by a grunge-driven Synth line and a delayed pedal effect to the bass guitar, as “Something takes a part of me” and “Every time I start to believe/Something’s raped and taken from me” are crooned in a low pitched delivery by vocalist Jonathan Davies. The harsh distortion of his voice, later on, leads to a more anthemic guitar riff and a line of static noise, which is submerged under heavy reverb effects. The structure is quite well-narrated, with the distortion effects signaling for stadium-sized rock instrumentation, and the lighter verses implying a more internalized quality. The iconic refrain is screeched by Williamson, and it is met by an unusual mix of scatting and psychedelia. The breakdown has a more darker and melodic feel to it, and the chorus is your typical state of Nu-Metal affairs, as the high guitar notes in the build-up lead to an explosive lead guitar hook that pays off nicely. The vocals are pretty nonsensical and the experimentation is daft, but the backing track is creative and the unusual vocal breakdown is still memorable – whether that is for better or worse. To conclude, although the track is undeniably dated, you could get a lot worse. The vocals break the immersion for me a little too much for me, but the instrumentation is well-paced. Silly – but it is heavy, it’s crazy, and it’s a bit catchy. Boom-na-da-noom-na-na-ne-ma!

Pictured: Jonathan Davis (Lead Vocals/Bagpipes/Programming), James Schaffer (Lead Guitar), Reginald Arvizu (Bass Guitar), Brian Welch (Rhythm Guitar/Backing Vocals) and Ray Luzier (Drums) (2015) (Photo Credit: Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

That’s all I have got for your Alternative Metal wrap-up for this week! Scuzz Sundays will be back at the usual time again next week. Before we get to that point – we need to ring in the new month. Join me again tomorrow as we turn to a familiar face – who we have previously covered on the blog – to review a piece of his work from his latest EP, which was released back in September via Friends Of Jagjaguwar. This electronic producer has been played on 168 episodes of programmes on NTS Radio, where he used to host a weekly radio show. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Scuzz Sundays: Twisted Sister – “Heavy Metal Christmas”

December 13, 2020 — Leave a comment

A season as warped as the ever-shifting shape of a Twister ice lolly. It’s Scuzz Sunday!

Pictured: Cover Art for “A Twisted Christmas” (LP) (Released on October 17th. 2006) (via Razor & Tie)

Season’s Greetings – or, should I say, in this case, Season’s Beatings – to you! My name is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for a Festive edition of our weekly Scuzz Sundays feature, where we take a look back at the Pop-Punk and the Emo-Rock classics from Christmas Past, released between the late-1990’s and the mid-2000’s, to see if they can hold up to quality and value in the modern times! Twisted Sister were a US Heavy Metal band who really challenged the gender politics of their era, which saw rise to numerous acts like Judas Priest and AC/DC in gaining some mainstream attention, by often wearing elaborate make-up and gender-blurring costumes that infused a sheen of Glam-Rock into their music, which really set them apart from their contemporaries. It goes without saying that 2006’s “A Twisted Christmas” was the weirdest full-length album in their discography. However, it also proved to be the famous group’s last album, too. Talk about neatly tying a ribbon on top of a lengthy career like a tightly wrapped present, right? The album, distributed by Razor & Tie Entertainment, is a mixture of Metal-themed reworkings of classic Christmas carols and Christmas-themed versions of the band’s classic material. “Heavy Metal Christmas”, the track in question on the blog today, is the 5-piece’s own Metal-themed version of “The Twelve Days Of Christmas”, with obviously modified lyrics. Let’s watch the music video below.

