U2 Sucks And If You Think Otherwise, You're In Denial

     

what the fuck is going on here?

     U2 sucks and if you think otherwise, you're in denial.  U2's mega hit album The Joshua Tree turned thirty this year and enough time has passed that these guys have sort of become the "elders" of rock and get all the respect that comes with it.  I get it.  They've been around the block many times, sold a lot of records, and made some people a shit load of money.  Stupid fucking money.  And that's all well and good but at the end of the day, what I really care about is this:  Does your shit stand up to the hype?  When all of the accolades and award show appearances and benefits and bullshit wash away, what we are left with is the work.  How good is it really?  Well I'm here to tell you that this music is weak.  It's pompous and obnoxious.  It's a steady morphine drip of radio friendly schmaltz and boredom.  It inspired a generation of vapid radio rock that I would like to see buried and forgotten (you hate Coldplay?  I do too.  Thank U2).  It is shocking to me that these guys came out of the late seventies punk rock scene.  The irony in that is U2 has become everything about rock music that punks clown on world wide (except for maybe Ireland?).  Fuck this fucking band and I am so tired of people talking about how great they are.  Bono's voice is so over the top that it's hard to take seriously, the guitar work is overrated and the rhythm section is uninteresting and just flatlines on every song.  This is the band that gave away their album for free with iTunes and still nobody fucking wanted it.  It pissed me off that not only was the record pushed on me, but iTunes wouldn't allow me to delete it.  And these are the guys that the up and comers in the rock business are supposed to look up to?  The schmucks who attached their names to the epic Broadway catastrophe that was Turn Off The Dark?  A musical?  About Spider-Man?  How un-rock n' roll can you get (while we're on the subject of Broadway, fuck Green Day too)?  Well allow me to review the ways in which U2 fans have deplorable taste in rock aesthetics and should not be allowed to reproduce.       
     The way Bono howls and moans on the songs has become comedic.  It may have been acceptable in the 80's but now Bono has become almost a parity of himself.  Sure the guy can carry a tune and when you hear Bono, you know it's Bono.  He's got that brand recognition going for him.  But fuck me running when I hear him it is hard for me not to laugh to myself.  It is so overly emotive that I just can't take it seriously.  Even on "heavier" U2 songs it sounds like he's about to cry at anytime.  I'm sorry but I don't find his style inspiring or as grand as it is portrayed in mainstream rock media.  I don't understand how someone can moan for an entire record, hear themselves played back and not be embarrassed.  It's comparable to another notorious moaner named Morrissey.  I find Morrissey's style monotonous, but even he has his moments where he just hits the note in the right spot in the right way and it's great.  There are songs from The Smiths that I really enjoy.  But Bono, and U2 in general, just kind of warble and float there (the bass and drums bear a huge responsibility for this, but I'll get to that later).  I've said it before and I'll say it again, just because you pretend to cry on a song doesn't necessarily make the music have anymore impact.  You can over sell it.  Conveying emotion in music sometimes requires a soft touch.  Bono is so god damned heavy handed with that whiny crooner shit, but unlike The Smiths, it doesn't come off as earnest or as punchy.  It just oozes with saccharine sanctimony.  I can't fucking stand it.  The whiny sad boy moan style of singing just triggers my gag reflex faster than a USC cheerleader taking a twelve inch dick down her throat on camera for the first time.  In Bono's defense, the man seriously cares about philanthropy and in interviews, when he isn't trying to sell you shit and is just being casual, he seems like a fairly relatable guy.  Morrissey on the other hand comes off on all accounts as a cantankerous diva that I'd like to open handedly bitch slap into oblivion.  But hey, I can like someone and hate their art and conversely hate someone and like their art.  It's always easier to get along when the two coincide, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.  
