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Bad Religion - New Maps of Hell (Deluxe)

I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect when I popped this into my computer's CD drive. The name of the band and album really didn’t lead me to any particular assumptions, and I’d never heard of the band name or even their label for that matter. I also decided not to look at the lyrics before listening, as I have a tendency to do, because lyrics have always been a really important facet of music for me. So this music starts, and what do I get? Chugga chugga, double bass, chugga. Awesome, metalcore. Every night before I go to sleep, I pray for more metalcore, and finally, my prayers are answered.

Last Perfection's Drawing Conclusions starts out with its default chugga chugga, double bass, chugga chugga, double bass formula on the opening track "The Inception;" yeah, the inception of the headache that I’m positive I’ll have through the duration of this album. Where along the lines did every band not in the mainstream just have a meeting and decide, “here’s the chords we’ll use, throw in some heavy double bass drumming, and the breakdowns will come here, here, and here.” I don’t get it. This formula doesn’t change through any of the songs; you have your slow, chugging guitars, breakdown, then the double bass kicks in and once in a while the guitarists will play with some speed, but even then it feels contrived, and just put in to falsify their claim that musically they do something different than the million other bands playing with power chords and growled vocals.

I’m not even sure when one song ends and the other begins. The only intro that sounds different is the last song, the token acoustic to close out the album, "The Number 5 Looks Like 2." They couldn’t even make it look like they weren’t ripping off the Number Twelve Looks Like You. It’s not even a good track, it sounds horribly disjointed, like an 8-year-old is plucking his first few strings learning how to play, and there’s some snare and symbol crashing in the background.

To their credit though, these guys know how to match. What would generic music be without the vocals and lyrics to back it up? I don’t know if they have two vocalists, or one just manipulating his voice, but they definitely went the wrong direction there. You have the menacing scowl of the lead singer, where every word sounds absolutely identical, but every so often there’s some screamy parts thrown in, reminiscent of 7 Angels 7 Plagues’ "Dandelions." The bad growling though is definitely at the forefront, and is definitely the voice they want projected most. But wait, wait just a minute, you have to have the music die down every so often for some spoken word parts. "Everyone Is A Poet" breaks away momentarily for one of the singers to say "And you’ll swallow it whole." It then proceeds to go into some showoff guitar work. Way to be unnecessary. If you guys didn’t fall into the pit of clichés before, that sealed the deal. And to further bury you into that pit are the band's lyrics.

Like I said before, lyrics are a definite point of attention for me. I realize not every band is going to have a strong writer, and not every band is going to be able to pen beautiful lyrics, but some of the stuff that bands today are trying to pass off is not excusable in any right, especially since most of these bands are trying to be poetic and deep but fall flat on their faces. If you don’t have the writing talent to actually be poetic, just write what you know; at least in that instance you won’t come off trying to sound fake, as happens here in every single song. In "What A Pity," these guys show just what kind of writers they truly are;

Gagged and bound, broken blood mess / Laugh and point, the angels pissed on you / Drown them in the lifetime of tears you were forced to shed / … / Take my hand and pull the chord, take my hand and tie the knot / Take my hand and tip the chair, take my hand and wave goodbye.


That’s about all I could take with the lyrics. And about all I could take with the guitars, drumming, bass, and vocals for that matter. It’s all wrapped up in one horrible, clichéd, overdone, retread package that I’m sure Poison The Well fans everywhere will eat right up. I wish I could even say "can’t fault a band for trying," but I so easily can here, because there’s no effort put in here at all. These guys have just jumped onto the edge of the pile on the metalcore bandwagon, and plan on milking it for all they can. Well, I for one am not going to help them along. Keep. Away. At. All. Costs.






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    Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 at 7:11 AM (EST)
    My Score:

    you obviously must be retarded when you said "They couldn’t even make it look like they weren’t ripping off the Number Twelve Looks Like You". That band name and the fact that the number 5 flipped around looks like a 2 is a complete joke. I enjoyed the review up til here, it just shows you think your brilliant.

    Posted by Anonymous on Monday, February 14, 2005 at 10:10 PM (EST)
    My Score:

    Are you fucking kidding me? Oh well, I guess that accusation is mutual, since I've been thinking that you're the one posting under my name. And my password doesn't even work anymore, so it's not like I really have the choice. I've actually tried to get a new one (even opened up a hotmail account solely for that purpose), but it's not working.

    -Chinatown

    Posted by Anonymous on Monday, February 14, 2005 at 4:49 PM (EST)
    My Score:

    I think Chinatown is posting under my name. He's been known to in the past and I don't know why those who can clearly see that the new BSD's IP doesn't match mine at all don't take the 2 seconds to delete the posts. I swear, if this is about "registering", I've lost my password twice...

