Parliament, Funkadelic, Bootsy Collins Discography Review ( Work in progress)

 

Parliament

Osmium  (1970)

Genre: Rock, Funk, Psychedelic Rock, Psychedelic Soul

Today I was going to work on the  album review of the Red Hot Chili Peppers called the  Uplifting Mofo Party Plan but instead   I stumble on this classic 70's album helmed by the funk master George Clinton. This album started the Funkadelic-Parliament legend, that inspired all of my favorite funk rock bands from the Red Hot Chili Pepper, Fishbone, Primus too the Chilean Los Tetas. Now Osmium  is probably the most rock oriented and experimental Parliament albums, dabbling with many genres and this aspect really surprised me because I was more familiar with their later work that is more party oriented, and this album rocks hard at moments and we get our first version of Red Hot Mama out of this production. The band has tons of energy and feeling,  Tiki Fulwood's drums are just fantastic and makes the song just explode.  The album is also pretty guitar driven so Eddie Hazel shines on this production and  to my surprise BernieWorrel isn't the main musician on the keys but another guy called Mickey Atkins.

Now vocally like all Parliament and Funkadelic albums there is a different singer on almost every track the album credits up seven people for their vocal work including George Clinton and Fuzzy Haskins.

Overall: 54





Funkadelic

Free Your Mind and Your Ass will Follow (1970)

Genre: Funk, Psychedelic Soul

Parliaments sister band, in its early stages sound very  much like Parliament , maybe more experimental with using trippy effects and it seems that they jam more on this album compared to Osmium. The band is composed by Eddie Hazel and Tawl Ross are on the guitar, Bernie Worrell on the keys, Tiki Fulwood and Billy Nelson on the Bass.  And the vocal section as usual has bunch of people with George Clinton at the helm and Fuzzy Haskins. 

Overall: 53.5

 

Funkadelic

One Nation Under a Groove (1978)

Genre: Funk, Funk Rock, Black Rock

Today I bring you guys a mega funk classic, from the legendary P-Funkers, Funkadelic, which  features  the funky mastermind George Clinton, Bernie Worrell on the keys, Micheal Hampton on guitar, Eddie Hazel on guitar  ( Maggot Brains live) and Bootsy Collins on Bass, just to name a few collaborators on this project. Lyrically it a pretty politically charge album without losing its joyous feeling. The band explicitly questions genre y musical categories on the track "Who Says the a Funk Band Can't Play Rock and Roll", its like funky declaration of war that the some of the alternative bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers would use a decade later. Another super charged and implicitly heavy song is Lunchmeataphobia ( Think it Ain't Illegal Yet !), I always wondered why no alternative metal bands never covered this song, its sick , imagine  Korn or Limp Bizkit rocking this one, the mosh pit would just explode.   Instrumentally there are some beautiful demonstrations of musicianship and solos both on guitar and bass. The sound and production holds up pretty well after all these years and I super recommend this album for people that want to start to explore the universe of 70's funk. 

Overall: 56    

Bootsy Collins

Ahh…The Name is Bootsy, Baby! (1979)

Genre: Funk, Deep Funk

So here we go with this super funk masterpiece, it’s a great album to really get into hardcore old school funk. 

Vocals and Lyrics: Some of Bootsy’s lyrics are pretty surreal and funny, and the vocals (including backup singers) in general are just fantastic. 8

Instrumentation:        

Guitar: It’s the only let down of the album, the guitar isn’t relevant in this production.

Bass: Bootsy is at the top of his game, his funky bass lines kick butt, good solos and crazy use of bass effects.

Drums: Some real impressive drumming for an old School funk album.

Extended band: There is tons of interesting stuff to hear from the horn section and on the keys. 8.5

Melody and/or Structure: Structure wise most of the songs are extended Funk jams, but melody does play an import role in each song. 7

Sound, Production and Feeling: You can hear all kinds of trippy effects on the Bass and on the Keys, it’s a sonic trip to the 70`s but the cool thing is nothing sounds dated. 8

Songs: They are all classics 7

The Bad:

                                                                                                     

Originality: This album is bursting at the seams with fresh funky ideas.  10

Overall: 48.5

Bootsy Collins

Tha Funk Capital of the World (2011)

Genre:  P-Funk, Funk Metal, Hip Hop

This album is an obscene display of funk, Bootsy jammes as many of his pales together in this definitive funk album for the new century and it’s a real tribute to the history of funk music.

                       

Vocals and Lyrics: Surprisingly the lyrics of this album are really good; even though the best stuff is spoken word like the song Reverend Al Sharpton’s is on, that is a moving tribute to James Brown and Samuel L. Jackson exposition of his life story was a stunning surprise how  much I liked this track. The rappers on the album as usual do a great job, but Chuck D stands out showing how things should be done. And last but not least George Clintons blues infected track shows us that he’s a funk genius. 10

Instrumentation:                    

Guitar: Bucket Head’s track is the high point on this album his shredding is well received in the context of this album.      

