Simyard (Review)

“SimYard is your chance to own a baseball team. Each month brings a new season and a new chance to take the pennant. Each month brings a new opportunity for you to train your players how you want to train them. You choose your opponents. You choose your pitcher and your lineup. You play to win. “

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PSP – Video Game Review)

“1.738 million unit sales of The Force Unleashed across all platforms made it the third best-selling game globally in the third quarter of 2008″

We Came as Romans – To Plant A Seed (Review)

“For we are nothing without brotherhood. And brotherhood is nothing without your brothers.”

Killswitch Engage – As Daylight Dies (Review)

Killswitch Engage – As Daylight Dies
Metalcore
November 21, 2006
Roadrunner Records
Adam Dutkiewicz, Joel Stroetzel
I used to listen to this album non-stop, but then I just kind of slowly stopped, it is one of those on my iPod that if it comes up on shuffle, I will listen to it but I would never choose to just listen [...]

Music Review: The Roots – How I Got Over (2010)

After a slow-starting 2010, now it seems like a good hip-hop album is released every week.

Killswitch Engage – Alive or Just Breathing

June 3rd, 2010 Brad

Killswitch Engage – Alive or Just Breathing

Date – May 21 2002

Genre – Melodic Metalcore

Label – Roadrunner Recorders

Producer – Adam Dutkiewicz

Information:

Alive or Just Breathing is the second album by American melodic metalcore band Killswitch Engage. The album reached No. 37 on Billboard magazine’s Heatseekers chart. This is also the final album with vocalist Jesse Leach.

Track By Track:

Numbered Days – This is a pretty heavy song to start off a pretty heavy album, It isn’t as in depth as their songs our now, but it gets the job done.  Pretty well thought out lyrics.  I think Jesse Leach does a pretty good job at have meaning to his lyrics and this song seems like a good example.  This song will get a 8.5/10.

Self Revolution – This song is a real example of Killswitch’s heavier side.  This one probably has one of the best choruses on the album.  It is a really good song that gets stuck in your head and it gets a 9.5/10.

Fixation on the Darkness (Jesse Leach version) – Yes this song got remastered with Howard (their new singer), and yes not the best song, but certainly not the worst.  This one his clean vocals to some may sound like screaming but there is a obvious transition in the vocals, he did a really good job.  It just gets stuck in my head the first time I listened to it, it gets a 8.5/10

My Last Serenade – This one is probably the most popular song off of this album, and pretty well deserved it is really well written.  It starts off with a really soft and soothing acoustic intro into a pretty heavy riff.  This is the song off of the album that they made a music video for, I am not entirely sure if they have any others but, oh well, and this song gets a 9/10.

Life to Lifeless – This one just starts off with a “chug chug” riff, and just stays at that style and it works for this song and the lyrics are pretty good.  This beat just stays in your head with the constant riff throughout the entire song, I mean it really doesn’t change to much, this song gets an 8.5/10.

Just Barely Breathing – This is one of my favorite song on this album, really well written with a progressive build-up.  It builds up into a pretty heavy song as it goes on.  I think it works very well throughout the entire song.  This is probably the longest it takes for the lyrics to start on this album, but the riff in this song is just amazing.  Saying that, I’m giving this song a perfect 10/10

To The Sons of Man – I personally think that this song is a waste of 2 minutes, if you get this album, don’t listen to this song. Every time I listen to this it just isn’t quality work by the band, it seems they just wanted to extend the album another 1:58.  Not worth it in my opinion and saying that I’m giving this a 4/10.

Temple From The Within – Another one on this album that I think is quality work, but I never really listened to this one as much as the others.  I don’t think there is anything else to say about it, so it gets a 8/10.

The Element of One – Earlier I lied, this is my favorite song on the album by far.  It has a really nice progression and just doesn’t stop being great throughout.  This is the best written song on the entire album and shows what potential they had.  It gets a perfect 10/10.

Vide Infra – This is just a pretty fast paced metal song and works well after the last song,  It isn’t as quality but it is better than “To the Sons of Man”.  It works well because it has decent lyric/instrumental compatability (phrase I just made up meaning that they lyrics work with the instrumental concept of a song, if you didn’t understand it).  It has a pretty good breakdown/bridge and this song gets an 8.5/10.

Without a Name – This is just a late introlude, and honestly I have decided that introludes don’t count in the review, so this one doesn’t get a score.

Rise Inside – The bass part at the beginning just says it all, it is just a really heavy song to end a really heavy album, and there really isn’t anything else to say about this one and it gets a 9/10.

That totals to 93.5/110 or 8.5/10.

Well, that’s all for this review, hope you read more and I will put a link to the review of the bonus disc when I write it, if you have any suggestions for an album I should review.

Email me at,

bkatula@project-11.com

-Brad-



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Music Review: Royce da 5′9″ – The Bar Exam 3 (2010) (Free Mixtape)

May 31st, 2010 Jeff

This is a free mixtape, not an album. Go here to download. If you’re someone like me who gets annoyed when all your tags aren’t right, make sure to change the artist’s name to Royce da 5′9″ (with quotes after the 9). For whatever reason, the tags for this have two apostrophes after the 9 instead. On to the review…

I have basically been anticipating this mixtape for about 18 months. Royce’s last official mixtape, The Bar Exam 2, is what made me a big fan of his. I think that mixtape alone has something like 800 plays on my LastFM, and Royce as an artist has more plays than any other artist (for me) thanks in large part to that mixtape. So after all the hype I had for this mixtape, the first time I listened to it I was pretty much thinking “What in the world am I listening to right now?”. I really didn’t like it. But then after a second and third listen, it grew on me more than almost anything else I’ve ever listened to — I think the first time I didn’t know what was about to happen. I wasn’t ready for something this over-the-top ridiculous.

When Royce actually decides to rap on here, the rapping is probably the best I’ve ever heard from him. I’m still not sure he’s reached his full potential yet; with each Bar Exam, he’s improved drastically. He opens this tape rapping over Outkast’s Bombs Over Baghdad — there aren’t many rappers that can keep up with that beat, and I didn’t think Royce was one of them…but he does a great job on it.

So Royce opened the mixtape up with that, but then at the end of the mixtape he decided to go for something on the COMPLETE opposite side of the spectrum. I don’t think any other rapper has done something like what he did for the last track. I won’t even bother explaining it; just watch this.

