City (album)
| City | ||||
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| Studio album by Strapping Young Lad | ||||
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Publication |
January 27, 1997 |
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admission |
1996 |
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| Label (s) | Century Media | |||
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Format (s) |
CD, audio cassette |
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Title (number) |
9 |
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running time |
39:23 |
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| occupation |
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Devin Townsend, Daniel Bergstrand |
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City is the second album by the band Strapping Young Lad , released in late January 1997.
Emergence
Much of the album was written between January and April 1996. At the same time, Townsend wrote his first solo album Ocean Machine: Biomech , which was also released in 1997. Townsend was 24 years old at the time. The recordings took place in The Mothership Studio in Los Angeles and were mixed in the Soundfront Studios in Uppsala by Devin Townsend and Daniel Bergstrand and mastered in the Cutting Room . Townsend and Bergstrand also produced the album, which was originally supposed to be called Heavier Than the Last One . During the recordings, choir chants were sometimes used, in which Chris Valagao, Pete Maia and bassist Byron Stroud had participated. Chris Valago and Tanya Evans can be heard as guest vocalists on the album. A music video was also created for the song Detox . While only 114 copies of the debut album had been sold within the first two years, City sold 9,000 copies in the first week. After the failure of the debut album, Townsend had worked as a dishwasher in a noodle restaurant.
reception
When it appeared, City received consistently good marks in the “Richter Scale” of Rock Hard (8.0 out of 10 points or half a point below or above), which meant fourth place. The chaos, which runs “in an orderly fashion”, said Frank Albrecht in his 8.5-point explanation, cannot be “measured by normal musical standards”. For Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann from the same magazine, City was already "one of the most violent industrial / metal connections of all time" in April 1998. Michael Rensen described it as a “class album”, also from Rock Hard in July 1998 and as a “milestone” in November 2000. The popularity of music consumers is doubtful, Robert Müller speculated in the Metal Hammer , but its modernity was undeniable. He awarded six out of seven possible points.
laut.de included the album in its “milestones” category and, as is customary in this category, awarded full points. Manuel Berger wrote in this review that City is undoubtedly "[e] in a mess [...], nonetheless brilliant". He also described the music as "madness with music". He also felt impressed by Townsend's musical versatility, as in 1997 the aggressive City and Ocean Machine: Biomech , which had a completely different style, appeared. Allmusic's John Serbaawarded four out of five possible points. The bombast used on the album is ridiculous and the lyrics are bizarre, borderline and full of leaps of thought. The album makes it clear that Townsend is a mentally retarded genius, with his mind burdened by "really heavy things". Martin Popoff awardedeight pointsin his book The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 3: The Nineties . On the album, Townsend shows that he is intelligent and talented. The songs are emotional and melodic rainbows that he explores. The album is the definitive work of Strapping Young Lad.
Track list
- Velvet Kevorkian (Devin Townsend) - 1:17
- All Hail the New Flesh (Devin Townsend, Weavey V) - 5:24
- Oh My Fucking God (Devin Townsend, Gene Hoglan) - 3:36
- Detox (Devin Townsend) - 5:36
- Home Nucleonics (Devin Townsend) - 2:31
- AAA (Devin Townsend, Adrian White) - 5:22
- Underneath the Waves (Devin Townsend) - 3:40
- Room 429 ( Cop-Shoot-Cop Cover) - 5:21
- Spirituality (Devin Townsend) - 6:36
Bonus songs
The following bonus songs have been added to the October 15, 2007 re-release via Century Media:
- Centipede (Japan Bonus Song, Devin Townsend) - 7:52
- Home Nucleonics ('96 Demo, Devin Townsend) - 3:03
- Headrhoid (Demo, Devin Townsend) - 1:39
- Detox ('96 Demo, Devin Townsend) - 5:48
- AAA ('96 demo, Devin Townsend) - 5:22
style
Frank Albrecht wrote: “Townsend and his men continue to make music beyond all musical norms and laws and use the most extreme stylistic devices they can find: nasty industrial, blatant death metal , wild grindcore , fast hardcore and all sorts of wacky synth sounds. Turned through the mixer, the result is a decidedly apocalyptic mess, which, however, miraculously sounds absolutely logical and understandable. [...] Even if cacophonies such as Home Nucleonics suggest a different conclusion at first glance: SYL not only produce pure noise, but combine wacky sound creations with melodic insertions, but almost continuously push the accelerator all the way down, the band of course from the unbelievable Drumming by original drum creature Gene Hoglan benefits. Sometimes sounds like an extreme version of Fear Factory [...]. "
Robert Müller from Metal Hammer saw in Gene Hoglan a decisive factor, because he first breathed life into the CD, in other words: fear, pain and emotion. The "hammering Soundarmageddon" contains various cross-references, from the latent fear factory style to the obvious cop-shoot-cop cover room 429 . In the March 2003 edition of Metal Hammer Matthias Mineur looked back at the three SYL albums from the 1990s and said that they were based on a sound concept that did not care about traditional music forms and values.