    -BSD

    Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, February 13, 2005 at 10:52 PM (EST)
    My Score:

    props to the guy who reviewed this, this band is awfully stupid

    Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, February 13, 2005 at 4:12 PM (EST)
    My Score:

    god you're so cool anchors

    Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, February 13, 2005 at 3:07 PM (EST)
    My Score:

    "constructively criticize"

    HAH! I would hardly call some of Jesse's reviews constructive.

    Posted by inagreendase on 2005-02-11 17:27:23
    My Score:

    I'm sure the fine editors of the 'org aren't demanding you review items you apparently can't stand to listen to.

    Well, I don't force the reviewers per se, but the packages full of CDs are sent with the implication that everything in there gets reviewed. If a band/label/publicity company took the time to send us something to review, the least you can do in return is give it exposure if even for a brief moment. That's why we'll usually give a little more recognition to stuff we're sent that we actually like (i.e. you might notice I made the Yuppie Pricks my MP3 of the Week and a week later reviewed the very disc). I'm sure 90% of the labels who send us stuff appreciate us taking the time to constructively criticize their bands rather than ignore their presence altogether.

    Posted by Anonymous on Friday, February 11, 2005 at 5:11 PM (EST)
    My Score:

    I don't know what's with all the whiney bitches, but I personally enjoy reading a 1 star reveiw rather than a 5 star review. It's like watching trash tv.
    So much stuff on this site gets undeservingly high grades anyway because of over hype or idiots who just started listening to music and think every album they've heard in the last week is a 5 star review.

    Posted by slippy on 2005-02-11 16:58:54
    My Score:

    Good review.

    Posted by Anonymous on Friday, February 11, 2005 at 3:46 PM (EST)
    My Score:

    Anchor's reviews ARE long, as well as stylistically boring. At least Jesse is occasionally witty.

    -BSD

    Posted by Anchors on 2005-02-11 13:53:24
    My Score:

    You guys really need to loosen up. I've got my pile, and I'm going through it one by one, I'm not just leaving things out because I don't like them. If I'm going to take the time to give an album a few listens, regardless of whether I enjoy it or not, than it's getting a review.

    I've got two positive reviews coming up, especially the one for Glass And Ashes 'Aesthetic Arrest,' which I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm also currently listening to the new Low record, which I'm enjoying so far.

    And besides, I'm not the only one who writes negative reviews. Every staff member has had to do it. It's Jesse's trademark, and people always get on his case because the reviews aren't long enough, or he doesn't fully explain his distaste for an album. I give a decent overview, and still get shit. You can't have it both ways.

    Posted by Anonymous on Friday, February 11, 2005 at 11:40 AM (EST)
    My Score:

    Exactly. That is complete bullshit. If you get a variety of records, why not help out the ones that are, in your mind, deserving of attention? Surely you must have gotten something worthy of more than one star.

    Reviews like this make me click "Bookmarks" and head back over to Pastepunk. They've got their heads on straight.

    Posted by pastepunk on 2005-02-11 10:56:37
    My Score:

    This review definitely shortchanges Last Perfection's instrumental skills. The songwriting isn't groundbreaking, I'll give 'em that, but I think the band, and the Kurt Ballou production puts this release, way, way, way above average.

    And Anchors, the line about you "reviewing only what I'm sent" is a total cop-out. No one is forcing you to review anything against your own free will. I'm sure the fine editors of the 'org aren't demanding you review items you apparently can't stand to listen to.

    Posted by Anchors on 2005-02-11 10:30:39
    My Score:

    As has been said 34,738,837 times, staff reviewers, for the most part don't pick what we're reviewing. We're sent a variety of cd's, and this happened to be in my pile.

    I'm not going out of my way to give any small bands a hard time, just doing my job.

    Posted by Anonymous on Friday, February 11, 2005 at 10:15 AM (EST)
    My Score:

    Why even bother reviewing music that you hate so much? Why put so much time and effort into writing a review like this when you could promote good music?

    The only point of this stuff is to start arguments and let everyone know that you are "above" this certain style of music and all who listen to it.

    I can understand bashing bands, but this is an obscure band on a small label You're not going to accomplish anything by writing it.. Atreyu, on the other hand...

    Score is for the review/reviewer

    Posted by Anonymous on Friday, February 11, 2005 at 3:25 AM (EST)
    My Score:

    looks like Co&Ca cover art

    Posted by joeg on 2005-02-11 02:16:33
    My Score:

    haha. i enjoyed that review.

    Posted by TheOneTrueBill on 2005-02-11 01:23:10
    My Score:

    Fantastic review. Anyone interested in forming a bad band should read it.

    Posted by inagreendase on 2005-02-10 23:52:03
    My Score:

    Eh, for what this is, it really isn't that bad.

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