Oops, I’ve gone and done it again. Band of the Month is very late once again, and since this is only the fourth installment of the featurette, I’d say I’m off to a pretty bad start. I’m not sure if it’ll keep up like this. You remember how the weekly article thing went down the shitter real fast. I’ve got a lot more slack with this being once a month, but I’m still managing to muck it up. But enough about how I’m a failure, you want to know about some sort of “band” thing.
I’ll admit that I only started liking POD (Payable on Death) a couple years ago when their song “Alive” hit it big. And what can I say? I’d never heard of them before. But after that, my buddy Mike (who may have liked them before, I don’t know) got really into them, this came to that, and boom (no pun intended) I had their latest CD. Which as far as I know, is the only one with a slew of hits on it. Their first major release, as I understand, wasn’t big enough to warrant any radio songs, but the second had at least three. As for the third and most recent release, well, I haven’t heard any of the songs on the radio yet. My brother had apparently heard one, and the song “Change the World” seems to be very hyped on the official site, so maybe it has been played on some radio or TV station, I don’t know, I don’t listen/watch the stations that would be playing it.
While their first major release, The Fundamental Elements of Southtown, came in 1999, it wasn’t their first. I’m not going to look up independent release info, but I’ve heard they’ve got 11 CDs in total, so I’ll assume that the eight independent productions came before this one. Nuff said made up, onto the CD review. I never owned The Fundamental Elements of Southtown, but I have listened to it. It’s a good CD all in all, but I just never got very into most of it. Some songs, particularly “Rock the Party” (which just screams HARDCOOOORE!!) and “Bullet the Blue Sky” (a very nice U2 cover) are quite enjoyable. Also noteworthy is the pseudo-title track, “Southtown”. But the rest, I can’t really remember the rest, and that doesn’t say anything very good. I’m sure I liked most of the other songs (I did burn the CD after all. Illegal copying abound!), but I just can’t put the titles to the beats. In any case, listen to at least the songs I mentioned and come to your own conclusions, because I clearly don’t have one to give you.
The next one is the big one: Satellite. Great CD from start to finish, I think. OK, that’s not entirely true. I find the song “Ridiculous” to be ridiculously annoying, but it comes after the soothing instrumental piece “Celestial”, and the excellent title track “Satellite” so it works out somehow. And then afterwards is my personal favorite song on the album, “The Messenjah” and the second instrumental, “Guitarras De Amor”. So the annoyingness of the single song I don’t like is negated very well by the songs immediately surrounding it, making it that much easier to bear. Other songs you might want to check out are, as popularity would dictate, are “Alive”, “Boom” and “Youth of the Nation”. Hell, pretty much everything on the CD is worth listening to, and did I not already own it, I would pay up to an inflated $30 for it. But it’s probably not that expensive yet, so let’s not worry about it. You can probably still find it for between $15 and $20, and if you don’t yet own it, I highly suggest changing that. You know, I’ve not really gotten into what kind of music POD plays yet. I think that’s something I usually make mention of by now. Basically, what they are is this group of Christian rockers, and the lyrics heavily reflect that. Satellite here is a very metal CD, but most of the other stuff I know takes elements from metal, rap and reggae, somehow combining them in this original fashion that manages to make everything work out just perfectly and sound really awesome in the process.
And with the mention of genre-splicing comes the newest major release, Payable on Death. This self-titled disc is so different from the las that if it weren’t for recurring themes and Sonny’s instantly recognizable voice, you may be fooled into thinking it’s a different band altogether. While I’m not sure, I think this is the point where long-time fans would say something like “POD gets back to their real style after that last sellout piece of garbage.” I really just made that up, but I hear it a lot when doing research for these Band of the Month things (of which I did surprisingly little for this one), so I’m pretty sure that’s how it would go down. Anyway, this album, or so I’d like to believe, introduces a new guitarist to the crew, after they apparently had some differences with the last one. Personally, I’ve never been able to point out a guitarist (or any musician) by his playing like some people can, so it don’t make much difference to me. I think I’m gonna have to move to a new paragraph to continue this one…
As I was saying, Payable on Death is hella different from Satellite. And isn’t that supposed to be how it is? Well, most bands stick to a very similar style of music, but as I said, Satellite was mostly metal, while this one gets really into the reggae groove. Of course, you still get a good amount of metal and hip-hop. Simply put, it’s a mixed bag of genres. Oh, yes, and it’s a good CD too. Strangely, it takes a while to truly appreciate. For example: at first, I didn’t really like “Will You”. But after a few listens, it quickly became one of my favorite songs on the disc. It’s like that with a lot of the songs, but they grow quickly. The only other band I’ve seen display this phenomenon was My Chemical Romance. I guess you’ll wanna know which songs to look out for on this one, eh? “Change the World” is rather good, and “Execute the Sounds” has a sound that is executed rather well. Also, “Revolution” is pretty hardcore with a slick rhyming verse, and I like that one a lot. But I think that the best track on the CD is probably the last one, “Eternal”. It’s a nice, mellow guitar duet that ends up as a great piece to go out on. If I should mention, the CD is a little extra expensive because it comes with a lot of bonus material. First is the ability to download the secret-esqe song, “Space”, but my computer just starts shitting itself whenever I try to download it. Also, there are a bunch of videos about the band, and a bonus DVD disc with a demo of the PS2 game Amplitude that features only “Space”. Yes, it’s appropriate, but I like my rhythm game demos to have at least 2 songs. In any case, as far as Amplitude can tell me, “Space” isn’t all that worth downloading anyway, so I’m not too disappointed about it.
OK people, that’s a wrap. I’ve really got nothing else to say but to go listen to a couple of the songs I mentioned and see for yourself the awesomeness that is POD. In other news, I suck at reviewing bands, so here are some links.
A cute little turtle – Kind of. I really don’t want to spoil what’s at the other end of this link, but I guarantee it’ll have you going something like “Holy shit!”. I, personally, think it’s really cool.
The Jones Soda Holiday Pack – Apparently, mashed potato & butter soda doesn’t go over so well with most people. Another proof that people will flock to anything with a “limited edition” sticker on it. It’s Matt’s first real article since Halloween, and now I don’t mind having waited so long. Ah, the joy of watching other people suffer mildly.
Resident Evil 4 controller – And in this corner, the king of bad ideas! Really. I want to hammer a nail into the head of the idiot who thought this up.
Super Mario 64 DS preview – If I don’t post for a while (like a month or so) after the 21st, this, Metroid Prime 2 and Viewtiful Joe 2 will be the ones to blame, not me.