     David "The Edge" Evans has been playing the same fucking riff for over forty years and yet every fart sniffing brain dead homunculus thinks he's a fucking guitar hero or something.  Yeah yeah he uses a lot of reverb and delay.  Oh how wonderful.  It's easy to have a signature sound when you seriously only play one fucking way.  I know I'm coming off harshly on guitar players that have one trick and make a living off of it.  I hate on Evans for being a one trick pony, but at the same time I absolutely love Johnny Ramone's buzz saw down-stroke guitar sound.  I guess the difference is that Johnny Ramone never ever promoted himself as some sort of guitar virtuoso.  Because the thought of that is just preposterous.  He was just a guy who found a style that worked, stood in the trenches and delivered it every night.  But "The Edge"...  And what kind of stage name is "The Edge" anyway?  The Edge of what exactly?  Is it the edge of the cliff I will drive off of if I hear that jingle jangle echoey bullshit on my stereo one more fucking time?  Is it the edge of my sanity that I careen toward when I hear people gush?  The edge of tastefulness?  But the fans will chortle "But but but you just don't understand.  His style is minimalistic and it is not about what he plays, but about what he doesn't play.  It's about color and feeling.  This contrasted greatly with the avalanche of 80's hair metal guitar shredders of the time and was a breath of fresh air for the rest of us that liked real music."  Evan's has never said this sort of thing himself, but I've read fans and critics bring this up.  Well I'm here to say, fuck that bullshit.  Shredders like Van Halen, George Lynch and Randy Rhodes weren't just out there waving their dicks around.  They and guys like them were doing some real shit and if you don't like glam metal, that's fine I understand, but writing it off as not real music is as uninformed as it is pretentious.  And there lies one of the important ingredients to why "The Edge" and U2 in general don't appeal to me.  Pretentiousness.  Look, you want to talk about minimalism?  How about Pink Floyd being categorized as a progressive rock band even though their style is bare and simple yet deceptively complex.  Now that is minimalism done right.  That is artistic.  That earns you the privilege of being pretentious (and if you ever want a clinic in pretentiousness just listen to David Gilmore and/or Roger Waters talk.  But the men are truly geniuses..  I give them a pass).  
     The rhythm section is so bland and banal that I bet most people couldn't even name the bassist and drummer...  Because nobody cares who the fuck Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen are.  I could've made those names up and most readers probably wouldn't have even noticed.  They are as unremarkable as their playing style.  I'm going to compare U2 to The Smiths once again because I find certain similarities in their instrumentation.  If that offends you, just bare with me for the moment, then, if you have the time later on today, go fuck yourself.  For The Smiths, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce were the perfect compliment to Morrissey and Johnny Marr.  They were the rock that tethered Morrissey's airy utterances and Marr's fluttery jangling to Earth and added a bite and punchiness to the music.  It was a great contrast with the buoyant and weightless sound of the vocals and guitar.  I love Rourke's bass tone and attack in particular.  The Smith's don't play aggressive music, but Rourke and Joyce come in like thunder and it just works.  The casual listener may not notice they are doing it, but the brain does.  You can't help yourself from tapping your feet and dancing.  That my friends is what a good rhythm section can and should do.  But Clayton and Mullen are so profoundly over powered by Bono and Evans that the music just floats from the speakers and just hangs in the air like a silent and rancid fart.  This is prevalent on The Joshua Tree album in particular.  There is no drive.  Evan's guitar style would be complimented so much better by bass and drum tracks that are well grounded.  But the bass and drums are so fucking weak.  They might as well have stayed home and not shown up to the studio.  It just sounds like they are a couple of dudes who are in the band just to collect a fucking check.  Put some god damn effort in you fucking hacks.     
     U2 are hoisted up on a pedestal and regarded as "Rock Gods".  I know this to be heresy and it galls me.  These gods are false.  I want to burst through my front window onto my balcony and scream it to the mountain tops.  I want to grab the first bystander I see and throttle them, pleading with them to believe me.  Because this is important.  There will be a day when Bono and/or Evans dies and for days and weeks and months on end all anyone is going to hear about is how U2 were the greatest rock band ever...  No.  Fuck that shit.  Burn the false idols.  Reduce them to ashes and let the pages of history regard them only as a footnote.  U2 is a totally overrated band and how in the wide wild world of fuck they are considered as anything other than such, boggles my bitter borderline alcoholic mind.  And with that, I'd like to present this Hate Award to U2.  Fuck their music, their fans and the rock critics who have vested interests in peddling that music as anything other than what it is.  Mediocrity.   