I didn’t believe that actually happened the first time I heard it. But really, I should have seen it coming with how the rest of the mixtape went. There are 29 total tracks here, but that number is really misleading. Only about half of those are actual songs that you’d expect from Royce…there are some skits (most of which are thankfully short, with the shortest coming in at 8 seconds) and then there are some “songs” where Royce “sings” about how much he hates your pants. Make no mistake; this is the funniest mixtape (or album for that matter) that I’ve heard in a long time. Some of the things Royce says on the Bar Exam 3 are so ridiculous that you can’t help but laugh.

People who have been fans of Royce’s previous mixtapes really don’t have anything to worry about either — there are still enough normal Royce songs here to make you happy. If you still expect Royce to take shots at other rappers, there’s no shortage of that on this mixtape. He disses Drake on the “Over” freestyle and Saigon on “187 (Response)”…those are pretty much expected, but he also took on fellow-Slaughterhouse member Joell Ortiz at the end of the Airplanes freestyle. Royce has always just said whatever’s on his mind and doesn’t hold anything back, and that’s the case here.

Speaking of that Airplanes freestyle, it’s probably my favorite song on the mixtape. At first I was a little bummed that he completely eliminated the chorus instead of doing his usual thing where he keeps the chorus but changes it up a little bit; but after thinking about it, there’s no way that chorus could work with Royce’s aggressiveness. Hayley Williams with B.o.B is one thing, but Hayley Williams and Royce would be the weirdest combination in the history of the universe. Royce turned a song about making wishes on Airplanes into an aggressive song with a lot of bragging in it, but it unexpectedly works.

I really like the uniqueness of this mixtape, but there’s one thing I can do without — DJ Whoo Kid sucks. He overuses airhorns, he REALLY overuses gunshot sound effects, and he also overuses his stupid “Whoooooo” thing that he randomly puts in songs. Not only that, but it seems like he randomly edited out some words in the songs. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s really noticeable when it does happen. What in the world is the point of that?

Usually when I do a music review, I go through every track and rate each one. That will be impossible to do here, because to be honest I have absolutely no idea what a song like “I Hate Your Pants” or “Spark Yo Brain” would get. On one hand those songs could get 10s, but on the other hand they can also get 0s. This mixtape is really something that you have to listen to straight through; with a few exceptions, you can’t just pick out single tracks. The final product here is better than the sum of its parts. Two years ago, The Bar Exam 2 was easily my favorite mixtape of the year. The Bar Exam 3 is my second favorite so far this year (#1 is Pac Div’s unbelievably good Don’t Mention It), and I think it will probably stay there at the end of the year. 9.5/10

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Music Review: Nas – Illmatic (1994)

May 26th, 2010 Jeff

Nas – Illmatic
1994 – East-Coast Hip-Hop

It’s a little crazy just how much Illmatic has stuck with me. As long as an album is decent, I’ll play it repeatedly for a week or two. The real test of how great an album is (for me) is how long after that I keep listening to it. It has been years since I first heard Illmatic, but there’s never really been a period of time where I stopped listening to the album for a while — I still put it on a few times every week. Whenever I’m not really sure what I want to listen to, I always turn to this album since it’s short (~40 minutes) and somehow never gets old.

After an intro track that I’m indifferent to (The Genesis, which samples the great Live at the Barbeque), the album just shifts into overdrive and never lets up the rest of the way. The first real song on Illmatic is the DJ Premier-produced “NY State of Mind“. DJ Premier has made some of the best beats in hip-hop (Ex – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7) and is without a doubt the best producer in hip-hop’s history. Combine that with one of the best rappers to ever live (Nas) and good things happen. Premier’s beat (which almost sounds like something that should be in a Doom game) doesn’t overpower Nas in any way; the beat remains in the background and allows the rapping to take the spotlight. “I never sleep, because sleep is the cousin of death” is one of the most well-known lines in rap, and it originated here. Despite all of the good things I’ve said about this song, it’s probably one of my least favorite tracks on the album. Still, I don’t know what else on the album would have been better at opening it up. This song shows you what Illmatic is going to be about.

Up next is the LES and Nas-produced “Life’s a Bitch“, which is the only song on the album that doesn’t have a big-name producer attached to it. Perhaps surprisingly because of the name, this song sounds more relaxing than anything else on the album. This is also the only tack on Illmatic to have a real guest appearance (though Pete Rock adds some vocals to the hook of “The World is Yours” and Q-Tip does the hook for “One Love”) — AZ does the first verse on this, which ended up being a great choice because AZ is one of the very few rappers who can hold his own and be on the same level as Nas. People argue about who had a better verse all the time, and if you ask me AZ actually outperforms Nas here. This is definitely one of my 2 favorite songs on the album, but I’m not sure if I’d put it at #1. Possibly the most well-known song on Illmatic comes next, the Pete Rock-produced “The World is Yours“. DJ Premier is the best hip-hop producer ever, and if you ask me Pete Rock is #2. This has some of the best rapping on the entire album; Nas’ flow here is outstanding.

The fifth track on this ten-track album is the appropriately-named “Halftime” produced by Large Professor. The two songs that come before it are fairly relaxing, and this is a pretty huge change of pace. The beat here is a little overpowering; the amount of bass used in Halftime is ridiculous. Still, it doesn’t ruin the song; it fits really well with Nas’ in-your-face attitude on this. After Halftime comes the second of three DJ Premier-produced tracks, Memory Lane (Sittin’ in da Park). Again, Premier gives Nas a beat that isn’t overpowering and just lets Nas steal the show. This isn’t your typical Premo beat, but it’s still very good. This song really just shows off how great of a lyricist Nas can be; he uses so many references and so much slang that a lot of it can just go over your head.

The only storytelling song on Illmatic, “One Love” is next. It’s produced by Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, who also does the chorus. It’s  interesting to hear Q-Tip’s beat because it sounds pretty different from most of the beats ATCQ had. Even though he wasn’t the main producer in A Tribe Called Quest, Q-Tip proves here that he’s a very good one. As for the rapping, the lyricism here is better than in most storytelling hip-hop songs. I have absolutely no evidence to back this up, but to me it seems like this influenced Eminem in making “Stan“. Although the song content is different, the way both of them use their superb lyricism with a soft hook while dealing with a serious issue are pretty similar. The worst song on the album is next, the Large Professor-produced “One Time 4 Your Mind“….even though it’s my least favorite song here, it would be my favorite on a lot of other albums. I would still probably give it a 10. The beat is good but nothing amazing. The rapping is very good, as it has been for the rest of the album. However, I’m not a huge fan of the chorus; it’s a little boring.

