so back in the summer I was pissing and moaning about the legion of doom’s release date being pushed back yet again to january ‘06. to refresh your memory, the legion of doom is this collective that recently put together an album of emo mashups and wanted to release it legally so the artists will get their fair share.

the thing with doing things like this is, as honorable as it may be, you’re setting yourself up for dealing with miles and miles of red tape to get all the rights cleared. and let me tell you, working with legal teams is possibly the most trying experiences you can ever go through. here’s why:

1. they take for-FUCKING-ever to accomplish anything.
2. they’re never 100% sure of anything they sign off on.
3. they’ll come back with revisions even after they’ve given approval.

what do I think they should do? release all the songs over peer-to-peer networks without making any official announcements of their intentions. things like this will spread word of mouth while they can claim innocence.

why won’t they do it? because if this happens they’ll lose all credibility with the actual artists and they’ll be nothing more than audio pirates to the artists they worked with. not to mention all the wasted effort and money spent on legalities.

what will most likely happen? seeing how they already have their foot in the door with their song on the Saw II soundtrack they’re under no pressure to get this album released.

from a fan’s pespective there’s no point in ancitipating this release. it’s better to forget this thing was ever mentioned and if it DOES ever see the light of day it’ll be a pleasant surprise.

so as you may know, I’ve been really looking forward to the static lullaby / hopesfall show coming up next week, as I see it as the “one last chance I give emo before I turn my back completely” show.

but as you’re surely to know by now, it would be a really stupid idea for me to go with the current state of my foot. I’m not even supposed to stand on it, let alone dodging suburban teens letting out their suburban aggression to korn playing in the intermission. but I had been seriously weighing my options and up until about 5 minutes ago I was seriously 50-50.

well, 5 minutes ago I found out the tour was CANCELLED. someone in funeral for a friend got sick and they called everything off. thanks for potentially saving me from further injuring my foot, FFAF!

emo, you’re okay.

oh, update on my foot situation. I took it to a specialist yesterday and turns out I don’t need the bulky cast and the crutches afterall. I was fitted in a protective boot that was described by one as resembling a stormtrooper and life could not be better (considering). so yay.

so I haven’t been hiding the fact that in my opinion emo/screamo has plateaued in the worst way. looking back on 2005 there hasn’t been a single release that would even make me want to compile a top 10 of 2005 list.

that said, there’s a show coming to nyc in december: funeral for a friend, static lullaby, hopesfall, and lovehatehero. I’m so-so on the one mp3 that I heard of lovehatehero and the funeral for a friend song I most want to hear will probably come as an encore… but I would really like to see hopesfall and static lullaby.

so I’m gonna give emo/screamo one last chance until they lose me forever. don’t let me down.

so kxs hooked me up with her copy of from autumn to ashes‘ latest release abandon your friends. I read a bunch of reviews, albeit off amazon, and it looks like the whole world absolutely fucking hates it.

the knock against it was the standard “they sound nothing like [previous release]” and how they’re alienating all their fans. ok, two things:

1. crying about it isn’t going to deliver a new album of their old stylings.
2. people change.

idiots: bands do this all the time. look at the artists making music right now, and listen to their past several releases. if there isn’t some discernable difference from one album to another, it’s my personal opinion that those people are making music for the money (read: to appease the masses, their label) and not for themselves. or are completely devoid of creativity.

on the other side of the argument there are the bands that change their sound to a more readily digestible radio-friendly format upon signing with a big label. well, those people signed their “art” away for money and are no longer writing music for themselves either.

to sum everything up: get over it. really.

back to from autumn to ashes: the only thing I agree with the kiddies reviewing the album on amazon is that this is indeed two albums mashed into one. there are two very distinct styles on this album with a jagged line going right down the middle. it’s not terribly cohesive, but at the same time I don’t think I could handle a whole album of either style all on its own… so I guess this is the best format for it. the two styles I’m talking about here are the new-school wistful semi-metal emo and the frantic and justice for all-era metallica sound (yeah, not quite raw enough to be anything before justice). these are completely on the opposite ends of the FATA spectrum. and you know what, right now I prefer the wistful sounding stuff with the semi-metal stylings over the forced old school justice type songs.

the bottom line: do I like it? eh, it’s okay.

so I just read on the legion of doom website that their album’s not coming out until january 24, 2006.

TWO THOUSAND SIX?! fuuuck. we’re gonna be living side by side by aliens by then goddammit. that or we’d be enslaved by an alien race.

oh and TLOD are now saying to tide us over they’re releasing a 12″. uh, do they know who their market is? kids who listen to the bands TLOD do mashups with have never even seen a turntable, with the exception of the rare linkin park live footage or something (yeah). and who plays vinyl these days? DJs. and when’s the last time you went to a party where blasting from autumn to ashes was appropriate? right. never.

oh well. let’s begin the countdown. five months and… however many days.

so the new small towns burn a little slower cd:

+ is very good considering it’s their first time out with a full-length
+ is a tight collection catchy indie rock
+ has some sweet guitar highlights
+ has some sweet drum fills

- tends to get a little bit samey if listened to from beginning to end
- isn’t the best representation of lyrics-writing I’ve heard
- has a punctuation error in one of the titles

still, they’ve come a long way and can only get better. I’m expecting their next release to be on a major label.

so as the world eagerly awaits for the legion of doom’s expert mashup full-length, the best we can do is check out what’s available on their site for downloading…

…except for the taking back sunday vs senses fail mashup track “I know what you buried last summer,” which was taken down because the TBS kids didn’t want it there. which is too bad, because it’s easily the best of the bunch (thanks to lesley’s much-better-than-mine p2p software).

senses fail’s “buried a lie” and taking back sunday’s “you’re so last summer” intertwine SO perfectly it’s almost like those two songs were birthed by “I know what you buried last summer” and not the other way around. and we’re not just talking instrumentally, but there’s one point in the song that has the verse of one backing up a verse from the other.

it is just so good.

so here’s to hoping their full length is going to be just as good. I’m especially antsy to hear thrice vs alkaline trio, armor for sleep vs hopesfall, and definitely the my chemical romance vs a static lullaby ones.

this is what you find when you wander aimlessly through the internet:
THE OFFICIAL UNWOUND FOOD DIARY: A Detailed, 11-Day Account.

holy shit it’s awesome.

ps- if you weren’t around in the 90’s you can catch up here.

at some indistinguishable point between last winter and yesterday I got over the fact that hopesfall changed their sound a bit on their most recent release and so today I lost all control of my faculties and bought “A Types”.

I never thought I’d ever say this, but the kids writing the reviews on amazon.com are right: once I got over the fact that hopesfall doesn’t scream 100% of the time I found they are just as genius — if not more so than before. their musicianship is still top-fucking-notch. it just took me this long to figure these guys out. I’m an assclown.

[edit: okay I jumped the gun. this is still very good stuff but they'll never top classics like dana walker or the end of an era. no way.]

yesterday was a big day in hope sets sail land, what with the hugely anticipated release of the scary kids scaring kids full-length debut and the nba draft both happening at once.

what can I say about the scary kids full-length that I haven’t said already? I was already familiar with every track that was gonna be on it thanks to their purevolume page. this is one of those rare albums that I can like every track. that doesn’t happen too often (thus the “rare” rank).

and the nba draft. univ of utah went down in sports trivia history by producing a #1 pick in the nfl draft (alex smith to the san francisco 49ers) and a #1 pick in the nba draft (andrew bogut to the milwaukee bucks). of all athletic powerhouse schools out there, who would have thought. I don’t know dick about the nfl but I’m gonna go ahead and project bogut to be the rookie of the year next year.

and now I’m really hungry.