The band produced the full-length album release themselves, and they filmed the studio performance above for GameTap, and the LP record became something of a viral hit, with the band’s metal-themed version of “O Come All Ye Faithful” becoming arguably one of their more well-known releases since the 1990’s. Meanwhile, “Heavy Metal Christmas”, the track in question, looks at the traditional children’s carol through a different set of guitar riffs, and a different polish of make-up, for that measure. Replacing “Partridge In A Pear Tree” with a “Tattoo Of Ozzy”, the track continually builds up it’s vocal layers with a gradual showering of goofy heavy gifts and self-ironic jokes related to the stereotypes of Glam metal and vintage Metal stereotypes, which play out in the same rhythmic fashion as the well-known carol. “Spandex Pants” and “Leather Jackets” are included in the equation, along with “Cans Of Hairspray” and “Silver Crosses” later on. Of course, the instrumentation is quite different to the old Carol – with a loud set of powerful Drum beats, scattered Guitar licks and brief bass guitar replacing the more Choral sound of the original version. The tune of the ancient carol remains however, and it gradually adds new layers of instrumental guitar riffs and joyous backing vocals while the track runs along a fairly lengthy five minute duration. The self-referential lyrics come across as fun and catchy, even if the joke gets a little tired towards the end. There is mostly enough to keep things fresh though, and the actual gifts used in the lyrics don’t feel too forced on, or majorly obvious. Overall, this is Christmas – through a different amp.

Pictured: Dee Snider (Lead Vocals), Eddie “Fingers” Ojeda (Lead Guitar/Backing Vocals), Jay Jay French (Rhythm Guitar), Mark Mendoza (Bass Guitar) and AJ Pero (Drums) (in 2006) (via NorthJersey.com)

Thank you for checking out my latest blog post! More Christmas-themed music comes tomorrow in the form of a late-90’s track that was later re-worked in the late-00’s by a classic British pop duo who currently hold the distinction of being the most commercially successful duo in the history of British music. At the BRIT Awards in 2009, in London, they were given the honour of the “Lifetime Achievement Award”. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/

Scuzz Sundays: Slipknot – “Before I Forget”

February 23, 2020 — Leave a comment

Forget about tying the knot, this group have slipped the knot! It’s Scuzz Sunday time!

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses” (Released in May 2004) (Roadrunner Records)

Good evening to you, I’m Jacob Braybrooke and it’s time for your weekly throwback to the emo, punk and rock scene of old, as Scuzz Sunday is here! Slipknot’s “Before I Forget” is a landmark Heavy Metal track that I still often hear in bars and clubs, even sometimes on the radio, to the present day! It was originally released as a single off their third studio album – titled “Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses)”, released in 2004. The album was released after a long period of writer’s block between the members of the band, who later decided to incorporate a more traditional style of songwriting, with melodic song structures and heavy guitar riffs, along with the experimentation of using acoustic guitars. Wouldn’t you know it, the album was a massive hit! It received multiple awards, including several awards for “Before I Forget” as a single from the likes of the Grammy’s, where it won “Best Metal Performance”. The band are still highly popular to this day, with their latest LP release “We Are Not Your Kind” reaching #1 in the UK Albums Chart. I saw frontman Corey Taylor appear on an episode of BBC 2’s “QI” as well and he’s actually a very charming and articulate guy. Enough of my natter, let’s revisit “Before I Forget” in all it’s glory with the video below.

1 second in, a thumping guitar line threads along a melodic bass riff before Taylor shouts “Go” and we officially have lift-off on the mosh-pit activating, definitively masculine vocal sensibilities and fierce drumming chords, all of which are performed at a brisk pace, to a hard rock tune that sounds oddly accessible to people who have maybe never heard anything from the band before. The signature vocal line goes: “I am a world before I am a man/I was a creature before I could stand/I will remember before I forget”, which has been produced over a revved-up tempo and a chorus that shifts along with the ethereal tone of the no-nonsense lyricism, which – in turn, gels with the Halloween Monster aesthetics of the band’s masked (and numbered band member) imagery. There’s a little bit of artistry to their costumes and I feel their art work has been produced with a nice helping of attention to detail, even if it’s not very far off the Viking aesthetics of Eurovision legends Lordi, functioning as a somewhat “Polar Opposite” to the symphonic ballad style of the Finnish icons. Overall, I think the quality of the track still holds up, it was never really my style in all honesty, but I can appreciate the impact it had on re-positioning the Metal genre to a hungry audience thirsted of it. I think it’s just like Pop, but with heavy chords – as a chanting chorus line and the accessibility of the track lends itself well to the culture that it’s catering for. I like the band for what they were doing and although I wouldn’t choose to listen to a whole album from them, it’s a perfectly acceptable track which holds up.