The third and final DJ Premier song comes in as the second to last track on the album, and “Represent” is the best of the three songs he did on the album. To get an idea of how ridiculous DJ Premier is as a producer, he really went digging for this sample. He took music from a relatively obscure movie made in 1940 (the sampled part starts at 0:54) and made it the main sample in this song….the result is a beat that is probably the best on the album. As for the rapping, I’m starting to sound like a broken record here. Nas is great, and his delivery on this song is really great. Finally, all Nas does to close out the album is make one of the ten best rap songs in history with the Large Professor-produced “It Ain’t Hard to Tell“. The Michael Jackson sample (somehow) works PERFECTLY for the beat. This is braggadocio rap at its finest.

There are 9 songs on here and an intro, and I’d give a 10/10 to every song on the album. The fact that Nas was a teenager and in his very early 20s when recording this album is a little insane; that’s roughly the same age Soulja Boy is now, and when Nas was that age he released the best hip-hop album ever recorded. Soulja Boy, um, hasn’t. 10/10



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Top 11(x2) — Best “Lost” Characters

May 24th, 2010 Jeff

I’ll be doing these “Top 22″ lists every once in a while when I feel like 11 is just too limiting. Keep in mind that this is just a list of my favorite characters. I don’t pretend to be an authority on Lost or anything of the sort — so I don’t expect anyone to agree with my list exactly.

For the record — I have made rearranged the rankings for this list 3 times. That’s why you’ll see a ranking for “first list”, “April 2010 update”, and my current ranking. The “first list” was made in between season 5 and season 6.

APRIL 2010 UPDATE: I changed a lot of the rankings around and how the whole list is formatted. Even though this was originally intended as a list nobody but me cared about, it seems like this page is getting more views than any other page on the site so I made it easier on the eyes. It was really cluttered before.

MAY UPDATE (post-Series Finale): I’m going to change the rankings around again — this list is going to look drastically different. This will be the third and probably final update. This time, it WILL have spoilers.

These characters were on the list the first time, but didn’t make it since: Naomi (22), Charlie (21), Mikhail (16)
He was on the list the first two times, but has since been knocked off: Michael (#20 on first list, #21 in April)

22. Libby
Ranking on first list: 15
Ranking on April 2010 Update: 19

Libby played a key role in season 6 — she got Hurley to remember the island, and Hurley in turn helped get the others together so they can remember what happened on the island. Still, she doesn’t deserve to be ranked higher than this with all of the great characters on the show.

April 2010 Reasoning: A little bit more interesting than most of the other women survivors on the island; Libby had a lot of potential (mainly because of the flashback at the end of “Dave”), but the writers for the show didn’t really let Libby live up to that potential.

21. Martin Keamy
Ranking on first list: Wasn’t on first list
Ranking on April 2010 Update: 18

He makes good eggs.

April 2010 Reasoning: During season 4, I absolutely hated Keamy. Maybe I didn’t realize it at the time, but I guess that was kinda the point. This is not a guy who you are supposed to like. Up until you meet Keamy, everyone on the island — even those who are meant to be “bad” — have some positive side to them. Keamy, on the other hand, is just flat-out evil.

20. Danielle Rousseau
Ranking on first list: 14
Ranking on April 2010 update: 15

Since she gets more and more insignificant as the series moves on, Danielle is dropping some spots again.

April 2010 Reasoning: The first few times you see Rousseau, she’s pretty much the creepiest character you’ll ever see. But as time goes on, you get more and more used to her character so the creepiness goes away; without this, she’s not all that interesting. Plus, she doesn’t get all that much screen time so I can’t really put her higher on the list.

19. Charles Widmore
Ranking on first list: Wasn’t on first list
Ranking on April 2010 Update: 20

I still have no idea…was Widmore a good guy or a bad guy? In season 6 he came back to the island primarily to stop the Man in Black, and most of the plane survivors were fighting to stop the Man in Black as well. But still, he did it in such a way that just came off as really evil. Plus, how often do you see a guy who looks like him and is a good guy? He just looks evil.

April 2010 Reasoning: Widmore is a really interesting character. I’m not sure what his reasons are for basically hating everything in the world and I’m not sure what side he’s on (think of Widmore in season 4 and compare that to his actions in season 6…can’t he make up his mind already?). He seems to just be pissed off at everything.

18. Jacob
Wasn’t on either of my previous lists

For a couple seasons, we didn’t even know if Jacob was a real person or if Ben was just going insane. This was one of the mysteries that made me watch back-to-back-to-back episodes waiting to see what was up with this guy.

Most of the on-island stuff in season 6 dealt with the aftermath of Jacob’s death and wondering who the next Jacob/”protector of the island” would be. Even though it was generally accepted that Jacob was the good half of the two seemingly-immortal siblings, that might not have really been the case.

17. Sayid Jarrah
Ranking on first list: 13
Ranking on April 2010 Update: 17

It’s gotta suck to be Sayid. He was one of the major characters the whole way through the show, but then when he finally dies he’s overshadowed by more dramatic deaths just a couple minutes later.

April 2010 Reasoning: Sayid kinda seems like a guy who’s just kinda there. He’s really smart and will beat the crap out of you if he has to, but for some reason I just don’t like him as much as some of the other characters. Even though he’s smart, he’s overshadowed by Faraday in that department. Even though he’ll beat the crap out of you, he’s overshadowed by Eko in that department. He’s not a bad character by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s far from the most interesting character too.

16. Jin-Soo Kwon
Ranking on first list: 12
Ranking on April 2010 update: 16

Not really much more to add to my April reasoning for Jin. He’s one of the better examples of character development on the show, though most of the changes in his personality came during season 1.

April 2010 Reasoning: In the beginning of the show, Jin pretty much seems like your stereotypical overprotective foreign husband. Since then, he has gotten a lot more depth and catapulted into one of the most likable characters on the show.

15. Juliet Burke
Ranking on first list: 8
Ranking on April 2010 update: 12

Not much I can add for Juliet. She drops a little bit because some good season 6 performances allow other characters to pass her up.

April 2010 reasoning: When you first meet Juliet, she’s probably a top-5 character. She’s a great villain, but at the same time you’re not really sure if she’s even a villain. Then as time goes on and you don’t know whose side she’s on, she’s still great. But once you get even further into the show, she becomes less and less interesting and kinda fades into the background.

14. Ana Lucia Cortez
Ranking on first list: 10
Ranking on April 2010 update: 11

Ana Lucia’s cameo in season 6 was really weird. She showed up for about a minute and didn’t even make an appearance in the finale. My list in April was a little messed up; she probably shouldn’t have been ranked better than Hurley or Desmond.

