Tag Archives: 2011

Dec 09 2011
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Music Reviews

The Roots – Undun

I have black thoughts, therefore my name’s the same – Black Thought, off 2008’s “@15”

I always listen through an album at least three times before I commit anything to paper, that’s basic policy. Few albums make it past six, fewer still become rituals, enduring works that worm their way past the review process to install themselves in my listening regiment (and on my iPhone) as I gradually unravel their intricacies. Undun is one such album – in fact, you’re safe assuming this review is a work in progress: The Roots have crystallized their trademark inventions into a conceptual powerhouse that seems to constantly beg re-assessment. Everyman Redford Stevens isn’t an enigmatic figure, and his story is (perhaps) a prototypical one, but it’s compelling. I keep going back through his reverse-narrative looking for details, digging for the causes to his downfall, each time returning with something different to turn over in my mind. Readers, consider this your teal deer (tl;dr): Undun is a dense and exciting little concept-album and it deserves a half-hour of your time. If you like thoughtful hip-hop that doesn’t compromise in the name of authenticity, this can be your winter joint. It’s dead short, so go spin it so that we can discuss it later – over Guinness and comics, perhaps.

This album’s been available for free online streaming for while now, so Roots fans are already going to know what I mean when I say that Undun is really brief (even disappointingly so), and more than a little strange. “Memento-style” gets thrown around a lot in critical reviews of this album (being critics’ favourite cinema reference after “Rashōmon-style”), and there’s an extent to which that’s true: Undun is the reverse-narrative of one Redford (“‘Hood Everyman”) Stevens, and it begins very emphatically and obviously with his death, marking an instant and refreshing reversal of the typical concept-album protagonist’s narrative. By now, readers, you also know that I love concept albums, and Undun doesn’t disappoint: by intentionally reversing the linear formula of thematically similar concept-works like The Wall and even Tommy, The Roots set themselves apart. The fate of their African-American protagonist is prefigured in the first instrumental track, and as an audience we’re left to pick up the pieces reverse-chronologically in order to figure this whole mess out; the results are predictably disorienting and relentlessly ominous. Another novel touch, the plethora of performers articulating Redford don’t go around blaming anyone the way Pink did back in the late 70’s: even to the extent of narrow-mindedness this is Redford’s story, and it centers around his decisions and his conditions. Undun is one black American’s struggle, beginning (that is, ending) with a lengthy piano suite, and ending (or beginning) with the silence of his death. So how does the eleven-strong Jimmy Fallon house-band go about sonically retelling the details of Redford’s downfall? To be frank, they hardly do at all.

Undun opens to silence, and then to the drone of a failed heart rate monitor and a partially back-masked instrumental, fading gradually into the strings and choirs and organs whose accumulation slowly immerses us into “Sleep”, the album’s proper starting-point. Because this is The Roots, the grand majority of the instrumentals on display are performed live, and as I’ve mentioned in several previous reviews, live instrumentals ground hip-hop – they have a way of forcing things down to street-level. As a result, even when Aaron Livingston breaks the ambience of the opening track, singing “I’ve lost a lot of sleep to dreams/And I do not miss them yet/I wouldn’t wish them on than worst of enemies/Let them burn, go from here/Like when autumn leaves”, the backing beat never loses itself to the poeticism of the lyrics; from the metronome snaps to the organ arpeggios, “Sleep” is ominous but unpretentious. It’s the moment before Redford dies, but Black Thought and co. keep things introspective and eerily quiet, it gives the audience foreboding when they might expect triumph (or vindication), and as is Undun’s thematic mantra, reveals effectively nothing as to Redford’s actual cause of death. Things (literally) come to life following that, as “Make My” flourishes out of a great guest verse by up-and-comer Big K.R.I.T., waxing materialistic-yet-thoughtful lines on his opener, “I did it all for the money lord, it’s what it seems/Well in the world of night terrors, it’s hard to dream/Hollerin’ cash rules everything, let’s call it C.R.E.A.M./cause when it rises to the top – you get the finer things”. The Roots’ resident MC, Black Thought, even thinks to remind us ahead of time that we won’t be fully assembling Redford’s story, that it’s an entirely intentional conceit: ““Unwritten and unraveled/It’s the dead-man’s pedantic” he tells us, preemptively denying answers to questions that nag the listener throughout Undun. “Make My” is comfortable and lush, a slow groove with shifting keyboards and Dice Raw thoroughly justifying his presence on the sung chorus – again taking the listener another step backwards into the life of Redford Stevens, further into his late-life introspection.

