Hearts of Oak kept me alive the other night. Before you start envisioning some song-prevents-suicide scene ripped from the reels of "Pump Up the Volume" or some 1980s after-school special, let me contextualize. As you may or may not be aware, the Eastern seaboard of the United States was recently pummeled with a blizzard. My infinite stubborness convinced me that despite the storm warnings, I could make the driving trip from Washington, D.C. to New York City and back with no trouble. Needless to say, my infinite stubborness did not prove to be infinitely wise and I spent 6.5 hours driving through gusts and gales, flakes and flurries, and expanses of unplowed interstates, routes and streets. And through 80% of the drive, Hearts of Oak boomed on my car stereo, helping to prevent fatigue and providing a sometimes-comforting, sometimes-rollicking, mostly engaging soundtrack to a horrendous drive.
On Ted Leo and the Pharmacists' last two releases, 2000's Treble in Trouble EP (Ace Fu) and 2001's The Tyrrany of Distance (Lookout), Leo and his band developed a unique punk and pop-infused concoction of rock that delves into both the literary and the political without sounding pretentious or insincere. Hearts of Oak builds upon this formula by expanding the band's instrumentation and continuing to let Leo's politics, poetry and proficiency develop.
The latest release begins in marked contrast to its predecessor. Tyrrany... opens with the expansive call to arms "Biomusicology," on which Leo proclaims, atop a beat seemingly lifted from a Civil War drummer, "All and all, we cannot stop singing, we cannot start sinking  we swim until it ends/ We may kill and we may be parted/ But we will ne'er be broken-hearted." Heart of Oak's introductory track, "Building Skyscrapers in the Basement," recalls a ballad one might hear at an Irish wake. Strings and guitars meld into a bagpipe-like cacophony as Leo muses sorrowfully, "I know some things I'd rather not, like the time ahead is all the time you've got." But he tempers the sadness with hope, adding, as the soundscape swells, "And one other thing I know: out from under layer after dark layer, as the years go by, a little girl can grow."
But Hearts... is filled with plenty of the defiant, hooky rockers that fill the Pharmacists' sweaty and energetic live show. Dave Lerner's foghorn-like bass line and Chris Wilson's syncopated triplet-filled drum work provide the foundation for Leo's guitar flourishes and newest Pharmacist Dorein Garry's organ-like keyboard on the "The High Party." The song laments both the creative process and the capitalist work cycle through such lyrics as: "And what do you make of the nights when you thought you'd make much more than being too tired to turn the lights out and too drunk to drink more?"
Throughout Hearts of Oak, Leo keenly submerges politics into rock 'n' roll. If ass-shaking is all you seek, the energy of the music is infectious. But, if you desire thoughtful, if sometimes enigmatic, reflections on affairs of state, they're just below the surface, waiting to be dredged from beneath the layers of sound and rapidly delivered words. Again, it is Lerner and Wilson whose collective rhythm work drives the epic rock poem "The Ballad of the Sin Eater." The lyrics relay a series of travels abroad in which foreigners express anti-American sentiment, which ultimately rises into the manic "told you so" chorus of, "You didn't think they could hate you, now did you? Ah, but they hate you, and they hate you coz you're guilty."
Leo's political agenda isn't well defined, beyond encouraging both open-mindedness and a resistance to apathy. You can hear it in the midtempo, syncopated strum-a-thon "Bridges, Squares," on which Leo sounds like Baudelaire's late-19th century "man of the world' strolling about the bridges and squares of Boston and Jersey, drinking in the beauty of the past while asserting, "It's not the time to ossify/ It's not the end of wondering why/ It's not in your faith or your apostasy/ It's not the end of history."
The only real problem with Hearts of Oak is that the band still can't make their less immediately compelling tracks sound as electric and urgent on record as they do when the Pharmacists tear up the stage. The millisecond-too-slow pace of "I'm a Ghost," the lack of well defined dynamics on "2nd Ave, 11AM," the lack of intimacy in the solo-electric guitar piece, "First to Finish, Last to Start," are all missteps the Pharmacists don't make in the live setting, so it's irksome to hear them captured for infinite replay on CD.
Despite those shortcomings, Hearts of Oak is a thoroughly engaging, rocking, thoughtful record. And while I can't guarantee that it will help to keep you alive in a massive blizzard, I can pretty well guarantee that it will make you want to dance and protest, revel and reflect. That, it seems, is just what Ted Leo and the Pharmacists were aiming for.
Paloalto [sic]: Radiohead [sic] Clone Band #45656. Well, not exactly, though they do appear to be named after a Radiohead B-side and they have the same penchant for the dull early-'90's cut-out rock that Radiohead produced circa Pablo Honey. I actually think they sound more like an all-too-earnest Supergrass [sic], but that's just me. The tunes are tepid, but that's not to say they aren't enjoyable to listen to  in fact, the songs aren't bad at all, but they're not exactly great either.
