Why I do not give a damn about Dawn of War II.
Right, I suppose this entry has been a long time coming. This topic - this game, is something that still evidently seems to mean a lot to people with whom I maintain strong links in the Dawn of War community. I've tried to put this one off for months and the reason will be explained in the evaluation I give of the game - that being I find it rather unworthy of attention. However recently a number of people have been very insistent that I write it ... so as much as I don't want to spend time on DoW II, I do want to stop people harassing me about it. With this in consideration, I suppose I should write a small primer on why I believe I am qualified to talk about this and why I feel I less biased than most.
Since Dawn of War I've moved onto other competitive games- I still play Starcraft on ICCUP and have a fairly decent account there (no, I will not list the name or rank other than to say it's above B. Go away.) and that I have been playing Team Fortress 2, spending the last 3-5 months in top five clans in Australia. I'm over Dawn of War - in fact, I've un-installed all of them, the original games. I'll summarise the major problems with the game briefly. many a top tier competitive player - or even a lesser skilled person often moaned about the balance. It was consistently highlighted as one of the most disgusting examples of balancing ignorance available, and while this analysis has some truth to it, these were not the core problems. Those fundamentally wrong mechanics which undermined the original Dawn Of War came down to three succinct problems. Those are ... 1. Not Listening. 2. Not Learning. 3. Slow updates with the core of the community.
The not listening one is important to address- part of this is linked to balance concerns. This comes down less to the subjective nature of balance however and more due to the ignorance of warnings. To explain the difference let me use the Imperial Guard in WA as an example - time and time again the top IG players who did not use imbalanced/broken units expressed their opinion gutting the bugs would gut the race. These concerns were ignored completely. This is not to say that that viewpoint was correct - merely that the ignorance of that viewpoint was complete and total. Not listening also comes into the repeated statements by the Dawn of War community that bugs had to be picked up early and often - and the worst dealt with ASAP. The frustration expressed by custom banners for Necrons and Tau being accomplished in a tiny period of time by a modder when Relic could not even spare the time to type out a "get buggered, okay?" response.. Not over a six month period in which an entire addon pack's competitive community is systematically raped in a display that would not be out of place in a bad Japanaese Tentacle video. Fundamentally there's Not listening to balance arguments and not listening to balance issues - you need to cover the later at least, which was never done. That's on top of the many changed gameplay mechanics.
Once you understand this core complaint then not learning and slow communication with the community pretty much fall into place - they really are after all only derivations from the first one. It is after all why I see this statement flying around that Buggo felt DowPro was a more appropriate way to go about balancing and restructuring gameplay in Dawn Of War. The process was more open, more responsive and less transparent. The debacle of absolutely no support for Soulstorm (nicely expressed in this thread here) was what made me quit the game for good, despite being a top player in both Dowpro and Dow. I really just felt as if the game was dead to me - and not believing in making a fuss, I quietly decided to bow out. I'm not going to get drawn into the Dawn of War Pro versus Dawn of War Arguments either - I lost all interest in that a long time ago, even if Korbah is a man I'd stretch out my hand to assist even now. These things are really beyond me - but I felt it's important to establish what were felt as the primary concerns by the community in the Dawn Of War era. I understand and acknowledge that posters such as my finnish compadre Slow Runner and company raised a number of fair counterpoints which address a lot of the specific issues - and of course, that there is emotion on both sides. However, the impression given to the community was a strong one - and while the efforts of that side of the community to clarify Relic was nowhere as bad as the worst of the detractors claimed, it was still a pretty sub-par effort, regardless of circumstances.
Essentially what we had was a PR disaster for the core competitive community and many users on the wayside. Something un-fulfilling which caused many to bow out - Larkin, a chief example.
And that now brings us onto Dawn Of War II.
Ugh.