Intermission time. Basically, I can do this sort of writeup for every track of the album and end up with a 5000-word review (and believe me, the option’s tempting). Every track features gorgeous, full production (thanks in no small part to live-instrumentalism). Every track is introspective, here gloomy, occasionally celebratory (on the intermission-like “Kool On”). Every track features a glut of guest-artists that miraculously manage to sidestep the collaboration-effort feel that has, in the past, prevented me from fully enjoying The Roots’ efforts. “One Time” features a ?uestlove drum-line that opens like something off Rising Down. Several tracks feature sung Dice Raw choruses that have more or less completely legitimized him in my sight. “The OtherSide” is stark and crushing, with Just Blaze yelling on the intro and Black Thought channeling Redford (perhaps in his teens), claiming “You might say I could be doin something positive … But when that paper got low, so did my tolerance/and there aint no truth in the dare, without the consequence/Listen if not for these ‘hood inventions I’d just be another kid from the block, with no intentions”. It’s partially autobiographical, and like all of Undun it’s looming and desperate and gives almost no plot details at all. To get further into the lyrical inventions here would be to start block-quoting – which I’m going to staunchly oppose – but rest assured that the tone of personal advancement through criminal behaviour, of desperate situations and the seemingly-inevitable means invented to survive them, absolutely pervades this album. The helplessness and claustrophobia intensify as the listener nears the album’s closer, naturally expecting some twist-ending genesis to Redford’s downfall. By the time you hit the album’s final vocal line with Dice Raw’s “I’m just tryna tip the scales my way”, and hear it followed by four brief instrumental tracks, you realize the album offers no resolution whatsoever, and depending on your aesthetic leanings you’ll either be thoroughly perplexed or absolutely impressed (I know which I was).

So Undun is perplexing and contradictory, it denies itself a proper narrative in the name of generalizing and acting as a metaphor for the experiences the underprivileged and desperate in America; that much is clear. All of this it accomplishes as well as any other album I’ve heard, and it isn’t alone in it’s concept (The Roots themselves approach this topic constantly in their work). Of course, Undun isn’t a perfect album either – for instance it’s a gigantic downer, and despite one or two exceptions (“The OtherSide” and “Kool On”, tenuously) every track is depressing and realistic. Undun’s ‘hood dreams are locked firmly in the realm of reality, and for Black Thought et al. that reality is one of brief ecstasy, crime and premature death. Perhaps Undun is a quietly triumphant work (being, after all, a creation of African Americans that circumvented Redford’s destructive cycle), but it absolutely is a sad, slow album; for me, at least, it’s perfect somber Autumn music. The charge of pretension can be leveled at Undun (and, yes, this accusation sticks against all Roots projects), though I feel its complexity need not be a weakness. Undun isn’t condemning, it’s staunchly realistic, and if it’s overarching gloominess proves too much to bear, evoking those emotions is well within Undun’s artistic intent. More problematic is the fact that Undun has blinders on: there are no women here, no secondary characters (if you assume all collaborators are articulating in the character of Redford, as the album seems to intend), no concrete plot details or resolution, no family or friends. It can be argued the album even loses focus of its reverse-chronological conceit halfway through, though the finale brings everything into focus. Regardless, Undun is, very emphatically, one lonely doomed man’s gradual slide into death. Redford is a prototype and a metaphor, and apparently for that reason The Roots opt to excise almost all specific details of his life from the album (though we know he’s a poet, writer, and comics fan, and the music videos fill out his character even more). It makes for an isolating listen, and it undeniably hinders the experience in a sense – for some its limited lyrical scope will significantly impact their enjoyment. Likely for these same reasons, I’m again obligated to mention that Undun is just short as heck. Clocking in at a slim 38 minutes, closer to 30 if you discount the instrumental tracks, ‘concept-EP’ might be a better way of explaining The Roots’ thought-process here. Personally I’ve found their sprawling, lengthy discography to be a hindrance in the past, but certainly for full asking price listeners are getting an uncharacteristically slim amount of content here.