Pictured: Corey Taylor (Lead Vocals), Mick Thomson (Lead Guitar), Shawn Crahan (Percussion/Art Director/Photographer), Craig Jones (Keyboard), Jim Root (Bass Guitar), Chris Fehn (Backing Vocals), Paul Gray (Backing Vocals), Joey Jordison (Drums/Mixing) and Sid Wilson (Turntables) (via PR)

Thank you for reading this post! I hope you enjoyed it and don’t forget that I’ll be back tomorrow, as usual, with an in-depth look at a track from a fresh singer-songwriter from South London whose video for tomorrow’s track was directed by critically-acclaimed British rapper Loyle Carner (I really dig him) and his brother, Ryan Carner! She was also considered for the BBC’s Sound Of 2020 award! If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime

Scuzz Sundays: Nightwish – “Wish I Had An Angel”

February 2, 2020 — Leave a comment

An angel would be nice, but I wish I had a clear plan for what I’m going to do after I graduate from my university course in summer! It’s time for your Scuzz Sundays post!

Pictured: Tarja Turunen (Lead Vocals), Marco Hietela (Lead Vocals/Bass Guitar), Tuomas Holopainen (Keyboard/Piano/Synths), Emppu Vuorinen (Lead Guitar) and Jukka Nevalainen (Drums) (2004 Band lineup – taken from the official Nightwish website)

It’s the end of Dry January and another cold working week here in the UK, which also means that it’s time for your weekly emo/rock/punk 90’s or 00’s throwback track as part of the aptly titled Scuzz Sundays theme on the blog. I’m Jacob Braybrooke, as always, taking you back to the simpler times of Scuzz TV as I revisit some of the tracks that I used to listen to during the days of Scuzz TV’s existence. “Wish I Had An Angel”, by the Finnish Symphonic Metal band Nightwish, is this week’s Scuzz Sunday track. It was the second single taken from their fifth studio album, “Once”, released back in September 2004 via the Spinefarm label. The eleventh single for the band, “Wish I Had An Angel” reached #60 on the UK Singles Chart upon it’s original release, becoming the band’s most commercially successful single to date, a title which it still holds to this very day. It gained popularity in the mainstream after it was featured on the soundtrack for the 2005 film, “Alone In The Dark”, loosely based on a video game series which I’m not personally familiar with at all. Let’s revisit the music video below.

Interestingly, the video above is an alternate cut of the official music video, as the original version featured scenes taken from the “Alone In The Dark” film, which were later edited out from the video – reportedly due to the overwhelmingly negative critical response to the film. In any case, it’s still a fantastic video full of all the Gothic coats, black smeared mascara and close-up angles that you could muster. Then-vocalist Tarja Turunen and bassist Marco Hietala provide duelling vocals, extravagantly chiming: “I wish I had your angel for one moment of love/I wish I had your angel tonight” over a frantic line of heavy guitar riffs and a rough pre-orchestra instrumentation. They contemplate the pain of beauty: “Last dance, first kiss/Your touch my bliss/Beauty always comes with dark thoughts”, crooned as an operatic hook by Turnunen, along with Hietela’s sighing: “I wish I had your angel/Your Virgin Mary undone/I’m in love with my lust/Burning angel wings to dust” over a symphonic composition of techno-groove metal. The instrumentation is also very orchestral, with minimal keyboard riffs, as the sound heavily features violin strings and cello arrangements, with a choral vocal hook in the background. The overall result is a progressive dark rock anthem which functions as an operatic ballad, with the male vocals and the female vocals constantly going back and forth to tell the story of taking your lust to a very dark place in your mind and how it’s easy to fall victim to this mentality as a rival. The guitar chords are punchy and the drums sound a little bit processed, which gives off slight vibes of Evanescence, who were enjoying the peak of their popularity within the same era. Overall, the sound may be a little bit Eurovision, perhaps, with a hint of cheese overfest. However, the duet vocal performance is very engaging and the instrumentation is heavy enough to justify the heightened sense of the pacing, format, composition and songwriting. As cold as ice but as solid as a rock!

Pictured: Cover Artwork for “Once” (June 2004) (Spinefarm Records) (Nuclear Blast Records)

Thank you for reading this post! I’ll be back tomorrow, as usual, with an in-depth look at the brand new track from an animated British band, led by a former Blur member, who notably won the “Best British Group” award at the BRIT Awards in 2018! If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/