These are some of my favorite producers and mixers for heavy music… It’s a challenging genre, and these guys are great in my opinion.

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Back when we first heard that uber-producer du jour Jason Suecof was working with Lennon, we were more than a little surprised. But now that the project, called “Devil’s Gift,” has emerged, our surprise has been ugraded to shock in light of the fact that the song, “Shadow Never Ending,” SUCKS.

Let me say it again. This song SUCKS.

Lennon was never especially good – she sought to give listeners a “worst of both worlds” experience by creating nu metal for the Lillith Fair crowd – but Jesus Christ, this is some of the most insincere, trend-chasing bullshit I’ve subjected my poor ears to in a long while. Seriously, what could have brought about Lennon’s musical 180 if not some desire to (once again) try to be a cool Johnny-Come-Lately to an already dying scene? I think In This Moment are providing enough bad female-fronted American New Wank, but I guess Lennon felt she had something to contribute, too.

I really, really hope Suecof was well paid for this crap, because his street cred just went right in the shitter. Oh, well. We’ll always have Crotchduster.

Watch the video below. Better yet, don’t.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/BZu4Idv06co" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

-AR

I’ve heard 5:30 Saturday Morning, the debut album Lennon (né Lennon Murphy) released back around ’99/2000, and it basically sounds like Tori Amos playing Korn, which is to say, it sounds like Evanescence but pre-dates Evanescence by a few years. I guess the word to describe it, then, would be “unremarkable.”

So I was more than a little surprised to find out that Lennon is working on a new album with Jason Suecof, the producer du jour who made his name working with such distinctly un-Lennonish bands as Trivium, Chimaira, and God Forbid (to say nothing of his own project, the comedic metal outfit Crotchduster). I don’t know if that means that Lennon wants to go heavier with her music of that Suecof decided that Dave Fortman’s Amy Lee-shaped pool would be a nice addition to his own home, so I guess we’ll all have to adopt a wait-and-see approach on this one.

For those of you unfamiliar with Lennon, here’s the video for her song “My Beautiful.” Although the song appeared in a distinctly more nu-metal form on 5:30, apparently she re-recorded a different version (called “Where Do I Fit In?”) for a later album. Still, I think it illustrates the completely fucking bizarre nature of the fact that she’s now hooked up with Suecof.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/m0c2xYvGMRc" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Stay tuned next week for the announcement that Erik Rutan is producing the new Michelle Branch album.

-AR