In Flames.. What the Hell Happened??

     

And now it has come to this?

A genre defining album.  Cool artwork.

     Betrayed.  There was a time long ago when you could rely on In Flames to deliver decent melodic death metal.  Former In Flames guitarist and founder Jesper Stromblad set out on a mission to meld the powerful melodies of Iron Maiden with the savagery of death metal and did so with a fair amount of success.  The twin guitar harmonies would come through my headphones and lift the music to a powerful height and it truly separated them from their Gothenburg scene counterparts.  It's what made them special.  And now for fifteen years and counting In Flames has challenged the fans of their seminal work to give a shit.  In 2002 they defected to the "alternative metal" scene and for some reason, like the victim of an abusive relationship, I kept coming back; thinking that they didn't mean it.  I thought, "Maybe it's my fault and I'm being too opinionated."  So for the last couple of months I went on listening and suffering through their discography hoping for that "return to form" album with that In Flames melo-death sound that I once knew.  Well I am not doing it anymore.  After enduring 2016's Battles, it's finally time for me to walk out the front door with my suitcase and never look back.  Getting through their back catalogue was an almost foolish endeavor and I will never get those hours of my time back, but at least I can warn others: the In Flames that was is never coming back.  They sold fans of their early work down the river.  They wanted that Korn money.  They wanted that Deftones money.  They wanted a mainstream audience.  Period.  Thus they have become some of the worst peddlers of mallcore metal bitchery I have ever witnessed.  The writing, instrumentation and artwork have degenerated into a that nightmarish niche that I'd like to call "The Hot Topic Tundra".  It is a vapid wasteland where thick eyeliner, bad haircuts and superfluous piercings are presented in order to warn others, "Caution: I have bad taste in music".
     In Flames' writing has always been cryptic and even esoteric at times.  For the most part In Flames still uses this technique.  Personally I find their lyrical imagery less rich and more contrived than before.  In Flames lyrics used to stir up a sense of nihilism and existential angst.  The rabbit hole was a lot deeper to fall into.  Now its more about loneliness, heart break, and not fitting in.  I suppose they are similar emotive forces in a way, but the latter is more easily relatable to teenagers and simpletons.  They are ideas that are ready to be easily consumed in the marketplace.  The title track off of their landmark melo-death album The Jester Race ends with these lines:  

Vanities in extreme formations, 

ride into tomorrows rigid futile scripts 

of our dying jester race. 

All that humans accomplish and all that humans aspire to amount to nothing in the end.  All is vanity.  Life is a sardonic race to the bottom.  We are the jester race.  In Flames are calling humanity a joke.  That's a powerful statement.  Countless books and essays have been written on this.  It evokes the timeless and terrifying question, "What the fuck is it all for?"  Now read the words to "Like Sand" from the new album Battles:

How did I end up here

Half alive and still full of fears

If I'm honest I think you'll see

I'm scared to share what's calling for me

You say, make the most of your time

Hard to work when it's not on your side

What can't kill you makes you stronger

So I heard but I'm going under

That element of futility and fear are still there.  The writer is obviously grown up now, middle aged or "half alive", but he has acquired no revelations or certainty with age.  He is still full of angst and nihilistic terror.  The difference is that the images here aren't as potent or interesting as before.  It also took a lot longer to say.  The song goes on to describe the old cliche of time slipping through our fingers like sand.  And that's the song.  There isn't really much to think about with that one.  It's pretty straight forward shit.  It's the "Hot-N-Ready" of philosophy.  Just consume, tastes good, now repeat.