Bass: Bootsy actual plays more than usual compared to what he had been doing, he had gotten lazy lately; he comes out swing with his super funky bass lines.

Drums: The Drums on this album are what really take this album to another level, Bootsy doesn’t use that many drum machines, wisely choosing to use some impressive drummers giving a more organic feel.

Others: Bernie Worrel’s trippy keys are sprinkled all over the album, giving the album the P-Funk seal of approval. 9.3

Melody and/or Structure: Bootsy tries to raise the bar in his composition level, he had gotten a little lazy on previous albums, and this production has some really interesting musical arrangements and surprises. 8

Sound, Production and Feeling: The album produces a tsunami of funky feeling, and it sound impeccable. 10 

Songs: No fillers. 15

The Bad: Sometimes it gets a little too chaotic, too much going on at the same time.  -1

                                                                                                                         

Originality: Bootsy sound reinvigorated and the two funk metal tracks sound super fresh, he should try to make a full on funk metal album. And we find Boosty taking some interesting risks like sampling a Jimi Hendrix interview for a track and write a song around it, it's super cool. 10

 

 

The Dillinger Escape Plan +Killer be Killed+ Giraffe Tongue Orchestra Complete Discography

So today I bring you guys my little story with The Dillinger Escape Plan, you see I live in Cordoba, Argentina, which has a form of popular music that mostly lower class listen to called Cuarteto, and I hate it, it's cross between Salsa or Merengue with Polka and Tarantella, it's very loud and uses high pitched instruments like accordions, cheesy keyboards and Wind Sections, literally make your ears hurt. People that listen to the music tend to listen to it very very very loud, like my new neighbors that had two teenage kids that would listen to this shit all day, I would knock on their door three to four times a day pleading with them to lower the volume,  they would lower it for half a hour and jack it up again after that, they were driving me crazy and this went on for three months. And I most note I'm a metal head I love listing to music loud, but I use headphone so I don't bother anyone. So one day I had finished working the night shift and these little shits had the music blasting at 9 in the morning so I flip out, I'm a bass player and I have a  colossal bass speaker, I connected it to my I pad and I put Dillinger`s Ire Works complete, things were falling all over the place in my house, I almost destroyed all off the window in my house, jajajaja. but Neighbors never put their music on ever again and they moved out a month later, so thank you Dillinger.

So guys enjoy my review of this bands albums and Side projects, one must note each review is from a individual post from my blog I just them all together in one post: 

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Calculating Infinity (1999)

Genre: Mathcore, Grindcore, Avant-Garde Metal, Alternative Metal

So this band is my great discovery of 2015, I had no idea that these guys existed. I had discovered them after listing to Killer be Killed, a super band that had Dillinger’s lead singer, Greg Puciato on Guitar and Vocals, so out of curiosity I sat down to listen to Dillinger’s catalogue and I couldn’t believe how good it was, so I’m going to start off reviewing  their first album Calculating Infinity, so here we go ( Note Greg isn’t on this album, the lead vocalist is Dimitri Minakakis):

Vocals and Lyrics: All I can say that Dimitri is very pist off about something. 8

Instrumentation:  The instrumentation is calculated chaos, its probably the best way to describe it.  8

Melody and/or Structure: The stuff is freaking complex it like King Crimson gone crazy. 12 

Sound, Production and Feeling: Pretty basic just the band and their onslaught to your ears, it sound isn’t as heavy, it more frantic and voilent. 8 

Songs: Short but Sweet, it keeps you wanting more. They know that if they overstay they will burn out the listener. 11

Originality: This is some elevated and complicated shit, these guys are really pushing the frontiers of metal. 12

Overall:  59

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Miss Machine (2004) Option Paralysis (2010) and One of us is a Killer

Genre: Mathcore and Experimental Metal

Today I'm going to do something similar to what I did with my previous review that I did for the Deftones, I'm going to talk about three Dillinger Escape Plan albums in one post, they are their second, fourth and fifth album. And why did a bunch these albums  together?

 Well because  they sound pretty similar to each other, and basically Dillinger consolidate their own sound and style, especially in their super technical musical execution, while experimenting a little on each project, with subtle effects on Guitar and Bass and production tricks, basically just enough to keep these albums out of the redundant territories. The track list on each one are super solid and have two types of songs super heavy freak out tracks and slower not as heavy experimental tracks.

Now in the case of Miss Machine it's the first album with Greg Puciato as the lead singer, and he  just does a killer job, plus   we have the first time the band experiments with slower tempo experimental songs with a touch of electronics. And the album has more pedal effects on Guitar and Bass, compared to Calculating Infinity their previous album.

Option Paralysis is probably the heaviest and most aggressive, Greg's sing has evolved, it has some melodic singing in the mix and there is some masterful use of piano on this album at moments, being played by the guitarist Ben Weinman.

