CD Review

The soundtrack to The Twilight Saga: New Moon is filled with some real decent alternative rock music but does it work effectively in the movie?

Yes and no.

Right now it seems like just about every band from the golden era of Bay Area thrash metal is back together. It’s a situation that could easily lead to overload if the pioneering bands (and those that immediately followed) weren’t still so inspired and technically sharp. Testament’s The Formation of Damnation? Yeah! Exodus re-recording Bonded By Blood with its current lineup? As impossible as that premise appears, double Yeah!

You can tell immediately when a certain album has that elusive "it" factor. While you are initially listening, a constant synapse sparks from your eardrum to the rest of your body. Something great is happening. In this decade, it was there on White Stripes' Elephant, The Strokes Is This It, Arctic Monkeys'Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not and so on. Some bands retain it, while others let it slip from their grasp as creativity lulls or out-and-out lapses.

The word that should be highlighted in the headline is "okay," as I still feel bands like Pelican would probably sound even better with a singer. But that's my own preference. Some would say that's my hang-up. There's a whole genre of instrumental rock bands and some listeners desire only that.

There's always been that part of me that craves the heaviest thing I can possibly hear. It's been like that, years ago when I was the first kid on my block to blast Slayer, and it continues today with a band like Pissed Jeans. I would probably listen to Black/Death Metal if the lyrics didn't make the atheist in me roll my eyes. I prefer the lyrical realism of a Pissed Jeans. The day-to-day drudge of modern life can be much more horrifying. Pissed Jeans is expressionism, very loud. Very blistering. Very chaotic.