Motherfish #8- I Am Jack's Amazing Album

Album of the Week

For those of you who don’t know, the title is a Fight Club reference, which is where today’s band got their name. But first, a quick update. I’ve solicited the help of my friends, once again. Only this time, it’s for designing the future logo of the site. If anybody is interested, email any questions or submissions to motherfishmusic@gmail.com. Many thanks go out to all of the wonderful people who have already either expressed interest or even sent in some submissions. Keep em coming folks. Before I start with today’s album, I need to get off topic for a minute just to mention Long Island. I spent the weekend there with some friends from school, and it’s an interesting place. I regret not being able to visit Bryan at Hofstra (Bryan frequently offers me assistance with various tasks regarding the site), but I did get to see The Watchmen. I’m a huge fan of the graphic novel, so I approached the movie with cautious optimism. What did I get out of it? Huge, blue, glowing, COCK. Dr. Manhattan’s dick was the star of the show, and was played by the biggest penis in Hollywood: Bono. All kidding aside, that thing was everywhere. The movie as a whole did a great job of keeping faithful to the book with some minor differences to make it slightly more understandable for those who haven’t read the graphic novel. The intro was awesome, I will say that. And they got rid of Nite Owl’s shitty little hover scooters at the end, which was a good call. All in all, it was a great action movie if you’re not into comics, and a great adaptation if you are. I enjoyed it. Time to get down to business.

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Forgive Durden Presents Razia’s Shadow: A Musical

Who the hell is Forgive Durden? Good question. Let’s find out. Forgive Durden is from Seattle, Washington (yeah). There’s not much to say about them, honestly. Their first album was released in 2006, and I’ve never heard it. Today’s album was actually written after the band broke up. The story of Razia’s Shadow is that once everybody quit the band aside from singer/guitarist Thomas Dutton, he decided that he was going to continue writing songs. With the aid of his brother and the drummer from Gatsby’s American Dream, he put together a musical. A legit musical. There’s singing and orchestration and when I’m listening to it I can imagine dancing and stage directions (I can tell you that because I’m secure in my sexuality). So wait, have I decided to give up reviewing good music and start reviewing shitty bands who try and be clever and creative and write concept albums because they’re such terrible songwriters that whatever pathetic meaning lies beneath the shallow and pedantic lyrics is such a great big pile of bullshit that they need to build a story to convey some sort of self- established importance? No. Razia’s Shadow is good. In fact, it’s great. I would even go so far as to say it’s awesome. It has a kick ass story that’s both creative and interesting, something society today just really can’t get the hang of. Basically, it starts at the beginning of the world when a character called O the Scientist creates Earth. One of his angels gets jealous and fucks shit up, and O gets pissed and banishes him to the dark side of the world. Fast forward a thousand years later, and we find ourselves following a prince who lives in the darkness but believes himself to be the fulfillment of a prophecy to unite the two halves of the world. I didn’t do the story justice, but you get the point. The songs segue from one into another by way of brief narration at the end of each track. The narration helps you follow the story (useful) but doesn’t distract or break the flow of the album as a whole. Now let’s get into the meaty meat of it.

Forgive Durden (and by Forgive Durden I mean Thomas Dutton, his brother, and the drummer from GAD) put together something exceptionally unique with Razia’s Shadow. It’s like nothing else I own, which is quite a bit of music. Although it’s a musical, it doesn’t sound like you’re listening to Legally Blonde or Rent or some other musical shitstorm that makes you want to slowly eviscerate yourself with a plastic dinosaur. The album is orchestrated, yes, but it’s not overbearing, high school band orchestrated. They kept the core of the band, guitar, bass, and drum kit, though these instruments aren’t the central pieces to the music; they’ve added strings, horns, piano, and a variety of other percussion instruments. Often when bands attempt to incorporate instruments like this into their music, it comes off as over produced, cheesy, fake, stupid, annoying, and terrible. Thomas & Co. demonstrate a high level of musical understanding, the songs are complex and well written yet catchy enough that you love to come back to them. There are a few ideas which repeat through the album, certain lines used in multiple songs to help progress the plot, but each song has its own unique charm. The opener Genesis sets up the rest of the album thematically, but also displays incredible energy; the rest of the tracks fail to disappoint in this aspect. Each song has importance, there’s no filler. Even the filler, the Thousand Year, Minute Long Interlude, is significant to the story. The album plays with some musical conventions as well. We have the love song, the comic relief, and the tragic ending. All of it worth listening to. BUT HOLY SHIT there are like >9000 characters in my plot summary?! Who plays them all?! I’m glad you asked! Forgive Durden enlisted the help of a whole slew of big names to play the cast of characters. No, not Brad Pitt and Deborah Messing. The cast list includes Casey Crescenzo of The Dear Hunter, Lizzie Huffman of Man In The Blue Man, Max Bemis of Say Anything, Chris Conley of Saves the Day, Brendon Urie of Panic at the Disco, Greta Salpeter of the Hush Sound, and many more. Fuck, that’s a lot of people. The amount of talent on this album makes me shit bricks; it’s akin to the amount of sodium in one of those single serving Chef Boyardee cups, you really couldn’t imagine it being possible.

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Forgive Durden Presents Razia’s Shadow: A Musical is fucking awesome. The best part is that you can listen to it. I know that sounds silly, but I’m being serious. It’s not uncommon for a band to attempt to accomplish so much in an album and how listenable it is suffers because of it. Razia’s Shadow is an experience, and I recommend it to everybody at least once. Again, if you need help getting the music, go ahead and email motherfishmusic@gmail.com and I’ll hook you up. Join me next week when somebody I already mentioned returns to take the spot light! Until then, keep breathing.