Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Vocalist Changes...Lots of 'em

Lately I've been noticing a whole lot of bands that are changing vocalists. I imagine that kicking out a frontman can be a risky decision, but bands seem to do it anyway. Dance Gavin Dance managed to part ways with scene superstar Jonny Craig and actually get better in the process. They found a decent replacement and made up for it with just flat out better songwriting. Even Attack Attack! got a little bit better after Austin Carlile left to focus on his new band Of Mice & Men (which he was later kicked out of). So here are a few bands that have recently changed or lost a vocalist and what I predict will happen to them.

Chiodos

When anyone hears Chiodos for the first time it is hard to ignore the unique voice of Craig Owens. I'm not saying his voice is always good, but it is unique. Craig was always the poster-boy for Chiodos and, more importantly, the only thing that really made them stand out above other bands in the genre. As someone that has always had mixed feelings about Craig's voice, I still have to say kicking him out was a bad decision, musically and financially. Regardless of whether their new vocalist Brandon Bolmer is any good or not, I highly doubt he will have close to the amount of originality Craig has and I am certain that he will have significantly less little "scene tween" fans that WORSHIP him. Chiodos' new record Illuminaudio drops October 5. Expect a mediocre, forgettable post-hardcore record.


DRAGONFORCE!!!

I apologize for the caps and exclamation marks, but it is nearly impossible to type DRAGONFORCE!!! without doing it. So if you listen to Dforce (loophole) for more than a couple weeks then you probably think you're really cool. Well, you are. I just wanted to let you know that. Anyway, Dforce features some of the most ridiculous musicians playing some of the most ridiculous music as ridiculously high speeds. And over all that is ridiculously retarded ZP Theart with ridiculously overused and cheesy lyrics. I'm not saying Dforce is a great band, but the members are pretty talented, minus Theart (and probably the drummer too. but he is really good at that one beat!). In March of this year Dforce announced that they were parting with Theart due to "insurmountable differences of musical opinion." Maybe they were tired of him writing the same vocal melody with the same lyrics or something, but for some reason it took them 4 albums to realize it. The band is currently holding open auditions in the worldwide search to find a new vocalist, but I'm sure that whoever they find won't make much of a difference in their sound at all (PESSIMIST ALERT!). Honestly DRAGONFORCE!!(dropped one exclamation point, Progress!), if you want me to listen to your new album then pick up Austin Carlile before he's gone (though they would sound like a flamboyant Children Of Bodom if they had a screamer). And don't worry, you can kick him out after you release one album with him.

Check out this epic Dforce audition:



Saosin

Saosin started off epic with their first EP "Translating The Name." They showed promise with their solid songwriting and Anthony Green's amazing vocals. Then Anthony parted with them and Cove Reber joined the band (seriously, what the fuck is up with his name?). They released the "Saosin EP"
which was still solid and gave hope for all who thought they would sink without Green. Then their debut MAJOR LABEL album came out, which was a great deal worse than previous efforts, but was still solid (yes, solid. that seems to be the only word I can use to describe Saosin's earlier work). After that they started sucking balls. End of story. Saosin was dead to me and I hope they were dead to most other people too. BUT WAIT! Just as everyone was under the impression that Saosin would be dead forever, they were resurrected by one of the most promising press releases this world has ever seen. It went a little something like this: "COVE IS KICKED OUT. WE HAVE NO RECORD LABEL. NOW WE CAN WRITE MUSIC THAT WE WANT TO INSTEAD OF BEING corporate robots (I would have put that part in caps but everything else was in caps so i put it in lowercase, see what i did thar?). So as long as Saosin can find a decent vocalist then I could see them releasing an album WAY better then the 2 they released with Cove. Or they could pick up Austin Carlile. But don't worry Saosin, you can kick him out after you release one album with him.

The Human Abstract

The Human Abstract released a very good album in 2006. Then, in 2008, the band tried to write alt-rock, vocalist Nathan Ells farted in a microphone, and for some reason they threw a lot of sweep picking over it. Needless to say (I never got that saying. If it's needless to say then I'm not going to say it). After listening to both of their albums, it was obvious that Ells was the weakest link. In November of last year my prayers were answered by the metal gods and Ells was hit by a truck and killed (JK alert! They actually just kicked him out of the band, but I can dream...). And this amazing news was surprisingly accompanied by better news. Guitarist A.J. Minette (who left after their first album) would make his return. THA have recently finished recording and mixing the album and I am 100% sure that it will be better than Midheaven. Hopefully THA will be back for good. And oh yeah, they already have a new vocalist named Travis Richter, so no Austin Carlile joke (lol, he is a joke!).


And to end this article, I leave you with an inspirational photo of Craig Owens. Love, Tynan



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