Undun is an unapologetic art piece. It’s short and narrow-minded, conceptually dense, sad and desperate. This is all to say that I’ve really enjoyed it, but it falls far outside the norm (even for an album by The Roots). You have to know what you’re getting into here: it’s slim profile and status as The Roots’ first and only concept-album are inevitably going to set it apart from their catalogue. If anything I’ve written here sounds appealing to you, Undun might be exactly what you need. And if it sounds like a pretentious art-piece that drags The Roots and their pack of collaborators off to a haughty place you’d rather not see them go? Well, there’s always last year’s How I Got Over.

9.0

Originally published right here, December 2011. 

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Dec 09 2011
2 Comments
Music Reviews

Rammstein – Made In Germany

So sixteen years later, Rammstein finally releases a greatest hits compilation + 1 (“Mein Land”). Is it an essential document? Why not – the crunchy, dancy Germans have been a fixture of the post-industrial dance scene for a long time now, and their legions of fans and pyrotechnic live shows firmly affix their right to drop a collection of their greatest-appreciated hits. The quick verdict reads as such: if you don’t know Rammstein yet, this certainly isn’t a bad way to get acquainted. If you’re a collector, the bonus disc is packed with an hour of more or less every Rammstein remix (and the odd reimagination) you’ll ever need, and legend has it there’s a super-ultra-special-deluxe edition floating around with three DVDs chronicling nearly every music video they’ve ever made. However, if you’re a Rammstein neophyte, and their four-on-the-floor stomp and techno-leanings don’t really “do it” for you, you can safely avoid this one. Rammstein is absurdly consistent to the extent that many of their songs are indistinguishable to a non-German-speaking listener, and many of the remixes are incremental dance spinoffs of the originals, meaning that if you simply don’t like Rammstein, this isn’t going to change your mind. Made In Germany isn’t necessary, it isn’t comprehensive, and it isn’t particularly eye-opening, nor are the remastered versions on display here enormous improvements on the original mixes. To the extent that all this is true, I say Made In Germany is exactly as advertised: bite-size Rammstein for people that already love Rammstein, and are fans of neat packaging (and who isn’t?).

Disc 1: Like so many listeners, I was introduced to Rammstein in highschool, well after their career and fame had begun to develop (thanks to an entrepreneuring Trent Reznor nod on the Lost Highway soundtrack). This meant that Herzeleid, Sehnsucht, Mutter and Reise Reise were already out; this meant that I already had everything I needed to construct 90% of Made In Germany. And so I did, and I liked it, and in a sense that’s the end of this story. For the uninitiated, Rammstein is emphatically Neue Deutsch Harte, or ‘New German Hardness’: it’s industrial-tinged metal infused with a heavy, heavy dosage of electronic dance production. If that sentence turns you off, you can more or less ignore Made In Germany and go read my Deconstruction review (or YouTube their live performances, enjoyable by all metal fans); this collection isn’t going to change your mind. As a teen, though, I landed square in Rammstein’s sights: the odd combination worked, and Rammstein successfully became the first non-english band whose lyrics I can still recite by memory (the N64’s Mystical Ninja music notwithstanding).

As a collection, Made In Germany functions well enough. The majority of the tracks here (“Links 2-3-4”, “Ich Will”, Mein “Herz Brennt”, “Mutter” and “Sonne”) are drawn from Mutter, which makes sense – it’s their most critically-acclaimed album. “Du Hast” and “Engel” make their obligatory appearances, as do “Pussy” and “Rosenrot”. Speaking of Rosenrot, to my disappointment the eponymous track is the only cut from that album, leaving out a couple of personal favourites of mine – “Mann Gegen Mann” and “Benzin”, dealing with homophobia and oil, respectively. Every Rammstein fan, ex or current, is going to have an opinion on the track-listing here, though the compilation-closer “Mein Land”, with it’s bouncy synthesizers, fits nicely as a capstone to the whole project and a suitable reminder that – unlike so many other artists, Marilyn Manson – that a greatest-hits collection doesn’t necessarily spell death for a group’s career.