So, shall we go through the discussion on those three criteria? Not Listening. Well ... and I had to tread into the muddy and controversial waters of balance again, but Relic have arguably gone backwards in this direction. Now ... some might argue that given a new game, problems might arise and the balance might not be that much improved - fair point. But getting worse? Disappointing. Depressing. Confidence-sapping. And why would this be, you ask? Well, one thing you have to remember when we talk about Dawn Of War II balancing is that the game occurs on a smaller scale. That is to say less units, less unit mixes, less problems associated with "weight of units". This covers a broad area of topics from critical mass (which grows more difficult an issue to control balance wise as unit density grows), to irrelevant/overlapping unit roles (which should be less prevalent since there are LESS BLOODY UNITS WITH WHICH TO OVERLAP). All of these should be easier to control and thus better in DoW II's system. Yet the balance arguments continue. Now perhaps these balance issues are being over-rated; but it is the volume of problems which leave a sign. We have trimmed down the game's scale with the only benefit being simplification ... and that speaks to me of passionless, pointless gameplay changing. Games by numbers. If this was going to mean something beneficial for for the game - a successful bloody effort would have been made. Or simply put in my eyes, if you make your central game mechanics something which is fundamentally easier to balance and then botch a job of balancing it even worse than your original dubiously balanced game ... what does that say about the care you put in your work?
But they are not. The smaller-scale does not translate into balancing improvements or less useless units. Both were complained about in Dow. Neither improved despite the easier to manage mechanic. Relic did not listen to the complaints of Dow 1 - and if they did, they did not learn, and improve them. No Listening. No learning. More contact though - and this is quite scary. As Jaimas has expressed, DOW2 has received considerable support. It has received more effort than WA and DC and SS combined - but that its balance is still this bad in spite of this. This to me implies that Relic is not listening - so while they have improved on three, two and one are worse.. And this to me is boring. Community-placation by numbers, pure lip service. Yes they've "tried" more, but that "trying" which is supposed to be improved through "past experience" has gone backwards. Also known as "nobody really cares, throw them a bone to quiet down". Or tl;dr reric still maek bug. Reric maek bug a rot.
In truth, Dawn of War II - through it's failure to achieve one and two, feels to me like a passionless game. This arises in the "sincere" efforts to make Dawn of War II easier for the casual gamer or more like CoH II which either lapse into buggy idiocy (ie, they make the game harder to play because of their schizophrenic tendencies) or seem to run counter-intuitive to their original purpose (ie, they are supplied with so little tool tip documentation/relevance that it seems they want you not seeking to use your units better). Retreat mechanics, the auto-cover-seeking, from the stance system, Marine Heavy/Special weapons, "Oh crap what did that Carnifex have on it?" Syndrome, the list is quite endless. This is on top of the "well they were supposed to be improvements" (aka WA/DC/SS path-finding sydnrome) ... I could carry on for a while, and I don't even play the game - but I do know that there are balance issues that have been around since Beta Reric has still not deigned to address. Pair this with an engine that is supposed to be created after CoH but has less effect on the environment, inferior AI to CoH, inferior pathfinding to CoH, etcetera. we have here an engine with far, far more possibility than CoH ever had - yet so little has been irked out of it. Relic continue to insist this is a viable competitive title, they continue to exist everything will be fixed - and I don't believe many people honestly believe them any more. When you have such a powerful tool as this new engine ... to make so little effective use of it; when you have so many more resources than your previous failed exploits ... yet cannot hit a home-run, this all drives that central motif that I see present in this little enterprise.
Dow II is completely passionless.
Yeah, I said it.
And I know that is a big call to make. It is one of the greatest insults you can put into a developer. People make games they hate. People make games they are proud of. And when a company makes a game that relies on add-on packs to fix the game; when they essentially force consumers to spend cash so their previous purchases remain "fixed" and "viable", that speaks to me plenty. I see a company that likes their cash cows feeding in happy abandon, and does not care about the maintenance of their products nearly as much as they claim. Do I expect Relic to really care all that much about support? Christ no, in no way at all. Reric are a company - their first loyalty is to making money and I've got absolutely no problem with that. It's a good policy to have and they wouldn't be making more games (I'm looking foward to HW3) if they did not put their profits first. However, to try and claim that they do care when their conduct thus far suggests otherwise strikes me as rather dishonest. Community placation. Game-selling by numbers. Keeping people happy without telling the truth. Same old, same old. Perhaps Relic got worse at number 3 after all - at least the lack of "get fucked" in the original Dawn Of War was seen as a clear message in itself.