April 2010 reasoning: Before you go and flame me in the comments, read this. I realize that putting Ana Lucia above people like Hurley or Desmond is going to make some people think “well I can’t take this list seriously”. Ana Lucia is probably the most polarizing character among Lost fans — some like her, some think she’s terrible. Hear out my reasoning for putting her this high up on the list.

1. Besides Ana Lucia, name one woman who survived Oceanic 815 and is a vastly different character from the rest of the women. Until season 6 Claire showed up, you couldn’t do it.
2. Two for the Road is an Ana Lucia episode, and it’s easily one of my 5 favorite episodes in the whole series. Throughout all the crazy stuff that has happened on the show, my favorite moment of the whole series was during the last 10-20 minutes of that episode…and Ana Lucia was pretty much the main character in those 10-20 minutes.
3. She killed the worst character on the show. That alone is enough to get her this high on the list.

13. Claire Littleton
Ranking on first list: 19
Ranking on April 2010 update: 8

Okay, I think I jumped the gun a little bit on Claire in April. She jumped too far up on this list when I updated it then.

April 2010 reasoning: Claire gets the biggest jump from my previous list to this one. In the old list, I said that “Claire might jump a few spots because of season 6″, and it turns out I was right. Early on, nothing really set Claire apart other than the fact that she was the pregnant girl. However, in season 6 her character has completely changed and deserves this jump.

12. Frank Lapidus
Ranking on first list: 18
Ranking on April 2010 update: 9

Hey, they actually found a use for Frank in the finale!

April 2010 Reasoning: When making this list, I couldn’t decide exactly how to do the rankings. Do I rank them 1-22 based on how much I like each character, or based on how useful each character is? I ended up trying to mix the two — Frank is absolutely hilarious, especially in season 6. But he’s like Creed Bratton from The Office — he pops up to say one or two lines, and then he pretty much disappears for the rest of the episode. Frank is basically the audience of the show put into a character…he’s usually the one to point out just how crazy something is.

11. The Man in Black
Ranking on previous list: 17
Ranking on April 2010 update: 10

Somebody give Terry O’Quinn the Supporting Actor Emmy right now for season 6. Titus Welliver doesn’t do a bad job portraying the Man in Black, either.

April 2010 reasoning: As I’m writing this we’re still in the middle of season 6, so we don’t really know who the Man in Black really is and what his intentions are…but the mystery behind the guy makes him one of the most interesting characters on the show.

10. Miles Straume
Ranking on first list: 9
Ranking on April 2010 update: 6

Dropping a little bit since he’s pretty much the most useless character on this list.

April 2010 reasoning: Honestly, does Miles deserve to be ranked this high on my list? Probably not. He’s not a primary or even a secondary character; he’s in the background for the most part. But, the screen time he does get is always really entertaining. Miles is the funniest character on the show. He’s overly sarcastic and really just mean to some of the other characters…but it’s hilarious, so he’s awesome.

9. Jack Shephard
Ranking on first list: Wasn’t on first list
Ranking on April 2010 Update: 22

During the first few seasons, Jack seemed like nothing but an average hero. Then in seasons 4 and 5 he became arrogant and became one of the more annoying characters on the show since he’d get angry at everyone if they didn’t follow his instructions. However, in season 6 there was a big shift in Jack’s attitude and I think it was for the better. He finally realized that he wasn’t right all the time and went borderline crazy. His showdown with “Locke” at the end on a side of a mountain with the rain pouring was epic.

April 2010 Reasoning: Jack’s the main character of the show, but he’s not that easy to like. His constant “I’m always right” attitude gets really annoying the more and more you watch. However, in season 6 that seems to be changing.

Plus, he brought us Jackfaces. How can he not be on the list?

8. Hurley
Ranking on first list: 6
Ranking on April 2010 update: 13

Well, my reasoning in April looks pretty silly now. At least I didn’t go with what I was originally going to say, which was “To be honest, Hurley is a pretty useless character”…since now he’s the guy in charge of the island. I can’t be the only one curious as to how Hurley’s reign as the new Jacob went, right? Did he rule over the island for thousands of years like Jacob did, or did he just give it up after a little while to Ben/someone else? If they were to write a book on that, I know I’d buy it immediately.

April 2010 Reasoning: The reason Hurley dropped so much is because I realized that I just don’t like him as much as I thought I did. In season 1, he’s great and hilarious. But as time goes on, he gradually gets more serious and we’re introduced to even funnier characters than he is so he gets less and less interesting. He’s still a really likable character, but I just can’t put him above anyone in my top 12.

7. Richard Alpert
Ranking on first list: 7
Ranking on April 2010 update: 7

Yep, #7 again. It’s kinda strange how Richard has been on the island for longer than almost everyone else yet in season 6 he seems more clueless than anyone else.

April 2010 reasoning: Richard is definitely one of the most mysterious people on the island, and he probably has the most interesting back story out of anyone. I’m not sure I can really say any more than that about Richard without spoiling a lot of stuff, so I’ll just leave it at that.

6. Daniel Faraday
Ranking on first list: 5
Ranking on April 2010 update: 5

Not really much to add for Daniel. He was a great character who I wish was on the show longer than he was.

April 2010 Reasoning: I don’t see how it’s possible for anyone to hate Faraday. He’s a scientist who is ultra-polite and awkward around everyone. Also, he seems to know more about the weird things happening on the island than most do.

5. Mr Eko
Ranking on first list: 4
Ranking on April 2010 update: 3

It’s too bad that the actor who played Eko wanted to leave the show so soon — Lost would have been a completely different (and probably better) show if Eko stayed on the main cast.

April 2010 reasoning: Eko moving up to #3 isn’t because of anything he did, it’s more because Ben isn’t anywhere near as great as he used to be.

When you first look at Eko, you’d probably think “this guy is going to beat the crap out of me”. And if you get on his bad side, you’d be right. But for the most part, Eko is one of the most understanding people on the island.

After a life as a drug dealer, he eventually tried to become a priest. Still, Eko can never really escape his past — for example, he has a stick that he carves Bible scriptures into…this stick is used to beat the crap out of people.

4. Desmond Hume
Ranking on first list: 11
Ranking on April 2010 update: 14

Big jump for Desmond; I’m not really sure why I didn’t have him in the top 10 before. Can anyone argue that Desmond didn’t consistently have the best episodes in the series? Whenever I found out I was watching a Desmond episode, I knew some wacky stuff would happen and that it would be a really good episode. He’s also used as a key plot device pretty often, and in season 6 he’s basically used as a tool more than a person.

April 2010 Reasoning: The island’s made Desmond crazier than just about anyone else, but he still remains likable. I’m not as big a fan of Desmond as some people are though — some think he’s the best character on the show, but I don’t think he’s close.