Allmusic's John Serba describes Strapping Young Lad as " Wall-of-Noise- Industrial Thrash Metal". Berger also emphasizes the wall of sound . City is described by Serba as an “absolutely manic cybergrind ”. Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing was appropriately titled, but the sequel was "a little bit more focused, more mature, and yes, heavier". In contrast to the solo albums, the sound carrier is less fully realized, progressive and ambitious. The arrangements of the songs are schizoid . Townsend makes use of irony in the songs . Townsend treats the "exaggerated clichés of the metal genre [...] with a manic grin" and realizes that they are "inherently absurd". According to Berger, the band takes the eccentricity of their predecessor to the extreme with City . According to Berger, in contrast to many other Townsend albums , City is “almost completely free of humor”. Even the first song Velvet Kevorkian is aggressive and brutal. The follow-up song proceeds in a similar way, with the "brutal [r] double bass " being particularly characteristic. The song Oh My Fucking God was followed by the song Detox , which starts with a guitar riff reminiscent of Pantera . Something like gangshouts would be incorporated later in the song. The "driving, incessantly lashing rhythm" can be seen as the forerunner of the song Juular , from the Devin Townsend Project album Deconstruction . Juular works "against this crazy lump of hate almost like friendly fair music in the Disney carousel ". The next song Home Nucleosis continues where Oh My Fucking God left off, with a machine gun being a child's toy against this song. At the end of the song a saxophone is used. However, it sounds as if someone is trying to "press a few miserable tones through its crushed sheet metal housing". The next song, AAA, is a "nasty pounder before the Lord", with Townsend's vocals being particularly impressive. In Underneath the Waves, Townsend used his singing to "ominously recite a psychotic mantra." Room 429 has hardly been changed compared to the original. Be slow and give you time to rest. It is hardly possible to make music "darker, industrial and creepier". Spirituality , on the other hand, is again aggressive and extreme. On the album, Townsend channeled "frustration, anger, fear, argument and excitement [...] in a psychotic trip through the abyss of the city, industry, humanity and himself". In the songs "grunts, grunts, burps and rattles" Townsend and make noises "that one would never have expected a human throat". According to Martin Popoff in The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 3: The Nineties , the music can be described as a mixture of Brutal Truth and Cheap Trick . It is composed of white noise and technically demanding Thrash Metal.
Townsend on the textual concept
“The new album is indeed better structured. It's no longer just about chaos for chaos's sake. But from the emotional and textual side, City is much more extreme than its predecessor. "
“Big cities fascinate me. I've lived in Tokyo for a while - you can't get more big cities all at once. I lived in LA when this record was being made and the lyrics are kind of a diary. But the whole thing is not a declaration of love, because of course there are also negative sides to life in a big city that I do not hide. I can't openly express my feelings towards other people, that's why I use music and lyrics as an outlet. I think that lyrics are very important and I have to say again and again that many bands say very little in their lyrics. "
“I want to create a kind of environment for the respective music. With City it was the hectic, sick big city in an apocalyptic mood. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Strapping Young Lad - City. Discogs , accessed November 21, 2014 .
- ↑ a b c d e Manuel Berger: Anger, fear and excitement channeled in a psychotic trip. laut.de , accessed on November 21, 2014 .
- ↑ a b c Martin Popoff : The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 3: The Nineties . Collectors Guide Ltd, Burlington, Ontario, Canada 2007, ISBN 978-1-894959-62-9 , pp. 425 .
- ^ A b c Frank Albrecht: Strapping Young Lad . Hard city symphonies. In: Rock Hard . No. 118 , March 1997, p. 42 ff .
- ↑ Richter scale . February 97. In: Rock Hard . No. 117 , February 1997, p. 105 .
- ^ A b Frank Albrecht: Strapping Young Lad . City. In: Rock Hard . No. 117 , February 1997, 10 times dynamite, p. 106 .
- ↑ a b Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: Ocean Machine . The calm before the storm. In: Rock Hard . No. 131 , April 1998, pp. 24 f .
- ↑ Michael Rensen: Strapping Young Lad . No Sleep 'Til Bedtime. In: Rock Hard . No. 134 , July 1998, p. 120 .
- ↑ Michael Rensen: Devin Townsend . Physicist. In: Rock Hard . No. 162 , November 2000, dynamite. The cracker of the month and the ass bomb, p. 82 .
- ^ A b Robert Müller: Strapping Young Lad . City. In: Metal Hammer . February 1997, Reviews. Mischmetall, S. 59 f .
- ↑ a b c d John Serba: City - Strapping Young Lad. Allmusic , accessed on November 21, 2014 (English).
- ^ Matthias Mineur: Strapping Young Lad . Extremists. In: Metal Hammer . March 2003, p. 44 f .