So the track listing is respectable enough – how are the tracks themselves? Their Rammstein, duh, and that means something very specific: four-on-the-floor. No Rammstein listener, new or old, can deny they have a signature sound. By ‘signature sound’, I mean ‘absurdly consistent’. If you don’t look up the surprisingly clever lyrics (typically filled with double-entendres, puns and social criticism), the chances of your mistaking one track for another or another (and so on) will increase significantly; a good portion of Rammstein’s success can be credited to their having perfected a distinct style and having clung to it as a drowning man might cling to floating wreckage (for better or worse). Sadly, stripped down to a greatest-hits compilation, the sequencing of these tracks almost necessarily cancels the inclusion of Rammstein’s more experimental (and by extension stylistically exciting) tracks, with the notable exceptions of “Rosenrot”, “Amerika” and “Mutter”. For this listener, that’s the sad reality of the greatest-hits format – I’ve always been of the opinion that these guys were one wild producer and a couple of collaborations away from making a really cool concept-album. Of course, that doesn’t happen here, and as a result you’re getting straight remastered power-Rammstein that at times exposes their weaknesses; though if you’re an uninitiated fan – and so haven’t played some of these tracks to death already – that likely won’t be an issue.

All in all, the critical failing of Made In Germany’s main listening experience (disc 1), is that I more or less compiled it at thirteen, and those four tracks that didn’t yet exist were easily swapped out other favourites (or, say, Eminem – I was 13, guys). Made In Germany isn’t bad, but it isn’t interesting or particularly vital either: it’s a document in the history of an extremely charismatic group, and I’m glad they’ve fired it off, but in Rammstein’s case a greatest-hits compilation only serves to amplify their weaknesses. There’s nothing here exciting or well-sequenced enough to stop me from throwing on Rosenrot or Mutter to get my Neue-Deutsch-Harte-on.

Disc 1 (the album proper) is getting a 6.5: just fine, but just fine.

Disc 2: Hey, it’s a handy little remix album, featuring what we can only assume is the definitive collection of Rammstein remixes! Do you know about Rammstein remixes? If you do, then you know they tend to get played during the ‘generic goth-club’ scene of many an action film  (XXX, Black Leather Fight-Time 7). This is not a compliment. This means that a band that already features a heavy techno/disco undertow is being swept entirely into the current, almost to the point of eye-rolling self-satire (for example, let’s all try and sit through Scooter’s “Pussy” remix). Yes, a lot of these toe the line all the way into completely absurd repetition territory, the sort of thing you can only stand “at da (apparently goth) club”, and even then only if your friends are already dancing and drinks are involved.

Rare and wonderful exceptions come from those artists willing to break the mold and either subvert the songs or embellish upon them: Faith No More turns “Du Riechst So Gut” into something resembling a late-night radio broadcast, complete with crackles and murky, shifting keyboards. Pet Shop Boys take “Mein Teil” (thoroughly disturbing video warning!) straight to the poppy, disco-happy territory that someone might claim they’ve always threatened to enter. Devin Townsend pulls the same trick (to much better effect) on his hilarious and banjo-inflected “Rammlied” remix. Meshuggah earns a special mention for isolating the vocals on “Benzin” and playing all the instruments themselves, meaning that it is now a Meshuggah song, and the result is appropriately entertaining. The absolute highlight arrives when Laibach, long known for their impressive (bizarre, absurd, subversive) covers breaches “Ohne Diche”. “I cannot exist without you” becomes “You cannot exist without me”, a guest female vocalist shows up to deliver the trademark chorus, the instrumentals are entirely reproduced by Laibach themselves; what could have been another tepid, industrial-tinged remix blossoms into a full-blown cover-duet that handily stands alongside (and may for many entirely outclass) the original.

Ultimately, the second remix disc, like so many supplementary remix discs, is completely optional. There are some neat tracks on here, though you aren’t likely to get the sort of traction out of them that demands nearly doubling Made in Germany’s asking price. There are some really cool moments here (all of which can be re-lived through YouTube), however five (of seventeen) thoroughly creative tracks aren’t enough to carry a largely unoriginal hour-and-a-third into necessity territory. An extensive curiosity, and potentially a must-have for collectors, but this supplementary disc fails to add anything essential to Made In Germany beyond the reminder that Rammstein has always led a double-life as both industrial-metal(-dance) act and a full-on club entity. Interesting, and an inevitable part of their history, but not a bonus I’d recommend trading additional currency for.