3. Sawyer
Ranking on first list: 2
Ranking on April 2010 update: 2

Did the writers forget that Sawyer existed? He went from being the main guy in season 5 to a level just above Miles and Lapidus in season 6.

April 2010 reasoning: With all respect to Hurley…until Lapidus and Miles came along, Sawyer was by far the funniest person on the show. His constant insults and nicknames for everyone were hilarious. Still though, it’s not like Sawyer is a clown — far from it. He got quite a bit more serious in season 5 and basically was the main character of that season.

In my opinion, Lost isn’t really a show that does a great job with character development. Sawyer, however, is a huge exception. In the beginning, I hated Sawyer; he seemed like a typical racist redneck. Over time, he matured and became one of the most likable people on the show. He still threw out insults and whatnot, but he started to become really cooperative with the rest of the people on the island.

John Locke
2. John Locke
Ranking on first list: 1
Ranking on April 2010 update: 1

Not much to say that I didn’t already say in April. Locke still owns.

April 2010 reasoning: Locke is definitely one of the better and more unique characters on TV, period. It’s revealed early on that Locke doesn’t really want to leave the island as much as the rest of the survivors do, and his reasoning for that is unveiled as the show progresses. He’s also the most mysterious member of the original group of survivors; he’s an old guy who just happened to get a whole bunch of hunting knives onto the airplane and something just seems a little “off” about Locke the whole time.

For the rest of the characters on the show, you can pretty much substitute different actors to play the character and it’d work. Hurley can be played by a fat happy guy. Sawyer can be played by a redneck…with Locke (I guess Ben Linus falls into this category as well), can you imagine anyone OTHER than Terry O’Quinn playing him? I can’t. He was the perfect casting decision.

1. Ben Linus
Ranking on first list: 3
Ranking on April 2010 update: 4

With a few episodes left I never really expected Ben to leapfrog anyone in the top 3, but now that everything’s over I think I liked Ben’s story more than the story for any other character on the show. At the end of the show, it’s evident that Ben still feels guilty after everything he put people through even though he really has redeemed himself. Ben is the perfect example of how Lost never really made it clear who was good and who was bad — most of the characters were somewhere in the middle.

The closure for Ben’s story was really well done for both the on-island stuff and the “alternate reality”. On the island, all he wanted his whole life was for Jacob to accept him and he never really had that happen. But then when Hurley takes over as the new Jacob, Ben’s dream is realized when Hurley appoints him as his #2. And then in the afterlife, Ben stays outside while everyone else gathers inside the building — a great representation of how Ben just knew he was an outsider compared to everyone else.

April 2010 reasoning: Ben drops a spot because he simply isn’t as good as he used to be. Throughout all of season 3 Ben is an evil, manipulative guy. But in season 5 and especially season 6, Ben kinda just fades into the background and turns into a wimp while doing so.

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Beneath The Sky – In Loving Memory (Review)

May 17th, 2010 Brad

Beneath The Sky

In Loving Memory

Metalcore/Deathcore

Release Date – May 11, 2010

Track By Track:

The Opening – This is one of those tracks just made to open into the next one at the beginning of an album.  It is pretty much just a breakdown.  And for the history of this band, I just assumed that the whole album would be just like this song.  And that would be ok, so it gets a good 8/10.

Sorry I’m Lost - Upon first listening to this song, I just thought that is was mediocre nothing really special.  But as it went on it just shows that they got a lot better since their last album.  Their clean vocalist has shown a lot of improvement. This one as of all their songs has one great breakdown. 9.5/10

Tears, Bones, and Desire -The first time I listened to this song I just got reminded of their older stuff.  And I loved it right away, it just got stuck in my head after one listen.  Pretty good chorus with clean vocals and then just right back into the face-smashing riffs. (haha) This gets a 8.5/10

Terror Starts at Home – This song is just a long breakdown with a good beat that just makes your adrenaline pump.  This one gets a 8/10
A Tale from the Northside – I like this song a lot.  It just sounds really heavy good old Beneath The Sky.  This one gets a 9/10

In Loving Memory – This song seems to have a strong message.  It is the album song.  The clean vocals and screams really work well together how they combined them.  Before this album they could never really do that.  This song gets a 10/10
To Die For – Another song that is just a breakdown with a different drum beat and screaming.  The clean vocals work very well for a chorus for this song.  This song gets a 8/10

Blood and Seperation – This song just is a breakdown (again) after so many songs like this I kinda got bored of listening to this album just seems so repeatitive.  It is just as good as the other songs, but is is almost the exact same thing. 5/10
Static – This song is different it refreshes my mind from just constant breakdowns.  10/10
Embrace/Hidden Track – This doesn’t seem like the same old Beneath The Sky material.  This one is pretty good, 7/10

OVERALL SCORE

8.3/10

That is it for this review, if you have any suggestions for another album for me to review just email me at bkatula@project-11.com.  And follow me on twitter to keep up to date with what I am doing at http://www.twitter.com/Brad_Katula

-Brad-


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Movie Review: Iron Man 2 (2010)

May 16th, 2010 Jeff

Basically, my review will boil down to this: If you like the first Iron Man, go see this. If you didn’t like the first Iron Man, you will hate this. If you’re one of the 16 people who hasn’t seen the first one, go see it before watching this.

This is a sequel for a superhero movie, so of course they had to add in many new characters. These were a little bit of a mixed bag (keep in mind that I don’t really read comic books, so they might’ve really botched the comic book-to-film translation for some of these guys without me noticing it).

First and foremost, I think Sam Rockwell is one of the best and most underappreciated actors in Hollywood.  He pretty much plays a jealous competitor who will do whatever it takes to take down Tony Stark, and Sam Rockwell brings a certain kind of charisma to the role that really worked for me. This isn’t his best role, but hopefully this will be the one that Hollywood really takes notice of so he’ll be cast in more films in the future.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Whiplash, played by Mickey Rourke. It seemed like they tried to make him as weird as possible, but whenever he was on-screen by himself I still thought he was boring. Even when he shared the screen with Robert Downey Jr it wasn’t all that interesting. However, every time he was on-screen with Sam Rockwell it really owned. Rockwell basically plays the uptight businessman while Rourke plays the mad scientist — these two had a really unique relationship with each other and Justin Hammer (Rockwell) was basically the only thing that made Whiplash interesting at all.