To put it bluntly, Paloalto are yet another alt-rock also-ran  the Verve Pipe with better songs. However, Paloalto's official bio, which I will kindly quote for you now, begs to differ: The Paloalto buzz quickly grew amongst music fans as well as musicians. Stone Temple Pilots' lead doper Scott Weiland said, "Paloalto are a beautiful lush adventurous pop hybrid with something much needed in music today: Passion." About Paloalto's debut, Dr. Pepper spokesperson Mark McGrath [of Sugar Ray] noted, "Paloalto has made the record Radiohead should have made. The first brilliant American record of the millennium. A semblance of brilliance in a sea of shit." Freddy Durst of Limp Bizkit [sic!] remarked, "Paloalto is a real band with a real sound and real songs! Make no mistake that this band has credibility and a definite career." [It should be noted that I corrected some of the grammar and whatnot in that last italicized bit.]
Finally, a real band not afraid to write and perform real songs! I for one am sick and tired of these fake bands with their phony songs (you know, like Sugar Ray, Limp Bizkit and Stone Temple Pilots)! And, wow, if that guy from those Dr. Pepper commercials says they're good, then these guys must be THE SHIT! Well, let's get down to business and listen to these goddamned gems already!
"Fade out/in" is a nice little song  a tasteful rocker for those who want to rock, but not rawk  a tune to play whilst rocking in moderation, perhaps. Class of 2004, take note: This might be a good class song for all you high-school graduates! Others songs of note include "Bones" (not the Radiohead song) and "Seed," which features some tasteful strings. The production's as slick as a used-car salesman  did I mention that Rick Rubin produced this disc? Back to hell with you, Satan! The lyrics are wholly unremarkable, so I won't waste any time discussing them.
So the songs won't rock you like a hurricane, but they will rock you like a thunderstorm and, goshdarnit, that should count for something. This CD is hesitantly given the old thumbs up by yours truly.
There's anxiety always, these days, for Adult., what with life moving pretty fast and all, and what with if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. In the days back when making earnest archaic-electro music was about as cool as this side of the pillow, Adult. got to take their sweet sweetheart's time at cutting tracks, their output'd release-sheet pace walking with a gait a kid could call "glacial" (meant most metaphorically, of course). Since sometime around the time the calendar turned over to some non-Kubrickian 2001  and we were met not with the future, but the very recent past  Adult. have been flat-out  beavering away, I'd say, fulfilling the newly-found market clamoring to lay their hipster hands on an actual Adult. album, such consumers being not merely satisfied with the gap-filling Resuscitation collation of their original output of sides. I'm sure the Detroit duo have also been roped into taking part in some electrocash-in touring-show deal, too, although whether they filled a spot on a bill before or after the inevitable electrobacklash is another story. Their debut longplayer proper, though, has definitely arrived closer to the latter than the former; the former glory of making mighty unfashionable, unerring recreations of authentic early-'80s tone now no longer embodies the same revolutionary ideas and ideals of embracing "archaic" audio technology that it once did. There's little doubting that Adult. are masters of their craft, students well-studied in the ways and ways of analog gear, the kind of cats who could point out all the period-specific mistakes in depicted equipment that appeared in "Glitter." Where popular pop-culture has recently become flooded with half-ass'd recreations, Adult. are still firmly using both cheeks, their austere beats and sexless vocals and dead-perfect form still clenched as tight as a shiny metal ass. But they're trapped by this, their one-trick shtick; it the same old song, played again, Sam, for all those girls in white belts who won't stop 'til they get enough. So, no, the '80s revival's not dying, it just can't think of anything good to do.
Spellthieves are pretty awful in terms of balance. If they could only steal offense / defense spells ( I think healing is considered defense? Iunno ) they'd be less likely to just do the stupid bullshit that they're already doing. However, I don't think just stopping ST from doing that would really ...
Could probably just have it run status affliction chance for intereference, which is what Incise gives.
So. This may just be my inner pessimist kicking in but. We've been waiting for you to test stuff for a lil bit now. Would it be possible for you to, ever, set up a small 'group' of people to help test stuff on a test server? People like Spoops, Kameron, the mods are all people that are good for this...
Narcus is one of four elemental swords Water, Light, Dark, Fire. Water's effect reduces every damage instance you take by 5-7. Light lets you see stats, but not too many stats because that's OP Dark lets you avoid traps, as if you were under the effects of Flight, but doesn't ignore forced movement ...
I personally think nerfing the baseline crit damage for lightning would be perfectly well, as opposed to just "evasion gets rid of the crit chance".. since the critters build for crit, which means they build for hit too if they ain't dumb. One of the main issues is... enchanting with anyth...
I'm fine with this staying, as (compared to the arena), this contains actual possibility for death and the downsides therein.
This was my summary of MA MA needs a swift kick in the dick because Kip Up, alone, makes the class pretty good but shukuchi makes it even better throw in an AoE attack that also moves you adjacent to your target? EVEN BETTER throw in a self heal that gets HP/FP back? EVEN BETTER A WAY TO CLEANSE DEB...
Err. It isn't half SWA if you don't use a tome (unless I super missed something recently). You use HALF of the weapon's power if the spell's damage type does not match with your casting implement's damage type. Not half SWA. A fire tome gives full weapon power to a fire spell A fire tome gives half ...