I suppose that's the sad thing. Dawn of War II seemed to have a lot of potential - and this is coming from someone as jaded as me, who still firmly believes Starcraft II will not only be underwhelming, but also fairly average. It did not make the most of that potential and in doing so, has pissed a lot of people off. Sadly I've seen a lot of Relicnews posters and official forums posters - surely there's many others too, who try and write some critics who have been critics from the start off as fair-weather friends, people who only rage at this new game because they hate Relic. I think this is quite unfair and I still believe a lot of those "haters" love this series and love Relic. This is the reason why it pains them even more to see that potential wasted - why they reach for their keys and rage just that bit harder, in a way that many don't have the ability in words to accurately expressed. They complain, they whine, they lose support. But to write them off as passionless relic-hating internet e-thugs is unfair. They are clearly pissed the fuck off about something - it takes in so many situations, a firm belief that something is wasted potential to hate it. Dawn Of War II has done the impossible. I don't consider it as bad as Dawn Of War I, that much is true. However, I really don't care about the game at all. It may be in the vein of Gordon Ramsay to state this with authority but I consider the entire game series long gone, long lost. Congratulations Relic. You have managed to in the eyes of the original crowd, make Dawn Of War II irrelevant. Does that tickle your fancy or even make you care? I doubt it. But let me assure you about this.
I actually care just that little bit more about this game now - just enough to get the hell away from it. Fundamentally, that is because I have been forced again, by anger fans who hate the game to rethink how this series is viewed through my own perception, just to shut them the hell up.
Since Dawn of War I've moved onto other competitive games- I still play Starcraft on ICCUP and have a fairly decent account there (no, I will not list the name or rank other than to say it's above B. Go away.) and that I have been playing Team Fortress 2, spending the last 3-5 months in top five clans in Australia. I'm over Dawn of War - in fact, I've un-installed all of them, the original games. I'll summarise the major problems with the game briefly. many a top tier competitive player - or even a lesser skilled person often moaned about the balance. It was consistently highlighted as one of the most disgusting examples of balancing ignorance available, and while this analysis has some truth to it, these were not the core problems. Those fundamentally wrong mechanics which undermined the original Dawn Of War came down to three succinct problems. Those are ... 1. Not Listening. 2. Not Learning. 3. Slow updates with the core of the community.
The not listening one is important to address- part of this is linked to balance concerns. This comes down less to the subjective nature of balance however and more due to the ignorance of warnings. To explain the difference let me use the Imperial Guard in WA as an example - time and time again the top IG players who did not use imbalanced/broken units expressed their opinion gutting the bugs would gut the race. These concerns were ignored completely. This is not to say that that viewpoint was correct - merely that the ignorance of that viewpoint was complete and total. Not listening also comes into the repeated statements by the Dawn of War community that bugs had to be picked up early and often - and the worst dealt with ASAP. The frustration expressed by custom banners for Necrons and Tau being accomplished in a tiny period of time by a modder when Relic could not even spare the time to type out a "get buggered, okay?" response.. Not over a six month period in which an entire addon pack's competitive community is systematically raped in a display that would not be out of place in a bad Japanaese Tentacle video. Fundamentally there's Not listening to balance arguments and not listening to balance issues - you need to cover the later at least, which was never done. That's on top of the many changed gameplay mechanics.
