Despite recent announcements, I'm so far keeping with the 90s theme. That being said, can anyone guess what oh what I am referencing with the title of this here post? Anybody anybody?
...
[looks at watch]
*Siiggghhhh...*
Bingo! It's Brian "Head" Welch! No, I know you didn't actually answer that. I just like putting words in your mouth.
So Mr. Welch was, once upon a time, one of Korn's guitarists. Then he quit some years ago because drugs and depression and Korn and stuff.
You know... as much as I like them, I probably wouldn't wanna be in Korn either.
Then he came back...
as a drug-free
yay!
born-again Christian.
Uh oh.
As a Christian myself, I'm not saying that was the problem. I think I'm a pretty spiritual guy; believe in a higher power of some sort, I think there's more to life and our world and what happens after this than a bunch of chance chemical reactions. Shit, I'm an ordained minister!
Cuz that... totally means things these days.
But when the whole "Christian" thing is preceded by something like "Born-Again"... prepare for crazy.
Or at least stupid.
Actually, ol' Head's little case of the Jesus bug was more of the latter. He released his first solo album, titled "Save Me from Myself".
Take it from the top. Thought the title was pretty hokey off the bat. Also thought the religious iconography on the cover was a little heavy, but once I looked up what Head looked like and realized it was him (in some form) on the cover...
...and that he indeed looks like a nu metal Jesus...
...I was pretty okay with it.
Then I listened to it.
I'm not gonna tear this album to pieces; listening to it, you can tell Head put a lot of himself in this record. It's far from the worst album I've heard, not even, oh, bottom fifty. Probably more, actually. I've heard an asston of albums. But in terms of letdown, it was pretty far down there. Primarily comprised of boring power-chord progressions, none of the unique riffing that we know Head can do so well; some gothic-sounding keys that were pretty sweet at first, but got repetitive after the third song; songs all dragged, all pretty much the same (mid)tempo, same tone. And the lyrics. Yee. Again, I don't wanna be mean, because Head's one of my favorite guitarists. But if you're going to write a song about, say, your big ol' opinion on abortion... please wrap it in some subtlety, folks.
So that happened.
Then I heard his solo act was re-christened (or christened? I don't know if calling your solo act "[Insert your name here]" really counts as a christening) as "Love and Death" and he/they/whatever came out with a new album. Naturally, I was afraid.
Then I listened.
This album, in a sound: HHHHNNNGGGGGGUNHFFFFFFFFhnn. No, that's not what the album sounds like. That's more the noise that me and my loins made. Everything that wasn't there the first time around, everything we expected from the Headster before, was delivered in full on his "re-christened" effort. People are still calling it a "Christian" thing, saying it has "Christian" themes and bla bla bla, and know what? I don't give a flying fuck. The lyrics might even be about pro-choicers being allied with Satan (not my belief and not representative of the Christian faith as a whole), but I couldn't tell and the music's great, so I don't care. Truth be told though, if I found out that was the thesis of the new record, that'd sour it a teeny bit for me.
Not a perfect record, but god-diddily-damn does it have me excited for the future of Head. 'Scuse me: Love and Death.
By the way, I'm not knocking the Universal Life Church at all; I think what it is, what it stands for, and what it tries to do are wonderful things, teaching us that religion should be without rigors, free of strata and classification, and have only one rule: Don't Be A Dick. And to you fucking hipsters becoming ordained just to make some douchey in-your-face commentary on the "commercialization of religion" or something else I really don't care about: Stop it.
Stop it nao.
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