The other big additions to the cast were Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury and Scarlett Johansson as pointless. Apparently Nick Fury isn’t even an addition, but I don’t remember him at all from the first movie so I’m pretty sure he had a bigger role here. He has some pretty funny one-liners, but really his main purpose was to help build hype for the upcoming Avengers movie. If they took out Scarlett Johansson’s character, I’m not sure the movie would have lost anything other than some pretty funny one-liners by Robert Downey Jr…Don Cheadle also replaced Terrence Howard in this movie. He does fine.

Despite the fact that so far I’ve done nothing but praise Sam Rockwell, the real star here is still Robert Downey Jr. I don’t even want to think about what the Iron Man franchise would be without him. He plays an arrogant Tony Stark perfectly.

Notice that I talked about the characters before anything else — and that’s because this movie really is about the characters moreso than the plot. Tony Stark pisses off almost everybody and has to redeem himself by the end. This is more about him “overcoming his demons” and getting himself better than it is about fighting Whiplash. There’s still a lot of action here and enough stuff happens to keep people interested — but for a superhero movie, there’s an awful lot of talking going on. Since Downey and Rockwell are both great, I have no problems with that. The film is paced very well so I was never thinking “come on, get on with it already”.

Iron Man 2 is not a movie that is going to be in many “favorite movie of all-time” lists. It probably won’t even be in many “Best of 2010″ lists (and if it is, that means the rest of the year is really bad). Still though, this is a fine superhero movie that is at least on the same level as the original. 8.5/10

Terrence Howard
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Community – Modern Warfare

May 7th, 2010 Jeff

I’ve embedded this episode into the full post. Even if you’ve never seen an episode of Community before or if you saw a couple episodes and didn’t like it, watch this episode.

Last night’s episode of Community is up there with Arrested Development’s “Afternoon Delight” and The Wire’s “Final Grades” as “the best things that ever happened to TV”. This episode was just so over-the-top ridiculous and the whole way through I was thinking “This is awesome”. It makes fun of Glee a few times (which is always a plus), spoofs about a dozen movies (including The Warriors, 28 Days Later, The Matrix, and Die Hard), and it even has music from LOST. There’s no way this show will ever be better than this (though I thought that after their Halloween episode where they parodied The Dark Knight too). Community is the best show on TV right now.

If the embedding doesn’t work, the video’s at this link: http://www.hulu.com/watch/147571/community-modern-warfare

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Music Review: Paramore – Brand New Eyes (2009)

April 25th, 2010 Jeff

I’m one of the very few people who managed to completely avoid Paramore’s music until earlier this year. 2007’s “Misery Business” was a huge hit, they’ve had a handful of smaller hits since 2004/2005, and “Decode” (from the Twilight soundtrack) more or less made the band explode with popularity…so, the fact that I’d never even heard a Paramore song until April of 2010 is a little strange. I listen to a lot of hip-hop, and hip-hop and Paramore just don’t cross paths all that often — for the longest time, I just figured that Paramore was another Fall Out Boy/Panic at the Disco clone except their gimmick was that they have a female lead singer.

All of those thoughts were thrown out the window when B.o.B’s Airplanes first leaked. If you’re not up to date on your pop music, Paramore’s Hayley Williams sings the chorus of that song (and does it very well). That day is when I decided to give Paramore a shot and it was also the first time I wished youtube videos automatically repeated themselves; I must’ve watched the Misery Business video fifty times that day. It’s probably the catchiest song I’ve ever heard.

“Misery Business” was from their 2007 album Riot!, and on Brand New Eyes there’s no track as catchy as “Misery Business” or even “CrushCrushCrush“. This is still a fairly poppy album, but it’s nowhere near as poppy as Riot! was; with Brand New Eyes, Paramore seem to be aiming for a slightly older demographic than the teenagers they were going for with the 2007 album. The music is less in-your-face than it used to be; everything just seems a little more polished and perhaps better produced than their two previous efforts. That said, Brand New Eyes is still very much a Paramore album. If you hated Paramore before this, it will  not make you change your mind about them. The change in sound is for the most part a subtle one, not drastic. This isn’t Paramore’s 808s and Heartbreak.

The actual music sounds more mature, and the lyrics are also more mature than the two albums that came before it. I get the feeling that when most people out of high school listened to the lyrics in a song like “Misery Business” they rolled their eyes a little bit. That song was basically just about getting back at an enemy in high school; it wasn’t exactly what I’d consider deep. Riot! also had tracks like “When It Rains” and “We Are Broken” — even though I really like both of those songs, how “broken” can Hayley Williams possibly be? Maybe I just have a hard time sympathizing with platinum-selling rock stars. On Brand New Eyes, that type of complaining is pretty much eliminated. There’s still not really anything philosophical here, but there’s no doubt that lyrically this album is deeper than anything else Paramore has done up to this point.

Track-By-Track Breakdown:

“Careful“ opens the album up, and this is a curious decision to say the least. If Brand New Eyes was my first time listening to Paramore, I would’ve turned it off after ten seconds and never listened to them again. Musically it’s standard pop-punk Paramore stuff, but the way Hayley opens this song is awful. Of everything I’ve heard from her, I can’t think of a time where she’s been worse than on the first few lines of this song. Her singing throughout the whole song is just inconsistent; when she’s singing at the top of her lungs, it hurts my ears a little bit. When she’s quieter (“…you make your way in, I resist you just like this..”, “The truth never set me free…”), the song is excellent. Overall I like the song, but not as an opener.

What should have been the opening song actually comes second, “Ignorance“. This is probably the most energetic song Paramore has ever done (if not, it’s #2 right below Misery Business). If this doesn’t get you pumped for the rest of the album, nothing will. This also marks the only time I can think of where a Paramore song actually sounds angry. Even as Hayley sang “We’re better off without you” in “Pressure“ (regarding bassist Jeremy Davis, who quit the band at the time),  that song still sounds somewhat happy. “Ignorance” doesn’t hold anything back — Hayley is pissed and the guitars help emphasize that anger. In a way, this reminds me of “One Mic” by Nas. Each verse starts out a little slow and quiet, but as time goes on it gets louder and angrier. For the record, this doesn’t mean I think “Ignorance” is on the same level of “One Mic”. “One Mic” is one of the best rap songs ever recorded, and “Ignorance” is a very solid but definitely not legendary song. I figured some hip-hop fan would read the comparison and go crazy, so I thought it would be best to include a little bit of a disclaimer there.

Up next comes the first “deep” song of the album, “Playing God“. Like I said earlier, it’s not that deep but it at least has more substance than most pop-punk songs you’ll hear. This is also the first real example on the album of the mature sound that Paramore is going for — slower and easier on the ears, but still far from the slowest song on this album. Like “Ignorance”, Hayley is mad again; but instead of full-out anger, she expresses her frustration in a sarcastic, annoyed tone of voice. This is probably one of my least favorite tracks on the album, but that’s more of a testament to how much I like this album rather than how little I like this song.