Disc 2 is getting a thorough 5.5: neat moments, overall complete mediocrity.

The sum total: 6.5

Originally published right here, December 2011. 


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Dec 04 2011
1 Comment
Video Game Reviews

Gaslamp Games – Dungeons of Dredmor

Disclaimer: Dungeons of Dredmor is a roguelike. Dungeons of Dredmor is not for the faint of heart. Have you played Nethack? Did you cringe in grudging respect at the boot-to-the-neck difficulty of games like Chocobo’s Dungeon (okay, more like Shiren the Wanderer)? This game is for you. Do not read the rest of this review: for the next day, buy it for charity and be on your way. DoD is a roguelike, and all reviews of roguelikes are contractually obligated to begin with “back in my day…”, so here goes:

Back in my day, games were really darn tough. Okay, well that’s not quite true: Donkey Kong Country gave me plenty of red balloons, rings were plentiful in Sonic the Hedgehog, and I never lacked for bullets in Blackthorne or phoenix downs in Final Fantasy. In fact, I think I missed the golden era of sadistically cruel PC gaming altogether – good thing, then, that games like Dungeons of Dredmor exist to remind us neophytes that sometimes, just sometimes, games want to kill you.

For the uninitiated, The Roguelike (as the name suggests) is a genre united in its homage and imitation of the 1980 PC title Rogue. As a sub-genre of adventure and rpg gaming, roguelikes typically include elements like top-down and turn-based gameplay, relatively simplistic graphics (though there are exceptions), and wide-ranging opportunities for roleplaying improvisation. There are also wide-ranging opportunities for highly-creative death, and weaker games in the genre have been rightfully accused of artificially manufacturing replay value via their constant Game Over screens. Completely unrelated games, bearing in mind roguelikes’ trademark difficulty, have also emerged as homage to the genre itself: Demon’s Souls springs to mind, as does PSX oddity Dragon Valor and the Dreamcast’s Evolution. Regardless, it is into this proud tradition that games like Dungeons of Dredmor are born: they carry the standard of turn-based dungeon exploration, customizable and highly strategic  gameplay, and the save-game-erasing schadenfreude of permadeath.

“So what’s Dungeons of Dredmor actually like?” you ask. Good question! Allow me to regale you with the epic saga of Vancepire I the Vampire, my sneaky blood/flesh-mage and double-knife wielder, and his brief, sad life. Things started out very promisingly for Vancepire! After playing through the lengthy tutorial (a must, as it’s helpful and hilarious), he was dumped into the eponymous dungeon between two modern vending machines: one labeled FÜD, the other DRINK. Broke as a stone, he ignored them, and proceeded into the next room. The tile-based gameplay means every single gameplay action is discrete: you walk a square, every other thing in the dungeon walks a square. You scarf down a Dire Sandwich (for health!), they open a door. You chug a Sewer Brew or a Dwarven Gut Rot (to restore magic energy of course), and by this point they’ve reached you and punched you in the gut. Vancepire, equipped with his two knives and his Flippy Floppies (“great for a day at the pool!”), meandered into the next room, and was confronted by one of many, many Diggles, whose description blurbs read as follows: “A strange little bird-thing that tunnels through walls with its odd, rubbery nasal appliance”. Charming. Vancepire, whose player-chosen skills varied from Assassin (increasing critical hit-chance) to Vampire (which could have eventually earned him the ability to fire Twilightian sparkles at enemies), wound up with his two knives and smacked that Diggle right across its horrible rubbery nasal-appliance face. The Diggle struck back. Vancepire swung again and missed, the Diggle struck back, and several of its friends showed up out of the shadows. At this point, a smart player would have realized that Vancepire the Vampire could only heal via blood-drinking. I was not a smart player. Vancepire ate a Diggle Egg he’d found. This seemed only to anger the Diggle mob further, and restored exactly 0 health. The Diggles swarmed. Vancepire swung around like an idiot. The Diggles – with their jeering overhead text-taunts of “Your mother is a radish” and “Why does nothing love me” – very gradually and embarrassingly killed him dead. Being a roguelike, Dungeons of Dredmor defaults itself to permanent death (permadeath), and so, as Vancepire I hit the floor, the game promptly wiped my save file, dropped a banner reading “CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE DIED!”, and booted me to the title screen. Thus ended the brief, sad life of Vancepire I. His son and grandson, Vancepires II and III, fared only slightly better.

