THE ALBUM OF THE DAY IS… TAPROOT, BLUE SKY RESEARCH
Friday, June 22nd, 2007 at 1:21pm by Vince Neilstein
I know I’m going to get a ton of shit for this one, but I don’t care; haters, bring it on. Blue Sky Research is an excellent album, the band’s third full-length, released in 2005. Truth is I probably wouldn’t give two shits about this band if I hadn’t spent 4 years living in their hometown of Ann Arbor, MI, but the fact of the matter is that they write some damn good songs. This time around they had help, and the difference is noticeable as there are less in the way of B-rate Deftones immitations and more in the way of well-crafted alt-metal rockers. None other than Billy Corgan co-wrote “Violent Seas,” “Promise” and “Lost in the Woods,” while Jonah Matranga of Far, Onelindrawing, and Gratitude helped out on the infectious lead-single “Calling.” Taproot still get heavy when they want to as on “Facepeeler” and “I Will Not Fall For You,” but the real gems are the mid-tempo pieces co-written by sometimes producer, sometimes writer veteran Bob Marlette. “Birthday” is surely one of the standout tracks, and “Forever Endeavor” is a fine effort as well. Another standout track is the rousing “April Suits” which the four band members wrote all on their own. As with any Toby Wright-produced project, there are plenty of awesome three and four part vocal harmonies throughout this album; fans of Alice in Chains will appreciate all the layers here.
It’d be a stretch to call this a metal album, but fans of good, modern hard rock songs will appreciate the nuance and depth of Blue Sky Research.
-VN
[Buy Blue-Sky Research
[Visit Taproot on MySpace]
I like modern hard rock, but Taproot’s overuse of three-part vocal harmonies is annoying about three songs into an album. No less annoying than KsE’s overuse of their rarely-swayed-from formula for songwriting.
Hate to agree, but they’re not bad. I wasn’t much of a fan, but had the chance to meet them last weekend and they were about as down to earth as it gets. They weren’t bad live either. That being said, unless they change up their sound – they’ll forever be cemented in 2002.
sammy – KSE’s issue is that Howard (while being an INCREDIBLE singer) always writes the same melody. the band is actually very inventive.
Taproot’s 1st release was great and very metal oriented. After that, Atlantic Records had other ideas for the band. They took them in another direction. It didnt work in my opinion.
Jason, holy f**k, I told a friend the very same thing! The *band* has a very distinctive sound, but the melodies are basically interchangeable on the clean parts. And the songs are structured almost exactly the same ~ great intro riff, screamed verse, clean chorus. And the guys can solo, but for some reason choose not to. In this era, solos are allowed again, so I’m not sure why they choose not to. However, Howard is amazing in how casually he can, while singing live, go from one to the other. He looks like a professional motivational speaker.
Howard is, without a doubt, one of the best singers in Metal today. In fact, he is one of only 3 people Mellisa Cross has ever seen and had NO comments on his performance. Unfortunately, he isn’t a very inventive writer. If they could combine KSE’s first singers inventiveness with Howards voice, it would be unreal. Check out how he manipulates the best on “alive or just breathing”. Too bad he’s doing pseudo stoner now…. not that stoner is bad but……