The deepest song Paramore has ever done is the second single from this album, “Brick By Boring Brick“. Some people have written articles analyzing this song that are probably longer than my whole review for this album. I never thought I’d see Paramore connected to the Illuminati, but whatever. I think the song has a more simple explanation than that article does — Hayley is burying her past and everything that goes with it, which is why in the music video you see her toss the doll into the grave after the girl falls in. As for the music itself, Brick By Boring Brick stays pretty close to Paramore’s pop-punk roots. I really like this, but I think it could be about 30 seconds shorter.

A much easier-to-understand song comes next, “Turn It Off“. This is probably my favorite track on the album. Hayley’s words just flow seamlessly with each other, but for the first time in this review I want to talk about drummer Zac Farro. He’s very good here, and he’s almost always very good — when people think of Paramore, 99.9% of people think of Hayley Williams first since she’s by far the most charismatic member of the band. That’s somewhat justified, but Zac Farro is probably just as talented as she is. Zac is easily the most talented guy in Paramore. He’s not the best drummer of all-time or anything, but for pop bands he’s right at the top of the list. The only “pop rock” drummer who is better than Zac Farro is probably Travis Barker.

Since “The Only Exception” is next, that means we’re going from my favorite song on the album to my least favorite. This is the only song on Brand New Eyes that I flat-out don’t like. I have no issues with Paramore’s slower songs — “Franklin” is awesome, “My Heart” is good up until the stupid screamo part, I already talked about how I liked “When It Rains” and “We Are Broken” despite not really feeling the lyrics, and “Misguided Ghosts” (later in this album) owns. But this song is just cheese overload; it almost makes me cringe. The music video doesn’t help either…I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything cheesier in a music video than Hayley Williams laying in a pile of valentine’s cards. I know this is really popular, but it’s just not my thing. Even though it seems like I hate this song, if I heard this come on the radio I probably wouldn’t change the station…”The Only Exception” is still miles better than whatever new Black Eyed Peas song is poisoning the airwaves.

After a quick dip with “The Only Exception”, Paramore goes back to their normal style with “Feeling Sorry“. And when I say they “go back”, I mean this sounds like a leftover from Riot!. It doesn’t feel like it fits with the sound of Brand New Eyes, but I’m not really complaining. Even though it may seem like I’ve been bashing Riot!, I really enjoyed it for what it was: a catchy pop-punk album that was just lacking in substance a little bit.

The next track “Looking Up” also seems to sound a little bit like Riot!, but not quite as much as “Feeling Sorry” did.  It’s a song about Paramore admitting that they were pretty stupid for almost self-destructing after Riot! was released. Eventually they realized, “Wait. We’re one of the biggest bands in the world right now, we would’ve killed for this a few years ago. WTF are we doing?”. The false ending is a little symbolic in that you think the song’s over (just as Paramore was almost inevitably going to be broken up before this album), but then the song  comes back even harder than before. By the way, the bridge in this song (“God knows the world doesn’t need another band…”)  is awesome.

A similar-sounding song to the two above, “Born For This 2″ “Where the Lines Overlap” comes next, and just like “Born For This” from Riot! this seems to be tailor-made specifically for live shows. Even though the studio version isn’t quite as good as the live version, there’s still something that I really like about it. The only issue I have with this song is a pretty stupid one — I don’t like the bragging. This sounds ridiculous since I listen to rappers like Nas and Raekwon who brag all the time, but for whatever reason when Hayley Williams sings “No one is as lucky as us…we’re not at the end line, but we already won” it annoys me a little bit. But like I said, it’s just a small issue and it doesn’t really take away from my enjoyment of the song.

The acoustic “Misguided Ghosts” comes in as the second to last song on the album, and as I mentioned earlier I like it a lot more than “The Only Exception” as far as slow songs go. This is a huge change of pace for the band; if someone was to hear this song on the radio without listening to this album first, chances are that they’d never guess this was Paramore. Still, out of any song on Brand New Eyes this has the second to least amount of plays for me. This is the type of track that I can appreciate and I have no problems with it, but unless I’m listening to the album straight through I never listen to this song.

Near the beginning of this review I talked about how Hayley opened the album on the worst note possible, but she does the complete opposite to close the album out. I guess it’s possible that she’s done a better song than “All I Wanted” on one of their B-sides, but as far as Paramore’s albums go this is easily the best I’ve heard from her. The part about two and a half minutes in where she goes a cappella for a second is ridiculous. Paramore definitely picked the right song to close out the album.

If I had to rank the songs from my favorite to least-favorite, my list would look like this:

  1. Turn It Off
  2. Ignorance
  3. Where the Lines Overlap
  4. Looking Up
  5. Brick By Boring Brick
  6. All I Wanted
  7. Feeling Sorry
  8. Playing God
  9. Misguided Ghosts
  10. Careful
  11. The Only Exception

Assuming Paramore doesn’t have another breakdown and decide to split up, I’m really interested to see where they go from here. Except for 25-year-old bassist Jeremy Davis, every member of the band is in their very early 20s. I’m hoping Hayley was right in “Looking Up” when she said, “we’re just getting started”. Years down the road, this album could be seen as a turning point for the band: I’m hoping this is where they stopped targeting specifically teenagers with their music and instead went for more mature audiences.

I typically give a score to everything I review, but for Brand New Eyes I’m not going to do that. It’s not possible for me to decide on a score. Theoretically scores should be based on how much I repeatedly listen to an album, right? I mean if I listen to something over and over and over again, that must mean I really like it. But if I scored albums like that, Brand New Eyes would get a 10/10 because it is one of my top 5 listened to albums on iTunes right now. But since I had quite a few complaints with the album, there’s no way I’d be able to give it a 10 in good conscience. Similarly, if I gave this anything less than a 10 I feel like that score wouldn’t represent how I really feel about this album. If I had ten albums to bring with me on a deserted island, Brand New Eyes would definitely be one of them.

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Music Review: Texas In July – I Am

April 25th, 2010 Brad

Texas In July – I am

Metal

August 11, 2009

Track by Track –

Introduction – I am not even going to review this track, it is only 0:13 so.