Once you understand this core complaint then not learning and slow communication with the community pretty much fall into place - they really are after all only derivations from the first one. It is after all why I see this statement flying around that Buggo felt DowPro was a more appropriate way to go about balancing and restructuring gameplay in Dawn Of War. The process was more open, more responsive and less transparent. The debacle of absolutely no support for Soulstorm (nicely expressed in this thread here) was what made me quit the game for good, despite being a top player in both Dowpro and Dow. I really just felt as if the game was dead to me - and not believing in making a fuss, I quietly decided to bow out. I'm not going to get drawn into the Dawn of War Pro versus Dawn of War Arguments either - I lost all interest in that a long time ago, even if Korbah is a man I'd stretch out my hand to assist even now. These things are really beyond me - but I felt it's important to establish what were felt as the primary concerns by the community in the Dawn Of War era. I understand and acknowledge that posters such as my finnish compadre Slow Runner and company raised a number of fair counterpoints which address a lot of the specific issues - and of course, that there is emotion on both sides. However, the impression given to the community was a strong one - and while the efforts of that side of the community to clarify Relic was nowhere as bad as the worst of the detractors claimed, it was still a pretty sub-par effort, regardless of circumstances.
Essentially what we had was a PR disaster for the core competitive community and many users on the wayside. Something un-fulfilling which caused many to bow out - Larkin, a chief example.
And that now brings us onto Dawn Of War II.
Ugh.
So, shall we go through the discussion on those three criteria? Not Listening. Well ... and I had to tread into the muddy and controversial waters of balance again, but Relic have arguably gone backwards in this direction. Now ... some might argue that given a new game, problems might arise and the balance might not be that much improved - fair point. But getting worse? Disappointing. Depressing. Confidence-sapping. And why would this be, you ask? Well, one thing you have to remember when we talk about Dawn Of War II balancing is that the game occurs on a smaller scale. That is to say less units, less unit mixes, less problems associated with "weight of units". This covers a broad area of topics from critical mass (which grows more difficult an issue to control balance wise as unit density grows), to irrelevant/overlapping unit roles (which should be less prevalent since there are LESS BLOODY UNITS WITH WHICH TO OVERLAP). All of these should be easier to control and thus better in DoW II's system. Yet the balance arguments continue. Now perhaps these balance issues are being over-rated; but it is the volume of problems which leave a sign. We have trimmed down the game's scale with the only benefit being simplification ... and that speaks to me of passionless, pointless gameplay changing. Games by numbers. If this was going to mean something beneficial for for the game - a successful bloody effort would have been made. Or simply put in my eyes, if you make your central game mechanics something which is fundamentally easier to balance and then botch a job of balancing it even worse than your original dubiously balanced game ... what does that say about the care you put in your work?
But they are not. The smaller-scale does not translate into balancing improvements or less useless units. Both were complained about in Dow. Neither improved despite the easier to manage mechanic. Relic did not listen to the complaints of Dow 1 - and if they did, they did not learn, and improve them. No Listening. No learning. More contact though - and this is quite scary. As Jaimas has expressed, DOW2 has received considerable support. It has received more effort than WA and DC and SS combined - but that its balance is still this bad in spite of this. This to me implies that Relic is not listening - so while they have improved on three, two and one are worse.. And this to me is boring. Community-placation by numbers, pure lip service. Yes they've "tried" more, but that "trying" which is supposed to be improved through "past experience" has gone backwards. Also known as "nobody really cares, throw them a bone to quiet down". Or tl;dr reric still maek bug. Reric maek bug a rot.
In truth, Dawn of War II - through it's failure to achieve one and two, feels to me like a passionless game. This arises in the "sincere" efforts to make Dawn of War II easier for the casual gamer or more like CoH II which either lapse into buggy idiocy (ie, they make the game harder to play because of their schizophrenic tendencies) or seem to run counter-intuitive to their original purpose (ie, they are supplied with so little tool tip documentation/relevance that it seems they want you not seeking to use your units better). Retreat mechanics, the auto-cover-seeking, from the stance system, Marine Heavy/Special weapons, "Oh crap what did that Carnifex have on it?" Syndrome, the list is quite endless. This is on top of the "well they were supposed to be improvements" (aka WA/DC/SS path-finding sydnrome) ... I could carry on for a while, and I don't even play the game - but I do know that there are balance issues that have been around since Beta Reric has still not deigned to address. Pair this with an engine that is supposed to be created after CoH but has less effect on the environment, inferior AI to CoH, inferior pathfinding to CoH, etcetera. we have here an engine with far, far more possibility than CoH ever had - yet so little has been irked out of it. Relic continue to insist this is a viable competitive title, they continue to exist everything will be fixed - and I don't believe many people honestly believe them any more. When you have such a powerful tool as this new engine ... to make so little effective use of it; when you have so many more resources than your previous failed exploits ... yet cannot hit a home-run, this all drives that central motif that I see present in this little enterprise.