     Stromblad said in an article from Metal Injection pertaining to some of the reasons he left the band: 

"For me [In Flames] was a guitar/riff based melo-death band.  And it's not anymore." 

He's right.  There are no more bitchin twin leads ascending through the mix.  What we have are synths and clean vocals taking the reins melodically with that tedious nu metal down tuned "chug-chuga-chug" guitar sound in the background.  Now I'd be a liar if I said I didn't love a well placed synth.  Melo-death counterparts Dark Tranquility are a guitar driven band and added synths and a plethora of other ingredients and colors into their music.  It was a very risky move and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.  But these additions were used to add flavor and a little contrast in Dark Tranquility's overall sound.  In Flames?  Not so much.  The synth sound in and of it itself is good.  They are good patches I guess.  If you're making a Katy Perry song that is.  What in front flipping fuck are they doing dominating the tracks?  The guitar harmonies still make appearances in their songs, and even more so on Battles than previously, but they aren't front and center.  The In Flames guitar parts were what made them stand out and now it seems they are just added in for flare.  Who do In Flames think they are?  Rush from the mid 1980's?  At least Rush still sounded good.  Give me a fucking break.

Before.

Fuck.  This.  Bullshit.

     

     Anders Friden's voice always cracked a little when he growled, but that was kind of his signature.  I never expected him to fully embrace and embellish it.  That squeaky emo shit he whines now is just horrifying.  He sounds like an angst fueled teenager yelling at his mother.  Then there are his clean vocals, which basically sound like everything else today.  I can't tell the difference between Friden's voice with any other mallcore band on the radio.  The Swedish accent is probably the only give away.  Clean vocals in metal music aren't bad.  A lot of my favorite bands use them.  But Anders Friden and the recording engineers behind the scenes employ a pernicious and trying mainstream approach that just makes me want to jump out of a tenth story window.  One of the goals of pop music producers is to make everything sound the same as the previous top selling song.  That's what In Flames vocals sound like.  They are recorded and smothered in audio effects to the point where Friden becomes just like everyone else.  And they are responsible for carrying the melody now, which is such a downgrade considering the way In Flames used to riff the way they did.  

     Anders Friden offered his rebuttal to people like me in an Alt-Press interview:  

"I wanna challenge our listeners a little bit.  They shouldn't know exactly what they're gonna get.  They're definitely gonna get In Flames in some sort of way, but I don't wanna do Whoracle or Jester Race part 2.  When I got into the metal scene, for me it was like, 'Whoa!  There are no rules!  You can do whatever you want.'  Then, when I started playing in bands, all of theses rules were told to me.  What?  Can I not do what I want?  I have to be this person to be part of this scene?  I cannot look this way?  To me, you can do whatever you want."

Artists shouldn't be discouraged from changing their sound and challenging boundaries.  But it still has to sound good and/or keep the listener engaged.  Otherwise, why bother?  And a lot of the "experimental" elements that In Flames use in their music aren't challenging.  They are mainstream sounds and techniques.  The only challenging thing about In Flames for the past fifteen years has been getting through an entire album without turning it off.  In Flames is not a metal band anymore.  They make metal influenced alternative rock.  And it sucks a long and spiked dick.  As Hesh from The Sopranos succinctly put it, "There is good and not good.  This is not good."  No.  This is not good, man.  This is certainly not good.  Hate Awards are usually given to tedious mainstream pop mediocrity that is overplayed and pushed on us.  But that is what In Flames has sort of become.  So I present the first Hate Award of 2017 to In Flames.  Traitors to Steel.  Heretics of the Metal Gods.  Mainstream pop drivel.  Vile and toxic fucking garbage.  I will never even look at another record of theirs ever again.