What have we learned? Dungeons of Dredmor, on its medium setting (“Dwarvish Moderation”, there are also “Elves Just Want To Have Fun” and “Going Rogue”), is absolutely punishing to newbies. I cannot stress enough that this is awesome. There’s a very detailed breakdown of the various effects of the difficulty levels here, and while the game is certainly challenging on any difficulty level, the tutorial very explicitly lays out that this is the point. Like the recent oddball Binding of Isaac, gameplay in DoD, on its default settings, encourages experimentation and cumulative learning. Not long after the tragic death of Vancepire I (and II, and III), I was picking my stats carefully, trying all the mushrooms, breezing through the first couple dungeon floors, and not only confident in my newfound skills, but having a complete blast. Strategic play is heavily emphasized here, and while you’ll find hundreds of various pieces of loot (equipment and items, most of them fraught with puns), your statistical breakdown will render only certain items strategically advantageous – for some players this will mean avoiding alcohol or swords entirely, for others never being able to heal (see above). Limiting loot exposure like this lends DoD‘s often-brief repeat playthroughs real variety; the player is never locked into a particular playing style, and the cleverly self-aware class system (Flesh Mage! Mathemagic!) results in an honestly surprising amount of replay value. While limited in scope (plot? what plot?), Dungeons of Dredmor, with its hilarious enemies and mysterious item drops (Grunge Ear?) lends the player a terrific sense of discovery; after nearly ten hours of play (and, full disclosure, zero completions) I’m still finding myself booting up a new character and thrashing through that first floor of Diggles in order to try out new stat/perk combinations and – why not? – taste all the mushrooms.

Aside from general structure, Dungeons of Dredmor is a mechanically sound and simple game. One-handed mouse-play is entirely possible, provided you’re equipped with a right-click, and the game lends itself wonderfully to slow, extended play-sessions while you chat with friends in another window – I’ve found myself in numerous strategic roundtables with fellow Dredmor-ers, few of whom seem to share my affinity for absurdist perk combinations (“Am I the only Mushroom-Farmer-Viking-Mage?” I wonder). It’s entirely possible that the several musical jingles will drive you completely insane. This is where windowed-mode and iTunes comes in, although the game still suffers from a mystery slowdown every time the soundtrack loop rolls onto a new track (about every 11 minutes). The writing in this game is absolutely fantastic – if you haven’t gathered from my litany of quotations, Gaslamp Games have really outdone themselves with the humour and enemy/item descriptions here. DoD is altogether likely to remind you of a particularly lively solo session of the roguelike-like Munchkin, if you let it. The flip-side of all this great writing is that the graphical presentation is fairly crude: there’s only one character model (no girls!), equipment and perks lack on-character presentation entirely, and almost all spells and other on-screen effects are rendered with the same small retinue of visual effects, depicting everything from elemental attacks to much stranger things (Lovecraft, anyone?). Simplistic as it all is, personally I’ve found it quite endearing: it gives me the sense that this game started life as a particularly spirited text-adventure that someone excitedly decided to give graphical life to, which really only feeds into the game’s charm.

Dungeons of Dredmor is hilarious, it’s deeply strategic, and it’s addictive as heck. Importantly, the entire game is randomized as well – from enemies to traps to equipment and floor layouts, you’re never playing the same game twice. Random cheap deaths will occur, which strategy will not always be able to mitigate (turning off Permadeath fixes this), and while these are annoying and distracting, they’re a natural consequence of random-gameplay scenarios. Dungeons of Dredmor is unforgiving and difficult and it is an intentional throwback to a generation of gaming that’s been recently seeing somewhat of a comeback. I love this game and I love what it stands for: DoD isn’t afraid to laugh at you for your failures, and it isn’t afraid to force you into laughing at yourself, while lovingly forcing you into that one last game before bed. All in all if you can dig the roguelike gameplay philosophy you really can’t go wrong here. Buy it real quick (expired) to lose lives – and hours of your life – to swarms of Diggles this holiday season.

8.5

…bonus Diggle.

Originally published right here, December 2011. 

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