Dow II is completely passionless.
Yeah, I said it.
And I know that is a big call to make. It is one of the greatest insults you can put into a developer. People make games they hate. People make games they are proud of. And when a company makes a game that relies on add-on packs to fix the game; when they essentially force consumers to spend cash so their previous purchases remain "fixed" and "viable", that speaks to me plenty. I see a company that likes their cash cows feeding in happy abandon, and does not care about the maintenance of their products nearly as much as they claim. Do I expect Relic to really care all that much about support? Christ no, in no way at all. Reric are a company - their first loyalty is to making money and I've got absolutely no problem with that. It's a good policy to have and they wouldn't be making more games (I'm looking foward to HW3) if they did not put their profits first. However, to try and claim that they do care when their conduct thus far suggests otherwise strikes me as rather dishonest. Community placation. Game-selling by numbers. Keeping people happy without telling the truth. Same old, same old. Perhaps Relic got worse at number 3 after all - at least the lack of "get fucked" in the original Dawn Of War was seen as a clear message in itself.
I suppose that's the sad thing. Dawn of War II seemed to have a lot of potential - and this is coming from someone as jaded as me, who still firmly believes Starcraft II will not only be underwhelming, but also fairly average. It did not make the most of that potential and in doing so, has pissed a lot of people off. Sadly I've seen a lot of Relicnews posters and official forums posters - surely there's many others too, who try and write some critics who have been critics from the start off as fair-weather friends, people who only rage at this new game because they hate Relic. I think this is quite unfair and I still believe a lot of those "haters" love this series and love Relic. This is the reason why it pains them even more to see that potential wasted - why they reach for their keys and rage just that bit harder, in a way that many don't have the ability in words to accurately expressed. They complain, they whine, they lose support. But to write them off as passionless relic-hating internet e-thugs is unfair. They are clearly pissed the fuck off about something - it takes in so many situations, a firm belief that something is wasted potential to hate it. Dawn Of War II has done the impossible. I don't consider it as bad as Dawn Of War I, that much is true. However, I really don't care about the game at all. It may be in the vein of Gordon Ramsay to state this with authority but I consider the entire game series long gone, long lost. Congratulations Relic. You have managed to in the eyes of the original crowd, make Dawn Of War II irrelevant. Does that tickle your fancy or even make you care? I doubt it. But let me assure you about this.
I actually care just that little bit more about this game now - just enough to get the hell away from it. Fundamentally, that is because I have been forced again, by anger fans who hate the game to rethink how this series is viewed through my own perception, just to shut them the hell up.
Wolfmother.
Wolfmother have always been an enigma to me, because I have never really seen them as anything worthwhile listening to - I think they're not a particularly notable band at all. There's none of the 70's sparkle and energy of Blue Cheer (which I personally feel they are closest to) and much of the passion and "energy" modern fans associate with them is not present to me. A perfect example is The Joker And The Thief - where is the passion? It's loud, it's proud, it's angry ... and it's inarticulate and boring. And by passion I reference evident angst and energy; along the vein of MC5 some connect them to or the classics like Zeppelin. The lyrics of their previous works may attempt to be whimsical in a psychedelic style but the music does not support the premise - a poor man's Steppenwolf or Kyuss, with no willingness to push the envelope. I felt precious little passion in the writing of their Self-titled début, that this lack of “care” for the structure of the songs themselves undermined the “energy” of their presentation. . With this context established Cosmic Egg was another album I expected to be a fundamental disappointment – and I was not surprised in any way. It has some definite promise in areas but is again ruined by a lack of willingness on Wolfmother’s part to challenge themselves as artists, and generally disappointing song writing that makes many of these “epic” tunes overstay even the Grecian choir’s welcome.
