Big Orange Crayonmusical thingsMasters of the Hemisphere I Am Not A Freemdoom Kindercore Records Story albums can be a touchy subject. When a band gets together and decides that they're going to devote a whole album to a story, it had better be pretty enganging, or else the whole thing is going to be dumb. Of course, what qualifies as an engaging story is pretty subjective, which is why people still get mad at me when I say that I think The Wall is stupid. What some people see as a wonderful, introspective work comes of as self indulgent and dull to other people. This probably explains why it's a pretty rare thing for a band to do a story album. Of all of the bands I listen to, the Masters of the Hemisphere definitely aren't the band that I would have predicted to do one, but whatever. This definitely isn't as grandiose as The Wall or Tommy, which is good. The story is embodied in the comic book that accompanies the CD, which tells the story of the innocent, trusting marine creatures of Krone Ishta, and their struggle to overcome their oppression by and evil dog called Freemdoom. You can't be conceited when your main character is a fish. There are some cute points brought up by the story, but nothing heavier than the nature of loyalty. Despite getting gory and just outright incomprehensible at times, it stays light and playful and you never want to roll your eyes back in your head. That's not even the impressive part. The impressive part is that these songs are so freaking catchy that you won't care that you sound like a lunatic singing "but Mal was scared to death / he didn't want to go / and ed couldn't do it alone / he used to like to take the jet stream home" and "Ed used the beaver tail to smack off Freemdoom's head / it wasn't over because Freemdoom wasn't dead" to yourself in public places. I swear, if it's possible to make a song that takes over your mind more completely than "Mal's Throes" does, civilization will come to a screeching halt, with people being standing in the streets, drooling and mouthing the words. That song has gotten stuck in my head so fiercely over the past week that basic language skills have left me. My only issue with this album, if you can call it an issue, is that it would be pretty difficult to put one of these songs on a mix tape. They make sense (mostly) in the context of the album, but would probably sound gravel-eating bonkers on their own. The thing is, I want to put them on mix tapes. They deserve to be on mix tapes! Anyway, if you in any way like catchy, melodic indie pop music, you have to love this album. Total score: 912 out of 912 |