And Last but not least we have, One of us is a Killer, this is a back to basics album, very meat and potatoes, songs are strip down but effective and some evolution in guitar techniques. 

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The Dillinger Escape Plan

Genre: Mathcore, Metal Core, Experimental Metal

Ire Works (2007)

Some intense shit in this Album, with some interesting contrasts with more mellow alternative metal tracks and some fascinating experimentation with glichy electronics and production; oh and one song they actually use a horn section which caught me totally by surprise. So the good thing of this  Album is at moments they actually  lets your head rest before they slam on "lets destroy the world apocalypse with our guitars mode", but the strongest moments on the album is where they dabble with new stuff or let Greg show off that he's a great melodic singer that can add melody to the songs without sounding wimpy or trying to sell out for a radio friendly track. Oh and Brent Hinds from Mastodon is a guest on one of the tracks.

Overall: 63.4

Killer be Killed

Killer be Killed (2014)

Genre: Sludge Metal, Groove Metal

Here we have the first and only album from the super group Killer be Killed with Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plane), Max Cavalera (Soulfly, Cavalera Conspiracy, ex-Sepultura and ex-Nailbomb), Troy Sanders (Mastodon) and David Elitch (The Mars Volta and Antemasque). These guys have put out a pretty straight forward but extremely effective metal album that is highly recommendable for people getting into the heavier side of the genre.

Vocals and Lyrics: Greg, Max, and Troy really do a good job together each one taking turns on each track, they play off each other very well.  10

Instrumentation:  Instrumentally the band sounds great, good chemistry between them it seem as they have been playing for ages with each other.   7.5

Melody and/or Structure: Simple but direct super heavy songs, with good choruses and Greg and Troy  vocally add a good dose of melody to each song.  8

Sound, Production and Feeling: Album sounds great, the band is just rocking  out and letting a lot off steam, and we the listeners just hitch along for the ride. 8.5 

Songs: Surprisingly good songs for a super band, the album is super solid from front to back. 11

Originality: This album is a breath of fresh air in the stagnant world of heavy metal and thanks to it I discovered The Dillinger Escape Plan that left me in total in shock in how good these guys are the first time I listen to them. Also Max should reevaluate the crap his doing lately with Soulfly 10 

Overall: 55

Giraffe Tongue Orchestra

Broken Lines (2016)

Genre: Alternative Metal, Alternative Rock, Indie Rock

So finally I got around to the review this very interesting album that goes in a very different direction  that  I thought this super group would go, instead of being the heaviest most extreme thing ever it dive into alternative rock with a touch of metal and even having a popish flare at moments, not giving a F, jajaja, they basically just make engaging music in any of its forms.

Now who are the members of this super group? First we got Alice in Chains, William DuVall's whose vocal delivery really surprised me it's very different from what he does in Chains, he stretches his legs on this album shown off his whole vocal pallet, taking advantage he's not retrained by the somber mood of Alice's stuff (Note I'm not fan of Alice in Chains, even though they are a fantastic band they  never have been my cup of tea).

Now the guitar work on this album has been a bit of a letdown I was expecting much more having two technical interesting players like Ben Weinman from The  Dillinger Escape Plan and Brent Hinds from Mastodon, their playing is great and enjoyable, but I thought they would work on more complex stuff. What did surprise me was bass player Pete Griffin from Deathklok  his playing is great he makes some good fills and arrangements. On the Drum we have Thomas Pridgen from Mars Volta, brings that band intensity and energy when needed. And I must add the band actually uses a horn section at moments and some keys here and there, adding a lot of color to the songs they are in, probably scaring the hell out of hard core metal heads.

The Songs have a basic pop structure with a couple of surprises, now interesting  thing about this band is their use of melody, I can't put my finger on it, but they try some odd stuff. Also the musical styles they throw into the mix is pretty eclectic and they mix it up in a way that they have they own thing going on, it leaves you scratching your head the first time you listen to it but it grows on you pretty fast. 

Even though the band tries and mixes many musical styles the album is very focused and the track list is very solid, no fillers on this album, so I really recommend this album or at least give it a chance to grow on you. 

 

Overall: 55

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Dissociation (2016)

Genre: Mathcore, Metalcore  Experimental Metal, Alternative Metal

So it seems that this is the bands last album, and boy they go out with a bang, they try some interesting stuff in this production, it seems they didn't want to leave anything out, but what I liked the most was the two  incredible jazz inspired breaks,  a full on electronic inspired song  that's insane and a Deftones inspired ballad at the end. Also the stuff that  they normally do which is make insanely complex and violently aggressive metal still sound fresh and inventive. The album has a couple holy shit moments  and it's the best thing to come out in 2016 by far, so go out and get it, blast it out of your speakers and scare the shit out of your neighbors.

Overall: 61.1