I read a lot of reviews and opinions on Cosmic Egg, the same returns resonate with me. It is a consistent litany of music critics trying vainly to reach for their musical past and ending up as confused as the band. I see lines like "Wolfmother still parties like it's backstage at a Uriah Heep show", "like one of those crazy Black Sabbath stories" and "powerful and poignant rock n' roll record with all the ingredients of a modern classic" and I fume inside. This has to stop. This has to stop now. It is not good, it is not standout, it is not exceptional when a band is merely like someone else. If you want to make Rock and Roll - (and I would dispute that they actually do), it is not sufficient to be like. That's not conviction or passion - that's confusion. If someone becomes typecast by how they compare to other bands rather than having metaphors applied to them. It may be something of a trope-ridden line; but Wolfmother need to push themselves into a new direction and extend on what they are throwing homage to. I'm not expecting them to invent a new direction, they just need to actually step out of the comfort zone and write something non-derivative, to take risks. When you make a great album, you make it one of two ways. The first is you make it original and new and fresh - and that means people describe it in metaphor. This is not metaphor, and the album remains about as far away from a Modern Rock Classic as Australian music can conceivably arrive..
And that leaves only one other way for this to be brilliant - the "Persuader" Direction, to make a truly amazing album that embraces it’s own influences entirely instead of ending up stranded between the middle ground. Wolfmother however fail even at this. The music is unfocused, the solos don't feel like they have any power - and bereft of context, Andrew Stockdale's voice is just annoying New Moon Rising's hooks don't sound infectious at all, Sundial has none of the atmosphere that makes those "Crazy Black Sabbath Stories" so powerful (nor does it have iommi's sheer power). Pilgrim's and Sundial feature none of the "unforgettable" riffs I was told to expect - rather they feel pretty underwhelming given the standard set. When I hear "unforgettable" I think something powerful, convincingly - possessing an almost unnatural energy akin to Sabbath's Symptom of the Universe, not overlong pieces of 1970 worship. In one of the truly quite transcendent victories on the album - In the Morning, songwriting undermines concept. It remains huge, aggressive, wielding a monster tune and hitting the right spots - until the band refuses to end the bloody song. Queue a good concept ruined by overstaying the welcome and you have another audible sigh echoing from this critic's consciousness . The bass is not killer - it's about as effective as an Irish injury, it works against the music. Unlike bands that try and really wholeheartedly embrace their influences and rework that into something new, sharp, cutting and passionate - they stumble around.
If you want to re imagine a 70's style that was so iconic, important and varied (especially psychedelic) you have to have a clarity of purpose - because you must stand out from the contemporaries and those that came before you. A good example is the Gaslight Anthem - They are simple, They are (not just sound) sincere, and they kill you every time. Wolfmother are never this consistently enough. They do have some pretty damn good moments - all of the things above that I criticised are actually quite solid, they just needed to be taken further. A definite gap exists between what they seem to be capable of at their peaks and what is presented in LP form. As mentioned previously with the example of In the Morning - most of their music feels over-long and yet too short. Personally, I’m operating under the feeling they try to accomplish too much in a four minute song (hello Sundial, I’m looking at your attempt at an epic-yet-concise “story”) and that makes the whole experience end so soon - yet sound so dense. Amidst this bipolar dichotomy of a song attempting to accomplish too much in space too little, I’m struck with the feeling the subtlety that could give Cosmic Egg real power is completely eclipsed. Violence of the Sun is actually excellent and a real savior for the labum- but they just consistently fail to push the envelope. They get a 7/10 and have never improved that score - if anything losing Chris Ross brings them down a .5.
They're a bunch of confused Australians honestly misguided enough to say they quit because of "irreconcilable personal and musical differences". Nobody should ever claim such legalese when they clearly sound like they don't even know what they want to be playing, let alone what they disagree on. For the love of god, people are calling Cosmic Egg VINTAGE Wolfmother. Vintage. VINTAGE. What the hell? As if their records mean something already in the grand scale of contemporary music. How long is it going to take before someone else other than me stands the bloody hell up and shouts it to the crowd that the emperor has no clothes? We obsess over Wolfmother, Ben Lee, we ignore Architecture In Helsinki, Machine Translations, Virgin Black and drove Destroyer 666 away? Now with the Return of Wolfmother we are prepared to let them get away with this twice.