It’s Not My First Rodeo – This song, has a really nice mix of melodies and breakdowns and I think it works very well.  Even though this isn’t the best song on the album it is one of the more addicting ones.  9.5/10

Elements – This song reminds me of almost every August Burns Red song in one 3 minute track.  It just sounds really good has some nicely composed riffs.  Of course this is metalcore so, there are going to be breakdowns, and this song has good ones. 9/10

Lancaster – This one just kind of makes me just like this band even more, and early on you hear the double bass, that is pretty good overall.  Even though the vocals are not the greatest, they work for the music and it is actually a really good song.  9.5/10

Hook, Line and Sinner – This is a pretty good song and I like it a lot.  Just the intro to the song is pretty cool, and then the riffs in the song work out perfectly. 9/10

I Am Yours – This one has an acoustic guitar and every Metal album (imo) needs to have one track featuring an acoustic guitar.  I think it just shows an assortment of styles and abilities.  But even though this is an instrumental acoustic song on a Metal album it still sounds pretty good. 9.5/10

Aurora – This songs intro breakdown just makes me crazy.  It is really good and then they go into this really technical riff and it is just amazing if I could give extra points I would.  10/10

Page One – This one is under 2 minutes but it isn’t an instrumental as I originally thought it would be, and  it pretty much is a 2 minute breakdown.  That isn’t really bad but it just isn’t so entertaining. 7/10

Reflections – This one is just really fast and pretty heavy and that is really good to start to round off an album.  They are still using good breakdowns to fill space.  9/10

Satellites – This song is another one of those that just remind me of every single ABR song all in one.  Probably one of the best composed songs on this album it has a lot of techniques and just overall pretty good.  10/10

Father Time – And again a song that really reminds me of ABR, there are a lot of similarities between those two bands, and on the original release this was the last track, and that is a really good way to end the album. 9.5/10

A Fair Fight (Japanese re-release bonus track) – Honestly this was just a re-release of their first demo song, and it really isn’t too bad for a demo but it isn’t very good. 6.5/10

The total was 88.5/100 so an 8.85 got rounded to a 9/10

If you have any suggestions for a review or anything email me at bkatula@proejct-11.com

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Music Review: B.o.B – The Adventures of Bobby Ray (2010)

April 24th, 2010 Jeff

(re-reviewed July 20th, 2010)

B.o.B dropped the ball a little bit on this one. Well, maybe I shouldn’t really blame B.o.B; I have a feeling this album’s sound was the idea of some record company executive. There’s no reason a rapper’s free mixtapes should ever be better than their album, but with B.o.B that is exactly what happened; Who the F#^k is BoB runs circles around The Adventures of Bobby Ray. Unfortunately, this seems to be a trend in hip-hop lately; Wale, Slaughterhouse, and Charles Hamilton are all examples of rappers in the last two years who have proven themselves to be better at putting together a mixtape than putting together an album.

The album starts out promising enough with the piano-driven “Don’t Let Me Fall”. Since B.o.B’s three big singles all have someone else doing the hook, some newcomers may be surprised to hear just how talented B.o.B actually is; he’s a very good singer and the piano you hear in songs like this one are played by him. I was hoping that this would be his third single instead of “Magic”, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. After “Don’t Let Me Fall” comes his breakout single “Nothin’ on You” with Bruno Mars providing the chorus (“interesting” fact: B.o.B’s friend Lupe Fiasco was originally supposed to have Nothin’ on You and Airplanes as his songs, but he ultimately passed on them). Nothin’ on You got heavy airplay, so you probably already know if you like it or not; I’m indifferent to it. It’s cheesy (a common theme on this album), but it was still better than most of the other stuff you hear on the radio.

The third track on the album is the B.o.B/Lupe Fiasco collaboration “Past My Shades”, one of the better songs on the album. The two rappers mesh really well together. Plus, it has a hook actually sung by B.o.B and not some pop singer; for the most part, I prefer B.o.B to sing his hooks.

The only exception to that rule (horrible pun completely intended) comes with the Hayley Williams-assisted Airplanes, the fourth track on the album (music video above). Looking back, it’s a little weird that the first time I saw the tracklist for B.o.B’s album I facepalmed — “seriously? the guy who made THIS SONG is collaborating with the girl from the Twilight band?”. My bad. This will probably end up being my favorite song of the year, mainstream or otherwise; I don’t remember the last time I liked a mainstream pop song as much as I like Airplanes. I expected to hate Hayley Williams’ contribution to this, but in the end I ended up really liking it. I liked it so much that I thought “maybe Paramore doesn’t suck as much as I thought they did”, and now Paramore has 1,200 plays on my LastFM. B.o.B does a great job on this song, but Hayley Williams arguably outshines him (4 months ago, I never thought I’d say that sentence).

Up next comes one of the most out of place songs ever, “Bet I” featuring T.I. and Playboy Tre. It feels like this is something put on the album to satisfy fans of B.o.B’s mixtapes, but it doesn’t really feel right on this album. That said it’s a very good song (except for Playboy Tre’s lackluster verse), and I wish more songs on the album were like Bet I.

So far I’ve been pretty positive talking about this album, but that’s all about to change very quickly. The next three songs are “Ghost in the Machine”, “The Kids (featuring Janelle Monae)”, and “Magic (featuring Rivers Cuomo). The Kids is without a doubt the best of these three, but even then it’s just okay. If you want a good song with B.o.B and Janelle Monae, listen to the exponentially better Tightrope Wondamix. B.o.B sings all of “Ghost in the Machine”, but his singing here isn’t as good as  it usually is. Finally, Magic is just awful. Bobby Ray’s rapping is good enough, but I can’t get past the chorus. Let me put it this way: there’s a song on this album where the chorus says, “Let’s pretend that Airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars, I could really use a wish right now…”, but that song has only one-tenth of the cheesiness that Magic has. Magic just sounds like something made for 6-year-olds.

The ninth track on the album, Fame, is a nice breath of fresh air for an album that was turning really boring really quick. All they had to do was have B.o.B sing the hooks and rap the verses (like he does on Fame) and this would’ve been a very good album — but somehow, that combination happens on less than half of The Adventures of Bobby Ray.

After Fame comes Lovelier Than You and 5th Dimension — both are really unspectacular and boring. The album ends with Airplanes Part II, this time with a guest spot from both Hayley Williams and Eminem. Eminem adds a verse while Hayley’s contribution is the exact same as the original Airplanes. I really like it, just the original Airplanes.

B.o.B is a really talented musician and has a really likable personality, so I don’t regret buying this album since I’d like to support him. I’ve been a fan of his for a few years now, and it’s pretty cool seeing how big he’s become in the music industry. Unfortunately, this just isn’t the album I was hoping for from him. It’s a mix of very good and very bad, which puts this album somewhere in the realm of mediocrity. 5.0/10

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