Goddamnit. Australia.
Goddamnit.
___________________________
PS:. To those who still enjoy a very opinionated and passionate 1970's era punk styling, actually grab yourself both albums by the American Quartet The Gaslight Anthem, those being Sink or Swim and The 59 Sound. I doubt you will regret it. They even managed to make PitchforkMedia's reviewers sound like human beings again. Truly something special.
Next up who knows? Maybe Nickelback (Grizzlies).
I read a lot of reviews and opinions on Cosmic Egg, the same returns resonate with me. It is a consistent litany of music critics trying vainly to reach for their musical past and ending up as confused as the band. I see lines like "Wolfmother still parties like it's backstage at a Uriah Heep show", "like one of those crazy Black Sabbath stories" and "powerful and poignant rock n' roll record with all the ingredients of a modern classic" and I fume inside. This has to stop. This has to stop now. It is not good, it is not standout, it is not exceptional when a band is merely like someone else. If you want to make Rock and Roll - (and I would dispute that they actually do), it is not sufficient to be like. That's not conviction or passion - that's confusion. If someone becomes typecast by how they compare to other bands rather than having metaphors applied to them. It may be something of a trope-ridden line; but Wolfmother need to push themselves into a new direction and extend on what they are throwing homage to. I'm not expecting them to invent a new direction, they just need to actually step out of the comfort zone and write something non-derivative, to take risks. When you make a great album, you make it one of two ways. The first is you make it original and new and fresh - and that means people describe it in metaphor. This is not metaphor, and the album remains about as far away from a Modern Rock Classic as Australian music can conceivably arrive..
And that leaves only one other way for this to be brilliant - the "Persuader" Direction, to make a truly amazing album that embraces it’s own influences entirely instead of ending up stranded between the middle ground. Wolfmother however fail even at this. The music is unfocused, the solos don't feel like they have any power - and bereft of context, Andrew Stockdale's voice is just annoying New Moon Rising's hooks don't sound infectious at all, Sundial has none of the atmosphere that makes those "Crazy Black Sabbath Stories" so powerful (nor does it have iommi's sheer power). Pilgrim's and Sundial feature none of the "unforgettable" riffs I was told to expect - rather they feel pretty underwhelming given the standard set. When I hear "unforgettable" I think something powerful, convincingly - possessing an almost unnatural energy akin to Sabbath's Symptom of the Universe, not overlong pieces of 1970 worship. In one of the truly quite transcendent victories on the album - In the Morning, songwriting undermines concept. It remains huge, aggressive, wielding a monster tune and hitting the right spots - until the band refuses to end the bloody song. Queue a good concept ruined by overstaying the welcome and you have another audible sigh echoing from this critic's consciousness . The bass is not killer - it's about as effective as an Irish injury, it works against the music. Unlike bands that try and really wholeheartedly embrace their influences and rework that into something new, sharp, cutting and passionate - they stumble around.
If you want to re imagine a 70's style that was so iconic, important and varied (especially psychedelic) you have to have a clarity of purpose - because you must stand out from the contemporaries and those that came before you. A good example is the Gaslight Anthem - They are simple, They are (not just sound) sincere, and they kill you every time. Wolfmother are never this consistently enough. They do have some pretty damn good moments - all of the things above that I criticised are actually quite solid, they just needed to be taken further. A definite gap exists between what they seem to be capable of at their peaks and what is presented in LP form. As mentioned previously with the example of In the Morning - most of their music feels over-long and yet too short. Personally, I’m operating under the feeling they try to accomplish too much in a four minute song (hello Sundial, I’m looking at your attempt at an epic-yet-concise “story”) and that makes the whole experience end so soon - yet sound so dense. Amidst this bipolar dichotomy of a song attempting to accomplish too much in space too little, I’m struck with the feeling the subtlety that could give Cosmic Egg real power is completely eclipsed. Violence of the Sun is actually excellent and a real savior for the labum- but they just consistently fail to push the envelope. They get a 7/10 and have never improved that score - if anything losing Chris Ross brings them down a .5.
They're a bunch of confused Australians honestly misguided enough to say they quit because of "irreconcilable personal and musical differences". Nobody should ever claim such legalese when they clearly sound like they don't even know what they want to be playing, let alone what they disagree on. For the love of god, people are calling Cosmic Egg VINTAGE Wolfmother. Vintage. VINTAGE. What the hell? As if their records mean something already in the grand scale of contemporary music. How long is it going to take before someone else other than me stands the bloody hell up and shouts it to the crowd that the emperor has no clothes? We obsess over Wolfmother, Ben Lee, we ignore Architecture In Helsinki, Machine Translations, Virgin Black and drove Destroyer 666 away? Now with the Return of Wolfmother we are prepared to let them get away with this twice.
Goddamnit. Australia.
Goddamnit.
___________________________
PS:. To those who still enjoy a very opinionated and passionate 1970's era punk styling, actually grab yourself both albums by the American Quartet The Gaslight Anthem, those being Sink or Swim and The 59 Sound. I doubt you will regret it. They even managed to make PitchforkMedia's reviewers sound like human beings again. Truly something special.
Next up who knows? Maybe Nickelback (Grizzlies).
First steps.
This entry attempts to be as close to a fundamental entry point to competitive team fortress 2 as possible for new players - although not an enormously extensive writeup. The key here is provide you (you assumingly being someone interested in getting into competitive tf2) with a wide base of useful articles and resources you can get into, in order to chase up further resources. As always I encourage readers to use these as much as possible and leave as much of the investigation to your own devices - half the fun of learning is doing so autonomously.
http://www.gotfrag.com/tf2/story/43759/?spage=1
This is your first link to follow - it covers all the basics of competitive tf2 and a few outlying concepts. Once you have read this I highly recommend going over to ubercharged articles here.
http://www.ubercharged.net/how-to-play-tf2/the-competitive-tf2-guide/
Those two should form a solid framework for competitive tf2 understanding. Nevertheless, Jaeger's uploads and files here are also very useful.
http://www.mikemarcin.com/gaming/team-fortress-2/Page-3
I may update this with more links as necessary or provided. Happy fragging.
http://www.gotfrag.com/tf2/story/43759/?spage=1
This is your first link to follow - it covers all the basics of competitive tf2 and a few outlying concepts. Once you have read this I highly recommend going over to ubercharged articles here.
http://www.ubercharged.net/how-to-play-tf2/the-competitive-tf2-guide/
Those two should form a solid framework for competitive tf2 understanding. Nevertheless, Jaeger's uploads and files here are also very useful.
http://www.mikemarcin.com/gaming/team-fortress-2/Page-3
I may update this with more links as necessary or provided. Happy fragging.
Hello.
Possibly a strange place to put blog entries, I know. Perhaps people expected me to use a livejournal or something similar.
Nevertheless, I digress. I will probably use this as a primary blog from now on - links on methods to reach me are provided, since I have had correspondence on those matters before. There may be some relevant video gaming (mostly Team Fortress 2 at the moment) related links posted to games, etcetera. Ultimately the purpose behind this is to give a little insight into my thoughts on tf2, even if they are not coming from a particularly fantastic standpoint. This means that I will attempt to write a few articles - provide a few links, cover all my bases if possible.
I may also post other thoughts here, perhaps. Anyway, I suppose it is irrelevant for now.
Nevertheless, I digress. I will probably use this as a primary blog from now on - links on methods to reach me are provided, since I have had correspondence on those matters before. There may be some relevant video gaming (mostly Team Fortress 2 at the moment) related links posted to games, etcetera. Ultimately the purpose behind this is to give a little insight into my thoughts on tf2, even if they are not coming from a particularly fantastic standpoint. This means that I will attempt to write a few articles - provide a few links, cover all my bases if possible.
I may also post other thoughts here, perhaps. Anyway, I suppose it is irrelevant for now.
